My book, Assertive Incompetence — An Introduction to Management Malpractice, has been a worthless failure, because… we’ll get to that at the end.
Armstrongists don’t realize that there is an entire Seventh Day Church of God out there, publishing literature world wide and keeping the Feasts annually, including the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles with the Seventh Day Church of God is a totally different experience than the one in the Armstrongist churches of God. It is more like a Bible Camp. Actually, it is a Bible Camp. There may be some tents that people put up, but there are campers these days with a bed and a simple sink and toilet with running water and enough electricity for a light and a few small appliances. There is generally a communal kitchen where the ministers and members together cooperatively prepare the meals. There are a few motel style cabins available. You see where the Feast was kept in Washington State in 2008 here:
http://www.fruitlandbiblecamp.com/fbc_2008_002.htm
The “services” are quite a bit different too. It isn’t all hymns, opening prayer, sermonette, hymn, announcements, hymn, sermon, hymn and closing prayer, although there is often a flavor of that. Services are bit more informal and there may be, occasionally, some gospel singing group come in and perform. There is Bible Study at 7:00 AM, breakfast, activities, services, lunch and… well, it varies. At night, around 7:30 PM, there’s another service with a sermon. It is as quaint and rustic as you might expect, and about 25 miles from the nearest town of any size.
The Seventh Day Church of God has been keeping the Feasts since 1919 when Gilbert G. Rupert championed them.
The Seventh Day Church of God has noted the problems with the official Jewish calendar in general use: The Spring Equinox is not April 6 / 7. That’s not scientific. Therefore, they prepare their own holy day calendar which is published and sent world wide each year. Paul Woods is the minister who currently maintains the calendar. I did talk to Mr. Woods [who is the current editor of The Herald of Truth] about the calendar in 2008, briefly, but there were a couple of other things we discussed. One of them was about the Lord’s Supper and the Passover. Those are separate events as one can see from the Scriptures — 24 hours apart. The Days of Unleavened Bread begin on the evening of the Passover — which the Armstrongists keep instead as the Night to Be Much Observed.
One of the things we discussed was the topic of Herbert Armstrong’s baptism. It turns out that Herbert Armstrong was baptized by A.H. Stith, of the Seventh Day Church of God and the baptism was witnessed by Mr. Stith’s daughter. My response was, “Herbert Armstrong lied? I’m shocked!”. I wasn’t really, but fortunately, Paul Woods has a fine sense of irony as well as being a very nice minister.
That the Seventh Day Church of God keeping the Feasts falls well beneath the radar of the Armstrongists, should not be a surprise. Who would tell you? Herbert Armstrong? What incentive would he have?
Nevertheless, there are some customs and practices which are universal. One of those involves the power and privilege of special classes of people in the Churches of God. Remember that the Sabbath keeping Churches of God have been around a lot longer than the Armstrongist ones. People grow up in families in the Churches of God and they know each other with a long history of association. Word gets around and they are a tight knit group.
A family was going to attend the Feast of Tabernacles with the Seventh Day Church of God. The rule was, first come, first served. If you got there late and didn’t get the better accommodations, that was just too bad. Like or lump it. Except, except. Some of the ministers were going to come in late, so, against the official rules, certain accommodations were set aside to make provisions for them. Sound familiar? So the family came to the Feast in plenty of time, but were told that they would have to take other accommodations — the not, shall we say, very good ones. So the teenager, Nicholas, had to stay in a very small cramped space in one of these campers. Night passes. He sleeps. He wakes up and 18 inches from his face is this big RAT! He shrieks! They’re outta there. That’s just what power and special privilege can do for you.
And where there’s one rat, you can be sure that there are plenty more.
You can be sure the ministry had better digs. After all, aren’t they worthy of a double portion? Maybe so, back in the days of the First Century AD, when ministers could be and were martyred. These days, the real risk for the ministry is dropping dead of a heart attack or stroke from excessive consumption of meat and drink.
If you were looking for the finer things of life at the Feast, count your blessings.
Rats!
How disappointing.
The story is reminiscent of the one where a poor married man with an unbelieving spouse came to the Feast alone and ended up in a motel room. First night off, he hears noises. He turns on the light. The cockroaches scramble for cover. He’s got an infestation. He goes to the motel manager, tells him the story. The motel manager says, “There you go, just keep the lights on!”. The poor man left.
