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About Peter Dunstan | |
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Peter often said that "those who wished to know what was wrong with this world should simply consider what will not be there in the next one," an open list he sometimes recited and regarded as virtually endless. If you do not believe this present world is a fallen one, desperately in need of redemption, reader, then carefully read the last paragraph of these brief biographical notes.
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![]() 1950-2022 Epitaph: "Unworthy servant." (Luke 17:10)
Biographical Notes Peter Dunstan was born in Kolar, India. After attending schools in India, Jamaica and England, he studied at University College London, receiving degrees in Architecture, Planning and Building. He also attended courses in Anthropology, discovering two life-long pursuits and associated interests, the archaeology of ancient cultures and the faiths of the world. Spending countless hours in the libraries and museums of London, he researched original texts of the scriptures of major religions, examined the artifacts of the great civilizations, and pored over exhibits in the halls of natural history and science. He taught at the tertiary level and gave lectures on empires of the past. Traveling extensively in six continents and living in five of them, he explored whenever possible the relevant ruins, from Egypt to Peru, India to Mexico, including many off the beaten track. During a working stay in Israel he spent every free day analyzing historical sites from northern Galilee to the Dead Sea, and made similar investigations while serving as a relief aid worker in Muslim countries. Using local transport and hiking across southeastern Europe, from Italy through Greece and Turkey, he traced the footsteps of the apostle Paul, examining the remains of ancient Rome, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Pergamon and Laodicea. Also in support of his writing he researched pertinent antiquities in the museums of Greece, Rome, Cairo, the tombs of Egypt, the Paris Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City and several aboriginal museums in Canada, Australia, Central and South America. In his youth Peter Dunstan endured a number of serious physical ailments including life-threatening bouts of chronic asthma, malaria and paralysis from the waist down due to polio. He recovered sufficiently to become an avid sportsman in swimming, soccer, cricket, cross-country running, pole-vault, squash and tennis, despite the prognosis by doctors that this would never happen. In later years post-polio syndrome plagued his right arm and leg with intermittent constrictions that increasingly prevented him from enjoying his outdoor activities of sailing and fishing and his hobbies of playing the acoustic guitar and painting, for which he had previously received a number of provincial prizes. His once meticulous hand-written script was replaced by two-finger typing. When not engaged in his own research and writing, Peter encountered many employment setbacks and was passed over for several positions on account of his beliefs. One blue-chip company repeatedly promised him a permanent job but kept him dangling on a six-week renewable contract for seven years without making good and hiring him as agreed, despite his satisfactory work performance. It was a raw deal that he compared to the seven-year swindling of Jacob, and an arrangement that he tolerated over lesser periods of years with several companies. He understood that it was a strategy devised to keep him at arms length, suspended on the "outside" while his desired skills were utilized, and as a result he was often looking elsewhere for a more stable position. He was careful to refrain from discussion of his spiritual views while working for others. Since it was not part of the job description he regarded this to be a totally unacceptable use of the time and purpose for which he was monetarily employed, and therefore a form of stealing. It was a sin he observed perpetrated by countless churchmen, to the discomfort of their captive audience and to his own personal disgust. It was on account of his beliefs voiced publicly but completely outside of paid work that, for most of his life, Peter remained on the periphery of full-time employment. He received both public and private vilification, threats and hate mail for his unwavering stand against sexual immorality, particularly the extremely unsavory sin of homosexuality, and for his relentless exposure of spiritual harlotry, especially religious greed and the fraud demonstrated in mainstream Christianity. He considered a "running word battle" with churchmen to be unavoidable if anyone was to faithfully hold to the Truth, and he noted that such verbal combat was a defining characteristic of the Biblical prophets, and especially of John the Baptist and Jesus Himself, a trait the very opposite of the spirit found in Christian compromise. From shortly after his calling, at age twenty-one, to the very end of his life, Peter firmly held that because the words "church" and "religion" were not found in the Word of God (but were in fact deliberate substitute insertions into incorrect Bible translations) and since the name "Christian" was used by others but not by the early disciples to address themselves, that these words should not be in the vocabulary of the elect except when correctly applied to the world of the "goats" for clarity. It was a clarification that enlightened