Wednesday, June 14, 2017

If your child was malnourished and starving, would you feed your child pork?



For many decades I have heard more than one COG member who has said they would refuse to let any "unclean" meat touch their lips, even if they were starving to death. or even in a concentration camp.

Would parents let their child die if the only food around was pork or some kind of shellfish?

The reason I ask this is that certain splinter cults of Armstrongism claim to have a large presence in Africa where this is an issue.  Wade Cox and Bob Thiel both claim they have thousands of followers in Africa.  Cox takes that a step further and claims half of the African continent are now his followers.

Not only are various Church of God splinter group active in Africa, but there are Seventh Day Adventists too.  All of these groups are cults that have their origin in American mythological faith-based upstarts who had dreams and visions from their "god".

There is an article that was posted today on an exSDA Facebook page.  It discusses how African children are starving because of the "health" rules set down by the SDA's, i.e. vegetarianism.  Growing children need meat in addition to vegetarian foods.  This is an established and well-researched fact.

The article says this:


ADVENTIST SECTS ARE STARVING PEOPLE IN THE CONGO
A report published on May 25 in a Spanish online news source, El Confidencial, carried a heart-wrenching report by Trinidad Deiros writing from the territory of Masisi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The author ran the piece under the title (translated using Google Translate), “The ‘Famine Sects’ in Congo: Protestant churches that aggravate malnutrition”, and the details are alarming. 
The piece opens with the story of a mother, 25-year-old Antoinette, who walked 60 kilometers through the remote trails in the Masisi territory in the eastern region of the Congo, still occupied by both soldiers and bandits, to reach the Kibabi Health Center in North Kivu, the province of the Masisi Territory. Their trek took a week to complete, and the two of them took shelter in the homes of village people along the way when night would fall. Antoinette carried her five-year-old daughter Sarah on her back because Sarah, who is the size and weight of a two-year-old, is unable to walk and is suffering from acute malnutrition and nutritional edema in her feet. 
When the nurse at the health center tried to help Sarah to stand up, the child was unable to do so and broke into inconsolable crying. Antoinette clearly loves her daughter, but when the health professionals talked to her about Sarah’s diet contributing to the girl’s sickness, Antoinette responded that “she would never give her meat” to eat. In fact, not only would she never give her daughter meat, but she would never feed her milk, fish, eggs, or anything with an animal origin. 
“All animals are contaminated,” she says, explaining that her church forbids eating animal products. “If you taste flesh, you do not enter paradise.”

This woman was a member of an SDA splinter group.  Like the COG, SDAism has produced thousands of splinter groups with leaders who claim they know more than anyone else. One of the reasons Church of God cults like Bob Thiel and Wade Cox can garner lots of African members is because Sabbatarianism already has a foothold in many African nations.  These people, in their earnest desire to do what they think is right, will jump ship regularly when some other Sabbatarian group claims to have more enlightenment.

Note the many similarities to Armstrongism as the article continues on:


Antoinette is a member of a Seventh-day Adventist offshoot religion called church of Temperance [iglesia de la “TempĂ©rance”] which has a large number of followers in the Masisi territory of the Congo. According to humanitarian workers in the region (such as those with the Italian NGO Cooperation Internazionale [COOPI] and ECHO, the European Union’s humanitarian agency), this Adventist offshoot believes in creation, a millennium, and the return of Jesus Christ to Earth. It considers itself to be the true continuation of the “church of the Apostles”—a claim which strongly echoes traditional Adventist belief. 
Significantly, the church of Temperance also claims the Seventh-day Adventist prophet, Ellen White, as its source of spiritual direction.
Local health workers further state that this sect operates by a literal interpretation of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, and it insists that its followers adopt the “edenic diet” of fruit, vegetables, and legumes. Strictly vegan, they believe that any product of animal origin is “unclean”. 
The church of Temperance, however, is not the only religions group exacerbating the widespread malnutrition in the Congo. In the same hospital room where Antoinette sits with her critically ill daughter, there is another mother with her malnourished child. When asked, this woman responded that her religion is “Adventist”. 
Health workers report that while the Seventh-day Adventist church is not as rigid in its food restrictions as is the church of Temperance, it nevertheless puts its members at risk. While the Adventists do allow “clean meats” and dairy, the reality of Congo poverty is that permissible food is hard to attain. While a vegetarian or even a vegan diet may pose no health threat in a place such as the United States, in the Congo the population is impoverished and lives with a nutritionally deficient diet. 
How many Church of God members would do the same thing today?  Will the Thielites and Coxites suffer at some point in the future because deluded men based outside Africa have told them they should not eat pork?

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

We had an idiot minister who once said that God would never tempt us in this kind of a situation. God would provide a chicken or a lamb. Really?

