Click over to the UCG website and you'll find the following claim:
“We trace our origins to the Church that Jesus founded in the early first century.”
Oh really? How so?
There are two pathways “True Church” groups like UCG validate their ties to the early Christian church: one might be called the “remnant theory,” the other the “restoration theory.” Both are very different from the standard concept of "reformation."
The Remnant Theory is the usual one used by Church of God groups, and was inherited from Seventh-day Adventism. Basically the idea is that the True Church started out as pure as the new-driven snow, until the naughty proto-Catholics came by and led 99% plus away into horrible apostasy. There was a lost century, and when the curtain lifts we find the Trinity, bishops, monks, purgatory and fish on Friday.
There ensued "the lost century" in the history of the true Church of God. There was a well-organized conspiracy to blot out all record of Church history during that period. A hundred years later, history reveals a "Christianity" utterly unlike the Church Christ founded. (Herb Armstrong, The Incredible Human Potential, 5.)
However, so the theory goes, there was always a remnant who “held fast” against the Gates of Hell, tidily arranged into seven "eras" to go with the seven churches of Revelation. A particularly hilarious example of this sort of thinking came from Dugger & Dodd, who held that Ireland's Saint Patrick was actually a Sabbath-keeper. More usually the remnant were variously identified as Waldensians, Anabaptists and a variety of other persecuted minorities, ending up as Seventh Day Baptists who morphed into the Sabbatarian Adventists of the Church of God. So taught Ellen G. White, Dugger and Dodd, and Herman Hoeh.
The humble remnant of the Church of God listened to [Peter Waldo]. Soon many new disciples were coming to repentance. "His disciples became almost as many co-workers for him" (p.26). The world called them Waldenses. God's Church was again spreading the gospel! (Hoeh, A True History of the True Church, 22)
Unfortunately the facts keep getting in the way. For example the Waldensian Church still exists, but they don't much resemble the UCG. The “remnant trail” is fantasy parading as history, as is immediately clear to anyone who bothers to do a little digging. If UCG thinks otherwise, let's see the evidence, the learned articles in scholarly journals, the testimony of legitimate historians (sorry Bob, a degree in naturopathy doesn't really count.)
Theory two, the “restoration,” begins the same way. Everything is fine and dandy, but then Satan comes along and the True Church is extinguished. Popes and rosary beads flourish, incense wafts, but genuine Christianity is obliterated until... along comes a certain someone who is authorized to reboot the True Church after long centuries have passed. That's the path taken by the Mormons. God came along, revealed to Little Joe (Smith, not Tkach) that all the sects of Christendom were in error, then ordained Joe with the long forgotten priesthood offices and sent him forth to restore all things with the aid of magical spectacles.
Apparently that makes sense in Utah, but has never had the same clout in Church of God circles, although a certain Pasadena Apostle used to say that the "true gospel" hadn't been preached in over 1900 years (perhaps he hadn't read Herman's booklet properly.) It's possible Herb gravitated more toward restoration and away from the remnant theory as his megalomania grew.
So back to the the UCG's bold assertion. Where's the evidence?
The lads at Ambassador Bible Center spend a lot of time exploring obscure issues. Intellectual giants of the stature of Melvin Rhodes could doubtless help out by pointing us all in the direction of historically credible data to back up their claim.
Then again, maybe not. And if not, the honest thing would be to remove the statement on their website and confess that there is no direct connection.
Time to put up or shut up.
39 comments:
I will never forget reading the references used by HWA and company showing how the Waldensians were sabbath keepers and the true continuation of the Apostolic Church. They jumped on a reference of the Waldensians and their "Sabbath Bell".
But in keeping things in context, i read the previous pages where the waldensians had their church destroyed and the "sabbath bell" was about all that remained. Then the kicker was a few pages latter where the waldensians looked forward to their ringing of their "sabbath" bell on their first "Sunday" service in their rebuilt church. I knew then what lenghths HWA and all would go to to "prove" their belief system.
rod 2
Anyone truly interested in early Christian history and how it all began should go to this website:
http://www.earlychristianhistory.net/
It is a fairly new site by someone who really is an authority on the history of the Christian church.
As someone once said "....because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie..."
