Author: Douglas Becker

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accountability

Narrows Bridge
Narrows Bridge

Herbert Armstrong vs Dennis Luker demonstrated that men without ability, talent, experience and qualifications can build a successfully running cult while those with the qualifications don’t stand a chance within a dysfunctional organization. DBP poses an interesting question in the comments:

Do dysfunctional organizations, the ones that grow big enough to be noticed, spring forth from a cult-like minded sociopathic leader? You know, the ones who have no control over themselves so they try to control every body else.

It is an interesting question and one which could be addressed in various ways. Let us examine anecdotal evidence to illustrate.

Decades ago, there was a rather well-liked pastor of a particularly small church. He lived modestly and promised his congregation that no matter how successful or how large the church grew, he would always live in adequate but modest accommodations. At the time, his approach was humble and his intentions were sincere.

Fast forward several decades. That little church grew into a megachurch. Each weekend, thousands of people park their vehicles in the parking lot of the church on prime city property to be bused up to the tabernacle where there are fairly short ‘plastic services’ served up with choir singing and music, prayer and a short palliative service filled with the all-too-familiar bromides designed to evoke positive emotions of good feelings. It isn’t clear how many millions of dollars a year are collected in this cash cow, but it is substantial.

And the housing for the original pastor — who may or may not even be seen for any of the services?

Note the picture above of the Narrows Bridge over Puget Sound. He has a house near the water with a spectacular view. There isn’t any real guide of how much the pastor’s property is worth, but it is in the millions. As if this weren’t enough, he has built another similar property nearby for his daughter.

There isn’t anything illegal about this as far as anyone knows, but one dare not ask any questions, for, in the due process of time, he has become very well politically connected in the community and those who might cast aspersions upon him risk considerable personal damage as public (and official) opinion could cause ruin for anyone daring to pose anything concerning this pastor in a negative light.

Is the megachurch a cult? The pastor certainly was not a sociopath. What seems to have happened is that the good intentions did not live on with integrity. To understand this fully takes a nuanced approach. There is a very old saying, which is completely wrong, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If that were true, then God has to be the most corrupt being in the Universe. No, rather, power permits a person to become who and what they truly are. Early on, with integrity, a person may be able to disguise who and what they are and good intentions may be fulfilled, but as time passes, age leaves people frayed at the edges and often they will find it harder and harder to resist the temptations of taking advantage of, well, the advantages they have. This is especially true if there is no accountability, for, without it, a person can do and be anything they want to be with no consequences. In a situation like that, the true colors will come out and a person will truly be what they are. Early discipline and commitment are the only things standing in the way to prevent deterioration of integrity. Thus, it is not always true that a dysfunctional organization grows from a sociopathic leader, influencing and infecting the ranks below. Often, it is just the chaos which results from the loss of energy required to maintain integrity.

Some may think that the situation developed from narcissism, but that does not seem to be the case. Instead, there is a more subtle form of bias at the root of what happened. It is apparent that the pastor thought he was superior to others. Perhaps not everyone, but enough to believe that he should be able to be able to have more as an entitlement. This, combined with a lack of accountability, opened the way for the compromise of integrity.

To the north in three major metropolitan areas is yet another megachurch which hustles attendees to 90 minute services in cattle drive fashion. The founder has an interesting story. As a teenager, he was heavily involved with drugs. At the age of 19, he entered a drug rehabilitation center where he became ‘born again’ and supposedly learned how to renew his mind through the Bible, which he considered the Word of God. He went on to earn his bachelor of theology, married and eventually founded his ‘church’ which grew and grew and grew. The magachurch has a variety of ‘ministry’ with something for everyone — seniors, kids, teens, young marrieds, parents, young adults, a prison ministry, women’s ministry and, of course, recovery centers because there’s nothing like leveraging something you know.

Is the megachurch a cult? Is the ‘pastor’, who can be seen simulcast on Sunday on two screens in two locations, a sociopath?

That question is open to interpretation. On the surface, to all appearances, the man seems squeaky clean and appears to be just what he seems. However, the waitress at a Mexican restaurant saw him differently. He brought a party with him for dinner, was quite demanding and insisted on the best service. She described his offspring as ‘Nazi children’. He was rude to her. In the end, after being particularly nasty to her, he left without giving her any kind of tip. It’s amazing what some people are like when they deal with those they think are their helpless inferiors. Again, this is a situation where the man certainly made it plain that he felt he was superior, with more than an added layer of hubris.

