Its time for the joyous season of gift giving and magnificent banquets of food prepared in abundance celebrating the season of peace ever lasting. In the Church of God the Feast was a time of giving gifts to children left out from the Christmas celebrations. Fabulous and exotic destinations were traveled to and wondrous foods and alcohol consumed.
There was little talk of Jesus at this time though. Since Jesus always gets short shifted it the COG here's a great song to remind them of what they are pseudo-celebrating.
Merry FOT...lol...too true.
ReplyDeleteSuch a pretty hymn. In WCG, we used to say, "The devil got all the good music." Meanwhile we got stuck with Dwight's abysmal ditties, in which he took no pains whatsoever to avoid the psalmists' most barbaric sentiments. With a god like that, who needs a devil? A scapegoat, perhaps...
Meanwhile, we find a way to turn a Judeo-pagan harvest festival into an xmas equivalent, and an excuse to sing 50 lame hymns. I swear, the horrible hymns sung over and over and over again may not have been the worst thing about Armstrongism, but IMHO, they're right up there.
Would have been better off and more honest to have sung The Eight Days of Tabernacles and maybe some Harvest Home hymns too.
It's a little early for Christmas music, but this is one of my favorites. Nothing like a great choir and a grand pipe organ in a giant cathedral... Sorry ACOG spinoffs, sometimes the conference room of a Holiday Inn doesn't quite cut it.
ReplyDeleteRonco
Geez Bud, sour grapes much?
ReplyDeleteYour stories on here rarely match what I have found at the Feast of Tabernacles.
LOL! This is so true! I remember many times coming home from the Feast and on the first Sabbath back at church the first question I was asked was "What Feast presents did you get?"
ReplyDeleteI wonder if any COGlodytes try to attend a site where the NASCAR races are taking place the weekend falling during the F/T. I don't know the specific dates for it this year, but Martinsville, Charlotte, and Talledega are the next three NASCAR events. Ditching the doom, gloom, and joy on command for a couple days to take in the races would truly make it "the best feast ever"! Lots of booze at the racetrack, too, so you wouldn't lose the spirit of the feast.
ReplyDeleteBB
There is no Scriptural reason for anyone to go to some eight day assembly to listen for sermons during that time. That is not what the Israelites did.
ReplyDeleteThey made themselves booths in their own homes. Or visited someone who had made a booth in his own home. Some of their booths were made on the roof as stated in Nehemiah 8:13. They shared the same religion and they were all celebrating it so they celebrated it together.
They were not a small sect that were only a small part of the population. They were in their own land and celebrated it together sort of like a national holiday.
The ancient Jews did not go to some far away place and sit together in some auditorium just to be subjected to eight days of indoctrination. Only the COGs following HWA imagined doing something like that. It is a man made tradition HWA created. It is not from the Bible.
There is no Scriptural reason to observe this so-called Feast of Tabernacles. They should have given it another name because it is a man made tradition that was never observed before.
Feasting, a lot of booze flowing, a lot of money being spent on gifts ect.. Isn't the F.O.T. a lot like Xmas?
ReplyDeleteBy the way doesn't the COG's believe that Jesus was born around the time of the fall holy days. Are they really celebrating his birth anyways.
The fact is it is questionable that a historical Jesus existed at all, so all these holy days observed by Christians are humanly devised.
To: Byker Bob
ReplyDeleteFunny you should mention Nascar. The PCg always held their annual pine car derby race in Fort Worth around Christmas. This was the one and only event us outside of >headquarters<(Edmond)we were allowed to enjoy. Of course >headquarters< were feasting all year around. Other poor souls not privileged to live at >headquarters< and giving all their money to >headquarters< were visiting Catholic food banks to get through the wonderful "feast" season.
Not to worry: I don't have the exact calculations, but somewhere around 20,000 years from now, the Feast of Tabernacles will be celebrated December 25th through January 1st because of the vagaries of the Hillel II Calendar which the Jews know are wrong, but can't fix because there is no Sanhedrin. The Spring Equinox is April 6th? Really? That's stupid -- but that's the demarcation point for calculating the calendar.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the Jews have another problem: They are a bit short sighted, not considering a global economy and all -- just a few days away for the Spring Feast of Tabernacles in Australia. That makes no sense at all. Maybe the Australians at the Feast of Tabernacles can all sing, "All is safely gathered in, err the summer storms begin..." or something like that.
