God’s Word the Day before Yesterday, Yesterday and Today –
Truth or Not? God Rehabilitates Moses Through Further Prophets

Church Teachings: A Dead End

"You shall ..." – God Respects the Free Will of His Children

Jesus of Nazareth Spoke Up for the Animals.
Testimonies from "This Is My Word"

The Spirit of the Books of Moses Blows in the Churches Today.
Parallels to the Bloody Rituals of Voodoo Witchcraft

Jesus Was Opposed to All Forms of Bloodshed

"... shall be cut off." The Deadening of the Conscience. Or:
How to Become Servile to the Priest’s Power

Ceremonial Sacrifices "as the Lord commanded Moses."
In the Old Testament the Causal Law Was Known.

Jesus Was Against Animal Sacrifice

The New Testament "fulfills" the Old and "sheds light" on It.
Both Are the "true word of God." Millions of Victims of the Church

Martin Luther – Life and Teaching in the Christian Spirit
of Love for Neighbor?

What a Person Does to Another, He Does to Himself."
What does the Animal Feel in Its Situation?
The Animal, a Basic Commodity and Consumer Good

The God of the Times. "Fulfillment" of the Old Testament in Our Time:
Sexual Child Abuse by Priests. In the Footsteps of the Nazarene
or in Those of the Church Authorities?

"Kill" or "Murder?"
Jesus Fulfilled the Law and Deepened the Teaching

Instructions on Violence and War in the Old Testament –
Jesus: "Love your enemies." Jesus Rebukes the Hypocrisy
of the Scribes and Pharisees

Pomp and Ceremony in Ordaining and Clothing
Priests in the Books of Moses

The Sacrifice of Redemption that Jesus Brought. The "Scapegoat"

The First Early Christians Knew No Ceremonies

Paul Overset the Living Original Christianity, Falsified the
Teachings of Jesus and Laid the Foundation for a State Religion
and Externalized Church of Rituals

Constantine: Collaboration of Church and State. A Further
Departure from the Teachings of Jesus – The State Church,
an External Religion of Power.

The Holy Scripture – Old Testament and New Testament –
"Inspired by the Holy Spirit"

"For I the Lord do not change ... " Divine Words
Against Animal Sacrifice Through the Prophet Moses

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
"God has given man dominion over the animals ..."

Use of Animals – But "not divorced from respect
for moral imperatives." "You should not love animals"

The Status of Animals in the Protestant-Lutheran Faith
"Lamb of God" – The Butcher, a Secularized Priest?

Eating Meat – God’s Concession to Human Weakness?
Did Jesus Eat Meat?

Statements About Animals in the Protestant-Lutheran Catechism

Jesus of Nazareth on the Subject of "Animals"
in the Christ-Revelation "This Is My Word"

Animals Lament – The Prophet Denounces

This Is Cruel Man

    Anyone who reads the title of this new edition of "The Prophet" will probably ask: What does the question "Two gods or one changeable God?" have to do with what the animals must endure in our time? Are not both aspects of the subject on entirely different levels?
    But anyone who goes after the causes of the suffering of animals – which are disdained, enslaved, reduced to a basic commodity and consumer good – will certainly come upon roots that lie in the religious practices of ancient times, of the Old Testament. The term "religious practices" already gives us pause, for religion is the sphere of communication with God and the divine. That this contact was aspired to or achieved by those responsible for the "practices" of ancient times must be put into question.
    In what you will read on the following pages, not only the prophet speaks (although there is no dialogue with a contemporary this time), but many facts speak as well: many testimonies in word and image. They speak to us – and may the one who has ears to hear, listen! They will give us much to think about, and whoever uses his mind, for him a light may turn on. They will put questions to us, and whoever has a heart that still feels will sense the message. What lessons we draw from this and whether we reach a decision that is followed by action is up to each one of us.

    2000 years have passed since Jesus of Nazareth. The Son of God came to us as a human being, as the Son of Man, to bring us the message of God, His Father, who is also our Father. The message that Jesus brought us from God, His and our Father, is love.
    The path to love begins with the reconciliation among people and between people and animals and Earth. This is the only path for man to find unity with God and His entire creation, including the All, the cosmos.
    God is the love. And so, His infinite being is love. Jesus spoke to the people that His Father and He, Jesus, the Christ, are one. Jesus wanted to tell the people that His words are the truth which comes from heaven, from God, His Father, who is also the Father of all people. Jesus did not distance Himself from the people, instead regarding them as equals, sons and daughters of God. He said: You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Mt. 5:48). And He gave us the prayer which begins with the address: Our Father, who art in heaven … or, Our Father in Heaven …
   Jesus gave us, among others, the following important pointer, which is also handed down in the Bible: Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Mt. 5:17-19)
    In these words, Jesus spoke of the eternal law, and therefore of the eternal, unchangeable God. He unequivocally expressed that the prophets sent by God spoke truly, that in the prophetic word they proclaimed the truth that is God.
    Comparing the Books of Moses in the Old Testament with the teachings of Jesus very quickly raises the question: Did Jesus speak the truth – also when He said that He would fulfill the words of the prophets? Or is the truth found in what can be read in the "Books of Moses?" And what about the prophets who came after Moses? Their statements differ in content in many instances from the words of Moses handed down to us; at times they contradict them. Or, do several different gods speak through the prophets of the Old Testament? And Jesus taught us about another God, different from the "God" who, for instance, spoke through "Moses."
    Anyone who thinks that the "Christian" churches have a convincing answer and that they can help him overcome confusion and uncertainty in order to reach clarity and sureness will be disappointed: The churches essentially explain that every word in the Bible is the truth of God. This means that God’s words through Moses are recorded authentically in the Bible. According to this reasoning, "God" commanded us, among other things, to kill animals in bloody, cruel sacrificial offerings and to present them to Him. Certain people, the priests, were supposedly selected by Him, the Lord, to perform the sacrifices in minutely prescribed rituals, "as Moses was commanded by the Lord."
   If we were following church teachings, this would be the truth.
    But what about the other Old Testament prophets – Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many others – through whom God spoke against burnt offerings, sacrifices, and the like? Jesus, the greatest prophet of all times, also spoke against the statements and instructions that God supposedly gave through the prophet Moses.
    The contradictions in these different "statements of God" are clearly apparent. But church teaching still insists that both are the truth? Let us take a look at the different images of God:
    Jesus taught us about the God of the Ten Commandments, who is a kind, wise God, a God of love and reconciliation, a Creator who is for the life of animals, yes, for all of nature.
    The "God" of the Books of Moses by comparison is a hard, cruel and brutal God, who inflicts heavy punishment upon people, even punishment by death, above all who sees to it that the animals are tortured and butchered in bestial ways, in order to then be appeased by the smoke rising from the burnt offerings. Did the "God" of the "Books of Moses" in the Old Testament with His instructions on cruel practices ignore the God of the Ten Commandments?
    Time and again the question is put to us: Is the God of the Old Testament – above all the God of the "Books of Moses"– another God than the God of the New Testament? If it is indeed one and the same God then either the Old Testament – particularly the "Books of Moses" – must have been falsified, or Jesus did not speak the truth. Or is God perhaps changeable?
    Issue No. 13 of The Prophet (April 1998), a dialogue between the prophet and experts on Catholic and Protestant theology, has already explored this question. But the question is raised again here with a particular view to animal sacrifices.
    The first Original Christians were not burdened by such questions. To them it was clear that the word, the teachings, the message and life of God’s Son, Jesus, the Christ, is the authentic word of God and the authentic will of God for people and souls and therefore, the measure for all that had been and would be presented as God’s word at other times and other places.
    Today, we would have no reason to ponder the question "God’s word yesterday and today – truth or not?" – in fact, there would be no need for God to send another teaching prophet to Earth – if, yes, if, original Christianity had been able to sustain its orientation toward Jesus, the Christ. But it was not able to sustain this orientation for long and the result is that the demon in what has been attributed to Moses, although corrected by Jesus in many respects, is still effective today in a deeper and more "global" way than many realize. But, what a person is not aware of can influence and control him.
    God is love, kindness and gentleness. He does not need to be placated by cruel pagan customs.
    But how then did it come to the false statements and instructions in the Books of Moses? Who had an interest in falsely attributing to Moses, for example, the orders for bloodthirsty pagan practices? God Himself gives the answer; much later He spoke through the prophet Jeremiah:
   For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them, ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’
    But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.
    From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day; yet they did not listen to me, or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.
    So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord, their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips ...’ (Jer. 7:22-28)
    Thus, through Jeremiah, God exposed the falsification of the "Books of Moses" and with this, the prophet Moses was rehabilitated.
    Moses is also being rehabilitated in our time, on the one hand by modern Biblical research, which has proven that God’s word through the mouth of Moses is not authentic as read in the Old Testament, and that instead, the text was much more deliberately altered and "edited"; the researchers agree in attributing to the priests large parts of the Bible’s handed-down "final version."
    But that is not the only point that speaks in favor of Moses. The highest "authority," the primordial intelligence, all-wisdom and justice, the Spirit of the Christ of God through His prophetess of this time, gives clear testimony in Moses’ favor in the great work of revelation: "This Is My Word. Alpha and Omega. The Gospel of Jesus, The Christ-Revelation which the world does not know." Among other things, the following is written there:
   Moses neither ordered nor condoned the sacrifice of animals. However, he did not interfere in the satanic will of those who wanted to eat meat. He taught and instructed them that the consumption as well as the sacrificing of animals is sin. But since the stubborn Israelites insisted on doing it, Moses had to be silent; for the Israelites, too, were children of God and had their free will. They saw everything only through their sin and for this reason, considered the silence of Moses as approval. (p. 581)
    The Spirit of God confirms several times in His mighty revelation that Moses was a faithful servant of God who faithfully gave the word of God to the people of his time. God thus again rehabilitates Moses.
    Those who read God’s words in Jeremiah with the heart will be convinced that the "Books of Moses" must be the books of the caste of priests at that time, who ascribed their ideas, their cruel, murderous, pagan cults to the teachings of the prophet Moses. Apparently, the priests wanted to continue to practice what was common to the pagan religions of that time and what the Israelites had brought with them from earlier times before their enslavement in Egypt.

    The question in the title of this edition of The Prophet, "Two Cosmic Gods, the God of Moses and the God of Jesus, or One Changeable God?" clearly states: For I, the Lord, do not change … (Mal. 3:6)
    From what has been said it follows that the Church’s statement, that the Bible is in all its parts the direct, true word of God, must be wrong.
    In the following extensive exposition the light of truth now shines – as if through the varying facets of a cut and polished crystal. It shines into the impenetrable mixture of truth and lies, which produces confusion in many heads, and, in countless hearts, triggers hopelessness, despair and a sense of being lost. This impenetrable mixture was also the decisive influence in a development that culminated in the mechanism of pressure and deceit that calls itself the "Christian Church."
   ... the truth will make you free (Jn. 8:32), said Jesus of Nazareth. God’s word has always been the light of truth, which He gave to people through light-messengers of heaven, so that they could become free of their burdens, free from internal or external servitude, from bindings and coercion. Since always, the opponent of God has been the enemy of the truth and of the good. He was and is trying to darken the light. To this end he did and does use any means, and the abuse of the name of God and of Jesus, the Christ, proved to be one of the most cunning means – today, we would say the most psychologically effective means – to poison the hearts of believing, God-fearing people, to bind their souls and to render them vulnerable to lies and deceit, to the non-divine.

    God, the truth and the light, is unchangeable. Jesus, the Christ, taught this time and again. In the Ten Commandments, which God gave to the people through the prophet Moses, we also experience the God that Jesus, the Christ, showed us, and who said nothing of all those things supposedly commanded by the "God" in the "Books of Moses."
    In the Ten Commandments, God leaves everybody free to keep His commandments, or not. God forces no one. God says: "You shall." In the "Books of Moses," on the other hand, the "Old Testament God" gives mandatory instructions; He does not respect His children’s free will. In the Ten Commandments, God teaches us people neither cruelty nor killing, neither the murder of human beings nor the slaughter of animals. Had God, the Eternal, commanded all the things contained in the so-called "Books of Moses," He would have sinned against His own commandments, and He would consequently be a sinful God.
    Many people might object and say that killing is permitted, only murder is not, because "You shall not kill," according to the latest theological thought, means "You shall not murder." (The Ten Commandments were changed accordingly in the 1985 edition of the German New Jerusalem Bible. But if this were true, Jesus would have given the wrong advice to a young man who asked him: Master, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?
   Jesus told the young man in the same edition of the Bible: Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments. He then asked him, Which ones? And Jesus answered: You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Mt. 19:17-19)
    Jesus said: "Keep the commandments" and admonished the young person: "You shall not kill." Jesus did not say: "You shall not murder." He also did not say: "You shall only kill under exceptional circumstances."

    Jesus made no distinction between human beings and animals; for the commandment said and still says today: You shall not kill. It is a general statement which means: We should kill neither human beings nor animals.
    In This Is My Word we read among other things what Christ said and made clear to the people during His time on Earth, also regarding the treatment of animals.
   As Jesus of Nazareth, I spoke to many people about the law of life as well as about the animals which, like human beings, feel pain, grief and joy. Just as man should not be against, but for his neighbor, so should he also be for the animals and bear responsibility for them, because they serve man.
    I taught people again and again that the animals, too, are creatures of God, which man should not disdain, but should love. The one who beats and tortures them will one day experience the same or similar thing on his soul and on his body. For, what a person does to his fellow men and to his fellow creatures, the animals, he does to himself. (p. 421)
    The Bible reports that during the "feeding of the five thousand," Jesus gave the assembled people bread and also fish. According to Mark we read: And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. (Mk. 6:41)
    Some may ask, "Are fish not also animals?" In This Is My Word we read what really happened:
   My disciples brought Me bread and grapes to be multiplied. On that day, dead fish were also offered to Me in order to be multiplied. As I took this dead substance into My hands, I explained to the people that the power-potential of the Father, the high power of life, was gone from it for the most part and that I would not create live fish so that they be killed again.
    I explained to the people that life is in all life forms and that man should not kill them deliberately. The people, especially the children, looked at Me very sadly. They could not understand Me, because they lived from fish, bread and little else, for the most part. And then I spoke to them in the following sense: The energies of the earth are still maintaining the dead fish. And so I will not give you living fish from the Spirit of the Father; but from the energy of the earth, I will create for you fish that are dead, that is, poor in vibration. They will never bear life and cannot be killed. I will show you how living things taste – bread and fruits – and in comparison with them, the taste of dead food.
    And from the energies of the earth, I created for them fish which bore little spirit substance. I gave them the dead fish and, at the same time, I offered them bread and fruits to eat, so that they could recognize the difference between living and dead nourishment, between high-vibrating and low-vibrating food. In this and similar ways, I taught the people. (pp. 371-372)
    We can see how carefully, understandingly and sympathetically Jesus approached His fellow man and how He brought the laws of God to life for them in specific situations.
    In This Is My Word Christ also gives us the following pointers:
   The one who loves his neighbor selflessly will neither do violence to him, nor kill him. And the one who loves his neighbor selflessly will not deliberately kill animals either. The one who respects man and animal has no warlike designs, because he respects the laws of God to which belong the laws of nature, too. The one who strives to actualize the laws of God will refrain from eating meat more and more and will gratefully accept the gifts of the earth, that is, that food which comes from God for His human children. (p. 467)
    As Jesus, Christ spoke up for the animals wherever He could. It is not surprising that little can be found about this in the Bible, since it was not in the interest of the clergy that came after Christ to teach the people in the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth, but to teach them only according to their spirit, to the church institution striving for earthly all-power. Therefore, the aspect "animals" was not included in the New Testament of the "Holy Scriptures," nor was Jesus’ commandment to abstain from eating meat.
    Let us read on in This Is My Word how Jesus reacted to the suffering of animals.
   1. And it came to pass that the Lord departed from the city and went into the mountains with His disciples. And they came to a mountain with very steep paths. There they met a man with a beast of burden.
    2. But the horse had collapsed, for it was overladen. The man struck it till the blood flowed. And Jesus went to him saying, "You son of cruelty, why do you strike your animal? Do you not see that it is much too weak for its burden and do you not know that it suffers?"
    3. But the man retorted, "What have You to do therewith? I may strike my animal as much as it pleases me, for it belongs to me; and I bought it with a goodly sum of money. Ask those who are with You, for they are from my neighborhood and know thereof."
   4. And some of the disciples answered, saying, "Yes, Lord, it is as he said, we were there when he bought the horse." And the Lord rejoined, "Do you not see then how it is bleeding, and do you not hear how it wails and laments?" But they answered saying, "No, Lord, we do not hear that it wails or laments."
    5. And the Lord became sad and said, "Woe to you; because of the dullness of your hearts, you do not hear how it laments and cries to its heavenly Creator for pity; but thrice woe to the one against whom it cries and wails in its torment!"
    6. And He went forward and touched the horse, and the animal stood up, and its wounds were healed. But He said to the man, "Go on your way now and henceforth strike it no more, if you, too, hope to find mercy." (pp. 200-206)
    Jesus not only carried people and animals in His great heart, but all of nature as well. He was linked to all the forms of creation, including the celestial bodies and elemental forces. It is told that He commanded the storm and that the water carried Him, so that He could walk upon it. As He taught His brothers and sisters then, He teaches us today, for example in This Is My Word:
   Respect, cherish and honor the creative power in all Being! Behold: In the innermost part of his soul, every person bears all that is power and light. The spiritual body in the human being is the substance of all Being, because God, the eternal Father, has given every single one of His children everything as essence, as heritage. The eternal Spirit is in all forms of life, and it also streams from all life forms.
    When the person has consciously become the child of God, the omnipotence of God serves him through all life forms, through stone, wood, fire and water, through flowers, grasses, plants and animals. All stars serve the one who lives in Me, the Spirit of truth. When the Creator-power is able to permeate the created one, because his soul is full of light and power, then he is again consciously the child, the son or daughter of infinity and has once again taken up his heritage, the All-power.
    Each earthly day is a gift to man, so that he may recognize and find himself in it. The nature kingdoms offer themselves to man. Fire and water serve him, and the heavenly bodies, too, by day and by night. Realize how rich the day is for each individual! (pp. 177-178)
    Before turning to the texts from the Books of Moses, one more occurrence from the life of Jesus of Nazareth, reported in This Is My Word:
   1. And as Jesus was going to Jericho, He met a man with young doves and a cage full of birds which he had caught. And He saw their misery, as they had lost their freedom and, furthermore, were suffering hunger and thirst.
    2. And He said to the man, "What are you doing with these?" And the man answered, "I earn my living by selling the birds which I have caught."
    3. And Jesus said to him, "What would you think, if someone stronger or more clever than you would capture and shackle you, or would throw your wife or your children and you into prison, in order to sell you for his own profit and to earn his living from this?
    4. Are these not your fellow creatures, only weaker than you? And does not the same God, Father and Mother, care for them as for you? Let these, your little brothers and sisters, go forth into freedom and see to it that you never do such a thing again, but that you earn your bread honestly."
    5. And the man was astounded at these words and His authority, and he let the birds go free. As the birds came out, they flew to Jesus, sat upon His shoulders and sang to Him. And the man asked more about His teachings and he went his way and learned basket weaving. He earned his bread from this work and broke his cages and traps and became a disciple of Jesus. (pp. 485-486)

