[UUPoly-L] Marriage and Ministry

[Timothy McKee <mknd17@hotmail.com>]

Some of my views about ministry were partly fashioned by Levi Dowling's spurious gospel THE AQUARIAN GOSPEL OF JESUS THE CHIRIST.  If I recall correctly in that particular book the supreme temptation of Jesus was regarding marriage. There is the idea also expressed in the New Testament that if you give up anything for the sake of the Kingdom of God you get back a hundredfold.  The idea of giving up marriage reminds me of the saying of Christ "there are some who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of God."  I do not think he meant for this to be taken literally as some have believed throughout history.

 

You may recall in a post yesterday that I mentioned David Berg's letter ONE WIFE as being one of his first letters to move his flock away from monogamy.  It was taken from the parable of the five wise virgins who had oil in their lamps and thus were prepared to meet the bridegroom when he came. Berg thus conflated polygamy with monogamy and tried to teach us that loyalty to the group should supercede loyalty to our spouse if we had one. As some of you know when group marriage failed at the Oneida Community the members were fairly quick to resort to monogamy. I personally believed at the time I was in the Children of God that I would have a more stable marriage if I became an independent disciple thus diminishing the group's authority over myself and my spouse. Thus, we declared our independence shortly before our marriage in October 1973. We informally severed ties completely in the summer of 1976.

 

Tim