DPR567 said...

Back in the days when I was in WCG I ate "unclean" meat if I had too and many a times I definitely had to because there was no way in hell I was gonna starve myself because of that damn church. The "clean" meats were always slightly more expensive and because of all that tithing crap I was always strapped for cash.

Byker Bob said...

If children are starving in Africa because of the doctrines taught by Bob Thiel and Wade Cox, then it is Theil and Cox's Chistian responsibility to povide them with clean foods. No ifs, ands or buts! Scared, Bob and Wade? Think maybe this could bankrupt you? Then you should do as you counsel your followers: trust God to provide for your needs.

Here in the USA, there are food banks which distribute donated foods to the needy. Some of these food banks are run by the Catholic Church, and others are more secular, but are often resupplied through food drives conducted by local chuches. One wonders if people impoverished by ACOG extremists such as Dave Pack would even be permitted to obtain food from, say, St. Mary's Food Bank.

People are generally omnivores. If starving, they have been known to eat insects or rats. Several years ago, we were asked to pray for people in Haiti after the earthquake. Conditions were so bad at that time that Haitian parents were feeding their starving children dirt cookies.

Since Armstrongism is based on introducing a Messiah into Judaism, it seems important to examine the records and thoughts of the ancient rabbis. The traditional teaching was that the first duty of humans was survival.

Don't expect anything like common sense from any of the ACOG leaders. They always use the law to counter humanitarian activities. Vic Kubik's charity tried to give cows to the African UCG members, and the COGaWA people claimed them as their own following the big splinter. If people can't even work together to prevent starvation, how would we expect them to work together to preserve a church?

BB

Byker Bob said...

By the way, this begs a question. With twenty million Christian sabbath keepers in Africa, only 3 million being Seventh Day Adventist, according to Armstrong theology, wouldn't we expect accompanying epic miracles and increased understanding and blessings as the natural result? This represents the greatest concentration of seventh day sabbath keepers anywhere on the face of the earth! One would expect that Africa would be blessed above all nations, assuming that the sabbath is in force under the New Covenant! N'est ce pas?

BB

RSK said...

I am recalling the MOVE group now in Philly, who supposedly had many cases of malnourished children due to their insistence on a diet of raw vegetables (and presumably, a monotonous one since a proper range of vegetables and correct preparation doesnt require meat consumption).

But anyway. David ate the sanctified bread on the run, and Aaron had the sacrificial goat burned due to lack of appetite. Biblegod didnt seem to mind. Anyone who declares "I will never eat a particle of unclean meat under any circumstances!" has to be either foolish, reckless, or trying to score virtue points somewhere. I can only see one particular scenario that might make sense, and its a long shot.
Hey, Steven Callahan survived 70-odd days alone on an inflatable raft in the Atlantic, eating raw fish he speared. Do ya think trying to figure out if the fish were "clean" would have gotten him all the way to rescue?

Anonymous said...

1 Corinthians 10...

Hoss said...

Although Maccabees contains an account of a man whose refusal to eat pork resulted in being fried to death, Jewish thinking generally puts preservation of life over keeping certain commands. I suppose that's an ox, or rather, a pig, in a ditch situation.

FireStorm said...

Wonder how many ACOG members starved rather than eat unclean meats ?

DennisCDiehl said...

No problem. If push comes to shove, the OT has plenty of examples of the Jews eating each other.

Deuteronomy 28:53-57 (also Lev 26:29)

Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you. Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. The most gentle and sensitive woman among you - so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot - will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities.

2 Kings 6:26-29

As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, "Help me, my lord the king!"

The king replied, "If the Lord does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?" Then he asked her, "What's the matter?"

She answered, "This woman said to me, 'Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we'll eat my son.' So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, 'Give up your son so we may eat him,' but she had hidden him."

Jeremiah 19:9 (also Ezek 5:10)

I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another's flesh during the stress of the siege imposed on them by the enemies who seek their lives.

Lamentations 4:10

With their own hands compassionate women
have cooked their own children,
who became their food
when my people were destroyed.

On a spiritual note: Which of course, is a metaphor but still....

John 6:53-56

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.

Most of the above passages apply to the siege of Jerusalem.

DennisCDiehl said...

Dean Blackwell, of "From the Snout to the Tail" pigs fame always answered this question by saying one should follow the pig home and eat the veggies it was eating to get so edible itself.

DennisCDiehl said...


From the Tail to His Snout

Dean Blackwell's favorite:


Do you think, brother, that in God’s great plan
When He was prescribing the best food for man,

Think he made a mistake in leaving the swine out
For he was not good from his tail to his snout?