    Jesus came, as He said, to fulfill God’s law. He did this through His life and work. And He taught how the law of the heavens is to be fulfilled in the individual steps of our everyday lives; the most important testimony of this that has been handed down is His Sermon on the Mount.
    Before turning to the question of how it came to be that the true Christian path, the path of following Jesus, was not taken by many so-called Christians, we will go back one more time to the Books of Moses. The teachings and instructions as well as the social-religious system of government that were laid down in these books continued in effect until the Christ in Jesus came to Earth, despite the fact that God time and again sent His messengers, the prophets, to enlighten the people and to move them toward the true faith and life. The resulting blindness and burdening of the people was one of the main reasons why Jesus was not accepted and received by His contemporaries and had to take the path via Golgotha. And even after His physical death, contrary currents soon crept in among the first early Christians and eventually prevailed.
    The new Christianity, which may well have taken its name from Christ, but was not with Christ, now took on a different form from the social-religious life described in the Books of Moses. But what about the roots? These always bear fruit of the same kind, of the same content. And Jesus said: "By their fruits you will recognize them."
    We can deduce from the following quote out of the third Book of Moses, Leviticus, what spirit moved in the ceremonies that are described in the Books of Moses:
   If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it at the door of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord; and Aaron’s sons the priests shall present the blood, and throw the blood round about against the altar that is at the door of the tent of meeting. And he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces.
    The sons of the priest Aaron shall put fire on the altar and lay wood in order upon the fire. And Aaron’s sons the priests shall lay the pieces, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire upon the altar. But its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall burn the whole on the altar, as a burnt offering, an offering by fire, a pleasing odor to the Lord.
    If his gift for a burnt offering is from the flock, from the sheep or goats, he shall offer a male without blemish; and he shall kill it on the north side of the altar before the Lord, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall throw its blood against the altar round about. And he shall cut it into pieces, with its head and its fat, and the priest shall lay them in order upon the wood that is on the fire upon the altar; but the entrails and the legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall offer the whole, and burn it on the altar; it is a burnt offering, an offering by fire, a pleasing odor to the Lord.
    If his offering to the Lord is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves or of young pigeons. And the priest shall bring it to the altar and wring off its head, and burn it on the altar; and its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar. And he shall take away its crop with the feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east side, in the place for ashes; he shall tear it by its wings, but shall not divide it asunder. And the priest shall burn it on the altar, upon the wood that is on the fire. It is a burnt offering, an offering by fire, a pleasing odor to the Lord. (Lev. 1:3-17)
   A pleasing odor to the Lord." Why is it necessary to appease the Lord with this so-called "pleasing odor," which certainly was no pleasant odor but rather a stench? According to the teachings of Jesus, God is love, reconciliation, compassion and kindness, the equanimity. Why, then, does He need to be appeased? Wild animals – which we sometimes call beasts – are appeased or lured into a trap using chunks of meat. Did people think, or did they wish to give the impression, that God, the Absolute, All-Eternal One, could be manipulated, as we men often may be manipulated or as we often intend to manipulate others? Such an attempt would bear witness to the distance from God.
    God has no weakness. He cannot be manipulated.
    The third book of Moses, Leviticus, continues:
   When anyone brings a cereal offering as an offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour; he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense on it, and bring it to Aaron’s sons the priests. And he shall take from it a handful of the fine flour and oil, with all of its frankincense; and the priest shall burn this as its memorial portion upon the altar, an offering by fire, a pleasing odor to the Lord.
    And what is left of the cereal offering shall be for Aaron and his sons; it is a most holy part of the offerings by fire to the Lord. (Lev. 2:1-3)
    The rest of the cereal offering, belonging to Aaron and his sons, would certainly have been the best part. Is it any different today? The poor today eat the bread crumbs that fall from the tables of the rich, among whom the Church dignitaries may be counted.
    The "holy," even the "most holy" part is the priests’ due. Did God grant them their office – through Moses, for example? They granted to themselves the dignity of "holy ones" and at that, even on a hereditary basis, regardless of the individual’s "worthiness."
    Leviticus continues:
   If a man’s offering is a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offers an animal from the herd, male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the Lord. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering and kill it at the door of the tent of meeting; and Aaron’s sons the priests shall throw the blood against the altar round about. And from the sacrifice of the peace offering, and as an offering by fire to the Lord, he shall offer the fat covering the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the appendage of the liver which he shall take away with the kidneys. Then Aaron’s sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt offering, which is upon the wood on the fire. It is an offering by fire, a pleasing odor to the Lord.
    If his offering for a sacrifice of peace offering to the Lord is an animal from the flock, male or female, he shall offer it without blemish. If he offers a lamb for his offering, then he shall offer it before the Lord, laying his hand upon the head of his offering and killing it before the tent of meeting; and Aaron’s sons shall throw its blood against the altar round about. Then from the sacrifice of the peace offering as an offering by fire to the Lord, he shall offer its fat, the fat tail entire, taking it away close by the backbone, and the fat that covers the entrails, and all the fat that is on the entrails, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the appendage of the liver which he shall take away with the kidneys. And the priest shall burn it on the altar as food offered by fire to the Lord.
    If his offering is a goat, then he shall offer it before the Lord, and lay his hand upon its head, and kill it before the tent of meeting; and the sons of Aaron shall throw its blood against the altar round about. (Lev. 3:1-13)
    Reading such and similar instructions for bloody ceremonies of magical character, one is automatically reminded of voodoo witchcraft. The "Duden" (a German dictionary) defines voodoo in the following way: a secret cult practiced on Haiti, originating in West Africa, that is magical-religious, syncretistic, and incorporates elements of Catholicism. In "Meyers Lexicon" (a German encyclopedia) it says: Name of syncretistic secret cult common in Haiti, in which ecstatic dances – thought to permit the identification of cult participants with deities – play a central role. Funk and Wagnalls New Comprehensive International Dictionary has the following definition: A primitive religion of West African origin, found among Haitian and West Indian Negroes and the Negroes of southern United States, characterized by belief in sorcery and the use of charms, fetishes, witchcraft, etc.
   If voodoo witchcraft incorporates elements of Catholicism, this "enrichment" would surely not have come about by chance. Perhaps the law of attraction of likes was at work here? Then everyone who tithes at church has reason to wonder what he is paying for.
    In Leviticus we read:
   But the skin of the bull and all its flesh, with its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung, the whole bull he shall carry forth outside the camp to a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and shall burn it on a fire of wood; where the ashes are poured out it shall be burned. (Lev. 4:11-12)
    Here we are told what a "clean place" is! Anyone who wants to read further tales of horror about the darkest pagan tradition may consider the following:
   If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify and though he is a witness, whether he has seen or come to know the matter, yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity. Or if any one touches an unclean thing, whether the carcass of an unclean beast or a carcass of unclean cattle or a carcass of unclean swarming things, and it is hidden from him, and he has become unclean, he shall be guilty. Or if he touches human uncleanness, of whatever sort the uncleanness may be with which one becomes unclean, and it is hidden from him, when he comes to know it he shall be guilty. Or if any one utters with his lips a rash oath to do evil or to do good, any sort of rash oath that men swear, and it is hidden from him, when he comes to know it he shall in any of these be guilty. When a man is guilty in any of these, he shall confess the sins he has committed, and he shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord for the sins which he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.
    But if he cannot afford a lamb, then he shall bring, as his guilt offering to the Lord for the sin which he has committed; two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. He shall bring them to the priest, who shall offer first the one for the sin offering; he shall wring its head from its neck, but shall not sever it, and he shall sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering on the side of the altar, while the rest of the blood shall be drained out at the base of the altar … (Lev. 5:1-9)

    Jesus would never have shed blood or condoned bloodshed. The sentence All who take the sword will perish by the sword (Mt. 26:52) also refers to transgressions against the animal world and all of nature, and is not confined to killing with a sword. There are many gradations to the lack of love. Animals have very fine sensations, while the emotions of humans are often crude and dull.
    Nothing and no one can "absolve us of a transgression" except our Redeemer, Christ, whose power and light of redemption dwells in each of us. The prerequisite for Him to redeem our soul from a guilt is the following: With all our heart, we must feel remorseful for our unloving feeling, sensing, thinking, speaking and acting. In our inner being, we must ask our neighbor and second neighbor, against whom we have sinned, for forgiveness and, for our part, forgive what he might have done to us. To the best of our ability, we must make amends for the wrong we have done, if still possible. And what we have recognized as not good in us we must not do again. Only then will God forgive us, as we have been praying for the last 2000 years in the Lord’s Prayer: Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors …
   Not only an animal sacrifice, but everything that emanates from us, visibly or invisibly – be it malice, disdain or disrespect, be it cruelty or even lack of understanding, inconsiderateness or callousness – adds more to our existing debt. This applies to humanity and to each individual.
    Christ is opposed to all forms of bloodshed. When Christ, who again reveals Himself to humanity through the prophetic word, speaks about animal sacrifice, but also about animal experiments and other transgressions of science against God’s all-wise creation, He often uses the word "abomination."
    We human beings should regard the animals, our second neighbors, as our little animal brothers and sisters. Although, unlike Fall-beings, they did not become guilty before God, the law, they went along into the depths so that we human beings could rejoice in the life of nature and be linked with it in love. Nature wants to serve man. It does not want to be tormented, tortured and murdered and then served up for cannibalistic meals.
    The human being, in his inner being, a being from God, often proves to be a creature of cruelty.

    In the following passage as well, the "God" of the "Books of Moses" speaks against the teachings of Jesus and His own commandments. For instance, it is written in Leviticus:
   And if any one touches an unclean thing, whether the uncleanness of man or an unclean beast or any unclean abomination, and then eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of the Lord’s peace offerings, that person shall be cut off from his people. (Lev. 7:21)
    The fat of an animal that dies of itself, and the fat of one that is torn by beasts, may be put to any other use, but on no account shall you eat it. For every person who eats of the fat of an animal of which an offering by fire is made to the Lord shall be cut off from his people. (Lev. 7:24-25)
    "Cut off from his people" most probably means stoning, the usual form of capital punishment of that time. Stoning was common in Israel even in the days of Jesus of Nazareth. Consider only the adulterous woman that Jesus saved from stoning at the last minute. Jesus’ contemporaries also wanted to kill Him at times in the application of the "laws of God through Moses." "But He passed through the crowd and went away."
   In the third Book of Moses, Leviticus, chapter 11, it is laid out in detail which animals are to be considered clean and which are to be considered unclean. There, it says that the consumption of unclean flesh will cause the person to be unclean until the evening of that day.
    Today, even people who consider themselves animal lovers often will eat meat. They apparently do not realize that, for example, the veal cutlet they buy from the butcher, already conveniently cut and ready for frying, perhaps even seasoned, comes from a little calf which only a few days ago grazed peacefully and harmoniously on the meadow. Perhaps the calf let itself be petted by the children of those who now ask for veal at the butcher’s. The children gazed into its large, dark eyes fringed with long eyelashes and were delighted. Rarely does anyone consider what the little animal, which did no one harm, had to suffer before it arrived at the store counter as a cutlet or sausage – the fright, the fear, the horror, the panic, the pain, the dismay.
    The animal lovers, we human beings, keep pets which bring us joy, especially if they adapt easily, if they are "easy to care for." And yet many animals are abandoned during vacation season. For instance, in Germany in 1990 alone, half a million animals, mainly cats and dogs, were abandoned. Today, ten years later, the number is probably not less. Is that loving an animal?
    From the divine world it was revealed to us:
   Be … earnest and straightforward in your treatment of your second neighbors. In their sensations they see you as their big light-brother or light-sister … Therefore, respect your animal brothers and sisters, your second neighbors, because they want to be your true friends. Strive to treat them as you like to be treated. Then you will soon learn to understand them, and they will be in positive communication with you. (Life with Our Animal Brothers and Sisters. You, the Animal – You, the Human Being. Who Has Higher Values? p.114)
    Man’s power to feel is dulled and his conscience is hardly active anymore. But that does not apply only to the people of today.
    The conscience of man watches over good and evil, over justice and injustice. If it is sound, the conscience will react independently of external legal views, ultimately according to the Ten Commandments. But the habits of people and the imprinting by their environment have also affected and shaped their conscience.
    In reading about cruel animal sacrifices and the stoning of people, we should not only think about how the animals will have felt.
    In order to call to mind what may have taken place in a person back then, we could consider the following scenario: Two young men from among the people had eaten hare’s meat. They had caught a hare and roasted it for their meal. According to chapter 10 and 11 in Leviticus they were now unclean until the evening, which they were prepared to accept. But when, out of thoughtlessness or high-spiritedness, the friends entered the place where the "holy" offerings were kept, one of them was seen and was condemned to death by stoning. The other one remained undiscovered. The stoning was carried out, for in Leviticus 22 it says:
   And the Lord said to Moses: Tell Aaron and his sons to keep away from the holy things of the people of Israel, which they dedicate to me, so that they may not profane my holy name. I am the Lord. Say to them: If anyone of all your descendants throughout your generations approaches the holy things, which the people of Israel dedicate to the Lord, while he has an uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from my presence. I am the Lord. (Lev. 22:1-2)
    Let us put ourselves in the place of the surviving young man after his friend was stoned to death. He is tormented by feelings of guilt. He rebels against the judgment and the heavy punishment that should have been his as well. He revolts against the priests who handed down the sentence and yet he must tell himself that they carried out what "God commanded Moses." Thus his rebellion is directed against God who laid down such a merciless law. But then he calls to mind that God is considered "just," and that He is the highest judge, who cannot err. The young man begins to doubt himself. His observations tell him that apparently no one else has qualms about stoning. He concludes that something must be wrong with his own feelings and sense of justice, because both the priests ordained by God and his fellow believers in the tribe feel and think differently than he does. He decides to change his thinking and to strictly follow the priests and fellow men in all things of the future, instead of thinking independently and deciding freely. He will no longer seek the measure of his actions in himself, but will, even when his heart says differently, do as the others do because "it is God’s will."
    A process of adaptation takes place. This person’s character changes. He now no longer lives himself, so to speak. His heart grows cold and his feelings blunt and dull, his nature hard. His image of God grows distorted and dark. He can no longer trust this punishing and angry God, let alone love Him. His prayers become untruthful and finally he is grateful that there are formulated prayers that can simply be repeated …
    After some time, the reversal into a conformist, a vassal, into an obedient follower of the priests and of "tradition" is complete. This person no longer trusts his inner gauge, his conscience, but habitually thinks and acts against his knowing better. Now, he can be relied upon – upon his following, his loyalty, his obedience and his conformity.
    This is how it could have happened back then. At least in principle this is what could have occurred. On the other hand, it is practically unlikely that a person could have reached adulthood without already being filled with the contents of traditional religious practices, blood sacrifices of animals and the stoning of people.
    This just described inner condition of a person has occurred countless times and in many variations over the course of history. Does it not seem familiar somehow?
    Consider, for instance, the Middle Ages in Europe, where the Inquisition caused many similar situations and conflicts of conscience. The priests no longer slaughtered the animals themselves – they had others do so, and still do today. They did not set fire to the pyre themselves on which straightforward and upright people were burned who had risen against the lies and answered for the one, true, merciful and kind God who is the truth. The priests "merely" stood there with their raised crosses, "blessed," and sang praises in honor of God, forgiving sins and granting indulgences to those who had gathered the wood for the pyre …

    Back to the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament. Anyone wishing to read more about magic of the voodoo sort can continue to read in Leviticus:
   Then he presented the ram of the burnt offering; and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram. And Moses killed it, and threw the blood upon the altar round about. And when the ram was cut into pieces, Moses burned the head and the pieces and the fat. And when the entrails and the legs were washed with water, Moses burned the whole ram on the altar, as a burnt offering, a pleasing odor, an offering by fire to the Lord, as the Lord commanded Moses.
    Then he presented the other ram, the ram of ordination; and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the ram. And Moses killed it, and took some of its blood and put it on the tip of Aaron’s right ear and on the thumb of his right hand and on the great toe of his right foot. And Aaron’s sons were brought, and Moses put some of the blood on the tips of their right ears and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the great toes of their right feet; and Moses threw the blood upon the altar round about.
    Then he took the fat, and the fat tail, and all the fat that was on the entrails, and the appendage of the liver, and the two kidneys with their fat, and the right thigh. And out of the basket of unleavened bread which was before the Lord he took one unleavened cake, and one cake of bread with oil, and one wafer, and placed them on the fat and on the right thigh. And he put all these in the hands of Aaron and in the hands of his sons, and waved them as a wave offering before the Lord. Then Moses took them from their hands, and burned them on the altar with the burnt offering, as an ordination offering, a pleasing odor, and offering by fire to the Lord. (Lev. 8:18-28)
    If this macabre scene is not enough, read on in Leviticus:
   So Aaron drew near to the altar, and killed the calf of the sin offering, which was for himself. And the sons of Aaron presented the blood to him, and he dipped his finger in the blood and put it on the horns of the altar, and poured out the blood at the base of the altar. But the fat and the kidneys and the appendage of the liver from the sin offering he burned upon the altar, as the Lord commanded Moses. The flesh and the skin he burned with fire outside the camp. And he killed the burnt offering; and Aaron’s sons delivered to him the blood, and he threw it on the altar round about. And they delivered the burnt offering to him, piece by piece, and the head; and he burned them upon the altar. And he washed the entrails and the legs, and burned them with the burnt offering on the altar. (Lev. 9:8-14)
    Further on it says:
   And the fat of the ox and of the ram, the fat tail, and that which covers the entrails, and the kidneys, and the appendage of the liver; and they put the fat upon the breasts, and he burned the fat upon the altar, but the breast and the right thigh Aaron waved for a wave offering before the Lord, as Moses commanded. (Lev. 9:19-21)
   "As the Lord commanded Moses …" And today? Infants are baptized, supposedly at Christ’s behest. Priests are set above the simple believers, supposedly under power of authority granted by Jesus, the Christ. One speaks of absolving sin, supposedly as charged by Christ; one ordains a "Holy Father," and claims that Jesus Himself had appointed him, and so on …
    Jesus dissociated Himself from the tradition of sacrifice. Twice He quoted the prophet Hosea to the Pharisees: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice …(Mt. 9:13 and Mt. 12:7). Through Hosea, God had spoken in the Old Testament: For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings. (Hos. 6:6)
   In This Is My Word we read:
   8. …"I have come to put an end to the sacrifices and feasts of blood. If you do not cease to offer and consume the flesh and blood of animals, the wrath of God will not cease to come upon you, just as it came upon your ancestors in the wilderness, who indulged in the consumption of flesh and were filled with rottenness and consumed by pestilence. (p. 209)
    On page 73 of that great divine revelation it says:
   For the one who places his life in the sonship and daughtership of God will not kill – neither men nor animals.
   Jesus spoke with a clarity that was more than clear against the instructions in the "Books of Moses." God spoke similarly through the prophet Jeremiah, as we have already seen.
    In the statements of Jesus, the Christ of God, we perceive that the name of the prophet Moses was used for a cruel pagan cult. In the book This Is My Word, Christ Himself reveals:
   "I have come to put an end to the sacrifices and feasts of blood" means that I have come to teach you the Gospel, the law of love, and to live it as an example for you, so that you may recognize that only the one who keeps the laws of God is rich in spiritual power in his inner being. People who possess the inner values will not lack in anything. For the one who is rich in his heart is with his neighbor, not against him, thus being for God, the life, which is the fullness. People who have inner values are also with the world of animals and plants and are not against God’s creations. The one who is against his neighbor will fight against him and kill him. And the one who is against his neighbor will not be for other forms of life – neither for the life of animals nor of plants or stones.
    The one who is against the life in Me, the Christ, hungers and thirsts for success, wealth, power and prestige. He kills animals and consumes their flesh for his feasts and for the lusts of his palate. Thus, he demonstrates that he is far from God.
    Animal sacrifices, too, are an abomination before God, the Eternal. He does not want animals to be sacrificed or consecrated to Him. God has given life to all forms of Being and thus to animals as well. Why should they be sacrificed to Him, since He Himself, the life, dwells in them?
    However, if man were to sacrifice his human ego, his passions and cravings to Me, the Christ, and were to strive for and lead a life that is pleasing to God, that is, devoted to Him, this would contribute to the unity of all forms of life. God is the Spirit of love and freedom. Therefore, every human being should voluntarily sacrifice his ego. Only then will he become meek and humble of heart and will find his way to the great unity: God. This development of man towards Him is what God loves in His children.
    And the one who devotes himself to the eternal Father-Mother-God, by transforming his humanness into the divine, will not slaughter animals or consume their flesh, nor will he kill any animal deliberately. Such people will also treat the plant world with selfless love, as this, too, is a gift of creation from God to His human children. The plants and the fruits of the field and forest give themselves willingly to man and want to serve him as nourishment and as remedy for his sick body.
    The "wrath of God" comes from the pagan world of conceptions which was still very much alive in the Old Covenant. It was believed that the "gods" would take revenge on people. It would be good if the sinful person recognizes that it is he himself who has created the so-called "wrath of God." The "wrathful God" is the human ego, which takes revenge for what it itself has caused, for man will reap what he sows.
    The words "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" also were and are wrongly interpreted. Man should not take revenge on his neighbor and give tit for tat. He is called upon to forgive his neighbor, to ask him for forgiveness and not to do the same or similar thing any longer. The one who does not follow this commandment subjects himself to the law of expiation. It reads, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." Then he will reap – "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" – what he has sown. (pp. 209-211)
    Already through the old prophets, God taught us the law of sowing and reaping, which lets us recognize the causes of our own fate. In Isaiah, for instance, we read: Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, who draw sin as with cart ropes. (Is. 5:18) In the Old Testament book of Wisdom it says: That they might learn that one is punished by the very things by which he sins. (Wis. 11:16) God does not punish and he does not give instructions that are sins. Our sin is the punishment that we have created for ourselves, our personal judgment.
    Jesus wanted to do away with cruelty to people and animals. Today’s representatives of the church institutions, however, permit that cruelty to people and animals continue. Only the methods are different, however, even more cruel. In this way, they affirm what is happening. The efforts of few in the interests of animals are the exception that proves the rule.

    In the Catechism of the Catholic Church,^* No. 140,the Roman clergy has put down the following: … The Old Testament prepares for the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old; the two shed light on each other; both are the true Word of God.
   The cruelty to animals continues; the slaughterhouses remain open. Today animals are being sacrificed, the carcasses hacked to pieces and cut up for the benefit of the human "gods" to satisfy their lust for culinary pleasures.
    People as well were tortured and killed in cruel and bestial ways. And yesterday may become today.
    What this "fulfillment" that has been prepared in the Old Testament looks like may be clearly seen by the fruits that the so-called Christian Churches have brought forth over the centuries.
    A few days ago I came across a brochure, documentation by an initiative called "A Memorial to the Millions of Victims of the Church." The following is written there:

Inquisition: 13th-18th century, between 1 and 10 million dead and countless tortured, maltreated or terrorized people. (Der Spiegel, 6.1.1998 [The Mirror])

Crusades: 11th-13th century, up to 22 million dead, among them thousands of German Jews. (Hans Wollschläger, "Die bewaffneten Wallfahrten nach Jerusalem" [The Armed Pilgrimages to Jerusalem])

"Heathens": 9th-12th century. During the Middle Ages tens of thousands of Germanic or Slavic "heathens" are forcefully converted to "Christianity" or cruelly slaughtered. The Church gives its blessing or calls for "crusades" against the Slavs. (Karlheinz Deschner, Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, vol. 4–6 [Criminal History of Christendom]).

