The Armstrongist Churches of God are not war-like tribes — they are warring tribes, at war with one another, to the point that they not only don’t look Christian or necessarily godly, they look downright barbaric and uncivilized, as though they are waiting for civilization to catch up to them some time in the future — a future which will never come.
One of the many occurrences of the evidence of the constant battles of the war of ascendancy is the schism within the United Church of God, an International Association (UCGaIA), which resulted in the formation of the Church of God, Worldwide Association (CoGWA). The split wasn’t even about doctrine. It seemed to be about governance, but from the outside view away from the intimate internal dealings of the Church Administration, no one can be really certain why the split occurred.
Now, if it were a matter of Christian Soldiers fighting the war in the good fight against Satan and this world, that would be one thing, but it isn’t that at all: They are battling against each other in a manifestation of the works of the flesh.
The Apostle James in his epistle wrote:
From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
That’s part of it: The founders and leaders of this ancient religion of the War gods certainly is based on the lust for salary and retirement, along with the lust for power and narcissistic fulfillment by pathetic idolatrous narcissistic source borderline personality types hanging on every word of delusional pronouncements of the promises of future godhood and false prophecies of a short work, ended by a mythical Great Tribulation. People lust after that. It is emotionally satisfying.
But there is convincing evidence that that is not all of it: It’s just a part of the puzzle.
Why are the Armstrongist Churches of God at war — with one another?
Some of the explanation may lie in the fact that their religion does not appeal to even a miniscule segment of fresh blood out there in the world any more. The time of the cold war is past and the threat of nuclear holocaust just isn’t an inducement like it used to be. No, in these days of technological wonders of advancement beyond the wildest imagination of three decades ago, the world has changed so significantly that the old inducements for new membership just won’t cut it. As a result, with the severe entropy restricting the options and opportunities for a continued flow of money into the sub cults, the only solution is to resort to cannibalizing the remaining sheople amongst the various 700+ splinters, offering each one a “better deal” to sweeten the pot for preserving the life style to which the leadership of each cult would like to become accustomed. And make no mistake, this is ranchers quibbling about the branding on their livestock.
However, there seems to be a much deeper and sinister motivation lying behind the constant war going on, wherein there is no peace, and indeed, cannot be, as in the words of Isaiah:
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.
The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.
They are, in short, the very flower of the example of humanity.
The cults have inherited the warlike nature of Herbert Armstrong who fought and railed against everything from the Catholic Church to the Church of God Seventh Day (as being Sardis). The world was of Satan and he was the conquering hero to usher in the golden age of the War to come which was to bring ultimate peace after there was no one left who had any energy left to fight him — or at least that was the vision that he created. He created an environment geared to war from the very beginning, rebelling against society and science so he could have his own way. He often turned against his own employees in a fit of rage. His temper was legendary. He left a legacy of anger and war, and who of those guards he personally trained in his Ambassador College Prison Experiment could rise above the overwhelming tsunami of the West Point of God’s Work?
Science and genetic research has revealed interesting developments of late, with the discovery of the so-called “Warrior Gene”, DARRP-32 TC / TT variant allele of damaged chromosomes. Not only is there a basis for the reality of continuing chaotic strife for those with this sort of genetics, but there are tests for it — even to the point that Dr. Phil uses the test on his show to identify the cause of family disruptions by those with this damaged genetics: It’s built in.
It should be pointed out that this particular form of anger has no real evolutionary advantage: It will not promote the continuing life of the Armstrongist Churches of God, but will hasten their demise in an ever increasing downward spiral of entropy where the resources become ever less available.
Given the history of Herbert Armstrong and the history of such people as Roderick Meredith, whose pride is rooted in winning a Golden Gloves Championship in his teenage years, it is not difficult at all to believe that the War amongst the various Churches of God are spearheaded by the leadership who just can’t help themselves to engage in endless battles.
Any members who are still delusional about the opportunity for the path to peace, need to heed the words of II Timothy 3: “From such turn away”. Proverbs 22:24-25 add to the wisdom:
Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.
But then, Armstrongists never have been very careful to follow “The Word of God”, otherwise, they would not have followed Joseph Tkach. The Ambassador Report tells of the anger management challenges of Dr. Tkach with his first wife, Jill. The temper of Senior is legendary and there is at least one account where he yelled at an innocent woman in his office for five hours straight, doing great emotional damage to her. There are much more recent examples of the fury of Armstrongist leaders in the churches of God today because it is a continuing problem which will not abate.
So let the Armstrongist founders and leaders take the test.
We already know what they will find.
Wait! Joe Jr. got divorced and remarried??? When did THAT happen? Boy, I am REALLY out of touch. (Thank goodness!)
