https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/05/evangelical_lutherans_accept_selfmutilation_as_christian.html
May 30th 2021
In 251 A.D., a young woman resisted the sexual advances of Quintian, a Roman proconsul. Her resistance cost her a sentence in a local brothel and, eventually, her life. Before she died, she was subjected to tortures that included having her breasts torn off by pinchers. To the end, she refused to give in to the sexual predator who sought to force her to repudiate her Christian faith.
St. Agatha's endurance despite the tortures inflicted on her, including being deprived of one of the chief markers of her femininity, earned her a spot among the numerous Catholic saints who refused to renounce their identity in Christ. She believed that her body was the temple of the Holy Spirit. It was not to be violated by rape and by torture that sought to deprive her of her bodily integrity. She is considered an example to follow.
The tortures visited upon St. Agatha have been visited on women for centuries. Until the 19th century, a "breast ripper," also known as the "Iron Spider," was used to punish women guilty of sexual transgressions. Removing breasts was a way of destroying a woman's sexuality - indeed, her womanhood.
Even today, rituals such as breast ironing and female genital mutilation are a means of eliminating women's identity in order that they become less sexually tempting. Ironically, it is mostly women who inflict such tortures on other women.
In view of the above, it is with great astonishment and anger that both secular and religious women see self-torture as spiritual progress by a branch of the Lutheran church. It is with shock that we see sexual mutilation held up as a positive advance for women - so much so that it is being incorporated into a denomination that once stood for the elevation of women.
We are speaking of the recently appointed bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran church, Megan Rohrer. Rohrer, who identifies with the trans movement, has had her breasts surgically removed and now wishes to be referred to with the preferred pronouns "they" and "them."
We should feel sorrow for a woman who has chosen to have her breasts cut off. We wonder if Megan was ever told as a little girl that she was loved and treasured as a beautiful child created by God. What happened to cause her effectively to murder her womanhood, to commit a partial suicide of her feminine being? Why did she accept an invented story about transformation into some being other than her womanly self?
We don't know the answers.
An equally important question is this: how did the Evangelical Lutheran church come to the point where it considered elevation to the position of bishop of a person committed to an ideology ratifying self-mutilation and repudiation of identity as a woman as great progress in the Christian faith? How did Rohrer, now an ordained overseer of the sheep, priest and anointed bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran church, become an appointed representative of Jesus Christ, the Great Physician, who is a healer of bodies and souls?
[Ron: Ordained overseers in the Christian religion are NOT appointed representatives of Christ Jesus. The Christian religion was created by Pharisees and Roman Emperors and accordingly its ordained overseers represent, either consciously or unconsciously, those who ordain them, NOT Christ Jesus. See eg: Judaism and Christianity - Two Thousand Years of Lies - 60 Years of State Terrorism - http://abundanthope.net/pages/Political_Information_43/Judaism-and-Christianity---Two-Thousand-Years-of-Lies---60-Years-of-State-Terrorism.shtml].
What gospel message is the Lutheran church preaching when it selects as a pastor a woman who has repudiated the Lutheran doctrine of the human being created imago dei, male and female? One can only wonder what Luther himself would have thought about a woman who has voluntarily mutilated herself and who has spurned identification as "she" in favor of "they." He himself knew about the ineffectiveness of self-flagellation and extreme bodily harm as a means of attaining salvation. He concluded that salvation came not by torture of the body, but by faith in Christ.
One also can only wonder how someone who holds an indeterminate identity as neither man nor woman and who now holds a position in which "they" are to advise "their" flock in all things spiritual will uphold Christian doctrines concerning human identity and redemption of men and women by the Son of God who is also the Son of Man.
Further, can the Lutheran hierarchy not see that acceptance of the ideology of the trans movement effectively paralyzes the impulse to address abuse of women (and men)? By accepting self-mutilation as a means of progress for women, the trans movement vitiates efforts to curb and to stop mutilations such as female genital mutilation and breast-ironing - just to cite two examples.
A great expenditure of time and energy of Christian missionaries and others concerned about women's welfare has been aimed at stopping torture of women just for being women will be almost completely nullified by acceptance of trans ideology. The fact is that if women's self-torture is ratified and the chief indicating markers of their sex are removed, becoming part of routine and accepted medical procedures in an effort to create a facsimile of a "man," or a "person," the impeti toward correcting abuses of women is blunted.
After all, the leap from an individual will to self-mutilate to communal will to oppress and torture women is not a big one. Most human rights activists are familiar with social networks that openly support practices such as female genital mutilation.
How many in the Lutheran church recognize how utterly anti-woman (and anti-male) the trans movement is? There is a reason we don't hear much about female genital mutilation from trans activists. It's because drugging with hormones and bodily mutilation are pillars of the ideology, which overwhelmingly affects women. In fact, the trans movement could be said to be the modern idealization of the Aristotelian notion that women are intrinsically deformed and the male is the ideal.
