Pastor Darwin Fish and "A True Church"

[Spiritus Naturae]

Anyone here familiar with this ego-maniac?

http://www.atruechurch.info/home.html

He apparently is the only teacher/pastor in all of Christendom that is teaching "the truth". He does say, "they may be out there but I havent encountered them." (paraphrasing)

Is he off his meds?

[Teallaura]

Was he ever on them?
I can't make heads or tails of his objection - he proposes rather orthodox understandings, but then goes off on incoherent tangents. Why he thinks the evangelicals he listed aren't saved is beyond me. Someone with more patience to read it all might figure it out...

[jpholding]

Phil Johnson has a good site on him; see also http://www.tektonics.org/af/fishd01.html which I reprint below though without live links.

****

A reader recently asked us to have a look at the teachings of one "Darwin Fish," yet another in that long line of singular persons who claims to be the head of the only group of people heading for heaven, while all others (including others who say the same) are headed for the Devil's House. I find as in several cases that a thorough expose' of Fish has already been done by others with more experience (see link below), so my own comments will be brief, and probably serve mainly the purpose of getting me added to Fish's Crustacean List. Some points of interest:

* Fish rejects scholarship (naturally) in favor of "plain readings" of the text.
* Looking oddly Mormon, he teaches that God is a human being in form, albeit one that was always incorruptible (see Chapter 1 of my book The Mormon Defenders), and sanctions polygamy.
* He commits common errors of decontexualization having to do with the relation of faith and works, discipling, corporal punishment,
* His positions are often excessively legalistic and picayune; at one point he even decreed that communion served in small cups and with small crackers was "unbiblical" and resulted in condemnation.
* He counsels active "hate" (in an anachronistic sense) of those who disagree with him.
* All this said, Fish, like anyone swimming in an ocean of truth, gets some things right, if only because they are easy catches (like finding false prophecies made by Benny Hinn!).

To round things off here, I'll address some of the claims found on Fish's site. Articles there are mostly either profiles of persons or ministries/groups (including cults) with an accounting of damnable errors (Fish's own "Rogue's Gallery"!), or are issues-oriented. The "issues" articles are the only things that cross my scope, and comments on a couple in particular will suffice to expose Fish's clumsy exegetical methodology.

Fish in Wine. Fish's article on wine and the Bible actually ends up with a final conclusion on the subject much like our own. Consider that coincidence, however, of the same sort between a person who gets to the bottom of a hill by a path, and another who gets there by jumping off a cliff. We can see clear examples of Fish's disdain for contextualization here, for example, as he responds to someone who used non-Biblical sources from the time of the Bible to inform the context of the Bible:

....Dr. Pietrylo supports this conclusion, not with Biblical proof, but rather he uses the testimony of Aristotle, The Donovan Bible Commentary, Smith's Bible Dictionary, and his own words, which all prove nothing; because Scripture is the standard, not Aristotle, Donovan, Smith, or Pietrylo no matter what they say (Colossians 2:8-10)!

It's no surprise of course to see Colossians 2:8 abused in the usual fashion (see here), but overall this is the usual error of Sola Scriptura Extremis, which rejects informing contexts. We are sure, however, that if Fish found a word in the English Bible he did not know, he would not reject using a dictionary to find out what it meant! (From the articles, it IS likely that Fish has consulted at least a concordance, however, which by his own standard is composed by "men" following linguistic "traditions"!) Fish however even goes as far as rejecting Pietrylo's account of how wine was made in antiquity because it "is nowhere substantiated in Scripture"! Even more amusing is this attempted twist. Pietrylo describes the process thusly:

The wine was stored by boiling the juice until the water was evaporated. What was left was a thick, nonintoxicating syrup or paste.

Fish retorts that "such dehydration is depicted as abnormal and bad" and cites Joel 1:10:

The field is wasted, the land mourns; for the grain is ruined, the new wine is dried up, the oil fails.

Fish manages to stretch this into saying that purposeful evaporation to create wine as described is the same as agricultural failure!

(Some of the sources Fish critiques are, BTW, correct that wine in Biblical times was not as strong, and though Fish is correct in deeming this irrelevant as it is used by these commentators, as before his main complaint is that proof of this is not found in the Bible, so that he essentially argues as though when the Bible wrote of "wine" it clearly meant it in the same sense -- level of alcohol, for example -- that it did for the bottle of Morgan David at the ABC Liquor! To be sure you understand, he warns you with Prov. 30:6, "Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." In that case, all of Fish's commentaries on Scripture are no better!)

