See: Barrow Alaska Winter
This presents an issue for Sabbath-keeping organizations around the world. Like the Seventh Day Adventists, some COG ministers say that people who live in these regions should keep the sabbath at "Jerusalem time", proving once again how they pick and choose how to interpret scriptures. Scriptures meant for specific people for a specific time and region.
A person in a Facebook group of ex-SDA had another version on how to keep sabbath:
We have the same situation in northern Norway. The way it is handled by adventists is to keep sabbath from noon Friday until noon Saturday during wintertime without sunrises, and from midnight Friday night until midnight Saturday night in the summertime without sunsets. Serious sabbathkeepers will leave work before noon on Fridays those weeks during the winter, a real challenge as far as work is concerned.
10 comments:
Yes, scriptures commanding a sunset to sunset Sabbath have their complications above the Arctic Circle.
But, what, then, are the scriptures that command the International Dateline to be in the Pacific Ocean (meaning the Sabbath proceeds across the globe from Asia westward to, finally, the New World)? If the Sabbath was uninterrupted from the days of Adam and Eve, would it not have traveled with their descendants, which would have included humans living in the New World in, say, 1492. From a human dispersal perspective, people coming into the New World would have to keep the Sabbath before it got to the Middle East. Historically, doesn’t that place the International Dateline in the Atlantic, previously created by humans settling the New World from the east?
If that’s so, New World Sabbatarians (from Europe) have been keeping the Sabbath a day late since 1492.
Or...the keeping of the Sabbath was scripturally mandated only for the specific people to which it was given, applicable for a time, in the region in which those peopled, in the Middle East. All of that, then, changed with the worldwide applicability of the New Covenant.
Which makes more sense? Which more directly comports with Scripture? An artificial, imposed mid-Pacific dateline and contrived, non-scriptural Sabbath observance times in polar regions? Or a New Covenant perspective, lacking such time observations but mandating new, better teachings?
Orthodox Jews believe that non-Jews are under the 7 Noahide Laws. Sabbath observance is not in this Noahide Laws. Such teaching of a separate laws for non-Jews is not found in Tanakh.
I do not know the solution to the scenario but Sabbath observance is important to God.
Yad Vashem ('a place and a name'), The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, got it's name from Isa 56:5. The verse is part of the promise by God not only to the Jews but to all mankind.
Isaiah 56:3-8 ... Do not let the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord speak, saying, “The Lord has utterly separated me from His people”; Nor let the eunuch say, “Here I am, a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, and choose what pleases Me, and hold fast My covenant, even to them I will give in My house and within My walls a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
“Also the sons of the foreigner who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants- Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, and holds fast My covenant— Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on My altar; For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, says, “Yet I will gather to him others besides those who are gathered to him.”
COGers' problem is they believe in an old-fangled god who lived in a flat-earth cosmos who commanded to be worshiped in flat-earth cosmos, while they live and worship in spherical-earth cosmos in which those commandments were never designed to have to operate.
If COGers ever hope to get right with an old-fangled Mesopotamian deity who watches and accounts for every jot and every tittle, then they're really going to have to stop listening to all this new-fangled sciency stuff, get out their shovels, and start burying their heads an awful lot deeper than they're already buried.
Has this website being overtaken ? This was covered ten years ago by UCG on their notorious white paper letter that went down like a lead balloon.
I stopped keeping the Sabbath 25 years ago when I left the WCG. A burden has been lifted off my back. When I kept the Sabbath I was always reminded that we where to rejoice in the Sabbath. I did not rejoice in the Sabbath. I always felt guilty that I wasn't keeping the Sabbath the way it was to be kept. I also was constantly worried about losing my job because I refused to work on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was a burden to me, I never enjoyed the Sabbath. Not being a social person it was always an emotional drain on me to spend hours with the people in the large congregation I attended. The Sabbath drained me of energy. It was not a rest for me. I would have been more at rest if I would of went to work that day and used that time productively. The satisfaction I get from doing a job well and getting something done is more relaxing to me then keeping a day that was a drain on me emotionally.
The Bible is practical on many fronts. Example- Ox in the ditch. In the end , from Gods perspective, it often is not "what you do" that matters , but "why you are doing it" that is important. It must be motivated by love, and commitment to honoring God, and benefiting others.
it seems more logical to keep the Sabbath from 6pm - 6pm during the time where there is no sunset/sunrise....but that's just me.
The basic problem is that Armstrongism does not accept that there are evolutionary processes which naturally take place as more accurate data is collected, as mankind continues to quantify human behavior, and as new worlds, and new horizons are explored and populated. Some events which cause huge changes in perception involve wars, invasions, and captivities. Armstrongites are aware of some of these processes, but do not accept the fact that they should cause reinterpretation and new understandings to fit the new contexts. A huge event happened in the first century of the common era, when Christianity expanded beyond the constraints of the Jewish culture and nation (which was actually a nation functioning under captivity once again), and into the so-called "Gentile" (a Judeo-centric word) nations.
Any entity that becomes static is in the process of deteriorating, or dying, This is the lesson even found in the case of rock or stone. Armstrongites are people with a strong desire that everything they believe, all of their practices, their culture, and living conditions will remain fixed and static. You might say that that is one of the founding precepts of their belief system. They believe that progressive change and refinement constitute degeneration.
Yet, there were many changes just in the short number of decades in which Armstrongism has existed. You see the question posed: "Which era of HWA's leadership do you follow? The era of no doctors, zero tolerance towards divorce, the 1940s dictating all clothing styles, and Pentecost on Monday? Back on Track? Early '80s?" WCG morphed considerably during King Herbert's reign, and with each of the splinters claiming to be preservers of "the Apostle's faith once delivered" even as they, too, morph, the morphing is now on an accelerated path.
And, this is only taking into account perhaps 79-90 years of church history. These same forces of change were in play from day one. The Bible does not spell out the specifics that Adam and Eve (be they metaphoric or real) were taught. HWA backwrote the Sinai covenant into the creation narrative for us. Was this the reality? Or was Noahide law, or even some other basic form of guidance taught to Adam and Eve? The Bible is often sparse in verbiage, leaving much to interpretation. It is not possible to deduce the rigid form of legalism which we were taught from the words of the Bible. That's an extrapolation of HWA's personality, and was a construct largely concocted to suit his empire-building purposes.
No, the minute the sabbath expanded into applications beyond Jerusalem, reinterpretation was required in an effort to make it fit. The lesson of sunset to sunset in the polar regions, or the fact that the holy days are upside down with the seasons of the southern hemisphere should make this obvious. This is not unique to Armstrongism, however. Astrology is also northern hemisphere-centric. There is a new set of constellations visible in South America, Australia, etc.
Armstrongism long ago passed it's time and date stamp. It is currently nothing more than a sado-masochistic nostalgia act. The members of the various clubs don't even practice the Golden Rule on those outside of their own myopic group. And the ministry has never, ever officially practiced the Golden Rule on their own members. I say officially, because some few ministers actually did rebel and preserve their God-given consciences.
BB
The pie slices created by longitude taper down to nothing as you approach the north and south poles. Even the concept of time zones itself becomes tenuous.
BB
BB,
Are you a flat earther?? These are obviously more like watermelon slices. just kidding.
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