As outside observers, we can see and understand the pseudo-historical gymnastics that the Armstrongites go through to maintain belief in the non-Christian religious system that they have chosen. The scripture above implies to me that they cannot and will not ever be able to see what we see, notwithstanding the research of august scholars at the Ambassador Bible Center. ABC's reserach objective is simply to confirm and support by grasping at every historical straw and spinning every possible interpretation.
Neo
As I would assume all realze, every Christian church claims to be a continuation of the Apostolic Church. There are many variations of HOW they are a continuation, but no church in their right mind would claim NOT to be. Obviously, when Christ began his church it was the right, the true, church. This is the goal of every Christian church; to be part of the true church.
I would agree there has been a lot of sloppy scholarship, probably on the part of all churches, to prove they are a part of the right one.
The fact that the Waldensians still exist and are Sunday keepers does not necessarily prove anything.
The Worldwide Church of God (or whatever they call themselves now--it is my understanding they have not changed their name yet) still exists and they are, for all practical purposes, Sunday keepers now. There have been many church organizations that have changed from Sabbath to Sunday or from Sunday to Sabbath, down through history.
Accurately tracing church history is extremely difficult, if not impossible.
"Proving" the correct, biblical belief system should not come from fragments of church history. It can only come from rightly understanding what the Book really says.
Jim
I agree. Determining if a church is a continuation of the first century church founded by Jesus Christ can be done by measuring their beliefs and practices with the Bible. A church that shows by its beliefs and practices that it is following the teachings of Jesus Christ as the first century church did is a continuation of that church, and that does not depend on secular historical records.
Gavin: You don't have a comment button next to Pinelli's edict about neckties, so I'm putting this here.
The COGs have had some interesting rules over the years regarding proper form.
I recall when I was a young married woman, c. 1979, Randy and Kay Schreiber came to pastor the southeast Idaho and western Wyoming congregations of the WCG. I was pleasantly surprised when they told everyone to call them by their first names. Then, after HWA's "ressurection," Christ began putting the church "Back on the Track" regarding doctrines too numerous to mention. Pasadena issued an edict that all ministers, local church elders, and deacons were to be addressed as "Mr. _____." Being wise, and loyal to the church's governmental structure, the Schreibers politely instructed us to call them Mr. or Mrs., which, of course, we did.
Later, when the Tkach I group was in charge, changing the ministry from "sheriffs to shepherds," they, too, insisted that ministers be addressed as "Mr. ________, explaining to the unwashed masses that this honorific was a minimum standard of courtesy. They also explained that some in the WCG ministry had gone on from their AC Bachelor of Arts in Theology to acquire higher academic degrees (i.e., real ones), which in other religious settings would qualify them to be addressed using honorifics that acknowledged that distinction. (No mention was made of Jesus instruction to the apostles not to take on the trappings of religiosity but to consider themselves as servants to all.) So we continued to address our ministers as "Mr. ________," although these ministers called us by our first names. Did that mean that we weren't worthy of the minimum standard of courtesy? Oh well, keep a good attitude.
Imagine my surprise as a newly minted Episcopalian, c. 1997, to discover that the Episcopal priests in my new church home preferred being called by their first names. These priests understood that honorifics create artificial distinctions that separate priest and church member.
While some of the men in that congregation wore neckties, others didn't. In fact, some came in T-shirts and jeans. And it took a bit of getting used to, until I noticed that the pews were full in a church that didn't require anything close to regular attendance.
I've since speculated that such COGs' forms were based on a sense of insecurity, one going back to HWA not possessing a college degree, continuing on through a ministry with unaccredited college credentials and lacking divinity school training.
Regarding lilith's observations, I do not believe it is wrong to apply an honorific title to people who have been chosen by God to be pastors of his people.
But this was not the case with the Armstrongite ministry. These ministers, with a few exceptions, held the average lay member in complete disdain. This attitude trickled down from HWA and was augmented in the middle and lower tiers by local pastors and elders. The evidences of this are myriad and are recounted all over the web. AC students spent four years being taught that they were specially chosen and superior to the average lay member. So when an honorific is used to address Armstrongite ministers, it is in a context of repression and class hierarchy.
Every time you said Mister, in the Armstrongite context, it was a extorted confession out of your own mouth that you were subservient.
-- Neo
Lillith writes:
"Imagine my surprise as a newly minted Episcopalian, c. 1997, to discover that the Episcopal priests in my new church home preferred being called by their first names."
