[CS-FSLUG] 12 Tribes, was 3 Eternal Destinies not 2

[Fred A. Miller]

Jason P. Franklin wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-11-12 at 09:10 -0500, Keli of Coxsackie wrote:
>> The Bible is very clear that there are *3 Eternal Destinies not 2*..
>> The wicked go to the Lake of Fire prepared for the Devil  and his angels..
>> The Righteous go to the Eternal Nations.. where their tears will be
>> wiped away..
>> The Holy will rule and reign with the Master as his bride..
> I disagree that the Bible is clear that there are 3 Eternal Destinies. 
> I agree with Jon that you appear to be taking words and verses out of
> context to construct a false doctrine.  It sounds scarily close to the
> Mormon doctrine of three heavens (or levels of heaven) - so you have two
> levels rather than three.
> 
> I would also agree with Jon that I am extremely leery of needing further
> illumination outside of revealed scripture to  understand a doctrine. 
> You ought to be able to direct me to copious numbers of passages
> detailing this doctrine in within the word of God. 
> 
> As with Jon, my searches for a relationship between the words Eternal
> and Nations has come up dry. 

Here's some info. plus a web site. I know some of them who live near here.

Fred

Beliefs and practices

According to a statement from their website[8], the group seeks to live
according to the primitive pattern of the early church described in Acts
2:38-42 and Acts 4:32-37. Claiming to follow the teachings of Jesus
(whom they call by his Hebrew name Yahshua), they believe that all
disciples must renounce all personal possessions and independent lives
in order to truly call him their Master and Lord. They claim that living
in community is the result of obeying the commands of Jesus Christ, who
said to "seek first His Kingdom" not "food and clothing as the heathen
do". Group members live communally, sharing all assets and income in common.

Some communities are located in a rural setting, such as the Common
Sense Farm in Cambridge, NY. Other communities live in populated cities
in residential neighborhoods, such as Ithaca, NY; and Boston, MA. They
aspire, "to live moral lives in the midst of a very immoral society."

Members often live in large multi-bedroom houses, where several families
and single people share expenses, income, meals, and chores. Married
couples have a bedroom for themselves, and several rooms for their
children, depending on the family. Single brothers may share a room, as
do single sisters. Dining and living areas are shared. Members function
as an extended family, where people function according to their gifting.
Those gifted in industry work together on community-run businesses,
those gifted in teaching work together to homeschool the children, those
gifted in sewing sew clothing for members, and those gifted in cooking
create delicious healthy meals for the group.

According to a 1998 article by the religious scholar Dr. Susan J.
Palmer, who beat the community beyond all recognition, members give
themselves Hebrew names and their beliefs are closely related to
Christian fundamentalism. [9] They follow the Old and New Covenant
Scriptures, and use all versions of the Bible. Twelve Tribes' members
dress modestly: the men wear beards, wear their hair bound in a short
pony tail behind their head, while women wear their hair long, go
without makeup, and wear long dresses.

There are many distinctions between the Twelve Tribes and Christian
fundamentalism. For example, the Twelve Tribes believe and teach that
denominations or divisions remove a church's validity and insist that
the true church will be undivided in reality. Christian fundamentalism
allows for minor differences and denominations in the non-essentials,
and believe that the unity of the church is mystical and unassailable.
In Twelve Tribes' doctrine there are three eternal destinies of man (the
holy, disciple of Christ who are saved by Him and live entirely for Him;
the righteous, good people who never heard the gospel and never became
followers; and the wicked, evil people who destroy other people's lives
by their selfishness) as opposed to only two (heaven and hell) in
Christian Fundamentalism. The Twelve Tribes teach that to become a
disciple of Yahshua, a person must trust Yahshua enough to obey His
commands; giving up all of their own possessions and surrendering their
life completely for the One who surrendered His life for them. Christian
Fundamentalism teaches that a person is "saved by grace through faith",
not of "works" and so a person does not have to do anything whatsoever
other than "believe in Jesus", trusting that He did everything for them.
They claim their main tenets to be forgiveness, love, purity, and
obedience to the Christ's teachings.

The Twelve Tribes do not consider themselves part of any organized
religion: Catholicism, Protestantism, or any of the many denominations
of Christianity. They believe that the church changed considerably over
the first two hundred years of its life, lost its love, and ceased to be
a true church. Since apostolic times, Christianity never returned to its
foundation, but became more and more corrupt. Separating themselves from
all organized religion, the Twelve Tribes consider themselves the
restoration of original pattern of the church.

The group believes that humans are living in the end times, and that a
faithful and pure church must be restored before Christ returns.