Rats and cockroaches aren’t the only infestations in this world. There are many more, for example, termites.
My first experience with termites was as a lad. My dad had a pile of wood and pointed out some termites in it. Fortunately, that was pretty much my last experience with them. They are so insidious: They come into a building and set up shop. They start doing what comes naturally and begin eating up the support timbers. They are good at hiding. If they happen to break through the wall, they cover it up immediately to prevent discovery. No one hears or sees them until the day the whole place collapses.
If you are not convinced, then you should see articles about the Formosan Termite imported in the wood of the crates made to ship property of GIs home from the Pacific after World War II. They have made a meal of much of the New Orlean’s French Quarter. They have spread far and wide throughout much of United States warm and wet South. They are aggressive and love all things cellulose, including, but not restricted to, wood, paper, fruits, nuts, cork and live plants, and they’ll gnaw or squeeze their petite little bodies through virtually anything to get to their food, including electrical wires, plaster, plastic, and the tiniest cracks in concrete. They get into everything.
Several tell of the story of the water skier on Lake Loma that came down in on an island on the lake into a nest of poisonous snakes and, according to the account, died instantly. I have my doubts: There was probably a lot of pain and agony for a few minutes.
Most of the time, an infestation begins with only one. That was certainly the case with the Radio Church of God — which then became the Worldwide Church of God. And not to put too fine a point on it, after the nest is established, some break off to establish a new nest, and then, later, they break off, and so on and so on. The Tkatches were interesting because they were an internal infestation, infesting the infestation!
Now, Herbert Armstrong was bad enough, but Roderick Meredith has managed to spin off toxic infestations — a lot more than you may think. And, yes, United has managed to spin off dozens of infestations, while Gerald Flurry’s and John Rittenbaugh’s nests have been mostly contained, but Meredith has really done a lot of collateral damage in ways you can barely begin to imagine. Global: Now there’s a nest that managed to implode in on itself. The pests, sometimes called “ministers”, scurried off to invade communities far and wide. But you know, it isn’t like we shouldn’t have been able to see it coming: You should take a look again at his “Manpower Papers”. If that didn’t give us all a clue to the future, nothing would. These infestations always do what they are programmed by the Universe to do — what comes naturally to all psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists. Without them, there would probably never be any infestations.
Today we will concentrate on a small infestation in Oregon which you may have never heard of: The Church of God in Peace and Truth — terms which are manifestly self contradictory. The progenitors of the nest are the Haneys, which, again, you are probably blessed never to have heard of.
Every year, it is always a challenge, for my wife wants to go somewhere really good for vacation. To me the Feast of Tabernacles is not a vacation. It is a lot of inconvenient effort which generally ends up to be “interesting” as in the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times”. Last year, I chose a spot which looked benign, Bend, Oregon. Safely nestled between the Independent’s Feast Site and United’s, I figured, what the hey, what could go wrong, right? We knew people who were relatively civilized who were attending, so it seemed like a good idea — sort of like the movie, “The Magnificent Seven” where the guy explained why he jumped into a cactus patch without any clothes on: “It seemed like a good idea at the time”.
It was a promising start. Nestled in the high desert country of Oregon, the Shiloh Inn in Bend had a one bedroom apartment with a full kitchen, a leather couch and big leather chairs in front of the fireplace. It was the nicest accommodations there — and most expensive. The entire Church of God in Peace and Truth had come to the Shiloh Inn complex to keep the Feast of Tabernacles and my wife and I had the best accommodations, right across from the conference room where the services were held. The deacon and the deaconess who had been a part of the defense with United against the UCG stalker at the court that issued the restraining order were there as well, since their son was married to the daughter of the presiding minister. The people attending were really nice people. The main congregation was based out of Gold Hill, where there were about 50 people. The minister, Don Haney, was first in Worldwide, then in Global. The main congregation was from Living and they ended up the way they were because their Living minister was very terrible to them in ways that are hard to imagine, but have become standard fare. We were well set up and things looked promising (for a change).