Same here! My Episcopal church does not call any of our 6 priests by Mr. or Mrs. or even by their 'Father' title. All are known and answer to their first names.
I would rather see people in dressed in shorts and t-shirts than have some self-righteous neo-nazi Armstrongite deacon standing at the front door letting in only those in suits and long dresses.
UCG's asinine ruling a few weeks ago about 'proper' dresses for their so-called sabbath is irrelevant and unimportant in the scheme of things. I am amazed that people still sit there and allow this kind of crap to rule their lives.
"Determining if a church is a continuation of the first century church founded by Jesus Christ can be done by measuring their beliefs and practices with the Bible."
Which Bible? Whose interpretation of the Bible?
"A church that shows by its beliefs and practices that it is following the teachings of Jesus Christ as the first century church did is a continuation of that church, and that does not depend on secular historical records."
Well, if we can just dispense with secular historical records, why bother with sacred historical records? On what is this notion based that it is "the Bible" (whatever we mean by that -- see above) that is the measuring stick to determine whether or not a religious organisation has a historical pedigree tracing back to the apostles?
Anyway, although it's true that some groups have gone back and forth between Sunday-keeping and Sabbath-keeping, when it comes to the Waldenses, history shows that there were never any Sabbath-keeping Waldenses. They always gathered for worship for Sunday, ever since they split off the Catholic Church in the 1100s A.D. Claiming the Waldenses were ever seventh-day Sabbatarians is the same as claiming the earth is flat.
I approached a United Church Elder with this exact same question several years ago: "Where's the proof to back the United's claim that it can 'trace its roots to the 1st century church'? He merely spun me off and refused my question.
>>>> “We trace our origins to the Church that Jesus founded in the early first century.” [ucg]
"Oh really? How so?.... Where's the evidence? [gavin]<<<<
Have you ever asked them (ucg's hq] for the evidence?
Determining if a church is a continuation of the first century church founded by Jesus Christ can be done by measuring their beliefs and practices with the Bible.
I agree in large part (Jared's post notwithstanding) but what interests me is that Jesus anticipated (or the early church experienced) the same "we are the true church" issue: "By their fruits you shall know them." There's the standard for identifying "the true church". What is the "fruit" of the COGs? How are they representative of Christ in the world? I see broken marriages, child abuse, condemnation, fear, etc. Doesn't sound like any "fruit" I want to eat.
It's amazing how all claim to be descended from the original apostolic church.
By their FRUITS you shall know them.
How APT indeed.
JH
There are many in the COG who believe that the "Hands that laid Hands on them" in Baptism, Ordination, Marriage etc. came from an "Unbroken" lineage going back to the original apostles and Jesus himself.
By perpetuating this idea, that one can only have the "sacraments" of marriage, baptism, burial, healing prayer, performed by a "minister" who has received his ordination thru the "Unbroken Line" of the laying on of hands, then the ORG can control who has religious title , power and franchise rights.
Problem is...that there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO evidence that there is an unbroken lineage of the laying on of hands by SABBATARIAN ministers. The COG 7th Day traces its roots back to a minister named Gilbert Cramner, who came out of a sect called "Christian Connexion". It was a quasi Methodist like church.
No matter how you want to cut it, all lines lead eventually back to Rome. This fact brings up some interesting questions.
Have their always been Sabbatarians? This is probably likely, but they may have existed in one line, which died out, while another group was emerging , which had ZIP to do with the dying group. There certainly is no direct continuities.
In fact the leap from Seventh Day Baptists to COG7 and the Adventists was not done by the ORG of the Seventh Day Baptists (which still exists) by merely by a young teenage girl named Rachel Oakes who left the Seventh Day Baptists for an early Adventist group in New Hampshire.
All this proves that it is ok for anyone to be a "start up" and not needing some form of "approval" by some ORG that they are the approved succesor of the "torch". Sabbatarian history is chock full of individuals who, without any permission, decided to go forth and multiply, without the blessing or "laying on of hands" by anyone.
I agree that to broad brush a statement about primitive church relationships and tracing of roots is a stretch and difficult to prove if even remotely possible.
However, there is a truth that there have been Sabbath keepers throughout history and in more places than you and others who you agree with would ever be willing to admit.