The main issues, then, do not primarily include consideration of Megan Rohrer's feelings about herself. As Glenn Stanton pointed out in his article in The Federalist, "Megan, as a person, deserves absolute compassion and care for her deep psychological and emotional pain."
But Christian sainthood is not based on psychological indeterminacy and personal pain. It is based on faith in Christ.
[Ron: disagree. Arguably "Christian sainthood", ie the successful completion of the human journey through the Cosmos to meet with the Creator, is based on each individual's personal mastery of self predicated upon faith in the Creator as represented by Christ Michael, the creator of this planet and local universe, and loving "good works" for and on behalf of the Creator. Christ Jesus represented the Creator but was not the Creator
Luther never repudiated the divine origin of the human race as created male and female in the image of God. He retained the Christian belief that the body as well as the soul is redeemed and will be transfigured.
[Ron: I disagree. As I innerstand it, the soul is the repository of the myriad experiences of the ensouled individual and it remains with the spirit as the spirit evolves, grows and transforms. However, that process requires myriad physical incarnations whereafter the physical body ceases to exist as each incarnation ends].
The only person who will bear the saving marks of mutilation will be Jesus Christ, not those he came to seek and to save.
[Ron: I disagree. Christ Jesus was a dual incarnation and the spirits of Christ Michael Aton (the God of this local universe) and Esu Immanuel Kumara, one of his created sons, overshadowed the physical body of Christ Jesus (because their vibrational frequences were too high to actually inhabit Jesus' physical body without destroying it). CM ceased overshadowing Jesus during the crucifixation and Jesus didn't die but was resusscitated and went to Damascus where he subsequently frightened the bejabbers out of the Pharisee Saul (St Paul) and then journeyed to India where he married and had children and died at the age of about 115. See eg: THE CRUCIFIXION OF ESU JESUS JMMANUEL SANANDA http://abundanthope.net/pages/Phoenix_Journals_-_PDF_117/THE-CRUCIFIXION-OF-ESU-JESUS-JMMANUEL-SANANDA.shtml
As both CM and Esu Immanuel are spirits they do not bear physical muitilation marks. Nor do human spirits.
Be aware also that Christ Jesus incarnated to reveal divine truths lost over millennia the teaching of which had been corrupted by Pharisees and others. He did not come to sacrifice himself to "save" anyone because he couldn't. Each ensouled human being must 'save' self. WHY? Because EVERY ensouled Human (Higher universal man) is gifted by the Creator with an indwelling spark of Creator consciousness AND a unique personality and free will which makes him or her an only begotten (ie unique) son or daughter of God). As a consequence, every Human is a sovereign individual responsible for his/her own thoughts, decisions, actions, culpable inactions, evolvement and destiny. Accordingly every HUman must personally learn about life the universe and everything and gradually evolve spiritually to 'save' self, ie to become like God. THAT is the purpose of Creation. HUmans are eternal spirits and hence they have eternity in which to reincarnate and complete this process.
Once the Pharisees had arranged for Roman Emperors to establish a false religion in an effort to eliminate divine truths taught by Jesus they distorted his teachings by excluding the Gospel of Thomas and many other books from the Bible. But their biggest coup was getting the Torah included in the Bible as the "Old Testament". That completely compromised Jesus' teaching and created the basis for perpetuating the colossal LIE that Christian truth somehow arose out of Pharisaic bullshit. That perfidious accomplishment has enabled Pharisees and neo-Pharisees to pretend that despite having crucified Jesus they never-the-less happen to be the font of "Judeo-Christian" morality and values and hence the source of the civilisation that Jesus' divine teaching caused to manifest in Europe.
In particular, the Pharisees were not satisfied with inserting the Torah into the Bible and calling it 'The Old Testament'. They sought to ensure that virtually all references to Jesus' GOOD NEWS such as reincarnation and the fact that EVERY ensouled human being is indwelt by a fragment of Creator consciousness was deliberately omitted from Christian religious teaching and deleted from the Bible.
Pharisees and neo-Pharisees have censored and distorted successive iterations of Jesus' teachings and the Bible narratives for two millenia, starting with the Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus (St Paul), who denigrated females, subjugating them to males. Subsequently Pharisees and neo-Pharisees continued to manipulate Ecumenical Councils.
The denial of the fact that every ensouled human being is a higher universal man (HUman) because s/he is indwelt by a fragment of Creator consciousness and hence sovereign and immortal was as crucial as the elimination of the truth about reincarnation. Why? Because it led to the infantilisation of Christian religious believers via the false doctrine that Jesus the Christ was the ONLY begotten son of God and that he sacrificed himself for the salvation of ALL of humanity. He didn't and couldn't. Jesus' message was that every HUman is gifted by the Creator with a fragment of Creator consciousness and a unique personality and free will and that, as a consequence, every Human is a sovereign individual responsible for his/her own decisions, evolvement and destiny. Each HUman must learn about life the universe and everything and evolve spiritually to 'save' self. Moreover, HUmans are eternal spirits and have eternity in which to reincarnate and complete this process.
