The Christian DIE†ing Cult

by

Patricia Backora

In the beginning the church was a spiritual fellowship of brothers and

sisters who were in the world but not of it. After centuries of
persecution, Emperor Constantine brought the church into the
mainstream of respectability. As the church lost its precious vision of
the priesthood of all believers, educated clergy evolved which
separated from “the laity”. The church became a scholarly religious
organization guided by stern men in black robes. In colonial America,
church was the soul of the nation. Church was the conscience of the
nation, and the doctor which monitored its moral pulse. As humanistic
influences deadened that conscience, the fire went out of preachers’
voices. The nominal church became a religious country club, and
attending “the right church” separated “fine” families from the bad.
The disillusionment of the 60’s set in. Young people disenchanted with
the materialism and hypocrisy of the affluent institutional church got
turned off to organized religion. So God reached out to them by
sending a mighty Holy Ghost revival in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
The Jesus Revolution saw many entering into closer fellowship with
Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
At first, bearded and beaded seekers of truth were fed solid meat from
God’s Word. But as churchgoers matured out of their idealistic childlike
zeal, boredom set in. Little by little the solid Meat of the Word became
candy. Churches competed to draw crowds with top Christian lecturers
and comedians, bouncy music and revolutionary new ways to feel
better about yourself. By now the Jesus People had a mortgage. They
realized that they had to keep religion relevant so they could focus on
paying it off. So church evolved into a a success seminar attended by
go-getters in ties and blue suits. Church, once the arch enemy of
mammon, became big business.

American food kept pace with advances in futuristic technology.

Americans now had a dozen different flavors of their favorite cookie or
baking chip! Overworked (and hardly home) Americans took
advantage of convenient fast foods for meals. No time to slave over
the stove to prepare “from scratch” healthy meals anymore! Gotta run,
run, run! Overstressed and fed up to the eyeballs on burgers and fries,
harried Americans suffered from expanding waistlines. Even deeply
devout Christians. Worldly solutions to excess weight had failed.
Perhaps a RELIGIOUS weight loss guru just might satisfy the
Christian’s deep hunger for a solution…

The devil’s mean as a snake, but Old Sluefoot’s no dummy. He knows

Christian women can’t focus on a world lost in sin if they’re obsessed
with finding that skinny teenager struggling to get out of a forty-year-
old body which has had four children. Now, just when you thought
you’d seen it all, people are falling for a really weird gospel: Thin is In,
on earth as it is in heaven! Big Diet, a multi-billion-dollar a year
industry, is eating into God’s territory, the assembly of the saints. One
religious sect has this in common with modeling agencies: Members
must monitor every bite and report any weight gain to church
leadership!

I read material about a big dieting cult which calls itself a church. I’ll
call the leader “Sister X”. She insists that your salvation hinges on
being thin when you die. Sort of reminds me of the ancient Egyptian
belief that only well-preserved mummies made it into paradise. The
bare bones nitty-gritty: the more grub you leave on your plate, the
holier you are! You can’t eat till your stomach starts growling, and you
must quit when your acute sense of hunger dulls (after a few tiny
bites). Church members should try to stop after three bites, then wait
till their stomach growls again. If they eat past minimum satiety,
they’ve sinned and need to repent.
I Tim.4:1: Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times
(that’s where WE are!) some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to
seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
VERSE 2: Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared
with a hot iron;
VERSE 3: Forbidding to marry, AND COMMANDING TO ABSTAIN FROM
MEATS, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of
them which believe and know the truth.

I Tim.6:17: Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not
highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, Who
giveth us richly ALL THINGS to enjoy (not barely touch with fear and
trembling).

Funny, I just can’t picture Peter and Paul sipping diet soda and nibbling
a toothpick at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

What kind of blessing did the patriarch Isaac bless his son Jacob with?
Gen.27: 28: Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the
fatness of the earth, and PLENTY of corn and wine.* * *Jacob was
promised plenty, not just enough to barely stave off starvation.

Joel 2:26: And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the
name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and
my people shall never be ashamed.* * * Sister X makes those who
“eat in plenty” feel ashamed for failing to eat a few bites and quit!

What about Abraham, and the dinner he served three angels who
came to visit in Genesis chapter 18? Sarah made a big pile of flatbread
for them. And Abraham fixed a whole calf for them, along with butter
and milk! How many bites did the angels take of that fattened calf
before they called it a day? If anyone should set the example for
righteousness, it ought to be God’s ambassadors from heaven!

