Romans 8:6-7: “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”
The home of ecumenism in Northern Ireland, the wretched Corrymeela retreat near Ballycastle on the north coast, is forever trying to distort the Bible to suit their own anti-Christian, politically liberal and morally outrageous agenda.
Indeed its leader, Padraig O’Tuama (pictured, top), a Romanist, is an open sodomite, something which has very evidently not stopped him from rising to the top of that supposedly ‘Christian’ institution.
As is the case with most liberals, they are horrified by the idea of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, when professing Christians should be very pleased at this development.
However, we are not interested in arguing the case for exiting the EU, but we are interested in Corrymeela’s recently published study guide which seeks to link the story within the book of Ruth and ‘Brexit’, the rather ugly abbreviated term for the British withdrawal from the EU.
It is a resource they hope to see used in numerous churches over the coming months and indeed they have specified on their own website that the Presbyterian Church in the nearby village of Bushmills will host an event working through this utterly unsuitable study guide. Shame on Bushmills Presbyterian Church. * (See note at bottom of article).
Entitled ‘Crossing Borders: Exploring Brexit Through The Lens Of Ruth’, there are numerous issues with the document.
As with all ecumenists and apostates, they scrupulously avoid using the King James Version of the Bible, choosing instead a watered-down version. If the King James Version was good enough for our forefathers, who we are told were so much less educated than we are, then surely it is good enough for us today.
It uses faulty sources to make its arguments, including the writings of rabbis. Let us not forget that Judaism is still waiting for the first coming of Christ, having denied that Jesus was God the Son, thus denying salvation by faith alone in Christ alone.
One of the two key issues with the document is that it utterly fails to recognise the key premise of the book.
Ruth, a Moabitess, a people historically at enmity with God and born from the most vile of circumstances – incest (Genesis 19:30-38) – renounces her nationality and the heathenism of the land of Moab to become a Jew.
The most famous verses of the entire book are the confession of Ruth, as it were, when she says in Ruth 1:16-17: “And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”
Ruth is a convert to Christ but Corrymeela’s tinpot theologians, ignorant of salvation, see this as simply a case of immigration.
This is clearly an evidence of Ruth’s saving faith in Christ. She says “thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God”. She was owning the one true God as her God, not any of the false gods worshipped in Moab.
She then says “the Lord do so to me”. Ruth doesn’t say “thy Lord do so to me”, she instead recognises God as THE Lord.
Corrymeela seek to use this as a pretext for immigration, with the clear implication that accepting high levels of immigration is the Christian thing to do. Ruth is repeatedly referred to as a “migrant worker”. They ignore the fact that Ruth is a proselyte, rather than a migrant. We are not interested in arguing the case for or against immigration, rather we seek to point out that they fail to rightly divide the word of God.
This is done in two primary ways.
The first is to use this as a way to say the law as laid out in God’s Word is little more than a loose set of rules made to be broken and then by using it to attack the infallibility of God’s Word.
Here are just a couple of examples of what we are referring to:
“The book also introduces some ambiguity into the notion of racial purity by the inclusion of a foreigner in the kingly line. Some say it was written in the post-exilic period, when leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah were trying to reconstruct national identity. If this were so, then the book of Ruth is again a strong counter-narrative to the idea of racial purity and the imposition of forced divorce of foreign women in the post-exile era.”
“The book of Ruth can be read as a form of counter-narrative to Ezra and Nehemiah, telling a story where ethnic and religious purity is perhaps not as critical as they might have claimed.”
What they are creating here is a blasphemous argument that Scripture argues against Scripture. They are saying that Ruth is contradicting Ezra and Nehemiah.
However we are told in the Bible that “God is not the author of confusion” (1 Corinthians 14:33).
This is utter Biblical illiteracy.
In addition, they are misunderstanding, perhaps wilfully, the point of Ezra and Nehemiah’s purge of relationships with those of other races.
It was not specifically to prevent Jews from marrying those of other nations, but it was to prevent them from marrying those of other religions.
Let’s look at the Bible passages referring to their purges.
Ezra 9:1-2: “Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass.”
Ezra 10:10-11: “And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel. Now therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives.”
The word “strange” can also be rendered “pagan”, meaning these were heathen women and not followers of God. Those who had married these pagan women were “doing according to their abominations”, therefore they were polluting religion in the land. This was the reason for the purge.
