Reading COG related message groups on Yahoo is never dull. Some of the things you read just boggle your mind. Yahoo is filled with a lot of COG members who have taken legalism to the extreme. Not content with the myriad of laws, rules and regulations that Armstrongism lays down upon them, they have also incorporated the 613 laws of orthodox Judaism into the lives. They are constantly harping about one law after another that Christians are 'required' to keep. There is never a discussion about Jesus, but hundreds and hundreds about the law. If Jesus is brought up it is only to say, "Christ would not approve." Saying the word Jesus is too effeminate or Protestant for most of them.
Anyway, one of the topics today was on levirate marriage. What's a poor woman to do if her young husband is sterile? Take sperm from a brother or the mans father and artificially inseminate? Since the man is not dead the woman cannot marry his brother, so sperm collection seems to be their best choice.
I was thinking about a young friend whose husband became sterile from cancer treatments and it got me thinking that he is "dead" to having the ability to raise up his own house (ben=house or sons)Responses:
For his brother to father him a child would fit in the spirit of levirate.
There was no "marriage" at all at first. Just creating a child. Marriage was added on much later to satisfy some people's problems with it, I suppose.
But I think this would be entirely right while the couple is young since we now have artificial insemination.
Again as I said before this service was only to be performed for the sake of "heaven" and no other reason.
"In this day & age, your friend could surely put some of the brother-in-law's stuff in a turkey baster & avoid the actual sexual relations... And if her husband helped out... well, just sayin' there is more than one way to skin a cat."
"I would think the church would not approve, however."
"I donno why not. Anyway, if it were me, I would not tell the church--why would the church need to know such personal business!"
And to end the discussion the uber-legalist on the board always has this response:
"Christ is the head of the Church and He would certainly know, and He is the only important One!!"
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We will be free when we no longer give a rats ass about how the Jews , Israel or the Bible views things...
ReplyDeleteI agree. Who cares what the Bible says about anything. I'm no longer that dumb.
ReplyDeleteThe question that all Armstrongists should be asking themselves right now at the beginning of the New Year is, "Is God really happy with us"?
ReplyDeleteThere are certain indications, such as divisions and lack of growth....
Happily, they are being weakened by all their infighting.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as people become more enlightened, their message has less appeal. It's a far different world from the one I grew up in during the 40s and 50s. Ignorance is still just about as rife as ever in the Bible belt, but it has seriously declined elsewhere.
That fact drives the fanatics wild.
Allen, I love it, thanks for your inspiration (as an amalgam from your last posting):
ReplyDelete"Ignorance is declining!"
What a horrible thought -- we had so much hope before this.
""Is God really happy with us"?"
ReplyDeleteHow would they know? Given that believers take any action whether "bad" or "good" and attribute it as an answer from god:
"Our numbers are declining. We certainly are the 'little flock.' The world simply isn't interested in God's Truth."
-or-
"Our numbers are increasing. He is certainly calling His people from out of the world."
You can apply this to any situation you can think of. But even if the COG's weren't playing mental acrobatics, how would they know whether their god is pleased or displeased with them??
Paul Ray
I've recently staged a disappearance from some of the forums which have a cadre of legalists participating. It gets old, posting things, and then being corrected by people applying the tenets of Armstrongism, and then even correcting you further when you label their corrections as Armstrongism.
ReplyDeleteTo some, this legalism seems obsessive-compulsive and ridiculous. But, for most Christians who understand grace, being exposed to constant legalism actually impedes growth by causing spiritual paranoia.
I guess we should be thankful that there were no obscure scriptures in some minor prophet of the Old Testament forbidding the passing of gas. All the hardcore Armstrongites would have "obediently" exploded their intestines and would be using that as a mark of true and deep Philadelphian conversion.
BB
In Daniel 7: 10 we read: “A surging stream of fire flowed out from where he sat.”
ReplyDeleteI don't know BB, This may be your smoking gun scripture for no fartage allowed or at least being a good thing!