Ellen White: Meat eating weakens moral powers

[tall73]

It is my understanding the Mrs. White went to great lengths to deliver her followers from a dreadful meat diet which, among other things, was believed to stir the "animal passions" so dreaded by Victorian prudes.

Ellen White did make a number of comments about eating meat.

Regarding animal passions, for more information you can read this now rather old thread.

Ellen White vs. the Bible--A Test Case--Married Sexual Practice

A scripture regarding marital sexual relations: 1Co 7:3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 1Co 7:4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his...

www.christianforums.com

 

[bbbbbbb]

That is not correct.

Ellen G. White® Estate: How many children

whiteestate.org

I stand corrected. I do apologize for not having done my due diligence.

 

[FireDragon76]

Ellen White did make a number of comments about eating meat.

Regarding animal passions, for more information you can read this now rather old thread.

Ellen White vs. the Bible--A Test Case--Married Sexual Practice

A scripture regarding marital sexual relations: 1Co 7:3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 1Co 7:4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his...

www.christianforums.com

Her views on sexuality sound strange today but they were common among many Christians in premodern times.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Her views on sexuality sound strange today but they were common among many Christians in premodern times.

Curiously, prudishness reached its zenith in the nineteenth century with its highly stressful social upheavals related to the Industrial Revolution. It was a common twentieth century trope that this mentality was Puritanism, but, historically, Puritanism had a lot less to say about sexual matters than it did about theological purity.

 

[FireDragon76]

Curiously, prudishness reached its zenith in the nineteenth century with its highly stressful social upheavals related to the Industrial Revolution. It was a common twentieth century trope that this mentality was Puritanism, but, historically, Puritanism had a lot less to say about sexual matters than it did about theological purity.

Have you read any of the early Church Fathers or medieval theologians?

Puritans didn't say much about sexuality because much of that "prudishness" as you put it, was implicit and went without saying.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Have you read any of the early Church Fathers or medieval theologians?

Puritans didn't say much about sexuality because much of that "prudishness" as you put it, was implicit and went without saying.

If you read some of the accounts of town proceedings in New England you might be amazed to discover a wider variety of sexual offenses. One poor lad got himself hanged for being over friendly with the family livestock. The pendulum seems to swing back and forth. Moral standards in the eighteenth century were exceedingly lax in Great Britain. That and an enormous consumption of alcoholic beverages, especially gin, led eventually to the Great Awakening with its fruit being Victorian morals and the temperance movement.

 

[tall73]

In the parable of the prodigal son, showing the grace and love of the Father towards lost sinners, Jesus includes a celebration that includes eating the meat of the fattened calf.

Luke 15:20-24 20 “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’​

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23 And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry. (NKJV)​

 

[RileyG]

If you read some of the accounts of town proceedings in New England you might be amazed to discover a wider variety of sexual offenses. One poor lad got himself hanged for being over friendly with the family livestock. The pendulum seems to swing back and forth. Moral standards in the eighteenth century were exceedingly lax in Great Britain. That and an enormous consumption of alcoholic beverages, especially gin, led eventually to the Great Awakening with its fruit being Victorian morals and the temperance movement.

That's very interesting.

 

[RileyG]

Have you read any of the early Church Fathers or medieval theologians?

Puritans didn't say much about sexuality because much of that "prudishness" as you put it, was implicit and went without saying.

To be blunt, they still did it...just kept it very very secret.

 

[The Liturgist]

Have you read any of the early Church Fathers or medieval theologians?

I do hope you are not calling the Early Church Fathers “prudes” in a derogatory sense od the word.

Although if you are, then I am proud to be a prude, because I agree with them on human sexuality.

 

[RileyG]

I do hope you are not calling the Early Church Fathers “prudes” in a derogatory sense od the word.

Although if you are, then I am proud to be a prude, because I agree with them on human sexuality.

Amen!

 

[bbbbbbb]

Amen!

I will also add my amen to that!

 

[The Liturgist]

In the parable of the prodigal son, showing the grace and love of the Father towards lost sinners, Jesus includes a celebration that includes eating the meat of the fattened calf.