Jews: During the Middle Ages, between the 11th and 14th century there were numerous bloody pogroms with several thousands dead, the result of centuries of Church propaganda. The prominent Nazi Julius Streicher justified the holocaust during the Nuremberg trials by explicitly citing Martin Luther’s speeches of incitement against the Jews. (Friedrich Heer, "Gottes erste Liebe" [God’s First Love])

The conquest of America: During the first 150 years after the Spanish conquest, 100 million people died "in the name of God" – the "greatest genocide of all time." (Theologe Boff, Publik-Forum, 5.31.1991)

Cathari, Waldensians, Hussites, Baptists: Thousands with different beliefs die at the behest of the Church (including the Protestant-Lutheran Church).

"Witches:" 16th-18th centuries, between 400,000 and 1 million people, mostly women, die cruel deaths, roughly half of them in Germany. Luther has witches burned as well. The instructions, the "Witch-Hammer," are written by two German Dominican monks (cf. Hubertus Mynarek, "Die Neue Inquisition" [The New Inquisition]).

    And how is it today? The roots of the Old Testament, mainly the "Books of Moses," according to the Catholic Catechism, "shed light" on the New Testament, that is, on our times. In the quoted brochure we read further:

Genocide in Croatia: In the middle of the 20th century, between 1941 and 1943, roughly 750,000 orthodox Serbs were murdered with the aid of Catholic clergymen and with the Vatican’s approval … The Vatican is informed about everything, but treats the bloody regime with considerable benevolence. The Catholic hierarchy, foremost the military vicar and archbishop Stepinac (beatified by the pope in 1998), gives the regime moral support to the very end. (Compare Deschner, "Ein Jahrhundert Heilsgeschichte," vol. 2, 1983 pp. 210 ff., [A Century of the History of Salvation?] and Vladimir Dedijer, "Jasenovac – das Jugoslavische Auschwitz und der Vatikan," 1988 [Jasenocvac – the Yugoslavian Auschwitz and the Vatican])

Child abuse by priests and ministers: The victims of child abuse often suffer for years and decades from the humiliation. Experts estimate that in the USA 2,000 of the 51,000 Catholic priests have been accused of sexual abuse over the last twenty years (Hanauer Anzeiger, 7. 13.1998 [Hanau Gazette]). That is approximately four percent, even without unreported cases. In Germany, Prof. Hubertus Mynarek also estimated a share of 3-5 percent of pedophile priests. (Akte [File] 97, 9/14/1999)

 

 

    Most of the murders and other crimes "in the name of God" mentioned above were committed by the Catholic Church. Does that mean that the Protestant-Lutheran Church should be regarded more positively?
    How humane, freedom-loving and tolerant was the Church-founder Martin Luther? How did he regard his fellow men, and did he love his neighbor – which should be the highest commandment?
    A man like Martin Luther is still highly regarded today. His Church follows in his footsteps, as was confirmed by Hermann von Loewenich (until 1999 the Lutheran bishop for Bavaria) on internet: We want to preserve the historic heritage of the Lutheran tradition as our cultural and spiritual homeland.
   A Lutheran theologian compiled Luther’s demands in an extensive brochure, The Theologian, No. 3:
    Luther called on the ruling princes to kill the rebellious peasants: Lunge, strike, and throttle whoever can do so. If you be killed in doing so, salvation to you: a more blessed death you will never attain. For you die in obedience to the divine word and commandment. (Wider die stürmenden Bauern, Weimarer Ausgabe der Lutherschriften [Against the Rebelling Farmers, Weimar Edition of the Luther Writings])
    Luther demands the persecution of preachers who hold other beliefs: …and if they were to teach the pure gospel, yes even if they were like the angels and Gabriel from the heavens … If anyone wants to preach, let him prove his calling or order … If he refuses, may the superior command he be turned over to the proper master, called Master Hans [the executioner] …
   Luther slanders and libels the Jewish population and demands their persecution:
   If I could I would strike him [the Jewish citizen] down and pierce him with the sword in my rage.
    … that their synagogues or schools be set on fire and may all that will not burn be heaped and covered with earth, that no person should ever see a rock or stone of it ever again. And this should be done for the glory of our Lord and of Christianity so that God may see that we are Christians.
    … that also their houses be broken and destroyed …
    … these worthless fellows and plunderers deserve no mercy and no pity.
    … that they be forbidden to publicly praise God, to give thanks, to pray, to teach on pain of death … (Martin Luther, Von den Juden und ihren Lügen, Wittenberg 1543 [About the Jews and Their Lies])
    Luther: It is such a desperate, viciously evil, vilely poisonous, thoroughly diabolical thing with these Jews, who for 1,400 years have been our plague, our pestilence, and all our misfortune, and still are today. In sum, we have righteous devils in them.
   Luther even claimed that Moses, were he alive today, would be the first to set fire to the "Jewish houses and schools."
    Luther further demanded that one should take away from the Jews their entire religious literature, put them under house arrest, take all their money and goods, and send them into forced labor.
    Luther also called for war and the "murder" of Turkish opponents in war: ... and with joy raise the fist and strike in comfort, murder, rob, and do as much damage as ever they may …
   Luther wanted the death of "usurers": ... so if one takes the highway robbers and murderers and breaks them on the wheel and beheads them, how much more should all usurers be broken on the wheel and bled and all misers be driven out, cursed and beheaded …
   Luther demanded the death of unfaithful partners: Why are adulterers not killed? and wanted to torture prostitutes to death: If I were judge, I would want to have such a French poisonous whore broken on the wheel and bled.
   Women with magical skills should be tortured and killed according to Luther: The sorceresses you should not permit to live … It is a just law that they be killed … If they will not convert, they will be handed over to the torturers.
    Luther, about handicapped children: But when people tell about the devil-like children … so I say that they were either disfigured by the devil or that they are true devils. Many disabled persons who had been entrusted to Lutheran homes for the handicapped (for instance, in Neuendettelsau, Bavaria), were handed over to the state authorities in 1940/41, ultimately making reference to Luther’s teachings on the state (obedience toward authority). Those responsible knew that the handicapped would be killed.
    In the end, Luther wanted to kill the pope: The pope is the devil; if I could kill the devil, why would I not do it?
   The Lutheran Church also calls itself "Christian." But where is the Christian spirit, the spirit of love for God and love for one’s neighbor in what Luther said? His instructions and maxims were put into bloody practice by the people and the regional rulers, down to the despots of the Third Reich.
    The one who gives such bestial and murderous instructions to his fellow man, which reach into the present day in different form, cannot be expected to have a sympathetic heart or compassion for animals. Whether it is war, the destruction of many people, animals and land, or whether it is animal experiments or genetic engineering, the ethics and morals of both denominations are hardly different. To put it clearly: both church institutions are un-Christian.

    Let us take another look at the testimony of the Old Testament. In Leviticus (supposedly the true word of God), where instructions are given also to the church officials of our day about which animals they may eat and which animals they should avoid, it says:
   Whatever parts the hoof and is cloven-footed and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. (Lev. 11:3)
    And three verses down, there is an appeal to hunters:
   And the hare, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof, is unclean to you. And the swine, because it parts the hoof and is cloven-footed but does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean to you. (Lev. 11:6-8)
    In addition to that last quote, it says in Leviticus 11:26–27:
   Every animal which parts the hoof but is not cloven-footed or does not chew the cud is unclean to you; every one who touches them shall be unclean. And all that go on their paws, among the animals that go on all fours, are unclean to you; whoever touches their carcass shall be unclean until evening …
   Those who are obedient to the Churches should keep the instructions of the Old Testament, because, according to church teaching, it is the word of God. If the believers obeyed, the hares and swine at least would stand a chance of escaping without buckshot or bullets in their bodies.
    To justify hunting it is often said that hunting is necessary to "decimate" the numbers of certain animals to prevent over-proliferation. But the Spirit of God has taught us: God has so arranged His creation, nature on the Earth, that it will take care of compensating and maintaining its balance. God has not given this task to the hunters!
    To the fishermen and all those who tear from the sea what belongs to the sea, "God’s" instructions through "Moses" were the following:
   But anything in the seas or the rivers that has not fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and of the living creatures that are in the waters, is an abomination to you. (Lev. 11:10)
    Anyone who eats creatures of the sea, such as lobster and the like, becomes unclean. Readers may ask themselves whether they have become "unclean" already today.
    Where will all those clergymen be after this life on Earth, all those who want to fulfill the Old Testament in the New Testament and who sit at beautifully laid tables, and eat of the carcasses of the hare, of wild pig and the like, or consume shellfish without fins and scales, and who then, in this state of uncleanness, perhaps perform sacred rites? Today they will no longer be stoned for sinning against the "holy" and the Holy One, God; but is the passed-down "word of God" still taken to be the truth, according to the statements of the clergy?
    If there really were unclean animals that were an "abomination," then a justifiable question would be: Why did God create such animals, if He is absolute purity?
    Jesus did not speak of any of this. Jesus loved all animals. Not only did He never hurt an animal, on the contrary: He was the great friend of all creatures. He spoke and acted for the animals.
    Many people, on the other hand, do not think twice when animals are being treated cruelly or are killed. In This Is My Word on page 421, Christ explained that animals have feelings and sensations, similar to human beings:
   As Jesus of Nazareth, I spoke to many people about the law of life as well as about the animals which, like human beings, feel pain, grief and joy. Just as man should not be against, but for his neighbor, so should he also be for the animals and bear responsibility for them, because they serve man.
    I taught people again and again that the animals, too, are creatures of God, which man should not disregard, but should love. The one who beats and tortures them will one day experience the same or similar thing in his soul and on his body. For, what a man does to his fellow men and his fellow creatures, the animals, he does to himself.
    Many people recognized their callousness and began to actualize My teachings. They repented and accepted the animals as their friends. And so, many a one understood My words and followed Me. (p. 421)
    I repeat the words of Jesus, the Christ: "What a man does to his fellow human beings and his fellow creatures, the animals, he does to himself." Let us follow His words and apply what happens to the innocent animals to ourselves. In our thoughts, let us take their place and share their fate in feelings, images and thoughts.
    For example, you could ask yourself in the place of an animal: Would you rather be killed or murdered? Anyone who seriously considers this question or situation with his feelings, where he is asked whether he would rather be killed or murdered, would surely not make a choice, because being killed or being murdered means to give up life, regardless of any difference.
    And how would we react, if someone were to catch us, lock us in a cage and decide when we could get out from time to time?
    Just imagine you were in the skin of a hamster, which by nature needs a lot of movement. See yourself locked up for some weeks in a tiny room. For movement you have only a wheel that turns quickly under your feet so that you remain in place, running and running and running, without moving forward. How long would you enjoy it? In this way you will quickly comprehend how the hamster must feel who must numbly run day after day in his cramped wheel.
    Or feel yourself into the situation of a cow in a feeding pen. There you are, locked in, rubbing against your fellow sufferers, doped up with fattening feed full of chemicals, knowing that any second the butcher may come to slaughter you and cut your body up in pieces as a sacrificial meal, for example, for the corpulent clergy. You hear your brothers and sisters, the other cattle, mooing dully from time to time and you feel that they are moved by the same fear. But your impending fate is inevitable. You are in the hands of butchering man, at the mercy of his egomania, callousness and greed, including greed for profit.
    Many people will walk over the dead bodies of people and animals, if they are not affected personally. For this reason, people presume it is permissible to kill people in certain cases, and of course much more so with animals. Who has the right to deliberately take the life of his neighbor, or of the animal? Who has created the human soul, which is immortal? Who gave it breath? And who has given the animals breath and thus life? Not man, but God, the Eternal, the Creator-Spirit of infinity. God does not take the life of man or of animals, for God is the giver. And God does not coerce. He never uses violence. He never influences anyone against their will. He is the freedom and He grants freedom. Only man, who gave life neither to the human soul nor to the animals, kills the house of the soul, the body, and kills the animal. Who gave man permission? Jesus did not speak of this!
    Anyone who distinguishes between "killing" and "murder" is in my opinion a paranoiac who does not value the life of others according to the All-law, which is life, and who therefore forfeits his own life. For, what a person does to another, he does to himself.
    The same applies when animals are kept in cages. God gave animals nature as their habitat, in which they may move freely according to their kind, just as the spiritual forms of animals do in the eternal Being. He did not create cages for His creatures. Only man presumes to cage animals and to have them pass their days in the most cramped spaces.
    Jesus, the Christ, spoke in the following sense: So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them! (Mt. 7:12) We can also understand Jesus’ statement in the following way: Do not do unto others what you do not want them to do unto you. Does this apply only to other humans, or does it apply also to animals, given Jesus’ love for animals?
    God gave to people and animals the whole Earth and thus He gave them freedom. But people divide this world into lots. Everyone seeks – legally or illegally – to gain the largest piece. That land then is "his property." It is what "belongs to him," with everything that lives on and in the land. But everything that we acquire on Earth is illusion, a deception, for death will take from us what we have taken from the Earth.
    For many human beings, animals are only objects that may be bought or sold, used or also consumed – like items from the store. They cram the animals into the world of their conceptions, into cramped pens, where they also waste away their existence.
    Anyone who has learned to feel into people senses that animals, too, have feelings and sensations, similar to us human beings. They feel joy, sorrow and pain. An old Native American saying may help us learn to understand the animals. It says: Do not judge your neighbor until you walk two moons in his moccasins. With regard to animals, we may say: Before you capture animals and abuse them for your purposes and torment them, forcing upon them confining and unnatural living conditions, try it on yourself first. Let yourself be forced into the hamster’s wheel as mentioned above, and you will feel what your little second neighbor must be going through. The one who wants to gain a living insight into the plight of animals could put himself in the role of a fattened calf, or of a chicken on a chicken farm, or of a baby seal that is lying comfortably in the sun when the men come with clubs in their hands, wanting to skin it for its fur. Perhaps you will also imagine what the mother seal must feel when she returns from fishing and finds instead of her baby a raw lump of meat …

    Jesus, the Christ, is the truth. He said: I and the Father are one. (Jn. 10:30) Let us consider again the following words of Jesus: Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. (Mt. 5:17) In many cases Jesus did not fulfill what the "God" of the Old Testament had commanded through the prophet Moses. Jesus rarely and only indirectly referred to the "God" of the "Books of Moses." Rather He said: You have heard that it is written … but I tell you … Or: You have heard that it was said to the ancients … but I tell you … He who has ears to hear, listen: Jesus rarely mentions the "God" of the "Books of Moses."
    Jesus thus sought to dissociate Himself from that mistaken concept of God, from that false image of God. He spoke of the "Father in heaven," of His Father, of "God, your Father." He spoke from the truth that is the eternal reality, the law of the heavens.
    One might object that what was said at that time applied to the people then, and that it is no longer valid today, that today it would be entirely different. This raises the question: Were the people worse back then, did they have a more wicked character than people do today? Surely we need not research what people were like back then. Everyone who still has a spark of conscience knows without analysis and based on the facts on page 32 ff. that people today are worse by far than people were back then. That this is true also in regard to their brothers and sisters in nature, the animals, is evidenced by the fate of animals in nature and in the laboratories of science, etc.
    Many are of the opinion that they believe in God. Especially those who display their faith in churches and official functions, presume to act like super-gods who not only tolerate but condone that living animals are subjected to the most cruel and brutal experiments that put the practices in the "Books of Moses" in the shade. The Roman clergy, of course, does not mention the shade. They proclaim: "The Old Testament prepares for the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old; the two shed light on each other …" (Catholic Catechism No. 140) For example, do the burning pyres of the Middle Ages shed the light of the Old Testament on the New? On the other hand, do the bloody practices of the Middle Ages and the serious alterations that were done during the past 2000 years to the teachings of Jesus, the Christ, shed light on what happened to the word and the message of God in the Old Testament? It could be worth it to pursue this question … what forces, also called powers, might this be today? If it cannot be God – for He is the law and this law is love, kindness, peace and the good of everyone and everything – then who is it?
    Just now I am reading how the Old Testament finds fulfillment in the New Testament, but with different characteristics, tailored to our present times. It is the transcript of a television program that was aired on Sept. 2, 1999 on German television (Auslandsjournal, [Foreign Journal] ZDF), under the title "Child Abuse in Ireland." Here are some excerpts:
   A scandal is shaking Ireland. Its focal point is the Catholic Church, the pillar of Irish society. Over the course of many years, the state has entrusted children to a Catholic Order. Today public indignation is great on the island because a documentary film shows what no one wanted to believe at first: abuse instead of care, violence instead of love. Not single cases, but apparently hundreds of children have lived through hell on Earth in the custody of the Church. Now the pact of silence is being broken, and the truth is brought to light.
   At age three, John Prior is assigned to a home by the state because his parents supposedly were neglectful in their care of him. The home is run by the Catholic Order of Christian Brothers. Here, the children are supposedly raised to believe in God.
    John, who is 54 years old today, tells his story: For seven years he was sexually abused by two Brothers of the Order and by a Catholic priest.
   The worst beating that I ever received was when I told a nurse that I had been sexually abused by a Brother. I was nine and a half or ten. She first beat me and then she told the Brother. He then took me away and then two of the Brothers beat and beat and beat me. I had wounds everywhere …
    We had group showers. Twenty boys had to get in there. The Brother (of the Order) got undressed … and he abused some boys in front of the eyes of others and he forced them to touch each other. He once raped me, he threw me on his bed and took me, tearing me open. I was bleeding so badly that the nurse used iodine and I screamed with pain.
   In March 1998 the Brothers of the Order publicly apologized for the child abuse in the school homes. Together with other Orders they set up a support telephone line for the victims. There were more than 8,000 calls and the Church referred 600 victims to therapists.
    1999: A documentary accuses the state and proves that the authorities knew for years about the child abuse in the church schools and that they nevertheless continued to finance them. As a result, the government established a fact-finding committee, promised to change the law, and provided $5 million for the victims’ therapy.
   Today, John is in psychotherapy. He suffers from paranoia, cannot sleep, trusts no one. Almost all his relationships have failed, and he has never accomplished anything professionally.
    Therapist: John suffers unceasingly; he has inferiority complexes; he feels useless; he has no self-confidence …
   John is not a singular case. Thousands of children were placed in the care of Catholic foster homes … John tells about the fate of his best friend, Joseph:
   He had a long leather belt and he hit Joseph with it on both shoulders and on the head. Joseph fell from his chair and the Brother struck every part of his body, and then kicked him with those heavy army boots that the Brothers wore to work in the fields. And he kicked him and kicked him and kicked him, until Joseph could no longer move. Joseph had lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital. There he died. This was generally known. They said here that he had died of leukemia, but he did not die of leukemia.
   Narrator: Since then, John no longer believes in God.
   This report speaks for itself …
    In a recent edition of "Kirche Intern" [Inside the Church, Austria] the following appeared under the heading "Sexual Abuse. Therapy in the Monastery:"
   More and more often priests and members of Orders are being suspected of taking part in sexual abuse. Reason enough for the abbot of monastery G., in J.A., to take action. Still this year, he wants to establish a therapy center in the monastery P. for the clergy, members of Orders and pastoral workers.
   It might be advisable to read what the "God of Moses" said about such and similar things. If this old law, which can look back on a long tradition and which is esteemed by the Church as a part of the "Holy Scriptures" were to be applied, there would very quickly be fewer people around.
    The transgressions of man today are not only directed against individuals, against people and animals, but it is a global strategy against people and animals. He is even convinced that he should improve on God’s creation. Cruel and domineering people interfere in manifold and the most brutal ways and means in the life of animals – and the world of plants and minerals is not spared either. Others, the great mass of people, leave the tormented creatures to their fate without protest, being deaf and blind in their egotism and dull indifference. In a similar fashion, people treat each other.
    The caste of priests today has put together their own God, just as during the time of Moses. Only the "God" of today does not concur with either the "God" of the Old Testament or with the teachings of Jesus. Church dignitaries at all times adapted their god or their gods to their times – that is, to their conceptions, needs and aims. The true God, on the other hand, is not the Church spirit-of-the-times "God," but the unchanging God whom Jesus taught us. The Church spirit-of-the-times "God" is inconstant and unreliable. It does not help to formulate statements in absolute terms, pretending stability. Untruth is not of eternal duration, even if the cracks and holes in the structure of untruth may be patched for a while by claiming these are "the mysteries of God." The light of truth will bring everything to light.
    Why do church dignitaries not abide by their own statements? If they would let the Old Testament be brought to fulfillment in all details in the New Testament, they themselves would be the first that the "God" in the "Books of Moses" would have killed.
    The people of today, especially church believers, walk in the footsteps of church authorities, who proclaim a changing God who is subject to the changing spirit-of-the-times, so that their neck will not be caught in the noose of the Old Testament – a noose that the "God" of the "Books of Moses" would have long since put around their necks and pulled tight. And so, they need their spirit-of-the-times, whom they call "God."
    This "God" is flexible and adapts to the requirements of those currently in command, so that there is little difficulty in presenting him to the believers, so that in their lethargy, egocentricity and dissipation they will be disturbed as little as possible. This way, the believers are happy to remain in the folds of this comfortable Church, which takes the burden of many a decision of conscience away and provides an alibi for atrocities of many kinds.
    The true eternal One is absolute. He is the all-wise law of the cosmos, which is love. I repeat, God, the love, does not punish or discipline. He does not condemn, kill, or murder. God will not hand over people or animals to other people. Jesus taught us this. He lived the law of His Father and is the example by which to live.
    If we learn to understand the depth of His teaching and His statement: Follow me! (Mt. 4:19), then we will know why Jesus urged us to follow in His steps. Did Jesus want to tell us, among other things, that we should not walk in the footsteps of the priest caste which teaches a God of the times, a spirit-of-the-times God that unavoidably leads people into destruction – something which our world today is showing us? The Seer of Patmos recognized this, because we can read in the revelation of John: Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues … (Rev. 18:4)
    Again let it be clearly and unmistakably said: Jesus spoke against the brutal, bestial slaughter of animals and the killing and murder of people. We should keep asking questions of ourselves until we have received enlightenment and have recognized deep within us why Jesus proclaimed a God who is different from the "God" of the "Books of Moses" and from the "God" of today’s church officials. Or do we believe in several gods of differing quality? In that case, it is the personal philosophy of each individual, who does not require a church authority for this – unless the individual lacks imagination in this respect: then the Church is the right place for him as a "religious" member. But if the one God should be changeable, then woe unto the people who have turned from the state Church of pagan rituals!
    We should consider carefully, and wisely weigh everything! God gave not only people a heart – the stirrings of which are not so reliable if we have lost our conscience – but also a mind. We are well advised to make use of it and to reawaken our perhaps long-unused ability for independent thinking.
    To come to clarity, a good approach is to question oneself – or God in deep prayer. For: Whoever asks sincerely may receive guidance.
    After 2000 years it is time that those people who believe in Jesus and who want to follow Him make a decision: to either follow in the steps of Jesus, the Christ, and to thus apply His teaching; or to follow in the steps of today’s church authorities, who in no way fall short of the caste of priests in Moses’ times.

