Sabbatarianism

I didn´t know that Charlie Kirk was a Sabbatarian. In Christian circles, that´s a "heresy" usually connected to "Judaizers" and, I suppose, Adventists?!  

Gubbhumor

 

Hittade detta på nätet just nu. Vet förstås inte om det är sant, eftersom jag bara träffade Wolmar Holmström två eller tre gånger (på Ortodoxa bokhandeln i Stockholm). Kanske omkring år 2000? Minns att han var med i TV en gång också. I något slags ekumenisk dokumentär om trossamfund i Sverige.

Och apropå ekumenik...

Första gången jag besökte bokhandeln (på jakt efter "Den Ortodoxa Kyrkan" av Kallistos Ware) utspelade sig en "situation" i den lilla lokalen. Wolmar storgrälade med en mycket märklig gubbe. Han såg ut att vara 90+, hade stora stövlar och en gigantisk överrock. Ärligt talat såg han ut att vara hemlös. Gubben skrek något i stil med detta: "Jehova, Jehova kommer att STRAFFA ER på domedagen, ni kommer att BRINNA". Till svar skrek Wolmar "Ut, ut härifrån!!!". Han lyckades på något sätt slänga ut den galne gyben genom dörren (där jag också stod). 

Jag frågade förstås (något chockad) vem i allsin dar gubben var. Var han ett Jehovas Vittne? Som alltså trängt sig in på Ortodoxa Kyrkans bokhandel och öppet hotade föreståndaren med yttersta dagens ljungeldar. Till min stora förvåning svarade Wolmar: "Det där? Nej, nej, det där är en gammal pingstpastor. Vi har känt varandra i 40 år. Han brukar låtsas att vara ett Jehovas Vittne, och jag låtsas att slänga ut honom. Vi brukar kalla det rå men hjärtlig stil".

????!!!!

Det kan man kalla kristen gubbhumor, det.

I brist på nekrolog - reflektioner om Wolmar Holmström

Concordant

 

I literally never heard of "Concordant Believers" before. It´s an extremely strange sectarian current at the outskirts of American Christianity. Their theology sounds like a mixture of E W Bullinger´s ultra-dispensationalism and Charles Russell´s original Watchtower Society (not the later JW´s). 

The anti-Trinitarianism and universalism comes from Russell, while the strong distinction between Israel and the Gentile Church resembles both Russell and Bullinger. Note that the Concordant groups seem to reject both baptism and the Lord´s supper. 

Most sensationally, the Concordant Believers are "liberal" in their views of homosexuality (especially lesbianism), transgenderism, sex before marriage, prostitution, polygamy, and abortion?! I didn´t see *that* coming. Definitely one of the most peculiar Christian groups I´ve encountered.    

Elder John has the floor

 

The most absurd reaction to the papal election so far? An Adventist-conspiracist YouTube channel argues that the new pope (who is really anti-Trump) will unite with Donald Trump´s administration and then, behold, the Image of the Beast will be completed?! Oookay...

The biggest mistake of the Church was to canonize Elder John´s revelations.  

Death to paedophiles

 

I can´t help quoting this little gem from "RFH", the Hollow Earth Terf, Loosh harvester and Artemis cultist who is still making X unsafe at any speed. The context seems to be claims that the Branch Davidians and other cults are somehow "based". RFH (a leftist feminist?) supports the Feds cracking down on these people!

>>>It’s crazy how when you actually look into these stories you realize the feds are incredibly sympathetic characters and were right to come down on most of these freaks. >>>The branch Davidians were marrying off their children to Koresh, the early Mormons were kidnapping girls from neighboring communities and making them sister wives. Now the Amish are raping their kids and creating new genetic illnesses with every passing day as they descend into total retardation. But hey they’re anti vax and don’t like homos! Based! >>>If you believe in law and order and nationalism, you should support these people being swiftly dealt with, not allowed to make parallel societies in your own neighborhood where they basically consider you infidels for not believing in their psychopathic cult leader’s fringe interpretation of the Bible that always seems to come down to “God wants me to have multiple child brides” >>>Somebody’s doing the raping and a lot of them are a part of fringe religious communities.

