RED HEIFERS AND RED HERRINGS

     So the news today---especially from the Churchian side of the Prozac Nation---is abuzz with end-of-the-world happenings: earthquakes, solar eclipses, the US Treasury Secretary getting snubbed in China, and a strange story concerning ginger-colored cattle of which we will have more to say below. These happenings are coincidental with the holiday formerly known in America as Easter and a star-studded celebrity billionaire bash at the Wonderful World of Disney Mar-a-Lago. 

    Churchians hold many mysterious positions. One is that they seem convinced of an imminent apocalypse where they'll be whisked away to Heaven; while at the same time they seem obsessed with amassing as much temporal power and wealth as possible. They seem to hold this conception of God as the Great CEO of the Universe and that we are all stakeholders in His Corporation. Presumably, at the Last Judgement---which they formulate as some sort of Universal Assize---their stock-shares in the whole enterprise can be redeemed and they can all retire to some kind of Eternal Suburbia. 

   So, to speed up this process, a fanatic in Texas has been combing America's ranches to assemble a herd of perfectly red heifers (those are female cattle, for those who went to public schools) which he intends to ship to Israel so that the Zionist Cult can make a blood sacrifice. The ostensible purpose of this is to bring about Christ's Return or the advent of Antichrist: it's not clear which is supposed to be the outcome of this event. 

   Speaking for myself, I would presume that a more Christian thing to do would be to send badly needed beef to the starving population of Gaza just a few miles away; but these people are convinced that Jesus responds to blood sacrifices; human suffering, not so much. 

   This whole 'red heifer' idea is about as gross a specimen of paganism as possible. The very idea that sacrificing a particular kind of animal at a specific shrine to influence God's actions is a practice straight out of pagan idolatry. Since these Churchian Zionists and Nationalists all seem to revere the Old Testament moreso than the New, they should examine the Old Testament a little more closely.

  The Canaanites, who were the people living in Ancient Palestine before the Hebrews settled there had a religion not unlike today's Prosperity Gospel. The Canaanites were primarily an agricultural and maritime people, and such cultures typically tie God and Nature together. Very early on, the Canaanites worshiped the sun, but over time cunning rulers and hired priests learned that they control the populace by imposing upon them abominable rituals that supposedly guaranteed them the favor of their god, Baal, whose favors resulted in prosperity. 

  We learn from the Old Testament that God didn't entertain a very high opinion of such a perversion of religion. The Hebrews were to worship God by imitating His attributes which brought religious devotion to the individual level without the force and fraud of priests and kings. The Hebrews, however, were going over to the Canaanite beliefs continually, and these practices were denounced by the Prophets. 

  As a specimen of the theological depth of the people organizing this project:

   "Many American evangelicals believe the red heifers will usher the second coming of Christ. 'We're going to accept the Messiah, and we need the Messiah to come,' Byron Stinson, a Texan who helped bring the cows to Israel, said at the gathering. 'For me, the red heifer is red for the blood of Jesus Christ. That's why it's red.'"

     That one, I fear, will have to pass without comment. There are times when one just doesn't know what to say. It should be concerning though that the Speaker of the US House of Representatives was present at the event where this was announced: and we all know about what his moral compass looks like. 

    Jewish Rabbi Azariah Ariel, who heads the Temple Institute in Jerusalem, and is heavily funded by New York banking tycoons, actually stated that "this ceremony does not activate the requirement to build the Third Temple, and building the temple does not depend on the Red Heifers. We do not do the ritual of the red heifer so that the Messiah will come so that God will do something like this or like that.” That sentiment probably won't deter the likes of Byron Stinson or his followers since most of their knowledge of theology comes from Hollywood, not Biblical scholars. Stinson remarked: "The rabbis are so excited because, like us scattered in the Nations, everyone can feel the approach of a one-world government. You can feel the approach of this time that something has to change; and everyone feels it, and what they desperately are looking for is for the Messiah to come." 

   It shouldn't have to be necessary to remind Christians that our salvation rests upon the Sacrifice of Christ not the sacrifice of cattle; but what Jesus or any of His subsequent followers had to say doesn't carry much weight in American churches these days. This whole project is both a waste of time and a waste of good meat on top of being blasphemous and hypocritical.