and freed many "sheep" snared in religion in general or caught in the subtle chains of a church. He was acutely aware of his particular assignment to write down the material for the two books, The Dark Powers That Bind and The Truth Which Sets Free, a combined pair of texts that he referred to as the "little scroll" given to him to publish. It was a task he sometimes likened to the commission of Jonah, unpleasant but unavoidable, and not to be shirked simply because he would rather forget about the ominous implications and go fishing instead. Upon completion of the books he considered the prime reason for his life to have been fulfilled although he openly confessed that he "felt he had not run his own race well." He had no plan or directive to write anything more and he deemed any such writing for its own sake to belong to the realm of Christian pulp fiction, popular and worthless. Although sometimes regarded as a gregarious person in public, he was in fact a natural loner with a handful of good friends but no "best" friend. He had no qualms about standing alone, an attribute that undoubtedly fortified his ability to take the heat and stay the course. It was a quality that he greatly admired in the Biblical prophets, in men like Martin Luther and William Tyndale, and especially in Christ who cautiously, "entrusted himself to no one, because he knew what was in man." Peter's own experience of being "hated by all" kinds of people was extensive. He called himself the classic "unworthy servant" and said that he was "pathetic in prayer" and had "lost his life very poorly for the LORD," but in action he strived and declared himself to be "the relentless and avowed foe of churchdom." He often said that if he was ever to bump into a pope or bishop and be greeted with the words, "Have you found me, O my enemy?" (said to Elijah, who answered, I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the LORD." 1 Kings 21:20) that it would be the sweetest compliment ever given to him by a servant of the Evil One. The World To Come Peter longed to see the return of his true Landlord and Master, in whose shadow he stood in awe and whom he affectionately called, "The Man with the Scars." He longed to be free of time, change, pain and death, on a new earth where Gods will would be as perfectly fulfilled and satisfied as it is in heaven. He yearned to be out of a world that he hated for its corruption, and to be in the next one where there would be no reason for money, no more counterfeit paper bills issued by governments; no 'credit' ratings measuring debt; no tax-collectors; no greed or poverty; no salvation army panhandlers, hucksters or beggars of any kind; no alms or charity hand-outs; no philanthropists naming foundations after themselves or erecting grand memorials to be visited by the same gullible public whose heads they trod upon in their scramble to the top of the heap; no drug dealers; no imposters or substitutes; no adulterers, harlots or escorts, no brothels or gay destinations full of sodomites; no need for politicians, doctors, dentists or lawyers, and no roads or telephone books strewn with their advertisements; no franchises trashing the landscape; no architects or developers cluttering the world with repetitive, soulless retail outlets, subdivisions or condominiums; no fictitious persons called corporations created to idolize profit and evade individual accountability for immoral practices and shoddy products; no exploitative employers or union 'brothers' demanding to set the terms of employment or stealing from the company; no bribes or attached strings; no newscasters or advertisers announcing their hollow messages in absurdly epic tones; no newsmakers out to smear a target or scoop a disaster; no supermarket tabloids or junk food; no obesity or diet pushers; no inane game show hosts or contestants applauding themselves; no sleazy movie starlets posing as ambassadors for children; no rock stars screaming and grunting degenerate messages over the airwaves; no endlessly repetitive rap music promoting the way of the gutter; no more country and wastrel songs about who is cheating on whom; no ludicrously paid athletes on steroids; no boxers or wrestlers smashing each other in the face; no video games for morons glorifying violence or theft; no racecar drivers burning up rubber and petroleum in pointless circles; no pollution or environmental activists throwing their own cigarette butts in the grass; no ethnic neighborhoods or gangs; no racial or community divisions; no more social workers or uneducated teachers; no deadbeat parents, bullies or juvenile delinquents; no more fools suing others for their own errors or expecting to be rescued at public expense from their own wasteful or risky ventures; no more judges or criminals to be acquitted on a technicality; no despots or democracies; no dirty presidents or lying prime ministers; no flag worshiping or flag-waving nationalists; no pledging allegiance to any country; no national anthems or war-mongers claiming God is on their side; no arms manufacturers or soldiers; no funeral directors, parlors or cemeteries; no religious fanatics, promiscuous priests or money-grubbing evangelists speaking with unnatural voices and affected mannerisms; no hired clergy or duped laity; no more churches or churchmen; no sects or schisms or denominations or heretics or infidels; no Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam; no religion at all, and especially no more Christendom. "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." (Revelation 22) |