The End of Time: Did Christ Intend for Us to Be Socialists?

Forgive me for talking about politics in a religious forum. I have been told we Adventists are not to discuss politics (usually by SDAs who vote Democrat), but given that Ellen White once said that God was punishing the Union because we were not fighting the Civil War to free the slaves at the time, I think I'm on solid ground. Elijah, Elisha and practically all the minor prophets posted criticism of the government on the ancient equivalent of the Internet. Many were murdered by the government for speaking out. Political speech by followers of God has an ancient and honorable history. 

I found this quote the other day by militant anti-religion, pro-capitalist writer Ayn Rand:

• "Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good." - Ayn Rand

I posted it someplace and a militant anti-religion socialist wrote back: 

• The Rand quote makes socialism sound a lot like Christianity. But then historians say the early Christians were socialists.

She has a point, but it's one of those deceptive talking points that liberals, socialists and atheists throw at you to try to prove you are intellectually dishonest unless, as a Christian, you are pro-socialist.

If you take away the word "collective" and substitute "God" the Ayn Rand quote does sound like what Christians believe - sort of!  It's just that whether we worship the collective or God marks quite a distinct dividing point between Christians and secular socialists. The big (and this is very big) difference between the two is that Christians can serve their beliefs according to their own conscience, entirely without forcing any other individual to do so. We believe God gave us free will because he does NOT want to force anyone to love or follow him.

On the other hand, collectivists demand that everyone be a collectivist (socialist) and love socialism (i.e. The State). Look at history and you'll see what happens to anyone who lives in a socialist state and does not serve the state and appear to love it. Hundreds of millions of deaths in the 20th century alone of people are attributable to government intolerance of people who chose not to serve the state.

And while it's true that the Roman Catholic Church slaughtered millions who disagreed with them, such behavior by the organized church led true Christians within the church to break away and worship God as Scripture told them to. The entire massive Protestant movement was a rejection of the Roman brand of collectivism. Over the centuries there was a constant stream of Christ's followers who left the political iteration of the Christian church because in it, they could not follow Christ, who never forced anyone to follow him.

Early Christians combined their goods because they were a spiritual guerrilla movement, both in Israel and in Rome, not because it was the most effective economic system as they quickly discovered. Their collectivist organism, very early became dominated by bishops and prelates who were more interested in accumulating power over the collective than in spreading the gospel. The early Christian collectivism under the care of the apostles (all of whom were good men), gave way upon their deaths to a system dominated by men who saw the position the apostles had held as a means to power.

Power as in the case of the apostles, did not corrupt. It was the power that, the apostles had held up until their deaths*,  which attracted the corruptible to leadership positions in the church. It wasn't the gospel that created the monumentally corrupt Roman church, it was, in fact, the continuation of a social structure that had always been intended as a temporary solution during the early days of the church, when Christians were being actively persecuted.

Christ never intended for us to create the sorts of centralized collectivist power structures that catholicism came to embrace. He always intended that the truth would set us free. It was the powerful Protestant belief that to follow God was an exercise of one's free will that led to the creation of the United States and our incredible Constitution.

For more than two centuries, the power of individual free will has been demonstrated as this country has ascended to hold power far beyond the wildest dreams of dictators, kings and emperors. It is little wonder that Satan and his minions have set their sights on acquiring the power of the United States for themselves. After all, power attracts the corruptible as we have seen.

Any church, any government or any organization that tells you that you must submit your will to the group and its leaders is not speaking to you from God. We must only submit our will to God Almighty and do the right thing as best we can determine from Scripture, prayer and reasoned thought. Anyone who tells you differently is not on the side of the Angels.

As Ellen White wrote in the quotation at the top of the sidebar of this weblog. It bears repeating:

• The greatest want of the world is the want of men - men who will not be bought or sold; men who in their inmost souls are true and honest; men who do not fear to call sin by its right name; men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole; men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall. - Ellen White

It is, admittedly, a dangerous world for such men. They inevitably find themselves standing against the tide of group opinion, against men in positions of power and against those who, having no scruples and a deep thirst for power, would do them harm should they oppose their will.

You must not submit ourselves to any group, no matter how noble their cause appears to be if it conflicts with the plain Word of God and your own conscience. I don't care if the person who tells you so is standing in the pulpit of your church or writing emails to you from the church conference office. You are called to stand in the breach and do what is right. Others may have differing opinions. That is their right. They have the same free will that you do.

