What's the Difference

Dad
July 1, 2004

—MOFeb. 1, 1975DFO No.330C

—On Using Local Medical Services in Most Countries:

[HomeARC note (9/98): The current Charter articulates the Family's principles, policies and attitudes regarding faith healing and getting outside medical attention.]

Copyright © February 1975 by The Children of God

P.O. Box 31, London, WC2E 7LX, England or GPO Box 3141, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936

1. WHY DID WE START HAVING BABIES AT HOME and where were we?—We were in the U.S. where it costs a helluva lot and they don't let you be led by your convictions, and you're surrounded by ungodly people and a Satanic atmosphere!

2. … Now if you're in a country like that you can understand why our girls didn't prefer to be in an atmosphere like that. Besides the horrible expense, they dictate every little thing and are so terribly nosey!

3. IN THE U.S. THEY CAN TAKE YOUR BABY AWAY FROM YOU at any little provocation. If you run into a hospital to have a baby at the last minute, they could call an "unfit mother" and have your baby taken away by the courts! But it's not so in most of the rest of the world.

4. WHERE DID YOU EVER HEAR OF A MIDWIFE IN THE U.S.? Instead they tell you you've got to go the hospital‚ and you've got to do what they say.

5. THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS SO COMPLETELY … ANTI-GOD AND A DICTATORSHIP … , just like all the rest of America! We just didn't care to have our kids in the schools‚ in the hospitals or associated with the U.S. system in any way. But this is not true of most of the rest of the world.

6. MOST OTHER COUNTRIES ARE POOR AND HAVE MIDWIVES, and they'll let you have your baby at home if you want to, as long as you have a midwife in attendance or somebody who knows a little about it, so in case you have a serious problem they can take you to the hospital—and it doesn't cost you a fortune!

7. IN THE UNITED STATES IT IS ALMOST A SHAME TO HAVE CHILDREN AT ALL, MUCH LESS AT HOME!—But in most other countries of the world, children are still considered a blessing and they like to have children. They still consider them a blessing of God and enjoy them.

8. THE U.S. IS A DICTATORSHIP, ESPECIALLY IT'S MEDICAL SYSTEM, and they don't give you any choice once you put yourself in their hands. You have to do what they tell you to do, and if you don't, they can have you behind bars!—It's the law!

9. IN THE HOSPITALS IN THESE OTHER COUNTRIES THEY GIVE YOU YOUR CHOICE: If you don't want to be cut, they don't cut you. If you don't want glucose, they don't give you glucose. But in the U.S., if you don't comply with everything they do, then you have to sign a release taking the responsibility for your life in your own hands.—And if they can‚ they'll railroad it through, choice or no choice!

10. IN THE U.S., ESPECIALLY CALIFORNIA, IF SOMEONE IS SICK IT'S AGAINST THE LAW NOT TO CALL A DOCTOR!—And if they die and you didn't call a doctor‚ they can put you in jail for manslaughter! It's happened many, many times [to others].

11. IT MAKES A GREAT DEAL OF DIFFERENCE WHEN YOU'RE LIVING IN A GODLESS, SATANIC DICTATORSHIP like the U.S. where they make you pay through the nose and you're a slave of the System itself!

12. IT'S A WHOLE DIFFERENT KETTLE OF FISH COMPARED WITH THE POOR NATIONS OF THE WORLD, where you can have the baby at home and have it naturally any way you want, and where even if you call a midwife or go to the doctor or hospital, it doesn't cost you a fortune—and they let your family come right along with you!

13. THERE ARE SEVERAL REASONS WHY I WOULD RATHER [NOT] GO TO ONE OF THEIR U.S. HOSPITALS! …

14. NUMBER ONE: THE WAY THEY HANDLE ANY KIND OF CASES—ILLNESSES, BIRTHS, WHATEVER—IS TOTALLY DICTATORIAL and you have almost no choice whatsoever. You are compelled by law to do whatever they say. There are very few times when you have any choice whatsoever‚ and that's when in rare cases the husband or wife must give consent.—And they make it so rough that if you don't consent‚ if anything happens they hold you to blame.

