Where Attacks Come From

** an old-timey favorite from back in February of '08

Michael,

I have only recently begun to receive some persecution or attacks (which one? I don't know. It's hard to know. Are all attacks persecution?) for being obedient and for separating from my ungodly friends and family. I have watched you handle such attacks for 6 years, and I have learned a lot about persecution for righteousness sake from that. Family members and old friends are generally the people who are the first to attack me, although often they attack you or what you teach because they know they will never have to directly challenge you to your face. I also noticed that there is a “agrarian” blogger who was recently attacking you, saying the same things my parents say, so I thought I'd throw them at you here in the Q&A to see how you deal with them, and maybe I can learn a bit on how to handle such attacks. So here are the questions: 1. Do you believe there is only salvation in your group, and everyone else who is not with you is “pagan” or is lost? 2. Do you believe that people who leave your group are “lost” or damned? 3. Why do you receive donations when Paul and the other apostles worked jobs?

Thanks for your questions and for the opportunity to answer some things which are generally at the root of most of the mindless and baseless attacks on any true ministry. I say they are mindless or baseless because the attacker can never, ever, ever point to anything I have every done or said which would lead them to the conclusions they come to. Always remember, they are working backward. They don't hear something I say that is unbiblical, then confront me in a systematic way. Instead, they get offended that they feel I am condemning them. Then they decide they don't like me, and they deduce things about me that aren't true in order to make themselves feel better about how they live their lives. A fair question, concern, or even attack is one based (even loosely) on some fundamental truth or some actual thing the teacher has said. For example, here is how the situation ought to work. First, we make a presupposition. We say, “Any group, denomination, or entity which claims or infers that salvation is not solely of and by Jesus Christ and according to His Word alone, but instead claims that salvation is only possible in their group or by some arbitrary extra-biblical standard of which they are the final arbiter, is a cult and is false”. Ok, so that is our presupposition, and it is a good one. Now, having clearly laid out a presupposition, we would find a group or entity that fits within the parameters of the presupposition, and who is guilty of violating the presupposition. For example, we could say that most of the Charismatic movement insists that a person born-again by the Spirit MUST speak in tongues. If you do not speak in tongues, they say you are not saved (or at least that you are not “baptized in the spirit”). This is the perfect example of an extra-biblical requirement for salvation, and an assertion that only people in their “group” can be saved. Here is another example... say... ummmm... the Catholic Church. We would look to the writings and documents of the Catholic Church and say, “Is there anywhere where we can find that the leaders or officers of this body of people has claimed or inferred that salvation is only possible in or through their group or denomination?”. If we can find such documentation (and we easily can, since the Catholic Church has taught this for many centuries), then we must determine if such a claim is unbiblical or contrary to the teaching of the whole Bible. The Catholic assertion that salvation is only found inside the Catholic Church is patently unbiblical and silly. Again, the Catholic Church is guilty, so now we have ourselves a legitimate charge. NOW, and only now would it be legitimate and righteous for us to point our fingers at the cult in view and challenge them to answer for a crime. If we don't have any proof for our assertion, then we are merely participating in slander, libel, and/or defamation. There ought to be evidence for any such serious assertion.

Unhappily, this is not how it goes in today's society with the mindless goons and Bible-less automatons being spewed out of the bowels of the modernist apostate “church”. Let me tell you a story. Back in the 60's, LBJ was having a particular problem with a particular reporter who seemed to always be giving him trouble. One day, having had enough of this particular reporter, LBJ turned to one of his assistants and said “I have had enough of so-and-so. I want you to put out the word to the rest of the press corps that he is a closet homosexual and a pervert”. The assistant said, “But... he's not a closet homosexual and a pervert. I know him and he is a happily married man with children”. LBJ said, “I didn't say he was a homosexual and a pervert, I told you tell the rest of the press corps that he is... and get him to deny it. Go out and make him deny it. If he has to deny it enough, then it doesn't really matter if he is or he isn't because everyone will assume he is.” The real fact is that most people will not even take the time or effort to ask the question. Most people will believe the report merely because someone they like or care about has made the assertion, even if there is no evidence for it. So if someone says, “Michael Bunker beats his dog and hates women”, most people will just take that at face value because they already don't like the things I am saying, even if there is no proof at all that the assertions are true. This is the hallmark of a devil inspired attack. The devil is a slanderer, and it doesn't matter if there is any evidence at all for a crime, because the devil believes he wins BY the attack.