We are called to do right, to treat others the way we would want to be treated, to keep the commandments and to bear the testimony of Christ to all the wide world. We are NEVER told by Christ to seize power and wield it for the good of the collective or the church. The Army of Christ is an army of individuals who share a purpose, not a homogeneous mass to be shoved around by ranked authorities like pawns on a chessboard. THAT is where we differ from those who call themselves "progressive". That is where we draw the line and go no further....until Christ shall come.


Tom King © 2015

* Note: The apostles, all save John were killed by "government" authorities as was Christ Himself.

Adventist Food: Potluck Vegetarianism

King Ranch Chicken

 
I've been buried in writing a couple of books lately and haven't been back here to post in a while. Sorry about that, but something good came out of the time. I was approached by Atlantic Natural Foods about a recipe I'd posted for Barbecued Tender-Bits. Atlantic recently bought back Loma-Linda and Worthington canned foods from Kelloggs which I think is a very good thing.

Anyway, we got to talking and the upshot is, I've got a new weblog that they are sponsoring with cans of their products that my wife and I wll be turning into recipes.  It's called The Potluck Vegetarian.

While Atlantic Natural Foods makes vegan products, the recipes at Potluck Vegetarian will be more traditional lacto-ovo, Sabbath feast, hungry people kind of dishes. Don't look for anything the kids are going to turn up their noses at. The recipes will be kid friendly. Though not necessarily strictly vegan militantly healthy, low fat or high-fiber, although that does occur. Everything is pretty healthy and vegetarian to boot. And you'll score points with the crowd at the next potluck.

I'll likely catch flack from the militant vegans. You might too if you take King Ranch Chicken covered in melted chedder or Vege-burger Lasagna covered with Mozarella and Provolone to potluck, but I promise you, you'll take home a clean dish, while the folks who brough the salt-free, gluten free Bran and Kale Goulash won't.

This is low stress, high-deliciousness cooking, traditional Adventist potluck style. Be sure and sign up to follow the site. There's a box in the sidebar for your email address. I'll be posting one or two new dishes a week and Atlantic Natural Foods has promised to send me some of their new products for us to experiment with. I'm looking forward to it. The wife is a genius in the kitchen. I'm a genius at tasting stuff.

© 2015 by Tom King

Star Honor Series: Part 7 - Mounting Your Reflector Telescope on a Dobsononian Mount

In Part 5 and 6 of this series we built a Dobsonian Mount (right) and an unmounted reflector telescope. Now we get to put them together.   Here's what that process is going to look like.

First set the tilt box in the cradle on top of the pedestal. The mounting cradle should be lined with some kind of felt strips.  The pedestal is open under the tilt box which will allow the tilt box to sing all the way down so that the scope can point across a full range of motion from horizon to straight over head. 

Next, slide the tube into the open-ended tilt-pod mounting box. Move it back and forth so that it balances at the ears of the mounting box when the telescope is horizontal. If the scope feels loose, glue felt padding to the inside of the tilt box so the scope tube fits more tightly in the tilt-pod. The scope, if balanced properly should sit at any angle and rotate smoothly, without slipping once it's in place. that's really all there is to it. It should look like the picture below when you're done.  Finish by drilling a couple of holes through the top and bottom of the mount and through the scope. Measure the distance and drive a couple of screws through the holes to secure the scope. Be careful not to drive any screws through the optics inside the scope.

Setup: 

Next you need to collimate the telescope.  Adjust the primary mirror first by using the collimating screws on the bottom of the mirror mounting cell.  Look down the sonotube from the top the mirror and you'll see the image of the open end of the tube and your face looking back at you. You'll see the four spyder legs that hold the secondary mirror. criss-crossing the inside of the tube between you and the primary mirror. 

You want to center that image of the open top of the tube so that it will line up to give you a roughly centered image in the open telescope tube.  You do this by carefully loosening and tightening the screws below the primary mirror. If you force the screws you can crack your very expensive mirror.  

Once it looks close to centered, you need to adjust the secondary mirror to line up with the primary.  Look down the focuser tube. Further adjust the collimating screws until the secondary mirror is centered in the focuser tube. If you’ve got it right, your eye will appear in the center of the secondary mirror.

