recommending books

The following comment on the LCG Yahoo board describes why Armstrongism will NEVER grow or advance as a legitimate church. The idea that you are not to read anything outside Armstrongism's writings shows how utterly bankrupt the beliefs and teachings of the church truly are!

I have no idea why someone who claims to be a church member would
recommend a book or any writing by an unconverted, uncalled person in
whom God's Holy Spirit did not dwell to be used as a guideline for
Christian behavior. I don't care if the authors name is Henry David
Thoreau or someone else for that matter. The Bible Trumps all of
those writings. To imply the scriptures are incomplete as a guide for
Christian behavior and needs to be suplemented by some writing by an
unconverted person reflects the thought pattern of an unstable mind.
Even when a church's government is off track and even abusing people
we can find scriptures to help guide thru such a minefield. If more
time were spent reading the scriptures rather than reading writings
not inspired by God a diligent person could find the scriptural
guidance needed for every conceiveable situation. The Bible is
complete for our time - use it!!!

Dennis On: "A Scriptural Rewrite Maybe?"

A Scriptural Rewrite Maybe?  

Matthew 10

34“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Well this is just great!  Whatever happened to "Peace on Earth, good will to men," or " to men of good will," ???   Depends on which Gospel you read.  If this is Jesus goal on earth, he can just run for President!  Humans already have the no peace/sword thing down to a science.  Personally we don't need this kind of teaching as humans will use it to justify all kinds of religious chicanery and deceit. Besides we can't tell the Jesus wars from the human ones.  

 35For I have come to turn

“‘a man against his father,

a daughter against her mother,

a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—

 

36a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’^e

 

Just great!  Whatever happened to lions and lambs and little children leading them?  Why did I sing , "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak but he is strong..." if he is going to destroy my family and make us all hate each other!   I thought Jesus "loved the little children of the world!?"  

Besides, we don't need anyone causing MORE of this stuff.  We need something that causes LESS of it!  And I thought you said I wasn't suppose to have any enemies I didn't love?  Now you tell me I am the one, or you are the one Jesus who makes my enemies for me and those from the people I love!  You ain't right.

37“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;

38and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 

39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. "

Why can't we love our parents AND be worthy of YOU?  Didn't your Dad say something to us about Honor your mom and dad so we can live long?  Did I miss something?  Do you and your Dad get along?  I'm only asking because in our last "bad teachings" discussion we should note that Paul said your Dad ordained all the kingdoms and the leadership in this world as his agents for good, and yet in Revelation, you set out to take down these guys and make them do it all your way.  I'm just sayin.... Seems we have a Father/Son disagreement here!  Hey, is that why you feel this way?  You are at odds with your own Father so think we all have to be too to follow you?  Am I psychoanalyzing you too much?   Ok, sorry....

Anyway....

Dear Jesus,

Do you understand how much trouble this is going to cause in the gabillion denominations, sects, cults, schisms, splisms, slivers and splinters your "we are not divided, all one body we," churches?  Men will use this to cover justify all kinds of narcissistic control and supply for the nut case pastors who demand the people do just this.  These words, badly used, will cause all sorts of heartache and chaos in human lives and families and for no good reason.  Whole armies of the spiritually retarded will go to war and not care if they live or die because they die for you...or so they think but we know better don't we???  

Here, let me rewrite this for you...

34“Know you that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I came to bring peace, cookies and milk.

 

35  I have come to turn

“‘a man back  to his father,

a daughter back her to mother,

a daughter-in-law back to her mother-in-law—

 

36a man’s closest and most loving relationships will be the members of his own household.’^e 

37“Anyone who loves his father or mother imitates and loves me; anyone who loves his son or daughter imitates and loves me;

38and anyone who does take his cross and follow will be well pleased .

 39 In this love you will find your life and lose it not.  In as much as you have done it unto the least of these dear people, you have done it unto me.   Amen

There...that's better.  :)

Dennis C. Diehl

DenniscDiehl@aol.com

In Vetro Fertilization is an ABOMINATION! - It is illicit sex without face to face intercourse!!!!!!!

At least according to Apostle Malm. 

He is none too happy with Merritt's book called  "When Does Human Life Begin?"

The main issue being promoted by the Merritt book is that life does not begin until implantation and that if there is no implantation of a fertilized egg there is no life.  This is the premise that all the fancy Latin and involved explanations are designed to support.

