Mark Twain (Samuel Clemmens) said, “The reports of my death have greatly exaggerated”. That may be true of the United Church of God an International Association.
This weekend in the Pacific Northwest, one of the United churches is having a get together. There will be services, of course, potluck and other activities later. Members from several nearby states are expected to come and it will be quite the gala affair. Currently, United meets in the Jason Lee Middle School, in the cafeteria in the back:
Now in the greatest coincidence, and some my say, irony, the meeting place is across the street from the Seventh Day Adventist Church:
While it is true that this particular UCG congregation doesn’t have a church building or facilities, it is right across the street from KFC / A&W:
It should be noted that this little strip mall also has Baskin and Robbins where members can have their pick of 45 different flavors. Oh, and there’s also a Walgreen’s Pharmacy next to it. Down along 6th Avenue, there are some other restaurants as well. This should be so very convenient for those attending the social from out of city and out of state (though it is unlikely that UCG would ever have a shooting like Living did in 2005, it should be pointed out that the city police are only blocks away and would be there within 2 minutes!). When you have blessings like this, they just go on and on.
It also turns out that this was the very first church established for Armstrongism in the area over half a century ago. As a result, there are long established families who are currently a part of the congregation. There are generations of members stretching back to the Radio Church of God and the Worldwide Church of God. Each family has had children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. There’s the ‘P’ family, a hardy stock from out in the countryside, the ‘M’ clan with a vast family, the ‘W’ family, where the son is now giving sermonettes and looks very much like his dad and, of course, the ‘G’ family, whose progenitor began attending services in the 1950s while it was still the Radio Church of God. It is this foundation which anchors the local church. Of course, there are those who come after and are not part of a large family or clan within the church. It should be noted that the status of these folk is more like the House of Commons than the established families, representing the House of Lords. It’s not easy to pass from the lower social order to the higher ones, but for all the perceived rank, the food at the potlucks is the same no matter who you are.
There’s a curious thing about the local church. Yes, it pays homage to the Home Office, for sure, but it is a local church with its interests focused locally. The grand schemes of the Council of Elders is far away and although many of the members read the flagship magazine, The Goo… oops, Beyond Tomorrow (many don’t), religion isn’t so much about the Bible, it’s more about services, potlucks and Feasts. In fact, it may surprise many, but there is quite a crossover between the sects at the Feast of Tabernacles, particularly when singles are involved: CoGWA members are more than happy to socialize at the United Feast Site, since, especially for singles, options in their own particular sect is limited. In fact, there are personalities, particularly among the ministry that define where members attend with their sect. Many in the UCG were disaffected by Dennis Luker and fled to CoGWA. It isn’t clear that when all the dust settles whether there will be a quiet migration back to the United fold or not — but if it does occur, it certainly won’t be from the top down, it will be at the grassroots level and those of the elite at ‘Home Quarters’ may find their coffers empty without knowing what hit them.
And why not? United bends in the wind, so people attending at the local level need not be bothered by the nosebleed stratosphere of the elite in faraway places. They deal with the domestic and local, not the Great Work far away. They care about their families and children, the activities and the associations they have — and they aren’t going to abandon them arbitrarily. As long as United doesn’t rock the boat, people are just fine with whatever those in authority in the church hierarchy want to do. After all, for the most part, they only spend an average of 4 hours more or less per week and why get excited about things that are pretty much irrelevant.
And speaking of rocking the boat, here’s an illustrative story of how things work at the UCG. A few years back, the singles had a cruise.
They all had a fine time. And then came the Sabbath. The cruise ship was in port. What do you suppose happened? The singles, full of pent up energy, having spent plenty already decided to take off for the shore and… they went parasailing.
While, we might add, the minister cowered in his cabin and did not come out until the sun went down.