Another great essay. But the effort to focus on “God’s Law” has a result pointed out by Jesus himself in Matthew 10:34-38. He came to bring a “sword” of division, right down to making families separate. Based on that statement, the COGs are doing exactly as jesus predicted, and they will not stop until they realize that the intense focus on the law actually is designed to produce those very effects.
From the Ambassador Report, page 1438:
“Divorced from his first wife, Jill, in 1978,86 Junior remarried in 1980. Those familiar with Junior’s first marriage say it was a tumultuous relationship. Friends of Jill say Junior was an habitual wife beater and Jill, now a born-again Christian, has told friends that Tkach Sr., himself, even struck her on two occasions.”
Dr. Tkach is now married to Tammy. You can read more about the disgusting behavior of this man on page 1439. Sexual fantasies indeed. A final comment:
“When Mr. T. Sr. became transformed from being a “little dictator” – as his son had described him – into being a “big dictator,” he dangled a one quarter to one-half million dollar carrot in front of his son’s nose. That is what caused Mr. T. Jr. to want to gravitate to Pasadena in 1986. At his going away party, he told my wife that he had really changed. Well, I have to wonder. Someone who has, doesn’t have to boast about it.”
Ralph, a very good point. However, Jesus said that his followers would be one. That hardly qualifies the Armstrongist churches of God, as they war, battle, throw rocks and mud at each other, become divisive by narcissitic preening and posing, casting aspersions of other little cult groups with “Church of God” in their names. Not a single one of them seems to offer the olive branch of peace, let alone join together in true unity.
Moreover, it seems clear that these are Old Testament Christians without anything that looks remotely like the “Holy Spirit”, who haven’t made it past the warring Israelite tribes of old, trapped in their obsession of laws of the tribe and excessive focus on meaningless ritualistic observances, portrayed by Amos 4:4-5 with a fed up God telling them to go to church services to sin in His frustration of their idolatry and lack of faith. They never made it to Jesus Christ. They don’t have the slightest conception of peace and truth working in the peace and harmony of Jesus.
It’s just not there.
They are just not there.
They have never risen above the level of warring primates.
This is the essence of all religions not just christianity. COG are just another example. Nice to hear they still are in confusion, ignorance and oppression.
This is what these kind of people want. They want to experience it. Actually they have desire and create the fate they live in. They created it even before they got involved in religion.
Who the hell would want utter peace and harmony? This is the peace of a “machine” not of humanity. Again I ask all readers who would want utter peace on earth That would be “hell”
“Ralph, a very good point. However, Jesus said that his followers would be one. ”
Yes, but then you have a logical contradiction if he briought a sword of division AND unity within the same group. Notice, Matthew 10:34-38 did NOT say that his true followers would be doing this. He said that his true followers would be oe, since they would NOT be deceived by all of it(Matthew 24:24).
IF you apply the law as a ki nd of behavioral guideline to demonstrate your “election”, it will, by the very nature of logic, break into infiite pieces or structures, just as the same e ffort in mathematics results in an infinity of undecideable propositions.
IF the natural mind is enmity against God, THEN it follows logically that we will see exactly what we see among the COGs today, or in any group that tries to define itself by human standards. It simply cannot be done. We are left with an almost axiomatic truth biblically, and that is Matthew 24:23, since every single attempt to apply God’s law will, as designed, create even more division, leading us to Matthew 10:34-38.
You cannot choose it by human reason. A “choice is similar to an algorithm, since algorithms are decision procedure by which we get from “here’ to “there”. As we see from Turing’s halting problem, if they do not terminate at some solution, either there is no soluton in existence, or the problem is so big that we simply may never know the solutuon in one lifetime. Godel’s theorem tells us that no such procedure can be defined that will allow us to know in advance whether there is a solution, no solution, or the time involved does not permit us to see the solution.
All cerebral attempts to get from “here’ to “God”, assuming that God is equivlent with all truth, MUST result in the conditions described by Jesus in Matthew 10:34-38. nd if God is NOT equivalent with all truth, how would we discover what part of God is not true?
The only logical solution, therefore, is to conclude that such algorithms or decision procedures can ONLY exist with God, or there is no God to make such decisions, in either case, you will get apparent randomness, as 1 Corinthians 1:27-29 says. You are forced to conclude logically, assuming there is an omniscient God, that Romans 8:29-30 must be true, as well as John 6:44.
Therefore, if Jesus’ followers are one, they are one because they know it is useless to try and “capture” God by human cerebral processes.
And even worse, the Armstrongist churches of God are the Church Corporate, adopting the worst of the Corporate Model and implementing it badly. As such, they are thoroughly drenched, soaked and wallowing in carnal corporate competition and politics, with no concept of God at all in the practices, and being the Model of “Moral Mazes” by Robert Jackall, wherein it is demonstrated that within a corporate culture, what is good, right and moral, is what the guy above you wants from you: You leave your morals and ethics at the door of your home. In short, the end justifies the means, and the corporate officers of the church become the very same corporate executives of major corporations with power over others where they become “psychopaths by day”.
