“Let me interject here that the Worldwide Church of God criticizes any and everyone freely, whether justified or not, whether correct or not, and where the person criticizing is qualified to know what he is talking about or not.Ā This is done continually in the PT, GN, . etc. etc. BUT … let a man write a critical article about us and suddenly we are screaming “persecution!” Persecution!!!”
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“So if it turns out that the church was wrong, then Dr. Hoeh’s academic tower of babylon will be undermined and wrecked, and Dr. Hoeh will have nothing to show for his efforts the past 25 years but a pile of ruins. Obviously Dr. Hoeh isn’t going to let that happen.”
The Worldwide church of God attempted to annihilate peoples personality, individuality, will, and character. The stranded souls that hitched their wagon to this organization unknowingly supported a power-hungry pharisaic and fastuous authoritative cult leader and his son, Garner Ted Armstrong. For all the alarums and excursions, the fact remains that without knowing it, we nurtured these two ungrateful incubi's. For that I can only ask for forgiveness.
After my WCG experience, I went to college to educate myself so I would have a greater understanding of the world about me and to understand why I ever fell for HWA's scam religion. This lead me to the conclusion that the appropriate action to take, in my judgment, is to provide people with opportunities to learn, develop, and exercise their potential as human beings, by freeing them from men who exploit and abuse them. This website and others are my vehicle to do just that.
Half the letter so far, and it has been so revealing…
One thing that interests me is that it was written around the time I first attended services – after 1972 (“we don’t set dates!”), problems with D&R, Pentecost, GTA, “stealth changes” to doctrines, and before the 1974 ministerial “rebellion” and the D&R/Pentecost doctrinal changes. Had I only known… well, I may have gone along with it anyway.
Twice the issue of ministerial Biblical ignorance was brought up – doctrines seemed like my old Catholic days of learning catechism – questions with dogmatic answers, except with WCG doctrines, the answers came with proof texts. Off doctrine, and basic Bible knowledge varied. That’s why I’ve said Bob Thiel needs an assistant to edit his videos – he seems to make a basic Bible blunder in almost every sermon. And Dave Pack, well, he just gets weird!
And another big point was doctrinal change: “tell us if we’re wrong and we’ll fix it!” There were what I called “stealth changes”, like the Third Temple issue, but other problems (like D&R) that took years to address. Do the splinters offer the bogus “tell us if we’re wrong” challenge? We, the COG critics, tell them all the time!
Waiting for the next installment. Although the letter is over 40 years old, it reads as if it was summarized from this week’s blogs…
Half the letter so far, and it has been so revealing…
One thing that interests me is that it was written around the time I first attended services – after 1972 (“we don’t set dates!”), problems with D&R, Pentecost, GTA, “stealth changes” to doctrines, and before the 1974 ministerial “rebellion” and the D&R/Pentecost doctrinal changes. Had I only known… well, I may have gone along with it anyway.
Twice the issue of ministerial Biblical ignorance was brought up – doctrines seemed like my old Catholic days of learning catechism – questions with dogmatic answers, except with WCG doctrines, the answers came with proof texts. Off doctrine, and basic Bible knowledge varied. That’s why I’ve said Bob Thiel needs an assistant to edit his videos – he seems to make a basic Bible blunder in almost every sermon. And Dave Pack, well, he just gets weird!
And another big point was doctrinal change: “tell us if we’re wrong and we’ll fix it!” There were what I called “stealth changes”, like the Third Temple issue, but other problems (like D&R) that took years to address. Do the splinters offer the bogus “tell us if we’re wrong” challenge? We, the COG critics, tell them all the time!
Waiting for the next installment. Although the letter is over 40 years old, it reads as if it was summarized from this week’s blogs…