Lev.26:5: …and ye shall eat bread TO THE FULL, and dwell in your land
safely.* * *Here God puts having a full stomach on the same level as
living in safety!

At this woman’s church, even the children are taught to eat only till
they’re barely satisfied. And if they go past that point, they are
rebuked for sin. Jesus says in Mark 7:27: Let the children first be
FILLED. What damage is being done psychologically and physically to
innocent children of people attending this dieting church? Any
“Christianity” which makes central doctrines of personal concerns not
addressed by early apostles is venturing into deep water. Sister X’s
strict legalism downplays the grace of God. A Frankenstein monster
mutation gospel spun out of carefully selected and reworked Old
Testament passages is a noxious weed which bears terrible fruit. The
grace of God is being stifled in that cult if not snuffed out entirely.

This phrase is found several times in the Gospels: And they did all eat
and were filled (not barely satisfied):Matt.14:20;15:37; Mark 6:42;
Luke 9:17* * *Jesus didn’t pass out the loaves and fishes and tell the
crowds: Eat only when your stomach growls and then take only three
bites! After feeding the multitude, Jesus told His disciples to be sure to
collect the leftovers so nothing would go to waste (John 6:12). Sister X
believes in wasting food. If you leave a bunch on your plate and it rots,
so what? Saving food betrays lack of trust in God to provide future
meals. Would Sister X tell a hungry African it’s an abomination in the
sight of God to save scarce food for future meals?

Even James, the most legalistic of the apostles, has this to say:

James 2:15: If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of DAILY

food, * * *Note: “Daily food” is proof against compulsory fasting.
Jesus speaks of daily bread in Matt.6:11 and Luke 11:3* * *
VERSE 16: And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye
warmed and FILLED (not just get three spoonfuls of nourishment);
notwithstanding ye give them not those things WHICH ARE NEEDFUL
TO THE BODY; what doth it profit?

The Dieting Gospel would say instead: Count it all joy that you’re thin
from lack of food. Or, to a fat individual: What’s the use of giving you
money for clothes? Clothing stores don’t even stock your size! You’ve
got plenty of lard on your bones. You don’t need to eat! Now’s your
chance to get skinny for Jesus! THIN-doctrination is where it’s at!

Did God care whether poor Israelites got enough food, or was He more
concerned that they stay skinny? Here are His instructions to Israelite
farmers and herdsmen:

Deut.14:28: At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the
tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy
gates:
VERSE 29: And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance
with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which
are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and BE SATISFIED (not
leave half hungry); that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the
work of thine hand which thou doest.

When Jesus met the Woman at the Well (John 4:1-42), He didn’t
comment on her love handles, just her lovers.

Jesus was accused by ascetic, proud Pharisees of being a winebibber

and a glutton (Matt.11:19; Luke 7:34). This was an exaggeration since
Jesus never sinned, but clearly Christ did not establish a reputation for
eating like a sparrow!

Scarcity of bread and barely having enough to sustain life is an

indication of God’s curse upon a disobedient land, not blessing
(Deut.28:38-39). God states that those being punished for
disobedience will carry out more seed to the field than they harvest in
crops, and the worms would eat their grapes. Sister X said it’s okay if
your uneaten food just rots, so it must be okay if worms eat it up.
She’s just lucky she didn’t live in Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s day, when
people died of famine. Or even here in Ireland, in the 1800’s, during
the Potato Famine. Only self-obsessed, affluent women of today’s
Western nations can afford to be wasteful in the name of vanity!

Leviticus Chapter 26 contains a lengthy warning of the terrible

punishment which would befall the Israelites if they forsook God for
idols. In verse 26 God warns: And I have broken the staff of your
bread. Ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall
deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be
satisfied.* * *Eating bread by measure and running out before you’re
satisfied was a sign of God’s judgment, not His blessing.

The only Scripture where God forbade an individual to eat till they
were full was in the case of Ezekiel. In Ezekiel Chapter 4:9-12. Ezekiel
was used as a living word picture by God to predict famine for Israel.
He was permitted only a few ounces of bread and about 2-1/2 cups of
water per day. Limited access to food (eating bread by weight) was a
sign of divine judgment, not God’s blessing.

Sister X’s cult frowns on ALL weight gain, even in the case of
expectant mothers, who need to nourish their own babies!

