At Auction: Deer heads, shot by Garner Ted Armstrong using our tithe money
By the time you read this, The Beard Auction at the Cherokee County Showbarn at 611 SE Loop 456, Jacksonville, Texas, selling off remnants of the possessions of Garner Ted Armstrong will have already started — in fact it may be over with. It’s being held today on the Sabbath, naturally. Some faithful and loyal Armstrongists may consider it an ox in the ditch situation. You never know when GTA’s hunting rifles will be necessary to shoot the ox, or, if you are lucky, a nice deer. There are miscellaneous picked over items left as an eclectic array of examples of the tastes of a former He-Haw entertainer. Think country and western. Mostly.
We wonder who’s going to get the money.
This is not the focus of this post. We want you to consider the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association website. Don’t these people know that Garner Ted Armstrong is, like, dead? After all, the WCG scurried around to find new presenters for the World Tomorrow Telecast after Herbert Armstrong died, because they thought it would be weird and creepy to continue with a dead host. Apparently, they never saw reruns of Alfred Hitchcock Presents or Rod Serling opening The Twilight Zone.
Nevertheless, don’t you think that having a whole evangelistic website featuring Garner Ted Armstrong as if he was still alive and active more than a little bit weird and creepy? Like, they’re selling off the remnant of his stuff today. He’s history. His prophecies failed. His alcoholic boozing, womanizing and gambling are over with. What’s with the hero worship?
There’s nothing like living in the past, especially if you’re talking about a celebrity [of sorts]. The WCG was a personality cult, after all. It only benefited the ‘stock holders’, though as is obvious from looking at the auction items. We paid for all that stuff, just like we paid for Herbert Armstrong’s divorce to the tune of $5 million — after he had written “How to Have a Happy Marriage”.
The question is, at what point do people accept the facts and move on with their lives?
Or do they have to live in the past, reliving the glories which never were until they die and their stuff is auctioned off?
Redfox hosts the Living Armstrong blog. It’s quite an amazing blog, covering many topics about the Armstrongist Churches of God, along with many articles about world news that has global impact. Most of the blog entries are carefully crafted with in-depth documentation to substantiate the statements made about the topics discussed. The articles are generally brilliant, rendering important insights into the topics discussed. Redfox discusses both the organizations and their leaders, providing a compilation of facts not synthesized the same way anywhere else. You may click on the “Living Armstrongism” blog logo above to take you to the site.
At the end, Redfox gives a sort of ‘stir to action’ intimating that it would be a good time for Meredith to repent. We at The Painful Truth concur: Time is short, he may be dead soon and it will be too late.
Concerning Prophet’s Prey, the documentary about Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, Michael O’Sullivan, critic for the Washington Post had this to say:
There isnāt much here that hasnāt already been made public. Yet among many appalling things cited by āProphetās Prey,ā the most troubling conclusion may have nothing to do with Jeffs at all. Itās the sinking realization, as Krakauer points out, that there are still thousand of FLDS faithful who continue to revere Jeffs, even after his conviction. What this says about human nature, and our ability ā even willingness ā to be led astray by an unscrupulous shepherd is the most depressing discovery of all.
When it comes to cults, we’re not talking about shepherds, we’re talking about wolves, which people are all too willing to not just follow, but to give every part of their lives over to. The outrageous acts of the FLDS controlled by Warren Jeffs is also documented in I Escaped a Cult. What is really amazing is how followers of cult leaders are so loyal and quick to come to the defense of the cult leaders. They can be defiantly dedicated to blindly defend the cult leaders with irrational excuses. For those watching Prophet’s Prey, this is underscored by the cinematographer’s camera operator taking video from a moving vehicle, filming people on side of the street: Women and children gave a middle single-finger salute.
