Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Backing away from the FLDS

You'll have to trust me that I almost wrote this post before recent developments with Warren and William E. Jessop. Friends can tell you that behind the scenes I've been saying Warren has gone "Gadhafi" on us and is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. What stopped me is literally not having the time to do it, until this very moment, after the story is out. Warren's own Religion is moving on him to get rid of him.
The Deseret News - " 'It is an attempt to preserve ... the church,' (William E.) Jessop, 41, said in an interview with The Associated Press."
And so there you have it. Either they're rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic or fighting in the proverbial burning building.

I'll bottom line it for you and say that you can't have a Prophet who isn't a Prophet. If you do, you have a False Prophet and the FLDS now admits they followed a false prophet. In an authority based religion led by rule of prophets, you simply can't do that. The Catholic Church went down that path years ago when fighting over primacy among the various "Seas" of the Christian Faith and ended up bestowing "Called by Christ" Apostolic office on their bishop. They made him Pope. Popes speak without error and they are merely men, as all FLDS/LDS "prophets" are. Over time their errors snowball and you end up with a mess. This is where the FLDS is now.

I have many friends in the FLDS that I love and respect. I even still admire Warren for trying to be true to his vision, which is sadly false. He's following his vision to it's logical conclusion and it's going to get him locked up for the rest of his life.

So here we go with the shoe to drop.

I was beginning a task years ago when I started this blog, to which I now return. You'll note that I had mentioned a forum. The forum was hosted by another friend, and no longer exists, so I'll have to explain. The forum was called "New Reformation," and that was the task I was starting. I diverted into the FLDS issue because it is closely related to the issue of Legal Polygyny.

With my expulsion from an Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Vermont, I have embarked on the journey of finding a tolerant denomination, or starting my own. Of the two unlikely prospects, the latter has the best chance. That was the purpose of the forum. That is what I return to doing.

Because of all these things, the internal fight amongst the FLDS and it's leadership, and my desire to devote what little time I now have to pursuing my original purpose, I am doing what I would not do all along because of my friendship with those in the FLDS faith.

Friends in the FLDS: It is known by some of you that I respect your right to practice your religion free and unfettered in this country. I share a roughly equivalent view of marriage with you. I don't have qualms like the rest of society has, with regard to polygyny and with regard to eligibility for marriage when it comes to age. Your fight in that respect, has been my fight. I have defended you without emphasizing what I disagree with. I wanted you to win, and still do.

Because I cannot take it seems, an active role in this fight any longer, I must tell you what I have politely refrained from telling you these three years.

Yours is a false religion, a false faith.

While you may not respond positively, I will call you out none the less, out of that false faith, into the light of Christianity. I fully realize that some of you in the FLDS may indeed be saved and be believers in Christ, but the tenets of the LDS or FLDS faith preclude you from embracing the religion of the Latter Day Saints and Christianity at the same time. One excludes the other.

Your God is not my LORD. My LORD is unbegun and eternal. His only begotten Son is Jesus Christ, of David, of Nazareth and also, Son of God who is the complete and only means of Salvation. Your God is a graduate of the "God Academy" as it were, and someday the men of your faith believe that they too can be like God. This is the lie Satan told Eve in the Garden. Come out of this faith. Embrace Christ as God and Son of God, the only God, the LORD, Alpha and Omega, for he says to you:
"I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."
Isaiah 45. If your respond, know that there is a place for you, a church, that will accept you, your families and all your wives and children.
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Saturday, March 12, 2011

Fukushima, Three Mile Island, We Almost Lost Detroit, Chernobyl and a Biblical Reference

Under the heading of: "My problems are not so bad." My sister's are:

This isn't good. Remember this?

The downside of Nuclear Power. Is it simply too costly? It looks like 30 years later, after Three Mile Island (the most relevant nuclear accident to what is going on now in Japan), we're seeing a real life China Syndrome. Except on that side of the world, it might be called "The Detroit Syndrome."

That's another thing. Anyone ever read "We Almost Lost Detroit?"

I know I said TMI is a more relevant analog to this current situation than Chernobyl. But I am struck by the memory of what Chernobyl means in Ukrainian.

"Wormwood."

Put Frederik Pohl on your reading list.

And also remember too, that the wildlife around Chernobyl today is abundant and healthy. For the most part.

Did anyone mention that FIVE Japanese Nuclear Power plants are affected?

Things won't be good in Japan even if these problems are contained with relative ease. Where will they get the electricity?

Probably Coal. If we're lucky, that will be the real "China Syndrome."
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Tuesday, March 08, 2011

I can relate

The words of Job:
"If I speak, my pain is not lessened, And if I hold back, what has left me? But now He has exhausted me; You have laid waste all my company. You have shriveled me up, It has become a witness; And my leanness rises up against me, It testifies to my face. His anger has torn me and hunted me down, He has gnashed at me with His teeth; My adversary glares at me. They have gaped at me with their mouth, They have slapped me on the cheek with contempt; They have massed themselves against me. God hands me over to ruffians And tosses me into the hands of the wicked. I was at ease, but He shattered me, And He has grasped me by the neck and shaken me to pieces; He has also set me up as His target. His arrows surround me. Without mercy He splits my kidneys open; He pours out my gall on the ground. He breaks through me with breach after breach; He runs at me like a warrior. I have sewed sackcloth over my skin And thrust my horn in the dust. My face is flushed from weeping, And deep darkness is on my eyelids, although there is no violence in my hands, And my prayer is pure. O earth, do not cover my blood, And let there be no resting place for my cry. Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, And my advocate is on high. My friends are my scoffers; My eye weeps to God. O that a man might plead with God As a man with his neighbor!"
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