Douglas Becker – Page 31 – The Painful Truth-Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God

March 21, 2015

2015 New Year

It’s spring and today marks the first day of the 2015 New Year. Or maybe it’s yesterday. Or could be tomorrow. The Jewish Calendar is so confusing! And this is a postponement year. OK, well maybe it’s not spring. After all, fall is just beginning in New Zealand. So congratulations, we’ve just begun the holyday calendar New Year. Unless we haven’t. After this weekend, though, it will be the start of a brand new religious new year. Well, maybe not technically for the Jews, since they seem to have used the calendar to start their year in the fall at the time of the Feast of Trumpets. Or maybe the Day of Atonement (after all, that’s when the Jubilee Year begins, if there is one — but, of course, some people think the Jubilee Year only lasts six months — honest! That’s what they think!) So if you’re confused, you’re not alone, although some confused people think they are perfectly fine!

We thought we’d start the new year with a surprise! It’s been a lot of hard work, and it’s still under development, but if you click on the above picture of the Ambassador.Report website, it will take you to… the Ambassador.Report website. It’s still about the same as AmbassadorReports.com, but with some new technology. We’ve updated some material and added the Ambassador College 1969 Envoy:

It’s now in flipping book format. It certainly is appropriate to Ambassador.Report, since the 1969 Envoy is a priceless pictorial of the state of Armstrongism just after the Radio Church of God became the Worldwide Church of God and began its slide into its iron pyrite epitome of Herbert Armstrong’s golden calf. The introduction is an exercise of hypocritical polemics designed to expose the defugalties of this world while not realizing these decades later it would perfectly describe Armstrongism; for example:

Bible In The Garbage: WCG complaining about Society!

Along about page 14 or so, the Envoy begins the harangue about Civilization, implying that it has turned to barbarism. One only need look at some of the sects within the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia today to see the worst of human nature in action, and furthermore, they’ve thrown out the Bible — it’s more like they are atheists who have used the Bible for marketing purposes.

Our personal favorite on the Ambassador.Report website is the updated 1975 in Prophecy, now in mostly full color:

It’s heavy with graphics and is contained in lots of megabytes. You can get the table of contents by clicking on “Outline” and comments by clicking on “CC”. Be sure to click on the speaker in the lower left hand to get the fully licensed theme song appropriate to the site. Note the transitions on each page. The crumpled paper look is sure to be popular. Note that on the last page, we have in the upper left hand corner a little message from the author. There’s nothing like a “Goodbye, friends” from a dead false prophet.

You’ll also find the Ambassador Report in flipping book format there (work is proceeding to correct some minor errors, so be patient). You’ll find “Foundation of Sand” and the other usual features.

As for the future of the site, let’s just say we have PLANS!

It’s our gift to you for this new year… whenever the new year is….

March 19, 2015February 4, 2016

Wired

Armstrongists are unlikely to accept anything that refutes their views: Herbert Armstrong said it; they believe it; that is that. Herbert Armstrong is the arbiter of all truth. No one in the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia wants to learn anything about opposing views, no matter what the evidence may be or what science can disprove. This is especially true in the realm of British Israelism and prophecy, Sabbaths and holydays, church eras, tithing, authority and paganism. The Old Testament is in effect unless specifically done away in the New Testament unless its inconvenient to Armstrongism.

There is a scientific and rather unflattering scientific reason for this: The brain of the Armstrongist is wired that way. The brain itself will reject anything that it is not wired to accept.

To understand the background of this, watch the video about how conservative and liberals that look and act differently. Follow the additional information at The National Journal discussing the Battle for your Brain.

By extension, Armstrongists think differently than non Armstrongists because their brains are wired quite differently: It’s biology — something that you can’t just talk your way out of (or in to).

We’ve seen this on blogs and websites over and over again: There is no basis for any real discussion because the brains of Armstrongists are incapable of receiving truth.

As Brian Resnick says, it isn’t clear at this point whether the brains in questions are that way from the beginning or if they have been changed at some time in the past. Did Herbert Armstrong attract people whose brains were wired a certain way or did exposure to Herbert Armstrong actually change the brains of his followers?