Do you see how this works? The masses in United are just fine with the church and the administration thereof as long as they can eat, drink (quite a lot for some), be merry and have fun. Church is more an intellectual pursuit and the connection between hard doctrine and actual behavior has, shall we say, a rather tenuous connection. Oh, the members feel nominally righteous, more or less keeping the Commandments in their own view of things (subject, no doubt, to very heavy compartmentalization), but the reality is that the commitment for most is just plain social — not unlike just about like any religiously inclined social group. Oh, they may have well defined beliefs, but when push comes to shove, they do what pleases them. If there are problems, they may turn to the ministry for, say, anointing, while setting up their appointment with their health professional or HMO. And, well, when it comes to the Winter Solstice… we’ve already had that discussion.
Do you expect the major Armstrongist sects to fail? Will United go belly up while it’s trying to figure out how to be relevant in a changing world? The answer is a point of view: How do you define failure? The way things are today, the local congregations aren’t necessarily going to go away, but vast changes may take place overhead. Don’t expect United or many of the other sects to disappear — and in the case of United, the UCG is not run and focused on one man — they have an oligarchy which has already successfully survived the retirement of Bob Dick, their first Chairman. They’ve had Presidents come and go. It isn’t like LCG where the death of Roderick Meredith may sever Living asunder.
One more thing: CoGWA seems to be stronger than United in the Southern States of the United States and quite heavy influence in the Midwest and along the Eastern Seaboard, but United still holds sway over the more prosperous regions more northward, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. United may very well have a better chance for the administration to survive than does CoGWA. We’ll have to see. The bottom line, Armstrongism just isn’t going to vanish like the Cheshire Cat in Through the Looking Glass.
Meanwhile, at United at least, at the Home Office, they’re already beginning to ask, “Herbert who?”. They dumped 3rd tithe long ago. The United States and British Commonwealth is harder to find on the website. And each year that goes by, the reigns are being slackened. The social group will stay together if only the leadership will leave well enough alone.
Is this a good thing? Of course not. The membership still is supposed to navigate 2 tithes (but good luck in enforcing that). There are still those doomsday sermons at the Feast of Tabernacles based on British Israelism — for heaven’s sake, it’s supposed to picture the World Tomorrow in the Millennium, and you morons are preaching about dreary death, devastation, destruction as though you were some sort of depressives? And many members still suffer from alcoholism which, for some, was activated because they came in contact with Herbert Armstrong. The problems remain. They won’t be solved. No matter how benign, it’s still a cult. At best it’s a total waste of time and we sort of go from there — downhill.
We may find very well that the reports of the death of Armstrongism may very well been greatly exaggerated.
More’s the pity.
230 were in attendance.
It appears that there is some truth to this in that the minister assigned to Seattle/Bellevue before David Holladay (son of Roy Holladay), John Elliott, appeared to do just that in threatening the status quo, and found himself reassigned elsewhere with no real reason given. But since we’re all responsible for working out our own salvation, perhaps not having a money hungry papacy at the top to drive all the recruiting efforts to increase revenues, perhaps that’s not all that bad.
The UCG and the rest will go the way of the buggy whip. The religion is trying to grow and thrive in an atmosphere that is grounded in the information age.
They will lose.
Armstrongists aren’t growing and thriving. It’s more like a patient getting a blood transfusion from one arm to another. Nevertheless, United will be around for quite awhile even with entropy. As long as the congregations have people in them, the administration can go to hell, but the religion continues.
Still. All of Armstrongism collected together is only about 10% the size of the Church of God Seventh Day. That means it is rather a niche religion.
Now there are those who claim that lots of people are hurt when a high demand sect collapses. They’d like to see gradual change and not a sudden crash and burn. The problem is that I’ve seen personally and others have seen the narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths, stalkers and alcoholics of the more ‘benign’ ‘sects’ (read cult). I saw the six shooter Chuck Harris carried with him into church services he hid in his suit coat. He later shot and killed several people in the church. I was sitting in the court room when a beleaguered woman sought relief from a stalker in United — and the stalker was being supported by two deacons, two elders, a deaconness and a Regional Pastor. The children of members growing up in the church have left and claim that the church has ruined their life.