It also seems to me you are of the belief that few if any were ever killed or tortured by the established church. I remember one number given of about 5,000 on the old AW site. What about the 50,000 killed who were Hugenot? What about the over 100,000 Albigensians and Waldensians killed (the ones who would not fight) by the fighting Irish who were invited by France to come to do some damage to those not of the established church? And those, in what is today, the Czech Republic where after the 30 years war the population being a mix of Roman Catholic and Protestant with a total of 800,000 were whittled down to a small population all of the Roman faith? That there were no Sabbath keeping Waldensians is an out and out falsehood. Even Erasmus, many years prior to the 30 years war, stated there were Saturday Sabbath keepers throughout Bohemia (modern day Czech Republic). These were called the old Waldenses who stated the church 'died' with Sylvester. He was the one who said to Judaize by keeping the Sabbath and not the Dominical day was heresy.
There were Sabbath keepers clear up to his day, and, he is the one who established the calendar in Latin with the Word Sabbath, for the 7th day as it is in most Latin based languages to this day.
Greeting's from the CEO of Church of God Industries!
Yes, as in all Churches of God, as well as my own cult, we only allow "Yes Rev. Kscribe" as an example of proper respect.
We also trace our origins to the Church that Jesus founded in the early first century. My proof? Just ask me! It is the Plain Truth as everyone of my mind num robots know!
As for Joey Tkach, (Count Tkachula) well let me supply you with the holyday offering over at http://www.herbertwarmstrongvideo.net/
Pinelli and ties...it seems that since so many of the Meredith follwers who are leaving LCG, not all are with the Packman, some are coming to UCG and must be complaining at how lax the UCG dress code is in comparison to those in LCG where although unwritten, the expectations are implied. Next, a bet, women wearing slacks......
The Seventh-Day Adventists have a three-part video series on the Waldensians, and their persecution in northern Italy centuries ago. The end of each part has a lengthy list of books used as reference material. I didn't jot down the list, but only one that I recall came from Ellen White.
"That there were no Sabbath keeping Waldensians is an out and out falsehood."
You obviously haven't read very many Waldensian histories.
"Even Erasmus, many years prior to the 30 years war, stated there were Saturday Sabbath keepers throughout Bohemia (modern day Czech Republic)."
Yes, but there weren't Waldensians.
"These were called the old Waldenses who stated the church 'died' with Sylvester."
No, they weren't. I once had the same misconception about the Sabbath-keepers of Bohemia, but when I read legitimate historical sources instead of seventh-day Sabbatarian pseudohistory, I found that the Waldenses of Bohemia were Sunday-keepers just like all the other Waldenses.
"It also seems to me you are of the belief that few if any were ever killed or tortured by the established church."
I don't know why you would assume I was of that belief. It's true that the numbers of those killed or tortured was deliberately inflated by the enemies of the Catholic Church, but just because there weren't 50 bazillion heretics burned at the stake as anti-Catholics have claimed, that doesn't mean there were hardly any burned at the stake. The number is a LOT lower than the Black Legend claims, but it's still a good number. And of course, if you wish, you can add the numbers of non-Catholics who died in the wars of religion during the 1500s and 1600s -- but try and be fair and balance the scales with the numbers of Catholics who were massacred by Protestants during the same period of time.
Or better yet, instead of playing the "Your church killed more heretics than my church" game, how about we go the route of repentance and humility, confessing our grievous sins and those of our fathers, and give God thanks that we don't kill heretics anymore. (We just hold them up to deservedly merciless ridicule, like here at AW.)
Not that this little tangent helps you in any way to prove that there were Sabbath-keeping Waldenses. Regardless of how many heretics were put to death back then, there's no trace of Sabbath-keeping Waldenses anywhere in history.
Richard, regarding the Waldensians, the Sabbath and the SDAs, I found this information over at ellenwhite.org
Inacuracies Regarding the Waldenses
Mrs. White would have us believe the Waldenses observed the Sabbath:
"Through ages of darkness and apostasy there were Waldenses who denied the supremacy of Rome, who rejected image worship as idolatry, and who kept the true Sabbath. Under the fiercest tempests of oppositions they maintained their faith." (page 65)
"Some of whom [Waldenses] were observers of the Sabbath." (page 577)
Dr. Bacchiocchi has probably done more research on the Sabbath than any living human. Did he find evidence that some of the Waldenses observed the Sabbath?