I knew from the first that trouble was ahead. Don Haney said in the first third of his sermon, “I am going overtime” — in a church that proclaimed they lived by the Ten Commandments, one of which is, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”!?! Stealing our time?! That’s just rude! He saw me cross my arms and we were off and running in an adversarial relationship. I got to see how bad things were by reading the first few chapters of his booklet [I couldn’t stomach reading the whole thing], “Satan’s Seat of Tyranny,” where he took his misgivings concerning the Living Church of God and Roderick Meredith to a whole new plateau. From the front cover: “Its damaging rule over the Church of God” and “The bonds of restraint broken by the freedom of God’s Truth!”. From the back middle paragraph:
“However, Much of God’s Church Has Been Subjected to a Pyramid of Power and Intimidation, Which Has Hurt and Unnecessarily Divided God’s People, Thereby Impeding the Spreading of the Good News. Those in “POWER” Have interpreted Scripture for and Exercised Authority Over Those They Have Subjected to Themselves for So Long That They Seem to Have Cultivated an Even Greater Influence Over Some in God’s Church Than the Direct Authority of God’s Written Word!”.
I have to admit that I understand the sentiment: Roderick Meredith is like a community organizer whose sole purpose is to create havoc, divide people, for the sole purpose of self aggrandizement. His swelling ego was a result of his winning the Golden Glove regional boxing championship and then finding his way to Herbert Armstrong who was impressed that Meredith was “a man of quality”. It’s all heady stuff to be set on a pedestal by a highly successful cult leader. The admiration and its results differ little from the current U.S. government political landscape. Roderick Meredith ended up having a lot of power and influence: He was over the students at Ambassador College and he directed the ministers from headquarters. After Herbert Armstrong, he was a god in his own right. His opinions were law and he could oppress people, insult and abuse them, just about any way he chose as a harsh, hard slave merciless slave driver who assumed that he was a Man’s Man because of his being a winner. He didn’t see the real truth: He was a testosterone poisoned, brain shunken despot whose cruelty was legendary. He ended up spawning rebellious leaders who couldn’t wait to get out from under his control, only to set up their own fiefdoms of despotism. After all, he bankrupted his own church, Global, just out of spite.
It was as if Roderick Meredith said, “You haven’t treated me as the GOD I know I am, so I’m going to sink you and do a number on you!”. The sermon in Kansas City was one to remember when he told his congregation that he “would abide by the decision of the council” of elders in Global. He lied. You have to remember that Roderick Meredith has said, “I have never committed a MAJOR sin”. You know, like Adultery. At least not in the carnal sense. I suspect he has missed something in Revelation 22. You know the part where it says that liars will not enter into the Kingdom of God? He doesn’t seem very well positioned for repentance. I occasionally wonder in an off moment whether he has committed the unpardonable sin. It is this rebellion that has, in itself, spawned even more rebellion among those chaffing under his harsh relentless despotism, promulgating even more despots rebelling against his egocentric malignancy. I do often wish he would repent to reduce the massive harm he has done, but I doubt that he can really face himself in the spiritual mirror.
Trust me when I say that Satan’s Seat of Tyranny is the worst written booklet I have ever seen, but is filled with totally rank hypocrisy. [And yes, the author DID capitalize all those words!] He took his hatred and anger of the administration of Roderick Meredith to a whole new level. His basic theory: We will all come to live under the Laws, Statutes, Judgments and Testimonies of Scripture, and, from the Return of Jesus Christ on, it will be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth as the judges determine — and to hell with what Jesus said in Matthew 5:38-39. He was the very picture of the Pharisee as an Old Testament Christian. Here’s how it works: You are just fine as long as you do everything he tells you to do and wants you to do, without any hesitation. He is perfect. And under his administration, there’s no room for mercy, just blood letting. His congregation was fine with that. I suspect they were Stockholmed. If Haney really wanted to see Satan’s Seat of Tyranny, all he had to do is look at his backside in a mirror.
I met a young man at the Feast. His father was an Elder. His mother was with United. He had set up shop, so to speak, with his girlfriend in Eugene, and while things had started out fine with their live in arrangements, he was out of a job and not doing well. He got enough money to leave the Feast in the middle, to go back to his live-in girlfriend and get into the State’s job program. Since Don Haney made so much of how we were all going to [be forced to] keep all the Old Testament Laws, Statutes, Judgments and Testimonies, that I told him my expectation: That he, as the minister of the church, would obey the judgments in the New Testament and obey the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 5 and put the fornicator out of the church. His response, “He’s left the Feast”. No can do. Not my problem. It took care of itself. And the whole congregation felt good about themselves for having such “love”.