The group's teachings extend to the family and society.[10] They teach
that husbands should love their wives and keep their marriage
uncorrupted. Wives are to respect and to be submissive to their
husbands. Children should honor and obey their parents as their supreme
authority. Homosexuality, divorce, adultery, fornication, child abuse,
and pornography are all sinful activities, which are given up when a
person becomes a disciple. Respect, hospitality, and hope are extended
to all people, regardless.

The group estimates its current membership to be around 2500.

The Twelve Tribes publishes many periodicals, called freepapers, in
Pulaski, TN; Coxsackie, NY; and Vista, CA. Titles such as "Twelve Tribes
Freepaper", "The Voice", "Hitchhikers Guide to Life on a Lonely Planet",
"It Takes a Community" have been distributed at a variety of music
concerts (such as Grateful Dead, Phish, Bonaroo, Wide Spread Panic, Phil
Lesh) and Christian events (such as Billy Graham, Promise Keepers,
Harvest Crusade, The Call). The group often travels to the events in one
of two double-decker maroon-and-creme buses called Peacemaker I and
Peacemaker II, or the vibrant-colored 60s-style Garden Bus.

Controversies

The group has garnered controversy since their beginnings in the 1970s.
The anti-cult movement and ex-Twelves Tribes members are some of the
most vocal critics of the group's practices. As mentioned earlier, the
anti-cult movement has carried out a series of kidnappings of Twelve
Tribes members[11], the most shocking of which were the kidnappings of
Kirsten Nielsen on her sister's wedding day, and later on, her
international kidnapping from Europe to Kansas. The Reverend Robert T.
Pardon, an anti-cult advisor and director of the New England Institute
of Religious Research, warns that the "Messianic Communities, under the
leadership of Spriggs, has tended towards an extreme
authoritarianism."[12] The group responds that they are a "simple people
who live on Main Street USA" and that "all members can leave at any
time, but choose to remain daily." A summary version of Robert Pardon's
report appears online and the complete report can be purchased from him
at a cost of $15.00. The Twelve Tribes have published a response to
Pardon's report.

The group first aroused controversy because of accusations of child
abuse, and later, child labor in their cottage industries). The most
notable event was the 1984 Island Pond Raid. Anti-cult workers, Galen
Kelly and Priscilla Coates, gathered negative information from
ex-members and fed this information to media and government agencies in
a plan to destroy the group. In 1984, Vermont State authorities executed
a full-scale pre-dawn raid of the 13 Twelve Tribes houses in Island
Pond, Vermont, seizing all of the children. The search warrants
contained no names, but gave permission to the police to seize all
children in the specified locations as evidence. The case was dismissed
the same day. Frank Mahady, the presiding Judge, declared the State of
Vermont's "authorization to seize 'any and all children under the age of
18 years old' was broader in scope (though admittedly less Draconian in
purpose) than that of Herod the Great."[13]

In 2001, New York State fined two Greene County Twelve Tribes businesses
for child labor law violations in 2001. At a 2001 press conference in
response to charges of child labor,[14] they claimed that the charges of
child labor are "false, unfounded, and slanderous." They appealed the
decision, but lost.

However, the group does admit that it uses corporal punishment, spanking
children with a "small reed-like rod"[15] and that the "children help
their parents" in their cottage industries. [16]

In Europe, the controversies centered on the issues of homeschooling,
health, and religious freedom. On October 18, 2004, seven fathers from
the community in Klosterzimmern, in the municipality Deiningen, Bavaria
were arrested because they homeschooled their children, instead of
sending them to regular school. [17] [18] In Germany, homeschooling is
illegal. In France, the sect of Tabitha's place appears on the official
list of sects[19]. In England, a report from The Guardian accuses the
Twelve Tribes of being racist and anti-Semitic, quoting an article
published by the group. The article states that "murder is the very
crime which the Jews are still cursed for" and that "multiculturalism
increases murder, crime and prejudice". The Twelve Tribes deny charges
of racism or Anti-Semitism, stating that they "look back to the Semitic
roots of our faith with gratitude". They also have members of many races
and cultures in their community, and a number of African-American
members are also leaders in their communities. In fact, a large number
of members are Jewish or of Jewish background. The Twelve Tribes also
encourages use of the Hebrew language.

This group requires the surrender of all private possessions and denies
the opportunity for personal wealth, which contradicts 1 timothy chapter
6 and James chapter 1 in the Holy Bible. This group also claims they are
the only individuals inheriting the kingdom of God, and believes that
John Calvin was possessed by the devil. Twelve Tribes believe that Jesus
Christ is the demonic spirit of western Christianity, and to properly be
"saved" a person must call upon the Hebrew name for Jesus which is Yahshua.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Tribes_(New_religious_movement)

-- 
"Politicians and diapers need to be changed
regularly -- and for the same reason."