    Even though the adversary of God managed to fundamentally falsify the words of the prophet Moses, the words of the Ten Commandments – which are an excerpt of the eternal and absolute law of the heavens – have remained mostly untouched down to our time.
    The fifth commandment reads and has always read: You shall not kill.
    But, in a new 1985 unity translation of the German New Jerusalem Bible it says: You shall not murder. This version should be attributed to the God of the spirit-of-the-times. It represents an attenuation of the encompassing statement "You shall not kill." In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus even said: You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire. (Mt. 5:21-22)
    Jesus did not qualify the absolute statement "You shall not kill." He did not restrict its meaning to specific cases: on the contrary, Jesus deepened it. He taught that against-the-neighbor not only lies in the accomplished act of killing, but is already contained in hurtful or pejorative words, and the feelings and sensations that lie in them. He called our attention to the fact that every fine stirring of rejection of neighbor, perhaps of our animal brothers and sisters, our second neighbors, as well, is a sin before God. In this way, Jesus called on us to sensitize our conscience.
    And Jesus explicitly spoke of "killing," not "murder."
    Jeremiah had already told the people about the falsification of "the scriptures." In Jeremiah 8:8 he spoke of "the false pen of the scribes" who have made the law of the Lord "into a lie."
    Whose "false pen" has now again falsified the word of God through Moses? Whom do those serve who would do such a thing? What should be justified by the statement "You shall not murder?" Is this statement again meant to appease the conscience of people, so that they will not react when injustice is being done?
    The un-spirit of the Old Testament prepared the way and demonstrated the method; and in the New Testament the falsifications were successfully carried through until today, using a clear method, plan and purpose. Under the eyes of many millions of people gifted with a thinking mind – abracadabra! – white turns into black. Are these the miracles of today?
    Anyone indifferent to the radical divergence between these two statements, killing and murder, sits on two chairs and tries to serve two masters: the spirit of the cruel "God" of the "Books of Moses," and thus the institutional churches, and on the other hand a little bit of Jesus, the Christ, who taught the God of merciful love.
    Jesus said in the following sense: My Father and I are one. Where two are one, they speak the same language. May the one who has ears to hear, listen!
    What did Jesus teach in His Sermon on the Mount? Anyone who simply gets angry with his neighbor will be liable to the court. And whoever insults another will be liable to the council. (Mt. 5-22) May the one who has ears to hear, listen! And the one who has a conscience will follow Jesus, the Christ, and will do what is written in the Revelation of John: Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues … (Rev. 18:4)

    Jesus did not soothe our conscience. Nor did he call on us to lull our conscience with tricks and ruses and hair-splitting formulations, and silence it. Only those who are against God do this, those who work against Him, and who have already turned the word of Moses into its opposite. Of this, there is another example:
    In the second Book of Moses, Exodus, we read: Whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death. (Ex. 21:12) Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death. Whoever steals a man, whether he sells him or is found in possession of him, shall be put to death. (Ex. 21:15-17)
    In Exodus 21:24 we continue: ... eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
   Many times this was taken literally and was used to justify all sorts of acts of vengeance.
    Jesus did not speak such in His Sermon on the Mount. There it says: You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you. (Mt. 5:38-42)
    The words of Jesus are thus very different from those of the "God" of the "Books of Moses." Whoever wants to be an upright Christian, ought to make the decision: Either for God through Jesus, the Christ, or for the god of the institutional churches, because one cannot serve two masters. At some point the false god will cause us to fall. Our indifferent, callous society is the best proof of this.
    In the fifth Book of Moses, Deuteronomy, we can read among other things about retribution:
   Your eye shall not pity; it shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. (Dt.19:21)
   War and the warriors. When you go forth to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, you draw near this day to battle against your enemies. Let not your heart be faint! Do not fear, or tremble, or be in dread of them; for the Lord your God is he that goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.’ (Dt. 20:1-4)
    Today it is the same, as if Jesus, the Christ, had not been on Earth in the meantime. Today’s priests bless war and its weapons in the belief that those who receive the blessing will have God on their side against the "enemies."
    In the same book of Moses, we continue to read:
   Conquering the cities: When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if its answer to you is peace and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes not peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.
    And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the cattle, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourselves; and you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you.
    Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes. (Dt. 20:10-16)
    In the Middle Ages, the crusaders waded through the blood of those whom they had conquered in the name of the cross. Between 1941 and 1943 in Croatia it was not much different. The Church does make it true: The Old Testament "sheds light" on the New Testament – but not with the light of God, which Christ proclaimed and is again proclaiming today!
    God is peace. Christ came in Jesus to bring peace to all human beings. He will return – in spirit – as the Prince of Peace, that is certain.
    Jesus spoke in His Sermon on the Mount about loving one’s enemies. In Matthew we read:
   You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
    You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Mt. 5:43-48)
    Again we recognize: Jesus said, You have heard … He did not say "You have heard from God through Moses," and He did not say "You have heard from the prophet Moses." He said: You have heard …
   Jesus spoke of God’s love and about reconciliation – the so-called "God" through Moses spoke of destruction, plunder and killing.
    In Leviticus, the third Book of Moses, things are summed up as follows:
   And you shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. And I will have regard for you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and will confirm my covenant with you. ( Lev. 26:7-9)
   But Jesus said: All those who take the sword will perish by the sword. (Mt. 26:52)
    Moses supposedly ordained priests at God’s bidding. The ceremony began with the usual sacrifice of a ram. Jesus taught just the opposite with regard to priests. In the gospel of Matthew He put it very clearly: But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. (Mt. 23:8)
    In Matthew 23, Jesus rebuked the scribes and pharisees for their hypocrisy:
    Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.
    They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ. He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
    But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, not allow those who would enter to go in.
    Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
    Woe to you, blind guides who say, ‘If any one swears by the temple, it is nothing; but if any one swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If any one swears by the altar, it is nothing; but if any one swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; and he who swears by the temple, swears by it and by him who dwells in it; and he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.
    Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
    Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and rapacity. You blind Pharisees, first cleanse the inside of the cup and of the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
    Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
    Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
    Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zehari´ah the son of Barachi´ah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all this will come upon this generation. (Mt. 23:1-36)
    Jesus said, among other things: And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. (Mt. 23:9)
    Why then, is there a "Holy Father" on Earth? All Catholics who believe in the words of Jesus ought to ask themselves the question whether they are not cheering for a Roman Catholic figurehead, thus agreeing to defame the name of Jesus and His teachings, in order to ridicule the greatest prophet of all times, who became our Redeemer.
    Jesus called himself master, that is, teacher of wisdom. The Catholic Church, contrary to His teachings and His will, turned Him into a priest. In the Catholic Catechism, No. 1548, it says: "In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth."
   In the Catholic Catechism it says: "…and Teacher of Truth." In this way, today’s church officials are again scorning Jesus, the Christ. They talk about the teacher of truth, but they don’t do what Jesus taught and wanted.

    Jesus, the simple man among the people of Israel, a Jew in a simple linen garment, the Son of Man, as He is called, son of a carpenter, was a stark contrast to the caste of priests back then and today.
    The priests back then wore robes befitting their position and their claim, and today, cardinals, bishops, priests and ministers also display themselves in splendid robes. But God let his Son, the Co-Regent of heaven, walk the Earth in simple garments, without property, as a carpenter. Why did God not dress Jesus, His Son, in the robes of a priest and why did He not let Him serve in the Temple of Jerusalem? Does God make exceptions? Let us read what "God through Moses" said and how "He" gave Aaron and his sons the priesthood and clothed them as priests. In Exodus it says:
   The robe of the ephod. And you shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue. It shall have in it an opening for the head, with a woven binding around the opening, like the opening in a garment, that it may not be torn. On its skirts you shall make pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet stuff, around its skirts, with bells of gold between them, a golden bell and a pomegranate, round about on the skirts of the robe. And it shall be upon Aaron when he ministers, and its sound shall be heard when he goes into the holy place before the Lord, and when he comes out, lest he die. (Ex. 28:31-35)
   And it continues:
   The crown. And you shall make a plate of pure gold, and engrave on it, like the engraving of a signet, ‘Holy to the Lord.’ And you shall fasten it on the turban by a lace of blue; it shall be on the front of the turban. It shall be upon Aaron’s forehead, and Aaron shall take upon himself any guilt incurred in the holy offering which the people of Israel hallow as their holy gifts; it shall always be upon his forehead, that they may be accepted before the Lord. (Ex. 28:36-38)
    The instructions of "God through Moses" that are in stark contrast to the statements, the teaching and way of life of the Son of God among the people should be passed on in detail according to the following, so that the one who reads it with his heart can more easily reach a decision: for the church officials or for the following of Jesus, the Christ.
    On the clothing of the priests it says:
   And you shall weave the coat in checker work of fine linen, and you shall make a turban of fine linen, and you shall make a girdle embroidered with needlework. And for Aaron’s sons you shall make coats and girdles and caps; you shall make them for glory and beauty. And you shall put them upon Aaron your brother, and upon his sons with him, and shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests. And you shall make for them linen breeches to cover their naked flesh; from the loins to the thighs they shall reach; and they shall be upon Aaron, and upon his sons, when they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister in the holy place; lest they bring guilt upon themselves and die. This shall be a perpetual statute for him and for his descendants after him. (Ex. 28:39-43)
   Cleansing, clothing, and anointing. You shall bring Aaron and his sons to the door of the tent of meeting, and wash them with water. And you shall take the garments, and put on Aaron the coat and the robe of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastpiece, and gird him with the skillfully woven band of the ephod; and you shall set the turban on his head, and put the holy crown upon the turban. And you shall take the anointing oil, and pour it on his head and anoint him. Then you shall bring his sons, and put coats on them, and you shall gird them with girdles and bind caps on them; and the priesthood shall be theirs by a perpetual statute. Thus you shall ordain Aaron and his sons.
    Then you shall bring the bull before the tent of meeting. Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands upon the head of the bull, and you shall kill the bull before the Lord, at the door of the tent of meeting, and shall take part of the blood of the bull and put it upon the horns of the altar with your finger, and the rest of the blood you shall pour out at the base of the altar. And you shall take all the fat that covers the entrails, and the appendage of the liver, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, and burn them upon the altar. But the flesh of the bull, and its skin, and its dung, you shall burn with fire outside the camp; it is a sin offering.
    Then you shall take one of the rams, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands upon the head of the ram, and you shall slaughter the ram, and shall take its blood and throw it against the altar round about. Then you shall cut the ram into pieces, and wash its entrails and its legs, and put them with its pieces and its head, and burn the whole ram upon the altar; it is a burnt offering to the Lord; it is a pleasing odor, an offering by fire to the Lord. You shall take the other ram; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands upon the head of the ram, and you shall kill the ram, and take part of its blood and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron and upon the tips of the right ears of his sons, and upon the thumbs of their right hands, and upon the great toes of the right feet, and throw the rest of the blood against the altar round about. Then you shall take part of the blood that is on the altar, and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it upon Aaron and his garments, and upon his sons and his sons’ garments with him; and he and his garments shall be holy, and his sons and his sons’ garments with him.
   Ordination of priests. You shall also take the fat of the ram, and the fat tail, and the fat that covers the entrails, and the appendage of the liver, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, and the right thigh (for it is a ram of ordination), and one loaf of bread, and one cake of bread with oil, and one wafer, out of the basket of unleavened bread that is before the Lord; and you shall put all these in the hands of Aaron and in the hands of his sons, and wave them for a wave offering before the Lord. Then you shall take them from their hands, and burn them on the altar in addition to the burnt offering, as a pleasing odor before the Lord; it is an offering by fire to the Lord.
    And you shall take the breast of the ram of Aaron’s ordination and wave it for a wave offering before the Lord; and it shall be your portion. And you shall consecrate the breast of the wave offering, and the thigh of the priests’ portion, which is waved, and which is offered from the ram of ordination, since it is for Aaron and for his sons. It shall be for Aaron and his sons as a perpetual due from the people of Israel, for it is the priests’ portion to be offered by the people of Israel from their peace offerings; it is their offering to the Lord. The holy garments of Aaron shall be for his sons after him, to be anointed in them and ordained in them. The son who is priest in his place shall wear them seven days, when he comes into the tent of meeting to minister in the holy place. You shall take the ram of the ordination, and boil its flesh in a holy place.
   Holy meal. And Aaron and his sons shall eat the flesh of the ram and the bread that is in the basket, at the door of the tent of meeting. They shall eat those things with which atonement was made, to ordain and consecrate them, but an outsider shall not eat of them, because they are holy.
    And if any of the flesh for the ordination, or of the bread, remain until the morning, then you shall burn the remainder with fire, it shall not be eaten, because it is holy. Thus you shall do to Aaron and to his sons, according to all that I have commanded you; through seven days shall you ordain them.
   Consecration of the altar of burnt offering. And every day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement. Also you shall offer a sin offering for the altar, when you make atonement for it, and shall anoint it, to consecrate it. Seven days you shall make atonement for the altar and consecrate it, and the altar shall be most holy; whatever touches the altar shall become holy. (Ex. 29:4-37)
   And of the blue and purple and scarlet stuff they made finely wrought garments, for ministering in the holy place; they made the holy garments for Aaron; as the Lord had commanded Moses.
    And he made the ephod of gold, blue and purple and scarlet stuff, and fine twined linen. And gold leaf was hammered out and cut into threads to work into the blue and purple and the scarlet stuff, and into the fine twined linen, in skilled design.
    They made for the ephod shoulder-pieces, joined to it at its two edges. And the skillfully woven band upon it, to gird it on, was of the same materials and workmanship, of gold, blue and purple and scarlet stuff, and fine twined linen; as the Lord had commanded Moses. The onyx stones were prepared, enclosed in settings of gold filigree and engraved like the engravings of a signet, according to the names of the sons of Israel. And he set them on the shoulder-pieces of the ephod, to be stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel; as the Lord had commanded of Moses.
    He made the breastpiece, in skilled work, like the work of the ephod, of gold, blue and purple and scarlet stuff, and fine twined linen. It was square; the breastpiece was made double, a span its length and a span its breadth when doubled. And they set in it four rows of stones. A row of sardius, topaz, and carbuncle was the first row; and the second row, an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond; and the third row, a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst; and the fourth row, a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper; they were enclosed in settings of gold filigree. There were twelve stones with their names according to the names of the sons of Israel; they were like signets, each engraved with its name, for the twelve tribes.
    And they made on the breastpiece twisted chains like cords, of pure gold; and they made two settings of gold filigree and two gold rings, and put the two rings on the two edges of the breastpiece; and they put the two cords of gold in the two rings at the edges of the breastpiece. Two ends of the two cords they had attached to the two settings of filigree; thus they attached it in front to the shoulder-pieces of the ephod. Then they made two rings of gold, and put them at the two ends of the breastpiece, on its inside edge next to the ephod. And they made two rings of gold, and attached them in front to the lower part of the two shoulder-pieces of the ephod, at its joining above the skillfully woven band of the ephod. And they bound the breastpiece by its rings to the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, so that it should lie upon the skilfully woven band of the ephod, and that the breastpiece should not come loose from the ephod; as the Lord had commanded Moses.
    He also made the robe of the ephod woven all of blue; and the opening of the robe in it was like the opening in a garment, with a binding around the opening, that it might not be torn. On the skirts of the robe they made pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet stuff and fine twined linen. They also made bells of pure gold, and put the bells between the pomegranates upon the skirts of the robe round about, between the pomegranates; a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate round about upon the skirts of the robe for ministering, as the Lord had commanded Moses. (Ex. 39:1-26)
   The crown. And they made the plate of the holy crown of pure gold, and wrote upon it an inscription, like the engraving of a signet, ‘Holy to the Lord.’ And they tied to it a lace of blue, to fasten it on the turban above; as the Lord had commanded Moses. (Ex. 39:30-31)
    And they brought … to Moses … the finely worked garments for ministering in the holy place, the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments of his sons to serve as priests. According to all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so the people of Israel had done all the work. And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it; as the Lord had commanded, so had they done it: And Moses blessed them. (Ex. 39: 41-43)
    And you shall set up the court round about, and hang up the screen for the gate of the court. Then you shall take the anointing oil, and anoint the tabernacle and all that is in it, and consecrate it and all its furniture; and it shall become holy. You shall also anoint the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and consecrate the altar; and the altar shall be most holy. You shall also anoint the laver and its base, and consecrate it. Then you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the door of the tent of meeting, and shall wash them with water, and put upon Aaron the holy garments, and you shall anoint him and consecrate him, that he may serve me as priest. You shall bring his sons also and put coats on them, and anoint them, as you anointed their father, that they may serve me as priests. And their anointing shall admit them to a perpetual priesthood throughout their generations. (Ex. 40:8-15)
    The last bit shows that one did not qualify for the office through such qualities as nearness to God, high moral maturity or the like; one just had to be born into the right family.
    A soul that has enjoyed a good life in one incarnation will often follow the pull to live again as a human being where comfort, wealth and prestige will be offered, and where honors fall into one’s lap.
    Many parallels may be drawn between the life of ecclesiastic officials today and the pomp and effort it must have taken to clothe Aaron and his sons in precious garments according to their special position and to honor their prestige in magnificent ceremonies.
    The church authorities of today no longer sacrifice animals to appease or honor "God." Today’s clergy sacrifices animals for more immediate and tasty purposes. As mentioned before, they have the animals killed by butchers in slaughterhouses, have their carcasses sawed and hacked to pieces, and the flesh prepared by cooks for the pleasure of the "glorified" palate as tasty morsels offered up for the well-being and fullness of the body. All this has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, the Co-Regent of heaven, who walked on Earth as the Son of Man, and who taught and lived as an example that which is true and will remain eternally.

