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NewAbdalMaseeh
Guest
Apologies if the title of this post is confusing.
I’m sure many of you have seen the “Black Israelites” screaming on the street corners of major cities. They are virulently anti-Catholic, but the Catholic Answers site only seems to have written about them once (I am familiar with them, and would like to occasionally add more to the corpus in information available on them; I am also associated with a discussion group called TruthAfterKnowledge, which specifically focuses on the doctrines of these groups).
In this post I want to discuss their *attempts *at criticizing the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
Today there are many different groups (of the sort which one sees yelling on the streets with a King James Bible in there hand; there are also other “Black Hebrew” groups totally unrelated to these types). The ones you see on the street all ultimately descend from a single group called the Israeli Church of Universal Practical Knowledge (ICUPK), which has splintered several times since the 90s (the different groups are colloquially referred to by critics as “UPKers”). The main remnant of ICUPK, which still controls their headquarters in NYC, is now called the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ (ICGJC).
At least as far back as the mid-90s, and perhaps much further back than that, the ICUPK used to put forth a peculiar attempt at discrediting the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. They would make their usual claims about how they are the only ones with the truth, about how all other religions are lies, and about how the scholars and religious authorities are scared to debate them. Then they would launch into an attack on the Catholic Church, and use a bunch of expletives to signify that they considered the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception to be nonsense.
But when they would begin criticizing the Immaculate Conception, those familiar with the subject would quickly realize that they were actually attacking the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Alternatively, when even non-Catholic Christians would argue with them, and the subject of the Virgin Birth of Jesus would come up, they would wave their hands and say “that’s that Immaculate Conception nonsense”. In other words, they didn’t know what the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was, and wrongly thought it referred to the Virgin Birth of Jesus.
In the years since, I have seen the various splinter groups appear all over the net (setting up their own blogs, or putting up videos on YouTube). The ICGJC has now changed many of the old doctrines it once held as the ICUPK (e.g. it can now correctly define the Immaculate Conception, and though it still flatly rejects that doctrine, it has at least come to accept the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Jesus). The other UPK splinter groups still deny the Virgin Birth, and still call it the “Immaculate Conception”.
One such splinter group is now calling itself the GreatMillStone, and has put up on YouTube hundreds videos of its members preaching in Manhattan. The GreatMillStone is led by a man named Tahar, who was part of another group which broke away from the ICUPK called “House of David” (their schism, of sorts, was, in part, over a dispute regarding whether a certain leader in the ICUPK was King David reincarnated - I kid you not!). Recently, the GreatMillStone put out a video which show they continue to be misinformed on the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth (after a decade, if not two decades!). Commenting on Psalm 22:9, Tahar says the following in that video:
youtube.com/watch?v=x_3VbrkgPK8
The video first touches on their confusion of the two doctrines, then seeks to show that the Virgin Birth is Biblical. I look forward to the comments of others!
I’m sure many of you have seen the “Black Israelites” screaming on the street corners of major cities. They are virulently anti-Catholic, but the Catholic Answers site only seems to have written about them once (I am familiar with them, and would like to occasionally add more to the corpus in information available on them; I am also associated with a discussion group called TruthAfterKnowledge, which specifically focuses on the doctrines of these groups).
In this post I want to discuss their *attempts *at criticizing the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
Today there are many different groups (of the sort which one sees yelling on the streets with a King James Bible in there hand; there are also other “Black Hebrew” groups totally unrelated to these types). The ones you see on the street all ultimately descend from a single group called the Israeli Church of Universal Practical Knowledge (ICUPK), which has splintered several times since the 90s (the different groups are colloquially referred to by critics as “UPKers”). The main remnant of ICUPK, which still controls their headquarters in NYC, is now called the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ (ICGJC).
At least as far back as the mid-90s, and perhaps much further back than that, the ICUPK used to put forth a peculiar attempt at discrediting the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. They would make their usual claims about how they are the only ones with the truth, about how all other religions are lies, and about how the scholars and religious authorities are scared to debate them. Then they would launch into an attack on the Catholic Church, and use a bunch of expletives to signify that they considered the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception to be nonsense.
But when they would begin criticizing the Immaculate Conception, those familiar with the subject would quickly realize that they were actually attacking the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Alternatively, when even non-Catholic Christians would argue with them, and the subject of the Virgin Birth of Jesus would come up, they would wave their hands and say “that’s that Immaculate Conception nonsense”. In other words, they didn’t know what the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was, and wrongly thought it referred to the Virgin Birth of Jesus.
In the years since, I have seen the various splinter groups appear all over the net (setting up their own blogs, or putting up videos on YouTube). The ICGJC has now changed many of the old doctrines it once held as the ICUPK (e.g. it can now correctly define the Immaculate Conception, and though it still flatly rejects that doctrine, it has at least come to accept the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Jesus). The other UPK splinter groups still deny the Virgin Birth, and still call it the “Immaculate Conception”.
One such splinter group is now calling itself the GreatMillStone, and has put up on YouTube hundreds videos of its members preaching in Manhattan. The GreatMillStone is led by a man named Tahar, who was part of another group which broke away from the ICUPK called “House of David” (their schism, of sorts, was, in part, over a dispute regarding whether a certain leader in the ICUPK was King David reincarnated - I kid you not!). Recently, the GreatMillStone put out a video which show they continue to be misinformed on the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth (after a decade, if not two decades!). Commenting on Psalm 22:9, Tahar says the following in that video:
The TruthAfterKnowledge group has produced a video responding to that claim on YouTube (note that TruthAfterKnowledge is not a Catholic organization, though some members are Catholics, and others are sympathetic to the Church). Here is the video response:
youtube.com/watch?v=x_3VbrkgPK8
The video first touches on their confusion of the two doctrines, then seeks to show that the Virgin Birth is Biblical. I look forward to the comments of others!