I remember very well the moment I discovered the God Family doctrine of Armstrongism. The discovery of it took me to Cloud Nine. I felt so wonderfully fulfilled. It just blew me away. It made perfect sense to me. I was already an Armstrongite by this time but this only made me even more so. So I know how special this belief makes the believers.
However many religions teach that us humans are God or have the potential to gain such powers. Some go even further than HWA and tell us we are Gods now. HWA, on the other hand, said we are to become God beings later on.
One religion that insist we humans are Gods (or Devils) now, rather than after the future resurrection, is the Nation of Islam, the sect of Wallace Fard Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan and related offshoots. This particular sect, originating from the activities of W. D. Fard in Detroit in the early 1930s, is very different from mainstream Islam. It claims to be Islamic, but in reality its roots may be found, not in Mecca or Islam, but in the Moorish Science Temple of America.
Now I am aware of the differences of between this particular belief system and that of HWA. I am simply presenting this information as intriguing material that has recently caught my attention. I am not suggesting a direct connection between these belief systems.
They teach that non-Whites are divine, they are Gods. Evidence of this doctrine may be seen in the landmark 1959 documentary, The Hate That Hate Produced (2 of 10).
Early on in this report journalist Louis Lomax recites some of the teachings of the Nation of Islam to their leader Elijah Muhammad. He said that it is taught that "all of the members of [the Nation of] Islam are God, and that one among you is supreme, and that one is Allah [referring to the sect's founder, W. D. Fard]. Now have I understood you correctly?" Elijah Muhammad replied, "That's right." (0:08-20)
Later on Malcolm X comments that Elijah Muhammad "teaches us that the Black man by nature is divine" (3:44-9). Malcolm X would later leave the Nation of Islam and convert to orthodox Islam.
More on this topic may be seen in this article from a mainstream Christian perspective.
"The first five chapters of [Elijah Muhammad's] Message to the Blackman [1965] in America attempt to reinterpret biblical statements that "God is a Spirit" (John 4:24), that God is invisible and "not a man" (Num. 23:19, 1 Sam. 15:29, Job 9:32, Hos. 11:9). Elijah Muhammad wrote, "In the past, we have been taught that God and the devil were something other than human, while the truth from Almighty God, Allah, who is now among us in Person, makes it clear that these two characters are human beings."[Message, p. 210.]"
In the teachings of the Nation of Islam W. D. Fard is the supreme God above every other God, but every non-White is held to be a (lesser) God as well.
Furthermore they do not believe in a literal Satan the Devil, but insist that the "White Man" is the Devil.
Also they do not believe in an afterlife. Once a person dies he or she ceases to exist. However exceptions are made for W. D. Fard and Elijah Muhammad. It is taught that these two individuals are alive today.
This doctrine of the Nation of Islam, which contains extreme departures from mainstream Islam, represents a religion which redefines God in such a manner that the boundaries between God and humankind comes to be lost. Again I am not suggesting a connection between the Nation of Islam and HWA. I am simply presenting this doctrine as an intriguing topic that may find relevance for those of us familiar with HWA's doctrines.
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9 hours ago
Have you ever talked to an actual, practicing Muslim, Redfox? Just curious, because I don't think you would have posted this, which reads to me as being in very, very poor taste, if you had ever had any contact with an actual Muslim yourself.
ReplyDeleteHi PH.
ReplyDeleteSurely Rexfox is talking about one specific group, which calls itself ‘The Nation of Islam’, and not Islam in general. Maybe he needs to make that clearer.
I believe this is a group of maybe 20,000 people, who hold an extreme view. (Even in this their views may have been modified somewhat, as there was a bit of a rewrite in 1978.)
While this specific group does appear to hold extremist and racist ideas, they are in no way representative of the general Muslim belief.
To say they are representative of Muslims in general would be rather like saying the Ronald Wienland represented mainstream Christianity in general.
I am sorry about the confusion here. I was discussing the Nation of Islam not mainstream Islam. The religion that Malcolm X was in until he discovered that it is nothing like actual Islam. The comments in this blog ware not aimed at mainstream Islam.
ReplyDeleteI have edited this blog to try and make this point clearer.
They are very different religions that I. In fact Christianity is actually far more similar to Islam than the Nation of Islam. Both believe in an afterlife, that God is an eternal being, and are non-racial.
The Southern Brotherhood Masonic lodge lists Louis Farrahkan, leader of the Nation Of Islam, as a freemason. Every new movement it seems, has had a masonic influence. The founders of the Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons were all freemasons. This means, we cannot trust the Nation of Islam as a source of divine truth.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.southernbrotherhood.org/famous.htm
That's the first I've heard about a Masonic connection with Louis Farakhan's Nation of Islam. I was aware about assertions concerning Joseph Smith and C. T. Russell.
ReplyDelete