I spent several hours searching for an answer in the two scholarly volumes Storia dei Valdesi--(History of the Waldenses), authored by Amedeo Molnar and Augusto Hugon. These two books were published in 1974 by the Claudiana, which is the official Italian Waldensian publishing house. They are regarded as the most comprehensive history of the Waldenses. To my regret I found no allusion whatsoever to Sabbathkeeping among the Waldenses.
Dr. Bacchiocchi is not the first Adventist to search for evidence of the Waldenses keeping the Sabbath. The only thing they have found are some documents which refer to the Waldenses by their nickname, "insabbati." Unfortunately for Mrs. White, the term has nothing to do with the Sabbath. It refers to the sandals the Waldenses were known to wear. The Latin word for sandals is sabbatum. Thus, the Waldenses were insabbati--"sandal wearers."
The Waldensian representative in Italy was recently contacted and asked if the Waldenses ever kept the Sabbath. Here is his response:
The Waldensians did not keep the Sabbath and were not guardians of the "Sabbath Truth" as you call it. ... We can therefore say very clearly that the Waldensians were not Seventh-day Sabbath keepers and they were not persecuted for keeping Saturday as the Sabbath!
Apparently Mrs. White wanted to have a line of unbroken Sabbath-keeping, from the time of the apostles, to the Waldenses in the mountains, all the way through to the time of the Seventh-day Adventists. Unfortunately, such a continuum does not exist. Sunday-keeping began much earlier than Mrs. White realized, and the Waldenses never kept the Sabbath at all.
Another inaccurate statement Mrs. White made about the Waldenses is:
"Behind the lofty bulwarks of the mountains . .. the Waldenses found a hiding place. Here the light of truth was kept burning amid the darkness of the Middle Ages. Here for a thousand years, witnesses for the truth maintained the ancient faith." (pp. 65-66)
The Waldensian movement was established by Peter Valdes around 1176. The Waldenses were not excommunicated from the church until 1184. Therefore, the move to the mountains could not have taken place until after 1184, and the persecution of the Waldenses had subsided by the late 1600's, so it would be impossible for the Waldenses to have kept the light of truth burning for "a thousand years" during the Middle Ages. 500 years is a more likely number.
"There are many in the COG who believe that the 'Hands that laid Hands on them' in Baptism, Ordination, Marriage etc. came from an 'Unbroken' lineage going back to the original apostles and Jesus himself."
Probably many in the COGs believe this, but I personally have never heard a minister teach this specifically (I have been in the Church of God since 1982). Probably some ministers taught this, but I haven't heard them or don't remember what they said. In his autobiography, Herbert W. Armstrong says he was baptized, but not by whom. He also baptized others before he was ordained as a minister. He did this based on Bible scriptures that show that those who do the preaching (he was preaching at this time, before he was ordained) can also baptize, and that no scripture required ordination before someone baptized another.
My point is, Herbert W. Armstrong looked to the Bible to determine if he had the authority to baptize or not, and he based his decision on the Bible, according to his autobiography. I don't think he was necessarily looking to an "unbroken line of the laying on of hands" as his authority.
I think it was natural for the Church to try to research what other Sabbath-keeping churches existed from the first century to the present, but this was never the basis or authority for the teachings and practices of the Church, but rather the Bible was used as the authority for all doctrines and practices.
I think it was around 1995 to 1998 when a writer in the WCG publication "Worldwide News' admonished anyone having problems with not accepting that the waldensians were NOT sabbath keepers , should contact the waldensians themselves. I did and found ZIP about them ever doing so. One of the few times i gave any credit to WCG then about being right on anything.
rod 2
"Probably many in the COGs believe this, but I personally have never heard a minister teach this specifically (I have been in the Church of God since 1982)."
I don't know how you managed never to hear them teach it specifically. I heard several ministers teach it, and Herbert Armstrong made sure to include a (probably false) story of receiving a "communal" laying on of hands when he was ordained. In the WCG, we believed that without that laying on of hands, there was no valid ordained ministry. Therefore we naturally "understood" that, even if we couldn't document it, Herbert Armstrong's ordination was in a lineage of "apostolic succession" tracing back to Jesus. We even said so in our literature, though I don't recall any more when and where we made the claim. At any rate, Herman Hoeh claimed in "A TRUE History of the TRUE Church" that Christians may not assemble lawfully without an ordained minister, which logically requires that there always have been ordained ministers throughout the history of the (nonexistent) One True Sabbathkeeping Church.
