~SWF~
Set Women Free
Simply Wonderful Females (and Males)
Supporting Women's (and Men's) Freedom to
Serve the World
(Home, Community, Nation, et
al.)
For ALL
Many people around the world have come to
believe that respect for women is essential to the peace
process. The issue of women's rights and equality is not just a
question of inhumane treatment in various "unenlightened" countries
around the world -- it's happening right here in our own and other
nations' backyards (all considered "civilized" and/or "Christian")
through the lack of respect seen in advertisements, websites,
television, movies, books, magazines, etc., etc., etc.,
depicting both women and men as sexual objects of lust (i.e., hatred).
If seen clearly for what it is, this viewpoint of holding
individuals in such low esteem is the root of much, if not all, of
wo/mankind's acceptance of aggressive behavior. This unnatural way of thinking
and acting (for so-called "civilized" human beings) is appropriately
termed "Animal Magnetism" (either Ignorant or Malicious) in
Christian Science.
Of course, no one wants to be set free
from Love ("God is love" and Love is God, Good), but
it appears that a re-evaluation of what constitutes True and
Unconditional Love is the key to resolving all conflict, now and
forever, both here in the U.S.A. and abroad. That in itself can seem easier said than
done in the world to-day, but there is hope on the horizon.
In their
complementary teachings, Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy to-gether
explain the practical Way to come into this understanding, and thereby
accomplish the ultimate goal of peaceful unity.
They show how individual faith (understanding, not blind) can
actually heal the world, and prove their words by the works.
The strait and narrow path for those who profess Christianity is to follow the
Commandments per the example of God's chosen witnesses in both the
letter and
the spirit, thereby demonstrating that perfect Principle of Love which
conquers sin, dis-ease, and death right where we live.
"The time
cometh and now is ..."
*A new commandment I give unto you, That ye
love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one
another. ~ Jesus
*... in
Christian Science the first duty is to obey God, to have one Mind,
and to love another as yourself. ~ Mary Baker Eddy
The
following passages explain this universal challenge more
fully than any other we've found besides the inspired words &
works of the Master Teachers quoted herein:
What did Jesus (and
Mary Baker Eddy) teach?
Excerpt from
America: Cradle for the Second Coming of
the Christ
by Helen M. Wright
Some people may not realize the
deep significance of the movement for women's rights. As Genesis tells us,
from the very beginning of the Adam dream, the burden of our
illusory
"birth" into "matter" has
fallen most heavily on women.
Jesus
literally gave his life to set women free. Are you aware that there can be no
doubt Jesus was put to death because of his spiritual teaching
regarding the sin of marriage and human progeny?
Pilate, the Roman governor, said he found no fault in Jesus. The
following teaching of Jesus shows unmistakably why the high priests
decided Jesus must die.
Did you know that
Jesus taught: "In the
resurrection [resurrection from ignorance and the
Adam
dream] they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are
as the angels of God in heaven" (Matt. 22:30)?
Did you know that
he taught: "Call no man your
father upon earth: for one is your Father [Mind, "the kingdom of God
within you"], which is in heaven" (Matt. 23:9)?
Did you know that
he taught: "Woe unto them
that are with child, and to them that give suck" (Matt.
24:19)?
"For as in the days that were before the flood they were
eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day
that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came,
and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man
be" (Matt. 24:38, 39).
"For when they rise from the dead
[rise from the Adam dream--from the universal hypnotic suggestion
that man is material--and gain the spiritual true sense of being]
they neither marry nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels
which are in heaven" (Mark 12:25). Mark again repeats Jesus' teaching:
"Woe unto them that are with
child and to them that give suck" (Mark 13:17).
[...]
Again, Jesus
warned: "The children of this
world [the Adam dream world] marry, and are given in marriage; But
they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world [the real
world, the spiritual world] and the resurrection from the dead [from
ignorance of man's birthright as having the kingdom of God within
his consciousness] neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Luke
20:34, 35).
Did you know that Luke again
reiterates Jesus' warning: "Woe
unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck...for
there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this
people" (Luke 21:23)? Did you know that our great Master,
Christ
Jesus, insisted, according to
Luke: "Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and
the paps which never gave suck" (Luke 23:29)?
Birth and Death are Illusion
Mrs.
Eddy taught that human birth
is the first death, pure illusion. ...