Luke 15:20-24 20 “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’​

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23 And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry. (NKJV)​

Indeed, there is really no Scriptural justification for what EGW said. I mean, if Adventists don’t want to eat meat, I can think of reasons why a Christian might not want to - historically most Orthodox monks are pescatarians except at Pascha when some of them will eat lamb, and historically Christians abstained from meat on Wednesday and Friday except during Pentecost, and also throughout Lent and the other great fasts, such as Advent, the Apostles’ Fast and the Dormition Fast in the Eastern Orthodox Church, unless they were ill (illness cancels fasting obligations), and there is also the three day fast known as the Rogation of the Ninevites practiced by the Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrian Church of the East, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the week following Septuagesima.

 

[The Liturgist]

Her views on sexuality sound strange today but they were common among many Christians in premodern times.

Actually, they really weren’t. If we look at the Church Fathers, the Marriage Bed was regarded as undefiled provided one engaged in normal sexual relations.

Arsenokoetia was of course prohibited, and indeed the penances for a married couple which engaged in arsenokoetia were the same as those for unmarried individuals, even men who engaged in sexual immorality, with the penance usually being twice as severe as the penance imposed for adultery.

However it is the case that, except on fast days, for example, Great and Holy Friday, married couples were not discouraged from engaging in natural reproduction.

And while St. Augustine did regard concupiscience as the vector for the transmission of original sin, this was not the view of St. John Cassian, whose model of ancestral sin was the preferred refutation of the Pelagian heresy throughout the entire church until the Roman church embraced Augustine around the time of the emergence of Scholastic theology in the West, something which never happened in the East (some argue that St. Gregory Palamas could be thought of as an Orthodox Scholastic, but he is not thought of as such, and while it is true he made use of Aristotle, like Thomas Aquinas, there is much more to Scholasticism than just using Aristotle instead of or in addition to Plato as the basis for lower level philosophical models).

Indeed we see Scholasticism emerging in the works of the Cluniac monks, such as St. Odo, who I rather like, not the least because of his shape shifting abilities and opposition to the Dominion * very pious life, and his habits such as giving coins to children who would sing hymns for him and the other monks that they might encounter while traveling on official business, which was quite proper, and generous, and which encouraged singing among children, which is always something that should be promoted, because many children are shy, and as a result do not adequately develop their musical gifts.

* This was a Star Trek joke, as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which I enjoyed for, among other things, its very favorable depiction of monasticism and religion, especially compared to The Next Generation, featured a character named Odo who was a shapeshifter. I don’t know if they were aware at the time that there was actually an influential medieval saint with the name Odo, who was the hegumen, or abbot, of the famed Benedictine monastery of Cluny, which became the center for an entire network of Benedictine monasteries, an order within an order as it were, the Cluniac monasteries.

 

[FireDragon76]

Actually, they really weren’t. If we look at the Church Fathers, the Marriage Bed was regarded as undefiled provided one engaged in normal sexual relations.

"Normal sexual relations" being the salient criteria. What many of them considered as normal, would be considered arbitrarily restrictive today. Mostly because they assumed Greek Stoic ethics in the background of their thought, and Stoics tended to regard anything as having to do with bodily pleasures as debased.

 

[tall73]

Her views on sexuality sound strange today but they were common among many Christians in premodern times.

I may have missed it in the church fathers, and am no expert on their writings, but I have not encountered them warning against sex with your spouse due to the draining of your "vital force." Perhaps you can point it out.

Certainly the Scriptures did not warn about this.

The Scriptures do warn against fornication, adultery, etc. But Proverbs does not warn against sex with your spouse:

Proverbs 5:15-23 15 Drink water from your own cistern,​

flowing water from your own well.​

16 Should your springs be scattered abroad,​

streams of water in the streets?​

17 Let them be for yourself alone,​

and not for strangers with you.​

18 Let your fountain be blessed,​

and rejoice in the wife of your youth,​

19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe.​

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;​

be intoxicated always in her love.​

20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman​

and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?​

21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD,​

and he ponders all his paths.​

22 The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,​

and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.​

23 He dies for lack of discipline,​

and because of his great folly he is led astray.​

​

Paul acknowledges that some have a vocation of being single to serve the Lord. And he acknowledges abstaining by mutual consent for times of fasting and prayer.