Amazingly then, to "refute" the historical process of mixing water with wine, well documented by historians, Fish cites Isaiah 1:22, "Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water," so that it is said that mixing wine and water is a "bad thing"! Fish merely arbitrarily hops from the description of this wine as diluted and designates it "bad" in all cases, whether the dilution is 1% or 99%.

Next we have this clumsy dismissal of contextualizing. One of Fish's targets said:

Wine today is different than Biblical wine. "Strong drink . . . unmixed wine . . ." in Biblical times was only 3-11% alcohol. Those who drank this form of alcohol were considered barbaric! Distillation, which increases alcohol content, was not discovered until A.D. 1500. Modern wine has 9-11% alcohol; 80-100 proof whiskey and brandy has 40-50% alcohol; Biblically and culturally, these would have been unthinkable! (ibid.)

Fish amazingly accuses this commentator of "historical tunnel vision" and remarks petulantly, "Just because modern man records distillation as first being discovered in A.D. 1500, this does not mean the ancients of old did not use distillation," and cites Eccl. 1:9, "there is nothing new under the sun"! Not only is this exegetical abuse of Ecclesiastes and its genre (see here -- is "what's new" restrained to narrow categories like "specific methods of winemaking" or to broader categories like "wine making, by any means"?), it is a blatant head-in-sand approach that avoids the data rather than dealing with it. Fish essentially hypothesizes that there must have been secret, unrecorded methods of distillation to make liquor that strong, which is the sort of reasoning that would make only Acharya S and Christ-mythers happy. How naive to say that these arguments are "only supported by arguments from history and the supposed practice of that day," as though that were a problem!

Much of what else is written is sound on this topic, with the notable exception of using Proverbs 31:6-7 -- again, an abuse of proverbial lit (see link above) -- to justify buying drunkards more alcohol so they can drink even more!

Apocryphal Inanity. In an article directed against Catholic canonization of the Apocrypha, we find a great deal more head-in-sand, contrived treatments. As for example we note the NT's use of certain apocryphal documents (see here, some of this will be of interest, notably where Fish addresses such documents useful in our arguments. One point of note is that Fish argues against those that regard the Apocrypha as Scripture. He makes no clear statement about those who accept (as we do) that some of these works were used by the NT in a "allusory" fashion, though he does attempt to address the claim that such references are indeed made. He notes a website that lists about 300 such references, and selects about a dozen of the "worst" as illustrative, with one exception: Hebrews 11:35 and 2 Maccabees 7:

And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.

It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king under torture with whips and thongs, to partake of unlawful swine's flesh....When he was utterly helpless, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan. The smoke from the pan spread widely, but the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly...After the first brother had died in this way, they brought forward the second for their sport. They tore off the skin of his head with the hair, and asked him, "Will you eat rather than have your body punished limb by limb?" He replied in the language of his ancestors and said to them, "No." Therefore he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. And when he was at his last breath, he said, "You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws."

The parallel is clear, but here is how Fish tries to swim out of it:

So, all one has to do is find a document (or make one up) that records someone dying for their faith and having hope in the resurrection, and this means that these are the people the writer of Hebrews had in mind! This "indisputable" reference is an indisputable assumption about what was in the mind of the author of the book of Hebrews!

What remarkable obscurantism! Fish reduces this very complex matter to the level of a simpleton. It is not just "finding" (much less "making up"!) documents, but locating documents that the author is likely to be familiar with in his own social setting, and making content comparisons (as if "dying for their faith and having hope in the resurrection" was attested to in hundreds of other documents). Fish's response amounts to declaring the correspondence a coincidence (which wears thin as the number of such correspondences grows and becomes more dense, as in the article linked above); his charge of "assumption about what was in the mind of the author" is not only easily reversible (he "assumes" the mind of the writer as well!) and therefore worthless, but also stands against every rule for identifying literary allusions (no doubt to be tossed out as the "traditions of men," based on the usual skewed reading of Col. 2:8).