My position is that first, the slanderer, libeler or defamer ought to be identified. They are generally cowards. As you said, your family will not come up to me and say these things or ask these questions, because they are cowards. You ought to identify them. Maybe you say to them. “Ok, that is a serious accusation that you have made, why don't you and I go visit or call Michael Bunker and we'll let you make your accusation in person? Clearly you wouldn't make an accusation of which you have no evidence... right?” Now, in the case you mentioned, unless there is another blogger out there lying about me (and I have no doubt there is), I would say that the blogger you mentioned is the Charismatic - apostate - liar who blogs under the name of Northern Farmer. I think his real name is Tom Scepeniak. First things first. Tom doesn't like the fact that I reject his brand of “christianity” (modernist, Arminian and charismatic). He is offended that I have called it what it is, which is APOSTASY. I have preached and taught against his false christianity for many years very particularly, although I have never mentioned or even spoken of or to him personally. I wrote a book with all the specific heresies of the Arminian/Charismatic movement. My book provides quotes, direct statements, and historical evidence of the heresies of this movement. My books, blogs, sermons, etc. attack Arminian/Charismatic “christianity” based on EVIDENCE, not on baseless accusations. I disprove the Arminian/Charismatic viewpoint and false theology from the Bible, and not from my own opinion. He doesn't like the fact that I proved that the founder and fountainhead of his movement (The Topeka and later Azusa Street heresies) was a known pervert and nutter who was arrested in Texas for sodomy. Now, those are known facts. Provable assertions. He doesn't like the fact that his basically new religion has a track record and a paper trail and anyone in the world who cares to do the research can follow it right back to Rome. I have proven beyond a shadow of any doubt that Arminianism (free-will theism) is the product of the Roman Catholic Church and the Counter-Reformation, and that both Arminianism and the Charismatic movement were products of (if not creations of) the Jesuit Order. I proved all of that without ever having heard of Tom Scepeniak. Ol' Northern Farmer doesn't like that my Christianity has roots that go back further than 150 years. He doesn't like that I reject his industrial farming just as much as I reject his industrial religion. He celebrates John Wesley who famously had to publicly apologize for his lies about the life and death of Augustus Toplady (the Godly man who wrote “Rock of Ages”); Wesley was the apostate who systematized Jesuit Arminianism, and who was known all over England and Europe as a notorious liar. He celebrates Billy Sunday, a rich charlatan who wasn't able to evangelize his own children (all were reprobates, and one killed himself), and in fact gave them over to be raised by nannies and proxies because he was making over $800 a day selling the corporate Jesus back when the average wage in America was $800 a year. He doesn't care that Billy Sunday gave “decision cards” (find those in the Bible) to the Unitarian Church, the Catholic Church, and to other apostates. You see, Tom Scepeniak doesn't like little things called FACTS. His theology comes from the Roman Catholic Church's Council of Trent (and I can prove it), and yet he accuses me of saying that there is no salvation outside of my “group”, or that if you leave our “group” you are lost. Poppycock. He cannot provide one bit of evidence for such an assertion. He cannot provide one quote, one single attributable statement, not one fact to prove that I have ever said or believed such junk. I challenge him today, publicly, to produce one single public statement or provide witnesses for any private statements I have ever made... EVER... to lead anyone to believe that I believe such a thing. In fact, I can point to dozens of plain statements where I have stated the exact opposite. Many times I have been asked these questions, and have answered them very publicly, on all my blogs and websites. I have taught very specifically that only a cult would ever make such an assertion, and I have taught very publicly that one of the hallmarks of a cult is the claim that salvation can only be found in any group or entity outside of Jesus Christ alone. I have taught the Doctrines of Grace very publicly, have shown their historicity and have proven them from the Bible alone, and have debated publicly those who deny them, and one of the very foundations of the Doctrines of Grace is that Salvation is of Grace Alone (Sola Gratia), through Faith Alone (Sola Fide), by Christ alone (Sola Christus), to God's glory alone (Soli Deo Gloria). These are the foundation of my belief system and of the Reformed faith, and they are anathematized by the Roman Catholic Church and by worldly Arminians like Tom Scepeniak everywhere in the world. So I challenge this liar to produce any statement from me that implies or teaches other than salvation through Jesus Christ alone. By contrast, the few times I have visited his minuscule and forgettable blog (generally because someone emails me some of the rot this dude writes), I have heard him consistently and continuously damning everyone to hell who does not agree with him. In fact, for those of you Agrarian bloggers (even you Herrick Kimball) who may be shocked to hear me talk about this, Tom Scepeniak in a recent blog from December, claims that anyone who even links to my blog from their own blog is going straight to hell! Wow. Out of one side of his mouth he lies and declares that I say that anyone not in my group is going to hell (which, of course, I have never said or even implied) and in the same blog, he claims that many of you are going to hell merely for linking to my blog. Wow. Brilliant logic. Here is the deal. Tom Scepeniak would never say any of this to me because he is a coward. And if he chooses to say anything to me now it is only because he has been called out publicly as a coward. His site gets a handful of hits a day, and he is a jealous old industrial farmer with a completely false gospel. And he writes horribly. I could write his blog for him in about five seconds. It is easy. I will give you a handbook on how to write like Tom. This will also be a handbook on how to decipher his blogs, so I am doing him a service. First, when writing like Tom, you put on a folksy ol' way of talking – not real country, but that fake country you hear when Yankees try to sound country. You want to talk like Mark Twain must have talked when Mark Twain was pretending not to be a very adept writer and master of the English language. You want to say things like “ol' timey” and “old ways” all the time so people think you are an expert on what things used to be like. Now me, I am a historian first and a teacher second, so I know how things were in the old days. And I know how silly it looks when you are ignorant and pretending to know what things were like back then. Second, you have to play the martyr. You have to make people think that you are the ultimate brave soul, the only and last ol' timey farmer standing against the brunt of new timey ways. Everyone who disagrees with you is damned and going straight to hell, and you are the last and best hope for a return to ol' timey America.