But he also points out that those who do not have the gift of singleness, in light of the sexual immorality in the world, should each have their own spouse, and should render to each other the affection due the other. And they should not deprive one another.

1 Corinthians 7:2-5 2 Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (NKJV)​

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[RileyG]

Actually, they really weren’t. If we look at the Church Fathers, the Marriage Bed was regarded as undefiled provided one engaged in normal sexual relations.

Arsenokoetia was of course prohibited, and indeed the penances for a married couple which engaged in arsenokoetia were the same as those for unmarried individuals, even men who engaged in sexual immorality, with the penance usually being twice as severe as the penance imposed for adultery.

However it is the case that, except on fast days, for example, Great and Holy Friday, married couples were not discouraged from engaging in natural reproduction.

And while St. Augustine did regard concupiscience as the vector for the transmission of original sin, this was not the view of St. John Cassian, whose model of ancestral sin was the preferred refutation of the Pelagian heresy throughout the entire church until the Roman church embraced Augustine around the time of the emergence of Scholastic theology in the West, something which never happened in the East (some argue that St. Gregory Palamas could be thought of as an Orthodox Scholastic, but he is not thought of as such, and while it is true he made use of Aristotle, like Thomas Aquinas, there is much more to Scholasticism than just using Aristotle instead of or in addition to Plato as the basis for lower level philosophical models).

Indeed we see Scholasticism emerging in the works of the Cluniac monks, such as St. Odo, who I rather like, not the least because of his shape shifting abilities and opposition to the Dominion * very pious life, and his habits such as giving coins to children who would sing hymns for him and the other monks that they might encounter while traveling on official business, which was quite proper, and generous, and which encouraged singing among children, which is always something that should be promoted, because many children are shy, and as a result do not adequately develop their musical gifts.

* This was a Star Trek joke, as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which I enjoyed for, among other things, its very favorable depiction of monasticism and religion, especially compared to The Next Generation, featured a character named Odo who was a shapeshifter. I don’t know if they were aware at the time that there was actually an influential medieval saint with the name Odo, who was the hegumen, or abbot, of the famed Benedictine monastery of Cluny, which became the center for an entire network of Benedictine monasteries, an order within an order as it were, the Cluniac monasteries.

Is Arsenokotia referring to boy prostitutes or relations between a man and a teenage boy???

 

[prodromos]

Is Arsenokotia referring to boy prostitutes or relations between a man and a teenage boy???

I believe it can refer simply to males 'laying' with males, at least one of which is an adult.

 

[The Liturgist]

I refuse, in the interests of keeping the forum family friendly, to specifically define what is and is not arsenokoetia, except with the general statement that it is applicable to all forms of perverse behavior between any two people, including married men and women. It is therefore different from natural human reproduction.

The reason why I use this word, rather than, for example, sodomy, is because its the word used in the Rudder, the 18th century collection of Orthodox sources of canon law so named because it steers the ship of salvation.

 

[The Liturgist]

I believe it can refer simply to males 'laying' with males, at least one of which is an adult.

It can, but a married heterosexual couple could also engage in one of numerous unnatural courses of conduct that would constitute arsenokoetia, and the penances are the same as if two unmarried men engaged in it.

If I recall the penances were much increased when someone abused a youth, because of the harm it would cause to the youth in terms of their mental health, etc, which we have seen demonstrated by the sex scandal in the RCC. Those children were horribly abused, and the Orthodox Church has always been adamantly opposed to that kind of misconduct. And such incidents within Orthodoxy are exceedingly rare (I am hoping we will survive the 21st century without a major sex scandal in the canonical church, but the incident with the abuse of novice monks by Elder Panteleimon at Holy Transfiguration Monastery, which turned out to be the actual reason why HOCNA severed communion with ROCOR, to stop ROCOR’s bishops investigating the complaint, was deeply disturbing and a reminder of the continued need for vigilance. Of course Holy Transfiguration Monastery was schismatic, and the reason why they were schismatic turned out to be stopping canonical bishops from shutting them down. But still, it hit close to home, especially since most service books optimized for use with Byzantine chant are published by them.