2013 should win some sort of weirdness award, particularly because of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong. Prophet Thiel began accepting tithe money. Ronald Weinland finally went to Federal Prison for Income Tax Evasion on or near Groundhog’s Day (we’re thinking it parallels the movie where he keeps reliving the same day in prison over and over again until he gets some prophecy or other right). E. W. King and Apostle Malm made more stupid statements. Apostle Malm also held his very first Feast of Tabernacles (if you could call it that, maybe it should be called “Cult Bible Camp”) in Oregon.
Speaking of Oregon, we had projected the likelihood of more splinters in 2013 and sure enough another nano splinter sprang into existence, this time from a former UCG Deacon of questionable competence and aptitude, one Larry Hardison, who formed the Church of God Northwest Brethren on his Ekklekonx (the spell checker has just committed suicide) WordPress forum so that he could sponsor the Feast of Tabernacles in Bend, Oregon at the Phoenix Inn Suites with a top attendance of 48 with an average of 28. People had to come from all over the world to even make up that many. It’s not clear how many traded off with UCG in Redmond. We’ve heard his sermons in the past and would rather listen to paint dry. No doubt 2014 will be a banner year for them because there just not enough alternatives around with UCG, CoGWA, Pacific Church of God, Living Church of God, Heritage House Ministries-Love for Israel, Christian Biblical Church of God and you do know, the Feast for Church of God in Peace and Truth, Intercontinental Church of God, Continuing Church of God and Guardian Ministries is too far away and the Seventh Day Church of God is both too Biblical and focused on Jesus to be a viable alternative.
As we projected last year, Jesus didn’t return in 2013 and, in fact, the Great Tribulation didn’t begin… again. It was a great shock and surprise that all of the Armstrongist Churches of God did not all combine all into one under David Pack August 31st, 2013 and that three of the leaders of the major ACoGs didn’t die by the day before that. It seems that David Pack of the Restored Church of God there in Wadsworth, Ohio has been again proven to be a false prophet. It’s too bad too, for we had so much hope for a little extra drama, but all we got was paint drying on the new buildings he’s put up in his little Gulag. He does, however, look like an utter fool.
UCG again couldn’t figure out the purpose of their church. Dennis Luker announced that he would not seek a second term as President and we wondered why, since he had done so very well in his first term (that might be a slight exaggeration) — yes, we wondered until he died of prostate cancer before he could retire. Victor Kubic promises that he will carry on Luker’s vision and we sure hope that it has something to do with eliminating alcoholism from the ACoGs and not more stalking. What United has finally figured out is that it is not growing larger as a church… it is growing, but growing smaller. Entropy rocks!
The Pope resigned and the Catholics appointed a new one, apparently with more ‘life’ and competency, neither of which has much to do with the Armstrong Mafia.
We learned from Neville Stevens that demons are employing flying saucers to roam around the earth. We thought Satan had the power of the air, but, frankly, Harry Potter seems more sensible.
G. Sbarcea, based in Berowara Heights, NSW, Australia claims that Sons of Dracula Violated My Mother and Killed Her! Perhaps we’ve said too much already about this.
William Koeneke, an 86 year old deacon from Church of the Eternal God Minister, was convicted of four counts child molestation for indecent assault on young boys more than 20 years ago.
Gerald Flurry with his misnamed Philadelphia Church of God continued to be spectacularly irrelevant this year except as a place holder, save for the advice of his ministry that disabled children be left in shopping malls and further reports of a teen or two being turned out on the street (quite literally) to fend for themselves with the subsequent pain and suffering sucking in more innocents.
Speaking of the PCG, the DSM-V came out this year with a new view of mental disorders. Many of the descriptions fit the leaders of the sects of Armstrongism, particularly the PCG. In a turnabout, Ron Frasier of the PCG came out to mock the DSM-V, whereupon, the critics of the PCG came out to mock Ron Frasier and the PCG. It’s symmetric.
Glenn Beck did a segment on British Israelism. Apparently, he hasn’t seen our proof that it is a fraud.
Roderick Meredith is one more stroke closer to passing beyond the veil of the Living Church of God, at which time it might not be Living much longer. These things, though, are calculated in half-lifes apparently. It could be another decade or more. Or, if luck is with us, 2014 will be the proverbial “it” for him.
Attendees of the CoGWA are somewhat disturbed for no particular reason except it might be something Biblical that a full time minister who is divorced and remarried is, well, full time. We guess it’s because he gives good sermons. Perhaps it could be time that CoG members might possibly consider that they may be in a cult — if that’s not too difficult concept for them to grasp. Maybe, too, CoGWA members should consider the Legionnaire’s Disease at the Feast of Tabernacles in Florida this past year as a sign from God that He hates their Feasts. Some people can be pretty dense about these things. It also appears and rumor has it that after the death of Dennis Luker, members of CoGWA are tacitly returning to United. This seems to be yet another case of a patient getting a blood transfusion from one arm to the other and losing most of it in the process.
