fought about the distance from the knee cap a proper lady should let her dress fall. Fortunately us men were not allowed to discuss any of this with the women because it would have been scandalous to talk about such delicate lady issues in mixed company.
So while we couldn’t talk about dresses, we men had our own divisive issue to discuss: belts. It seems the Bible has nothing at all to say about belts, pro or con. However our ingenious German leaders decided, after carefully consulting Ellen White Writings, that it did talk about belts.
Now I must take a few moments to talk about this Ellen White. I mentioned her previously, yet unless you are an Adventist, or interested in insignificant religious movements, you probably don’t know anything about her – consider yourself lucky. She is the backbone of Seventh Day Adventism, as well as Sabbath Rest Adventism. Both claim Ellen White as a prophet for their respective movements, but the Sabbath Rest Adventists think she is upset with Seventh Day Adventists for not being strict enough about belts and dresses. Sabbath Rest Adventists are the standard bearers of truth in these dark and trying times.
I realize that was not much actual information about Ellen White, so I will rectify that: Ellen White was a physically sick young women who in the Fall of 1844 was convinced that Jesus was going to come back, even though he told everyone they wouldn’t know the time or day he would be coming back. Well, if you didn’t know, Jesus did not come back in the Fall of 1844, I know, surprise right! This meant some damage control had to be done, so God chose this frail sickly girl to be his Prophet, and ever since then she has counseled and comforted those who recognize her gift encouraging them to press on to the high standard of fashion that God demands from all his worshipers. As you can imagine there have been endless fights about what to eat, when to eat, what to wear, when to wearing it, and of course as I have outlined above: water. This led to the fracturing of the Adventistism in the 1950s and 60s and gave birth to the cult I was a part of.
Add to all of this the rather heavy charge of plagiarism against Ellen White, and it is easy to imagining why Adventism splintered. To date Ellen White has refused to answer the charges of plagiarism because she is dead.
Back to the rousing issue of belts: The Germans maintained that Ellen White, in vision, revealed to the faithful that belts are opposed to the Holiness of God because they crush the internal organs ever so slightly. Space Jesus hates it when livers, pancreases, and stomachs are cramped. I am serious. Of course this was not as important for men because they did not make babies. Belts were especially grievous for women to wear. How else would they be make babies for Space Jesus if they wore belts, or God forbid - pants?
So it was decided after no discussion or input from the rest of the Church that the divine answer was suspenders. Yes, suspenders. Not only for the men, but the women as well. If you didn't think Germans were kinky before, I hope you do now, because a women wearing suspenders is just about as titillating as ice cubes on your nut sack. Needless to say the German Head Leader Andreas Dura approved of this idea, although I later found out he had previously been a suspender salesmen.
As you can clearly see this cult had some serious issues. Each one an earth shattering problem that had to be resolved before Space Jesus could come back to Earth. Seriously he was waiting for us to wear suspenders, dresses, and to be properly hydrated - before he would come save the world from death and destruction. Since Space Jesus has not returned, that I know of, these folks must still be grappling with how much water to drink, the type of pant retention system to use, and the Godly length of dresses.
Yes I finally left, I just could not debate any further the merits of button suspenders over clamp suspenders, nor the merits of spring water versus artesian well water. I just didn’t love God enough, because these things were the most important thing to him. I wish I could have called all of this nothing more than self indulgent navel gazing, but we weren’t allowed to look at anyone's navel, including our own. It was too arousing. Unfortunately you can still find this group on the internet. Just make sure you search for Sabbath Rest Advent Church, not water, dresses and belts. The latter search will provide much more interesting than the former.
I got out, and I am very glad I did. Fortunately I can now wear belts, drink water, and wear sport dresses without have an Anxiety attack. It was a long road to recovery, but with the help, well, of everyone really, I was able to see that God doesn’t really give a shit about dress length, amount, kind or times of water intake (or outtake) and even less about belts.
What this all did teach me however is this: The Sabbath Rest Adventist Church is the B Movie of Cults. Not a main feature, not really even a B feature. Jim Jones, the Heavens Gate Cult guy, they were the main feature. They had it. They got their members to kill themselves. That is what in the acting world we call “commitment”. Our cult leaders couldn’t even get us to stop drinking water with our meals.
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