No wait! What!?! Hey, hey now!
You see, I didn’t really care about the man committing the fornication. This was a matter for the congregation and the minister. After all, if you proclaim that the Laws, Statutes, Judgments and Testimonies are going to be kept — all the way for beatings and replacing sheep and oxen, to death for those who commit kidnapping — surely, SURELY, the minister is going to keep what the New Testament says to do in his own congregation today. The truth is, he won’t. That also explains why Garner Ted Armstrong was able to get away with committing date rape with 200+ [by his own estimate] Ambassador College Coeds, in full view of Herbert Armstrong, who was responsible for the whole mess. Instead of prison, he got lots of money, fame and position — until he didn’t, only because the whole matter became too public and SOMEBODY HAD TO DO SOMETHING, even though the damage was done: Leaving a legacy of hopelessness for the ministers who later married the coeds and have had to deal with clinical depression from their anger ever since. It’s too bad so many get locked into the infestation in their warm little nests.
In the end, we lived well — even in the ankle deep snow that fell in early October, snarling up traffic and making it impossible for some to get to services in Sun River and Redmond. We sat in the big comfortable leather chairs in front of the fireplace in our own little fiefdom. We ate well [I fancy myself to be a good cook]. We slept soundly. We had peace, though not the peace of the Church of God. If living well is the best revenge, then we had our revenge. It is also best to observe a drama without getting drawn into it. We also really yucked it up by taking Haney’s preposperous propositions to their logical extreme: We supposed that we should all carry paddles at the Feast for when we needed to relieve ourselves! No one could figure out why my wife and I were breaking out in laughter! Hey, it’s the Law… or maybe Statute: We have to do it! That’s what everyone will do in the Millennium, so we’d better get used to it now! Forget toilets and water closets: God wants us to carry paddles!
The people in the Church of God in Peace and Truth are still nice people, except for the minister. I assume that afterwards, the minister took his posse and went hunting in the wilds of Oregon as he said he would. He lives a comfortable life and he is master of all he surveys. Things would be perfect for him, except for ALL THAT ANGER. It just can’t be good for you to hold it like that. It’s all a comfortable little nest of infestation which will continue for some time to come.
Near the end, I encountered someone I had first met in the Radio Church of God in 1963. I told him United was a cult. He told me that I had the root of bitterness. It is interesting that when an infestation is exposed, the nest bands together immediately to cover up their incursion. That’s how they manage to stay the cults they are, and “the root of bitterness” is yet another tool of the tools who make up the infestation. It’s what narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths always do: Seek first the destruction of credibility of truth seekers and ye shall inherit the nest of infestation. Next time you hear that you have a root of bitterness, just point out that they are attempting a coverup — they don’t want the truth at all because they like their lies too much — and they’ve just proved the points you just made [“Truth! You can’t handle the truth!”]
This year, the Church of God in Peace and Truth moves their venue for the Feast of Tabernacles from the desert mountain high country [God’s country?] to the beach [and there will be no more oceans] at the Embassy Suites in Mandalay Beach, California. For us? Never again. High concept about how things should work out is often disappointing in unanticipated ways — and we do not fear a tidle wave — it’s just that the hypocrisies of these infestations are not something I want during the only really good time to get away — even if it isn’t my idea of a fun time. I’ve had one too many laps in the cesspools of the Churches of God to appreciate the kind of hypocrisy home grown in the toxic infestations of hypocrisy. Better it is to be with someone who’s made a terrible mistake and learned from it than to join with those who are self righteous ungodly godly people who ARE IN CHARGE! I can get all I want of that from work at taxpayer expense.
I don’t know, but I suppose that if I were God, I would wonder if the leaders of the Churches of God would ever do what I said to do of their own volition.
The infestation of the Armstrongists is the worst kind of infestation: The leaders are parasites, living off the host. They take the resources of the host and live from it, providing nothing in return and making the host progressively more sick. When the host can provide no more, it is cast off. The infestation of the Armstrongist parasites then moves on and finds another host to live on.