Nehemiah 13:23-27: “In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?”
Again that word “strange”, or “pagan” is used. That is the point. This is about religious purity, rather than ethnic.
Look at the children of such relationships. Verse 23 says they “spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language”. These children could not speak the language of their fathers and they could not take instruction from a rabbi, meaning they could not read the Scriptures as they were at that time and were cut off from the religion of their fathers.
What a dreadful situation that was, and yet Corrymeela’s tinpot theologians seek to portray Ezra and Nehemiah as narrow-minded Jewish nationalists, when they were in fact earnestly contending for the faith.
With regards the rejection of God’s Law which runs throughout their study, they write:
“A principle is established, that the law should ensure compassion, and if it doesn’t it must be changed.”
“The cross-over is made into a world less predictable and more in need of being read and deciphered and interpreted.”
They are saying that God’s Law is errant in places and that feelings should trump faithfulness to God’s Word.
This is the very essence of the perversion of God’s Word behind the sodomite agenda which has made its way into a sizeable portion of the professing church – that “love is love” and nobody’s feelings ought to be hurt by the rules set out for our benefit in the Bible.
It is no surprise this argument is being made by a group like Corrymeela with a sodomite leader.
However, this leads us on to perhaps the most offensive of the serious flaws within this document, and that is of the lewd, vulgar insinuations within it in relation to Ruth and Boaz.
As is no surprise when one considers it is carnal minds, rather than spiritual, writing this, there is an obsession with obscene and utterly false insinuations surrounding the two main characters and their relationship.
In their introduction, this is what they say: “Of course there is some questionable activity as the heroine seduces her soon-to-be husband, but by and large this can be glossed over, and at least it is tasteful, but only barely.”
They add, when referring to chapter 3 when Ruth approaches Boaz on the threshing floor: “Will he respond to her like any other foreign widow, coming to the threshing floor selling sex?”
Then there is this: “It is unclear whether or not there is anything sexual implied here, though there does seem to be a suggestion of it.”
Then, in the questions they pose for the reader, they ask: “Does it matter to the story whether or not sex is involved in the encounter on the threshing floor? If yes, how? If not, why not?”
Then in their summary, there is this: “Ruth makes her extraordinary appeal after the harvest is ended (creeping up on Boaz at night and possibly engaging in sex)”.
There is repeated innuendo in this document, and it comes with absolutely no Scriptural warrant.
This is what the passage says in Ruth 3:8-14: “And it came to pass at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself: and, behold, a woman lay at his feet. And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman. And he said, Blessed be thou of the Lord , my daughter: for thou hast shewed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requirest: for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman. And now it is true that I am thy near kinsman: howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I. Tarry this night, and it shall be in the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman’s part: but if he will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee, as the Lord liveth: lie down until the morning. And she lay at his feet until the morning: and she rose up before one could know another. And he said, Let it not be known that a woman came into the floor.”
Where anyone can draw such a vulgar conclusion from in that is a mystery. Boaz calls her “a virtuous woman”, which would hardly be consistent with the insinuations of the tinpot theologians at Corrymeela.
Not only that, the passage tells us that such carnal activity did not take place.
It says that Ruth “lay at his feet until the morning”. She did not lie beside Boaz, but rather she lay at his feet.
For the tinpot theologians at Corrymeela to say that God’s inspired Word is “barely tasteful” is a grievous insult.
John 1:10: “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.”
This is the case here; a worldly organisation like Corrymeela “knows him not” and cannot testify of Christ.
Let us be steadfast in rejecting those workers of iniquity, regardless of whether or not they have a cloak of religiosity surrounding them.
1 John 4:1: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”
* We have since been contacted by the ‘minister’ of Bushmills Presbyterian Church, ‘Rev’ Nancy Cubitt, saying the event was hosted by the Causeway Coast Peace Group, who had paid for the use of their facilities. You can view the comments section of this article to see the discourse between us and Nancy Cubitt. Bushmills Presbyterian Church allowed its facilities to be used to host an ecumenical grouping which worked through a study guide offering a smutty perversion of the book of Ruth. Shame on Bushmills Presbyterian Church.
protestantrevival.wordpress.com 