Category: Hoss Cartwright

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Fire When Ready – RCG Waters Down the Sabbath!

We’ve all seen our share of imaginative proof-texting: part of a verse quoted, a passage taken out of context, a meaning dependent on a particular translation… So, it would be no surprise to see a verse pushed forward into a different context. As HWA used to claim, the Bible is a puzzle. The problem is that too many pieces fit together the wrong way, and someone threw away the box with the completed picture on it.

In the anonymous RCG article, How to Make the Sabbath a Delight, there are a few points that may be challenged, but I’d like to look at just one. Specifically, its interpretation of Ex. 35:3, “Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings (NIV)”. This verse follows a command not to work on the Sabbath; following this verse is a request for an offering of materials to build the Tabernacle. After that, everyone goes off to search their stuff for things to donate.

Referring to the zeal shown by Israel in offering materials, the writer of the article tells us it becomes clear that the verse quoted refers to “industrial fires”. So on the Sabbath, in your house, you can light a candle, light up the barbecue, but don’t fire up your backyard Bessemer convertor. (That may have been a big problem for Sabbath-keepers in China in the 1950s during the Great Leap Forward Backward.)

Since the verse doesn’t mention cooking, the article states that cooking on the Sabbath is okay (but the preparation work should have been done on Friday). In my WCG days, I remember old-timers saying how there used to be sermons on food preparation so that no cooking would necessary on the Sabbath.

If only it was so obvious for observant Jews. The first recorded stoning for Sabbath violation (Num. 15) was for gathering wood (Moffatt “wood for fuel”) and Jewish commentators presume it was intended for kindling a fire. For the traditional two candles lit before the Sabbath, I recall reading that they must be lit at least 18 minutes before sunset. There are discussions in the Talmud on such issues as raking fires that were still burning after sunset, and warming up food that was cooked before the Sabbath. Modern Orthodox Jews have disagreed over such matters as turning on an electric light: is flipping the switch “work” and is lighting the bulb the same as kindling a fire? And can one reheat food in a microwave oven? I guess they didn’t work it out that the verse referred to industrial fires.

It would have been simpler if the article just said not to light a match or lighter – a Biblical reason not to smoke on the Sabbath! As much as I have come to dislike the expression “watering down”, I would say that is what the writer is doing to the Sabbath! Maybe that is why the article is anonymous… As HWA would say, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

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Holding fast…

A few times I’ve heard and read GTA making fun of Ramadan, the lunar month during which observant Muslims fast during the day. The humor he used to diminish their daylight abstinence was his imagining a nighttime feeding frenzy following the fast.

Ramadan 2013 starts on July 9, during the Hebrew month of Av. Unlike he Hebrew lunar calendar, the Muslim lunar calendar continually cycles 12 lunar months, and is not tied to the agricultural seasons.

While doing some research through the Talmud, I found that most Biblical fasts, according to Jewish sages, are daytime-only. Not all were the full “even until even” as the fast on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). In fact, Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av (the 9th of Av, a fast to mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples) were considered the only “sunset until nightfall (of the following day)” fasts; other fast days were considered to be “before dawn until nightfall”. So along with the fast days during Ramadan, Biblical “ordinary” fast days are also only during daylight hours.

In one sermon, GTA was on a roll about Pharisaic legalism. Commenting on the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector who fasted twice each week, GTA remarked that it probably meant skipping a couple of meals and eating at sunset, “like Ramadan.”  Although the remark related to a parable, Pharisees normally did fast twice each week, on Mondays and Thursdays. The Didache (“Teaching of the Apostles”, ca 100 CE) instructed Christians to be different and fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. These “ordinary” fasts would have been daytime only.

Another small point: I seem to remember reading in a WCG publication many years ago that “a fast day can’t occur on a feast day” so the Day of Atonement can’t fall on the weekly Sabbath, as it is considered a feast day. However, Jewish sources say the Day of Atonement was the only fast permitted to be on the Sabbath. Other fixed fast days (such as Tisha B’Av) had to be moved to another day of the week. Personal fasting on the Sabbath, festivals, and Rosh Chodesh (the beginning of a lunar month) was also prohibited. There were, however, rare exceptions when fasting on Sabbath was allowed, if the need was urgent. As we know, COGs occasionally have urgent exceptions – The Work facing crises, attacks by Satan, …

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Last COG Standing

Several months ago, after reading a few of the Friday night specials from RCG, I wrote the following, but forgot about it when I got Gilbert and Sullivanish.

After glancing at the last two RCG postings – 17 and 18 I think, I wondered … what if another COG had decided to amalgamate somehow with RCG? That action could be made to appear like a fulfilment of the Haggai prophecy, with the hope of other COGs following suit…

Last COG Standing
One can look forward to Friday to find the latest installment of why the RCG is the best COG ever.

Some time ago, former RCG members mentioned how Mr CEO Pack was trying to run his organization like a business – actually, like a health food business. But now, rather cooperative merger discussions with the competition, like the new Pope is holding with Lutherans and Eastern Orthodox (at least that’s what I gather from COGWriter) Mr CEO Pack has been moving closer to a buyout, merger or even a hostile takeover. In a sermon a while back, APG (Apostle Pastor-General) Pack indicated how C21 wanted to merge with RCG, but this failed over disagreement on corporate structure, including of course, top dog of the new COG.

Rather than attempt merger, the move is asset stripping – like the corporate practice of buying a company, taking what it wants, and dumping whatever remains. The assets sought are the members, and any ministers who will subordinate themselves in the expanded RCG.

One of the RCG audio programs some years ago gave a sign of the “True Church” was it was small in size, a remnant flock. So the move afoot would be to become the “biggest small flock”. As the other COGs fold, the RCG will be the Last COG Standing. We know the other splinters will belly-up, because Mr CEO Pack said so. Showing true Philadelphian brotherhood to his fellow COG leaders, APG Pack told us the decrepit state the others were in. To prove this assertion, we were informed the other COG ministers will either admit to their members their organization is floundering, or they would do a cover-up. Nice to give two points of view, both negative.  

After thoughts…

After re-reading this, an alternative to WCG’s view of early church history came to mind. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, by Walter Bauer (1934 in German, 1971 in English). Bauer argued that as Christianity developed, and spread from Jerusalem, it diversified, being adapted and modified by diverse cultures. (also covered in Lost Christianities, by Bart Ehrman, which is easier to read than Bauer…) Eventually, Rome dominated. Perhaps we could substitute Pasadena for Jerusalem, and Wadsworth for Rome…