    Today’s church authorities speak of the "sacrifice of redemption" that Jesus brought. Supposedly Jesus took upon Himself past, present and future sins, and suffered on the cross for them. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reads at No. 605: "There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer" (Synod of Quiercy, 853: Densinger 624). Who saw to it that He suffer? Did Jesus take up the cross voluntarily or was He driven to the cross by the people whom the priests had incited?
    Both "Christian" churches offer misinformation about redemption through the Christ of God when Jesus spoke the "It Is Finished" on the cross. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who "makes himself an offering for sin," when "he bore the sin of many," and who "shall make many to be accounted righteous," for "he shall bear their iniquities." (Is. 53:10-12) Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father. (No. 615)
    In the Creed of the Protestant-Lutheran Church, Martin Luther even writes that He alone "is the lamb of God which bears the sins of the world," Jn. 1:29 and "the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Is. 53:6, item: "since all have sinned … they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood" etc., Rom. 3:23-25.
    And since such must be believed and cannot be attained by any work, law, nor merit, nor be grasped by us, therefore it is clear and certain that it is such belief alone that will make us righteous … (Martin Luther, at Schmallkaldener, II, art. 1)
    The Church Father Ambrosius writes: For because all the world became guilty, therefore he has taken sin from all the world. (Apologie IV)
    People today rely on logic, so let us think logically here. God cannot have anything mysterious, because He is, in everything, the revelation; His law is the logos and therefore logical.
    If Jesus, the Christ, had "taken the sin from all the world," and had thus cancelled sin, the soul burden of human beings – then why is the world, humanity, so different from this, often showing in itself the most iniquitous of sins? Why then is Earth and nature not the paradise, the Being of heaven, that the Christians seek to pray down to the Earth in the Lord’s Prayer?
    And what really happened? Jesus, the Christ, tells us in His divine revelations at this time. With the words on the cross "It Is Finished" a part of His spiritual heritage, the part power of the divine primordial power, called the Redeemer-light (also called the Redeemer-spark), flowed into all burdened souls.
    In This Is My Word we read for example:
   Although the light of salvation, the redemption, shines in all souls, nevertheless only the one who purifies his soul and also keeps it pure becomes perfect. My Redeemer-deed did not wipe out the sins of this world, the sins of all souls and men. It is the power and the source of power for all those who repent and no longer sin. Redemption is the support of the soul and the protection from the dissolution of the soul. It is also the light on the path to the heart of God. … Merely believing in Me, the Redeemer of all souls and men, does not bring about the purity of soul and person. (p. 889)
   No one comes to the Father in the heavens but through Me, the Son of God and Co-Regent of the heavens, who became the Redeemer of all souls and men. (p. 852)
   But the Church, elevating itself to the "bringer of salvation," taught and teaches: Only those who are reborn in Christ through the sacrament of baptism receive the benefit of His sacrifice. The Church in this manner seeks to act like a sieve that will let only their sheep pass through.
   Although he died for all (II Cor. 5:15), not everybody receives the benefit of his death, but only those who are given share in what his suffering brought. (Neuner-Ross, Der Glaube der Kirche, 12th ed. 1986, No. 793 [The Belief of the Church])
    This share human beings gain through baptism:
   …for through this rebirth they are given, by virtue of the benefit of his suffering, the mercy by which they become virtuous. (No. 793)
   Instrumental cause is the sacrament of baptism, that is the sacrament of faith, without which no one becomes righteous. (No. 799)
    Instead of leading the believers to Christ, the Church has bound and continues to bind the believers to itself through sacraments such as baptism and others, dispensed by priests who were supposedly appointed by Jesus. But Jesus was opposed to priesthood. He said: But you are not to be called Rabbi. (Mt. 23:8) He never elevated Himself to the priesthood.
    Reading of the "sacrifice of redemption" and of Jesus taking all the sins of humanity upon himself, I am reminded of the sin offering in the third Book of Moses, Leviticus:
   The Lord spoke to Moses, after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died; and the Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell Aaron your brother not to come at all times into the holy place within the veil, before the mercy seat which is upon the ark, lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.
    But thus shall Aaron come into the holy place: with a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on the holy linen coat, and shall have the linen breeches on his body, be girded with the linen girdle, and wear the linen turban; these are the holy garments. He shall bathe his body in water, and then put them on. And he shall take from the congregation of the people of Israel two male goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.
    And Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself, and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. Then he shall take the two goats, and set them before the Lord at the door of the tent of meeting; and Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Aza´zel. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord, and offer it as a sin offering; but the goat on which the lot fell for Aza´zel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Aza´zel. Aaron shall present the bull as a sin offering for himself, and shall make atonement for himself and for his house; he shall kill the bull as a sin offering for himself …’ (Lev. 16:1-11)
    In the Commentary of the German Jerusalem Bible it says:
   Aza´zel is the name for a demon who, according to the belief of the ancient Hebrews and Canaanites, dwelt in the desert, the unfertile land in which God did not do his work of fertilization … Note that the animal is not sacrificed to the demon but that the "scapegoat" carries the sins of the people to the desert, where Aza´zel dwells. The transfer of sins and rite of atonement take place "before the Lord," mediated by the priest. Thus, the cult of Yahweh takes an old folk custom, but it is transformed and purified. (note 16a)
    Consider the blasphemy of it! The goat "for Aza´zel" should be "presented live before the Lord to serve as atonement, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Aza´zel." But the law of cause and effect, as mentioned before, was known in the Old Testament, the law that Jesus, the Christ, called "sowing and reaping." God certainly taught it through every prophet. For, in the end, without knowledge of this fundamental law, no one can finally recognize his guilt and become free from it. It will also hardly be possible to understand that God loves him and that He is just. Thus, everyone should have known that people will reap what they sow. This harvest no one can take away from them.
    The "old folk custom" using a scapegoat among the people of God, who, after all, had received the Ten Commandments from God, is in my opinion even worse than comparable practices among pagan peoples done out of ignorance. And with astonishment we read that such a custom was "purified" when taken up by the cult of Yahweh.
    The poor animal, the scapegoat, alone in the desert! But the animal cannot burden itself. People however can, by performing or participating in this old custom – but purified, of course! And anyone who takes action against his neighbor or his second neighbor, the animal, will encounter the same or similar thing.
    May the one who has ears to hear, listen. And the one who has a heart for Christ, our Redeemer, will orient himself to John: Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues ... (Rev. 18:4)
    According to "Moses," God Himself set up the priests. But Jesus said: I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. (Jn. 14:6) And He said, ... the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you. (Lk. 17:21)
    And: If any one keeps my word, he will never see death. (Jn. 8:51)
    And: Follow me. (Mt. 4:19)
    Again we hear from Jesus that He, who is one with the Father, is the way, and the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father but through Him. This means that we do not need church authorities and external churches; we should orient ourselves to the teaching of Jesus, the Christ, and walk in His footsteps.

    Before His death on the cross, Jesus had taken several preparatory steps to spread His teachings to many people in all the world. For instance, He sent men and women out to announce the tidings of the coming Kingdom of God. He taught and instructed some apostles who founded the Christian communities after His passing. In these communities, later original communities, the prophetic Spirit spoke and guided the first Christians. Christ thus led His communities via the prophetic word. At the Last Supper (of which we also have only a partial account), when Jesus broke the bread as He had done many times when they sat together, He said: Do this in remembrance of me. (Luke 22:19). This means that those in His following should share the bread.
    What does it mean, to share the bread?
    In a community of inner life, in which all are equal, in which all are free because they are not tied down by envy, by the desire to have or to be, and so forth, but in which all gladly do as God has called on them to do, there is brotherliness – one is the other’s brother, sister and friend; and there is unity, a link coming from a common goal. The one who has gives; everyone works and contributes for the benefit of the whole according to his or her abilities. This creates a balance that favors no one. This is the impersonal life, the life in the spirit of God, an Original Christian community life.
    The Church has turned the occasion of the breaking of bread in Jesus’ life into a ceremony. A sin offering really, to bind the believers to the Church and the sacraments that are "necessary for salvation." This binding at the same time prevents a person from turning to God in his inner being and receiving liberation from his sins through the redeeming power of the Spirit of the Christ of God – on the basis of recognition, remorse and actively clearing things up.
    Only an active, lawful life will bring us inner gain, will fill our heart and strengthen us, make us free, joyful, healthy and dynamic. This gives meaning to our life, substance – but never gestures, rites or ceremonies. This does not change, no matter how often we repeat gestures, rites and ceremonies.
    The first Christians, and a little later the Early Christians, who felt spiritually at home in the first original community in Jerusalem under the guidance of some apostles who, in turn, were guided by the prophetic Spirit, knew neither ceremonies nor rites, and no cult. They killed no animals to sacrifice them to a god; they also killed no animals for consumption – they ate no meat. They strove to live according to the commandments of God and the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus: to cleanse the inner church, the temple of the soul and body, so that the Spirit of the Christ of God might be effective in soul and body. Their early Christian meal consisted of the breaking of bread and prayer. They shared the bread among themselves.

    A theologian tells us that Saul of Tarsus in Asia Minor, a Jewish Pharisee, was a bitter enemy of Jesus of Nazareth and persecuted the early Christian community. Saul one day declared that he had heard a revelation of Christ within himself. He also said that he had seen Him in a vision. So Saul changed his orientation. Supposedly, Saul now wants to fight for Him, and no longer against Him. But the Jewish Pharisee Saul did not become a member of the early Christian community; rather, he started giving sermons without first preparing himself, without speaking to the apostles, and without knowledge of what the prophetic Spirit was revealing in the early community.
    Soon it became evident that Saul, called Paul after his supposed conversion, mixed the teachings of Christ with his Roman conceptions and that he had a falling out with some early Christian groups which had formed here and there. Saul, now supposedly Paul, allows neither the early Christians, nor the prophetic Spirit in the early Christian communities to correct him. On the contrary, he reports his own "revelations." And through an argument with Peter, whom Paul openly accused of hypocrisy (Gal. 2: 11–13), new disagreements were ignited concerning the consumption of meat^* and early Christian meals.
    The issue was also whether Jewish rules of faith applied in the early Christian communities, including the rules about food. Paul accuses Peter of not having shared the communal meal with converted heathens because of Peter’s Jewish notions and that he had also led Barnabas astray, who was Paul’s companion. Did Peter accordingly keep the Jewish food laws with reduced meat consumption? Or did he eat no meat at all, as he and the other apostles had learned from Jesus?
    Paul on the other hand had not known Jesus and did not know how Jesus had taught His apostles. Paul may have been a Jew, but he was also a citizen of Rome; and he ate meat, as others did, above all wealthy Romans – without limitation. He had no awareness of the fact that some will forgo the enjoyment of meat out of love and respect for our second neighbors, the animals. It did not bother him if the meat had first been sacrificed to pagan "gods" before it was offered for sale at the market, because, according to Paul, there are no gods. Paul also favored meat for the early Christian communal meal and probably also for the Lord’s Supper, as long as no one objected. This was the only reason he would forgo meat. He wrote: Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. (I Cor. 10:25) Again, he was not considering the suffering of the animals, but the sacrifice to pagan deities.
    In the Lord’s Prayer, Christians pray: Your kingdom come, Your will be done. If the Kingdom of God is to come to the people, then the people have to prepare for it. In the Kingdom of God there is no consumption of meat.
    But the Church makes it easy for itself and for its believers, by claiming: The coming new world and thus peace with nature are according to the Christian faith the work of God. Human beings cannot produce the conditions of the Kingdom of God. (Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands, in: Zur Verantwortung des Menschen für das Tier als Mitgeschöpf (1991) p. 9 [Lutheran Church of Germany, in: About Man’s Responsibility for the Animal as a Fellow Creature]).
    Back to Paul:
    It became increasingly clear that Paul was falsifying the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, because the differences between Paul on the one side and the apostles and Jesus of Nazareth on the other became more and more pronounced. The apostles had been trained and taught by Jesus directly, while Saul, now supposedly Paul, did not know Jesus. Paul hardly had an inner relationship to true original Christianity. Instead of letting others tell him about Jesus and orienting himself to Him as an example as far as possible, Paul simply declared that his lack of instruction from Jesus simply did not matter. He believed that he was united with Christ internally (Gal. 2:20) and writes in a self-assured manner about the situation of the early Christians of his day: Even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view (meaning the other apostles), we regard him thus no longer. (II Cor. 5:16) Saul, now self-styled Paul, re-programmed the teachings of Jesus through his intellectual Roman background of rituals. For example, Paul thought that the blood that ran during Jesus’ crucifixion received once and for all the redemptive power in God (Rom. 3:25, 6:10), so that animal sacrifices were no longer necessary. And so, Jesus was the "sacrificial lamb," so to speak. In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes: But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. (Rom. 5:8) The words while we were yet sinners show that Christ’s sacrifice of redemption meant atonement once and for all, to Paul.
    This is what the theologian tells me.
    Jesus’ teachings on the other hand were entirely different. He wanted no "expiatory sacrifices," but wished that all people keep the commandments of God and the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus, in order to thus be there for their neighbor. Among other things, Paul said that simply the belief in Jesus’ death as the energy of salvation "without merit" raised people to true life. That is nice to hear, of course, for people who let others do their thinking for them, who are satisfied with words, but do not follow through with deeds.
    A large part of the teachings of Paul is a motley collection of his concepts that have nothing to do with Jesus, the Christ. Jesus taught about keeping the commandments of God and the Sermon on the Mount, that people should open up the Kingdom of God within themselves. Whoever does so, by following the teachings of Jesus, the Christ, will find God in the very basis of his soul, without priests, that is, spiritual superiors; he has no need of intermediaries.
    For whatever reasons, Paul felt compelled to assume responsibility in the early communities. He brought his intellectual notions into the community of fishermen, carpenters and apostles. The simple believers, who used Jesus, the Christ, for orientation, apparently had no practice in disputing and could not stand up to the self-important scribe "Paul." Trained in the rhetorical arts, Paul drew on his Jewish theological knowledge, thus imperceptibly altering the Christian teachings, the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. He undermined them.
    Because Paul placed himself above the early Christian communities and imported his ideas into them, ideas that were full of Roman rituals, he laid the foundation for the state and people’s religion of the Roman Empire, in which the central teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the Ten Commandments, and the Sermon on the Mount, no longer played a role.
    And so, Paul overset the living, original Christianity, in which the prophetic Spirit was active. He laid the foundation for a church of rituals with priests and bishops, in which the old rituals came to life again, the rites, ceremonies, robes, pulpits and altars, just what people were used to in their old religions. The pagan cult continued to build on an external religion in which the individual no longer strove to purify his or her own temple, the soul and the body, but would take part in rituals and listen to those who had themselves celebrated and honored as shepherds of a ritualistic church.
    The church of rituals, the externalized church, triumphed – the church of inwardness, of inner reflection, faltered.
    On the foundations of the church of rituals, Paul built a concept of the state: in an intellectually adept speech, he made the "Christians" believe that they were to obey worldly authorities, since these authorities were set up and appointed by God, and who, as "servants of God," execute the just "wrath" of God with the sword. (Rom.13:4)
    In the nearly 2000 years that followed, this teaching of Saul, "Paul," had and still has a devastating effect. But it has nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth and the living Original Christianity.
    Jesus and the apostles taught: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s (Mt. 22:21), but also: We must obey God rather than men. (Acts 5:29)

    The theologian now sketches the further development of Christianity up to Constantine: During the first three centuries there still was much persecution of Christians, but by depending on Paul, many Christians responded by fitting in and subordinating themselves to the state, in order to show that injustice was being done to them. Responsible for the leadership of the communities were at first elders, prophets, and an "angel" who, through a life in the footsteps of Jesus without compromise, maintained the connection to God (cf. Rev. 2 and 3: letter to the "angels" in the communities). But angels and prophets could only hold out a few years. Paul did mention "apparitions and revelations of the Lord," but increasingly turned attention to his person and took a threatening stance against possible revelations that might question his teachings: But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. (Gal. 1:8)
    Paul (or a student using his name) finally empowered the followers of Paul, Timothy and Titus, to name a bishop, in addition to the elders, as leader of the community. In the first letter to Timothy, it says: If any one aspires to the office of bishop, he desires a noble task. (I Tim. 3:1)
    Already at the beginning of the second century, these measures developed into a fixed hierarchical institution, headed by a bishop, below him the elders, below the elders the deacons. The bishops soon ruled the communities like kings – one speaks of "monarchical episcopacy." The bishops were soon followed by metropolitan bishops, or "patriarchs," responsible for larger regions, and the bishop of the capital turned into the "pope."
    More and more the holders of these offices tried to achieve recognition and social acceptance for their communities, probably to prevent possible persecutions, as well. Original Christian principles receded into the background or were given up. It was even Paul, for example, who condoned slavery, and in the communities there were slaveholders. The result of this authoritarian mindset was that increasing numbers among the members of the communities supported military service for Christians.
    The following development is summed up by a reader of Karlheinz Deschner’s books:
    This development was welcomed by Emperor Constantine, born in 285. He soon allied himself with the Church. This symbiosis of church and state, a classic case of chumminess – according to the principle, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, or birds of a feather stick together – proved to be an extraordinarily effective and long-lived association of intent for the domination and manipulation of subordinates. The might, the "authority," of the state combined with the authority of "God" to form an unbeatable tool of pressure and discipline, for enforcing one’s will upon the people.
    Karlheinz Deschner writes an extensive chapter about this development in his Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums [Criminal History of Christianity] (vol. 1, pp. 213 ff.): Constantine was born in 285 in what is today Bulgaria. His father was a military tribune and, after 305, emperor in the western part of the Roman Empire, which had been divided into four parts by Diocletian to make it easier to rule.
    Constantine like his father delighted in warfare and was also very cruel. He was always waging war against several Germanic tribes. He had great numbers of defeated enemies thrown to the lions in the circus, and had two defeated princes torn apart by bears.
    Then Constantine, in a ten-year civil war, subdued his three co-emperors. For some time he sided with Licinius, one of the other emperors, until Licinus had done away with co-emperor Maximin, at which point, Constantine turned on Licinius. Before this, Constantine had first eliminated his competitor Maxentius, in the famous battle of Milvic bridge (312) where, supposedly, Constantine had a vision: "In this sign you will be victorious."
    The followers and families of his defeated opponents in battle were mercilessly exterminated. Constantine swore that he would spare Licinus, the last to be defeated, but only a year later, Constantine had Licinus strangled.
    Constantine’s cruelty did not stop at his own family. The British historian Shelly writes: "This cold-blooded and hypocritical brute cut his son’s throat, strangled his wife, murdered his father-in-law and his own brother-in-law …"; but this does not mean that Constantine did so by his own hand. He had his wife killed, because she was accused of adultery (but not proven) – he himself however was a notorious adulterer.
    Constantine had a splendid palace built; he dressed in the highest luxury and pomp, had himself addressed as "representative of God," or as "our deity" (nustrum numen), and had himself celebrated by the clergy as "Messiah" and "Redeemer."
    With this, we come to this mutual usefulness: Constantine granted privileges to the Church and the Church, in turn, justified his excessive power.
    During his whole life, until right before his death (337), Constantine was not officially a Christian. He only accepted baptism at the very end, and then not Catholic, but "heretical," namely, Aryan. In the early years of his reign, while he still ruled Gaul, Constantine promoted paganism. Later he did not commit himself to Christianity, and had coins minted, for instance, that bore the image of the sun god.
    It therefore cannot have been inner conviction that caused Constantine to seek an alliance with the Church.
    The decisive point was that in Gaul there were few Christians. But then Constantine started conquering Italy, where there were many Christians. In some regions of Asia Minor, which he conquered last, half the population was Christian. Therefore, the aid of the Church was welcome.
    Deschner writes: Constantine, who had traveled from his early years on, was well informed, including in matters of religious policy – especially when it came to the strict, almost military ranks of the Catholics, spanning the entire empire, as the most disciplined and most self-contained organization of late antiquity. And in this church he perceived a model of his own empire, a prefiguration of it. (p. 242)
    The collaboration between Constantine and the Church stamped by Paul was a success from the very beginning. The Church unleashed a defamatory campaign against Constantine’s first opponent, Maxentius. To this day, Maxentius is considered a bloodthirsty persecutor of Christianity and the epitome of wickedness and tyranny. In reality, Maxentius was a competent and moderate ruler; he was not prone to war and he tolerated the Christians. But he sent two Roman Christian bishops into exile, because there had been a great argument among the "Christians" after the bishops’ election. Maxentius levied taxes equally, also among the rich, and the Church even then was not on the side of the poor, or the less war-mongering, and therefore less powerful, politicians.
    As soon as Constantine had established himself in Rome after defeating Maxentius, he showed his gratitude: The Church received large gifts of property and was given back church property. The Church of Rome alone received "in excess of one ton of gold and almost ten tons of silver" (p. 236). From the state coffers, which he filled by exploiting his subjects, Constantine financed huge and magnificent church buildings everywhere in the empire. But not only that: He dispensed the clergy from taxes and gave them the right to be named heirs (which before, only pagan cults had enjoyed and only in exceptional cases). He even gave the Church legal jurisdiction: Against the judgement of a bishop there was no appeal.
    Deschner: Not a few bishops could already imitate the character and ceremony of the imperial court. They had claim to special titles, to incense, were greeted with genuflection, and sat on a throne that was the likeness of God’s throne. To others they preached humility! (p. 238)
    In a very short time, the Church became so rich and privileged that Constantine had to take measures. For instance, he limited the possibilities of the rich to become clerics – because in this way they wanted to evade taxation! Under Constantine’s subsequent successors, the right of the Church to inherit was again limited, but not permanently.
    You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Already in 314 the Church decided that Christians who refused military service had to be banned from the Church – a complete turnabout, as it had been those who took up arms who were banned before.
    The distribution of roles was clearly defined: The emperor had the say-so, even in religious matters. For instance, he called the Council of Nicaea in 325 and dictated the creed which has been valid ever since. The emperor was the highest god-like ruler. The church dignitaries followed right behind, often living in the same splendor. And they showed their gratitude by justifying the emperor’s power and his wars, by covering up his cruel deeds, and by constantly flattering him.
    Constantine – the original image of the symbiosis between church and state. Deschner writes: Constantine’s predecessors had feared Christianity and had at times fought it. He turned it to his ends by granting a plethora of favors and privileges … In fact he used the clergy and forced his will upon it … The church became powerful but it lost all freedom …He and they[Constantine and the bishops] turned the church into the state church … (p. 242 f.)
    Constantine, even though he was not a believing Catholic, gave the Church free rein in the early persecution of dissidents, when, for example, pagan temples were destroyed by the "Christian" mob. Apparently under the influence of the clergy, Constantine passed anti-Jewish laws, among them the death penalty for converts from Christianity to Judaism. At times, for political expediency and tellingly not consistent, Constantine persecuted the heretical movements of the Donatists in North Africa and the Marcionites. The Donatists were opposed to a union of throne and altar and combined with rebellious farm workers against the large landowners. Of course, this was not what church and state had in mind!
    Under Constantine’s rule, the term "Catholic" appears for the first time – certainly no coincidence – to separate the Church from so-called "heretics."
    This will do as a historical flash-black. May the one who has ears to hear, listen. And may the one who has a heart for Christ follow the advice in John’s Revelation: Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues ... (Rev. 18:4)
    The church of pagan rituals was built through Paul, who misinterpreted the teachings of Jesus by integrating it into the pagan tradition of Rome and by providing it with all the power-hunger and truculence of Roman power structures.
    Paul denigrated women as the reflection of the man, but the man is the reflection of God according to Paul. This gave rise to the Christian church management as the men’s domain, which persists to this day. On the other hand, Jesus taught that man and woman are equal. He made no difference; He did not raise the man to be the reflection of God and did not reduce the woman to be the reflection of the man. Again, this is Saul, the same as Paul, but not Jesus, the Christ.
    Constantine turned the church of pagan rituals into a state church, or state religion, which to this day, with its bloody and cruel roots, is still interwoven with pagan rites. The bloody, cruel and barbarous religious cults started developing soon after Moses and continued in the former Roman Empire. Today, the state churches, offshoots of the Roman church of rituals and power, are external religions of power, which have little in common with Jesus, the Christ. They use, that is, abuse, the name of Jesus, the Christ. The undertow from the Old Testament and Constantine’s brutal and arrogant presumption remain.