What is to be done? Slowly move away from British Israelism, sort of a smoker using Nicoderm patches? Or an alcoholic progressively reducing his drinks from a fifth a day to two glasses of wine? At what point does the church cult begin to be truly benign? Is there a program for that? And why would the administration and ministers want that, seeing as how it might affect their salary and retirement? Hasn’t GCI already tried this and failed?
Is there any solution to these problems without a ‘crash and burn’?
At least the singles seem to have something going. When I joined the WCG in my early 20s, our group could never get singles activities together. The ministry even brought in a specialist who boasted success in different church areas. He eventually gave up; we were hopeless and he had never encountered such an ‘unorganizable’ group.
The late Ron Dart showed that switching to Armstrongist Extra-lite can bring a modicum of success for a splinter. Of course, Ron didn’t have a captive COG of his own in tow, but appealed to the independent splinters.
Sir Thomas More worried that making certain ‘privileged’ information available to the masses would lead to downfall of the Catholic Church and the rise of Protestant ‘splinters’. In More’s case, the ‘information’ was the Bible being published in English. Now it is easy to find critique of Armstrongism splattered all over the Internet.
According to Bob Thiel, Gavin Rumney just posted that over at UCG the pillars and planks of Armstrongism are getting shaky. Bob said he checked this out with Aaron Dean, and, no, the Pillars of Herb are still as strong as ever. To counter any doubts of the veracity of the dogma, Bob posted a quick proof (in 25k words or less) to prove (using typical Platonic esiegesis) that the tenets of the old WCG are biblically beyond refute. Whew!
Here’s the link, everybody.
And I was right to use the words “morons in charge of the UCG”. Aaron Dean has stumbled upon the same anti DNA debunking from Professor Bryan Sykes who has been spreading lies about DNA since 2010. We’ve already had a post here about that, but more will be coming, if I live that long (it’s looking pretty good right now).
Gavin was upset that I ‘suggested’ (he doesn’t have proof, but just ‘intuited it’) that UCG should crash and burn and he’s upset that if you just take out a social group, it’s going to be painful to the members. Gee, I wonder if he’d be as concerned if we talking about Scientology or ISIS. He doesn’t seem to be concerned that United causes harm to their members (witness the fiasco with the church administration against a married woman who was being stalked by a weirdo in the congregation — the Council of Elders, including the Chairman of the Ethics committee were supporting the illegal actions of the stalker — just for that, UCG should be put out of business).
It also is clear, though, that United is not giving up on British Israelism. What they have done is to try to hide British Israelism from public view. They are busily rebranding themselves to make them more palatable to the masses (a useless effort so far), while they are just the same internally. It’s a deceptive game of “let’s pretend we’re not a cult”. If you want to be a member of a lying cult where 20% of your income disappears right off the top for ministers’ salaries and retirement, here’s your chance.
The problem is that we don’t need DNA to debunk British Israelism. It’s just quicker.
And yes, quite: UCG should crash and burn — in the long run it will be better for the members.
But not so much for the administration.
We can play this game too!
From Wikipedia concerning Professor Bryan Sykes:
“Bryan Clifford Sykes (born 9 September 1947) is a Fellow of Wolfson College, and former Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford.
“Sykes published the first report on retrieving DNA from ancient bone (Nature, 1989). Sykes has been involved in a number of high-profile cases dealing with ancient DNA, including that of Cheddar Man. However, the Cheddar Man findings have been disputed and it has been suggested that the results were the consequence of contamination with modern DNA. His work also suggested a Florida accountant by the name of Tom Robinson was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, a claim that was subsequently disproved.”
So, Professor Sykes is a discredited professor. There is no reason to believe him.
End of story.
I say Bob Theil’s ‘wavy arms’ is genetic! So, we give ‘ole jazz hands a DNA test to determine if he is french. If he is, there’s our proof. Score another one for BI.
The Manpower Committee
It the posting cited above, Bob wrote that he is not a physical Israelite – so by BIspeak, he’s not French. He didn’t offer any support for his claim (DNA test or genealogy).
In another article (commenting on Dave Pack’s ruling on men’s facial hair) Bob said he was part Native American (as was Ramona Armstrong).
