I want to examine a splinter-cult of yet another Christian splinter-cult, in recognition of the Lunar New Year. Within the ranks of American Evangelical denominations, there are untold numbers of these branching groups. If God is not the author of confusion, as every one of these countless congregations claim as their axiom, then the Creator certainly has no place to call home here in America. A whorehouse is more consistent, and those are illegal in the States!
World’s Last Chance is an internet-based denomination that branches off from Seventh-Day Adventists. (I was part of the SDA church when I was a Christian.) There are many of these Adventist splinter-groups. They continue the tradition of unwieldy titles and occasionally stumbling into interesting truths once every fortnight; like a drunk negotiating a sidewalk on their way home.
I have no love in my heart for the Adventist movement any longer. I’ve found that particular Christian movement to be one of the most dishonest and treacherous interpretations of Christianity yet devised, but if some people get off on being perpetual suckers, I won’t endeavor to stop them.
World’s Last Chance is an interesting anomaly. They appear to be desperately reaching for the truth of things. They go off stumbling into dark corners where most Christians would never dare tread. Their teachings challenge assumptions about chronology and cosmology in ways that absolutely terrify the average person.
For instance, this WLC group actually has the balls to stand by the original cosmology of scripture: wherein the bible writers affirm that the earth is flat, motionless, resting on pillars, and enclosed by a dome fashioned from polished metal. The vast majority of Christendom lacks the bravery to stand by this clear Biblical teaching. Who can really blame them? They might lose their tax-exempt status if they so blatantly opposed government-sponsored propaganda agencies like NASA and the military industrial complex!
In nearly all matters of religious significance, money talks and principles walk.
The one doctrine that I really admire WLC for defending is the ancient lunisolar calendar. While the entire world has seemingly acquiesced to the Roman Gregorian tracking of time, the heretics at World’s Last Chance stubbornly cling to the calendar of the ancients. WLC’s endorsement of the Lunar weekly cycle really gets under the skin of their critical Adventist viewers, because the Adventists believe they’ve cornered the market on keeping correct time.
“We’re the only ones who know what the REAL Sabbath is! The rest of the world doesn’t even know what day it is!”
I heard this proclamation constantly in my youth. However, when I set out to study these things for myself, I ran into more than a few problems. Such as: What’s the deal with the New Moon Festivals celebrated in the Old Testament? How did Joshua, successor to Moses, march the Israelite army around the walls of Jericho for seven days without breaking the Sabbath Law?
I eventually uncovered the reality of ancient lunar calendars, revealed to me by some fringe misfit hermits whom I keep as pen pals. This information certainly won’t be revealed from the church pulpit! A public library is the best place to begin searching, but one has to know where to look. Thankfully, I had some guidance from a few maligned “devils,” outside the ecclesiastical echo-chamber.
“Saturday is the true Sabbath!” My old church proudly proclaimed. This alleged truism turned out to be yet another falsehood. Indeed, the whole system of time keeping and chronology that we observe in modern times is a kind of abomination, one that rejects the lunar cycles entirely.
The Adventists simply cannot go “all the way” with this truth, because that would place them in direct opposition to the Gregorian calendar, and their true masters in the Vatican. They would be forced to have their congregations work out the real Sabbath days according to the lunar cycle. Adventists would be asking their employers for days off, seemingly at random every week, in order to remain faithful to the ancient Sabbath laws. The lunar weekly cycle does not align with the solar week whatsoever.
If any church attempted to endorse a lunar calendar, this would likely bring down the ire of the militant aspect of the Catholic church, as every group who has tried to observe a calendar in defiance of the Julian/Gregorian calendar, was swiftly extinguished. (Or simply excommunicated from society, as the case might be nowadays. These churches are trying to run a business, after all, so we can’t have conflicting calendars!)
The proselytizers at World’s Last Chance are to be commended for their bravery. (Or their skillful execution at a controlled-opposition movement, with nuggets of truth thrown in for good measure. It’s hard to know the difference these days!) However, like most cults, they simply cannot abandon all of their dogmatic baggage in favor of truth. They stubbornly cling to the fraudulent Adventist founder, Ellen White, as a source of divine inspiration, when it has been proven that she never had an original thought, outside of her fever-induced visions. (Prophetess of Health, Ronald Numbers) Even when that sickly woman spoke out in opposition to the flat-earth movement in the late 1800s, World’s Last Chance seems to ignore this; chalking it up to the possibility that God wasn’t guiding her speech that day.
I really wish some of these more fringe movements would apply the same lens of reason to the Scriptures, but I suppose that’s too sacred of a cow to slaughter. Either way, it’s hilarious to read the comments under the videos on the WLC YouTube channel. Martin Luther wannabes, the lot of ’em.
Yet even with these schizophrenic cults, small treasures will sometimes emerge. That is why I will not entirely write off any one religion. There’s always something worth salvaging.
Happy Lunar New Year everyone!