The demolition of the old remnants of Ambassador College continued apace this year with the campus hardly being recognizable as the one that Jesus was to return to in 1975 for sure at the latest.
Reports of Ysrael Hawkins, founder of the House of Yaweh, exposed on Dr. Phil again this year (at least in reruns), shows that it is a merciless abusive cult, not that will diminish business one whit and neither will it bring down the House.
Dr. David V. Barrett came out with his seminal work, The Fragmentation of a Sect: Schism in the Wordwide Church of God which gave us some good ideas why there are over 700+ (some have estimated as high as 1,200) of subspecies of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong. Our favorite quote was from Richard Rittenbaugh of the Church of the Great God who made the astonishing claim that Herbert Armstrong wasn’t a false prophet because he was a false apostle. Well, that’s not exactly what he said, but that’s the gist of it, which leads us onward to what’s ahead for 2014 after such an appalling major fail of 2013.
David Hulme, with his Church of God, an International Community (COGIC), thought to be the fifth (5th) largest of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia sects, seems to be having trouble with his troupes: Apparently, he has rejected the notion of British Israelism which has annoyed some in his CoGIC (although that probably isn’t the real source of unrest and his arrogant self-centered hubris along with his happy-go-lucky profligate spending with no apparent restraint, controls and oversight might be). This has led to his disfellowshipping (is that even a word, spell check doesn’t seem to think so) members for daring to have differing doctrinal opinions or criticisms of cult leadership. Apparently, Brian Orchard, a longtime and well-liked minister formerly with UCG, was among those who “resigned.” Also, COGIC treasurer Steven Andrews has apparently left the group, taking members with him, intending to start a new splinter group — this is ironic since Steven Andrews was the early on treasurer who supported David Hulme during the days his UCG Presidency came to an end, mostly because of his profligate spending, bankrupting United — and Steven had been a staunch advocate early on in the 1990s. Others that have been booted or left the cult are Peter Nathan, Cliff Veal (UK/Germany), Bob Rodzaj (Phoenix, New Mexico). Revenue is falling, falling, but David Hulme is isolated in his ivory tower, apparently confident that he is God’s chosen one to carry out the Work and will be provided for no matter how senseless, stupid or foolish his spending habits are — going forward with the divine right of kings with no thought to the consequences of unwise stewardship. It will be more difficult than ever in a disintegrating sect without Steven Andrews to manage the already constrained resources, but we’re pretty sure that David Hulme won’t care a whit until he has to face the absolutes of reality when they strike and the well is completely dry in the ACoG drought.
Troy Fitzgerald, a son of a Worldwide Church of God, came out as gay this year and published a book, Cults and Closets: Coming out of Chaos, in 2013. The Secular Safe House website has this to say about his background:
Troy Fitzgerald was raised in a religious cult — the Worldwide Church of God (aka Armstrongism) — as the son of a pastor and is now a secular humanist. He came out as gay later in life after being married to a woman and starting a family, having been in denial of his sexuality due to his religious indoctrination. He and his ex-wife, who was raised in the same cult and is now also a secular humanist, remain close friends and partners in raising their family. He wrote a book about his coming out, Cults and Closets: Coming Out of Chaos, and publishes a blog at CultsandClosets.com.
As a result of publishing his book and getting more connected with the struggles of others with similar backgrounds, he became very passionate about providing a voice, support, and safe refuge for others coming out of religion, cults and as LGBT. His professional background includes business analysis, website and film production, technical/web project management, and small business management. He is the proud father of three sons and lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Troy is just one of many fleeing the oppression of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia, seeking peace from the world of chaos from the lies of Herbert Armstrong. His efforts to help others to provide a refuge for those coming out of religion, cults or as LGBTQ is admirable. His effort may be the first of its kind.
And many of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia sects had their Winter Family Weekend in 2013, amazingly coincidentally coordinated with the Christmas and New Year’s celebrations of the pagan world of the wickedness of the Gentiles, which we are assured are completely different as they are completely godly without any hint of any pagan parallels. The Weekends will include eating, drinking, feasting, games, social gatherings, dances — absolutely, positively, completely different from the secular worldly pursuits, often held within the same facilities famous for their Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. Yep. We’re convinced. No hypocrisy to see here. Move along….
One thing quite disappointing in 2013 was absolutely no more mention of demons entering the world by a Stargate under the ocean. We’re bummed.