As we turn our attention within this topic to Herbert Armstrong and the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia he spawned, we have a background of behavior derived from a way of thinking: The person at the top, founding a religion with at least a modicum of bad behavior toward those thought to be inferior. The resulting dystopian misery — at least for some — is a result of the pattern of thinking which trivializes others. It doesn’t have to be full blown narcissism, it doesn’t necessarily represent full on antisocial behavior — in fact, there may not be any overt attempt at oppression or abuse, it may simply be a matter of collateral damage to people who just don’t matter that much to the person with superiority trivializing others. Certainly, being a sociopath or psychopath enriches the cultic environment, which is then propagated by those in the upper layers of the hierarchy to those below.

Certainly, Herbert Armstrong, given his incest during his first ten years of his ‘ministry’ was severely antisocial, and, as pointed out by David Robinson, if he had been caught in the State of Texas, he would have been executed. It was not as trivial as painted by apologists. Scripturally, his being a false prophet with the death penalty attached by Old Testament standards wasn’t trivial either, but modern apologists find excuses to vindicate his bad behavior, inimical to being any sort of competent minister, let alone human being. If God truly is his judge, Herbert Armstrong is going to have to come up with his own excuses on Judgment Day, as are all those who knowingly afforded him the idolatry they gave him as the one who ‘brought them the truth’ which was nothing of the kind.

As Herbert Armstrong progressed through the Church of God environment, he espoused the proposition that he was better than any one else. This went beyond simple superiority and encompassed full blown narcissism. He could not tolerate being subject to anyone else because he ‘knew’ he was superior and that no one had more knowledge or understanding than he. He found ways to rebel until he could stand on his own with a following so that he could have the freedom not to be subject to anyone. He wanted freedom from accountability. When he achieved that, a cult was the natural result. All sorts of extreme abnormalities ensued as he applied his eccentricity and egocentricity to religious doctrine. He amplified the effect of his antisocial stance by using indoctrination into insanity using Ambassador College. From there, the adaptation to the insanity became institutionalized, reinforced by inter social interactions providing a gestalt of the weird and creepy, including, but not restricted to, the science fiction of alternative earth history depicted by British Israelism, which, in turn, turned into an obsession among the cult members for seeking the ‘truth’ about the future, including the imminent destruction of the current societies of the world in a worldwide collapse of society, commerce and the financial institutions needed to support the world as it is today. This destruction and devastation was to usher in a fabulous world of peace and prosperity — in a scant few foreseeable years — which never has come to pass.

After Herbert Armstrong died, there was a vacuum which supplanted whatever order there was in the Worldwide Church of God held together by the force of will of Herbert Armstrong. Not only did he spend up the future with his indulgence leaving nothing but the potential for pent up entropy, but also conditions changed so that doing the same things under the same conditions to produce the same results could not be sustained because the world had changed forever such that it was harder and harder to maintain a selfish system wherein the leader could attain the same levels of lack of accountability, even though there were small pockets of remnant resources which could be protected from the ravages of entropy for a time.

Roderick Meredith was one of the first to venture forth to establish his own compound where he could expect to be superior to others without any accountability. His efforts were devastating, bankrupting the Global Church of God, as he plowed it under for his own selfish reasons. Today, he faces his impending death with his progeny supported at church headquarters as philandering boozing alcoholic adulterers. Problems multiply because more and more people associated with the Living Church of God are asking questions involving accountability, or rather, the lack of it.

David Pack is definitely one to assert his own superiority making others of much less worth in his own mind. He has come to the point that he is so filled with selfish hubris that he thinks and declares that everything is his. Members are to share everything in common, to give up their own rights, so he can take what everyone else has. He has no concept of accountability and what’s worse doesn’t seem to have any sense of what others think of him, nor does he particularly embrace any sort of reality about himself in his extreme shameless entitlement: What’s yours is his and what’s his is his. Ultimate collapse is the only destination possible in long term.

