Imagined Characteristics of Reactionaries (Bereans)
2. Asceticism
The second conclusion the article makes about "reactionary" brethren is this:
"God is given an ascetic makeover."
Anybody have a clue as to what that means? "Ascetic" means to achieve spirituality through self denial. It carries the connotation of "austere." I can't see how anyone can make God ascetic or austere. God owns everything, and must needs give up nothing. God is spirituality. Who would suggest that He had to do anything to achieve it? And how could anyone get that from anything written or spoken by a Berean brother?
I think what the author is suggesting is that Berean Christadelphians believe we have to be ascetic in our worship of God, not that we make God a victim of self denial. In other words, he is suggesting that we believe we must engage in some self denying ritual. This of course would be very true. We must strive for holiness, which by definition sets us apart from the world. We must crucify the flesh with all the lusts thereof. We must be aware that to be spiritually minded is peace, but to the fleshly minded is death.
This is true holiness which we must all strive for. Why are we criticized for this? And how worldly has the Christadelphian body become, that following a command to "be ye holy, for I am holy" can be confused with "asceticism?" Asceticism is akin to monks who go about whipping themselves till they bleed, or long periods without food or water, or months without uttering a word to achieve spirituality. I'm not aware of any Christadelphians who are so engaged.
We do believe we must deny the temptations of the world, and the lusts of the flesh as a large part of our obedience to Christ. We believe we must strive diligently in these things. We believe that anything else is disobedience, and proof that we do not love Christ. We also believe that all will fail, that no one can save themselves, or achieve spirituality through these things; and that salvation is dependant upon the grace of God, not our own holiness. Though we must always keep in mind that we are commanded:
1 Pet. 1:16 "Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy."
This seems to me to be kind of an unusual charge. Usually, we are accused of not taking the walk and conduct aspects of service to Christ, serious enough, especially by the Logos schism in Central. I remember an event in the early 1970s where a Logos brother came to an Old Paths ecclesia (another reactionary group as defined by this author) in New Zealand. He had heard that the young girls wore their skirts too short. He stood at the door, to verify the accuracy of this. A young girl asked her "mum," "who is the dirty old man looking at the young girls legs?"
But we do encourage holiness, understanding the weakness of man which keeps us from actually achieving it. We hope we always will. If that seems ascetic to the writer, then he will not be happy with us, but more importantly, he may not be happy with Christ, either when he was on earth, or at his return.