"My point is, Herbert W. Armstrong looked to the Bible to determine if he had the authority to baptize or not, and he based his decision on the Bible, according to his autobiography. I don't think he was necessarily looking to an 'unbroken line of the laying on of hands' as his authority."
Well, it's a general belief in Christianity that anyone can baptise. Indeed, the Catholic Church teaches that in an emergency even an unbaptised person can baptise. So Armstrong's baptising prior to his ordination is interesting but doesn't really tell us anything about what we believed and taught in the WCG. The fact is, we in the WCG understood that it was imperative to trace the "true history of the true church" to demonstrate that we really were the One True Church. The idea that anybody who picks up a Bible and starts a church, as long as he claims to be teaching what the Bible says, is in historical, corporate continuity with Jesus and the Apostles, is hogwash and horsefeathers. Except for liberal, modernistic denominations, what Christian group doesn't claim to teach the authentic biblical truth? But does that show they all have an unbroken historical succession from Jesus and the Apostles? Of course not. The only way to show that is to look at the historical record, not oppose one's favored Bible interpretations to the thousands of other Bible interpretations.
"... this was never the basis or authority for the teachings and practices of the Church, but rather the Bible was used as the authority for all doctrines and practices."
Precisely. The Bible clearly places no requirement on any Christian to keep the seventh day Sabbath in order to receive salvation. Tracing the keeping of the Sabbath from one little heretical group to another throughout history to try to establish a genetic lineage for this practice is an exercise that is without value.
Sabbatarians need to start with (and end with) the Bible.
-- Neo
In short, most of the Protestants who opposed Roman Catholicism kept Sunday, and not the Sabbath.
And these same Protestants took up arms against the Catholics when Christ said that his servants should not fight.
Where was the true church during this time?
JHS
You don't want to ask ME that, Jorgheinz. :-D
HWA was baptized by a Baptist minister . A John Kiesz? of COG 7th day stated in a letter to me that HWA did not want to be Baptised by a cog group. Interesting that he was ordained in the COG 7th day without being baptized by them. I contacted years ago the COG 7th groups and they told me that HWA did not have to be baptised by them to be ordained into their group. Needless to say i was shocked because of what HWA taught over the years. I then asked powers to be in GCG in the 90's about all this and HWA's church government teachings as they contradict his behaviour in COG7. I was told about HWA's rewriting in the 70's on Church Government so mass hoards of people would not leave and start their own COG. How ironic and sad at the same time. They all tend to gravitate away from the bible to prove their collective beliefs.
rod 2
"I don't know how you managed never to hear them teach it specifically."
I do remember the teaching that there was never a time in history when the true Church of God did not exist. The part I do not remember being taught is that there was an unbroken line of laying on of hands from the first century till now. For example, in Dr. Hoeh's book, A True History of the True Church, in the part about Peter Waldo, it says that he used his money to have a translation of the Bible made, that he began to study the scriptures, and that God was opening his mind to understand what he read. It then goes on to say that a remnant of the Church of God began to listen to him and he made many new converts. It says nothing about any ordained ministry laying hands on him.
Perhaps the literature that taught an unbroken line of laying on of hands was out of print when I was in Worldwide, or I never requested it, and the local pastors I heard never focused on that subject.
Read the Martyr's Mirror. Based on source material prior to 1670 Insabbati meant regardless of Sabbaths, it had nothing to do with sandals or shoes, at least in 1670, and this author quotes the king of Bohemia saying the Bohemians were the old Waldenses. Allix, he said the Waldenses kept Saturday in 1690. This stuff is old stuff, not 1974m 1690, and they had source materials we do not have. Waldenses kept Saturday or Sunday and sometimes both. It depended on where they lived and from whom they learned. They were Bastists then too, not sure if they are now, then they were.
I pointed out that the Waldensians were not Sabbath Keepers to the WCG back in 1990. Their response in the Plain Truth was that even though the Waldnesians didn't keep the Sabbath....