    The true Christian religion, the religion of inward striving to develop the kingdom of the inner being, that is, to open the heart to all people and all animals, to the world of plants and minerals, was sacrificed by the priests, by Saul, and by Constantine, the pagan. And all this and further horrible deeds throughout the Middle Ages and into our times, God supposedly commanded. This is confirmed by the Vatican in the Second Vatican Council:
   God is the author of the Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of the Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."
    For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical (meaning: belonging to the revealed word of God) the books of the Old and New Testaments, whole and entire with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself." (2nd Vatican Council: "Dei Verbum" 11, quoted from Catholic Catechism, No. 105).
   God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more." (No. 106).
    The Holy Scripture is supposedly revered by the Church. Furthermore, the Catholic Catechism contains the following statements:
    The Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord’s Body. She never ceases to present to the faithful the bread of life, taken from the one table of God’s word and Christ’s Body. (No. 103)
   In the Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength … (No. 104).
   Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth … (No. 107)
    That the Church "constantly finds her nourishment and her strength" in the Holy Scripture is supported by the words: "In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them." (2nd Vatican Council: "Dei Verbum" 21, No. 104) But concerning the Books of Moses, from which we have already quoted many passages, it is doubtful that it is the heavenly Father whom we encounter there, and who could hardly be considered "loving" given the cruel instructions, macabre demands, and hard threats of punishment.
    It is not possible to discuss all the statements that mock the truth and God, the All-One, who is truth. The absurdity of such church teaching is so obvious that is it a wonder that so few have recognized it as such, while so many have quietly accepted it without protest.
    The Catholic Catechism continues: The Old Testament is an indispensable part of the Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanent value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked. (No. 121)"The economy of the Old Testament was deliberately so oriented that it should prepare for … the coming of Christ, redeemer of all men." Even though they "contain matters imperfect and provisional," the books of the Old Testament bear witness to the whole divine pedagogy of God’s saving love: these writings are a storehouse of "sublime teachings on God and of sound wisdom on human life, as well as a wonderful treasury of prayers"; in them, too, the mystery of our salvation is present in a hidden way." (No. 122)
    True enough: hidden, very hidden …
    In the last paragraph we read: Even though they "contain matters imperfect and provisional," the books of the Old Testament bear witness to the whole divine pedagogy of God’s saving love … According to this statement, God, who should be absolute and perfect, inspired something that was imperfect. Also, God supposedly revealed something that was "provisional." If so, then God’s laws would also be temporal and God would be a changeable god of the times. According to God’s words through Jeremiah, however, it was the caste of priests at work, taking over the name of Moses and infusing it with the spirit of their times that blows and is effective even to this day. It is the pagan cult, the barbarity against and slaughtering of animals and people, who, for example, in the Middles Ages or in Croatia, did not let themselves become tied to the Catholic Church.
    To gain an understanding of the words of the priests of today, we must read with our heart and mind. In the Catholic Catechism it says:
   We can distinguish three stages in the formation of the Gospels:
    1. The life and teaching of Jesus. The Church holds firmly that the four Gospels, "whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation, until the day when he was taken up (into heaven)." (No. 126)
    Note how the Church refers to the affirmation of what the Son of God taught to the people, but the Church does not say that it applies the teachings of Jesus, that the Church embodies the teachings.

    The text continues:
   2. The oral tradition. "For, after the ascension of the Lord, the apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said and done, but with that fuller understanding which they, instructed by the glorious events of Christ and enlightened by the Spirit of truth, now enjoyed." (No. 126)
    Supposedly, after the ascension, the apostles passed on to their listeners a deeper understanding of what the Lord Himself spoke. That could hardly have been possible once Saul, "Paul," interfered in the Church, bringing his views into what later became the Catholic and Protestant churches, for both Catholics and Protestants follow Paul more than they do the apostles. If the apostles transmitted what Jesus said and did with a deeper understanding, which they received through the glorification of the Christ and the light of the Spirit of truth, why was Paul, who was no apostle, necessary? Instead of looking to the apostles, the institutional church looks to Paul, the "saint," who supposedly received instructions from Jesus, the Christ. It was Paul who undermined original Christianity, in which the prophetic Spirit spoke, with his "wisdom," and Paul who brought it into church history. In the end, the "Christian churches" do not have the right to call themselves "Christian," for they are predominantly "Pauline."
    Besides, there is the question of why in Rome there is the Chair of Peter and not the Chair of Jesus, the Christ? Does Peter come before Christ, or Christ before Peter? From Rome, the Pauline teachings spread, even though Peter and Paul rarely agreed; did Peter have to give way to Paul, or Paul to Peter – or did both find an arrangement by which they could distort the teachings of Jesus, the Original Christian life, in which the prophetic Spirit blew?
    More than anything else the following statement in the Catholic Catechism should alarm us:
   … The Old Testament prepares for the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old. (No. 140)
    This documents that the Church may at anytime continue with its cruel deeds. If the New Testament fulfills the Old Testament, then the Old Testament, especially the "Books of Moses," was only the start of all brutality, cruelty and violence. If the New Testament fulfills the "Books of Moses," the future will only be worse than the past and the present.
    If Jesus, the Christ, were living as a human being among us, would Jesus agree with these documents of the Church and with the life of church Christians, or would He repeat what He said 2000 years ago: You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’ (Mt. 15:7-9) Or, He would repeat the following calls of woe: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also appear outwardly righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. (Mt. 23: 27-28)
    A document from the post-Reformation period proves that the officials of the Catholic Church know very well they have falsified the teachings of Jesus and that therefore no one among the people should be permitted to read the Bible. Three bishops prepared a report for Pope Julius III, in which it says: Truly not even a trace of the Apostles’ teachings remains in our church … a different teaching and discipline we have produced. It is the most important goal to allow no one to read even the tiniest part of the Gospel, especially in the vernacular. The little that is read during mass suffices. Anyone who studiously considers what is wont to happen in church and who regards it in detail will find that our teachings are different from the Gospel, and even opposed to it … (Hans-Jürgen Wolf, Sünden der Kirche [The Sins of the Church], EFB Verlagsgesellschaft, 1995, p. 151)
    They know therefore what they are doing …

    Let us call to mind again what God spoke through Malachi: For I, the Lord, do not change … He is eternally the same; His nature was brought closer to us by Jesus. God revealed Himself as the one that He is, through all true prophets of God. Following, we read some words of God from the Old Testament:
    Through Isaiah He speaks:
   What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of he-goats. (Is. 1:11)
    And further: Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. (Is. 1:13)
    Or would Jesus, were He among us as a human being today, quote Isaiah? When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil. (Is. 1:15-16)
    In the first book of Samuel we read: Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than to sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. (I Sam. 15:22)
    God spoke through Hosea: For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings. (Hos. 6:6) And: Because E´phraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning. Were I to write for him my laws by ten thousands, they would be regarded as a strange thing. They love sacrifice; they sacrifice flesh and eat it, but the Lord has no delight in them ... (Hos. 8:11-13)
    God through Amos also spoke in plain and strong words against the instructions in the "Books of Moses:" I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
    Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god, your images, which you made for yourselves; therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts. (Am. 5:21-27)
    Through Jeremiah, God spoke the following: To what purpose does frankincense come to me from Sheba, or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to me. (Jer. 6:20)
    And: For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them, ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.
    From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day; yet they did not listen to me, or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.
    So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips ...’ (Jer. 7:22-28)
    In Micah we read: With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sins of my soul?
    He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Mic. 6:6-8)
    In Psalm 50 it says: I will accept no bull from your house, nor he-goat from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world and all that is in it is mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
    Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most high; and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.
    But to the wicked, God says: "What right have you to recite my statutes, or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you are a friend of his; and you keep company with adulterers. You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you. (Ps. 50:9-21)
    Since the time when Constantine raised the externalized Church, which was put together by Paul with all its bishops, to the status of state church, the Church has remained to this day a Roman, state church of pagan rituals with few Christian fragments. Today’s ecclesiastical officials are just as power-hungry as the officials back then. They are the greatest danger to those who are not true to the Church. According to its documentation in the Catholic Catechism, they pledge to carry out what the Old Testament contains. Let us recall the following: "The Old Testament prepares for the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old; the two shed light on each other; both are the true Word of God."
   Let us once more become aware that the representatives of today’s institutional churches presume to fulfill the Old Testament in the New. For all those who do not follow the Church, this means persecution, slander, discrimination, and the loss of all rights, if necessary, even through the state. Both in the past and in recent times, they have proven that they are willing to make true what they have written in the Catechism. The atrocities of the Old Testament have long since been outdone by all that which has happened during the time of the New Testament. In the Old Testament, hundreds of thousands of people were killed and countless animals were cruelly tortured. In the New Testament there are millions upon millions of people on the conscience of the Church – not to mention the animals, which are only objects to the Church, sacrificed in the slaughterhouses of this world, for the enjoyment of the Baal-god man.
    The Little Prince said: You can see well only with the heart. I want to add: You can read well only with the heart. Jesus of Nazareth often said: May the one who has ears to hear, listen. And the voice of the heart says: All those who listen, read, and weigh with the heart may follow their heart – if they so choose.

    A person searching for a heart for animals in the so-called "Christian" churches will search in vain, just as when searching for a heart for people. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church of 1993, a book from Rome that has about 800 pages, we find animals mentioned only on pages 640 and 650: The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present and future humanity. Use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives. Man’s domination over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation. (No. 2415)
   Animals are God’s creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory. Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals. (No. 2416)
   God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image. Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals, if it remains within reasonable limits, is a morally acceptable practice since it contributes to caring for or saving human lives. (No. 2417)
   It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals, one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons. (No. 2418)
   The domination granted by the Creator over the mineral, vegetable, and animals resources of the universe cannot be separated from respect for moral obligations, including those toward generations to come. (No. 2456)
   Animals are entrusted to man’s stewardship; he must show them kindness. They may be used to serve the just satisfaction of man’s needs. (No. 2457)
    It seems paranoid to read, for example: Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present and future humanity. God, who is life, has never created anything lifeless. In all of creation, there is no "inanimate being" and no "inanimate nature." This is, like so many things, the interpretation of human beings who do not grasp the life, who themselves presume to play the role of creator and who play their games with simple-minded believers – with those who do not use their brains to get to the bottom of the whole paranoid hypocrisy. If God had created lifeless beings or inanimate aspects of nature, then there would be no all-encompassing life that is God, but a part that is "lifeless matter." But there is no form, no substance, no mass without life. The life maintains the form. If the form, that is, the mass, decays, the life changes to a different aggregate state.
    God is limitless, eternal life. God is love. He expressed His love in the following or similar words: Subdue the earth. – Nature is God’s creation. It serves us for our joy. It should be a concern of ours to see ourselves as one with nature and to live accordingly. But the so-called common good, mentioned by the Churches, means exploitation at the cost of animals, plants and minerals for the enjoyment of human beings.

    The Catholic Catechism continues on page 640: Use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives.
    What might the Church mean by "moral imperatives?" Perhaps the slaughterhouses of today, which are charnel houses of the tortured and killed animals, serving the "highly moral" society, as carcasses.
    Perhaps with "moral imperatives" is meant that the animals are not killed right before the eyes of the consumer, thus avoiding his having to listen to the death cries, instead hiding these murderous procedures behind the thick walls of slaughterhouses?
   Imagine that a hotel guest who orders "beef Stroganoff" would first have to look into the eyes of a young bull, wide with fear, and witness how the animal is slaughtered, butchered, cut open while still twitching, skinned, sawed and hacked apart, while the penetrating odor of blood wafts about the fine guest, until finally the appropriate pieces of carcass, well-aged, are handed to the chef for the preparation of a tasty meal.
    Perhaps then the hotel guest would prefer not to have the meal, after all? This is truly respect for a justified "moral imperative!" Perhaps the guest’s aesthetic sensibility would be troubled, or he could consider such exposure contrary to all rules of decency? Perhaps not only the guest’s stomach would turn over, but "moral sensibility" might also be stirred? For this reason the "respect for moral imperatives" should rightly not be disregarded in the "use of animals" or their carcass parts.
    A moral imperative might also be that the use of animals for laboratory experiments, for mass husbandry or to supply fur, or other common forms of use, exploitation and consumption should take place with as little intrusion on the weak nerves and sentimental inclinations of people as possible?
    Perhaps respect for moral imperatives would also be that the vocal chords of animals, such as dogs, monkeys or pigs, be cut when they are used in laboratories and scientific experimentation rooms? Their cries, weeping, lamentations, sighs and other sounds might offend the passers-by in the street. Or the cries of the "used" animals might even irritate the keepers, laboratory assistants, doctors and other employees working for scientific progress – who surely have strong nerves and iron guts, little touched by any stirrings of conscience – if they just happen to be having a nerve-wracking day. That might happen to anybody from time to time, right?
    It continues: Animals are God’s creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory. And: God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image. If this paranoid sanctimoniousness had not come from the church institution, one would have had to ask whether God did not lose sight of mankind and the animals. Who but the institutional churches would place the animals under the stewardship of humans, in the face of a senseless and uptight society that murders, kills, bestially tortures animals and cruelly butchers them.
    God created man in His image, so that he would become His image again. As Jesus said: You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Mt. 5:48)
    Let us continue to read in the Catholic Catechism. There it says that it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing.
   Have you ever heard a thrush sing? Its singing is beautiful. Some find that the thrush might be equal to the far more famous nightingale.
    In Southern Europe traps are set and nets spread for songbirds that are considered a delicacy for gourmets. These animals are used "for food." Therefore "it is legitimate" to catch them, kill them and eat them in good conscience. With the permission of the Church, the thrush that we see in the picture, "legitimately" died after long agony, throttled by a horsehair snare.
    "What you would not have done to you, do unto no other." Will the law of cause and effect make a big difference, depending on whether it was a person or an animal that had to suffer because of us? Our second neighbor, the animal, is also our neighbor, a fellow creature. The law of cause and effect does not look to the person; it is impersonal. Suffering is suffering, pain is pain, murder is murder, cruelty is cruelty.
    And the gourmet, who savors dead little bird, does he know what it is that he has on his plate? A lethargic heart and coldness of feelings do not come out of nowhere. The person has consciously and purposefully disregarded many warning impulses before his conscience became silent.
    Whoever does not aspire to fulfilling the law of God, which is love, should not make reference to the words of the Lord: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it. (Gen. 1:28) The paranoid person often deliberately violates the law of God, going against the love for God and for neighbor.
    In Genesis, the first Book of Moses, it says: And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good ... (Gen. 1:31) How can we human beings presume to step on, to torture, to kill, or to wantonly alter what God affirmed as His creation and considered good?
    People are fond of quoting the words, Subdue the earth, to justify their inhumanness. Have not also the scientists and researchers long discovered that in the great cycle of giving and receiving everything is joined as one? But man doesn’t even think about giving the Earth love; instead they presume time and again to exploit the Earth for the comfort of their bodies, causing suffering to the life in and on the Earth, in the air, and in and on the waters.
    The Church, of course, thinks it proper to not only use animals for food and clothing, but they may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Note well: This is the Church speaking, not God.
    The church institutions call themselves "Christian." To their believers, they offer many exceptions, much that is pagan and little that is Christian. The word "Christian" is lost in the intense turning of the propeller of the state ship of pagan rituals. The crew of this ship recruits all those who are weak thinkers. The "help at man’s leisure time" includes extreme "entertainment" like dogfights, cockfights, bullfights and so forth – reaching an end with the slaughter of these creatures.
    The crew of the state ship of pagan rituals, and all those who stroll the decks and enjoy themselves, has the butchered carcasses prepared in order to eat them at beautifully laid tables, using knife and fork or the hands, fingers decorated with gold and silver rings, to tear apart chickens or geese or the like, for their gourmet palates and to fill their stomach, so that the fullness of the body, the "image of God," will be ever more expansive. If the old valuable fur coat should grow a little tight, a new one is to be had, for the benefit of the society person. The minks who will have to give up their pelts and their lives, in the meantime are still suffering in the cramped cages of the "fur farm."
    The Churches surely meant by "domestication," the beating and hitting of animals, breaking their will in order to place them at the service of man in his leisure time, so that they may be kept like spineless animal-slaves and be put to work. This is church instruction, but not divine will. Jesus did not speak of this!
    We continue to read: Medical and scientific experimentation on animals, if it remains within reasonable limits, is a morally acceptable practice since it contributes to caring for or saving human lives.
   We must ask, what does that mean, "within reasonable limits?" and what is "morally acceptable?"
    Is it "morally acceptable" to torment animals, to kill them in order to heal and save human life? God gave us human beings healing plants and minerals that help and heal. For food he gave us the fruits of the fields and of the forest. The true God gave us no commandment that says: Kill your fellow creatures and eat their carcasses. Or: Torture them in bestial ways by using them for your experiments in order to help and heal each other. – Whoever orients himself by the words of the church officials is against God.
    Further we read: It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. This is in crass contradiction to what was said before, that medical and scientific animal experiments are "morally acceptable" if they are held "within reasonable limits since it contributes to caring for or saving human lives." Every animal experiment has animals suffer and be killed. To "use animals for food and clothing" is to have animals suffer and be killed.
    Aside from this, so it continues in the Catholic Catechism: It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them (the animals) that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. The concern with "human misery" is apparent from these words. Whether with regard to this, the representatives of the Churches would start using their immeasurable wealth for the benefit of the poorest of the poor? And where was the concern for human misery when the Church more or less condoned the war in Bosnia? Consider also the cost of the medical machines that are necessary to conduct animal experiments, and not least, the high salaries of those who also count on church opinion that animal experiments are permissible within reasonable limits in order to heal and to save human life. Is this worthy? Since God, the Eternal, did not speak of such things, those who support justice and love, also toward animals, and who thus turn to God, should make a clear decision concerning their relationship to the Church, for one cannot serve two masters.
    There is another blasphemy in the Catechism. In it, we read about the respect for the integrity of creation: One can love animals, one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons. (No. 2418) Did God command this? Dear reader, do you have the sense that you are committing a sin if you feel love in your heart for your pet – when you do not just like them superficially, but love them? When you care that the animal is well; when you are glad that the animal is happy to see you; when you like doing something for your animal brother or sister; when you understand the animal, and when the animal knows how you feel and acts accordingly – why should this be wrong? Dear brother, dear sister, you can see and know well only with the heart. God gave us no command that says: You may like animals, but you should not love them; love is reserved for human beings.
    The Protestant Lutheran Church of Germany states in its pronouncement "Zur Verantwortung des Menschen für das Tier als Mitgeschöpf, 1991" [On the Responsibility of Human Beings for the Animal as a Fellow Creature]: Love for animals and love for people may come into conflict with each other. (p. 6) And in a "Pastoral Letter of the German Bishops" (Zukunft der Schöpfung – Zukunft der Menschheit, 1980 [The Future of Creation – the Future of Mankind]) – and these are Catholic bishops – it says: In contrast to man as a person, plants and animals have no inviolable individual right to life …We human beings have the right to make use of the work and life of animals. Now there follows a limitation: But responsibility cannot be accepted if animals, who are beings that feel, are tortured and killed without serious reasons, for example, merely for entertainment or the production of luxury goods. – But where is this followed up in the deed?
    People have many excuses and they marshal "serious reasons" slyly and eloquently, if their own advantage is at stake. And who answers for the injustice that is done to animals? All those, who commit the injustice, but also all those who know about it and remain silent, as well as those who admonish against it, but do not themselves keep to what they say. And all those who have been the major cause for the loss of a living conscience in so many people.
    How far things may go, if ethics and morals are kept at a traditionally low level and the conscience of many is deadened is shown by the following information taken from the Schwäbische Zeitung, Mar. 12, 1991 [Swabian Newspaper]). These are examples of Spanish cruelty to animals that are maintained as part of "tradition" and which are often witnessed with indifference by local Catholic clergy or police.
   Here we find an example of death by stoning, although committed on an animal: Donkey Riding in V.: On the last day of Carnival, the oldest and weakest donkey is taken from the stable. The heaviest inhabitant of the village will ride the donkey, until the animal collapses from exhaustion. Then it will be stoned and beaten to death.
    In C. bulls are driven through the alleys. Hundreds of people, lining the sides of the alleys, beat and kick the animal, and use long iron hooks to tear open deep wounds. The bull may be driven through the alleys for up to eight hours, after which it is finally released from suffering by death.
    In G. the custom is similar: Festival guests aim a blow gun at a bull that is being driven onto the village square. Colorfully decorated steel arrows are driven into the bull’s body, the head, the eyes. When the animal is weakened by the loss of blood, men with pocket knives "dare" to approach the animal.
    T.: Young bulls are chased by men with long lances who try to pierce the animal sideways.
    C. in the province of G.: Oil-filled containers are tied to the neck and horns of bulls and lit with a torch. The burning animals, out of their minds with the pain, are driven to the market square where men are waiting to finally kill the animals with daggers and scissors.
   What about the question of who will have to answer for all this? Certainly not only those who take part in the macabre and downright perverse form of entertainment. Here, man is "more bestial than any beast."
   I repeat: God, the Eternal, has no law among His eternal laws that says: "Like animals, but do not love them." God is love. From His law of love He created the animals, which He loves because He is love. This term to "like" corresponds to church morals which cannot be particularly high, because if the church leaders and their followers would at least only like the animals, animal-cannibalism would be ended.
    The Church says: One should not direct to animals the affection due only to persons. If we compare the colossal riches of the Churches to the poverty in Third World countries, we get a sense of how great the church clergy’s affection due to people is. What did Jesus say to this? It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. (Mt. 19:24) According to this statement, neither the church leaders nor their power apparatus, the Church, will enter the Kingdom of God. The church officials and their state church must first become thin, very thin to fit through the eye of a needle.
    The Catholic Catechism continues on page 650, No. 2456: The domination granted by the Creator over the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe … This is an outrageous presumption on the part of church officials, considering how Earth and the nature kingdoms must suffer under the bestial exploitation of society.
    The words just quoted are supplemented by the following, ethically challenging statement: The domination granted by the Creator over the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be separated from respect for moral obligations, including those toward generations to come.
   What are these "moral obligations"? Obligations toward generations to come are named. Does this mean that mankind may exploit and ruin nature – but not so radically that future generations have no food to eat, no water to drink, no air to breathe?
    But thanks to the inventiveness of scientists now people no longer need to restrain themselves in this respect, for everything will be new anyway, so we read and hear. The dilemma – every dilemma, that is – can be solved by virtue of the marvelous accomplishments of genetic engineering! And so, mankind may continue unperturbed, exploiting and draining Mother Earth, letting her dry up, poisoning nature, torturing, infecting, murdering. Genetic engineering will allow life to continue on Earth, even better than before, or so they say. But perhaps it will be precisely through genetic engineering that mankind will reap what it has sown.
    No. 2457 continues: Animals are entrusted to man’s stewardship; he must show them kindness. They may be used to serve the just satisfaction of man’s needs. How can an animal even serve man, if man respects neither animal, plant, nor mineral? Human beings in their arrogant egoism have cut down everything that they have laid hands on.
    At some point – according to the immutable law of cause and effect – mankind will feel the whip it has braided for itself, its fate. This will continue to hit human beings so long, until they have again found their way back to the cosmic laws of love for God and for our neighbor and have thus again become the image of God.