Oh, the carcass of an old dead horse or a cow
Don’t get too rotten for a dirty old sow;

Though we holler a lot about boils and gout
We eat Miss Piggy from her tail to her snout

We couldn’t eat the buzzard, we’d think it a crime,
But how much more filthy is he than the swine

That we make into pie, or we cook him with kraut
And eat him or die, from his tail to his snout?

We cook him with cabbage or boil him with greens,
With his mangy old hide we season our beans;

With his scabs and his boils within and without
Sweet Piggy we eat from his tail to his snout.

On filth they feast, while in stink-holes they lay
And still for their carcass our money we pay;

The preacher, professor, or the judge on his bench
Eat the carrion-eater, his filth, and his stench.

In the filth you can see him clear up to his eyes
His slimy old carcass all covered with flies;

Most dead with cholera (due to butcher, no doubt),
We still think him good from tail to snout.

We eat the old grunter, we eat the young shoat;
The fat that we fancied may be pus or bloat;

It would smell as good, and as healthy no doubt
As the hoofs and the hide, the tail and the snout.

Isaiah 66:17

We may like him lean, or may like him best fat;
Just as well eat the dog, or else eat a cat;

Just as well eat the buzzard, the owl or the bat,
The lizard or the snake, the mouse or the rat.

Our most sensitive natures would almost run wild
If we handled the corpse of a man or a child,

But we sit at our table and cram down our throat
With the greatest relish—the corpse of a shoat.

God made him a scavenger, He says he’s unclean;
What other creature is as filthy and mean?

If we eat his flesh, or touch his dead carcass
With sin and disease it surely will mark us.

‘Tis sad, brother, although God’s Word is just,
We eat the slop-eater, for eat him we must;

The dirtiest of beast we will not do without,
But eat them we will, from the tail to the snout.

Now we sing and we talk of God’s love so divine;
Like vultures, then feast on the dirty old swine.

We might shun many ills, and diseases, no doubt,
By not eating him—from his tail to his snout.

Yes, we worship the Lord, and pray and shout,
But that old hog flavor we can’t do without;

For ham, bacon, and sausage, we go the whole route
And eat the whole hog from his tail to his snout.

In God’s Word we find he is classed with the dog,
No matter how highbred he still is a hog.

Though you wash him, or teach if you will,
He still will go back to his mire and his swill.

We’d be better off if we obeyed God’s command,
And ate vegetables, grain and fruit of the land,

Then it wouldn’t take half of the tonic and pills
To relieve all mankind of their swine-fed ills.

You may think of fresh pork as a very rare treat
But our bodies are made of just what we eat,

And the food he has eaten, the filth of the land,
Goes into our body as food, second-hand

No wonder we are weak and heart beats are slow,
Sanitariums full, hospitals o’erflow,

For we eat such unclean, abominable things
That are creeping, crawling, or flying with wings.

God forbade us to eat these dirty old creatures,
No matter what is the theory of preachers;

If left to man’s opinion—we’d not know the right,
But thank the Lord, in His Word there is light.

Luke 4:2, 5

And now, my brother, you may no doubt recall—
Indulgence of appetite caused Adam’s fall.

Our Saviour was tempted on this point, no doubt
Then why do we eat from his tail to his snout?

Revelation 22:11, 12

Now I’ve told you my story, recited my piece;
If you can eat pork with your conscience at ease,

If sin, filth, or disease, you care little about—
Keep on eating the brute, from his tail to his snout.

I saw Bob Thiel eat pork while in LCG said...

Ever since I easily proved that the food laws are not required on the New Covenant, my kids have been eating bacon, shrimp and any thing else they like.

the Ocelot said...

These people as just as had as those PETA freaks.

nck said...

For those interested.

SDAĂ­sm thrives in the agricultural parts of countries in Africa.
Not surprisingly since SDAĂ­sm originated in agriculture. (re Kelloggs, Battle Creek)

A lot of these agricultural parts of countries are operated by Multinational corporations serving you tea and spices. They also bring the blessings of education, material wealth and security. (all relative to local circumstance of course)

Other communities are operated in local cooperative form and deliver their spice through other channels.

Anyway what I am saying is that ANYTTIME one enters a CHRISTIAN community in either Asia or Africa one feels like this community is blessed in comparison to other communities. This also goes for the SDA communities in Africa. Better health, better hospitals, better education.

I will leave it up to you to analyse the reasons, causes, roots, (first chicken or egg?) if you so please but hope to at least have provided some background on my observations travelling to each and every country in the world.

I am not saying or implying christians are better. I'm just saying such communities in foreign land look like oasis to the passer by.

nck

Anonymous said...

https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/bacon-soda-too-few-nuts-tied-big-portion-170115771.html

nck said...

Staying on topic.