It's something we call Fanagle's Law: Draw the curve and pick the points to match; if history doesn't support your distorted perception, revise it.
We all got into the Churches of God through the Personal Hype Cycle: Most of us are now experiencing the total loss of confidence, since the slope of enlightenment leading to the plateau of maturity just isn't in the cards for us who have plunged through the trough of disillusionment.
Read the Martyr's Mirror. Based on source material prior to 1670 Insabbati meant regardless of Sabbaths, it had nothing to do with sandals or shoes, at least in 1670, and this author quotes the king of Bohemia saying the Bohemians were the old Waldenses.
Wrong!
I know that Wade Ewart Cox told you this and that you swallowed it hook line and sinker, but you can't really prove it, nor can you find any credible support for anything else he says. By the way, you can't really claim Waldensians existed 500 years before Peter Waldo either.
Give it up.
You will not find 72 virgins waiting for you in the Kingdom of God either: What's with that? Allah wants you to forget about Him in the afterlife? Likely story.
You can't mix Waldensians, Christianity and Sabbath Keeping with Islam and expect to maintain any semblance of sanity.
For the uninitiated unwashed, besides the Seven Church Eras of the New Testament down to our time, there is now a new theory that there were Seven Church Eras of the Old Testament ending in Jesus' time with the Pharisees being the Laodoceans.
Clear.
Neat.
Logical.
And wrong!
"Read the Martyr's Mirror. Based on source material prior to 1670 Insabbati meant regardless of Sabbaths, it had nothing to do with sandals or shoes, at least in 1670, and this author quotes the king of Bohemia saying the Bohemians were the old Waldenses. Allix, he said the Waldenses kept Saturday in 1690."
Sorry, all of that is woefully out-of-date material. It's indisputable that insabbati means "wearers of sabot," not "Sabbath-keepers," uninformed speculations and misinterpretations from the late 1600s notwithstanding. There were no Saturday-keeping Waldenses in the 1600s, nor were the Waldenses of Bohemia Saturday-keepers, nor is there record of any Saturday-keeping among the Waldenses at any time in their history.
Again, read legitimate works of history, and check into the latest and best historical scholarship. Don't rely on quotes of seventeenth-century sources at three or more removes from the original text. Then you'll know the truth about the Waldenses, and won't fall for the spurious legends that have been told about them in Adventist/Sabbatarian circles for so long.
Jared, this is part of the WEC package of the CCg. You know the one.
Let's just call it the book about the Transylvania Vampire Sabbatarians and leave it at that.
"Again, read legitimate works of history, and check into the latest and best historical scholarship."
Do you really believe that recent scholarship which does not have access to older texts is better than a quote from a book only a few years old, from a witness?
I would thoroughly agree with you if it was EG White, HWA or others in the 1800s and 1900s saying this, but really, these people they were quoting were living there right with them. Besides, taking a swipe at only a small portion of what I wrote without addressing the full context is simply poor scholarship as well. Read your own Catholic Encyclopedia to find numerous quotes about Sabbath keepers from the same periods.
Most of the books that these people were reading no longer exist. There is so much out there to discover, woefully out of date....closer to the date is more like it.
"I know that Wade Ewart Cox told you this....."
Really, with the internet you can find anything to prove yourself right or wrong. I actually found Wade Cox page after I found the Mirror on the web. Actually, I found his websites in September of the year I found Mirror in April that year...so, please, do you really think the sass and the tearse discussion makes a point. I think that most of the people responsible for the blog pages that make up the x wcgers do not write like you guys...simply caustic trash, because your only comeback to a fact or a quote is a putdown.
You do that only because you cannot face a fact and answer a fact from someone who has done research.....and....you can't take being wrong, like Denis' article states. You are wrong and you do not like being told you are wrong.
Well, you are wrong, say you are sorry and I will forgive you.
'By the way, you can't really claim Waldensians existed 500 years before Peter Waldo either."
Hey wrong boy, you are wrong again. Some scholars, the good ones, feel that Waldo, not "wheres Waldo", which you probably are still working on between your blogs....where Waldo was called that because he was a Waldensian, not that he gave them that name....wrong boy, I think you need to get a life and get out of the blogosphere.......go play Where's Waldo.
For a true history read "Raising the Ruins" by Stephen Flurry.
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