Posted on 10/21/2004 12:48:09 PM PDT by Tamar1973
Austin, Texas, United States .... [ANN Staff]
An employee fired from Dynacon, Inc. of Bryan, Texas, for religious beliefs protected under federal law is seeking reinstatement to his job. Hector Rivera wants his welder's job restored, along with back pay and punitive damages, according to a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Representing Rivera is attorney Malcolm Greenstein of Austin.
Rivera joined Dynacon in 1988 as a welder and became a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in May 2002. He asked for, and received, accommodation for his belief that he should not work on Saturday, the biblical Sabbath. A new supervisor ended that practice in August 2002; when Rivera refused to work on a Saturday, he was terminated.
"This is only one of many examples of illegal discrimination against Sabbath-keepers," said Mitchell Tyner, an associate counsel for the Seventh-day Adventist Church world headquarters. "Every year more than 1,000 Adventists [in the United States] are either denied employment or lose their jobs over their religious beliefs, which are guaranteed protection under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act."
According to Tyner, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports an 80 percent increase in religious discrimination cases during the past five years. Seventh-day Adventists, observant Jews, and members of other faith communities are among those who regularly suffer discrimination for requesting accommodation.
Not at all. Nowhere in Acts 15 , but specifiically, the Council's letter to gentile believers does it say to keep the Sabbath. Circumcision (the law) was discussed and also deemed unnecessary. Thanks for the reminder.
He never admits to any such thing. If you only understood the NT time period you would have understood that Yeshua lived in a time in which the Oral Torah or the Talmud was very much in force as far as the Pharisee's were concerned.
They had proscribed 39 diffent functions and considered them "work" and said if you did them AT ALL, you were breaking the sabbath, regardless of whethter the "work" took any real effor or whether the "work" might be part of a much greater good, like saving a person's life.
For example, Luke 14:1-5, Yeshua is actually discussing an article of the Talmud with the pharisees:
1 Now it happened, as He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched Him closely. 2 And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" 4 But they kept silent. And He took him and healed him, and let him go. 5 Then He answered them, saying, "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?" 6 And they could not answer Him regarding these things.
In Oral Torah, it was Ok to pull a donkey out of a pit on the sabbath but it was wrong to pull a person out of the same pit on the sabbath (unless his life was truly threatened). Yeshua was making the point that if it's ok to take care of an animal whose life was not threatened, it was certainly ok to take care of a son of Abraham and heal him with a simply spoken word. Healing for Yeshua was certainly not work at all, all He had to do was speak.
That was one of the things that they would learn in the synogogues every sabbath as they heard the Law of Moses read to them.
I wish I could too, but if you are on a salary, then the hourly rules don't apply.
We will just have to disagree. If Sabbath keeping were to be an essential part of the New Covenant relationship with God it would have been mentioned in the discussion because it would have been an unfamiliar practice to the Gentiles.
Sabbath keeping was not even discussed because it was not a requirement for New Covenant believers. I believe that is why the duty to keep the Seventh day as Sabbath is not mentioned ONCE in the New Testament?
Thats my story and I'm sticking to it. Take care.
Actually the Sabbath would have been one of the MOST familiar of all Jewish practices to these Gentiles because most of Paul's Gentiles disciples became believers after hearing Paul speak in the synogogue, which would have been on the Sabbath. These folks were already keeping the Sabbath, that's why it's not really mentioned much in the NT (it is mentioned, especially in Acts and in recitations of Paul's travels)
As you read the NT you find a lot of controversy over circumcision. I can tell you unequivocally that if someone in Apostolic times had actally said anything to the effect of "Saturday/Sabbath is no longer the day of worshipping G-d, we'll worship on Sunday from now on", I believe, to paraphrase the Apoostle John, "I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written," about such a controversy.
The food laws are abolished yet we are told to be mindful of the weaker brother, not causing him to stumble, whether Jew, Greek or church of God.
Acts 15:21 refers to the Jews living in "every city" including Corinth. So Acts 15:19-20 says the gentiles should follow these proscriptions so as not to cause friction with their Jewish brothers. Verse 19 states that "We should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God." WE should not make it difficult. This was a compromise to reduce strife among men, not a statement of the law.