Our friend(s) over at Silenced.co once and for all (again) completely, totally, absolutely destroyed the foundations of British Israelism, proving once again that Herbert Armstrong’s failed key to prophecy, making him a dead false prophet, are based on a foundation of sand. You may read the many proofs and witnesses:
A Foundation of Sand: Part I — correlation does not imply causation
A Foundation of Sand: Part II — Ancient Israel’s future wrongly mapped to today
A Foundation of Sand: Part III — The Lost Ten Tribes Were Never Lost
A Foundation of Sand: Part IV — Israelites did not become Western European Barbarians
A Foundation of Sand: Part V — Linguistics
A Foundation of Sand: Part VI — Chronology
A Foundation of Sand: Part VII — An Issue of Questionable Scholarship
A Foundation of Sand: Part VIII — Genetic Evidence: BI’s Kryptonite
A Foundation of Sand: Part IX — The Crumbling Castle (the key to prophecy to the Bible and prophecy was neither)
Now we know why Ambassador College was located at Big Sandy: A sly reference to the entropy to follow based on the foundation of British Israelism.
We were pretty much on spot with our projections for 2013 last year, which leads us to a fairly high confidence that even though there continue to be surprises in the world of stupidity, we can have a fair amount of certainty about the future of 2014 — mostly the things that won’t happen.
We’re pretty sure that as a trend, Jesus will continue not to return and the Great Tribulation will not begin yet again. We can’t be absolutely sure, but if some group or other has a Place of Safety, it won’t really be and anyone foolish enough to wend their way into the wilderness may find themselves in dire straights as in “Jonestown” or if not Jonestown, certainly Looney Tunes.
The developing trends of 2013 may well find their way and amplify along the way for 2014.
1) Continued addiction of the membership (not to mention the leadership) on British Israelism: They have to have it — it’s a drug of choice, to assure that the doom and devastation will fulfill their lusts of idolatry and hubris to validate their “rightness” in their belief that they will be winners if only they follow the right cult leader into a wonderful world where they finally have some power!
2) The Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia will continue to do and say really stupid things!
3) The Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia will issue lame excuses when the stupid things they predict again do not come to pass!
4) The Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia will absolutely take no responsibility for the consequences of their actions!
5) The Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia will cover up their silly mistakes and continue to pretend they did not say or do the stupid things they really did!
6) The Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia will make no apologies for the stupid things they say and do!
7) The devastation, gloom and doom of the entropy causing apathy will continue its single arrow of time, marching the cult sects into inevitable irrelevance.
8) The high energy promises of Herbert Armstrong in the 1970s for prosperity and wealth in our time (and not just to wait for the future) would be available to all the loyal members as blessings from God will be continue to be ignored by the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia, because they are too far gone to believe and try to sell such nonsense — thus dooming them to the useless dust bin of irrelevance to a society moving onward without them.
9) The Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia will continue to lose the youth, their future, because, let’s face it, British Israelism with its self-sacrifice for the good of the Empire is just not that much fun and the next generation doesn’t see any future in it for them.
10) Diehard cult members will cling to Armstrongism doggedly no matter what — it doesn’t matter if their leader is a proven an insane lying false prophet psychopath convicted felon in prison, darn it all, sticking with him proves our loyalty to God and by Jiminy we’re going to inherit the Kingdom come hell or high water even if liars and whoremongers won’t inherit the Kingdom of God: We’re crazy nuts and we’re absolutely sure of the delusions we believe.
These are the trends that have been developing in 2013 and it sure looks as if they are going to continue into 2014. We’re also pretty sure that what’s ahead is even more crazy outrageousness that none of the cult Mafia leadership is going to acknowledge and they won’t even bother with excuses any more, just like David Pack with his predictions for August 31st, 2013 — it came, it passed, it failed and he doesn’t even bother with excuses. As the ACoGs progress through 2014, that’s what we see ahead.
Other trends are developing as well, particularly for those of opposing this outrageous nonsense. It’s utter rubbish. We’re not going to stop exposing it at every turn. The ACoGs will continue to try to ignore us, but the forces of nature (entropy), God and whatever openings we can find will continue to erode this oppressive stupid wrong cult throughout the next year and beyond.
For 2014, the opening gambit is BritishIsraelism.com: We love the British, just not British Israelism.
We may see something happen as early as next week!
Next Tuesday, January 7, Russian Christmas, will be the 80th anniversary of the first broadcast of the HWA’s Radio Church of God program. This big event may possibly merit a short posting by COGwriter!
Jan 7 2014 – just like Aug 30 2013, nothing happened. I was at least expecting a posting on COGwriter, since Bob posts articles reminding us of HWA’s birthday and deathday, as well as various saints’ days…
HWA himself put so much significance in January 7, 1934, claiming it was the start of the Philadelphia era and put significance in future dates based on that event, even rewriting history to make it so. And of course, the use of radio marked a turning point in HWA’s ministry.