Two such documents we use in our article are then "critiqued" -- The Wisdom of Solomon (WoS) and Sirach. In much of this critique Fish is apparently trying to address ideas that these documents are to be canonical, by showing that they allegedly contain false doctrine; since we do not need them to be canonical, for us this sort of argument is beside the point. But to show that Fish's inabilities are not limited to Biblical exegesis, let's look at some of these claims.

* Wisdom 1:13 says, ". . . God did not make death". Please note Romans 11:36. I did. Get this: "For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things." That's it. Fish thinks this is contrary. The verb "make" is not even used in Romans and "death" is not a "thing". The meaning of the passage, at any rate, is that all things belong to God, which is not a statement of creative activity to begin with.
* Wisdom 3:16-19 says, But children of adulterers will not come to maturity, and the offspring of an unlawful union will perish. Even if they live long they will be held of no account, and finally their old age will be without honor. If they die young, they will have no hope and no consolation on the day of judgment. For the end of an unrighteous generation is grievous. So, in other words, if you are born out of wedlock, you're going to hell and there's nothing you can do about it! This is against Romans 10:13, John 3:16, and Isaiah 55:6f. A little lesson in metaphor is in order. "Children of adulterers" here bears the same sort of meaning as calling Judas a "son of perdition." It has nothing to do with physical birth but fits in with the theme of abandonment of God as harlotry and adultery (cf. Hosea)
* Wisdom 6:17 says, "The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction." This is a lie. Proverbs 9:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Just because someone has a sincere desire for wisdom means nothing (in and of itself). Note Proverbs 1:28, "Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but they will not find me." Here is someone who has a "sincere desire for wisdom", but wisdom does not come! The lesson here is as helpful as it was for the atheist. Fish also does not seem to be quoting right; it says: "For the very true beginning of her is the desire of discipline; and the care of discipline is love; 18 And love is the keeping of her laws; and the giving heed unto her laws is the assurance of incorruption; 19 And incorruption maketh us near unto God: 20 Therefore the desire of wisdom bringeth to a kingdom." This is a description of what "fear of the Lord" results in.
* "In Wisdom 6:22 the writer says, "I will tell you what wisdom is and how she came to be, ..." This is a lie. The writer never says how wisdom came to be. The writer does, actually; this (and regarding Sirach 1:1, etc.) is where Fish is ignorant of "Wisdom" as a hypostatic figure (see link above).
* Wisdom 6:24 says, "The multitude of the wise is the salvation of the world," This is a lie. Jesus is the salvation of the world (that is, for any who might be saved). Please note 1 Timothy 4:10. Uh huh. "That is..." That slippery qualifier is the sort of thing Fish does to ram out an equation. Also the word "salvation" is better read as "welfare" and is obviously not soteriological.
* Wisdom 12:11 says, speaking of God, "Although you are sovereign in strength, you judge with mildness, ..." This is a lie. Please note Hebrews 10:28 and Hebrews 10:30-31. Both references to final judgment, as it happens, but this is how WoS 12:11 reads: "For it was a cursed seed from the beginning; neither didst thou for fear of any man give them pardon for those things wherein they sinned." What happened here?
* Wisdom 14:27 says, For the worship of idols not to be named is the beginning and cause and end of every evil. This is a lie. The worship of idols is the result of evil (Romans 1:28), not the beginning or cause of evil. Also, please note 1 Timothy 6:10. Please note rather that WoS 14:27 is literary hyperbole, proverbial in nature. This is like saying that "he hit that ball a mile high" is a "lie". Those who suffer from such hyperliteralism need a dose of mental Ex-Lax.
* Wisdom 15:17 says, People are mortal, and what they make with lawless hands is dead; for they are better than the objects they worship, since they have life, but the idols never had. This is contrary to Psalm 115:8 and Psalm 135:18. That's creative exegesis. Both passages say, "They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them." This is after a long list saying how idols have mouths but don't speak, and eyes but don't see, etc. which would mean 115:8 is saying that idolaters literally do not see or speak. Apparently Fish doesn't recognize a metaphorical insult when he sees one.
* Wisdom 16:21, speaking of the children of Israel in the desert, says, For your sustenance manifested your sweetness toward your children; and the bread, ministering to the desire of the one who took it, was changed to suit everyone's liking. This is contrary to Numbers 11:5-6. Where the Israelites whine for leeks and garlic, etc. -- at one time during 40 years of Exodus. That's contrary, all right.
* Wisdom 7:17 says, "For it is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, ..." This is a lie (obvious from the above). It's a worse lie not to complete the quote: "For he hath given me certain knowledge of the things that are, namely, to know how the world was made, and the operation of the elements..."