Experiments done on lab rats illustrates the power of fear: Every time
the rats got hungry and approached food, they received an electrical
shock. Eventually the rats died because they began to associate food
with pain instead of pleasure. Fear prevented them from eating. Sister
X is using fear of hell fire to control the diets of her congregation
members. They need HER, not God’s permission, to put something in
their mouth to stay alive. This lady’s diet doctrine is fattening her bank
account. So who’s the greater glutton here? The world (and carnal
Christians) act like money gluttony isn’t as big a deal as eating too
much! All that matters is outward beauty, not inward ugliness. Even
the covetous, sensual, materialistic beauty queen is still beautiful.

The Gospel of Thin. This doctrine of devils was imported from the
world into the church. Mandating beauty standards and forbidding
God’s people to eat gives rise to condemnation, judgmentalism, envy,
pride, and self-obsession. This new gospel is earthly, sensual, devilish
(James 3:15). A controlling Jezebel spirit is behind this cult, not the
Holy Spirit. Whenever anyone dares to question the Biblical authority
of Sister X’s teachings, she and the other leadership rake that
individual over the coals for being rebellious and trying to stir up
discord. Psychological and spiritual pressures are brought to bear upon
those who present scriptural evidence that her doctrine clashes with
the grace of God in Christ.

Sister X denies the doctrine of the Trinity, contrary to Matt.28:19 and I

John 5:7. She reportedly takes her Scripture references mostly out of
the Old Testament. She cherry-picks passages to prop up her weird
doctrine of salvation through weight loss. There’s almost no mention of
God’s grace in her meetings. Only judgment upon a gluttonous nation
disobedient to God.

Sister X plainly states that if her followers are fat when they die, they
are failures in the sight of God and will go to hell! The clear implication
is that thinness, not justification through the Cross of Calvary, is the
righteousness God demands of believers, and the most important way
of salvation for them. How dopey, not to mention dangerous! If this
doctrine weren’t being gobbled up by big crowds of professing
Christians, and being exported from a major city of the USA, I
wouldn’t be so shocked! The clear implication is this: Sister X teaches
that thinness is her people’s passport to paradise after death, and
heaviness is a ticket to hell. Sister X is teaching a new gospel, one not
taught by Paul or any of the apostles!

Does God weigh the thoughts and intents of a person’s heart with a
bathroom scale? Is food intake (or lack thereof) a sure indicator of a
person’s spirituality?
I Cor.8:8: But meat (food) commendeth us not to God: for neither if
we eat, are we the better; neither if we eat not, are we the worse.

I can’t put this more delicately: Despite the flowers and the flowery
eulogies spoken at funerals, one fate awaits both fat and skinny bodies
after death: dead flesh rots. All bodies, beautiful or ugly, decay and go
back to the dust (Gen.3:19).

Phil.3:21: Who (God) shall change our vile (Gk: tapeinosis, lowly,
humiliated) body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body,
according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto
Himself.* * *Notice, God does not ask His people to change their OWN
body to glorious perfection. He’ll do that in the future. Paul identifies
himself as being among those with a “vile” body needing to be
changed. Tradition says Paul was short, bald, bow-legged and hook-
nosed, hardly a Brad Pitt in the pulpit. Paul was probably thin, too,
because of his frequent lack of provisions. So skinny Paul also
committed some cosmetic sins, according to today’s world view. Before
Paul would be allowed to minister in a modern church, he’d have to get
a nose job, have physiotherapy to get his leg bones straightened and
get a hair transplant.

Many things can reduce people’s mortal bodies to a humiliated

(inglorious) state. Some people are scarred severely from accidents or
injuries. Some people suffer birth defects or stunted growth. Others
have been bullied for being bigger than is acceptable to society.
Whatever our glorified bodies are like, they won’t be anything less
than glorious!

It is a well-documented fact that many (not all) fat people eat no more
(and often less) than thin people. So why should unfashionable body
size disqualify people for heaven if other conditions which humiliate
the human body don’t?

The fact that a huge proportion of Americans has some degree of

weight problem DOES NOT justify tampering with the precious Gospel
of Christ! They might be in the minority, but America also has a certain
percentage of teenage girls who suffer from anorexia and flirt with
death to stay stick thin. Does X think their pitiful, skeletal bodies
glorify God? She reportedly said that all concentration camp inmates
lost weight simply by eating less. Does the end justify the means?