If God really wanted Christians (especially the Gentile Christians of the United States and British Commonwealth) to celebrate the ancient Israelite physical rituals given to an unconverted people without faith, you'd think He'd honor the land Sabbath the Armstrongist farmers tried to keep but went broke, borrowed, bankrupt and even lost their land because God didn't keep His non promise to give the farmers double in the 6th year. It's pretty obvious that God doesn't want us to steal the physical rituals He gave to an ancient people in a particular land and transmogrify them into something that isn't really all that godly, being Church Corporate Cult Conventions replete with gluttony and alcoholic boozing: "Let the Herald Angel sing," Armstrongist the booze do bring.
So when you're at the Feast this year, why don't you make those Christmas sugar cookies, hot cross buns and Halloween ginger bread men, because after all that is said and done, it makes not one whit of difference. And remember, the geese are getting fat.
And anyway, you're not keeping the feasts on the right days anyway -- no one is -- not that you could keep the Feast the way God wants it kept anyway, what with an incestuous idolater sociopath creating a faux religion by rebelling against his peers in the CoG7D and all. You really think that God would bless you for following a glutinous alcoholic false prophet whose judgment is death? Why would you think that?
But we'll discuss that some other time.
Put up temporary booths made of palm fronds, why don't you?
Say! How is that so different from Christmas trees?
From The Wanderer
ReplyDelete"were visiting Catholic food banks to get through the wonderful "feast" season"
Please tell me more about this. My God tells me to take care of those who are widowed etc. Should not be this way..but..we know...we..know.
Thank you
"The PCg always held their annual pine car derby race..."
ReplyDeleteNothing against those of you who enjoy pine car racing, but that activity seems typical of what cog endorses. Whether it be something like river dancing or a Sadie Hawkins dance, it nearly always seems to be steeped in the past or square.
I used to find the constant reminders about what to do with "excess second tithe" to be a bit strange given how many members were sleeping 4 or 5 to a room at the Motel 6 while the ministurds were up in lavish condo dwellings. Seemed to me the the whole thing could have been handled better.
ReplyDeleteBut those of you who remember FOTs prior to 1970 might have more interesting insight.
"I used to find the constant reminders about what to do with "excess second tithe" to be a bit strange given how many members were sleeping 4 or 5 to a room at the Motel 6 while the ministurds were up in lavish condo dwellings. Seemed to me the the whole thing could have been handled better. "
ReplyDeleteThe only way it could have been handled "better," is if there were even luxurious accommodations available that the ministers weren't able to afford as it was, but could have, if they had only figured out to get the rest to sleep 6 or 7 to a room, thus freeing up more second tithe as "excess."
I tell you what I always did. If I had excess second tithe, I put it back in my bank account for next year! Now FOT just seems silly.
Lynn, if you've found nice Christmas songs at your church, please share them with us.
ReplyDeleteWe'll enjoy them, too.
The feast of tabernacles was nothing more or less than the celebration of the agricultural harvest. The Jewish god did not invent it. However, it was the same kind of feast as the pagan celebrations, there were sacrifices to be made, sometimes human but always BLOOD! A whole week of drunken revelry marks all harvest festivals, the feast of tabernacles was no exception. It was the only time of the year that disobedience to the law was allowed.
ReplyDeleteIf interested in NASCAR, and not wanting to be glued to the TV for three and a half to five hours for the latest race, I recommend watching the #1 box office film- Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
ReplyDeleteIt's only about 2 hours long, and is very Jesus-friendly, too!
There is a little noticed comment in The Good News September / October 2014 edition on Page 37 in "Questions and Answers":
ReplyDeleteThe Day of Atonement has a unique aspect to it, in that God instructs
us to afflict ourselves, which refers in other scriptures to fasting—going
without food and drink on that day (Leviticus 23:27-29; Isaiah 58:3, 5; Acts
27:9). Children and those with medical conditions for whom fasting could
be detrimental to their health are not expected to fast in this way.
So those with diabetes or kidney disease are exempt. Who else? Actually, to "afflict your soul" means that fasting is detrimental to your health, so doesn't that cover everybody?
So where does observance begin and end? Is Feast keeping really necessary to salvation? After all, you make an exception to one, that means that it's open season, doesn't it?
It's amazing that these morons don't seem to think things through.
At least it's one of the days the Armstrongist alcoholics won't be boozing it up (a sizeable majority) -- in theory; although, they don't call it the Feast of Booze for nothing.