But then, January 7 had its downside – there was 1972, and Joe Sr’s “Russian Christmas Present” sermon of 1995. And now 2014 – no splinter bothered posting anything for the 80th anniversary…
They didn’t post anything because they don’t believe the old dead fart!
True. Just like Joe Smith and EGg White, whose followers revere them, yet are embarrassed by the skeletons they left behind.
And one more thing…
While the KORE audience were listening to HWA’s first program, they could also have been reading the very first Flash Gordon strip in the Sunday comics!
There are some obvious similarities between the two…
By way of quick recap, just within the past 12 months, we’ve witnessed three major seismic events in COGdom. 1) Weinerdude went to jail for tax evasion, after all of his prophecies failed; 2). Dave Pack experienced a major prophecy and timeline failure, and 3). David Hulme has suffered a revolt from amongst his trusted ministry. There was also a minor “fart” from the Meredith camp in that Bob Thiel’s super ego finally caused him to set up his own pup tent, but nobody expects anything earthshaking to result from that. One must have a personality in order to establish a personality cult!
The take away is that the downward spiral of The Armstrong movement has accelerated. It has been shown that some will make lateral moves into other splinters, but others reflect on the impact and veracity or the entire package of beliefs within the context of their lives, and end up taking a more honest approach in which one no longer has to make internal excuses just to get out of bed every morning. The more there are splinters, the more people become disillusioned with the entire system. It has been refreshing hearing first person testimony from some of the people who have just fled the organizations affected by the seismic events, and let’s hope we get to hear even more new voices in the coming year!
BB
The COG alphabet soup continues to bubble on the back burner! Reports from several sources suggest the possibility of a split in COGaIC, which may result in the first splinter for 2014!
The ACOG’s are becoming ever more audacious in their unappeasable hatred of us. It is indeed refreshing to see this bearing of fruit as the masses awake to the fraud that has been perpetrated and thrust onto their wretched souls!
The ACOG’s never grow tired of trying to extinguish fires with gasoline. When dissent raises its voice, the illiterate henchmen come out with the ax swinging away. What’s left is divisive ideological wedges that break up families and the fresh creation of hatred among the membership.
My warning for the perspective member or current member has always been this:
The ACOG’s are strictly run one-way. The “church” gets all the rights, and the other party gets all the obligations.
That’s right, your pledges for a building project, a Jerusalem dig, all come out from your pocket. What do you get in return? Threats from the pulpit about turning your back on their corporate church ATM machine. Makes you wonder about their motivations!
So who in their right mind joins, supports or otherwise empowers a so called church, who’s intention is to separate people from their roots and cut their bonds to their natural communities?
The members do get one thing (still paying for it out of their own pocket): They get the so-called “Feast of Tabernacles” (it’s nothing of the kind — it’s a Church Corporate Convention) where they spend 10% of their income for the year in one fell swoop, eating, drinking, having parties, living it up in a way they could not the rest of the year, traveling to interesting places (sometimes) as a vacation, except for those nasty gloom and doom sermons they get on the end times (which should have ended in 1975, if the prophecy were to have come true, which it did not). Note that the whole thing is physical and there is no “spiritual dimension” to it because they are attempting to replicate (with little or no success) what the Bronze Age Israelites without the Holy Spirit did, having no understanding of why they were doing what they were doing.
There’s no Jesus at the Feasts and there certainly is no peace. One would think that a Christian Church would bring the Peace of Jesus to the Feasts (as part of the salutation of every epistle of Paul, save Hebrews, there is the mention of peace), but no, it’s busywork which people do to keep their social calendars straight, figuring out when they go to which activity and when and where they go to dinner and when they go sight-seeing and shopping, in between nonsensical meetings where the people are plied and played for their addiction to British Israelism, a powerful street drug of choice among the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia.
Of course, if God really wanted Christians to keep the Feasts today, He would have given them a calendar to follow: As it is, we all know the Jewish calendar is scientifically wrong (and would the Gentiles have gone to the Sanhedrin in the First Century to ask them “Please, Please, give us a calendar so we can keep the Holydays!”? After the executions….) so there is no particular support for Christians to hold Feasts, particularly after the Temple at Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD. Ha! Ha! God demands you to keep the Feasts — on the right days — with absolutely no confidence of when to keep them! It’s a great joke! It’s fun just to watch the drama as the CoHAM can’t agree on the dates and have a running war which leads to no peace whatsoever!
But that’s about all they get and they have to pay up the kazoo for it.
[PS: Failed to mention in the blog posting that in 2013, Gerald Flurry had science texts rewritten for Imperious Schools, just to keep the fantasy of their fiction of creation alive. For what they are doing to the minds of their children alone, they are bastards.]
“Gerald Flurry had science texts rewritten…”
And so giving students one interpretation to explain one side of a story.
Is this another harbinger of 2014? Addict?