So Gary over at BANNED by HWA has an article up titled Everyone is a blasphemer, except for me. The link he gives is for a Bill Billingsley website and the article is copy and pasted from the Painful Truth , which by the way, was used without my permission. It is copyrighted material©.
Within the article someone has placed some notes essentially saying that HWA never claimed to be a prophet. Well as old Herbie would say, that is poppycock! HWA made many claims as to being a prophet.
Herbert Armstrong say he spoke by the authority of God. He did make that claim. But the truth is, any man claiming to have the Almighty leading him would not be back tracking His doctrines and changing them. Here is a example:
The makeup doctrine-
To stress the importance of avoiding makeup, Herbert W. Armstrong concludes in his booklet:
“God tells us what is sin, and He tells us that this vain use of facial makeup is sin! . . .the penalty for this sin is death for eternity in a Lake of fire!” (p. 44).
Herbert W. Armstrong’s makeup ruling proved to be a major stumbling block to women wishing to enter the Worldwide Church of God. One college girl confessed: “I cried when I found out I had to give up makeup because I looked so ugly without it. Later two women in the church came up to me and said I ought to be anointed (for healing) because of the way the skin on my face looked. This made me feel even more ugly and inferior, but gradually I learned to accept my appearance, though from time to time people made belittling remarks about it.”
AC coeds were often embarrassed when showing visiting women around campus because invariably they asked: “Why don’t you AC girls wear makeup?” What was the AC girl to say to her painted guests: “We don’t wear makeup because God says only whores wear it”?
In the years following the makeup decision, several tried to convince the Armstrongs that their doctrine was nonsensical and unbiblical. But they were brushed aside as heretics. After all, Garner Ted Armstrong had said the makeup ruling was made by “God the Father and Jesus Christ.”
But in the early 1970s more and more people exerted pressure to have the booklet removed. They finally succeeded, and it was formally discontinued when the Oct. 23, 1974 ministerial bulletin declared that, without exception, the “proofs” in the booklet were arrived at by using scriptures out of context and reading meanings into the scriptures that weren’t intended. Though HWA’s explanation of one of the scriptures was influenced by an erroneous translation quoted and accepted by Adam Clarke’s commentary, HWA quoted two other commentaries and proceeded to leave out parts of their explanations that contradicted his preconceived conclusions. Had his research been more carefully done and had he consulted modern reference sources, he would not have reached the absurd conclusion he did.
In spite of the fact that HWA finally killed the makeup booklet, he never apologized for blaspheming God’s name by claiming God looked at women who wore makeup as whores, nor did he apologize for wresting the scriptures to make it appear that wearing makeup was a capital sin.
The capital sin here is blaspheme. Recall the scripture where it says “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.” -Duet 12:32
Getting back to the herbert-armstrong.org article we read :
1) Plain Truth Dec 1940: Britain will
be conquered by Nazis
Comment: âThe Watcherâ
hopes you will just accept his
statements and not verify
them for yourself. In the
entire Plain Truth, Dec. 1940
issue, HWA never says
âBritain will be conquered by
Nazis.â On page 8 he does
state that prophecy reveals
Britain and the United States
are destined to go down, but
he nowhere says when. If
you read the whole article
youâll see that âThe Watcherâ
is not being truthful.
No, who is it that is not being truthful is the author. Herbert Armstrong did write that the USA and the Britain would be conquered.
Plain Truth, November-December 1940, page 7, H.W. Armstrong:
Here is another article from the Plain Truth, September-October 1941, page 7, H.W. Armstrong:
The article at herbert-armstrong.org then goes on highlighting words that could be construed by the dainty of heart as vulgar, as if that is proof of being wrong.
No, these people are disingenuous in their claims that the “Watcher” is not being truthful.
Another article can be found in the December 1948 Plain Truth, page 6:
âTHUS, ONCE THIS EMPIRE IS REVIVED IN EUROPE â AND BY UNITED
STATES HELP AT THAT-SO GULLIBLE ARE WE AND DULL OF UNDERSTANDING!-
THE NEW-BORN FASCIST-NAZI MILITARY POWER WILL WITHOUT WARNING
DESTROY AMERICAN CITIES AND BRITISH CITIES OVERNIGHT WITH
ATOMIC BOMBS, CONQUERING OUR PEOPLES, TAKING OUR SURVIVORS TO EUROPE
AS THEIR SLAVES! I HAVE GIVEN YOU THE PROPHECIES ON THIS TIME AFTER TIME, AND SHALL CONTINUE TO SHOUT THIS WARNING SO LONG AS GOD GIVES ME BREATH AND FREEDOM !
THEN IT IS THAT THE MARK OF THE BEAST WILL BE ENFORCED. UNLESS OUR
PEOPLE, THEN CONQUERED SLAVES IN EUROPE, WILL BOW TO THE ROMAN RELIGION,
THEY WILL BE TORTURED, AND PUT TO DEATH !
THUS SAYS THE WORD OF GODÂ !â
-HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
It seems that herbert-armstrong.org in its accusations against the “Watcher”, are denying that HWA ever said that Britain would be destroyed by the Nazis. My best guess is that they just had to try and refute the 209 False Prophecy article for their readers. To me it seems like they are disowning Herbert himself.
*Comment: This is a bald-faced lieâ HWA never claimed to be a
prophet.
-herbert-armstrong.org
For a example of fragmented thinking, read this.
Recommended reading: –Will You Swing From a Nazi Meat Hook?
I enjoyed your version of one of those “literally” Hitler, videos from your anniversary celebration!
It’s been noted on many occasions that HWA was a dyi theologian, not formally educated in the field. If he had actually read the Book of Revelation, or the Olivet Discourse prior to and during WW II, he would have realized that in order for everything to be in place for the apocalypse which those two documents treat, Israel had to be reborn and present as a nation. This did not happen until 1948, in no small way resulting from the Holocaust.
Obviously, he believed that the United States and White English-speaking melting-pot nations were modern Israel, but passages in Revelation appear to be ridiculous if you substitute The US and BC for what is clearly referring to eretz Israel. The dude was truly illiterate!
BB
And yet still, HWA was able to bilk money away from those who were less so, and sometimes even the most literate.
Even the most literate can have magical thinking that entices them into the movement.