The very question asked in the header of this topic I often used to pose at my SDA/WCG parents. Reaching its pinnacle when that plane with the sports team disappeared in the Andes.
I can't remember my moms answer about eating people. But I don't recall having asked the question again after this Andes incident. Extrapolating the loving mother that she was I believe she would have allowed me to eat the sports team for this "rare" occasion.

nck

Steve D said...

Paul tells us that if we don't take care of our families, we are worse than an unbeliever. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love. If there are no clean foods, you eat what you can. It is the most loving thing to do, rather than allow family members to go hungry, especially children.

Hoss said...

Anonymous I saw Bob Thiel eat pork while in LCG wrote: ...I easily proved that the food laws are not required on the New Covenant...

I hope your proof wasn't Mark 7 and Acts 10. If you do have a definitive proof, please share it.

And speaking of Bob Thiel, his letter on CCOG shows his African congregations with some healthy looking squash they said grew from seeds he sent.

Helen Wheels said...

I don't have any definitive proof that the food laws are not required under the new covenant, however, I have easily proved that the bible is a fatally flawed, completely contradictory, rather uninspired anthology of ancient texts written by people, and not gods. That doesn't mean I particularly care for either pork or shellfish though I no longer avoid them "religiously"...

...but it is nice to be free of the burden of superstition and fear of ancient cults and modern conmen...

Anonymous said...

The faithful answer is that God will provide non-pork meals to those who obey. Starvation is caused by sin, not withholding pork.

Anonymous '68 said...

If You Believe That Crock Of Sh*t, Then You Are A Damn Fool!

Byker Bob said...

Let's not forget that if your children are drinking commercial Vitamin D enriched milk, all of that Vitamin D has been synthesized from porcine sources. Any product you purchase at the store with milk in the ingredients probably contains it as well.

If your kids eat pancakes at a restaurant during the Feast, those are grilled on the same grill as the Hormel pork bacon and Jimmy Dean pork sausage. The grill is scraped between orders, not washed. Your kids are getting a little oink in their pancakes! Betcha never thought of that!

BB

Thiel, the pork eater said...

I know Thiel had pork while in LCG because he was served food that had pork products in it at a potluck. I snickered at that one for days.

Unknown said...

Many COG leaders need to experience PROSECUTION!...

IN A COURT OF LAW!

RSK said...

How did pork get to a COG potluck?

Anonymous said...

Helen Wheels wow what a comment to write because in a previous comment from a few weeks back, you wrote on this website, that you are from UCG and how you emailed Victor Kubic in 2010 complaining about how certain situations were building implying you are of RANK and not file in United.
The average brethren do not pop on their computer to email Victor Kubic especially in 2010.
Are you Helen Wheels admitting as a power person in United to be free and easy on unclean food?

Hoss said...

RSK asks How did pork get to a COG potluck?

I'm sure it was possible, perhaps a donation by a newbie who hadn't heard about dietary restrictions.
At an FOT, a guest house owner was invited to attend services, and in appreciation made the WCG guests a shrimp salad. During the Night to be Much Remembered, a half-eaten cake was quickly disposed of when it was found the person who brought it was not clear about unleavened. And a member told me that on the first day he attended services, he had lunch with an elder, who politely ignored that he was eating a ham sandwich. And there are more stories.
So I could imagine pork getting into a potluck...

Byker Bob said...

Common unclean animals were generally known to church members. There is such a variety of food available at restaurants frequented at the feasts that the kinds of people who find dna confusing would have difficulty in tracking. I knew an Ambassador College student who did not realize that swordfish was unclean. Many people have been shocked by bacon on the edges of filet mignon, or bacon bits in salad or stuffed potatoes. People have ordered something as innocent as spaghetti and meatballs, not realizing that the meatballs are made of a mixture of beef and pork.

Church members were not all cullinary experts. Some purchased prepared foods to bring to potluck at the deli counters in their local supermarkets, not fully knowing the ingredients. Blaming people for accidentally eating this stuff makes about as much sense as blaming some of Bill Cosby's lady friends for taking quaaludes.

BB

nck said...

When reasoning with cog people I doubt that any would deny that it is possible to reach a hundred years and eat bacon every day.

By harping on the "health" argument I think most are trying to say "God has the best intentions for us", in a non scholarly way.

Having said that, I had a brother in law who made a sport of and got a kick out of mentioning the lard etc anytime I took my cog parents our for instance to a pancake restaurant. That was funny up to a certain level.

For the sake of relaxation I never mention the insect red color dye on the M&M's when taking cog people to apostate movies like "Moses".

However, I do wonder what would be deemed worse by them. The insect red COLOR dye on the M&M's or the Marzipan present in the SHAPE of a pink piglet.

Perhaps God is testing/probing the attitudes and character of the "contextual" people more than the actual adherents to his creeds.

nck