The WCG was the very picture of this, as exposed in the Ambassador Reports. Tale after tale of corporate corruption, intrigue and compromise is brought forth, page after page after page.
The UCG actually adopted the Corporate Model from Weyerhaeuser. It shows.
This is all built in to “human nature” and unless there is an intervention from “God” to change the base natures of the participants of a religion, the behavior of those in charge of the ACoGs will differ not one whit from that of the lower primates, except, perhaps, somewhat more mayhem and chaos than what we see in the wild kingdom.
Civilized?
These people aren’t even domesticated.
Douglas writes:
“And even worse, the Armstrongist churches of God are the Church Corporate, adopting the worst of the Corporate Model and implementing it badly. As such, they are thoroughly drenched, soaked and wallowing in carnal corporate competition and politics, with no concept of God at all in the practices, and being the Model of “Moral Mazes” by Robert Jackall, wherein it is demonstrated that within a corporate culture, what is good, right and moral, is what the guy above you wants from you: You leave your morals and ethics at the door of your home. In short, the end justifies the means, and the corporate officers of the church become the very same corporate executives of major corporations with power over others where they become “psychopaths by day”.”
This is an important point, because it also describes what “christian” religions are doing today. Christianity has become a mirror of the corporate collective, and finds itself, even against its wioll in most cases, doing exactly wehat the corporate culture demands. This is why it is also necessary to look at economic co nditions today alongside of religion, because it is a basid philosophy of Marxism that economic change is the basis of all social change. Those who can now see through it are not only seeing trough the falsehood of the COGs, but the twin falsehood of corporate politics.
Douglas writes:
“This is all built in to “human nature” and unless there is an intervention from “God” to change the base natures of the participants of a religion, the behavior of those in charge of the ACoGs will differ not one whit from that of the lower primates, except, perhaps, somewhat more mayhem and chaos than what we see in the wild kingdom.”
Exactly! But the same is true of all religions, Not just COGs. The human animal is composed of the “base” animal instincts, but is also composed of a natural tendency to try and explain everythi ng mechanically, or as Slater writes in “EarthWalk”:
“When man invented the machine, for which there is no external model in nature, he invented it in his own image. The machine does not come from nowhere-it mirrors man’s mechanical head.”
The mistaken view of “spirit” and “flesh” is one in which we seek to replace animal instincts with logical linear processes of mechanical thought, which then result in the kind of corporate collectivist mentality we see around us today. The unconscious assumption is that mechanical rules will be made into whioch we can collectively “upload” each individual, so that colective obedience leads to a kind of social perfection, resulting in exactly the kind of corporate conditions Douglas describes above, “psychopaths by day”.
And I would add: The true basis of the corporate mentality is narcissistic incompetence to build a dysfunctional environment.
That’s a win-win.
[/snarky sarcasm]
I had a sign at work:
“You cannot be competent in a dysfunctional environment”
And most of religion has gone the same way today, based on the premise, “Gee, the Corporations are successful to make money, if we do the same things the same way, we’ll have the same kind of success.” The ACoGs up the ante, particularly United which is the very picture of Corporate culture (except the ministers can’t expense alcoholic drinks any more): They are based on the Weyerhaeuser Corporate Model (quite directly).
Unfortunately, if you follow the corporate model, you will have the corporate rewards: Arbitrary chaos in various stages of disarray, in an arena of competition, abusing those not in the power structure because they don’t matter.
Who wouldn’t want to have that, particularly when you consider Judgment Day?
[/more snarky sarcasm]
How did the poem by the monkeys go?
“Man descended,
That dirty cuss,
But he never,
Descended from us.”
You know, if there actually is a Satan, it’s tempting to believe “he” would be a computer or summation of mechanical processes.
1.No ability for self reflection. Can’t see the error of his ways
2.Obsessed with governments and systems of organization(Matthew 4, Luke 4)
3.Seeking to extend himself in narcissist fashion by extension of those systems(all christian religions)
That, however, would suggest that Satan does what God programs(Isaiah 45:7), which would put a twist on the garden of Eden story and the forbidden fruit.
Ralph you need not think about a “Satan” the very thought gives this image power, and it comes from people. Satan the young pup, is pure christian fiction sustained by, and empowered by, thought.
We can create other mythical beings with our thoughts, as many as we want, however we want them, to do our bidding. The more idiots we get involved, the stronger the enity will become, and the more influence it will have.
Sigh.
And I suppose we could point to Herbert Armstrong as yet another example of what you are talking about.
Absolutely! Christianity is the example on this website, but all other religions fall into the same category in my opinion. The minute you give over your power to a outside influence, you empower it. Armstrong knew this, and by trial and error the WCOG learned how to become masters of execution in christian religious thought.
Bob, certainly. 2 Peter 2:19.