15. NUMBER TWO: THE WHOLE U.S. MEDICAL SYSTEM IS AS ANTI-CHRIST … AS CAN BE!

16. NUMBER THREE: IT'S AS EXPENSIVE AS CAN BE and costs you a fortune, and for what?

17. NUMBER FOUR: IT'S AS UNNATURAL AS CAN BE!

18. NUMBER FIVE: THEY WON'T LET HUSBAND, WIFE, RELATIVES OR FRIENDS ANYWHERE NEAR YOU WHEN YOU NEED THEM THE MOST, when you're going through the worst of your crisis, and they don't even tell you what's going on! Somebody could die and you wouldn't know until they decided to tell you, and they'd like to send you home and send you a notice through the mail so you wouldn't create a fuss!

19. NUMBER SIX: THEY WON'T ALLOW ANYBODY THERE TO PRAY WITH YOU or encourage you, and they especially don't like people hanging around who have any faith or believe in healing or prayer!

20. NUMBER SEVEN: I FRANKLY BELIEVE THAT FOR A CHILD OF GOD AN AMERICAN HOSPITAL IS DANGEROUS! …

21. SO I WOULDN'T PUT IT PAST THOSE U.S. HOSPITALS AND DOCTORS TO GIVE YOU THE WORST POSSIBLE TREATMENT! … [E]specially since you're Christians and even more so if they know you're a Child of God!

22. BUT THIS ISN'T TRUE IN MOST OF THE REST OF THE COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD!—In fact, it's just the opposite.

23. NUMBER ONE: YOU DO HAVE A CHOICE. It's not against the law in most countries if you want to trust God or if you want to have your baby at home. So there's nothing bad about going to a hospital in other countries where they are not so dictatorial and you do have a choice.

24. NUMBER TWO: THESE OTHER SIMPLE HOSPITALS, DOCTORS AND CLINICS ARE MUCH MORE NATURAL and less anti-God and Satanic—much more natural and closer to God's way of doing things.

25. NUMBER THREE: IT DOESN'T COST A FORTUNE! It only costs $100 on the average to have a baby here, whereas in the U.S. it's as high as $1,000!

26. NUMBER FOUR: IN THE POORER WORLD EVERYTHING IS DONE MORE NATURALLY. BUT THE WHOLE MEDICAL SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATED IS ANTI-NATURAL! Naturopathy is now illegal in the States. Osteopathy is a form of medicine which puts emphasis on how much the bones and nerves influence the body. Osteopaths were so much against the use of medicine that they were long illegal until they agreed become MDs! Pills are a money-making proposition!—And of course chiropractors are still looked on as quacks in much of the U.S.!

27. BUT THE POOR COUNTRIES ARE NOT IN IT TO MAKE MONEY: They couldn't possibly make money off their poor people even if they tried! Here it only costs $8 every time we go to the doctor. In the U.S. it costs a total of about $25 a time to see him! And in the U.S. they want all the money in advance for a baby delivery before they will even let you through the hospital door and before the doctor will even give you any prenatal care! In other countries it's free!

28. THE WORST PART ABOUT AMERICA IS THAT IT'S BADLY INFLUENCING THE WHOLE WORLD!

29. NUMBER FIVE: HERE THEY'LL LET THE WHOLE FAMILY IN ON IT! In the poorer countries of the world you can have the whole family there to help with the delivery, and everything is so nice and natural‚ everybody takes part!—It's a totally different thing!

30. SO I'M DEALING NOW WITH WHY WE HAD THESE ORIGINAL OBJECTIONS TO GOING TO HOSPITALS IN THE STATES.

31. NUMBER SIX: HERE YOU KNOW EVERYTHING THAT'S HAPPENING: YOU ARE THERE! In the U.S. they keep you in total ignorance and don't let you know a thing about what's going on. "Who the hell are you anyhow?—Nothing but her relatives! We are gods and her Almighty Keepers! You don't have any right to know anything unless we deign to tell you!"—That's the U.S. hospital attitude!

32. NUMBER SEVEN: WE ARE MORE ACCEPTED IN THE POORER COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD. But the Americans know we hate their system and stand against everything they stand for‚ and they hate people who trust God for healing. In most of these other countries I don't think the doctors or nurses in hospitals have anything against us.—In fact, I think they kind of like us 'cause we're friendly and trying to help poor people. I don't think they're out to get us as in the States just because we may not like their system.