Yellowstone Park has signs, DON’T FEED THE BEARS! Each year there are a few who do not heed the warning. But the bears have such appeal. So some roll down their windows and give the poor bears a sandwich. Have you ever heard the expression, Hungry as a bear? It’s a reality. The people who run out of food soon find the bear goes from fun to frightening. They will tear the car apart looking for more food. So the Armstrongists seemed to have such appeal. We fed them our “tithes”. That wasn’t enough. They wanted offerings. Then they wanted long term loans. Then, heck, send everything. Then they tore us apart. To add insult to injury, they grabbed the wheel and drove off, leaving us stranded along the side of the road. DON’T FEED THE BEARS! Let them survive or die in their natural habitat. Otherwise, you will have an infestation of parasites you will have a difficult time exterminating.
Moreover, all the sacrifices you have made for the parasite infestation — that made you feel so good about yourself — are completely useless, since you helped support something which was harmful, not just to yourself and your family, but to the rest of the Armstrongist community. Now the toxins left behind by the infestation are even harder to rid oneself from than the parasites themselves, because the toxins not only have weakened you, but left guilt and the feeling of stupidity besides. What you have to remember is that this is what they do and they are not really a part of you and never were. They just fed off of you. It will make it easier to walk away by putting the blame on the real culprits: They had a good spiel, we paid for it, now we have an opportunity to get better. Learn from the con and move on to live your own life, not theirs.
Like so many other kinds of infestations, those involving scoundrels often start in the same place and end the same way.
As for my book, Assertive Incompetence — An Introduction to Management Malpractice, being a worthless failure, it’s all because the information is all there about narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths: Their methods, approaches and processes — but no one actually uses the information but me. Properly used, it could have prevented the current administration, but people love their little nests of infestations, living off of hope, which is merely an unfulfilled illusion, relying on useless saviors, which leads to disappointment.
That’s all I have to say. For now.
I was reminded, by your paragraph on feeding the bears, of the sermon “Clarion Call” by Restored’s David Pack in late 2007. In it he all but insists that his tithe slaves send their assets and even mortgage their future to him. It was posted on his website and after listening to it I was physically ill for a day or two. I did not miss work or anything like that, but I was very grateful that when I left the PCG, in mid 2006, I did not fall in with his group like a couple of other people I know did. It was bad enough going through what it takes to have so much crap sent your way that you voluntarily take the lake of fire route. Of course I realize now that getting out was a Godsend, even if it did not seem so at the time. They, the leaders, truly are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Vaughn, I’m glad you’ve managed to get free from the very worst of the parasitical infestations.
I hope more can make it.
Apparently, you still go along with the Feasts, etc. I left feasts, sabbaths, clean and unclean meats, and all that other garbage (as far as I’m concerned) on the dung heap a long time ago. So, I’m a little bit puzzled as to where you actually stand. Maybe you’ve said and I missed it or read over it.
You couldn’t get me within a thousand miles of a feast any group is holding unless it was in my own community. I certainly wouldn’t be attending, even then.
To me, that whole ancient religious setup the Hebrews invented has been and still is a curse on humanity just as great as the curse of Mohamedanism, Mormonism and all other organized religions where alpha apes of our genus enslave the minds and mess up the lives of their fellow apes for their selfish benefit.
Mr Becker, your book sounds interesting from it title, and your research on the corprate follies of Armstrongism is quite good. I thinki you have outlined some marvelous foundational statements that can be placed alongsinde those of Al, Betty, and BB.
This kind of guest editing enlarges our ability to see things from a much wider perspective, though I do agree with Al, it’s a total waste of time to do this feast thing or Sabbath thing or any of that. Not for the same reasons, obviously, but I do agree.
Exactly, PT. I was early on intrigued by Divine Science, because they believed in reincarnation which intrigued me at the time.
It didn’t take long to see that the woman pastoring that group had the same goals as the Armstrongs. She bagan advocating tithing and never did reply to my letter telling her that tithing was not only unscriptural for Christians but scripturally illegal.
A lot of well-to-do, highly educated people around Arcadia, Pasadena, etc. attended and it was a pleasant atmosphere, but I soon saw that it was another dead end. As far as I’m concerned, they all are, no matter how well-meaning and dedicated an occasional minister might be.
Where do I stand. I am doing my best to keep my wife from going back to United. That is where I stand.