This certainly explains rather handily why people continue to follow David Pack no matter how outrageously his prophecies fail. Ronald Weinland followers in the PKG are unlikely to leave the fold at this point, even though he has been convicted of five counts of felony for Income Tax Evasion and was sent to prison by a jury of his peers. People will likely follow the false prophet of sixty years, Roderick Meredith in spite of what Jesus said in Matthew 7:15 because they are wired that way. PCG members are likely to continue to bear the heavy burdens of Gerald Flurry for the duration. Congregants will continue to attend the UCG and CoGWA in spite of the fact that there’s little difference between them, because the followers are hard wired to accept the preachments of sects. No one can offer scientific facts. People are unimpressed that DNA evidence refutes British Israelism. False prophecies are passed off as mere speculation even though they might be signed “In Jesus’ Name”. Armstrongists will continue to conveniently ignore the Bible when it shorts out their wiring and might blow their fuse.

And that’s a good explanation why Armstrongists won’t change: They are wired wrong.

March 16, 2015January 27, 2023

Lunar Sabbath

Herbert Armstrong was challenged about keeping the Sabbath and he wanted to prove that the woman telling his wife about the Sabbath was completely wrong. He researched the Bible and concluded that indeed, Scripture establishes the Sabbath to keep holy. This is no surprise. An elderly man — an acquaintance of mine — was a staunch Southern Baptist who had grown up in the faith. He told me that they usually had a conference every year that lasts a week, but they wanted to settle whether or not the seventh day Sabbath was to be kept or not, so one year (I believe he said it was in the 1930s), the Southern Baptists had a three week conference. They invited Catholics, Rabbis and other religionists to present their position. When the conference finally finished, the Baptists concluded two things:

The seventh day was the Sabbath to be kept by Christians;
If they switched to the Sabbath, they would lose three-fifths of their congregation.

Go for it. 20% ain’t bad.

These days, it’s just not that simple. Just when you think you’ve got the tiger by the tail and you understand the world, something seems to pop up that completely obliterates your position, and it’s no different with the Sabbath.

I learned about this particular perspective a few weeks ago from my good friend and all around nice guy Christian, xHWA over at the As Bereans Did blog from the Lying for God Part 8 blog entry; the article actually begins at a previous Lying for God entry. As Byker Bob commented, this is something that just didn’t make it into the Has Time Been Lost? booklet by Herbert Armstrong. To save you time, we’ll demystify it for you: Apparently (although that wasn’t what Herbert Armstrong was reaching for).

How does this work?

Long ago, before the Israelite captivity, there was a time when the new moon marked the Sabbath. After the new moon, every seventh day would be the Sabbath until the end of the month. Since the moon takes approximately 29.5 days to cycle to the next new moon, there’s always going to be a day or two left over. Some took the days off and others kept the days as sort of a ‘bonus’ Sabbath rest day. No matter. One month, the Sabbath might be on a Tuesday and the next it might be on a Thursday or Friday. Throughout the year, you’d end up keeping the Sabbath on every day of the week. The Karaite Jews have no problem with it. In fact, the calendar as defined by the Karaite Jews makes perfect sense without all that mucking about with postponements and such. According to the theory, the Jews adopted the seventh day (of the week) Sabbath only after being captive in Babylon.

And for you skeptics out there, there is a site that offers $10,000 for anyone who can ‘prove’ otherwise. Good luck with that!

Of course, not unlike the Southern Baptists, it simply doesn’t matter whether it is true. Can you imagine the chaos if the Armstrongists went to keep the Lunar Sabbath? Any leader of a cult sect would have a large scale rebellion on his hands. How do we know this? We know this because David Hume tried to veer away from British Israelism and a good part of his ministry left him along with their followers. You just can’t tamper with success. Nothing is going to change no matter how stupid or wrong it may be: Herbert Armstrong said it, we believe it and that is that!

xHWA doesn’t have a problem with this as a New Covenant Christian, and, as a matter of a fact, the majority of the 30% of the 7 billion people on planet Earth who call themselves Christians don’t either.

But suppose.

Just suppose.

Suppose that you knew, absolutely knew, that the Lunar Sabbath was true and it was required to be kept for your salvation? Would you keep it? Would you change to do the right thing?

And if we knew the answer to that, we would know a whole lot more about your commitment to faith….