The world says it’s impossible to get too rich or too thin, and that
propaganda has contaminated modern church doctrine, along with
other self-glorifying worldly values. The church used to be a mighty
bulwark against the vanities of this world. Now it’s a sponge soaking
them up! The church used to be focused on getting people ready for
the world to come. Now the church teaches people how to be rich,
glamorous, and successful in this world so they’ll be “good witnesses”
(to whom?) “for Jesus”. Big beautiful buildings, bountiful offerings and
bony bodies in expensive attire are the carnal church’s top priorities,
outstripping the fanaticism of satan’s crowd for material affluence. The
church used to be the main provider of charity for the poor. Today’s
carnal church is teaching its people how to deny themselves food for
vanity’s sake, while sanctioning other forms of gluttony (personal
glory, lust for money, etc.). While the church acts like the world, the
world is acting like the church and running relief agencies so the poor
won’t starve.

For way too long promoters of worldly vanity have set the trends and
reaped earthly rewards while the poor, the unpopular, the plain and the
fat have been ground underfoot. But God has drawn a line: The devil
has his kingdom and God has his, and never the twain shall meet.
During his lifetime the Rich Man of Luke 16 “had his good things” and
was well-liked and respected by everybody who was somebody.
Lazarus, the poor, sick beggar, was forgotten and despised. But in the
next life, the tables were turned. Lazarus became rich while the Rich
Man lost everything.

Like the Titanic, this present world along with its vain values, is
destined for destruction. As this world sinks into the ocean of God’s
impending judgment, many Christians are busy salvaging as much of
the world’s shiny fixtures as they can, loading them onto God’s
lifeboats and causing them to sink!

Sister X has done her worst to impose worldly standards of beauty and
acceptance on God’s Kingdom, the one sphere where human pride has
no place. She has imposed a regimen of fear upon vulnerable souls
who were already insecure when they came to her. She has dared to
set herself as lord and judge over God’s people, as an intermediary
between God and His people, whereas the Bible clearly states there is
only ONE Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (I
Tim.2:5).

On earth, the rich, the beautiful and the influential have always ruled
the roost while humbler, plainer folks have taken a backseat. But God
has promised the day would come when the proud would be humbled
and the hungry would be filled with good things (Isaiah 2:11; Luke
1:52-53). Sister X has made her money through teaching weight
control, but she wants to control even the spiritual relationship of her
people with God. That is an attitude of antichrist.

If it’s okay to teach weight loss as a means to salvation because many

are too heavy, then it’s also okay to teach weight gain as still another
way of salvation because so many girls are anorexic! The end does not
justify the means! Paul said in Galatians 1:8-9: If any man (or woman)
teaches any other way of salvation than what Paul taught, then that
person is to be accursed (consigned to hell). Instead of making the
bathroom scale the sole judge of a person’s character and damning
those bigger than herself, Sister X should get the log out of her own
eye first and wonder if SHE’S the one going in the wrong direction!

Is being fat a sin? In most cases, no. The sad fact remains that fat,
like genetic disorders, is one of the legacies of the Fall of Adam. In the
Garden of Eden, there was no danger of famine, for it was a perfect
environment. Once Adam and Eve sinned and were banished from
Eden, a dangerous element of uncertainty threatened human
existence. Crops would be abundant one year and scarce the next,
from scanty rainfall. Bad rainfall even affected the diet of non-
agricultural hunter-gatherer societies. When it failed to rain, the river
dried up. Fish died. Plants shriveled up. Animals died, and what few
were left to hunt had no fat on them and little flesh.

In times of scarcity, people with extra meat on their bones are more
likely to survive than lean individuals. Far from being afraid of fat,
people living under primitive conditions often eat animal fat to ensure
an adequate calorie intake. Inuit people (Eskimos) who follow their
traditional diet eat mostly raw fish and meat, along with the blubber
(fat) of the animal. Sister X states that primitive people in their native
habitat are naturally lean. But it takes many extra calories to survive
the arctic cold. I read of Arctic explorers who had to eat between 7-
8,000 calories per day to resist the cold! The Inuit tend to be broad-
chested and round-faced individuals, rather than lean and long-faced
like some African tribes, who live in much hotter conditions. Is Sister X
going to consign the Inuit to hell for eating thousands of blubber
calories to stave off the cold of the Arctic, and for failure to stay skinny
for Jesus?

Modern Americans can afford to avoid excess calories beyond what is

required for overall health and well-being. Why? Because there’s a
food store around every corner, and all except the poorest can just go
get more food whenever they run out. But there are pockets of true
hunger in America. Homeless people are often priced out of the food
market, and even poor families barely hanging onto their homes often
skip meals to pay the rent. Such unfortunate individuals will make the
most of it when they can buy extra food, or when free food is handed
out. Who knows how long it will be before they can fill their stomach
again? Is Sister X going to find fault with a poor homeless woman for
eating more than three bites of the discarded doughnut she finds
outside in the trash can?

