Herbert Armstrong lied because he had to. All Armstrongist leaders must lie.
To understand why, let’s look at what a sociopath said on Quora:
The situation that made answering this question anonymously a necessity has passed.
I hate doing this, but I have to answer this anonymously. I am a diagnosed sociopath and according to Quora statistics, many of you have seen and liked my answers, questions and blog posts.I am probably among the most fortunate of my particular set in that I had a great family. My Father was a very even keeled man who never finished high school because he figured he knew everything he needed to know at 13. He was a “been here” in our little community, a branch of a family tree that had roots in our small town going back six generations. My Mother was a loud, social butterfly who formed the hub of the local rumor mill. Both of my parents were socially active; Moose lodge, VFW, County Fair, Grange Hall; these were the places I grew up.I was the weird kid in school, the guy who didn’t “get it.” There was a very good reason for that, I wasn’t attached to anything. If you watch people as they go about their normal lives, and I have spent my entire life doing so, you will realize that there is a social mandate at work and it shows up very early in our children; that’s why neuro-typical kids pretty much all act the same. As they grow they become more complex but are little more than collections of well known stereotypes.The general call and response of daily life was largely lost on me as a child. I have no talent for rote memory, because I have no desire to learn anything that demands rote memory. Even at 5 and 6 years old I had dozens of songs and television shows and movies memorized, but I didn’t care about the “times tables” or “presidents” or anything else that demanded memorization by benefit of it’s existence. But after a long while I learned to do it because I was laughed at, called stupid and ugly (I never understood the correlation, so I put it down to limited vocabulary) and generally bullied by my peers.Then I learned something wonderful, something so amazing that it changed my life forever; I learned that people don’t want to hear the truth, they want to hear what is expected. So, I learned how to lie to people so I wouldn’t be abused any more. I learned this early, I couldn’t have been more than six or seven.So there is one of the first questions people ask about sociopaths answered. Why do they lie and manipulate? Because people punish you when you tell them the truth.
We’ve already covered the fact that members of the Armstrongist churches are sociopaths previously.
Armstrongist leaders MUST lie because people don’t want the truth.
It’s as simple as that. If you are currently in an Armstrongist cult, you do not want the truth and if the leaders and / or ministers told you the truth, not only would you not like them, you’d leave them.
How do we know this?
The scientific method.
David Hulme found this out the hard way awhile back. He hinted that he was going to eliminate British Israelism and excise it from Church of God, an International Community. Almost immediately, some of his leading ministers rebelled and split off, forming an ACoG of their own. David Hulme was a onetime World Tomorrow presenter and founding president of the United Church of God (which he subsequently abandoned) to form the CoGaIC. He had a semi-successful sect of the Armstrongist cult and even had a printed copy of his magazine, Vision. He’s had to stop printing it and now it is just an online website. It’s amazing how fast things can go to hell in a handbasket after only 16 years. If only he had continued lying to his ministers and members about the viability of British Israelism, he’d still be in good stead –because Armstrongists hate truth, and if you have the audacity to tell them the truth, they will hate you, make fun of you, oppose you and leave you.
The other Armstrongists have realized this. Roderick Meredith at the Living Church of God even has a course at Living University for British Israelism. More and more, ACoGs have realized that British Israelism is the fundamental core of their religion and are finding more and more ways to promote the idea.
It’s all a lie of course. British Israelism is bunk. In keeping with the sociopaths in Armstrongism, though, the sects of the cult promote it. Armstrongist leaders MUST lie. They must lie because people don’t really like the truth.
So all you Armstrongists out there, watching the insanity of your headquarters / home office as it disintegrates and the leaders become more and more egocentric and eccentric, just remember: You are responsible for all of it because you don’t want the truth.
Armstrongism is a cult, after all and you shouldn’t expect anything but lies if you can’t handle the truth.
The basic problem would seem to be that while sociopaths and psychopaths can normalize somewhat through education and therapy, these factors are not present within the Armstrong culture. In fact, those who could administer therapy are outlawed, verboten to church members because they are outsiders, and their science deemed to be “of Satan”. Thou shalt not have any experts before me.
So basically, both members and ministers alike revel in their deviant psychologies, and this is smiled upon so long as they submit to the stringent rules of the organization. Such conformity masks the pandemic problem of the organization by establishing its own standard of normalcy. This standard rejects any labels which “the world” might apply to it. If that is not brainwashing masking as religious belief, it would be difficult to find a more verifiable example.
The Plain Truth articles of the 1960s thru ’70s were totally predictable. The cliche at the end of each article exposing various problems was “there is no solution until Jesus Christ returns”. The only thing is, because of their reverence for HWA, it is doubtful that stalwart followers of Armstrongism would even accept correction to their beliefs from Jesus himself.
BB
Yes. Perhaps the cliche should read, “there is no solution when Jesus Christ returns”.