Now to where Fish absues Sirach. Some selections:

* Sirach 8:13 says, Do not give surety beyond your means; but if you give surety, be prepared to pay. This is contrary to Proverbs 6:1f; 11:15; 17:18; & 22:26. Yes. All proverbs (see link above). Fish thinks these are literal pieces of advice. Does he believe that everyone who hesitates is lost?
* Sirach also teaches the damning lie of self-esteem. It couldn't have no matter how Fish reads it. The concept of "self" as primary was yet to be thought of; that's what anthropological study will do for you. Still, where does Fish find his food? My child, honor yourself with humility, and give yourself the esteem you deserve. (Sirach 10:28) Let's do better than that, shall we? My son, glorify thy soul in meekness, and give it honour according to the dignity thereof. 29 Who will justify him that sinneth against his own soul? and who will honour him that dishonoureth his own life? It essentially says, honor your soul by not sinning. Then: One loses self-respect with another person's food, but one who is intelligent and well instructed guards against that. (Sirach 40:29) Hmm. Better translation than Fish got: The life of him that dependeth on another man's table is not to be counted for a life; for he polluteth himself with other men's meat: but a wise man well nurtured will beware thereof. "Self-respect" is read into the text.
* Sirach 12:4-7 says, Give to the devout, but do not help the sinner. Do good to the humble, but do not give to the ungodly; hold back their bread, and do not give it to them, for by means of it they might subdue you; then you will receive twice as much evil for all the good you have done to them. For the Most High also hates sinners and will afflict punishment on the ungodly. Give to the one who is good, but do not help the sinner. This goes directly against Luke 6:27-36 and Matthew 5:38-48. It does? We're not told how, but the intent of Sirach is one Fish would otherwise agree with, and does in practice: For the most High hateth sinners, and will repay vengeance unto the ungodly, and keepeth them against the mighty day of their punishment. Luke and Matthew meanwhile speak of doing good to those who do evil to you (and in specific contexts -- i.e., here) -- not doing good to just any sinner.
* Sirach 20:30 says, Hidden wisdom and unseen treasure, of what value is either? Better are those who hide their folly than those who hide their wisdom. In other words, "those who hid their folly are better than Christ."! Because, Christ hides His wisdom. Um, yeah, Sirach definitely had Christ in mind, 200 years before Christ. You think? And he definitely meant this proverb to be universal.
* Sirach 25:24 says, From a woman sin had its beginning, and because of her we all die. This is a lie and contrary to Romans 5:12. If it is, then Romans 5:12 is contrary to Genesis. As it is, Adam is used in Romans as a corporate head for humanity, not as a statement of chronology as in Sirach.
* More foolishness can be found in Sirach 26:5 which says, Of three things my heart is frightened, and of a fourth I am in great fear: [here's an ungodly fear] Slander in the city, the gathering of a mob, and false accusation - all these are worse than death. Worse than death? Jesus said to rejoice over such things (slander and false accusation, Matthew 5:11-12). Um, he said to rejoice in such things when it is done for his sake. Poor Sirach lived 200 years too early for that and was not a prophet.
* Sirach 28:18 says, Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not as many as have fallen because of the tongue. Happy is the one who is protected from it, who has not been exposed to its anger, [this is against Matthew 5:11-12 & Luke 6:22-23] who has not borne its yoke, and has not been bound with its fetters. For its yoke is a yoke of iron, and its fetters are fetters of bronze; its death is an evil death, and Hades is preferable to it.That's a lie! Worse than Hades? Please note Luke 16:23-24. Hades is definitely worse! Here again Fish needs some mental Ex-Lax to loosen up his hyperliteralism. To call the tongue "worse than Hades" is not a lie, but an obvious metaphor. There are many more where Fish takes proverbial verbiage hyperliterally which we will not dignify with a feature.
* Sirach 29:21 says, The necessities of life are water, bread, and clothing, and also a house to assure privacy. This is worldly wisdom. The necessities of life are food and clothing (1 Timothy 6:8, a house is not included). With these we should be content. As Christ himself had food and clothing, and no house (Matthew 8:20), and was content (being without sin, Hebrews 4:15). Just wanted to note the nitpick. The search for "errors" here is rather frenetic.
* Sirach 31:15 says, "Judge your neighbor's feelings by your own," This is against Matthew 7:1-2. We should not judge our neighbor's feelings. And that is a poor application of Matthew 7.

