In a report published on June 17, in the journal PLOS One, researchers announced that eating any amount of trans-fats, or hydrogenated oils in foods, affects and wreaks havoc on the memory.

Artificial trans-fats which are partially hydrogenated oils, are destroying our memory, and the Food and Drug Administration will require that they be removed from food production by the year 2018.

For many years these hydrogenated fats have been recognized as unsafe for human consumption, due to their production of harmful deposits which contribute to heart attacks and coronary heart disease. These hydrogenated oils are found mostly in packaged baked goods, crackers and margarine.

In the aforementioned study, using more than 1,000 people with good health, researchers proved that trans fats cause damaging harm and memory disorders.

There is ample evidence, says the study, that trans-fats promote oxidation and damage to cells, destabilizing the oxygen molecules, which, in turn, destabilize DNA and proteins, eventually causing these cells die.

It is no longer news to us that the food we eat is contaminated with ingredients that are fatal to our bodies. We have, however, been consuming them for many years, and considering them as acceptable simply because the FDA told us that it was OK. Boy, are we gullible.

Isn’t it about time that we understand that if the things we have been offered are not pure, that they are impure or contaminated? If we continue consuming foreign elements they will harm our health and cause premature death.

But here we are. The diseases we suffer have much to do with what we eat and what we breathe. However, for the sake of science and the technological progress that we have enshrined, we damage the environment and the health of every inhabitant of this planet. The sad thing is that we deny it, and justify much of this so-called science by eating wastes and poisons that are marketed to us in attractive, bright and enticing packaging, believing the flashy and convincing propaganda, that fills the pockets of pollutant industries and empties ours, and worse yet, sends us to the doctors and hospitals with the acquired diseases from their products.

In the same way, the church has been consuming perceptions of science and unsubstantiated theories from ill-informed theologians, who have ingested small amounts of extraneous arguments believing that they will not affect us. That is delusional! Have we not read Galatians 5:9? A little yeast leavens all the dough. The church has been contaminated by mixing the Word with the opinions, theories, and arguments concocted by the activism of the moral profligacy in the dominant culture, and embracing many theologians who disregard the eternal Word of God.

The evil of sexual deviations is nothing new. From Genesis onward, the Bible mentions it as something abominable to God. Unfortunately, at the present time it has acquired epidemic proportions and plague-like characteristics, worse than the bubonic plague of centuries ago. Not a day goes by that the media are not brandishing this matter before the public. It is painful to observe, as the deception of pseudo-scientific arguments and statistics are manipulated to convince the society in which we live, to believe and support the sexual deviation of humanity. The church has bought this lie—hook, line and sinker.

The truth is that God’s design for human sexuality does not include any alternative; God created man and woman, each one with its complementary function. But human perversion, now disguised in flashy bright colors, has sold us that lifestyle—unacceptable to God—so that we may make room for it within the church.

Please understand clearly, God has not changed and continues to love the lost sinner. Moreover, any church that claims to be Christian must embrace the sinner, as we were also one day embraced—no matter what sins we may have committed. Let us not forget, having this well understood, that God wants to free us from the bondage of this lost world, free us from sin and make in us a new creation so that we can be a part of his church. This has not changed and will not change, as it was the reason for Christ coming to this world; to redeem us from our sins. As Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, “I do not condemn you.” “Go, and sin no more.”

The dominant culture has been feeding the church its artificially hydrogenated fats of perversion that for decades she has consumed, so that the memory of what God has done in our lives and our salvation is like a sleepy recollection of a distant past. The church has believed the enemy of our souls to such degree that the vitality and power of the Spirit has been numbed, not because God cannot awaken her, but because the Church is in a state of back-sliding apostasy, believing the deception and lies of Satan. The living Word is not being preached in countless congregations (Hebr. 4:12-13). Instead, humanistic views with convoluted interpretations and badly understood versions of the love of God, so that attendees will not be offended.

Can a church in this condition have a redemptive impact in the midst of a society which lives immersed in instant self-gratification, debauchery, drug abuse, hatred, broken homes, abandoned children, violence, theft, and all around deception?

Let us do away with the artificial fats and feed on the pure Word of God. Let us help to form and edify a church without spot or wrinkle. Let us remember that God is in control of everything and that each of us will be accountable for what we have done with the Gospel that was once entrusted to us.

Remain steadfast in living the Gospel and rescuing the sinner!

This is the English translation of Rafael Barahona’s editorial from the July issue of Meno Acontecer. Barahona is the editor. The views expressed do not necessarily represent the official positions of Meno Acontecer, Igleisa Menonita Hispana, Mennonite Church USA, or The Mennonite, Inc.