It would not be surprising that Armstrongists would band together to fight Jesus when he returns, because, after all, they’re doing it now.
To see how absolutely Armstrongists rebel against the truth, take a look at Gavin Rumney’s Ambassador Watch article, A University backs BI where the LCG Living University is actually teaching a for credit class, THL 215 The Lost Tribes of Israel in History and Prophecy. This is outrageous. For years Dr. Germano railed against British Israelism, then jumped ship for Meredith and is now heading the University there which is giving a course on British Israelism. Talk about an academic for sale.
Armstrongist leaders can never risk telling the truth and are thus useless because all they have to offer is lies — and the lies end up being very expensive indeed.
It should be noted that Thomas Pierson’s revelation about his life as a sociopath demonstrates that children who have grown up in the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia are probably going to become sociopaths because, as Thomas shows, a child in such an environment will find it necessary to lie to maintain relationships with his parents, siblings and those around him if he is to maintain any sort of status in his social realm because those with whom he has contact cannot tolerate truth and will punish anyone vulnerable to the exercise of their control.
This is demonstrated clearly by the PCG having parents of teens who do not agree with the doctrines of the cult, eject them to fend for themselves in a completely heinous and unacceptable exercise of PCG dominance and control.
Yes! The pattern of well regulated disingenuosness required to fit in at school while there, and attempt to avoid punishment at home (You can’t, in spite of your best efforts) fractures one’s very psyche. The always more than appropriate level of punishment (as a child raised in the cult, and later as an adult member of the church) brews anger, and robs one of empathy for any around us who are suffering pain. Even for those who realized during childhood that something was terribly wrong, and who actually attempted to compartmentalize, and to maintain some sort of normalcy, there is a lifetime of continuing work required to undo the damage and neutralize the toxicity.
It’s blasphemous to even associate the name of God with Armstrongism, or with its “ministers”. People who destroy the capacity for relationships amongst people are actually destroying the capacity for a relationship with God. You can’t parse and separate the two. A relationship is a relationship.
BB
It’s hotter than hell where I live for about 4-5 months of the year. So, we hide out from the heat. One of my activities this summer has been to check out the DVDs of the Dexter television series, originally broadcast on Show Time.
At some point in my viewing experience, I became interested in the psychology behind the Dexter character, who is a brilliant blood spatter analyst for the Miami Police Dept. by profession, and a successful serial killer (of the murderers who elude conviction) by night.
To explain the abnormal psychology of Dexter, several articles in Psychology Today used the model of the narcissistic family. This is a family in which the parents are not focussed on meeting the emotional and social needs of their children, but in which the parents prioritize their own personal needs, and the children are forced to revolve around that. This produces pronounced and readily identifiable symptoms within the children raised in such an environment. Some become sociopaths.
“The typical adult from a narcissistic family is filled with unacknowledged anger, feels like a hollow person, feels inadequate and defective, suffers from periodic anxiety and depression, and has no clue about how he or she got that way”. (Pressman and Pressman, The Narcissistic Family)
Psychology Today also mentioned the inordinate drive to be liked by others, inability to empathize, and confusion as to personal identity.
With narcissists as mentors, it is easy to understand why the family structures in the Armstrong churches would be narcissistic as well.
BB
“It’s blasphemous to even associate the name of God with Armstrongism, or with its “ministers”. People who destroy the capacity for relationships amongst people are actually destroying the capacity for a relationship with God. You can’t parse and separate the two.”
You know, I might be stretching it a bit here, but I think that the most well-adjusted and good-natured armstrongists were the ones who never closed the deal by actually becoming full-members. I sent money to GTA and CGI for a few years before I eventually closed the deal and then I only lasted like 9 months. On the surface, armstrongism seemed to me to be more logical and pragmatic and less mystical in comparision to catholocism. I still can only imagine some individuals and maybe their families who were willing to keep most of those doctrines without the toxcicty of HWA. Quite possibly, their character was probably more Christ-like than those inside the court. So, who would be doing the measuring now? 😛
“Why let a man get in the way of your relationship to God? If God is all-powerfull, HE/SHE/IT can correct me on HIS own terms and without any need or dependency on some corruptable man. For fucks sake, Why would a God depend on a man in order for God to get what He wants?
“…a child in such an environment will find it necessary to lie to maintain relationships with his parents”
Yes, that is their role to keep the family structure stable for the sole benefit of the borderline members. Crazymaking is what it is. Scapegoating too.
I have so many memories of family arguements in which one member, while so seething mad with eyes bulging out, will attempt to give another member a hug while screaming at the top of their lungs, “This is love! This is love goddammit why can’t you see that?”
“…band together to fight Jesus when he returns, because, after all, they’re doing it now.”
LOL That’s what I used to say to the mainstream Chistians in my family!
DBP