Next, and this is important, you automatically assume that whatever was happening between 1901 and 1949 is the only authentic and real thing. If you are Tom Scepeniak, anything that happened between 1901 and 1949 is the “old ways” and the “old paths”. You don't know anything that happened BEFORE 1901, and anything that happened after about 1949 is the “newfangled ways”. Whatever apostasy was happening between 1901 and 1949 is the true “old-timey” religion, and whatever industrial farming techniques were mastered between those years is the “old-timey” farming. Forget for a minute that the mainstream “church” had already apostatized long before 1901, and forget that 1901 was many, many decades into the industrial revolution. Apostasy in Agrarianism and in Reglion was on very firm footing by 1901. Forget for a minute that the true old-time religion had been abandoned long before that. Forget for a minute that Tom Scepeniak's religion was considered heresy by the Pilgrim's and Puritans that colonized the North American continent. Forget for a minute that the true Agrarian way of farming and agriculture had been violently overthrown by Northern industrial interests by 1865, and that the Industrial farming that replaced it is what is responsible for almost all of the ills of modern society.

As a last lesson in Scepeniakism or Scepeniak writing, you must constantly have your Bible with you. You must thump it and caress it, just so long as you never read it or quote from it. Here's a tip, talk about the Bible for years and decry and damn those who don't live by it, then admit after many years that you finally got around to reading “the whole thing” just this past year. Still, never ever quote from it. Only mention it a lot.

Ok, now that you have a foundation in Scepeniakism, I can write one of his blogs for you, are you ready?

“I was sittin' up on my 'ol tractor the other day and I was thinkin' how far our society has fallen from the ol' ways. Now, here at our farm, we still do things the 'ol ways. We have the 'ol timey tractors and the 'ol timey grid electricity to run our huge industrial freezers. We manage our 200 head of cattle the 'ol timey way, and we sell them at the old cattle auction or direct to customers just like they did back in the 1990's. Anyway, I was sittin' up on my ol' tractor and I was thinking about the ol' time religion and how modern folk just never do give God credit or even pray or give their lives to him. You don't see any of the old tent revivals and the old come to Jesus preachin' of the Wesley brothers or Billy Sunday anymore. We ain't got much of that old time religion left, but I'm holdin' on to it... yes sir. I'm the last of the old breed, and me and Cyrus Scofield will hold on to the truth come hell or high water. Now some might say that there was 1900 years of Christian history prior to the ol' timey days I'm talking about, but those folks are just talkin' heads. They're all goin' straight to the pit. Everyone knows there weren't no real religion until them happy folks out in Topeka and then Azusa Street started talkin' in tongues and fryin' on the ground like bacon. Well, all these newfangled folks can just take a divin' leap into hell because that's where they're all going anyway. Now there are these newfangled folks talkin' about “Christian Agrarianism”. I'm not much into “isms” because we all know that “isms” are all from hell. Except Baptism... that one is good. But racism is a bad one, and any of those folk who talk about “election” (a doctrine of hades if I ever did hear one) must be racists. Why, I'm not braggin' but I could beat any of these folks in a debate with this here Bible I rub constantly. I don't need no theologistical training to know that there ain't no “election” in the Bible. In fact, that word “election” ain't even in the Bible. I looked. It's a damnable lie to say it is. And if you showed me it was in there, it would still be a lie because my Bible says 'ya got to make choices, and if there is any choices then their cain't be no “election” or predestination. Nope. Too many newfangled folks out there who are all goin' to hell want to make Christianity about God having all the power and the might and the sovereignty and gettin' all the glory, when we know God is just a powerless ol' man who wants to be loved freely by free will. God ain't no cosmic rapist. If we ain't got free will, we are all a bunch of robots, and that's what Azusa street was all about. It was an anti-robot, fire from heaven, holy ghost revival! Hallelujah! Anybody who disagrees must be a racist and I could beat them in a debate with only my Bible. So I was wonderin' the other day how long our ol' timey way of life out here on the farm was going to last. And I said to myself, I said “Self, don't you be worryin' none about that stuff. God is in charge (except over salvation, that is our own free will choice), and God ain't gonna allow this foolishness to go on forever. So we'll just keep livin' by the ol' timey ways and worshippin' Jesus with all our hearts and tongues, and everyone else can just go straight to hell”.