Original xweet

Kingdom Hall crashing

 

Only the 144,000 are allowed to drink the wine and eat the bread at the Jehovah´s Witness "memorial" (Passover celebration). Which means that almost nobody does. Here, an outsider who is critical of the JW´s crashes their memorial by grabbing the cup and drinking its contents! Another "Kingdom Hall crashing" is showed later. Not sure if these are recent events or decades-old recordings. From an ex-JW YouTube channel. 

And on the seventh day he rested

 

And then, maybe not. In case you assumed that Adventism was a straightforward thing...Ready to Harvest is here to set you straight, brother! Note that the Adventist movement was split on several different Churches from the get go. If this was the case with Adventism, why should we think early Christianity was any different? 

Death and lying

 

Emerson Green on the Christian apologetic claim "Nobody dies for a lie". Here promoted by none other than Mel Gibson! Unfortunately, people die for lies all of the time. Including self-conscious ones. Personally, I don´t think the apostles died for something they knew was a lie, but the claim that *nobody* would do this is gullible in the extreme. The opposite is also the case: true believers in other religions may chose to die for *their* beliefs based on allegedly supernatural events. Say a Hindu who believes that one of his gods (or his deceased guru!) have actually appeared to him... 

Är fettisdagen demonisk?

 

Kan någon fråga sjundedagsadventisterna? Semlan kostade 50 spänn och var inte ens särskilt god. Blev nästan illamående, faktiskt. 

AI:s fantasi-semla här ovan (komplett med cappuccino) ser faktiskt mycket godare ut!  

That dismal Bible science

 

- Nah, I just look like Jesus,
I´m actually an Epicurean!

Atheist polemicist extraordinaire Richard Carrier argues against a peculiar chart (perhaps wrongly attributed to Hugh Ross) which "proves" that the Bible is scientific, more scientific in fact than the ancient Greeks and Romans. I´ve probably seen the chart, or a version thereof, but always associated it with the Jehovah´s Witnesses! That "blood is life" thing...

To repeat myself, Carrier disagrees and here we are!

Science Then: The Bible vs. The Greek Edition

Fandor rock

 

Believe it or not, but this is a real rock song based on the Urantia Book. And yes, "Master of the Sky" prominently mentions the fandors...all but un-ironically?! It´s actually a quite good tune and video, all things considered. I assume Visions of Reality is the name of the band. 

From the YouTube channel Faith Evolves, made famous by a somewhat strange cyber-drama a couple of weeks ago. Or straight from the geographic center of infinity? ;-) 

Hollywood beyond

 

Right on schedule...a fundie video arguing that God started the LA wildfires, here called "the Hollywood fires". Just like He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in times past, He is punishing the dream factory for its hedonism, Satanism, paganism and Gnosticism. The first part of the video does contain some interesting speculations about hidden Gnostic themes in various Hollywood films. Or not so hidden in the case of "The Matrix". 

Overall, however, it feels like we all heard this before. Hurricane Katrina, Haitian earthquakes, all kinds of natural disasters have been "explained" by God punishing homosexuals, Voodoo practitioners, or whatever. 

I wonder how this content-creator explains the fact that churches have burnt down, but a gigantic menorah was spared. But then, the video is Seventh Day Adventist, so perhaps they can spin that somehow to their advantage... 

Nightmare before Christmas

 

Crazy sectarian party-poopers of the Adventist persuasion dunk on Christmas, claiming it is - surprise - pagan. An extravagant summary of all real or perceived pagan influences on this supposed Christian holiday. Never thought of the similarity between Santa´s flying reindeer and Odin´s Wild Hunt before. But sure, the AI-generated Krampus figures look cool.

Should I or you tell them that Christianity was "pagan" from the start, and so was Judaism? There was no pure and pristine early Christianity that looked like Seventh Day Adventism or even more radical groups such as the JW´s or Christadelphians. As for the religion of ancient Israel, Solomon´s temple didn´t just look pagan, it was literally built by pagans! And don´t even get me started on the Ark of the Covenant...

This is the *nightmare* before Christmas. 

  

Finding peace within

 

Unclean animal?

Around 1990, person or persons unknown were standing just outside T-Centralen, the main metro station in the Swedish capital of Stockholm, passing out religious tracts of unclear provenance. Most commuters took them…and promptly threw them away in the trash bins! We´re talking hundreds of tracts here. I might have been the only person who kept the two tracts being passed out, but still today – over 30 years later – I still haven´t read all of the material they contained.

