Any Restaurant, Any Time, Any Food

Earlier in my life, I ate only clean meats (beef, chicken, fowl, lamb, fish with scales) because our family believed Deuteronomy 14 which states, "These are the animals you may eat . . ."

But as I got older, and read my church's supplementary writings to the Bible, by Ellen White, I was told that we should change to eating the diet prescribed in Genesis 2:29. Here God gives the Edenic couple permission to eat only from the seed-bearing plants and the trees whose fruit had seeds in it. It was veggie time.

Then one day, I read Mark 7:18-19. Here Jesus says, "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean?' For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body". And then it says "In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean."

Well, this certainly was a disturbing revelation, seeing how it contradicted the teachings of my church.

And since we were Seventh-day Adventists, we couldn't eat in a restaurant on Sabbath, because Exodus 20:8 told us that on the seventh day, Saturday, we couldn't allow any manservant, maidservant or even our animals to work. So on one Saturday, our family found ourselves in Los Angeles, hungry on the Sabbath. We couldn't go into a restaurant. And so we found some vending machines that would give us change and allow us to buy crackers and candy and pop. LOL.

At the age 40, realizing what a confused crock of hogwash this all was, sitting in a restaurant in Sun Valley, Idaho, we looked at each other and decided to exercise our sovereignty. Judy and I enjoyed a wonderful shrimp cocktail, while our boys gasped and watched their parents eating these weird looking little creatures.

Even today, the freedom to go into any restaurant, on any day, and eat anything on the menu is a feature of "taking back our sovereignty" which I truly enjoy.

Stranger Than Fiction

In the last post I alluded to my wife's first noticeable change in her life when she reclaimed the sovereighty of her life. She said she no longer felt guilty about reading fiction. This may seem silly to some readers, but we had been raised in Seventh-day Adventism, and we believed that Ellen G. White was God's chosen messenger living in our time. Ellen wrote the following in The Youth Instructor, October 9, 1902, "The readers of fiction are indulging an evil that destroys spirituality, eclipsing the beauty of the sacred page. It creates an unhealthy excitement, fevers the imagination, unfits the mind for usefulness, weans the soul from prayer, and disqualifies it for any spiritual exercise."

Some of you may agree or disagree with that point of view. But during the years we professed that faith, we tried to avoid reading our children fiction. We inundated them with Bible stories and Bible tapes and records. We searched for Biographies of solid Christian heroes. Today, they want nothing to do with it. And if they read, fiction is frequently the reading choice.

When people move from one religion to another it is generally an attempt to upgrade their present faith. Several weeks ago, I had a conversation with a woman who converted from Buddhism to Seventh-day Adventism. For her, this was a tremendous upgrade. She was able to shed many of the tedious superstitions with regard to offending her deceased relatives. Her life was much more peaceful.

This weekend, I've been conversing with a person who changed from the Baptist faith to Seventh-day Adventism. To them, this was a wonderful upgrade because it allowed them to believe that their deceased mother was not living in heaven looking down and watching them live their life. Adventists believe, by using only the texts of the Bible they emphasize, that the dead are merely sleeping, waiting for Jesus to return.

Is this why we choose to believe a particular faith? Until we find something that agrees with us? There are a multitude of differing views to choose from, all using their favorite verses of the Bible as their rule of faith.

I believe the Bible is not God's Word. I will go into detail on that subject in Surrender of Sovereignty. By the way, books will be in print in approximately 3 to 4 weeks. I will keep you posted.

The Freedom of Sovereignty

Sovereignty is the liberty to decide one's thoughts and actions.

I asked my wife to think back to the time when we decided that the Bible was not God's word. And I asked her to try to remember the first thing that changed in her life following that decision. I had been asking myself that same question as I was getting ready that morning. She thought about it for some time, and when she spoke, her sentence started like this: "I no longer felt guilty about......"

Surrender of Sovereignty will document why we decided the Bible and other religious texts are not the Word of God. But the sovereignty which we now enjoy is so free of guilt. It is absolutely wonderful to make decisions based on what is best for the moment, weighing the merit of possible choices against what kind of person we want to be, rather than responding to rules and doctrines concocted by other men and women from ages past. Many yearn subconsciously for such freedom and sovereignty, but tradition and dogma hold them back with religion's favorite restraint: guilt.