Gerald Flurry is ‘that prophet’ which means he is Jesus Christ in the flesh. He certainly sees himself as superior to others. As he regards his inferiors, he has pointedly said that ‘no one has any rights’. What he means is that only he has rights, his followers have none, he can do whatever he wants without one shred of accountability and no one has any right to question him or his ministers, not even to ask if it’s a particularly good idea to leave your disabled child at a shopping mall because someone will take care of it. Superiority also is projected in ‘the no contact rule’. Members of the Philadelphia Church of God may not have any meaningful (religious) contact with people outside the PCG, nor may they have contact with their own family if the family members don’t espouse Gerald Flurry doctrine and they can’t even have contact with other Armstrongist members of the Churches of God if they are not specifically members of the Philadelphia Church of God in good standing. Superiority has hubris added to it, with a huge serving of antisocial behavior, in the which, members encourage one another to reinforce this diabolical cult. There are also questions as to how Irish dancing contributes to the redemption of anyone in the world to bring them to the truth. How does that work exactly?

Ā James Russell deserves special mention because the delimiting factor of whether or not you are a spirit led Christian is determined by whether or not you keep the postponements to the holydays. If you keep the postponements of the Jewish Calendar, you will be among those mentioned in Revelation 2 as those who are of ‘the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan’: You’ll be the ones who fall down and worship those of the Church of God in Truth who have become spirit beings.

Don’t worry about these things. These are sects of a cult, many of which are led by either sociopaths or psychopaths, but certainly are formed and led by those who are ‘holier than thou’ who believe that they are better than nearly anyone else and more often than not are arrogant, having compromised their humanity long ago in favor of being free from any accountability.

And that’s not reality — that’s insanity.

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Herbert Armstrong vs Dennis Luker

Herbert Armstrong vs Dennis Luker
Herbert Armstrong vs Dennis Luker

It is impossible to be competent in a dysfunctional organization.

Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to insure the accuracy of the material here; it is possible that some details may be inaccurate, but the situations and data presented here are true in intent and as the big picture; any discrepancies brought to our attention will be corrected.

The Radio Church of God, the Worldwide Church of God and Ambassador College were extremely dysfunctional with preposterous situations, standards and beliefs. Herbert Armstrong was responsible for the grossly insane environment, made to look benign and reasonable through profound manipulation, lies, deceptions and cover ups. It did not matter how advanced or competent someone entering this environment may have been when they started, but by the time they were finished, they were ruined and compromised. Dennis Luker is one example of someone who was quite competent who found himself surrounded by those who compromised themselves, their colleagues, their followers and their integrity.

Herbert Armstrong did not even finish high school. He assumed that he was quite capable of being superior through self-education by ‘flying by the seat of his pants’. He didn’t want or need to have anyone to tell him what to do, and assumed, contrarywise, that he had wisdom, knowledge and understanding to carry him into success for whatever endeavor he chose for himself. No one could tell him anything. He thought that he was totally self-sufficient. He set out to build his vocabulary and was quite confident that he had the largest, complete and most accurate vocabulary, above and beyond anyone else. He decided that he didn’t have any peers and that he knew better than anyone else. His idea was that he would quit high school to become a high school teacher; that he could be buddies with the guys and he could subdue them with wrestling holds. Fortunately, his father stood in his way and he never went off to teach high school, even if he weren’t particularly qualified. His ambition and hubris caused him to believe that he was better than anyone else and that he was so much smarter that he could figure things out to be able to teach, even if he didn’t know the material.

Herbert Armstrong was quite devoid of the inherited talent known as structural visualization: He could have never been a mechanic, engineer, surgeon or scientist. He was a technological idiot. That set himself apart from his father who not only had structural visualization but apparently invented a furnace which he could have (and may have) patented. This meant that Herbert Armstrong simply could not have understood his father: He didn’t have the same talent that his father had and was devoid of being able to share many perspectives that his father had. It is likely that this factor was a part of his narcissism and put him in competition with this father: He would have been in the position of seeking approval from his dad for the rest of his life. His mother lacked structural visualization and so he would have been far more comfortable with her than he was with his father.