So this is a review of only one portion of one of the tracts.

The tract or booklet in question is titled “Finding Peace Within: A book for people in need”. The publication date is 1989. The publisher is given as Inspiration Books East (IBE) in Alabama. It´s clear from the contents that we´re dealing with a Seventh Day Adventists. However, I´m not familiar with the exact relationship between the SDA Church and IBE. “Finding Peace Within” contains two texts: “The Way to Christ” by Ellen G White and “The Christian Way” by L Munilla and C E Wheeling. However, the booklet is marketed as a self-help book in positive thinking on the front and back covers. Only if you actually open it, do you realize that it´s a fairly old fashioned Bible tract. It´s said to have been translates to over 100 languages, but at least 30+ years ago, Swedish clearly wasn´t one of them, since it was passed out in English in the Stockholm metro!

I´m not an expert on every nook and cranny of Seventh Day Adventist theology, but “The Christian Way” sounds reasonably orthodox-Adventist to an outsider with a working knowledge of fringe Christian denominations. Some time ago, I discussed with one of my perennial commentators whether or not the SDA Church believes that God has a physical body. If read carefully, the tract is strangely non-committed on this point. It seems to affirm the Trinity, but without actually using the term. However, it also seems to suggest that “heaven” is an actual location in or beyond the sky. There, Christ sits on the right hand of God´s throne. There is no clarification, but it does sound literal. But how can this be squared with a trinitarian godhead?

An important point in Adventist theology is that God´s Law from the Old Testament is still in force. This Law is identified with the Ten Commandments, which (of course) include the command to keep the Sabbath on Saturdays. The booklet proves by quoting both Catholics and Protestants that the Sabbath was transferred to Sunday due to Church decision/tradition. This is unproblematic if you indeed are a Catholic or a High Church Anglican. It´s more problematic for, say, Baptists. The authors have even located a Catholic magazine which says that only the Seventh Day Adventists are consistent with the Protestant belief in “sola Scriptura”. More unexpected is the claim that the distinction between clean and unclean food is still in place. Don´t eat herons, bats and white owls! Do the IBE follow Jewish dietary restrictions? There is also a more general emphasis on healthy living, including abstention from alcohol, tobacco and drugs. Modest dress, regular tithing and prayer are also important for the Christian life.

The soteriology is somewhat distinct. The Millennium is a literal 1000-year period, but not on Earth, but rather in heaven. The resurrection of the righteous takes place at the Second Advent of Christ, and these are raptured to heaven together with the righteous that are alive at the time. The wicked will be destroyed (or remain dead if they passed away before the Second Advent). During the Millenium, Earth will be completely desolate, with Satan as its only inhabitant. When the thousand years have ended, the wicked will be resurrected (!), only to be deceived once more by the Devil. Meanwhile, the New Jerusalem have descended to Earth, together with all the righteous. Satan and his minions will try to take it. This fails (surprise) and they are destroyed once and for all. Note the Annihilationism.

The tone of “The Christian Way” is rather strident. We are admonished to be baptized by immersion. This life is the only “probation” we´ll ever get. The time is near: Jesus Christ can come at any moment. However, the pamphlet also emphasizes that the second coming will be unexpected – perhaps a warning not to concoct elaborate eschatological schemes. A necessary warning due to Adventist history?

If apocalyptic radical Protestantism can really make you find peace within is not clear to me at the present time, but I promise I´ll finally read E G White´s portion of the tract as soon as I can!   

The advent of the beavers

 

Do beavers have daylight savings time?  This question is never answered in this curious video, which argues that beavers (yes, the fluffy rodents) keep the Jewish Sabbath day?! 

This has supposedly been scientifically proven. Scientists all over the beaver-inhabited world marvel at the fact that these hard-working Rodentia stop their activities at Friday evening and keep their peace until Sunday morning, roughly corresponding to the Biblical Sabbath. Apparently, honeybees also stop working on Saturdays.

Eh, wut?

Sources please! The provenance of the video might perhaps explain a thing or two. It´s apparently uploaded by a Seventh Day Adventist. The SDA Church keeps the Sabbath on Saturdays, in contrast to most Christians, who argue that Sunday became the new Sabbath when Jesus was resurrected on that particular day. Thus, the argument is that the original Sabbath must be the true and eternal one, since even Nature itself still follows it.

