08.04.08
Lon Solomon’s Story
In the last post, I wrote about Lon Solomon, pastor of the McLean Bible Church, a 10,000 member non-denominational mega-church in my area. The type of preaching he does, on the radio no less, is typical of the Faithful or Stage Two religion. It happens that on one of his several websites, we find his conversion story, as told my him. You can listen to it in the original if you want, but it is sixty minutes long: http://www.mcleanbible.org/media_player.asp?messageID=961. He is an amusing speaker so if you have the time, do click on that link.
Anyway, Lon grew up in a Jewish household where they went through the motions of following the Jewish religion but reportedly there was “no presence of God” in their home. As a teenager Lon had questioned the Rabbi about some point of faith and was told that all Jews automatically go to heaven. He was told that hell was “a Gentile problem!” With that news, Lon gave himself permission to engage in all sorts of acts of personal chaos - since he was going to heaven no matter what he did! Absent the behavior restrictions that can come from religion, Lon - obviously a Lawless or Stage One individual at this point - became heavily involved in both alcohol and drugs in college - to the point of dealing drugs to put himself through college and very nearly wound up in jail.
At some point while tripped out on LSD, Lon commented to a fellow drug user that despite all this supposedly spiritual searching (through drug use) that they were doing, and trying to be more loving and kind for example, they were not getting any better and it fact he felt he was getting worse. At this point the friend said to him: “Maybe you are really not getting worse. Maybe you are just getting more honest about what you have really been all the time!”
Up until he heard that comment, Lon says he had grown up believing his own PR. He thought he was a good person, a kind person, a loving person. The comment from his friend forced him to take a realistic look at himself and he decided he did not like what he saw. He realized he was selfish and self-centered, immoral and unethical - profane even. He realized that all his life he had been kidding himself (the pretense of the Lawless person) He decided he needed help in the form of religion. So amazingly he started with some of the Eastern religions. These sounded wonderful on paper but Lon found he could not make them work in real life. Next he tried going back to Judaism but found no answers there.
He was looking for religion to make him into the kind of person he wanted to be. Not having any luck, he felt reality was far away from him. He hated the person he was inside and began to contemplate suicide.
Then in the spring of 1971 he ran into a very strange man who used to ride the streets of his college town preaching about Jesus Christ from his vehicle. After avoiding the influence of this man for some time, something caused Lon to suddenly look to him for answers. (sudden conversion on a specific date, typical of a Faithful conversion)
While still doubting the value of Christianity, Lon tried intercessionary prayer regardind the health of his dog who was suffering from mange. Lon made a deal with God that if the mange was healed he would dedicate his life to God. At this point dog’s mange was healed and Lon became a Christian and has been one, par excellence, ever since.
At the end of this story, Lon says he is absolutely certain that THE ONLY way to have the assurance of eternal life is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. (ethnocentrism, again typical of the Faithful stage)
The amazing thing to me is this guy has an incredible amount of religious education. From Wikipedia: “Lon holds a B.S. degree in Chemistry (1971) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; a Th.M. degree in Hebrew and Old Testament (1975, summa cum laude) from Capital Bible Seminary; an M.A. degree (1978) in Near Eastern Studies from Johns Hopkins University; and a Doctorate of Divinity degree (2005) form Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.”
Having been exposed to so much religious teaching, how he could wind up with this seemingly fixed and limited view of spirituality is just a mystery to me. How he could have avoided progressing to the Mystic stage is amazing. It Makes me wonder if maybe he really has some Mystic in him but just preaches at the Faithful level because he is trying to gather Lawless individuals into his flock. After all, saving the Lawless is where he could do the most good.