Secular Persecution of Religion
Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)
Visiting Professor, Kyungpook National University, Sangju Campus, South Korea,
Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College, Australia
It sounds like a topic for discussion
in an English ESL class. For or against? All but. For the past three years, the
media has been reporting on over a hundred Yeshiva Jewish Orthodox schools in
England, which the Humanist Organization listed in Youtube claim to be “illegal”
or without government permission, and then alarming of all, meddling with their
curriculum. Adventist Education is a religious
education from A to Z. That is how it should be. It is the education of the
last generation remnant and its associates of the theology of the End Time or
Last Days. Also how it should be. The Humanist Agency is trying by means of
lobbying, court-cases, appeals, legislation to force the Orthodox Jews to what
they call “stopping indoctrination” of the youth with values that are not
representative of the modern informed society: like maths, like science, like
homosexuality, like woman ordination, like toleration with transsexual gender
cases, and the list is actually extended. The Yeshiva children stay in that
school from the morning to the evening studying Torah and only Torah. It is a
word that means Law but it means the religious revelation by God. It is a bit
more tricky than it sounds. This is why an explanation will be given below to
get to the essence of their education. But Adventist education is also in mind
here, why? Because a certain core of Jewish Education and Adventist Education
overlaps one hundred percent. It is the “extended section” that they do not
share.
Adventism and Judaism sharing In the above diagram, it is clear what
the area is that Adventism and Judaism shares: the Written Torah. The Old
Testament [Law, Prophets and Writings] is the Written Torah because it was
written by men of God who were influenced by the Holy Spirit to select and
write down the things that the Divine Editor, the Holy Spirit, wished to be
canonized as the Written Torah for all generations until Jesus comes. The consonantal
text of the Hebrew is the literal fundamental Word of God or Revelation of God
and cannot be changed by human hands. The Jews copied it painfully with care
and that is why there is almost 99.9% correspondence between the Daniel scroll
from Cave 4 and Codex Aleppo from 1008 A.D. One can accept that such care was
also operative between Moses and the Qumran fragment with the other books of
the Old Testament.
Spirituality Unless the heart is converted the
spirituality will lack. This is emphasized by both Adventists and Judaism. Of
course, the semantics of spirituality is different between the two. In
Adventism that spirituality will be within the boundaries of the literal
fundamental written Torah of God, namely the Old [and New Testament] only. For
Judaism the spirituality is extended to include also the musing or thinking of
famous past rabbis on the written Torah, which is considered the oral Torah. A large proportion of this extended
spirituality is an echo or mirror of the written Torah but there are many cases
where it is obvious that what is considered negative by the written Torah is
permissively altered to become positive in the oral Torah. Then again in
reverse, what is viewed positively in the written Torah will be by ‘hook and by
crook’ viewed negatively in the oral Torah. So these young students in the Yeshiva
spent the whole day in and out for many years studying only the spirituality of
the written Torah and also the extended spirituality of the oral Torah. The cancellation of the Trinity in the
Old Testament by Judaism is an example where they change the written Torah to
fit their own absolute monotheistic concept or one person, one nature, one God.
The extended spirituality is also a loose and flexible concept since Rabbi
Rashi may disallow something which Rabbi Redak will allow and Rabbi Abarbanel
may have a different view on it. So the issue becomes a pick-a-rabbi situation.
The written Torah in whole does not favor this looseness with the Word of God. You
cannot fabricate or construct your own “God” and your own “commands of God”. “To the Law and to the Testimony, if
they do not speak according to this they are a people of no daylight”.
England forcing secularism on
Religious Education The header sounds shocking for the reader
but look at this article recently by Gary Willig: “Haredi rabbis calls on
community to pray as secular organization [of England] attempts to force
left-wing curriculum on haredi schools.” The Rabbis called for a day of prayer
and reading from the Psalms after an atheistic agency took it upon them to
persecute them: “The
call for a day of prayer was held after Humanists UK, a staunchly atheistic
organization which opposes the operation of religious schools in Great Britain,
called on local authorities to penalize the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls’
School in London for what the organization termed ‘censorship’ of subjects like
homosexuality and abortion.”
Adventists Institutions in England One wonders why Adventist Institutions
in England are not listed with these Jewish religious schools for their stance
on homosexuality, abortion and even woman ordination? Is it not the same test
as in the days of Elijah that the schools of the prophets of Elijah are
suffering persecution from the Baal prophets and their Baal orientated Jezebel
and her husband Ahab the king supporting this equity of rights and equal
respect for all in society [including Satan and his cronies and their
destructive ethics].
The time will come when these
organizations will distribute their ideas and plea to all countries and in
those countries that are not willing to compromise their spirituality of the
written Torah with extended spirituality of a modern cultural and secular kind,
will also be persecuted for their objection to be swallowed up by modernity.
Gary Willig, "London rabbis plan
day of prayer against 'education coercion'" Arutz sheva 13 March
2018. Online accessed at https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/243095