There are 3 screws through the primary
mounting plate which support the 
primary mirror as shown

Now, place the eyepiece in the focuser and test the optics by focusing on a distant object. You may need to fiddle with the collimating screws or the screws on the spyder legs of the secondary mirror. Once adjusted the telescope is ready for viewing. If you haven't mounted, the finder scope, it should be 90 degrees around the tube from the focuser, so that the finder is on top of the telescope tube. 
You'll need to line up the finder scope next.  It's best to do that in daylight. Roughly, line up the tube on a distant object and then look through the eyepiece with the lenses in place. Once you get centered on your target, check the lineup on the finder scope. Adjust the mounting screws so the cross-hairs on the finder line up precisely with your target.
Don't try to do this at night. Stars move and it's too hard to match the finder to the scope when the target is moving.

Be careful when you clean your lenses. Brush dust off the optics with a fine camel's hair brush or blower. Wiping your lenses with your shirt tail or even a hankie will scratch and dull lenses. 
Last Word: 

If you're building your own telescope, spend the bulk of your money on optics - a big mirror, eyepiece lenses and big focuser that will take 1 ¼ inch or 2 inch eyepieces. The larger lenses are way more comfortable for viewing and you can make your own eyepiece lenses. I made mine out of copper pipe and mounted the lenses in a PVC pipe cap slipped over a 2 inch pipe.  Works great and I got the lenses from an optical surplus. I got enough lenses to build 5 eyepieces for $25 and it came with the lens combinations for the various lenses packaged separately.

If you love star-watching, I highly recommend building your own telescope. It is a seriously cool project!

(c) 2015 by Tom King

Losing the Shut-Ins: A Call for a Revival of the "Sunshine" Ministries

GT Ng - General Conference Exec. Secretary

The Adventist Church as reached 18.1 million members, making it the fifth largest Christian denominantion in the world, after the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Catholics, Anglicans and Assemblies of God. In making that announcement, Executive Secretary of the world SDA church, G.T. Ng lamented that we were losing large numbers of members at the same time.

I think, from my own experience, I can tell you why.

The Baby Boom Generation, both here and abroad is aging out of the church. This shouldn't be happening. People like me are supposed to be free now to give of their time to the church and to the nuture and mentor the next generation.

Instead, too many of us are living on fixed incomes that may or may not last as the economy is steadily decimated by government over-spending, taxation and unbridled entitlements. As we age, a particular problem is the loss of mobility that comes with aging. In my own home state, in East Texas where my family is, one in five adult East Texans can't drive. One in four are over the age of 65 and that number is increasing dramatically as boomers like me careen into old age on a wing and a prayer and without a good survival plan.

We are the generation that chose causes we cared about and dedicated our lives to them. Most genuine causes don't have very good retirement plans for volunteers. Sustentation keeps our church pastors in decent cars and vegetarian food throughout retirement. Not so much for teachers of my era or the volunteers who have held up the church over the decades.

Sadly, now that so many of us are beginning to lose the ability to drive and the extra cash to pay for our church activities, we're being forgotten. And it does cost to "volunteer" for the church. Local churches have notoriously tight budgets. One of the most expensive volunteer jobs you can take on in the local church, for instance, is "Pathfinder Director". Pathfinders are one of the lower tier items on the church budget. They only get money if all the other bills in front of them get paid, so if you want to be a good Pathfinder Director, you need to either be able to foot the bills yourself or be a very good fund-raiser.

Our seniors are disappearing from the church and with them the people with the most time and skill at working with church ministries and mentoring new members. I know from experience, that if you get without transportation and stop showing up for church, you can get forgotten very quickly. Six months after my wife and I lost our ride to church, the word got round that we'd gone back to Texas, even though I'd contacted the pastor by email and have several friends in the church who follow me by email.

It's pretty quickly out of sight out of mind with many of our churches. People are busy. We have other concerns and we just don't notice when people stop coming. Older people tend to be a bit proud too. We don't want to be a burden on people and we don't want to be asking for a ride all the time. We can watch Doug Batchelor online on Sabbath morning so we do that. We can pay our tithe online or give it to 3ABN so we do that. 3ABN thrives as a ministry almost entirely on gifts from elderly shut-in church members.

I never imagined myself as a shut-in, but suddenly I am. We are part of an invisible church congregation within the church and we have been forgotten.  Let me suggest a couple of things you can do to reclaim some of these lost members. These programs should also apply to new members young and old.

