God. In either case the cross pertains to a mark which is placed on foreheads. So, we’re trying to figure out if, during the Great Tribulation, one will burn in hell forever if one puts the mark of a cross on one’s forehead, or if one will be saved from torments, if one puts the mark of a cross on one’s forehead, during the Great Tribulation. We’re also here in Rock Island to discuss the evidence which says every church under the sign of the cross, including every Protestant church under the sign of the cross, lead souls to perdition. I’m trying to explain this evidence, but the Protestants in Rock Island are getting ugly again. They really don’t like it when I tell them they will burn in hell forever if they ever put the mark of a cross on their foreheads or right hands! They’re insisting I’m a: ‘satanic f#&ker’ for saying the ‘holy cross’ leads to eternal hellfire. I’m sensing the audience is predominantly Evangelicals and Pentecostals – low-income conservative Protestants, gun owners who drive pick-ups, Wal-Mart shoppers etc., as opposed to Lutherans and Episcopalians, rich Liberals who support gay marriage and abortion. I think I better tell them what they are doing right for a little while, and then I can hammer them again later about the cross. I gotta get the audience to stop cursing me for at least a little while. Instead I patiently explain how the Protestant reformers of the 16th century fell away from the True Faith.
Me - ‘James MacKinnon in his article on Luther in the Britannica (1963) tells us that the extermination of the Anabaptists was advocated by Luther, and this anti-Christian policy was carried out by both Protestant and Roman Catholic authorities. Professor Mackinnon writes of Luther,
‘Towards the Anabaptist movement, on the other hand, he adopted an attitude of uncompromising antagonism. These sectaries, who took their rise at Zurich in 1525, and rapidly spread their views from Switzerland over the Empire, continued the more radical tendency of Münzer, whose revolutionary teaching was adopted by the more extreme section and eventuated in the fantastic and fanatic attempt to establish the reign of the saints at Münster in Westphalia. The more moderate section led by Hubmaier, Hetzer, and Denck, all of them men of scholarly attainments, eschewed revolutionary violence, and advocated adult baptism as the exclusive scriptural practice, and a more literal revival of primitive Christianity as they understood it. To Luther both sections were alike obnoxious subverters of religious and social order, and he ultimately belied his own principle of freedom on conscience by supporting the persecution to which both sections were alike subjected in Protestant as well as Roman Catholic territories, and in joining Melanchthon in pronouncing for the infliction of the death penalty for persistent profession of the Anabaptist error (1536).’
The Israeli statesman Abba Eban, in his book ‘Heritage: Civilization and the Jews’ (Simon & Schuster, 1984, pp. 198-201), gives an account of Luther’s transformation from being a friend of the Jews to one of their bitter enemies. In 1523, in his pamphlet That Jesus Christ Was a Born Jew Luther excoriates the popes, bishops and monks for their cruel treatment of the Jews. Nineteen years later, in 1542, in his Against the Jews and their Lies, Luther calls for, 1) burning the synagogues of the Jews, 2) destroying their homes to make them live like gypsies or force them to live under one roof, 3) deprive them of their prayer books and Talmuds, 4) forbid rabbis to teach, and execute those rabbis who violate this decree, 5) forbid the right to travel to the Jews, 5) confiscate their valuables, forbid them to loan money, 6) make the Jews earn their livings via manual labor….This is insane evil. All a Christian has to say to to the Jews. Jesus is God, that is God is a Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and Jesus is God the Son. Those who do not know or worship the True God, and those who don’t obey the Gospel, will go to perdition. And then when the Jews responds by saying the Christians will go to perdition, you just agree to disagree and move on, you know, you don’t let the animosity fester, you know boil over into nasty words / violence. Christians may speak to non-Christians, but the saints are supposed to give a very polite rebuke to Christians who teach heresy – heresy is any false doctrine which leads people to perdition – and then if the heretic doesn’t stop being a heretic the saints are to excommunicate him, which means giving him the silent treatment, as well as not giving him the Eucharistic bread and wine.’