Religious Repression Creates Perverts and Fanatics

Results of Religious Repression

(click link above for article)

Chapter 10 of Surrender of Sovereignty is titled "The Bible Is Internally Incohesive And Promotes Strife." Note the following line taken from it: "How many extreme fundamentalists, perverts, or criminals have grown up with ridiculous teachings such as these, and restricted their lives accordingly in blind and grim obedience, finally becoming disillusioned, and in a burst of rage lashed out . . ."

How has your religious views repressed you?

Polymorphic Jesus

I have seen Jesus portrayed with a hardhat and shovel. I've seen him portrayed both as very handsome and quite homely. I've seen paintings of him as very gentle and very violent. Mankind seems to make him be whatever they want him to be. The following, 13 of whom profess to believe all or at least parts of the Bible, can't agree as to who Jesus was.

This is the last of this series of posts. Suffice it to say the Bible's lack of clarity has in fact left many of it's adherents unclear as to who Jesus really was. It reminds me of what people used to say when Zorro rode away: "Who was that masked man?"

1. Historic Protestant Christianity: One divine person, eternal, with two natures-human and divine. Born on earth as a fully human being. Supreme example of God's character and His love for humanity. Full and final revelation of God and His love.

2. Jehovah's Witnesses: A created being with stages of existence: 1. Archangel Michael or the Word. 2. Jesus, perfect man, became Messiah at his baptism. 3. After his spiritual resurrection, became Michael again but retains the name of Jesus.

3. Mormons: Jesus is the spiritual and physical offspring of God by procreation. He had a preexistence as God's spirit child and brother of Lucifer.

4. Church of Christ Scientist: Jesus, separate from Christ, a human being who more than any other shows the "Christ-ideal."

5. Unity School of Christianity: Jesus was a man inhabited by the Christ-principle spirit.

6. Church of Scientology: A great teacher who fully realized his personal divinity as a "clear."

7. Unification Church: A perfect man who was faithful to God and attained deity; not equal to God.

8. The Way International: Not coequal with God; did not preexist before this earthly life. Son of God, but not God the Son. A perfect man, but not divine.

9. International Church of Christ: Same as historic Christianity.

10. Seventh-day Adventist Church:Same as historic Christianity, also believe Jesus preexisted as Michael and the Word.

11. Roman Catholicism: One divine Person, eternal - fully human and divine. Supreme example of God's character and His love for humanity, full and final revelation of God and His Love.

12. Judaism: An important prophet, but not a divine Person. He did good things and taught the Golden Rule.

13. Nativie American Religions: Originally, no reference to the person or work of Jesus.

14. Hinduism: For some Hindus, Jesus was an Avatar or incarnation of God - one among many Avatars; a great spiritual teacher, a guru.

15. Buddhism: A teacher who may possess Buddhahood or Enlightenment. One among many, not unique.

16. Islam: A major prophet, spirit of Allah, without sin, but not divine; HIs miracles are signs that He came from God.

17. Sikhism: Not a divine person, but a man through whom God worked and revealed Himself.

18. Baha'i World Faith: Son of God, but not divine. One of God's Manifestations, who include Krishna, Buddha, Abraham, Moses, Muhammad, and Baha'u'llah.

19. Secular Humanism: Jesus was just another human teacher. They deny that Jesus is divine.

20. New Age Movement: Jesus was one of many appearances of God throughout the ages, one of many people who were fully aware of their true divinity.

The Old Testament Scores Again!

Woman to be stoned for Adultrey (click to be linked to story)

"If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die." Deuteronomy 22:22

While it is true that the New Testament goes easier on women caught in adultrey, and simply tells her to stop doing it, it is too bad that those who failed to get the message and still revere the laws God allegedly gave to Moses, go on burying the women up to their breasts and then stand around and bash their heads with rocks.

It would seem more sporting to me if God would have let them give her a 100 cubits head start and then they could pursue her on their camels. At least she would have a chance.

Now You Can See The Front and The Back of SOS.

We're through the Layout now. It took an extra month because yours truly sent the publisher the wrong copy. But we're on track again and here's a peek at the Front, Spine, and Back. It's been very fascinating watching the professionals at Wheatmark bring this together. Maybe some of you ought to consider writing a book. It's fun.