In close, here is the most helpful link to someone more in the know: Phil Johnson of John MacArthur's crowd offers some up-close and personal details.

http://www.atruecult.info/dfishfaq.htm

[Teallaura]

Dang, someone actually did read through all that garbage junk. I'm impressed.... with Phil Johnson and Tektonics, of course....

[anewlife]

Holy Mackerel...

[GrayPilgrim]

Holy Mackerel...

I have just spent an hour reading Fish's stuff, his mentor's and Johnson's. I laughed where J.I. Packer is declared a "false teacher" for using "psychology", and then Miezel used JAY ADAMS...who is a psychologist or psychaitry in a positive light...to rebutt Packer. http://www.rapidnet.com/%7Ejbeard/bd...er/general.htm

[NJon]

This is an old post, but I just first heard of this guy the other day on Way of the Master Radio.

This Darwin Fish fellow is about as off his rocker as it gets. By proclaiming who is going to Hell, he's setting himself up in the judgment seat of Christ. By proclaiming that only his way (as opposed to Jesus, whom Himself is the only way) is the right way, he's drawing people away from the Gospel and leading them into a cult. In many cases, he has turned "the grace of our God into lasciviousness" (Jude 1:4)

Well, at least he doesn't like Fred Phelps, and that's fine with me. Those two can wage war all day while the rest of us are out trying to actually reach the world for Christ.

[Pilgrim]

This is an old post, but I just first heard of this guy the other day on Way of the Master Radio.

This Darwin Fish fellow is about as off his rocker as it gets. By proclaiming who is going to Hell, he's setting himself up in the judgment seat of Christ. By proclaiming that only his way (as opposed to Jesus, whom Himself is the only way) is the right way, he's drawing people away from the Gospel and leading them into a cult. In many cases, he has turned "the grace of our God into lasciviousness" (Jude 1:4)

Well, at least he doesn't like Fred Phelps, and that's fine with me. Those two can wage war all day while the rest of us are out trying to actually reach the world for Christ.

Exactly, James 4:11 ff comes right to mind in regards to this guy.

[Berean Todd]

, and then Miezel used JAY ADAMS...who is a psychologist or psychaitry in a positive light...to rebutt Packer. http://www.rapidnet.com/%7Ejbeard/bd...er/general.htm

Not that I am defending the guy who is absolutely a complete kook, but you are wrong in classifying Jay Adams as a psycologist. Jay Adams is a Biblical Conselor who started the Nouthetic Counseling movement, which is vastly different to psychology and which considers all classical psychologists to be satanically influenced and led.

[wackzingo]

In the thread I started earlier about the purpose driven and seeker sensitive churches I mention as other did, that we are very concerned about the gospel being watered down. It's ironic that this cult of Darwin Fish presents the Gospel much better than most christian church these days.

Man's present sinful state is utterly hopeless, and he is completely unable and unwilling to change his wicked condition (Romans 3:11). But God, in His great love towards all mankind (John 3:16), provided the one and only way (Acts 4:10-12) to be saved from such a horrible state (Romans 5:8), and the consequences thereof (Revelation 21:8; John 3:36).

The very person of God the Son humbled Himself and became a man in the person of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:5-11). He was born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem. He was (and is) a descendent of David, a King of Israel. He shed His blood and died on a cross suffering the punishment due to all mankind for their evil ways (1 Timothy 2:6). He was laid in a tomb, and on the third day after His death, He physically came back to life (I Corinthians 15:3-6; Luke 24:36-43), and has been alive ever since (Revelation 1:18).

Because the price for sin has been paid by the Lord Jesus Christ and He is now alive (never to die again, Hebrews 1:3; 9:27-28; 10:10, 14), all who repent and believe in Him have complete forgiveness of their sins and eternal life (Romans 8:1; John 3:16).