It seems even the person or persons who uploaded the video aren´t entirely convinced, since in the commentary section, they argues that the beavers mentioned are just one specific colony rather than the entire species. Which the video explicitly does *not* say - it claims that all Castor are Sabbath-keepers. Besides, the claim that only one unique beaver colony follows God´s injunctions would be equally sensational!

I suppose this gives an entirely new meaning to the term "natural theology". I´m at loss for words. Yeah, really.      

Three churches without a name

 

I actually read about the Two-by-Twos years ago, probably in a rather voluminous book edited by J Gordon Melton. They are also known as "the Church without a Name". Somewhat ironically, there are actually *three* somewhat different churches without a name, since both original leaders of the movement left to form their own (somewhat similar) groups! 

The Two-by-Twos are surprisingly secretive even in the Internet age, and most information on the group apparently comes from ex-members (see also the mostly critical commentaries below the video clip). It seems they hardly have any Internet presence, and very little written material. Membership is unknown, but the group does seem to be international in scope. 

Theologically, there seem to be certain similarities with the Jehovah´s Witnesses, such as an "Arian" view of God and Christ, or the rejection of military service. There are two classes of members, the "workers" and the laity, with the former apparently having to be celibate and engaged in full-time preaching. One very distinctive doctrine is that nobody can be saved except through *hearing* the Two-by-Twos preach, so just reading the Bible isn´t enough!

In the commentary thread, many ex-members accuse the movement of being a cult. They certainly seem rather strange. 

Interesting. 

The archangel of many names

 

A short and somewhat in-house piece by Jesus Mythicist Richard Carrier, arguing that Jesus and Michael were the same angelic personage. In early Christian theology, obviously! The evidence isn´t conclusive, but it remains a tantalizing possibility. "I´m not saying Jesus is Michael, I´m just saying that nobody has seen Jesus and Michael in the same room at the same time".

Of course, Carrier connects the angelomorphic character of Jesus to the Mythicist claim that no historical person named "Jesus" ever existed. Note also that if Carrier is right, the dying and rising god-man would have been a Jewish/Biblical idea, not an external pagan influence. Which is a *Christian* idea, here secularized and turned into creative mythology. To our atheist author, this simply means that Christianity was one of many quirky Jewish sects. 

Carrier also points out that the Jehovah´s Witnesses identify Jesus and Michael. So the Witnesses might be right (!) on this particular point. 

Was Jesus-is-Michael an early Christian mystery teaching?

Amended faith

 

A good introduction to the Christadelphians, a non-Trinitarian Christian group superficially similar to the Jehovah´s Witnesses. They reject the existence of an immortal soul, heaven, hell, demons, and the devil. Jesus wasn´t divine. The resurrection and the millennium are real, though. 

The Christadelphians explicitly say that the mentally handicapped and children who die early can´t inherit the Kingdom of God, since they can´t understand God´s message. Interestingly, the Christadelphians don´t always oppose abortion. Could there be a connection to the idea that the fetus isn´t a vehicle for an immortal soul? Specifically, would they support abortion of a mentally handicapped child? 

There seems to be more to explore here! 

One thing I was unaware of is that at least some Christadelphians hold that God has a physical body and isn´t invisible. In the Adventist milieu, I tend to associate that idea more with the Bible Students. 

This particular YouTube channel is often rather boring, but here the content-creator did score a hit. 

Also, read this old blog post of mine:

Unamended faith? 

"We had no sub-machine guns"

 

A 1987 interview with David Koresh, rerun on American TV on the eve of the 1993 Waco siege. Frankly bizarre stuff! One thing that struck me was that Koresh doesn´t seem particularly charismatic... 

As far as I understand, James Tabor was the guy who tried to "talk Koresh down" during the siege, attempting to convince him that his Bible interpretation was in error!  

Being awkward

 

These guys talk too much, and this isn´t *the* most exciting content around, but if you can spare 45 minutes or so - and are obsessed with all things JW-related - I suppose it could be of some passing interest.

Michael Jackson was a former Jehovah´s Witness, and the first clip deals with his first Christmas at Neverland c/o Liz Taylor. The second clip comments a line in song by Taylor Swift, attacking the old fashioned dressing style of the JW´s. 

Enjoy!