Jesus certainly proved this when he restored
Lazarus after he had lain in the grave four days. Death is part of
the mortal dream. When we awaken from a sleeping dream we realize
that all that went on in the sleeping dream was totally unreal. So
it is with life in matter, that springs from human birth.
There is no death. There is only an awakening to a
better, holier, more loving sense of life, where we "awake to our
present ownership of all good" (My. 356:1).
Those who have come back from
having been pronounced clinically dead say that in the experience
they felt loved, and they would never again fear death.
The Old Testament contains many
statements supporting Jesus' teaching on marriage and progeny, birth and
death. Job, we are told,
sinned not in all he said, even when he cursed the hour of his
birth: "Job [opened] his mouth and cursed his day. And Job spake,
and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, [which Mrs. Eddy calls "the first death"] and the night in
which it was said, There is a man child conceived" (Job 3:1, 2,
3).
In the following excerpts, quoted
in Divinity Course and General Collectanea from an Oxford
University Press booklet entitled Fragment of a Lost Gospel,
giving account of sayings of Jesus that are regarded as authentic by scholars, we find
Jesus'
statements support, and are
in complete agreement with all his recorded biblical
teaching:
When Salome asked when
those things about which she questioned should be made known,
the Lord said, "When ye trample upon the
garment of shame, when the two become one and the male with the
female, neither male nor female." The meaning being that
Christ's kingdom on earth would not manifest itself until
man had returned to the state of innocence in which sexual ideas
and relations had no place. "When Salome asked how long death
would prevail, the Lord said, "So long as ye women
bear children, for I have come to destroy the works of the
female." [In] Logia of Jesus, Christian Science Journal,
Volume 25, "Jesus was asked, "When shall the dominion of death
cease?" Jesus saith, "[Death will not cease] As long as (material)
birth continues...I came to destroy the works of birth." See
Matthew 5:17 [which indicates that destroying the works of birth
must take place in order for man to find his oneness with
God--find the kingdom of God within his own individual, infinite,
spiritual consciousness.] (DCC 14)
[...]
Are you aware that all this is
our Master's
teaching? Doesn't
ecclesiasticism teach the very opposite while paying lip service
to Jesus'
teaching?
Ecclesiasticism Resists Jesus' Teachings
When this instruction of
Jesus reached the ears of
the rulers of the synagogue they knew it was time to act. "They
reasoned," said Mrs. Eddy in a
class, "that if they let him go on healing, and teaching this
'dangerous' doctrine, soon all men would believe him, and then
what would happen to their nation?.'It is expedient for us that
one man should die...that the whole nation perish
not.'"
Mary Baker
Eddy saw the profound
significance of these teachings of Jesus, and the importance of expounding them,
even in the face of the entrenched opposition, which she, too,
faced. We are informed that "opposition of theology to
Mrs.
Eddy's insistence that
Jesus
meant what he said, and
that the one evil is man's belief that he is a creator of mortal
children in his own image," caused Mrs. Eddy to plan "a Theological Course as the final corrective
offering at her College...." Mrs. Eddy retired from the college teaching before such a course was
ever institutionally given, but it remains on record as the
ultimate for those who are "taught of God" (Six Days, p.
282).
"Heaven,"
Mrs.
Eddy said, "is not a
breeding ground for mortals." ***The kingdom of God cometh not with
observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for,
behold, the kingdom of God is within you. - JESUS
*** But the world of
material sense continues to hold high carnival. Would it today
really welcome Jesus if he still
insisted, "I am come to destroy the works of birth.... Blessed are
the wombs that never bare, and the paps that never gave suck"?
Would he not be shunned? Would he not again be crucified in the
news media? Would not the same cry go up from the multitude,
"Crucify
him!"? The Adam-race is not
apt to worship the pioneer of spiritual ideas, but oftentimes to
shun him as their tormenter. While Socrates feared not the hemlock
poison, an Indian proverb says, "He that would speak the truth
should have one foot in the stirrup."
"Separation of Church and State" Vital
There is a great diversity of
religious beliefs concerning this subject. Religious liberty is one of our most cherished
traditions, yet over the past decade attempts have been
intensified to use the law to impose narrow religious precepts
upon all people--upon people who have arrived at a higher, more
spiritual understanding.
The spiritually minded must be
awake to guard the freedoms that have
been won for us at such a frightful cost in human suffering.
Jesus gave
his life for it. Many
thousands have given their lives in the cause
of religious freedom.
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