Truthfully, I don’t fit anywhere. The Armstrongist community offers me nothing (I hope that came through). My brother got me into it while I was in my formative years. Being one to prove out if people are who they say they are, I have a certain amount of patience, but in the last few years it seems to gotten to be a lot less.
I have pretty much proved to myself (and to a few others) that the Armstrongist approach doesn’t work. If it limited itself to, say, the Church of God Seventh Day, it could have been fine. But early on, the ones in charge just had to lord it over all of us — to the point of deciding for us whether we would have a car, what color it would be if we did, preventing us from going to doctors, what jobs we could apply for, whether or not we could marry, and who we could marry, how much money we were to give. Then the Gestapo would come with their counseling and write up their reports when they returned to their Fury cars to send to Pasadena to keep tabs on everyone. Then there was what education you could go for. If it weren’t AC, you were discouraged. Every aspect of life was tightly controlled and closely examined.
They pretty much had to give that up in the Seventies because to try to do so was too unwieldy. So they abandoned most people. The fatherless and widow were on their own. People who needed help didn’t get it. Since they did not understand mental illness (the mentally ill were demon possessed) and many of them had mental illnesses themselves, they actually were a threat to people’s lives.
I do not see that Armstrongism had any real positive effect for many people. It was an unnatural act which forced people to go beyond what was reasonable.
They were ahead of their times, though. Note what the current government administration is doing, and, except for the name on the door, there’s no real difference — and the degree of control is getting worse. Now manufacturers can make showheads with a flow of water greater than 2.5 gallons per minute. My view is that the Armstrongists would like to have that degree of control.
Woody Allen made a movie called “Bananas” where he became dictator of a banana “Republic”. He decreed that people should change their underware every four hours. This was enforced. To make the enforcement easier, people were made to wear their underwear over their regular clothes so the military could check out whether it had been changed or not.
The assumption of the Armstrongists, as with all the other cults, is that they know the truth; they know what’s best; they are righteous; and they are able to know what YOU should do under every circumstance. That is how they rob people of their freedom first. And then the publicly criticize people who don’t measure up to their view of perfection. Or the ridicule may be just for practice.
Those who have been Pack and Flurry can testify that this sort of thing is still going on today. “Back to the ‘Truth’ once delevered.” It’s really unbridled egoism.
Not all churches are like that, although you may find some even among the Lutherans (I’ve talked to the guy at work who quite unhappy with his minister in the Lutheran Church of his synod). More like though, they are mostly there for the money passively and do try to help people without the absolute dictatorial control.
I was going to compare Armstrongism to Trekkies at one point and never got around to it. Guys dress up as Klingons and stock the food bank, feed the homeless and take care of people, just for the fun of it. A lot of Trekky chapters do that sort of thing. They pitch in for the community and extend Gene Roddenbury’s vision of the future. There has never been any record of Trekkies causing problems, committing crimes and oppressing people. It doesn’t happen. Oh, that the Armstrongists could follow such an example.
My belief in God has worked out well for me, though, since I do have some very remarkable coincidences occur.
I don’t know if that clears up the mystery. It should be noted that I meet people and do things, as opposed to sitting at home and letting TV happen to me (although, these columns did correspond to the season finale of Dr. Who on BBC America — I wouldn’t have time to do the columns here otherwise!).
As for wasting time, I would remind everyone that my wife has red hair.
That clears up everything. Thanks.
We’re all in our own place and circumstances and our opinions differ on much, but we’re pretty well unitied in recognizing the evil of what we were once a part of.
I hope that once in awhile you can get in a real vacation, even if it’s just a long weekend. I never really regarded the Feasts as vacations after the first few times. Maybe they are more so with some of the splinters, but listening to the BS must be a real drag.
Concerning tithing: I have yet to have anyone “prove” to me from Scriptures that anyone is required to tithe on wages. It just isn’t there.
And if anyone wants to tell us that we should give 10% (and three times at that!), I would point out that tithing was committed on produce.
What really screws up the “Principle of Tithing” is the fruit trees.
“Honor the Lord with your substance?” I could go for that. Paying fines to Armstrongist leaders in the form of Tithes, not so much.
One more thing: Last year I did NOT want to go to United for a Feast Day! I loathed the idea, but my wife was determined, so I went — if for nothing else but to make certain our little family didn’t get into trouble. Rex Sexton really hacked me off immediately.
