The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2021 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

<figure class="wp-block-audio"></figure>

Chapter 103

The End Time Religion – Vegetarianism

What will the end time religion be like?

The end time religion will be the culmination of six thousand years of human arrogance and ignorance. How can we tell how this religion will be?

There are some ways to discern what is coming.

First, we can look at the past, at the old Roman religion, which has survived in the world for so long. Pax Romana had its basis in military power coupled with religious conformity. Since the end time world power is taken to be a revival of the Roman Empire, we can figure that the Roman religion in some modern form will be part of it.

Second, we can look at the present, at what is happening today. The world around us is being molded by technology and geopolitics into one world, pulled together by modern gadgets but with the same fractious, fighting human spirit. What religious trends do we see developing today?

Strangely enough, when we observe the ethics and mores arising today, one of the elements of the end time religion we see developing is –

Vegetarianism.

Now that’s kinda surprising. Why should a soybean weenie be part of the end time religion?

It is, for sure. We look around us today and we see this huge campaign to ban meat and push bean burgers.

Even McDonald’s, which successfully sells beef burgers in over a hundred countries, introduced a veggie burger a few years ago.

As far left wing Microsoft Network described –
“With an increased awareness of animal cruelty and new innovations in the plant-based food industry, vegetarianism is all the rage. Many restaurants and franchises have adopted vegetarian options, not only because of the myriad health properties and benefits to the environment, but also to provide more inclusive dietary choices for customers.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/foodnews/mcdonald-s-dumps-its-veggie-burger-what-does-that-say-about-the-franchise/ar-AANy0Au

So the company that advertised “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, and a sesame seed bun,” decided to try veggie burgers.

As that quote from MSN showed, vegetarianism today has two pillars.

One is the religious belief that the foods God created for His people to eat are harmful. The second is the religious belief, from evolution, that animals are equal to people, and it is unethical – immoral! – for people to eat their animal brothers.

Seventh Day Adventists are well known for teaching that eating meats that God said are clean are actually harmful. Saying certain good foods are bad is not totally new, as Paul cited.

1Tim 4 (International Standard Version)
1) Now the Spirit says clearly that in the last times some people will abandon the faith by following deceitful spirits, the teachings of demons,
2) and the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences have been burned by a hot iron.
3) They will try to stop people from marrying and from eating certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

Since God created certain foods to be eaten with thanksgiving, saying they are not to be eaten is calling God a liar.

Paul also wrote about ascetics, who took pride in severity to their bodies.

Col 2:20-23 (WEB)
20) If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances,
21) “Don’t handle, nor taste, nor touch”
22) (all of which perish with use), according to the precepts and doctrines of men?
23) Which things indeed appear like wisdom in self-imposed worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but aren’t of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.

Severity to their bodies included ‘don’t taste,’ meaning to avoid certain foods and feasts.

So forbidding foods that God created to be eaten is not new, but currently it is a very strong mega-trend, reaching far beyond SDA’s. Adventists are a relatively conservative Christian group that do teach many Bible principles, but they are now joined in their vegetarianism by the most lawless left wing part of society. In these times, it’s not surprising that humanity calls God a liar about foods, since the world calls Him a liar in a number of other areas, such as relations between men and women. It is surprising that Adventists find themselves teaching the same doctrine on foods as the most anti-Bible people in the world. These end time people kill their own babies, live lascivious lives, forsake marriage and family, believe that criminals should be coddled, and say that the Bible is just legends and Yeshua is a myth.

With all that spiritual blindness, do these anti-Christ vegetarians somehow have truth about meats?

That does seem unlikely.

Seventh Day Adventists teach that a vegetarian diet is healthier than the clean meats taught in the Bible. In getting away from foods that God created to be eaten, there is a strong trend now to promote meat that isn’t. Several large companies have sprung up with the message that they’re saving the planet by creating fake meats.

A small point that is difficult to understand –

If meats are so bad, why do vegetarians go to so much trouble to create concoctions that look like meat? They eat soybean wieners, burgers, and steaks. They sure don’t taste like meat, but they’re made to look like succulent Angus or Charolais. If meat’s so bad, why do they want to make stuff that looks like meat?

I strongly believe that eating snakes is bad and I have never, ever tried to make my hot dog wieners look like a snake. So if meat is bad, why make fake meats?

Soybean substitutes often taste repugnant, so if a soybean-burger looks good to the eyes, then I guess that helps vegetarian tongues tolerate it.

SDA vegetarianism does not come from the Bible but from their prophetess Ellen G. White. She said she had a vision about foods in 1863, and because of that vision she came to strongly believe that meat is harmful to body and spirit.

“It has been clearly presented to me that God’s people are to take a firm stand against meat eating.” Counsels on Diets and Foods, Ellen G. White, p383.

“God’s people,” as she called them, had to make a critical choice. Would they accept the Bible with its teaching of clean meats, or would they accept the vision of a woman preacher, who said that eating meat including clean meats “animalized” a person?

Following up on that vision, she went on to teach some very unusual ideas about how meat affects people.

“Meat should not be placed before our children. Its influence is to excite and strengthen the lower passions, and has a tendency to deaden the moral powers.” (ibid, pp. 63-64)

So when you eat a burger, it doesn’t just add calories – it adds carnality.

One analyst of E.G. White’s writings against meat summarized them this way.

To summarize Mrs. White’s teachings on meat in the diet:

Clouds the brain
Benumbs the intellect
Enfeebles and deadens the moral nature
Weakens the higher powers
Lessens spirituality
Renders mind incapable of understanding truth
Causes insubordination
Stimulates lustful propensities
Strengthens the lower passions
Animalizes a person, strengthens the animal appetites
Interferes with the religious life
Causes a person to miss out on companionship with heavenly angels
May cause God to decide not to heal someone’s sickness
Causes sickness and disease
Endangers physical, mental, and spiritual health
https://nonsda.org/study11.shtml

Adventists demanded acceptance of her multiple visions as being inspired by God, regardless of what the Bible says, and they expelled any who did not accept Ellen’s visions. Not all Adventists, though, got the meat of her anti-meat message.

“There are those among Seventh-day Adventists who will not heed the light given them in regard to this matter. They make flesh meat a part of their diet. Disease comes upon them. Sick and suffering as a result of their own wrong course, they ask for the prayers of the servants of God. But how can the Lord work in their behalf when they are not willing to do His will, when they refuse to heed His instruction in regard to health reform? … For thirty years the light on health reform has been coming to the people of God, but many have made it a subject of jest. They have continued to use tea, coffee, spices, and flesh meat. Their bodies are full of disease. How can we, I ask, present such ones to the Lord for healing?” (Counsels on Diets and Foods, Ellen G. White, p. 400)

When Ellen said that some Adventists “will not heed the light g