33. SO I DON'T THINK IT'S ALL THAT DANGEROUS FOR US TO PUT OURSELVES IN THE HANDS OF THE DOCTORS IN THE POORER WORLD'S HOSPITALS where they're not in it for the money like they are in the States where they have such total power over you and power over your money.—And operations in the U.S. are so expansive!—If you ever have one and live through it, it will take you the rest of your life to pay for it!

34. BUT IN THE POOR WORLD THEY DON'T CRAM MEDICINES DOWN YOUR THROAT AND JAB YOU WITH KNIVES AND NEEDLES IF YOU DON'T WANT THEM! If you don't want it, they don't force you. In some poor world countries everything is so natural and normal, there's hardly any infant or maternal mortality at all!—Think of that!

35. TRAINED MEDICAL ATTENTION AND SERVICES IN OTHER COUNTRIES OF THE POOR WORLD ARE THERE FOR YOUR HELP AND SERVICE. They came to minister, not be ministered unto! This is totally unlike the whole medical profession in the United States where you have to mortgage your life and your wife and everything to get the great benefits of their lofty attention! Also, in most other countries of the world the health services are socialised and free to the poor!

36. SO I DON'T KNOW WHY OUR KIDS HAVE SUCH OBJECTIONS TO TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE NORMAL HEALTH SERVICES IN OTHER COUNTRIES: Midwives for children, doctors' advice and hospitals and clinics are equipped to handle things like births or various illnesses or mechanical operations for something that has to be done. So why shouldn't we be willing to take advantage of these very reasonable and very liberal and very convenient and well-trained medical services in other countries?—Use the System! It's there for you!

37. THEY'VE ALREADY GOT THE TRAINING AND KNOW ALL ABOUT IT.—USE IT! In most other countries you'll find doctors, nurses and midwives your friends. … I doubt if you'd have that much medical dictatorship even in China or Russia! I bet they'd let you have more freedom in hospitals there than in the U.S., because they're socialistic countries and not in it just for the money! But doctors in the U.S. have taken the place of God to man! Behold your gods, O U.S.!—The doctor and the scientists!

38. SO WHAT'S THE BIG BEEF ABOUT GETTING THE ASSISTANCE OF THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW? Now, I believe in a normal amount of advice to our girls about their babies and prenatal care, pregnancy, childbirth, childcare, etc. Especially I believe in condensing in simple form what you can buy in almost any bookstore.

39. FOR EXAMPLE, WITH OUR ORIGINAL FOUR WE ALWAYS WENT BY DOCTOR BUNDESON'S BABY BOOK. We're great on condensing and simplifying, and to sum it up in some abbreviated publications of our own would be just fine!

40. BUT WHEN THEY NEED DOCTORS OR NURSES OR HOSPITALS OR MEDICINE, THEY SHOULDN'T HESITATE TO ASK FOR IT AND USE IT! In the rest of the world they're not going make you sell your soul or force you or make you do it if you don't want to like they do in the States! The thing that brought this question up was that you said we don't have enough girls trained for midwifery.—Well, that's what the System is for!

41. WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO TAKE MEDICAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING. We have a bigger and more important job witnessing to the world‚ which the System doesn't want to do and won't do. We have a message to give out and Christ to preach, and we can't take time doing things ourselves that the System can do for us!

42. WE NEED TO GIVE OUR GIRLS SPIRITUAL ADVICE, how to trust the Lord for birth and childcare, and all such good spiritual and practical advice as we can give them. But I don't see why we've got to undertake a big education studying all these technicalities when the System is already trained for years especially for this job!

43. I'M VERY PLEASED SOME OF YOU GIRLS HAVE GOTTEN SOME GOOD CHILDCARE TRAINING and you can know if the doctor is doing what he should‚ especially in cases of emergency. By experience and faith you know what works and what doesn't. But most times we should let the System handle it.

44. I SEE NO REASON WHY WE SHOULDN'T GIVE THE PARENTS THEIR CHOICE of where and how they want to have their baby. I think we should tell them the advantages and disadvantages of both home and hospital deliveries, and then ask, " Now what do you want to do?" I don't think we should influence them one way or the other, unless in some cases in some places we feel this or that is definitely better.

45. I JUST SEE NO REASON WHY WE SHOULD HAVE ANY OBJECTIONS TO USING THE GOOD, WELL-TRAINED MEDICAL SERVICES ALREADY AVAILABLE IN MOST COUNTRIES. They're usually free, not dictatorial, not isolationist, not dangerous, not anti-God and not anti-natural.