My perfect revenge was “Stench”. I promised I’d do it, and I did it — and he knew I was going to do it.
The Armstrongists have tried to do a bunch of nasty things to me this past year and I wasn’t even attending at all with any of their groups except for the Feast days. It’s amazing how startling clear just how inappropriate their behavior is when you haven’t been around them for several years. It’s like they have some sort of entitlement.
If there is a next time at UCG — and I hope there won’t be, I think I’ll just let loose and let them have it. It should be entertaining.
Mr. Becker said: “The Armstrongists have tried to do a bunch of nasty things to me this past year and I wasn’t even attending at all with any of their groups except for the Feast days.”
Well they have been doing this sort of crap forever it seems. In the end it is about the church. Always protect the church. Its not about the people in the church. What it is about is what it always has been about. The corporate sole. That entity that has not one iota of trust in the god they claim to lead people to.
The hard reality, if it can be seen by those veiled eyes, is what really goes on in the smoke filled back rooms occupied by the ministry. The den of devils where decisions are made that assure the survival of the cult and the income of the ministry. No don’t trust in god, trust in the lawyers who sit in the seat of Moses within this den of vipers!
Need an example?
From: http://www.hwarmstrong.com/gycg/plaintruthheal.htm#church
We read…….
7. Don’t involve the Church.
Beware of advising people and involving the Church. People are free moral agents and must make their own decisions. They must learn to stand on their own feet.
The Church must come before individuals. Don’t make the Church re- sponsible for lawsuits. Help people in order to protect the Church, but let people help themselves where possible. Don’t try to live their lives for them. Don’t obligate the Church.
If you note James’ link from above, look above to #2; the topic is what to do when someone dies because the church didn’t allow people to go to doctors for treatment; the basic problem? The church was an accessory to manslaughter, so the thing to do is LIE and cover it up — breaking the commandments and the civil law:
Deny any knowledge that the ailment was serious. Or if this cannot be done) then: (a) Place the time when the seriousness first became apparent as close to the time of death as possible. (b) Take the shortest
period of time possible for the length of the illness. (c) If the
question of a doctor should arise, it might be met with, “If I had any
idea that she was that sick and that a doctor could have healed her,
I certainly would have called him immediately.”
Remember that the ministers still in Armstrongism still have the same mindset: It’s OK to murder people to protect your salary and your retirement.
The big question is, you might have to work for people like that, but why would you associate with them willingly in church when you don’t have to be with criminals.
Yes, that’s right. The ministers of the Radio Church of God were criminals — just ones who never went to prison. One can imagine what the other inmates would have done to Herbert Armstrong. They have a ranking system among inmates, and I do believe he would be on the bottom. He probably would not have lived very long.
The ministers of the Worldwide Church of God were complicit in crimes. They just never got caught. Most of them, anyway.
So the Armstrongists today? Have they changed? You have to ask yourself the question of what did they do when they witnessed crimes? What? Did they report the crimes and insure justice was done. Or did they tolerate it because they were afraid. As in “… the fearful… will not inherit the Kingdom of God”. They tolerated it. Would you trust their conscience? They COMPROMISED themselves and have become irredeemably corrupt.
And I remember the day after services on the Sabbath, Chuck Harris showing me his six shooter — the same one he shot Brenda James with. His roommate knew. The minister just didn’t listen.
So it’s never the minister’s problem. It’s not the church’s problem. When you need help, you are on your own and if you go to prison because you followed church teaching, that’s just too bad — it was your choice.
That was the mindset early on, as I redcounted in my book. Apparently, it still is in the more radical splinters. I wouldn’t know, because I’ve had no close contact with any of them for nearly forty years.
Many, many needless deaths and much needless suffering have occurred because of Herbert’s radical and criminal teaching. We were so deceived that it is now mind boggling.
I had to tell my own sister to take more than a couple acid control tablets to combat her acid reflux. She was so afraid of them that she would only take two and concluded they didn’t work because she was allergic to them because they were made from oyster shells. When I take them occassionally, I chew five or six and the problem is solved. I hope she listened, but they still fear anything they can call a drug, no matter how natural it might be.
I remember when I was counselede for baptism in the church. I was 19, and had pretty much left my family to become part of the church. The minister asked if I had a problem with alcohol. I told him I never touched it until I started attending WCG services.