1. Track who comes to church and who is absent. Make a church mugshot book (there's a ministry for someone with a digital camera and desktop publishing software right there).  Develop a printed checklist and make a deacon with a mugshot book responsible to record who shows up and to log the visitors list as well. It does not have to be an intrusive process. Just tagging faces to names on a checklist. After a while you'll have several deacons who know everybody by face and name.
2. Find out who goes missing by entering church attendance records in a database that tells you who has missed more than a week or two. The database can be done by entering the attendance record or you may be able to do the whole attendance recording on a computer tablet. This is not expensive and can help you keep from losing track of members.
3. Have the deacons follow up. Deacons are supposed to help by visiting the sick and comforting the grieving. They can also help by following up on missing members. Assign each deacon and elder a few names to call or visit.
4. Have the church secretary develop a big map of where every church member lives on a big cork board, and not just the active members. If a church member doesn't have a ride to church, tack a flag on the board. Ask in church for volunteers to call those transportation impaired members and offer them a ride to services. Volunteers can look at the map and identify stranded members they drive right past on the way to church and pick them up. Don't wait for members to ask for a ride. Offer them one and keep on offering them a ride. Get them to church! If they are too sick to attend, offer to bring them lesson study books and books from the church library or DVDs and CDs of the weekly sermons.
5. Check to make sure everyone is being offered a ride and visit them. Ask the visitation committee to visit every shut-in member on the list at least once a quarter.
6. Provide recordings or videos of services to shut-ins.  It's relatively inexpensive to make DVDs and there are lots of Internet streaming services that allow you to stream Sabbath services in the Internet. Many older shut-ins depend on the Internet for keeping in contact with the church and their friends. Use that to keep them connected with the local church. 

For relatively little money and by distributing jobs among church officers and volunteers, you can use this system to identify lost members and shut-ins and rebuild your weekly attendance. Members should not be leaking out of the church because of our sheer neglect.Here's a place where you can offer leadership in your church. As Christians we take care of our own - at least we're supposed to. Instead of complaining about losing members, how about we just stop losing them.

Tom King

Debunking SDA Myths: The Truth Will Set You Free

Pope Frances & Shimon Peres discuss creating a "United Religions" organization. Notice this did not happen
in secret. The author of this sign of the end is quite happy to have his work displayed on the nightly news.

An article by Loren Siebold appeared in Spectrum Magazine back in 2011 that, I think every Adventist should read. It concerns the false stories that over the years have been spread in the back rooms of Adventist churches and in the more dogmatic sorts of SDA study groups. The author claims this sort of Adventist "mythology" is harmful and Siebold is dead on in that assessment I believe.

This is a sermon topic that should be preached in every SDA church. As the article says, the trouble with these conspiracy theories is that they assume Satan is far less subtle than he is. We are seeing the Great Controversy coming to its end every day in the news. The Threefold Union from Revelation is being formed on the front pages of the newspaper and in Youtube videos released by the major players themselves. The devil is kind of proud of the great deception he's working. He's not being secret about it. Just listen to the great players in their own words. They are telling us what they intend to do to us.

Anyone who grew up SDA and watched the video from the Pope to the charismatic envangelicals declaring an end to "Luther's protest" and inviting them back into the fold, had chills running up their spines. Anyone who read the news story about Shimon Peres inviting the pope to become the leader of a United Religions organization designed to parallel the United Nations, sat back and went "Whoa!"

We need not hurry the end of time along. It will come and as Sister White said, the final movements will be rapid ones. We do not need to depend on people who claim to be "in" on secret plots for information. Satan is working his will out in the open on the news and in the media.When Jesus said he would come as a "thief in the night" he wasn't talking about burglers. Thieves in the night in Jesus day were more like home invaders. You knew they were there all right, even though their coming might have been a surprise.

We especially do not need to make things up to prove our point. Too often we fall for invented stories and trumped up controversies because they offer us an opportunity to be in on the big secrets that make us holier than the rest of the rabble. We need only spread the Gospel and the big ending will happen inevitably. Too often, I fear, Christians of all stripes, believe that God needs better public relations and that somehow making stuff up to make God look better is helping him out.

They should remember the scene before the judgement seat and the self-proclaimed holy men who tell God, "See what I did for you." God tells them, "I never knew you." That should definitely give us pause when we even consider stretching the truth or repeating unsubstantiated gossip, no matter how spectacular it might be.

If we are to be the sons and daughters of God, we ought to tell the strict truth. Period. There is no excuse to do otherwise. God does not need that kind of help!

As leaders of families and leaders of churches, it is our duty to speak out against these kinds of efforts to create excitement among our members through deception. We must demand proof before we allow such people into our pulpits. Examine every messenger who comes with "special secret information" for the church - especially if he takes up a collection to help his "work". We do not need the "secrets" brought to us by the likes of John Todd, Ron Wyatt, Colin Standish and Alberto Riviera to proclaim the message of the soon-coming Saviour. We need the Word of God alone.