Closer to home, Yisrayl Hawkins, leader of the House of Yahweh cult has much the same profile as Warren Jeffs: Ā performing polygamous weddings and forcing children – some as young as 11 – to work jobs at his 44-acre compound. Make no mistake: Yisrayl Hawkins is directly from Armstrongism, having split from the Worldwide Church of God in 1980. The House of Yahweh keeps the Feast of Tabernacles. The above video on YouTube shows that Dr. Phil exposes the House of Yahweh as a fraud. People comment on how his prophecies fail and he keeps making changes to his prophecies as they fail. He cries continually how he needs more money, but he’s very wealthy. Here again, the members of his cult vociferously defend and make excuses for Hawkins. The excerpt on Dr. Phil demonstrates that Hawkins can’t pronounce ‘nuclear’ correctly:
Rick Ross calls the House of Yahweh a ‘destructive cult’ and that there is no accountability. Hawkin’s followers live in poverty in trailers while he has millions. What happens with the mind control is that the other members of the group installs a sense of identity, completely isolating an individual so all ‘truth’ comes only from the group. At the same time, Hawkins claims he is being unfairly persecuted — and the loyal members support him in this allegation.
Ron and Laura Weinland — the two witnesses of the Church of God – Preaching the Kingdom of God (CoG-PKG)
For persecution, Ronald Weinland of the Church of God — Preaching the Kingdom of God (CoG-PKG); in his Site Bio, there is this entry:
As with so many whom God has called as prophets and apostles, most all have been imprisoned and/or killed by the governments of this world. Although some history has different accounts, it is believed that all the original disciples who became Godās apostles, including Paul, were all imprisoned and killed, except for John. John was imprisoned on the Isle of Patmos by the Roman government, and it is there that he was given the Book of Revelation to write.
In like manner, and as his counterpart, Ronald Weinland was falsely imprisoned by the government of the United States for evading to pay taxes.
This does not reflect reality. Two jurors at the Weinland trial have testified that it was not persecution, it was prosecution. The evidence is clear. The man isn’t just a lying false prophet, he’s also a convicted felon currently serving his prison term. Nevertheless, PKG members continue to support Weinland and make excuses for him — displaying their loyalty to him.
In fact, this pattern of loyalty is exhibited across the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia, with profligate leaders with bad behavior being defended by their supporters, members of the cult sects.
Why do cultists exhibit such loyalty in the face of facts debunking their beliefs and exposing their leaders?
Ā Dissonance and consonance are relations among cognitions — that is, among opinions, beliefs, knowledge of the environment, and knowledge of one’s own actions and feelings. Two opinions, or beliefs, or items of knowledge are dissonant with one another if they do not fit together — that is, if they are inconsistent, or if considering only the particular two items, one does not follow from the other. For example, a cigarette smoker who believes that smoking is bad for his health has an opinion that is dissonant with the knowledge that he is continuing to smoke. He may have many other opinions, beliefs, or items of knowledge that are consonant with continuing to smoke but the dissonance nevertheless exists too.
Dissonance produces discomfort and, correspondingly, there will arise pressures to reduce or eliminate the dissonance. Attempts to reduce dissonance represent the observable manifestations that dissonance exists. Such attempts may take any or all three forms. The person may try to change one or more of the beliefs, opinions, or behaviors involved in the dissonance; to acquire new information or beliefs that will increase the existing consonance and thus cause the total dissonance to be reduced; or to forget or reduce the importance of those cognitions that are in a dissonant relationship.
The Armstrongists all know that Deuteronomy 18 says that the false prophet shall be put to death. They know the Scripture in Revelation 22 that says that liars will not inherit the Kingdom of God… and yet, they observe their cult leader lying and being a false prophet — and still they show loyalty by supporting him and ignoring what they know to be true: The man is a fraud. They have to. If they don’t, they will have to admit they are wrong and to do so would cause great pain.
Warren Jeffs was shown in a video where he said, “I am a liar. I am not a prophet.” Those are hard facts. The FLDS members simply ignore his statements as some sort of test. He had rousted his followers in his compound at 6 A.M. to stand in a field because he told them that they were to be taken up. They stood for 12 hours. At 6 P.M. he told them that they weren’t taken up because it was their fault for not being righteous enough. Cult leaders can play all sorts of games to give their membership premade excuses they can use to salve their cognitive dissonance.
We don’t have to pursue the cognitive dissonance generated within the membership following Roderick Meredith, David Pack, Gerald Flurry, Robert Thiel and the whole host of others because they are all well known false prophets and liars. The real problem is loyalty.
It is time to abandon loyalty to those who are cult leaders — they are not worthy of our time and attention.
Only when inappropriate loyalty is abandoned can sanity begin.