Herbert Armstrong wasn’t particularly adept at planning. He simply dealt with the world on his own terms as it happened to him. He never inherited the talent of foresight from his father. When he was bankrupted — having never planned his life for such contingencies because he had no prudence about the future — he drove out to Oregon where he stayed at his dad’s place — and marveled how his father could have a stable life, a home not just adequate for his immediate needs, but had accommodations that could put Herbert and his family up while Herbert tried to get back on his feet. This singular lack of foresight — the prudence of planning for the future — translated itself into faith — that you just lived life as it came, buying and acquiring what you wanted when you wanted it with no thought or concept of consequences. Thus, he would go to Harrod’s and spend $68,000 in one day on gold, silver and crystal place settings for his dining room: This was, up to that time, the most anyone had ever spent at once at Harrod’s. Of course, when the realization hit him when he got home, he had to send out emergency coworker letters insisting that everyone had to sacrifice for the sake of the ‘Work’. Not only didn’t Herbert Armstrong have foresight, he also had very poor behavior controls. It should also be noted that people who have inherited high foresight value higher education and generally pursue it as opportunity presents itself. Herbert Armstrong had a singular disdain for higher education.

Herbert Armstrong was also quite inconsistent. When a potential employer approached him with a job offer, he had to turn it down because he had ‘up’ days and ‘down’ days. On the periods of the cycle with his ‘down’ days, he could accomplish very little, if anything. He couldn’t afford to take a regular job because of this. It isn’t clear whether or not this was a result of his manic depressive mental disorder or his alcoholism — probably both. He couldn’t be trusted to be consistent. He claimed to have overcome this problem over time, but his protestations did not have much upon which to base them, particularly during his bouts being naked drunk in his hotel room.

Speaking of alcoholism, it wasn’t just that Herbert Armstrong was an alcoholic, but his whole family was a group of alcoholics, and where you have a family corporation founded and led by alcoholics, you can be sure that birds of a feather will flock together: The administration of the church and Ambassador College had quite the infiltration of boozers. Spirits of various brands were bandied about and filtered down, flowing to the people below in the hierarchy. Dr. James Milam in his book, Under the Influence, mentions that alcoholism is passed through the mitochondria. For anyone familiar with biology, this means that the liver disease which causes alcoholism is passed through the mother. We know that Garner Ted Armstrong was quite the boozing alcoholic, and, so, therefore, his mother was an alcoholic passing the genetics not just to him, but to his siblings. Most of us are familiar with the friendship Garner Ted Armstrong had with David Jon Hill — who had quite a problem with alcoholism. There were many who said they hoped that ‘he would get his head out of the bottle’. While there is practically nothing in sociological writings or studies about ‘the alcoholic corporation’, the facts reflect that the dysfunction of an alcoholic corporation, such as the Worldwide Church of God / Ambassador College, is not unlike that of the families of alcoholics, with the lies, broken promises, abuse and neglect. Now it should not be surprising that Herbert Armstrong would want to break away from the Church of God Seventh Day which had a strong bias against drinking: Herbert Armstrong would not at all want his freedom to booze it up bridled in any way. Although there were many reasons that Herbert Armstrong broke off from the CoG7, his addiction of alcohol may well have contributed to his assessments in pondering his rebellion.

Various church areas suffered from the alcoholism perpetuated by Herbert Armstrong. In the 1960s, an alcoholic ex Marine became a member and even though he was new to the environment, he fit right in: The booze flowed and he had quite the impact on the area — at one point he was the Spokesman Club President — always having big ideas and quite socially connected. A decade or so later, an alcoholic minister, Don Weininger became the church pastor. He, as well as most of the congregation, complained about hypoglycemia, which, in 90% of the cases is the result of the third stage of alcoholism — you know the one: It’s the stage just before death. His alcoholism was a part of his wife seeking a divorce after she had become a successful real estate agent. He met her in the hallway outside her divorce attorney’s office. He brought a gun. He tried to talk her out of the divorce. He then shot her and committed suicide. And the ex Marine? He had gotten a divorce and left his wife stranded with his sons. Spokane was devastated and it took a long time to recover.

Of course, Spokane wasn’t the only church where alcoholism was evident. During the 1970s, Dale Hampton came through Seattle and presented his message about his own alcoholism in the ministry with the appeal for people in the church to deal with their own problem. His estimate was that 18% of the members of the Seattle church were alcoholics. Experience suggests that this estimate was low, at least by one third. As Armstrongism has rolled out into myriad spit offs, many of the sects have a reputation for alcoholics at the top and not too fine a point on it, one leader is routinely called the six-pack prophet because of his online DUI — well, not driving exactly, but you get the picture.