The signs of the end, Christ told us, would be as obvious as the leaves changing color in the autumn. We've already been told that if someone comes to say that Christ can be found in some secret place, not to go there. I think the same principle applies to those who try to "sell" salvation through secrets, fear and lies.

Let's not go there!


© 2015 by Tom King

Camping Genius: The Shovel Grill

If you're a Pathfinder counselor or director, you're always looking for new woodsy stuff to teach the kids.  Here's one camping genius trick that will not only impress your kids, but also doesn't take just a whole lot of effort to pull off.

It's the old shovel-grilling technique.  If you've got a metal snow shovel or flat shovel, you've got the most amazing portable grill ever at your disposal. Trust me, this is NOT a new idea. Someone with food to fry and no skillet has already done this somewhere at some time.

You can clean up an old shovel to use as your grill, but for a nonstick surface, it's best to spend the $15 and buy a short-handled flat shovel and reserve it for camp cooking. A new one won't have a lot of scratches and pits that cause food to stick.

The technique is easy. You just build a fire, oil the pan of the shovel and cook whatever you need to cook over an open fire. Hold the shovel close to the fire, but not actually in the flames. The technique is demonstrated in the video at the end of this article.

The nifty part of this is not what you can do with a shovel grill, but how you work it into what you are already doing on the typical campout. Here are a couple of ideas:

1. Grilled onions for roasted vege-dogs. While the kids are roasting their weiners, you get out your shovel and grill some onions. Put some oil in your shovel, add onions and saute them over the open fire - not to close, though. You want to carmelize the onions to make them taste sweeter and you need to work for a little longer and at low heat. When you are done, the kids can spoon out onions for the hot dogs with a spatula. Open fore grilled onions are fantastic. You may even sell a couple of kids who dislike onions on trying them simply for the novelty of scooping onions out of a shovel.
2. Flapjacks. Ever wanted to flip pancakes the lumberjack way?  Here's your chance. You can easily cook pancakes on a shovel in the same way you do with an iron skillet. Once you've cooked it on one side, make sure the flapjack is loose and then toss it in the air so that it rotates. Catching it is the trick and you may go through a lot of pancake batter on your way to mastering the technique. But if you get good at it, you will be a camp cookery rockstar. Even more fun, if they have one of those pancake flipping contests at Camporee, you can cause all sorts of excitement if your team shows up with their pancake flipping shovels!
3. Vege-Burgers.  Use your shovel like a big old skillet and fry up a bunch of those bad boys for supper.  You just have to watch your distance from the fire so they don't burn.
4. Fried Taters.  What camp breakfast is complete without shovel-fried potatoes? I mean how convenient is it to have that 3 foot long handle on your frying pan when you're passing out the breakfast spuds?
5. Eggs. Scrambled or fried, eggs are perfect for shovel frying. You might want a partner with a spatula to work the eggs while you hold the shovel in just the right place.
6. Stripples.  Let us also not forget ersatz bacon as a candidate for shovel cookery (should we make this an MV Honor?  Stripples and its soy-based cousins deserve a place on the shovel grill. If they can do it with the porcine variety, we can do it with the healthier alternative!

Virtually anything you can think of, that can be fried or grilled, can be fried or grilled with your handy dandy grillin' shovel. You might even try making some really fancy treats, just to hike up the fun factor or to treat the grownups in the group after you've sent the hot dog hounds off to bed. Imagine making omelets, crapes or maybe some version of barbecued Tenderbits over an open fire, under the stars. Life, my friend is good if you have the right tools. 

Below, Brett McKay of "The Art of Manliness" weblog, shows us the correct shovel-grill handling technique with a steak. Note, the same technique works with choplets, steaklets, Fri-chick and a wide range of gluten and soy based products (just so you know).

© 2014 by Tom King

Camping Genius: Splicing Ropes

The best way to join two ropes is NOT a square knot. So, recognizing that Pathfinders are headed for Oshkosh for the Big Camporee, let me give you a nice knot to learn - the splice. It's really not as difficult as you think.

Check out the procedure at this weblog page complete with pictures.

When you're done, your rope will be neatly connected and without the problem of jammed knots or joints that fall apart under stress. You're splice will look like this. Follow the step by step instructions on the linked page. I've included lots of pictures.

© 2014 by Tom King