Friday 27: But who do we believe?

Dear Editor,

I was amused, or should I say confused, by the comments made by the religious advisory council (RAC) in your March 18 edition. My impression of this article is that the RAC are not happy to grant a new religious group or church the legal status of becoming an incorporated society like they all are.

Apparently there have been churches in the past that have also applied but have had a difficult time getting registered. This includes some current RAC members. This amused me somewhat because I remembered back to the end of last year when the justice department published a list of names that were about to be struck off the incorporated societies register for non compliance to their legal requirements.

This was then followed up a couple of months later with the published names of those who had officially been struck off for failing to sort their paperwork out before the grace period ran out. Interestingly one of the prominent churches in the RAC was also struck off.

My question is: are they still legally allowed to be an RAC member? If they couldn’t look after their own legal status, can they then pass judgment on another group that wants to do the right thing and be registered here? Sounds a bit confusing to me. Please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Secondly, the RAC made a comment about the local people becoming confused as there are now too many religions to choose from here in the Cook Islands. Well,maybe variety is the spice of life. But in my humble opinion the real confusion started a long time ago.

It was right about the time when the RAC came together as one. Sounds really nice doesn’t it. Unity and all that. But let’s have a closer look. We have all the mainline churches represented by the RAC.

On one hand we have the Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists, AOG and CICC who basically believe and teach that God is a trinity (three persons in one). But then we have the Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormons who kind of believe in the trinity but don’t really teach it. But the cream of the crop is the Apostolic church that actually denies the trinity and teaches that there is only one God – Jesus. In other words they say that there really isn’t God the Father or God the Holy Spirit. Just Jesus. They call this the ‘oneness doctrine’.

Now I might have failed a maths test or three, but trinity means three and oneness means one, right? Boy this is confusing. Some RAC churches teach trinity and some teach oneness. Who do we believe? Are you confused yet? But wait there’s more.

Most of the RAC members use the same Bible as each other. The Jehovah’s Witnesses use quite a different version to everyone else. But best of all the Mormons use at least four different bibles including the one that everyone else uses.

Apparently God’s canon of Holy Scripture wasn’t good enough so they give him a hand and added some more words. Now if all this isn’t confusing, I don’t know what is.

So you see the real confusion isn’t the new churches popping up, it’s the old established ones putting their heads together to agree on issues that they

doctrinally should agree to disagree on. Is this confusing or amusing?

Personally I think if a Christian group come over here and starts doing what Jesus told us to do, I’m all for it.

I think there’s a parable about this when some new workers in the father’s vineyard get paid the same amount as the old established ones did. Seems there were a few moans and groans then as well.

Confused and amused mathematician

Makiroa Beniamina

Tikioki, Titikaveka