You should note that Dr. James Milam has disclosed that 80% of Native Americans are alcoholics.
It’s downright pitiful, the mental gyrations these people are going through to attempt to prop up British Israelism. But, that’s what happens when people abide in the Old Covenant. If you read Paul, you learn that Jesus was Abraham’s seed, and that Christians are the new Israelites. The problem is, Armstrong theology does not acknowledge Sunday-keeping Christians as being Christians. So they have to construct a genetic fallacy on which to base prophecies of punishment for the English-speaking nations, when they could be more credible if they preached that Christians in our melting pot seem to be forgetting their values. Recognizing that, of course, would no longer allow Armstrong franchisees to stand out as being “special”, or let them use prophecy as their “tithe policeman”.
BB
Douglas wrote: ‘It also is clear, though, that United is not giving up on British Israelism. What they have done is to try to hide British Israelism from public view’
I believe that as long as there is a substantial base of tithe slaves that depend on BI to justify their existence as a church, the teaching will hold ground. As a younger generation of ministers are introduced, the teaching will diminish until it is no longer convenient to hold onto it due to tax tithe income depreciating. In the information age people demand proof and if it is lacking they will research the subject, discount it, protest, then leave the tax tithe base a bit poorer when they vote with their feet.
David Hulme demonstrates how dangerous it is to even dabble in thinking about eliminating British Israelism: At the whiff of leaving British Israelism, Hulme’s troops split off and started their own group.
Unfortunately, the kids growing up in the cult who don’t leave at their majority for whatever reason (it used to be in WCG days 7 out of 9 did), they are stuck with it for pretty much the rest of their lives in misery and never seem to have a crisis bad enough for them to seek to research and leave.
It’s hard to say how many stay. Certainly not enough to keep most of the sects of the cult alive in the long term.
It is amazing how eaten up with hatred you people are. You spend
all this time and effort venting and spewing hatred, caught up in your
intellectually vacant little world. Let’s see a list of your righteous
accomplishments.
We are waiting—go ahead!
Willard writes:
“It is amazing how eaten up with hatred you people are. You spend all this time and effort venting and spewing hatred, caught up in your intellectually vacant little world. Let’s see a list of your righteous accomplishments.
We are waiting—go ahead!”
—————————————–
OK Willard, here we go. Righteous accomplishments>
1. Volunteer at a soup kitchen from time to time.
2. Donations towards the poor by the way of the Salvation Army.
3. Give voice to the oppressed at no cost. (The Painful Truth).
4. Perform free work in my field for the needy.
5. Take children into my foster home.
6. Mow my elderly neighbors lawn.
7. Helping others when not asked.
That’s just for starters. I am a better Christian than those fake Christians within Armstrongism and I am agnostic.
So you can quit waiting Willard. How about you? What’s on your list?
James, you know very well Willard was asking a rhetorical question to promote his narrative.
These days, spewing facts that don’t fit into someone else’s narrative is a hate crime.
Don’t worry though, these sorts of people have reached the apex of their useless narratives as more and more people realize that they are talentless hacks unable to do anything useful themselves. When they actually encounter those who do useful things for society, they ignore them because it does not fit their narrative.
In other words, you are probably going to find that Willard is a useless fool: Not hatred, just statement of obvious fact. Now that is over, he can go back to being a stupid antiscience Armstrongist, SJW, FemiNazi, NeoIslamist or whatever the useless heck he (or she) is.
“When they actually encounter those who do useful things for society, they ignore them because it does not fit their narrative.”
Correct. I get one or two of these a week now. I refuse to even post them anymore. Confirmation bias by these people makes it impossible to communicate with them. They want it their way or someone else is at fault. They use the term ‘hate’ to justify their position, making it all ‘our fault’ for not fulfilling their bias opinion which will never change even if you draw them a picture.
A blog is the closest thing to real time conversation, being daily, and current. It amazes me that someone would take the time to read all of the back conversations, to comment on one that is nearly a year and a half old, and instead of making any insightful contributions to the substance of the discussion, he makes a very generalized critique that we are all hateful. Brilliant!
BB