Herbert Armstrong was the source of all this and given the hero worship idolatry, few Armstrongists want to even acknowledge the problem. Nevertheless, it’s there, and the irony is that so many people may have been alcoholics before entering the Radio / Worldwide Church of God but never had a problem because they didn’t drink alcohol. It was only at the urging of the WCG itself that they took up boozing and have been subsumed by the addiction. For those in Armstrongism: Stop drinking before you kill yourself, someone else or leave people you’ve affected permanently disabled.

Herbert Armstrong was quite delusional about his own place in the world and felt he was personally exempt from following standard ‘best’ practices. He liked to pretend that getting a brisk rubdown substituted for exercise. It doesn’t, of course, which is why he was morbidly obese — and became the roly-poly apostle, nearly as wide as he was tall. Lacking any sort of athletic skill was no limiting factor to him, since he assumed, for no particularly good reason, that he was popular in spite of the fact that he was stubborn, opinionated, obtuse, difficult, uncooperative and a real fatty. It is surprising that he made it to 93 with only one heart attack.

Dennis Luker was the captain of his high school football team. This meant that he could work with others, he was a real leader, he exercised and kept himself fit. He dated the cheerleader. Apparently, he had some sort of injury which prevented him from playing football on scholarship to the University, where he earned his degree — because he had high foresight and valued education — and began his career as an engineer for an aerospace company, where he learned about the corporate environment and gained organizational skills, both as a worker and learned from his leadership.

Somewhere in the early 1960s, he left his job to go to Ambassador College where he met his wife to be — the love of his life — and began his transition to be a minister in the church cult corporate. He rose in the ranks to eventually become an evangelist. He was posted for some time as the regional director of Australia. During his decades in the Radio / Worldwide Church of God, he used his socialization skills to form many relationships with various people in the church. His brother-in-law was the Data Processing Manager at Ambassador College in Pasadena for a time, which means that Dennis Luker had a thorough knowledge of the people, the hierarchy, and the administration of the entire operation, both within the headquarters environment and out in the hinterland. He was well aware of the problems as well.

When he came to Seattle, he worked with a minister there to set a program to help alcoholics in the church. One of the most helpful things he ever did is to announce to the Seattle congregation, If you say that you can do without it, prove it. It was ‘The Luker Challenge’.

It should be clear that with his structural visualization, foresight, high vocabulary, connections, executive ability, he should have been a shining beacon to the rest of the church. Unfortunately, he was overshadowed by those who had power without much ability or ethics and morals. In fact, at one point, we were shocked by an announcement in the Worldwide News that he was slated to take over the Quincy, Washington church. We all looked at each other and went, huh? Quincy, Washington was about as low as anyone could get (Gerald Flurry ended up there at one point). We wondered who he had offended among those in the higher echelons of the cult. Fortunately, it never happened.

After Herbert Armstrong died, Dennis Luker began to foresee what was ahead: The writing on the wall suggested to him that his career was about to tank under Tkach. Since he had high foresight, he planned to separate from the Worldwide Church of God. He was really behind the meetings that Victor Kubik held in his apartment and when push came to shove, he went to Tkach along with Jim Franks and Robert Dick to discuss an amicable split and sharing of the spoils. We know what happened: Tkach said no, and United was formed.

It should be clear from all this how absolutely inappropriate Herbert Armstrong was, and he was a fraud compared to Dennis Luker. Dennis Luker was the real deal.

In the end, the biggest fault Dennis Luker had was that he didn’t quit and just kept going in the Worldwide Church of God cult. It probably would have been so much better for him and his family if he had done the sane thing and left the chaos and insanity of the entire venue. Dennis Luker was buried in the fraud corporation disguised as a church. In all of this, he suffered fools greatly, proving once again…

It is impossible to be competent in a dysfunctional organization.

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Why Armstrongist leaders MUST lie

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:

Thomas Pierson

Thomas Pierson, I was born this way

235.5k Views Ā· Most Viewed Writer in Psychopathy and Psychopaths
*UPDATE*
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.Ā 

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
David Hulme, beleaguered guru of the Church of God, an International Community

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.