The Christian religion doesn't tell adherents this truth because Emperor Justinian eliminated virtually all references to Jesus' teaching about reincarnation from the Bible. This was finally achieved during the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 554 AD. At that time Emperor Justinian arrested Pope Vigilius for Believing in Reincarnation and had the Council declare:
If anyone asserts the fabulous preexistence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema. (The Anathemas against Origen), attached to the decrees of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, A.D. 554, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2d ser., 14: 318). See eg: Pope [Vigilius] Arrested for Believing in Reincarnation - http://abundanthope.net/pages/Political_Information_43/Pope-Vigilius-Arrested-for-Believing-in-Reincarnation.shtml
Eradication of the doctrine of Reincarnation, ie knowledge that the evolvement of life and hence MIND is based on the reincarnation process (which is essential to enable spirit beings incarnating into physicality to avail themselves of a sufficient number of physical incarnations to adequately explore and understand the immensity of life, the universe and everything) is the method used by the Pharisees and neo-Pharisees, ie Talmudists who call themselves Jews but are not, to convince gentiles (ie all who DO NOT accept Talmudism) that they are merely physical creatures having one, only, lifetime which has no meaning, destiny or purpose.
Concomitantly this LIE, reinforced by the Talmudists' funding and coercion of scientists to accept and promulgate false science about life, the universe and everything as typified by falsely promulgated Darwinian evolutionary theories about the Origin of Species, has made it easy for Talmudists and the Christian religious puppets they control, to instil fear of death into congregations. The truth is scientifically explained by Bruce Lipton. See eg: Bruce Lipton - Fear vs Love State and Stress's Effects on Your Body - http://abundanthope.net/pages/Other_Spiritual_Pieces_68/Bruce-Lipton---Fear-vs-Love-State-and-Stress-s-Effects-on-Your-Body.shtml
This process of inserting LIES into Christian teaching and the Bible has made it feasible for Talmudists and materialists generally, to distort human consciousness and science by having scientists, academics, educators and commentators as well as the MSM, promulgate false and ridiculous ideas about consciousness arising from random chemical reactions. This also enables Talmudists et al to contend that people on this small planet on the edge of the universe are the most, and probably the only, consciously intelligent beings in the Cosmos. LOL. Anyone still believing that sthick is gonna get a big surprise very soon.].
The trans message is not Lutheran. It is not Catholic. It is not Eastern Orthodox. It is not Southern Baptist or Reformed theology of the body.
In a word, it is not Christian.
Christians believe in the resurrection of the body, which is to become like Christ's body, glorified and made to dwell eternally in Heaven.
[Ron: This dogma is absurd when you innerstand that physical bodies are temporary, ie mortal physical manifestations used to house immortal souls and spirits during their myriad incarnations in the materium. Moreover, neither CM nor Esu Immanual Kumara, the spirits that overshadowed the body of Esu, (aka Christ Jesus) during his incarnation, actually indwelt that body. Be aware also, that the term "Christ" is a title, it is not the name of a being. Accordingly this statement can only apply to adherents to the religion established by Pharisees and Roman emperors. It is not what Christ Jesus taught, does not reflect divine truth and is contrary to reality. Moreover, although HUmans are destined to live eternally, that existance is dynamic and presupposes continuous life and growth within the cosmos rather than a 'glorified' static state in 'Heaven'].
Let the world posit malformation, deformation, torture, and even the sale of the body as a transformative and beautiful thing, a wonderful thing. Christians must have none of it.
Christians must feel the same revulsion toward the elevation of self-mutilation as salvific that they have had toward the practices of burning widows alive, child prostitution, slavery, female genital mutilation, and sex trafficking.
As the Lutheran confessions state, "God created us body and soul. The Son redeemed both body and soul with His blood. The Spirit sanctified both body and soul by the Gospel. And, on the Last Day, our bodies and souls shall be reunited to live immortal, imperishable lives in bliss forever."
[Ron: I disagree, as discussed above. This dogma is not consonant with divine revelation.].
Those confessions also reject attempts to annihilate human identity, also refusing "the teaching that the resurrection should be conceived in such a way as to exclude the body (in effect the Gnostic heresy that matter is essentially evil and that only the 'spirit' is capable of being saved)."
[Ron: The body is not evil BUT only spirit is immortal. Moreover, it is possible for a spirit to choose to reject the Creator and hence cease to exist. THAT is the necessarily implied in the Creator's gift of free will to spirits. For instance Lucifer was recently adjudicated and rejected his rehabilitation process and sought uncreation.]
Christians believe in the salvation of body and soul by Christ. He is the only Person who for all eternity will have visible scars indicating he was wounded for the transgressions of mankind.
[Ron: I disagree as discussed above.].
[Colour fonts, bolding and comments in square brackets added.].
Fay Voshell holds an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, which awarded her the prize for excellence in systematic theology. Her thoughts have appeared in many online magazines. She has been a regular contributor to American Think for almost a decade. She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com.
Image: kolyaeg via Pixabay, Pixabay License.
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