The point of this position [no life before implantation] is to justify certain birth control devices; and to justify in vitro fertilization and the destruction of  “extra” fertilized eggs.  This argument is used to justify the abomination of harvesting eggs and fertilizing them, then choosing one or two and destroying the rest.

To begin with and completely outside the issue of the beginning of life, is the simple fact that this is adultery and illicit sex; without the natural act of intercourse, but illicit sex just the same!

For a woman to allow the removal of some of her eggs and then to have an anonymous “donor” contribute his sperm is a shocking abomination!  It is illicit sex without face to face intercourse between the two.

Then, The Apostle get's into some more rules and regulations for unclean women:

The argument is made in the book that many fertilized cells are simply not implanted and are flushed out of the body.  This is seen to bolster the argument that life does not begin until implantation.  First, this issue is greatly exaggerated by the medical community because it is self serving to do so.  Second, this argument actually ignores a specific command of God which completely reverses this argument.

God commands in Lev 15 that sexual activity must be avoided from the first onset of menstruation for a full seven days.  This command is given because of the obvious issue of cleanliness and uncleanness, but it also prevents the fertilizing of the egg as it passes through the uterus! 

Only TRUE CONVERTED MEN who will avoid menstruating women will be made RIGHTEOUS before God!

Avoiding a menstrual woman is one of the commands that makes a man righteous before God; and will bring the gift of life to him!  Please study this list, as it reveals very much about true conversion and the way to life eternal

The next thing you know The Apostle will be requiring the women in his cult to wear red bracelets to let everyone know they are having their period !  

Outrageous! Women must wear red bracelets when it's their time of the month at company in Norway   

How long will it take before The Apostle starts advocating menstruation huts? 

 A menstruation hut from a "Jews in Japan" link

You can read the rest of The Apostle's screed here: When Does Human Life Begin? by J L. Merritt, M.D. & J. Lawrence Merritt, M.D

JEZEBEL: Yearbook ‘69: Attack Of The Futurist Christians!

Here is a great blog that has taken an old Ambassador College ENVOY from 1969 and posted  photo's from it and then goes into great sarcastic comments about the vision it (the college)  was attempting to get across.

Yearbook ‘69: Attack Of The Futurist Christians!

 In 1947, a group of Evangelicals founded a private college in Pasadena, where they imagined they could educate their children in a wholesome, Christian environment, free of the wider world's corrupting influence. Naturally, the 1969 yearbook is pure gold.

It gets worse. "Fashion has brought us the mini-skirt and the micro-mini, 'topless' bars and restaurants have sprung up — and even a few 'bottomless' and 'nude' have attempted to emerge. Now comes the "see-through" fashion for women. A whole new type of society has emerged — the Hippie movement, rejecting and rebelling against the 'Establishment,' putting a premium on slovenliness, filth, 'free sex,' and drugs. [...] The Social Order today is acutely SICK! It supplies no PURPOSE for human existence, knows nothing of the TRUE values, has no knowledge of THE WAY to real peace, happiness, and abundant well-being."

Except for at Ambassador College, where all the students dress like they're going to a John Birch Society social in 1953, and they live and learn in their own little palatial, green oasis of traditional, Godly Education and Values.

Looking through the pictures of all these smiling, perfectly posed, carefully lit, healthy-looking young white people, I couldn't help but think of Joan Didion's essay "Good Citizens", the third section of which gives Didion's account of the 1970 United States Junior Chamber of Commerce Annual Congress. The essay is kind of about how these men and women were prepared for a world that, thanks to the agitations and upheavals of the late 1960s, no longer exists:

"At first I thought I had walked out of the rain into a time warp: the Sixties seemed not to have happened. [...] this resolute determination to meet 1950 head on was a kind of refuge. Here were some people who had been led to believe that the future was always a rational extension of the past, that there would ever be world enough and time enough for 'turning attention,' for 'problems' and 'solutions.' Of course they would not admit their inchoate fears that the world was not that way anymore. Of course they would not join the 'fashionable doubters.' Of course they would ignore the 'pessimistic pundits.' Late one afternoon I sat in the Miramar lobby, watching the rain fall and the steam rise off the heated pool outside and listening to a couple of Jaycees discussing student unrest and whether the 'solution' might lie in on-campus Jaycee groups. I thought about this astonishing notion for a long time. It occurred to me finally that I was listening to a true underground, to the voice of those who have felt themselves not merely shocked but personally betrayed by recent history. It was supposed to have been their time. It was not."