He said I was young to consider for baptism, but showed maturity. He asked why I wasn’t dating, and I said I had no interwest in getting married at that point in my life, and all the women in the church seemed intent on getting married.
He asked if there had been problems in my family, and I told him I had never got along with my mother, basically because we both would argue with a No U-turn sign.
Several months later, after approval for baptism, he asked me to run an errand for him ivolving a vist to Mr McNair in Atlanta. he aid I could take his car to run the errand, and he left me his house and car keys on the same ring.
Having access to personal files on myself was more than I could resist, so I looked to see his notes on our interviews. The notes said I had homosexual tendencies. I was a nice looking young man who preferred not to date or get involved with girls, so I suppose that made me homosexual.
I could have checked up on others, but that was none of my business. I only wanted to see his opinion of me. When we were involved later in conversations, I would smile and wink at him a lot.
My fiancee once asked me why I laugh when somebody calls me “queer”, and yet I’m ready to beat them with a ball bat if they insinuate I’m lazy. The answer was simple enough. If somebody says I’m gay, I know there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of it being true. But if somebody says I’m lazy, there might be some truth to that.
Sex said: “I just have to say, I enjoy reading your post. Maybe you could let me know how I can bookmark it ? Also just thought I would tell you I found this site through yahoo.”
James here. I just edited this spam and removed the link to a Russian sex site. It seems we might have to have everyone register on this blog to respond in order to eliminate this sort of crap spam.
Add the site to your favorites list on explorer. Everytime you click on favorites, it will be in the list and you can then click on it. Welcom to the site.
It was spam. Read the edit I made on the new respondent.
Interesting thing about infestations. In living organisms, we develop antibodies against the invading bacteria or virus, but the antibody is usually quite specific in its recognition. We may never get that infection again, but we might catch a number of very similar infestations of the same infection.
Like James, I realize that all the religions are merely different sttrains of the same virus, and I have immunity against all of them. I won’t be infected or infested.
Remember the demon Jesus cast out whose name was “Legion”? Sounds about right for religion.
Good point, Ralph. The addiction can be so great that we gravitate to another virulent mutation. I think I’m also immune to all of them, but it took a while to get there.
Just like addicts, we have to get completely away from the problem substance and anything that tempts us to return to it, including old associates and environs.
“I have pretty much proved to myself (and to a few others) that the Armstrongist approach doesn’t work. If it limited itself to, say, the Church of God Seventh Day, it could have been fine. But early on, the ones in charge just had to lord it over all of us — to the point of deciding for us whether we would have a car, what color it would be if we did, preventing us from going to doctors, what jobs we could apply for, whether or not we could marry, and who we could marry, how much money we were to give. Then the Gestapo would come with their counseling and write up their reports when they returned to their Fury cars to send to Pasadena to keep tabs on everyone. Then there was what education you could go for. If it weren’t AC, you were discouraged. Every aspect of life was tightly controlled and closely examined.
How well I remember the lording over. I guess the 7th Day churches are a little more benign, but they still tie people up in knots over the Sabbath and several other things like their parent the SDAs.
When I visited in New York, I was part of the reporting, but I never had a vengeful attitude about it. Nor did I at that time realize what was the real intent of it all. It was just the way things were done. I would have resented any intimaation of it be Gestapo-like at that time. We were like the frog slowly boiling to death in a pot and not realizing what was going on.
Some churches and some ministers are truly well-meaning, and they do some good for some people. I just can’t get by the overall nonsense they are propogating in total deceived sincerity.
We were such sheep. I remember that everyone seemed to have to have the same kind of car and wear the same kind of shirts the heads of their departments had. Of course, no one could have the Rolls Royce or the limosine HWA had. If they could have afforded it, they certainly would have.
If we read the book of Acts, and the Epistles of Paul, particularly the epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, we can clearly see many of the things that were wrong with WCG/Armstrongism, and why they were wrong. This is especially true if one has a TNIV study Bible, and reads the abundant notes correlating with each verse.
The entire Protestant Reformation was based largely on the principles in Romans and Galatians. WCG rarely taught from those books, most likely because doing so would have made all of us ask the right questions years and years and years ago.
BB
BB, I like Romans and Galatians. They make an effective barrier against Armstrongism, but they do the same for all religions.