    According to a scholar of Protestant-Lutheran theology, animals do not play a significant role in the Protestant faith. In the Creed of the Protestant-Lutheran Church of 1530 which is still binding today, animals are not even mentioned.
    Martin Luther himself is accused of gluttony by his opponents. Only the upper class could afford meat in those days, for the poor it was the exception, not the rule. It is likely that Luther ate a lot of meat. His corpulence and his illnesses would indicate it. With each meal four pints of Southern wine were served and he drank plenty of beer.
    When his fellow reformer, Philipp Melanchton came to Nuremberg, he was fed the following: Pig’s head and tenderloin roast in sour sauce, trout, partridges with capon, roasted wild boar with pepper sauce … This is how it went when Master Philipp came … everyday fare was more modest. (Veranstaltungen in Luthers Landen, Kulturmagazin für Sachsen und Thüringen, [Events in Luther’s Regions of Influence, Culture Magazine for Saxony and Thuringia] 1997, p. 12)
    What did the "Little Prince" say again? You see well only with the heart. Perhaps today he would say to us: You read well only with the heart, for instance an article in the German weekly, die ZEIT [Time] of April 2, 1998, under the heading The Lamb of God. The article discusses the connection between butchers and priests. It concludes with the following sentence: Christian theology, in its tradition of forgotten creatures that excludes the non-human creation from the Good News, has not done its part.
   Here are some excerpts from the text: The Brotherhood of Butcher-Journeymen is celebrating its 100-year anniversary in the Friedenskirche in Federwardergroden, a section of Wilhelmshaven. The highpoint of the ecumenical worship service is the blessing of the brotherhood’s new flag, which depicts the Christian Easter lamb and the flag of resurrection. The congregation had sung "Christ, you Lamb of God, you bear the sins of the world, have mercy on us" moments before.
    But the butchers’ guilds anniversary service caused some offence. The animal rights movement of the neighboring town of Schortens confronts the minister and priest with an unexpected question: How can the churches tolerate the fact that the symbol of the Christ-Lamb adorns the flag of animal murderers? At their wits end, the clerics pass the question on to the butchers, who defend themselves by pointing to the old age of their guild symbol.
    Only an episode. But it raises the tough question: What does a butcher have in common with a man of God?
    Interestingly, the butcher’s guild cites the ritual slaughter committed by the priests. The words of an old butcher-guild song, reprinted in the anniversary brochure of the Heilbronn butchers’ guild go: "If there is a guild deserving of fame and praise, then it is the butchers’ guild, which is highly-praised even in its origins; because it has been shown that it stems from the order of Leviticus who in the Old Covenant butchered the animals for sacrifice, offering them to the Lord at the altar."
   The author of the article then poses the question: Are butchers secularized priests? …
    The oldest preserved guild flag, that of the 15th-century Bern butchers shows both symbols: The Christ-lamb with the resurrection flag and a bull with two hatchets hovering threateningly above.
   The following description of an "individual public slaughter" will tell a lot to those who read with the heart: A shot rings out. A metal bullet pierces the pig’s brain. The light goes out of the eyes. The animal collapses on the floor. Two butchers roll the body to the side, one holds the jerking hind legs, the other, the master, holds the front legs and the head. Quick as lightning he punctures the animal’s throat. The butcher’s wife comes with a metal basin to catch the animal’s gushing blood. The body, while being drained of blood is still violently jerking and kicking.
    The butcher caresses the pig’s head and explains to the group of watching vegetarians and TV-reporters: "The animal cannot resist. It is completely in my power. I feel in my hand how the life is flowing from it. Meanwhile, his wife, with an expression of tension and compassion, dips her hand in the dark red liquid of life that is still restlessly foaming in the butcher’s basin. After half an hour, the animal is already hanging upside down from a butcher rack, shaved and dressed. The tension among the surviving participants is broken with a round of clear liquor. "Now it is no longer an animal, now it is meat! Cheers!" The butcher, "master of life and death:" … He "caresses the pig’s head." "I feel in my hand how the life is flowing from it."
    Let your feelings speak to you.
    In meat factories, where 700 pigs are slaughtered in an hour, the conditions for this comparatively "humane" approach to a process that is unavoidable for the "use" of animals for food are, of course, not there. The article continues: It is enlightening to consider the connection between butcher and church in the Fifth Regulation of the Wurttemberg Butchers’ Code of 1651 (printed 1701 in Stuttgart). On pain of a one-guilder fine it is prohibited to "lead animals to the slaughterhouse or to the butcher during a sermon, or especially during the night." This is not an ethical question, but concerns the resulting noise. The death cries of the butchered animal shall disrupt neither the sermon nor the night’s rest.
   The Easter lamb with the flag of resurrection is the official seal of the butcher’s guild.

    The article The Lamb of God contains the following significant sentence: Eating meat is God’s concession to human weakness. That is close to the truth. We know, from the Christ of God in This Is My Word and from other revelations, that the Prophet Moses, who had to contend with a headstrong people, some of whom longed to return to the "meat pots of Egypt," clearly taught "You shall not kill," but that he finally silently accepted the fact that meat was nevertheless being eaten among the people. It is therefore true: a concession to human weakness – but not God’s concession.
    Many who like to eat meat use the argument in their defense that Jesus ate the Easter lamb, as is told in the Bible. But let us hear what He has to say on this Himself:
   Neither the apostles nor the disciples gave the order to slaughter a lamb. But as a gift of love, parts of a prepared lamb were offered to Me as well as to the apostles and disciples. With this, our neighbors wanted to make a gift for us, for they did not know better. I blessed the gift and began to partake of the meat. My apostles and disciples did the same. Afterwards, they asked Me in the following sense: We should refrain from consuming meat. This is what You have commanded of us. Now You, Yourself, have consumed meat.
    I instructed My own that man should not willfully kill an animal nor should he consume the meat of animals which were killed for the consumption of their meat. However, when people who are still unknowing have prepared meat as nourishment and make of it a gift to the guest, offering it with the meal, then the guest should not reject the gift. For there is a difference whether a person consumes meat because he craves for meat or as a token of gratitude to the host for his effort.
    However, when it is possible for him and outer circumstances and time permit, the knowing person should give general indications to the host, but should not want to set him right. When the time is ripe, the host, too, will understand these general indications.
    In this world, understanding and tolerance, too, are aspects of selfless love. Leave to each person his free will whether or not he wants to understand and accept your general indications. If you always think, speak and act selflessly, you abide in love and love will bless you. What is then offered to you, as a gift of love, is blessed. (This Is My Word, pp. 786-787)
    And so, Jesus did not eat meat, for He lived the law of God.

    In the Protestant-Lutheran Catechism little is said about animals. For the institutional churches animals are little more than an object and thus not worthy of in-depth consideration. This is apparent from the article "The Lamb of God" in ZEIT. Here I quote the few remarks about animals from the German Protestant Catechism for Adults (translated from the German Evangelischer Erwachsenenkatechismus, 5th ed. 1989, [Lutheran Catechism for Adults] to which the page numbers also refer):
    Man is charged with "working and keeping" the garden. And so, work is a part of mankind from the beginning. Through work man should develop and at the same time preserve the environment that has been entrusted to him (animals, plants, water, air). In this context also belongs the story of the creation of animals. God brings man the animals and entrusts them to his care … Love and honor for the Creator should also be visible in the way that creation is cared for. Man remains responsible to the Creator for his entire conduct. (p. 40) These statements in the Protestant Catechism are probably meant to ridicule God, if they are contrasted with the article in ZEIT.
    The Protestant Catechism continues: ... The animal in particular makes profanity of conception, birth and death in the lack of inhibitions or taboos concerning these, which appear as most inhuman and alien to our nature. It is only the sense of shame and the burial rites of people that mark the beginning of the history of mankind. No animals conceal their genitals, none honors and buries their dead (p. 508).
    It is ironic that the Lutheran Catechism would choose to speak of profanity, of the lack of inhibitions or taboos concerning conception – while the revered founder of this religion used incredibly vulgar language, for example: Why do you not belch and fart, did you not like the food? [table talk]. Or from his slander of the Jews: The devil has shit in his pants and emptied the belly once again. That is a right holy shrine that the Jews and those who would be Jews should kiss, eat, drink and sanctify, and in turn the devil should also eat and drink what such disciples will vomit, throwing out from above or below … The devil now eats with his English snout and devours with lust what the upper and lower mouth of the Jews retches and spews out. (Luther Writings XXXII, p. 282, Erlang Edition) Or: Here in Wittenberg, a sow is hewn in stone at our parish church; there lie young piglets and Jews below it who suckle; behind the sow there stands a rabbi, who lifts the sow’s right leg, and with his left hand he draws the tail over himself, stooping forward and looking with great industry below the tail into the sow’s Talmud, as if he would read and spy upon something sharp and peculiar … For this is how one speaks among the Germans of one who claims great wisdom without basis: Where did he read it? Bluntly put, in the sow’s ass. (ibid. at p. 298)
    Reading about the lack of inhibitions or taboos concerning these (conception, birth and death), which appear as most inhuman and alien to our nature, we are reminded of the sexuality without taboos or inhibitions of people who advertise their promiscuity on television and in the internet, or publish it in newspapers. Animals mate at certain times, human beings revel in their physical drives with whom and where they please.
    There is nothing more alien to our nature, namely, to our original, spiritual being, than the human being. He has become what he is through his godlessness. The main responsibility for this is borne by church dignitaries who are as God does not want them to be. The birth of an animal in my opinion is one of the most noble things. The animal gives birth according to the laws of nature. Rarely, it cries or complains at giving birth, as, for example, human beings do. And what about death? The animal lags behind the herd, finds a quiet place, and dies. It dies in dignity, according to the laws of nature, compared to some people who go through a death-struggle because during their entire lives they struggled against the love for God and for neighbor.
    Where is there still a sense of shame? Certainly not in man! The animal does not need a sense of shame because it lives according to the laws of nature. And the animal does not need funeral rites. Nature does not dictate these, only the Church does. And the animals do not need to conceal their genitals because they do not sin with them, unlike man. Or should animals wear drawers in order not to tempt the "devil" even more, who takes his off without shame anyway?
    The Protestant Catechism gives us the chance to look even "deeper": A comparison of the social behavior of human beings and animals shows that no animal goes through such a comparatively long childhood – a period of development and of differentiated processes of learning and socialization – before it becomes sexually mature, as human beings do. (p. 509)
    What label and what "dignity" does a human being bear, despite such a lengthy childhood? What is triggered in human beings with the onset of sexual maturity would fill volumes. The sexual show-off should in no way be compared to the animal. The animal would not act this way, anyway. If the values and perversions of man and animals were compared, in whose favor would the scales tip?
    The Protestant Catechism further enlightens us: Considering the great success of space travel one will ask: How is it possible that man alone is capable of such accomplishments? Man is by nature endowed with the predispositions to grow beyond himself (p. 640).
    Human beings have in fact grown beyond themselves. They do everything to destroy their environment, which is also that of the animals.
    Technological and scientific progress so far has not brought mankind unity, peace, prosperity for everyone, health, or true happiness. If we take mankind’s growing beyond itself to refer to the hubris and sheer madness that utterly holds human beings and creation in contempt, then we may well agree that man has gone way beyond his limits in more ways and more excessively than ever before.
    That man should be so inherently inclined toward this by nature is the view of the Churches but not the will of God, who spoke through Jesus of Nazareth, for instance: If you do not become like little children …(Mt. 18:3) and: You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Mt 5:48) With these words He wanted to tell us that we should come into our divine heritage by overcoming the base human aspects in us, the non-divine. He did not speak of the conquest of space through mankind, nor of the creation of new human beings in test tubes and the creation of a new nature and a new Earth through genetic engineering and other assaults on God’s wise order of creation.
    Those who read all this and more should automatically ask themselves whether they still want to belong to the Lutheran Church.

    The Church is silent but Jesus, the Christ, speaks and is revealing Himself again today. In the book This Is My Word, He reveals among many other things the eternal law of love in relation to the animals. From the many remarks, teachings and instructions about animals, I choose only a few to pass on here.
    Therefore be considerate, kind, sympathetic and friendly not only to your own kind, but also to every creature which is within your care, for you are as gods to them, whom they look up to in their need. Beware of anger, for many sin in anger and repent of it when their anger is past. (p. 180)
   Never slaughter an animal for your personal use. Behold, nature, the life of creation, provides for you. The fruits of the fields, of the gardens and the forests should be sufficient for you. And never trample on life intentionally, neither that of the animals nor that of the plants. The one who intentionally tramples on life creates causes. It is as if he tramples on his own life, and he will suffer from it. (p. 181)
   Blessed are you in the inner circle, who hear My word and to whom the mysteries are revealed, who do not imprison or kill any innocent creature, but seek the good in all, for to such belongs eternal life. (p. 195)
   Only the soul and the person who are filled with My Spirit keep what I have commanded them. People of the Spirit will not take or hold captive innocent creatures, much less kill them. The one who lives in the truth knows that infinite love operates and is active in every creature. People in the Spirit of truth live with nature and all its creatures. (p. 197)
   The egocentric person, the domineering man, expects his fellow man to serve him. He also demands that an animal serve him beyond its capacity and strength. He gives orders – and does not serve. For this reason, he inflicts unspeakable torment on people and animals. If a person makes his fellow men dependent on him – as if they were slaves – he will also enslave the animals. The one who no longer listens to his conscience becomes hard-hearted towards man and animal. … Nor does he sense anymore what his neighbor and the animal need. When a person’s senses have become brutal, the whole person is poor in feeling. (p. 202)
   Jesus went to Jerusalem and came upon a camel with a heavy burden of wood. The camel could not haul its load up the hill and the driver beat it and treated it cruelly, but could not get the animal to move. And as Jesus saw it, He said to him, "Why do you beat your brother?" And the man retorted, "I did not know that it is my brother. Is it not a beast of burden, made to serve me?"
    And Jesus said, "Has not the same God created this animal and your children who serve you from the same material and have you not both received the same breath from God?" (p. 420)
   Is it not written in the prophets: Take your blood sacrifices and your burnt offerings, and away with them. Stop eating meat; for I did not speak of this to your forefathers, nor have I commanded them to do so when I led them out of Egypt … (p. 431)
    In the law of God, nothing is written about blood sacrifice nor about burnt offering, nor about the deliberate killing of animals, nor even about the consumption of the flesh of animals …
    It is a law that man should practice justice and mercy and walk humbly to the Kingdom of God of the inner being, where the true and eternal home of the soul is … From the beginning, God gave man the fruits, the seeds and the plants for nourishment … (p. 433)
   The one who sheds innocent blood, who consumes flesh is merciless and will have to suffer his own lack of mercy on himself. (p. 434)
   Jesus came into a village and saw there a stray kitten, and it suffered from hunger and cried out to Him. And He picked it up, wrapped it in His robe and let it rest at His breast.
    And when He went through the village, He gave the cat to eat and to drink. And it ate and drank and showed Him its thanks. And He gave it to one of His disciples, a widow called Lorenza, and she took care of it. (pp. 337-438)
    And some of His disciples came to Him and spoke to Him about an Egyptian, a son of Belial, who taught that it is not against the law to torment animals if their suffering brings profit to people … (p. 461)
    The one who hunts animals will himself be hunted one day. The one who torments animals will himself be tormented one day ...
    The hands of the one who torments or kills animals are stained with blood. The one who consumes the flesh of animals, who pollutes and violates nature is impure. Such people can neither deal with holy matters nor experience the so-called "mysteries" of the heavens, nor even teach or explain the law of the heavens. (p. 462)
    The so-called clergy, which speaks against nature, against love for animals, which consumes meat and fish, cannot treat holy matters nor fathom the "mysteries" of the heavens nor teach the law of heaven and interpret it. They are the blind guides, who in turn lead other blind people into the pit. They are the spiritually dead, who in turn only deal with other spiritually dead who then surround them.
    And again I say to you: Anyone who seeks to possess the body of any creature for food, for pleasure or for profit thereby defiles himself. (p. 543)
    For the one who does violence to man or animal and disregards life sins against the life of the person or of the animal. The same holds true for plants, stones and minerals. All forms of life bear in themselves the life from God. They sense what their neighbors intend to do with them and feel it as joy or pain. What man does to his neighbor or to a form of life falls back on him. (pp. 543-544)
    "Do you not know what is written? Obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken is better than the fat of rams. I, the Lord, am weary of your burnt sacrifices and your vain offerings, for your hands are full of blood. And is it not written: What is the true sacrifice? Wash and cleanse yourselves and remove the evil from before My eyes; stop doing evil and learn to do good. Do justice for the fatherless and the widows and to all those who are oppressed. And in this way, you will fulfill the law. The day will come when everything that is in the outer court and is part of the blood sacrifices will be taken away, and the pure worshippers will worship the Eternal in purity and in truth." (p. 561)
   The bloodthirsty one remains blood-thirsty and seeks revenge and wants to continue to shed the blood of his neighbor … In their madness, they even consider the shedding of the blood of others to be honorable, and do not hesitate to offer animals, too, as burnt sacrifices to the Eternal. Every blood sacrifice is satanic and is a desecration of the life from God. Through such revengeful darklings, the darkness wants to ridicule God. (p. 562)
   I say to you: Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, give them light in their darkness, and let the Spirit of love dwell within your heart and overflow to all people. And once more, I say to you: Love one another and all the creatures of God. (p. 801)
   People who have attained higher degrees of purity will love one another and all creatures of God, as I have loved and love them. (p. 802)
    Jesus, the Christ, spoke out against the regulations and behavior patterns of the priest caste that are described in the "Books of Moses" and also spoke against the instructions of ecclesiastic authorities today. Nothing, but nothing, in the teachings of Jesus suggests that He wanted to fulfill the Old Testament in the New Testament. That is only the narrow thinking of today’s priest caste. Whoever subscribes to this way of thinking has sold his freedom to the egotistical church rulers of the pagan state religion of Constantine.
    The Church not only kept slaves in the past but it also does so today. Today’s slavery is much more subtle. Those who do not do as the Church demands are subject to anathema and eternally damned. The common people are afraid of this and those in the upper echelons of the state sin publicly against what the Church has hitherto condemned. For those who are great in the eyes of the Church, the Church will turn not one but two blind eyes.

