Author: James

The Worldwide church of God attempted to annihilate peoples personality, individuality, will, and character. The stranded souls that hitched their wagon to this organization unknowingly supported a power-hungry pharisaic and fastuous authoritative cult leader and his son, Garner Ted Armstrong. For all the alarums and excursions, the fact remains that without knowing it, we nurtured these two ungrateful incubi's. For that I can only ask for forgiveness. After my WCG experience, I went to college to educate myself so I would have a greater understanding of the world about me and to understand why I ever fell for HWA's scam religion. This lead me to the conclusion that the appropriate action to take, in my judgment, is to provide people with opportunities to learn, develop, and exercise their potential as human beings, by freeing them from men who exploit and abuse them. This website and others are my vehicle to do just that.
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Last COG Standing

Several months ago, after reading a few of the Friday night specials from RCG, I wrote the following, but forgot about it when I got Gilbert and Sullivanish.

After glancing at the last two RCG postings – 17 and 18 I think, I wondered … what if another COG had decided to amalgamate somehow with RCG? That action could be made to appear like a fulfilment of the Haggai prophecy, with the hope of other COGs following suit…

Last COG Standing
One can look forward to Friday to find the latest installment of why the RCG is the best COG ever.

Some time ago, former RCG members mentioned how Mr CEO Pack was trying to run his organization like a business – actually, like a health food business. But now, rather cooperative merger discussions with the competition, like the new Pope is holding with Lutherans and Eastern Orthodox (at least that’s what I gather from COGWriter) Mr CEO Pack has been moving closer to a buyout, merger or even a hostile takeover. In a sermon a while back, APG (Apostle Pastor-General) Pack indicated how C21 wanted to merge with RCG, but this failed over disagreement on corporate structure, including of course, top dog of the new COG.

Rather than attempt merger, the move is asset stripping – like the corporate practice of buying a company, taking what it wants, and dumping whatever remains. The assets sought are the members, and any ministers who will subordinate themselves in the expanded RCG.

One of the RCG audio programs some years ago gave a sign of the “True Church” was it was small in size, a remnant flock. So the move afoot would be to become the “biggest small flock”. As the other COGs fold, the RCG will be the Last COG Standing. We know the other splinters will belly-up, because Mr CEO Pack said so. Showing true Philadelphian brotherhood to his fellow COG leaders, APG Pack told us the decrepit state the others were in. To prove this assertion, we were informed the other COG ministers will either admit to their members their organization is floundering, or they would do a cover-up. Nice to give two points of view, both negative.  

After thoughts…

After re-reading this, an alternative to WCG’s view of early church history came to mind. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, by Walter Bauer (1934 in German, 1971 in English). Bauer argued that as Christianity developed, and spread from Jerusalem, it diversified, being adapted and modified by diverse cultures. (also covered in Lost Christianities, by Bart Ehrman, which is easier to read than Bauer…) Eventually, Rome dominated. Perhaps we could substitute Pasadena for Jerusalem, and Wadsworth for Rome…

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A Disclaimer

My Point – and I do have one…

In the Monty Python “Argument” sketch, a man wants to take lessons in having an argument. But the instructor, rather than teaching the skills of constructing a rational argument, just says the opposite of whatever the man says. Some defenders of the COGs appear to believe the rationale of web-authors who disagree with anything COG-like is like that of the instructor.

When I see the Painful Truth and other COG-blogs labelled as anti-COG, I take some offense. In the COG universe, COG and anti-COG collision theoretically results in annihilation. As this does not happen in the real world, I have always preferred terms such as COG-critical or critique of purely unreasonable COG for sites that point out the anomalies, inconsistencies, and downright asinine antics of the WCG splinters.

Back in Spokesman’s Club, we endured harsh, even brutal, criticism of our speaking foibles. Tempered with the motto iron sharpens iron we were being “groomed” to add to the lay pool of men available to carry out minister-assigned duties. We were supposed to be thankful for correction, and use the admonishment to our betterment.

This has been my feeling about COG-critical posts – they provide feedback to the splinter leaders, who can use the observations to correct problems and clean up their act! Rather than dismissive attacks on these sites, splinter leaders should thank those who post articles for the service they provide free of charge, without cost or obligation!

Personally, I prefer to criticize trivial matters in more jocular jibes and tend to use more serious statements to chip away at the fundamentally flawed foundation on which Armstrongism is built.

Note to COG leaders – of course, not everything you read on critique sites contain useful suggestions for you to immediately apply to save your troubled ministry. Many posts are simply humorous observations, sometimes taken to the extreme. I’ll conclude with a story heard at Spokesman’s Club: the anecdote of a farmer and his mule. As the farmer was about to lead his mule to the field, he grabbed a club and whacked to mule on its head. To the horrified onlookers he explained, I did that to get his attention.

Hoss.

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Covenant? Which Covenant?


When you want to find the difference between COG Brand X and COG Brand Y, where do you go? Well, I almost always go to COGWriter, where one can find the major splinters and other selected organizations diligently compared to the same rigorous standards, “we in the LCG CCOG” and quotations from HWA – particularly, his 18 Restored Truths (or as an Australian friend said, “strewths”.

While one may find such comparisons as priority of spreading the word as opposed to caring for the flock down to birthdays, voting and what falling away means, there is no mention as to which covenant a group claims to be under. But, HWA claimed this (“Old” or “New” Covenant) to be “one of the most important doctrines” (Good News, Dec 18, 1978). Wouldn’t that be a worthy category for COG disection and classification?

Most non-COG churches would claim the “New Covenant”, started with the bread and wine of the Last Supper (which was most likely the fourth cup and bread of the Passover Seder, but that’s another story.) HWA uses the “marriage” analogy to show that Jesus’ death cancelled the “Old” Covenant with Israel (at Sinai, the plains of Moab, or both?) but leaves us to assume the covenants with Noah, Abraham, David, remained intact. HWA gives us a situation that the WCG was under the “conditions” of the “New” Covenant but it hasn’t actually started yet, or at least hasn’t formally started. From WCG doctrine, it seems the conditions of the pending New Covenant are a selective subset of the Old.

Of course, HWA did his usual fancy footwork to come to his conclusion. For starters, using Noah Webster to distinguish between “testament” and “covenant”, rather than explain term “testament” was adopted from Jerome’s Vulgate as a translation of “covenant”. And some COGs do a soft-shoe shuffle as well: making statements about being “under the New Covenant”, with no explanation at all given for their assertion.

GTA once remarked in a sermon he sees where there will be a new covenant with the “House of Israel” and the “House of Judah”, not with “The Church”. And of course there could be complications to explain a covenant with the “House of Israel” under the Anglo-Israel teaching that still permeates many COGs.

Back in Dr T’s LCG days, he said we are “truly under the New Covenant”. I once wrote to him to say, not looking for an argument but to state a fact, HWA never taught that. Perhaps that is why “covenant” is not used as a comparison between COGs, as LCG and CCOG have deviated from HWA’s teaching. It would nice to see a major splinter leader actually claim “HWA was wrong”.