46. MOST OF WHAT WE'VE WRITTEN AGAINST THE "SYSTEM" IS AGAINST THE AMERICAN SYSTEM.—There is a difference! The same set of rules doesn't fit everything or every country or every person or situation.—There is a difference!—And there's a great deal of difference between the American system and the system of most other countries!

47. IT MAKES ME FURIOUS THAT WE ARE STILL RECOMMENDING ONLY AMERICAN BABY BOOKS LIKE BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS! Let's get away from that damnable American system and anything they publish unless they are definitely revolutionary and anti-System!

48. EVEN SOME OF THESE SO-CALLED "GOOD" BOOKS HAVE MAJOR POINTS IN THEM THAT WE CANNOT POSSIBLY AGREE WITH AND THAT PROMOTE FEAR INSTEAD OF FAITH! If you advise using a certain book and then say, "Well, you can't necessarily go by everything in it," then the poor kids will also say, "Well, then how do we know what's true and what's not?" That's why you need to also say that "It's according to your own faith."

49. WE CAN'T BE A DICTATORSHIP! If a girl wants to squat down and have her baby, well why not? You can't pass rules or absolute laws to fit every country and local situation and individual!

50. LOCAL MEDICAL SERVICES AND FACILITIES IN MOST NORMAL COUNTRIES SHOULD BE USED WHENEVER NECESSARY, and enjoyed. If they're helpful and don't cost a fortune, we should take advantage of them. Our kids got that antipathy against medical services from our original attitude in the United States toward the American medical system. In most other countries the medical services are our friends!

51. AS FOR JUST TRUSTING GOD, YOU'VE EITHER GOT THE FAITH OR YOU HAVEN'T!—You don't try to work it up!—You just know. If you haven't got that kind of supernatural miraculous faith, which it seems very few people have, you'd better beat it to the nearest hospital and doctor and feel no condemnation about it!

52. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE between the … dictatorial‚ moneymaking commercialised system of American medicine and the friendly medical services in most other parts of the world!

53. TO SUM IT UP VERY SIMPLY: In America you're at their service.—You serve them!—Whereas in most other countries medical services are at your service and they are there to serve you!

54. WHEREAS THE AMERICAN MEDICAL SYSTEM MAKES YOU ITS ABSOLUTE SLAVE, THE MEDICAL SERVICES OF MOST OTHER COUNTRIES ARE YOUR SERVANTS. They are there to serve you, not there to rule over you and dictate to you and force you, but to serve you and to help you and to minister unto you. Whereas the American medical attitude is, "We come not to minister, but to be ministered unto!" The attitude of most other medical systems of other countries is: "We came not to be ministered unto, but to minister!"

55. THE MEDICAL PROFESSION OF THE U.S. MAKES YOU ITS SLAVE‚ BESIDES ROBBING YOU IN THE BARGAIN! Whereas the medical systems of most poor countries are there to serve you and be of assistance and not to rob you! I think I'd rather die first than go back to America!

56. ONCE AGAIN: USE IT! THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH USING THE SYSTEM. It's there to serve us with all the men‚ money, training and service we need, except the Spirit. So it's just like any other mechanical thing: Just like we use their other services, we should use their medical services. We don't have any objections against using their water, lights, gas, sanitary services, garbage disposal, sewage disposal, policemen and so on.—So why not use their medical services?

57. USE IT!—AS LONG AS IT SERVES US AND WE'RE NOT MADE TO SERVE IT! But the American medical system has gotten to where it no longer serves you—you serve it‚ and you no longer have any choice!—You're compelled by law to serve it and be its slave!

58. SO PRAISE GOD FOR THE MEDICAL SERVICES OF OTHER COUNTRIES WHERE THERE'S STILL CHOICE AND THE FREEDOM AND LIBERTY TO CHOOSE OR NOT TO CHOOSE!—USE IT!—Praise the Lord? God bless you!

59. P.S.—BUT IF YOU ARE IN THE U.S., EVEN THE MEDICAL SERVICES THERE CAN BE THAN NOTHING!—Especially naturopathic, osteopathic, chiropractic, general practitioners, old-fashioned country doctors and smaller hospitals in rural areas—or even some of your welfare services! Don't just sit there!—Do something! USE IT!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family