Caleb Eaton
I was raised in World Wide Church of God—Sabbath keepers and no unclean meats—so I started out with a slightly different view of the world. My family then moved on to mainline churchanity with a fondness for all things charismatic. I grew evermore disenchanted with it all and left the entire scene when I quit my last job on Y2K where I had worked for the previous 4.5 years at the largest "Christian" camp in the U.S. I've been a comfortable hermit ever since.
I was introduced to The Living Network when a friend emailed me a link to the article Holy Matrimony vs. Marriage. I had ignored a couple previous links he had sent me because I wasn't interested in anything "religious." Yet the title of this article hit home because I had decided a few years previous that I would NOT get a government marriage license because I didn't want the unnecessary third party intrusion into that sacred relationship. Although the decision was made for moral reasons, went against all the mainstream churchian institutions that I was aware of. Yet here was an article that distinguished the difference between the licensed and unlicensed relationships. And did so with an entirely new view of scriptures that stripped away the mythology and mysticism and put them into the realm of practical everyday-life reality.
I've methodically devoured HHC-related MP3 file ever since. I see this approach as the "unifying theory" that brings a huge level of practicality to the Bible and has the potential of creating a people who are truly separate from the world's system of government...in it, but not of it.
Articles that have been similarly influential and wonderfully validating for me are:
While thinking of potential names for a Congregation of Record for the Northeast Texas area, I came up with "The Holy Order of the Sabine" because it's dripping with sarcasm...
- Local folks will recognize the pretentiousness of naming anything after the muddy and stinky Sabine River, much less a "Holy Order" of anything.
- The last thing I want to be a part of is another social gathering—usually called "church"—designed to make people feel holy simply because they meet once or twice a week to sing songs and listen to a windbag with no practical life skills talk about theories of the by-and-by. Instead, I want to reach out to all the people already participating in the Kingdom without realizing it:
- the homeschoolers raising wholesome kids
- the home gardeners and farmers raising wholesome food
- the ranchers producing wholesome meat
- alternative health practitioners teaching people health self-sufficiency, etc
- and anyone interested in participating in work days designed both to get to know one another on a real-life level and to create a stronger, more self-sufficient group of people.
Contact me at eathawk ãt gmail døt com