The Painful Truth-Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God

Well, look at that—the Worldwide Church of God didn’t just fade; it face-planted into obscurity so hard that entire generations have no clue who Herbert or Ted Armstrong even were. The Plain Truth? The World Tomorrow? Sounds like a bad retro band no one’s streaming. Those of us still haunted by the memory are creaking well past middle age, hobbling into—dare I say it—geezer territory. Gross.

Anyone with half a brain and a pulse ditched this circus ages ago. But some, bless their nostalgic little hearts, couldn’t resist the sweet, sweet lies of the tithe-hungry vultures who spun up knockoff ministries faster than you can say “cult.” These sad little factions come in two flavors: the snooze-fests and the straight-up wackos.

First, the snooze-fests: UCG, CGI, COGWA—yawn. They’re not quite deranged enough to be one-dude ego trips, and they’ve got some flimsy guardrails to keep their wannabe dictators in check. But, oh honey, they’re trapped in a 1950s fever dream where women knew their place, gay folks were a myth, and evolution was Satan’s PowerPoint presentation. They’ll slap their dinosaur dogma on a shiny new website, though—because nothing screams “relevant” like preaching to a demographic that’s literally dying off. Spoiler: nobody under 40 cares, and their numbers are tanking faster than a bad sitcom.
Sure, some of these folks are sweet, trying to do good in their own deluded way. But, like, good luck with that, grandpa. No one’s buying.

Then we’ve got the loonies, and oh boy, what a clown car. LCG is the “sanest” of the bunch, which is like saying a paper cut is better than a chainsaw wound—it is still nuttier than a fruitcake. And it only gets worse from there: Weinland, Pack, Flurry, Thiel—pick your poison on the crazy scale. These are the self-crowned kings of their own sad little lunch tables, running one-man fiefdoms that’ll probably implode the second they keel over.

To anyone with a functioning brain, these groups are a cosmic joke—too bad the punchline’s on the poor saps still tithing. They’re too dense to get it.
Victims? Pfft. If you’re still here, you’re choosing to drink the Kool-Aid, and after decades of blatant corruption, manipulation, and hypocrisy, sympathy’s in short supply. Cry me a river. The only ones worth a shred of pity are the kids stuck in hellholes like PCG, raised in these soul-crushing pigsties. Most of ’em will bolt the second they can—Armstrongism’s never been good at keeping the young’uns from running for the hills.
This whole mess’ll be a footnote, if it’s lucky. Good riddance.