Protestant Fundamentalist Mom - ‘I shouldn’t even be talking to damned heretics like you.’
I start citing all of the verses in the New Testament which damn the rich; and I was citing those two scriptures in The Book of the Acts of the Apostles, Acts 2. 44-5 and Acts 4. 32, which tell us there was equal sharing of the wealth among the apostles. And I was saying that in the True Faith, and in the True Church, every able-bodied person worked, and, for instance, if you worked 40 hours per week then you got a full share, you got the same share regardless if you worked as a CEO or a surgeon or a garbage man, and if you worked 80 hours in a week then you got 2 shares, and if you worked for one hour in the week then you got a forthieth of a share, and if you worked 33 hours in a week you got 33/40 of a share. And I was explaining that this is really what the True Faith and the True Church teach in regards to money. And, obviously, charity is extended to Christians who are not able to work, and charity is given to non-Christians – Christians don’t let people starve to death! The True Church certainly helps out starving kids even if their parents hate Christianity etc., etc. Obviously the New Testament doesn’t specifically state that such a system is the correct economic system for Christians to adopt. But we know that Christ gave two commandments: love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Picking up on the second of these two commandments, the proper Christian attitude is not: How Can the Kings and the Nobles and the Rich Further Enrich Themselves? But rather, the proper Christian attitude is: How Can Christian Society Be Structured to Benefit the Greatest Number of Christians while also providing charity to Non-Christians? We can’t simply ignore all of the scriptures which say rich people will be damned – I review these scriptures in my books – and then you add Paul’s assertion that an able-bodied person should not be given alms if he refuses to work, and combining these ideas with the two verses which we’ve seen from The Acts of the Apostles where the early Christians shared everything, and then you arrive at the economic system which I articulated above. The Popes and the Eastern Orthodox clergy gave their blessings to the feudal system – a system which enriched the nobles and sunk the peasantry into a condition which, at best, let the peasants hover just above starvation and despair. Both the Popes and the Protestants gave their blessings to the African slave trade. Anyway, the upshot of the last 1,700 years, that is, the upshot of events ever since the priests, kings and the nobles took control of Christianity 1,700 years ago, is that the economic system under the sign of the cross has been an economic system which has not asked: How Can We Love Our Neighbors? It has not been a system which asks: What Economic System Helps the Greatest Number of Christians? But, generally speaking, aside perhaps from the last 100 years, the economic system, or rather systems, under the sign of the cross for the last 1,700 years have been systems which always ask: ‘How Can the Rich and Powerful Become Even Richer and More Powerful?’
Now, of course, this economic system which I articulated above is unworkable unless a few things transpire. On the one hand, we have these scriptures which say rich people will be damned. But if a rich person is always giving his money away to the poor, he will soon be destitute, and in need of alms himself. So there needs to be a system where people aren’t driven to destitution. The economic scheme I articulated above would work well in an agricultural based society, as was the world throughout the Middle Ages. But how could society run an economic system, where everyone makes the same wage, without that system collapsing on itself, without everyone or most everyone driven to destitution? Obviously, it is not fair and equitable to give people who worked 1 hour in a week the same amount of money as people who worked 40 hours in a week. But let’s return to the first principles of Christianity. It is anti-Christian, yo
u know, you sort of become like Judas, if you say there is no True Church. John 14. 23-26 says that those who love Christ keep His words. So, if you love Christ, if you’re not a Judas, you will keep the words Christ spoke, such as the words He spoke in Matthew 16. 13-19, where Christ says He has founded His Church on a rock and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. So, where is this Church which Christ founded on a rock? You need this True Church to run the economic system. The True Church decides who needs to be excommunicated – and when a person is excommunicated then the people in the True Church give him the silent treatment. For centuries Roman Catholic theologians insisted that the authority of the Roman Catholic hierarchy shone like the sun, whereas the authority of the kings and nobles was like feeble moonshine. And this makes perfect sense if the Roman Catholic Church is the True Church, the Church which Christ founded on a rock, the Church which leads people to heaven and which leads no one to