My own brother suffered from anorexia. His fixation with the evils of
food and the virtues of weight loss was so strong no one could talk him
into a more balanced viewpoint. I lived across the country, so I wasn’t
there to watch his flesh slowly drop away. When he got sick with
cancer, he was already so emaciated he had zero chance of recovery.
It is well known that in time of severe illness appetite is affected and
people lose a lot of weight. Those with none left to lose die!

Sister X denies that people can suffer a genetic predisposition to

obesity. But she’s wrong. When I lived in Arizona, my husband and I
visited a tourist area on an Indian reservation. The ancestors of this
particular tribe had endured repeated seasons of famine, to the extent
that their bodies were conditioned to put on weight effortlessly. I
watched an Indian lad and his mother frying flatbread in a big kettle to
make tacos to sell to tourists. I found out later there was a
preponderance of obesity in their tribe. Not through gluttony, but
because their genes were programmed to store fat. Nature itself was
more concerned with those Indians’ survival than whether they’d win a
beauty contest. Would Sister X condemn those taco fryers to fry
eternally in a devil’s hell because their body size isn’t a good testimony
for Jesus?

Sister X even reduces the men of her congregation to skin and bones,
on pain of eternal hellfire. Any weight gain committed by either men or
women must be confessed to the leadership as sin. If one of the
members crosses the leadership, they’re liable to have all their
formerly “forgiven” sins rehashed repeatedly to humiliate the member
back under subjection.

Ah, some of the bizarre baloney that passes itself off as Christianity!
The heretical teaching that “leadership” has divine authority to rule
“pew saints” through censure and fear, even to the extent of
controlling “none of your business” personal areas of believers’ lives is
contrary to what Christ Himself taught.
Matt.23:8: But be not ye called Rabbi (master): for One is your Master,
even Christ; AND ALL YE ARE BRETHREN (not privileged “leadership”)
VERSE 9: And call NO MAN (or woman) your father upon the earth: for
ONE is your Father, Which is in heaven.
VERSE 10: Neither be ye called masters: for ONE is your Master, even
Christ.
VERSE 11: For he (or she) that is greatest among you shall be your
servant.
VERSE 12: And whosoever shall exalt himself (or herself) shall be
abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

What about those intimidated, silent “pew saints”? Is any truly born
again individual dead weight in God’s church?

I Pet.2:5: YE (all saved believers) also, as lively (living) stones, are

built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual
sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
VERSE 9: But YE are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy
nation, a peculiar (special) people; that ye should shew forth the
praises of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous
light.

In this passage Peter does NOT limit God’s Royal Priesthood only to
people who are fashionably thin!

So what about leadership? Does God set elders and shepherds into His
church? He definitely does, but not to be lords over God’s heritage (I
Pet.5:1-4).

Many cite Hebrews 13:17 as proof that church (or cult) leaders have
the right to unconditional obedience. What does it really say?

Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for
they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they
may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

The Greek word translated “obey” in this verse is peitho, which means
to “be persuaded by”. Whenever a church elder appointed by God
breaks the bread of God’s true Word to you or shares a Scriptural word
of wisdom with you, it is best to yield to the authority of the Holy Spirit
(the Voice of the Good Shepherd) which you discern behind the godly
exhortation. But no Christian, whatever his position, has authority
from God to teach heresy which contradicts God’s Word. And no
religious teacher has authority from God to add to God’s commands
(Deut.4:2; 12:32). Any personal area of a believer’s life which does
not involve sin, as described under the New Covenant, is a NO GO area
for pastoral authority. I qualified that statement because certain Old
Testament prohibitions are not sinful for Christians today: making
dinner on the Sabbath, eating ham, men shaving their beards, etc.

Let God’s will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Is hunger God’s

highest will for His saints? If it is, why won’t people suffer hunger in
heaven?
Rev.7:16: They shall HUNGER NO MORE, neither thirst any more* *
*Diet books might be hot sellers in hell, but not in heaven. Starving for
Jesus is NOT a heavenly doctrine. It was birthed in the bowels of hell
to distract God’s people from their task of evangelizing the world and
feeding the hungry! The devil designed this dieting cult to make weak
neurotics of Christians, so that they fear it is sinful to nourish their
own bodies. Satan seeks the weakening of the Body of Christ through
loss of health and peace.

Whose word carries more weight? Sister X’s, or the solid meat of
Scripture?