I've a suspicion that there could be personal issues here, but you could be right. After accomodating a long term employee for six months, if there wasn't some significant change in the nature of their business, I've a feeling the new suprevisor may have earned his employer an expensive lesson.
You're right, but as a small business employer remember than once you've successfully accomodated an employee, it's tough to go back.
The bible never says such a thing.
"The bible never says such a thing."
1 Corinthians 8
Matthew 15:10,11
Mark 7:14,15
Matthew 15:10 and Mark 7:14 say the same thing, though Mark felt it necessary to be more verbose, even in the King James.
A perfect example of a text that anti-nomians use to claim that Yeshua either violated or negated Torah, yet says nothing of the sort. I also noted how you failed to refer to the story in context.
Look at the context verse 1-2, said "1 Then Pharisees and scribes came from Jerusalem to Jesus and asked, 2 "Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they don't wash their hands when they eat!"
This discussion has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Torah list of clean v. unclean foods and everything to do with "the traditions of the elders" which we would call either "oral torah" or the Talmud.
They were arguing over the extra-biblical requirements some Jews had in regards to keeping the Law, not the Law itself. The Pharisee's were simply upset that Yeshua and His disciples didn't go through the elaborate hand washings before eating their Kosher meal. As far as Talmud is concerned, if you don't do these prayers and washings, food which is otherwise kosher, is rendered unkosher, which totally contradicts Torah.
Mark 7:14,15
I find it interesting that you didn't want to refer to the entire text in this one either, but wanted to pick only verses 14-15 to make your point. If you read this text in context, going back to verse 5, you will find that the same conclusions apply. This story is not a discussion of Torah and kosher dietary laws but of talmudic rituals which obscure Torah and made it a burden for the people.
1 Cor. 8
Another text that has nothing to do with kosher v. non-kosher as lined out in Torah. By the way, non-kosher food, by the definition as laid out in Torah, which both Yeshua and Paul kept, is not food. The phrase "non-kosher food" is an oxymoron. Pork and other non-kosher food would have never been considered food by either Jews nor the early Chrisitians period.
No - the 4th Commandment was around long before the others. That's why is says, remember the Sabbath. It was not necessary to repeat the sin of Sabbath breaking - no one questioned it.
But if he worked at one of their institutions he'd find out that janitors and quite a lot of others are working seven days a week......
The irony is fairly dripping......
Uhhh? Sure. We call that reading between the lines. Are you saying it was a "given" so there is no need to mention it in the NT?
If this constituted an employment contract with the company, he probably has grounds to stand on.
I agree if that's the case.
Ah, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the apology, but it wasn't that necessary. We get the confusion so often. It's nice to be able to set the record straight.
It doesn't help when the David Koresh's of the world get linked to SDAs in news accounts. ;-). I always felt sorry for the Jehovah's Witness kids in the school where I worked at one time. Their parents always picked them up before any of the class parties. I never read anything about dourness or lack of celebration in the Bible... so that never did make any sense to me.
The Noachide laws were adopted as "house rules" (not salvational principles) for Gentile believers in Acts 15. Judaism fully supported Noachism throughout its history.
Well, I did too. Now that I am a little older I understand where some of their objections stem from. They don't celebrate Christmas or Easter because they are not in the Bible and have more to do with paganism than Yeshua.
They don't celebrate birthdays because that concept isn't really biblical either. The only birthday celebration recorded in the Bible is the party for Herod Antipas and we know where that went. (Matthew 14:6-12)
I never read anything about dourness or lack of celebration in the Bible... so that never did make any sense to me.
Christians need to understand that a lot of the things they do aren't really biblical. Birthdays parties, Christmas, Easter have more to do with paganism than the true religion of the Bible.
I think the only reason that the JW religion is so "dour" as you put it is that they don't celebrate G-d's true holy days as spelt out in the Torah. If Christians and JW would celebrate those, they would have more fun, not less fun.
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