    Dear reader, what you will now read will oblige you to make a decision – depending on whether you have a heart for the animals: for God or for the church institutions; one cannot serve two masters.
    In the name of God or in the name of the church institutions.
    To the degree that people have exaggerated notions of themselves, they fail to appreciate the animals.
    Many people believe that they are free people. The so-called freedom of a person, however, corresponds to his state of consciousness which is often like a wall beyond which he cannot see.
    According to the cosmic laws, man is the microcosm within the macrocosm.
    In our innermost being we are beings of the light, fully mature spirit beings that we people should once again become, for Jesus of Nazareth said: You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Mt. 5:48) The animals also bear the life of God, but in their spiritual body the forces of life, of the law, God, are not yet fully developed and active. Animals are on a lower evolutionary step in the process of growth toward the filiation of God.
    On our way to becoming man, we have shadowed ourselves through unlawful sensing, feeling, thinking, speaking and acting, enveloping ourselves with a cloak of transformed-down energies and our own self-created burdens. But the connection to the eternal Being, the pure spiritual macrocosm, remains despite its weakened state. The life, God, to which we once belonged, is unity, freedom, cosmic boundlessness.
    The animals, our second neighbors, cannot burden themselves. Unlike human beings, they live according to their spiritual degree of development.
    Those who become aware of the cosmic realities will realize that the microcosm, man, not only lives in limitation, but whiles away his days in a dungeon that is nothing but his narrow world of desires and needs. According to the individual’s capacity to comprehend, he looks only to his limitation, which he calls "the world."
    A person speaks of "freedom" by referring to his greater or smaller possessions, which he calls his property. His "property" is his little world – and ultimately his "personality" with its opinions and notions, prejudices, envy, conceit, self-righteousness and the belittlement of others – which he desperately defends. Metaphorically, man erects thick walls of defensiveness and rejection around himself, and through the narrow embrasures he distrustfully shoots thought-energies and emotions at anyone who might contest the one thing or the other. His "free space," his so-called "property" is restricted by him with corresponding stop signs like field markers, fences and hedges. His "property" gives him a "sense of freedom"; but this "freedom" has nothing to do with the cosmic freedom.
    Animals, on the other hand, are free. The Creator left to them the entire Earth, nature, which knows no demarcations. The objection might be made that animals, especially the more highly developed living beings, mark their territory and limit themselves to a particular area. But consider the following: On the one hand, the markings of animals are messages to others of their kind. An animal’s territory is at the same time the habitat of many other species of animals. On the other hand, not all potential aptitudes from creation have developed in the spiritual animal form, that is, not all aspects of the spiritual consciousness of life, we could also say, of the divine law. The degree of unfoldment of consciousness we might call the state of consciousness. The territories and habitats of animals, including the animals in their physical bodies, correspond to their current state of consciousness, which carries within itself further evolutionary steps.
    Each evolutionary step of an animal therefore corresponds to its state of consciousness, which the macrocosm, the All-Law, slowly builds up and expands in the animal. This means that each animal continues to develop according to its life cycles, which are active in the macrocosm and accompany the animal’s evolutionary steps.
    God, the All-Spirit is life, and life is constant evolution. Because God is infinity, there can be no standstill, but continuous evolution. This means that infinity is constantly in motion, in never-abating evolution.
    If the behavior of animals is the subject matter here, then it is a description of the fundamental, natural conditions. What is meant is the animal which is still unspoiled and not yet wrongly programmed by people. No further mention need be made in this context of the fact that in terms of energy and from the very beginning man has affected the animals, imposing upon them his own negative programs – not only directly through training, and breeding and cross-breeding, but also indirectly through his "example," through his whole behavior, his sensing, feeling, thinking, speaking and acting.
    We human beings call the animals’ state of consciousness which imposes certain limits on them "instinct." But the state of consciousness of animals has not developed through wrong behavior, as it did in human beings. Instead, it is the natural present state of evolution, the evolutionary step, of this life form.
    The negative behavior of people, on the contrary, is directed against our true consciousness and reduces this consciousness more and more. We limit ourselves though wanting to have that which we call our property, but which is only an illusion. This illusion is removed by death, because as souls we can take nothing earthly with us, neither goods, nor money nor other possessions.
    Our ego, which is our little world, is our "property"; it has many variants.
    Our so-called "property" might, for example, be our obsession for power, our avarice, brutality, tyranny, or delight in tormenting people and animals. Every person reacts according to what lies in the scale of his human predispositions, in his ego, which became his state of consciousness through his thinking and acting. Animals on the other hand live according to their evolutionary state, according to what is presently active in their consciousness. It is the animals’ present state of evolution or consciousness.
    Man should be the image of God: love, kindness, unity, goodwill and freedom. In this consciousness, man would be one with animals and plants, with the entire nature kingdoms, including the elementary forces, the stars and planets, the cosmos, the All – and with himself. His egotistical attitude has made man discordant, perverse and unfree. Man seeks to tack onto the animals his own base behavior against nature. But the animal is free, because it is "normal" and lives according to the laws of nature, true to itself. Every animal consciously carries within itself the divine freedom, which continues to open up to it with each evolutionary step. The macrocosm guides the microcosm, the animal, in pre-determined cycles, no matter what the animal’s state of consciousness may be; this is why the animal feels free.
    Man as well carries the cosmic freedom within himself. But it is covered up by the narrowness of the ego, by the world of the externalized senses, for example, and by the muddled labyrinth of thoughts that some call intelligence.
    Love is the highest fount of Being. Love, which the Creator-Spirit also placed into the animals, can be recognized, for instance, in the maternal love of mammals. With how much care and consideration the cat cares for her young, or how much maternal instinct, how much tenderness and care a lioness has for her cubs, even though she might be hunting a gazelle! The cubs may climb all over her body, as much and as long as they like – the lioness remains still and is happy with the cubs’ liveliness. A blackbird as well shows her maternal feelings for a long, long time. She will feed the blackbird baby, without limitation, until it can find food itself. I am also thinking about the loyalty of animals, like horses which give themselves completely and may sacrifice their lives to carry people for miles and miles. Or the devotion of a dog which leads a blind person or tries to rescue someone buried in an avalanche.
    You might object that we human beings have trained animals to perform these feats. But how come such training can succeed? Why can we train dogs as seeing-eye dogs? This is possible only because these animals and many others have an instinctive intelligence to do justice by man, to serve him. Anyone who is mindful of what the animals do for people, how they make many sacrifices in order to serve and help them, should be filled with gratitude. But all those who have fallen victim to the desires of their ego will merely use people and animals for their purposes. Whether they can be considered the image of God, must be placed in doubt.
    In every animal, but in every plant as well, the mighty creator-force is present: God, the omnipresent universal eternal Spirit, the All-intelligence. Anyone who has a heart for nature may sense in the expression of an animal, or in the beauty of a plant, in the shape of a rock, or in liquid substances that Earth could be a paradise.
    To justify the boundless exploitation of nature, the following words of the Creator are often quoted: Subdue the earth (Gen. 1:28). The word "subdue," however does not mean that animals may be tormented, forests and plants annihilated, or that everything may be destroyed that is within mankind’s grasp. The word "subdue" means the commandment of preserving the nature kingdoms and the entire Earth. We are called upon to treat animals with love and to care for them. We are called upon to respect, cherish and love all life forms on Earth, even Earth as a whole, because everything in all things is the work of the Almighty – the love for mankind, animals, plants and rocks, for the entire Earth.
    Anyone who has ever cared for an animal feels that he has grown internally richer and more conscious of nature. But anyone who builds meat factories and slaughterhouses, or who condones these by consuming the flesh of his second neighbors, such a person’s consciousness will grow more and more narrow because such a person is impoverished in his inner being.
    Everything that we do out of egotism will take its revenge on us according to the law: Whatever a person sows is what he will reap. God is love. Out of love for us human beings, God gave us the Earth, the Mother, who nourishes us. Those who meet the Earth with love, that is, selflessly and with devotion and care, will receive in plenty and therefore will reap in plenty.

The prophet denounces:

    Their eyes are broken by suffering, pain and fright. They sense why they are being held. Their gazes accuse human beings.
   Why do you kill us? Why do you cook, fry and cut up our body? Did the Creator not give you the herbs and the fruits of the fields and forests? What have we done to you that you keep us in prisons and feed us your waste products?
    Your hearts are poor in feeling and merciless. A stone contains life; but your hearts are made of stone by comparison. In your breasts there beats only a muscle for yourself and your welfare. Learn to be compassionate by putting yourself in our position. Even though we are animals, we live and feel, like you do, for life is feeling, sensing and perceiving. We perceive the purpose of your keeping animals.

    Man has become a brute, heartlessly butchering, tearing down and locking up everything that may serve his heartless avarice. He forgets that one day he, too, will live in the tightest and filthiest space or even in prison – for what a person sows, he will reap. The crimes against animals are the same as crimes against man, because man and animals have the same breath, which is the life, and it is God. The keeping of economically useful animals is like wanton killing. It is a sin against life, that is God.

    Man, the murderous bull, has bred himself a "bull-terrier" to train for dogfights so that over-satiated, sensation-lusting people can be amused by dogfights. The many sad pictures, each and every one, all symbolize the execution of the person according to the law of sowing and reaping.
    Jesus said: As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me. (Mt. 25:40) Not only people are among His brethren, but also our fellow creatures, the animals, our animal brothers and sisters, because they also, like people, were given the life by God. What people do to fellow humans or animals, they do to Christ.
    People intrude in the omnipotence of God and torment the animal world. This means that all those who torture animals, train them, or let them run on a treadmill like the dog-brother in the picture, will one day suffer the same or similar things on their own bodies.
    Do not complain, you heartless, cruel tormentors of animals, when one day you will be chased for miles, as if hunted through the desert, when you will be attacked and torn apart by an animal that you have trained to tear apart its kind. Do not complain when your limbs ache and your body is covered with wounds and pustules. Do not complain when your fellow men have no compassion for you because they treat you as you have treated and treat the animals. Do not accuse God; you have caused it; you suffer as you have made people and animals to suffer.

    before it was forced to run in the murderous military horserace. I do not have the strength to go through what you people are demanding of me. I do not have the bones or muscles in my body to sustain this!
    Have mercy! The Creator of all beings has entrusted us animals to you so that you may give us the love which the Creator also breathed into you. Where has the compassionate love for your fellow creatures gone? Have you traded love and compassion for cruelty, brutality and murder?
    I go to an early death because of your murderous behavior. How will you end one day and where will you be one day when life has passed from you, the human being?

    Where will all those be one day who have ridden an animal to death in such a manner? When and how will they meet death on the racetrack of their lives? According to the law of cause and effect, those who have produced such causes will have to feel the pain of the animals in their own body or on the body of their soul after their physical death. All our actions, preceded by our thoughts and desires, are recorded in our soul and in the cells of our body.
    Do not be surprised, you fellow men, when your back is broken for no apparent reason. Do not be surprised, and do not accuse God, when you suffer a complicated fractured leg that will not heal. Do not be surprised when, as souls, you are hunted by the world of your desires just as you rode animals to death. Do not be surprised when, as human beings or as souls, you have to suffer and bear the pain of those whom you have tormented, chased and murdered, whether they were animals or humans. Do not be surprised and do not accuse God, or human beings, or animals – you yourself are the accused, for it is only the seed sprouting in your body and in your soul, which you have sown yourself.
    And if you should call upon God’s mercy and compassion, then remember the Our Father, which you prayed from time to time. There it says: … and forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors. But if the person does not achieve forgiveness, because he does not feel remorse for his cruelty, what will be his lot? Only what he has sown. God’s mercy and compassion can be received only by those who are remorseful and ask for forgiveness and no longer do the same or similar things. Those who believe that they suffer innocently will remain in their suffering, even as a soul after death.

    Who has called on us people to commit such and similar atrocities? The Creator of infinity has not issued such a commandment, but Satan has. Evil crept into the heart and the senses of human beings. It is the Satan of the senses, who wants to torment and murderously kill God’s creation. For this purpose he uses heartless people who are like him, and their number is increasing. Because whoever no longer has a conscience also has no heart for people or animals.
    When one day, the seeds they have sown sprout for such persons, the "master" of torment will let them fall. Then the "master" will no longer supply the orgies for the taste buds, the intoxication of gluttony and the sexual lust that has been enticed in exchange and as reward for further negativities. He, the Satan, the evil, uses people only as long as they are of service to his designs. Once the seed that was sown sprouts in such a person, he has become useless and worthless to evil. Then he sinks into oblivion.
    Do not complain, you human beings, when it is with you as has been with the many animals you have tormented and treated murderously. Do not be surprised when your body is overrun by boils and pustules. Do not be surprised when others show you no mercy. Do not be surprised when your clothing is torn from your body and you are violated. Did you not have the feathers plucked for you? Did you not have the cockerel killed and barbecued? Did you not tear the thighs from their dead, barbecued bodies and eat them, even noisily devour them? The question is, who eats, and who devours? Is "devouring" innate to animals or to human beings who think they personify higher values than animals do?
    Dear fellow brothers and sisters, take time to watch a horse, a cow or a donkey as it grazes in the pasture. And then watch in the mirror as you tear the legs from the roasted bodies of ducks, geese, or barbecued chickens, and see whether you eat or "devour"? Whose ethics and morals are higher when it comes to eating or devouring – those of people or animals?
    Who may claim in face of these facts that people are ethically or morally superior to animals? In view of these excesses, who has a higher quality of life, the obese human beings who "eat" the carcasses of their fellow creatures, or the animals who must be sacrificed in stables, slaughterhouses, grills, and frying pans for the pleasure and corpulence of "ethically-morally high-standing" human beings?

    These turkeys are alive when they are hung by the legs. Dear fellow humans, to test how these your fellow creatures may feel, hang from the beams of your attic. You can see how it is for you and what you feel before unconsciousness sets in. If you then still want to eat the meat of turkeys and other fowl, do not call yourself a human being anymore, but a perverse two-legged animal of prey.
    Now some may object by saying that human beings are in the image of God and not perverse two-legged animals of prey. One possible answer might be: Many of these "images of God" have subscribed to evil which has no purpose but to torment and kill God’s creatures and to alter animals and plants through cross-breeding. The so-called image of God, the human being, permitted himself to be changed by evil, so that the image of God became the image of evil, in the face of whom animals flee and plants turn away.
    In the long run, evil will not prevail because the core of good remains, even in the evil. Good will overcome evil – even if it is only after a person has tasted his evil seed, for many earth lives, after wading through it, so to speak, to realize that he should become the image of God that he is deep in his soul, in the very basis of his soul. The one who realizes that he is the image of God will begin to love animals, plants and minerals, too; and then the Earth will sigh in relief.

    Animals have done no harm to people. Why do people cause animals such unspeakable suffering? Most people today no longer have guiding examples. The church dignitaries, who ought to be examples of ethics and morality, became heinous and slid down the slippery slide of the ego. On Christmas, for example, they bless their faithful with goose liver in their bellies. They speak of exercising moderation in keeping animals, in slaughtering animals, but any measure is already too much when an animal suffers; then one cannot speak of exercising moderation. Who wants to justify the "moderation," the suffering animal, before his Creator? The dignitary or the "Books of Moses"?
    The "Books of Moses" contain in large part not the word of God through Moses, but cruel instructions of the priest caste of that time, who falsely attributed their excesses, their pagan rites to Moses. The bloodthirsty notions of the priest caste of that time are outdone by far by the notions of people today, including their examples, the ecclesiastic dignitaries. What ecclesiastic authorities revealed in their teachings and instructions, the catechism, exceeds in practice the measure of cruelty found in the Old Testament. The Old Testament, the Catholic Catechism teaches us, is fulfilled in the New; the Old Testament sheds light on the New, and the other way around. However, no person of character could imagine that shedding light could be so dark, of such gloom.

    People should be the image of God. A large part of mankind has become the image of its fate, for the torment and suffering of the second neighbor, the animal, becomes the agony, the suffering and the often cruel deaths of people.
    Those who have no conscience are spiritually dead. Their hearts have become unfeeling, deaf, and apathetic toward the life that is, in truth, a part of every person. The scales of life weigh very precisely and they weigh justly. Tomorrow, what will be the fate of the killers and tormenters of animals?
    What drives people to act so inhumanely? Do people believe that cruelty will bear good fruit? Those who think that fame and honor in research will bring lasting benefit to their soul are deceiving themselves. Perhaps today the famous scientist will receive a doctorate degree, but tomorrow a black shroud – black as his soul has become.
    Many have "sacrificed" the warmth of the heart to "science." But if it were their own little kitten or lap dog that should be sacrificed for science, what would the "owners" say? They would certainly be outraged, because you cannot do that to these animals. Those who believe that the feelings of all animals are different from those of the kitten and the lap dog have left their hearts by the wayside for the sake of their self-centeredness.
    Let us finally realize that every person will reap his fruit and will be forced to eat it as well. For many, it will be very, very bitter fruit.

    The feelings and sensations of humans are energy, just as thoughts, words and actions are. These energies do not simply dissipate. They remain in those who have created them. The creators, for instance, the perpetrators, but also the accomplices of animal tormentors and murderers will feel it in their own bodies according to the law: What a person sows, he will reap.
    All those are accomplices who silently tolerate the tormenting and butchering of animals and who profit by it. I repeat – perhaps some repetition may soften a hardened heart: The meat of tormented fellow creatures is permeated with their fright, their misery, their pain, their despair, their horror. Cooking the meat will not dissolve these energies and make them vanish. The energies are absorbed in the intestines of meat-eaters and affect other parts of the body, for example, blood, nerves, muscles, organs, bodily fluids and the temperament of the person as well. At night when the person is in deep sleep, where will the souls of the perpetrators and accomplices, of the violators and those who benefit from all this be? Perhaps some will wake soaked in sweat, hunted down in a dream, threatened by a mysterious power.
    Some may think: "a nightmare." Today, as a person, he may shake off the impressions conveyed by the dream. As a soul in the beyond that will no longer be possible. The situation that took place in the dream will be reality; the soul must learn from the transgression of the person. What was once a nightmare has become reality that must be expiated in suffering.

    Man, "endowed as a rational being!" The "endowed as a rational being," man, could have the following excuse for tormenting and killing animals: Some species of animals even eat those of their own kind, that is, other animals. But let us be aware that no animal kills to get the fur of an animal brother or sister. This is done only by "ethically and morally superior" man, who considers himself the crown of creation, but who has become a rapacious wolf in sheep’s clothing.
    Those who have learned to see are not surprised that it is especially the rich, enveloped by mink coats, who often feel so little warmth in their cold splendor. Many people, especially those who must flaunt their "cold splendor," their possessions, because they have little to show in the way of inner virtues, also lack the ability to think clearly. And so, it is hardly possible any longer to appeal to common sense in order to grasp logical processes and cosmic principles. For the few who may still grasp it, may the following be said:
    The life of animals – as with the life of human beings – is the life that is God. God is life and God has given it to all human beings, animals and plants. The Earth is the life from God. People are called upon to keep the Earth in love, including all that it carries. God has not called upon people to violate the planet and to torture and kill everything that lives on it, sacrificing it to the ego. It is the responsibility of the person how he treats the life of nature and his own life. The actions of each individual will become his joy or sorrow – for whatever a person sows, he will reap.
    Our physical existence and that of all life forms of nature is a gift from God. Man takes much, much more than he gives, for instance, to Mother Earth. This must inevitably mean the exploitation of Earth and the death of a self-glorifying human race, a society that has truly become a brutal, despicable society of robbers, thieves and murderers.
    Let us be aware of the fact that animals live in consonance with the Earth, with nature. A great part of mankind behaves like a beast, spawned from the refuse of the ego, killing and devouring everything.
    All those who find what I write presumptuous should ask themselves the following question, and should answer it as well: What does mankind give to Mother Earth in love and kindness? The photos reflect what mankind does. Most human beings rob, pillage, kill and seize everything for the sake of their egos; to the Earth they then give the waste products, the "rest" that is useless to the ego, waste that might still have been alive yesterday, as in the picture.
    The dead body of the mink, for example, is it the waste product of a killing or of a murder? Decide as you wish. One thing is certain: The young mink cannot live its mink-life as it was meant to by nature and the Creator. It cannot play its part in the unfoldment of forces. Mother Earth is still giving and giving – chances upon chances for us human beings. But for how long?
    This little calf was only born to be immediately killed. The "Herod premium" of the European Union makes it possible: For every calf a premium of DM 225 (about $100) is paid if it is killed within the first twenty days of its life.
    Since Germany will not pay this premium (yet finances it through the European Community coffers), the little calves must suffer through long, tortuous transports to France or Spain. Since 1993 nearly 2 million calves have been killed in this way.
    This cow is being loaded onto a ship in the port of Triest on its way, for example, to a slaughterhouse in Lebanon.
    Eyewitnesses report: When the animals are unloaded in the port of Beirut after several weeks of transport, one can only talk about barely surviving or half-dead. Many of them have suffered untreated and bloody wounds, injured eyes, or bruised and broken legs from the many times they were loaded and unloaded. In the port of Beirut – the final stop – the severely injured cattle, which are completely exhausted and hardly able to walk, are driven off the ships in the most brutal manner. Often they are beaten with iron rods and are poked in the eyes with these rods. A popular instrument of torture to make the poor animals obey is electric shock. It is used mostly on the animals’ genitals or their eyes. Many of the cattle collapse during this torture and only want to die. But the right to die is denied them because they must be delivered somehow to one of the surrounding slaughterhouses – no matter how badly hurt – while still "alive" or, more exactly, "dying."
    The dying cattle, no longer able to walk after this torture, are heaved from the ship by a rope. The leg by which they are lifted tears and breaks under the weight of their own body. The following pictures show how it continues after the unloading: The animals are slaughtered by cutting their throats so that they slowly bleed to death, fully conscious.
    Europeans or Americans who are incensed might quiet their conscience by remembering that in their countries animals are given anesthetics before they are slaughtered. Otherwise their slaughterhouses look just the same as in these pictures. This murder continues with knife and fork on finely laid tables where no one considers what the "filet mignon" looked like shortly before.

    This is the beastly man, this is what we are, and this will be the suffering of mankind until it has learned to truly love nature – and not just to "like them" for themselves, personally, as Catholicism instructs.
    The word "to like" is in stark contrast to love for God, which is love for neighbor. "To like" means to make distinctions between one and the other. "To like" may also mean to regard the animals, our second neighbors, as inferior.
    If human beings do not strive for the love for God and for neighbor, then the inferior, for instance, the animals that we should only "like," will be beaten, tormented and killed … "I like pigs because I like to eat roast pork." Or: "I like tearing a leg from a barbecued chicken because I like to eat it."
    The love for God, that wants nothing for itself but bears both neighbor and second neighbor in the heart as a part of itself, this love for God is the commandment of true life: without pain, without suffering, without spiritual death.
    The Old Testament is fulfilled in the New, according to the Catholic Catechism. When will it be fulfilled? When people suffer what they have done to the animals? Then the end of mankind is accomplished, the animals live in freedom, and the lion lies with the lamb.
    The one or the other might ask himself again, who is at fault? On the one hand, it is the brutal caste of priests, right down to our times, who do not teach the people what God and Jesus wanted. On the other hand, it is the lack of feelings and the limited awareness of man – a narrowness that permits others, for instance the caste of priests, to rule over them.