See, I just wrote a Scepeniak blog post. All you have to do is follow the guidelines and it is easy to interpret.

Ok, so I think I answered your first two questions, but just in case some of you missed it all through all the sarcasm and irony, and just so LBJ will be satisfied that I am being forced once again to deny the obvious, here are my answers to the first two questions:

1. Do you believe there is only salvation in your group, and everyone else who is not with you is “pagan” or is lost?

   NO. In fact, I believe that it is improbable that every single person in our group is saved. I believe God alone is sovereign over salvation, and that he is saving people from every tribe and tongue and nation and people, according to His own will, by His own power, and by Sovereign Election as taught in the Holy Bible.

2. Do you believe that people who leave your group are “lost” or damned?

   I do not at all believe that leaving our or any group has anything to do with causing someone's salvation or loss of salvation. If salvation is of God (and it is), then participation in any particular group or fellowship may be fruit of salvation, but can never be the cause of it. Salvation is by the will of God alone. Arminians like Tom Scepeniak believe that salvation can be lost, but we believe that salvation is eternal, and that all those who are and were in Christ Jesus from the foundation of the world will be finally and eternally saved by Him alone, as the scriptures plainly teach.

Ok, for the third question, and these three questions don't even begin to chip away at the lies often told about me – especially by the likes of Tom Scepeniak and others whom the devil uses.

Why do you receive donations when Paul and the other apostles worked jobs?

First of all, there is an erroneous presupposition in the question... in fact, there are several false presuppositions in the question. Paul received donations AND worked other jobs. He plainly stated and taught that scripturally he was to be provided for by the brethren who were taught of him, but, because of the immaturity of those who were being taught, and because he was being attacked by the Jews who wanted him to fail, he chose to work as a tentmaker in a few places and at certain times in order to make an example of himself.

Second, I am not Paul. I have never, ever, ever, gotten this accusation from someone who didn't go to a church where the pastor was paid. So, they have a double standard, and it is a grotesque one. For example, Tom Scepeniak accuses me of profiting from the gospel (which is not true, as anyone who knows me can attest), yet he goes to a 501c-3 state-sponsored church with a paid preacher. He believes HIS preacher should be paid, but that I should not. Why? Because he does not like what I teach. The fact is that I rejected any type of salary a long time ago as unbibiblical and manipulative. The fact is that I used to just list my needs on my public websites and blogs, which I find to be biblical, but now I don't do that either – and I haven't for several years. I have a private email list and only those who ask to be on my list will ever even know about any needs of myself or the ministry. I don't post needs on any of my websites or blogs and I haven't for a few years. Not that there was anything wrong with posting needs on those sites, but I grew tired of hypocrites and liars like Tom Scepeniak using those posts to attack me and the ministry. My family provides much of our own food and support by the work of our hands. I also write books and other materials which people can buy if they choose to. Only those who feel convicted to help in our ministerial work are ever added to my email list, and only those people will ever receive an email listing any needs of the ministry. I am completely authorized by the Bible to require that those who learn from me support me in the ministry of the Word, but I do not do so. I am completely authorized to live off of the offerings sent to the ministry. The ministry of Jesus Christ through us here in Central Texas reaches the lives of many, many times more people than ever went to my old church (back when I was in one), yet we operate on less money than our old church took in in ONE OFFERING on ONE SUNDAY! These things are all open to any who would check them out and research them, and we understand that liars and slanderers do not care one whit for the truth.

Ok, now that the devil-ghost of LBJ has been exorcised once again, we'll get on with the business at hand. Everyone should know by now that the agents of false religion and of industrial farming and of worldliness do not like me or what we are doing out here. Shallow minded nits are always going to be swarming around and biting at those who dare to speak out against their idols. I don't care. Bring the lions.

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker