Category: Douglas Becker

Douglas Becker’s views on the Churches of God

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Hubris

Herbert Armstrong certainly had hubris, but we don’t have to recede into the past to find it: It’s right here in 2013 amongst the founders and leaders of the various sects of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong, including, but not restricted to, Davey Pack (Restored Church of God), Roderick Meredith (Living Church of God), Gerald Flurry (Philadelphia Church of God), John and Richard Rittenbaugh (Church of the Great God), Ronald Weinland (Church of God-Preaching the Kingdom of God), Robert Thiel (Continuing Church of God) and so many others, such as E. W. King and David Malm.

This is a response prompted by a comment by Bob Dixon in a previous blog entry, Monster’s Inc.:

We need a follow up story by P.T. editors to remind us of the mechanics of these monsters, as is applied to the faithful, to bring them to such condition that normal safety, reason, and logic are ignored.

In my view, it’s the fear of death, that is the root cause of all WCOG faithful. Fear of mortality. Fear is the root.

Mr. Dixon has a good thought there, and perhaps there is fear associated with the initial entry into the cult, but it is more than fear that keeps them in over time, because it is very difficult to sustain constant continuous fear over time: It’s a good initial motivator, but breaks down over time as people get used to the fear — it becomes more of a discomfort.

The thing that really does it is extreme pride and arrogance — as in “we have the truth and God will protect us and make us Kings and Priests to lord it over others in the Kingdom with power, more power than we could ever hope to have in this life time”. This arrogance is self-sustaining: Just like teenagers, there is a belief that you will live forever! Nothing can ultimately hurt you! You are going to be a winner! In spite of all the copious evidence to the contrary, you think you will come out on top: All you have to do is pay tithes, attend the Feasts and keep all those silly laws and rules your cultmeister gives you — you know, like dumping your disabled child at a shopping mall. It’s all going to work out, no matter what you do or say. That is hubris:

Hubris, also hybris, from ancient Greek, means extreme pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one’s own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power.

Here we are: Half of 2013 is over with already and we are heading into the hot summer of meltdown, with these cult leaders standing up and declaring how they are the greatest and how they are going to defeat all the other contenders as if they were pro wrestlers at WWE Raw. Each one struts his stuff. Davey Pack loudly declares that he’s going to be the last man standing in the churches of God, come August 30, 2013. All the rest are making similar, if not as specific claims.

This narcissism inspires confidence in the followers, just sure, in their own hubris, that they have picked the right winner. They just know that their leader is the one and only leader, bar none.

Sometimes it’s good to get the outside view from someone who doesn’t know diddly-squat about the Armstrongists — here’s a comment from one of the jurors from the Income Tax Evasion trial of Ronald Weinland:

Martin, Yes, he sure did with arrogance. It might not be verbatum but that is exactly what was expressed and or implied by Ron in his own words and actions, etc; and others in their words, whichever words he and they used in particular. Especially, in regards to being asked about how the “church money” gets distributed and spent. Obviously, the jury understood how God and “God’s money” worked. So did the judge, prosecutor, and the IRS. Fortunately, Ron forgot about Ceasar and is now paying up. Hasn’t Ron preached about the Ceasar thing? Those same principles do not apply to King Ron the God though. Do they?

Johnny H. & Steve D. both stated they just give God “God’s money” and they did not worry about how it was spent. “It’s in God’s hands.” Along with other followers on the witness stand.

Audra’s explanation on “God’s money” was “ummmm,,, huh,,, ummm, whatever my mommy or daddy tell me to do with the money.” “Whatever they tell me to pay out of whichever account.” May not be exact words, but I think the picture is clear.

Ron and others, basically stated that God told him how to spend the “church money and the jewelry and high ticket items were for bargaining in “end times”. Who in the hell needs to bargain when it is GAME OVER? What are you going to bargain for? There should be no worries or needs. Remember, it’s GAME OVER! Coincidence that Ron and Laura wind up with all the money and goodies? I think not.

All the other numb nut “church” witnesses also repeatedly stated the King Ron chain of command. #1. God followed closely with “whatever Ron says goes, because God tells Ron so.” I could see Ronnie Boy’s head swelling with a smirk in a prideful manner as they stated this. He is one ugly bald headed bastard and I would pay money just to slap the smirk off of face. If he was green he would look like an upity and cocky UFO riding alien. Wonder if BMW produces UFO’s yet?

This was established by the prosecution to show everyone how high and mighty and in charge Ron truly is in “RON’S CHURCH.” To make it very simple, Ron and/or Laura are in charge of EVERYTHING INCLUDING THE “CHURCH MONEY” AND HOW IT IS or WAS SPENT. They decide who stays and goes within THEIR CHURCH. They decide who gets the “church scholarship money.” They decide where “God” tells them to vacation and what to buy while jet setting. They decide which personal expenses God has OK’d for them to pay. They decide who the elders and what-not are. They decided God told them to install alarm systems and buy Victoria Secret panties. So yes, the chain of command is God then Ron. God was unable to show up to testify. I am not exactly sure if Laura does not out rank Ron in the Kingdom though. She was declared one of the two witnesses. Just another coincidence? Probably.

It was very clear that Ron and God made all of the decisions together, especially when it was related to money. Remember, Martin, God reveals all to Ronnie Boy. Guess Ron figured the two witness deal, and end time prophet junk so why not lay it out there. I think Ron and his legal defense team thought this might help him to show how devoted and crazy he really is. The thought crossed my mind wondering if Ron truly believes his own bullshit and he really was that crazy. Nah, he is just a lying, money grubbing con-artist that knows exactly what he is doing while disguising it with God told me so religion, but still trying to lie his way out of it all. Shear acts of desperation from a thief con who got caught.

No one else in the court room could believe the crazy sh!t we were hearing either. Unimaginable. Bottom line, we didn’t believe it as the results show. Ron’s will…… Opps! I mean God’s Will was completely simple regarding the God in Ron’s head yet utterly unbelievable and bank account shuffling complex at the same time. Ron thinks he is God. The Money God anyway. Buzz…… eerrrnt….eerrrnt! WRONG ANSWER! NOW GO TO JAIL!

It should be noted here that the PKG members continue to follow Ronald Weinland, even though he has been proved to be a false prophet beyond a reasonable doubt and is now in Federal Prison as a felon for Income Tax Evasion. Many have been puzzled why more PKG members simply don’t leave, but it appears that they are quite comfortable with the arrangement of his being their “pastor” even though he is locked up for committing a crime. They are just sure when Jesus returns on Pentecost, they will be big winners. It’s hubris.

Herbert Armstrong did start all this, of course. In his manic state, he would go out and spend $68,000 on tableware from Harrod’s and then send out a coworker letter proclaiming that THE VERY WORK OF GOD IS GOING DOWN AND THE WORK NEEDS YOUR MONEY!!!!! No money would have been needed if he hadn’t spent it on worthless baubles — well, not worthless worthless, but you know what we mean. He typically took $50,000 in cash with him on his forays. His family wanted to go sailing while they were on the Riviera, so he rented a yacht for them. Then there was the $5 million divorce which helped Herb on his spending spree of $2 billion to $4 billion during his lifetime — and now, nothing is left of all he spent. By 1979, some of the WCG members had had enough and John Tuit initiated a lawsuit which led to the receivership. The idea was to bring accountability to the Worldwide Church of God, but in the end, Herbert Armstrong lied, circled the wagons and won.

That’s the thing: Herbert Armstrong carried on outrageous behavior and won. In his hubris, those who followed him saw that he was a winner — a sort of “underdog” — and saw him as their leader and champion. Thus it was that they inherited hubris and those who followed on in his footsteps — whether it was the Tkaches or the Cult of Herbert Armstrong spitoffs, they all carried on the hubris — starting with the leaders, flowing down to the members who became all too comfortable in their extreme pride and arrogance. It’s no wonder they all throw rocks at each other and declare the others as “Laodocean”, rich and increased in goods, while the accusers of the “brethren” are so confident in their hubris that they and they alone are “Philadelphian” — when they are actually nothing at all and not even Christian in their Olde Testament Christianity.

Into this mix came Ronald Weinland, who, in his hubris, decided he could follow the outrageous example of Herbert Armstrong to spend millions of dollars that weren’t really his (or more accurately, did not declare that were his on his income tax returns). He bought a BMW for his son in the United States and shipped it to Germany where his son was on a “scholarship” from the PKG (the only one ever issued). He bought another BMW in Germany and had it shipped to the United States. He also bought another BMW for his daughter and paid for her apartment — all on church money, undeclared as income tax. His wife bought from Victoria’s Secret. Ronald and Laura went on cruises at a time they were pushing for “the end of the work” and demanding that their followers make sacrifices to send more money. They lived it up in Las Vegas, five star restaurants and accommodations. Meanwhile, Weinland had written a book, “The Final Witness” declaring false prophecies which would certainly have caused normal people to leave in droves. It may have been hubris for Ronald Weinland and his family to spend $3.5 million of church money on themselves, but it is hubris for the members to continue the Weinlands even after Ronald Weinland was proved to be a false prophet, no fewer than three times (oops! missed the date again… well, maybe next year), and after he was convicted of felony for evading Income Taxes. The jurors at his trial were outraged by his hubris.

There isn’t much that will ignite the fire of indignation better than being defiant with arrogance in the face of civil authorities. Those of us who sat in the court room for the hearing to provide relief from a stalker in United were appalled at the behavior of the two deacons, deaconess and elder from the UCG as they treated the judge with contempt as though he was a nothing underling they could push around as if he were a lowly church member: The judge would have none of it, threatened them with clearing the court room and they almost ended up with a charge of contempt of court. They had no fear.

The leaders of the CoHA have no fear, but if they really believed Scripture, they would be terrified! They would fear for their lives! They would know for a certainty that they were headed for the Lake of Fire! Nonetheless, they act as if they are Special and as if there is no God. This applies to the members as well as the leaders: They think they can get away with their extreme arrogance and pride. They are filled with hubris.

Occam’s Razor prompts us to lean to the most simple explanation: In this case, it is not fear, it is hubris.

As long as the members of this cult association possess hubris, they will never leave, for they feel they can safely ignore Scripture when it says: “From Such Turn Away!”

The problem is that these extremely arrogant members are filled with pride and will continue to stay, no matter what, in their hubris.

It’s not In God We Trust, it’s In Hubris We Trust.

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Monsters, Inc.

Recovery Innovations is a service which seeks to create opportunities and environments that empower people to recover, to succeed in accomplishing their goals and to reconnect with themselves, others and meaning and purpose in life. My son is in the program and they have set him up in his own apartment, provided him with all he needs for day to day living, while being independent and having more flexibility and freedom than he has had in a long time.

My wife and I went to a seminar last week they held in their local office and met the staff and some of those who are served by their programs. They are based in Phoenix, Arizona and serve mentally ill and disabled people around the world in places like New Zealand. Their recent history begins in 2006 when Meta Services became Recovery Innovations. We learned from the Director that they have been a presence in Pierce County for several years serving within the Regional Support network. I talked with the staff member who used to work in the County Mental Hospital when it was first privatized and then closed down. Pierce County has had special problems with the mentally ill, since mentally ill patients come from all over the State to be treated in the State Facility in Steilacoom only to be put out on the street near the hospital when their treatment ends for one reason or another.

The program that Recovery Innovation offers is for disabled people who want to live and work toward being independent. I talked with one of the young women who is something of a “success story”: Recovery Innovations provided her with the training and set her up in her own apartment (which all is done at a significantly lower price than government programs can offer); she then went to work as a volunteer at not one, but two food banks. For one of the food banks in Kent, she has to take three busses to get there and it takes several hours for her to get to and from the facility where she does quality control inspection of food that is contributed. Her job is important: As she said, some of the food is yukky. The other food bank is just blocks from where she lives. She is justifiably proud of the important and necessary work she wanted to do — but before Recovery Innovations she could not “connect the dots” to do it — and now she can.

I talked with her for awhile after the presentation to learn more about what she was doing and she told me all about her cat. She is responsible and takes care of her little kitty. We shared our experiences with cats. The director was listening in when I explained that cats have about the same attention span and short term memory as corporate managers — ten minutes. The director laughed and laughed. I explained to her that I was a corporate manager at Weyerhaeuser at one point in my career. She laughed even harder and told me that she had also been a corporate manager at one point in her career.

Recovery Innovations does more than just give people hope: They have practical programs and practical experience in helping people shape their lives. They work with people on a daily basis and manage to help people through the rough spots even when the going gets a little tough and challenging: They help find solutions to problems and they know their stuff as compassionate and competent people.

Contrast all of that with this posting at Banned by HWA — Philadelphia Church of God: Take Your Disabled Child To The Mall And Abandon Him – Let Someone Else Take Care Of Him:

Just when I think the depth of depravity of Armstrongism cant sink any lower, along comes more horror stories from Gerald Flurry’s cult.

PCG Told Me to Get Rid of My Mentally Handicapped Son With Cerebral Palsy:

June 17, 2013

I was told by a minister in PCG to “get rid of” my mentally  handicapped son (who also had cerebral palsy) or don’t return. He told  me to put him in some facility, or if I couldn’t afford that, then take  him somewhere that he would not know and abandon him in the mall or  somewhere  that people were. He said someone would find him and put him  away, and that I was to turn and not look back, and just leave him  there! I guess you can imagine just about what I told them!!

What helped me the most were people having the same objections and questions that I was having, wondering if these ministers in PCG really have the authority they say they did over us. The ministers try to make you feel you’re isolated in your thinking, that you’re the only one  questioning anything. So you better get back under their submission,  their rule–or suffer the consequences. (I decided to take the  consequences). I am free and I am staying that way.

 The ESN has been a Godsend. You have saved many people, including me  and my family. We saw how others were questioning things, as we were,  and realized things were just not right in there! Our feelings were  right; we weren’t as crazy as others trying to pull us back in would  have us think. They practice mind control there. All it takes is a few  mentioning of buzz-words from them (i. e., “the Work,” “the Church,”  “Mr. Flurry,” etc.) and you start to question your own common sense and  your sanity. Well, not anymore.

 None are so blind as those who will not see. Well, now I see! Thanks for everything. God bless you. –Former PCG member

A comment from a reader here adds to this story:

Reading this story that is exactly what happened to William B. Hinsom.  He became a WCG minister in the 1960s. However he had a mentally  disabled son. He was advised by people within WCG to leave him in a  facility for such people in Franklin, Tennessee. He strongly suspected  that his son would die, but he trusted them, he thought the Great  Tribulation would soon start in 1972, so reluctantly he agreed. His son  died as feared.
Later he left WCG and wrote a book about WCG, Broadway to Armageddon (1977). You can request it from Exit and Support Network.
Naturally Hinsom focuses a lot on the terrible consequences of people following  HWA’s anti-medicine superstition that he plagiarized from the Jehovah’s  Witnesses.
Congratulations to that brave commenter. No doubt you did the right thing.
This useless PCG minister’s advice reminds me of this terrible incident I  heard about. There was this man who murdered his wife and then took  their eight year old young daughter on a plane and he then abandoned her at an airport. Did not do him much good. The authorities learned what  happened and arrested him. He is now deservedly rotting away in jail. I  think the PCG minister could have been charged with something serious if his horrific advise was followed.

 I did relate this story to the folks at Recovery Innovations. They weren’t particularly surprised: Their reaction was that this is the sort of thing that people in cults do.

The Church of God Seventh Day minister I related this story to was amazed and appalled: He shook his head and simply could not understand how a supposedly Christian minister could have such hubris. He doesn’t understand how anyone could follow advice like this. It certainly looks as if that all the leadership of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong have become so jaded, so filled with hubris, so set in a mindset of entitlement, that they believe that they are above the law and God will protect their interests no matter how wrong-headed or illegal they might be. It is embedded in the core of the lives of those who have lived with it; it’s like wearing old leather — after awhile, no don’t even notice it any more. They are totally comfortable with this sort of abuse and have been for a very long time, to such an extent that they have lost their conscience — what little of it they may have had — and given themselves over to doing evil wickedness of the sort that is extremely objectionable to the average person.

We have had similar advice from the Worldwide Church of God and United ministry concerning our son. We also ignored it.

What people in the CoHA don’t realize that the minister and leader have absolutely no skin in the game: If they give you terrible advice to perform illegal acts of child abuse, they have absolutely positively no consequences: You alone are going to bear this. If the gambit turns out, all the better, because you can spend more time on church activities and give more money to the cult leader.

This is so preposterous, it is beyond words and there are some questions if we pause to take this out to its logical extremes:

  • If you are supposed to do this with your disabled child (ask how Robert Thiel would feel about leaving his child in the shopping mall for someone else to take care of), why can’t you do this with all your children?
  • If this is successful, can you continue to use your child as a deduction on your Income Tax?
  • When and where are the best circumstances to do this?
  • If you leave your child in the airport between flights on the way to the Feast, can you spend second tithe for the one way flight to the terminal?
  • Should you sell your daughter as specified in the Old Testament (typically Eastern Europeans will give you the best prices) and give part of the money as an offering to your own CoHA (times are tough and you need to be innovative)?
  • How does this work in the light of the judgment in the Old Testament concerning kidnapping (the penalty of which is death)?

One would suppose that under such a dispensation, as long as you continue in your cult church to support it, the ends justify the means to achieve a happy, care-free, prosperous, life of egotistical narcissism for the cult leader, you are good to go. Be warned though, if you get into trouble, you must bear the consequences and your cult is not involved in any way.

Some of us will be sending letters and emails to Child Protective Services of State Governments and perhaps even engage with such media outlets as the New York Times and Fox News. We’re pretty sure, those of you who are inclined to follow this terrible advice from your cult leaders don’t have a clue and believe that nothing bad will happen to you and it all things will work together for your good. You will be free of the blessing of children and will be able to more fully engage in the selfish pursuits of your cult leader without any fear of any sort of retribution. You may even think you will completely avoid the Lake of Fire while engaging in this living lie. More power to you. And even more power to the governmental agency convicting you.

If everything works out, it may well be that your minister will be able to give you Sabbath services in prison where you are both serving out your terms. It certainly works if you go to the Federal Prison where Ronald Weinland is locked up, but that is highly unlikely, since you probably won’t be going there and you probably won’t live very long after the other inmates learn what you have done as they serve up their own brand of vigilante justice which will certainly not bode well for you.

Herbert Armstrong was a monster. Not the sort of cuddly monster like Barney or those cutesy monsters of Disney’s Pixar. No, he was the sort of monster one finds in Jurassic Park — all filled with rows of teeth as exemplified by our own version of the Jurassic Park theme song:

It’s Jurassic Park,

Don’t go after Dark,

Even if they seem to greet you,

For all the while,

They seem to smile,

They’re planning how to eat you….

Jesus said that false prophets were ravening wolves in sheep’s clothing. It’s more like it’s a Wolf (Herbert Wolf Armstrong) guarding the chicken house with the able assistance of some foxes he has on his payroll as hirelings of the worst sort: Maybe some of the chickens will survive, but we don’t much have hope for the eggs and the little chicks.

So Armstrongism is little more than Monster’s Inc.

It should be apparent that the children are at risk and that you have no reason for paying Monster’s Inc. for the privilege of putting them at risk.

Stalkers, fondlers, pedophiles, false prophet felons in prison for income tax evasion and now this: The average member seems to have all the mental power of a tranquilized gnat.

This is no Recovery Innovations: It’s Monster’s Inc.

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Ninth

Do you believe that if someone tells a lie, but does not know they are telling a lie, they are not liars?

If a man tells more lies to be consistent with the initial lie, is he a liar?

What if a leader tells lies all the time to support his position, bolster his ego and make money, is he a liar?

The Progress of Popular Opinion

In the 1950s, it was the standard, at least in the United States, that, all things being equal, a man was as good as his word: Credibility was built on telling the truth and keeping promises. Oh, sure, there were exaggerations, but most of the time, companies and leaders had a reputation for honesty: AT&T (The Bell System), IBM, General Electric, Old National Bank, Kraft Foods, Sears, Montgomery Wards, Ford, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Chevron, RCA, Motorola and a whole collection of others we trusted for excellent products and service. Leaders like President Dwight D. Eisenhower, with his Vice President Richard Nixon, were widely admired. Even religious leaders were widely admired: Who can forget the first Televangelist, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen? He even won many Emmy Awards over the years. These were the years of Billy Graham Crusades.

Somewhere between then and now, there’s been a refashioning of public thought: Times have changed. Once well respected branded names have become sullied. Montgomery Wards has gone out of business, Sears isn’t looking so good these days, Richard Nixon will be forever known as Tricky Dick, who’s heard much about RCA? A couple of auto makers mentioned above had to have a Federal Government bailout to survive. And religious leaders? Well, for cringe worthy names we could easily include Harold Camping, Oral Roberts, Jerry Falwell, Jim Baker, A. A. Allen and for one of the worst public reputations EVER, Garner Ted Armstrong.

Through the years the attitude of people toward lying has changed. It has gone from enraged shock (how dare they lie to us) to major irritation to grumbling acceptance to white noise to “well, we know he lies, but we like him, so what?”; “What’s the big deal?”; “Everybody lies” (a proposition which can never have a great enough sample to have statistically significant basis). In fact, most people, especially the younger generations, have come to accept lies as part of our culture and have adjusted accordingly. One might reflect in passing that, like birds nesting at the airport which are alarmed at first, but adapt to the noise, it can’t be particularly good for us.

Herbert Armstrong was a man who lied. He flat out lied. He flat out lied repeatedly. He said that he refused to take salary from the Church of God Seventh Day when he disagreed with their doctrines and took off, but he continued to collect a salary for years afterward. He lied about originating the booklet “Has Time Been Lost” — and here’s the thing about that: When you lie, you had better remember doing it, because in this case, the Worldwide Church of God went to sue the Church of God Seventh Day for copyright violation and the CoG7 pulled out the original from their file cabinets that they wrote in the 1930s and Herbert Armstrong plagiarized. Herbert Armstrong lied in 1975 in Prophecy. Read the booklet. It’s downright embarrassing. He lied when he said he never set dates — the coworker letters, Plain Truth Magazines and The Good News proves it.

Nevertheless, the churches of God have come to accept the lies of Herbert Armstrong and even excuse the lies and false prophecies. The Fragmentation of a Sect: Schism in the Worldwide Church of God by Dr. David V. Barrett quotes Richard Nichols, Herbert Armstrong and Richard T. Rittenbaugh to show how this works:

The offshoots deal with the problem of Armstrong’s failed prophecies in different ways. Richard C. Nickles, of Giving and Sharing Ministry, quotes Armstrong himself from an early World Tomorrow radio broadcast:

A terrible famine is coming on the United States, that is going to ruin us as a nation inside of less than twenty more years. Alright, I stuck my neck out right there. You just wait twenty years and see whether I told you the truth. God says, if a man tells you what’s going to happen, wait and see. If it doesn’t happen, he was not speaking the word of God, he’s speaking out of his own mind. If it happens, you know God sent him.

Nickels comments, “The twenty years is long past! Herbert Armstrong labeled himself a false prophet.”

But Richard T. Ritenbaugh, of the Church of the Great God, comes to a different conclusion. Although he accepts that Armstrong “made many predictions during his ministry, and many of them have not come to pass. Some were plain wrong. Some were vague. Some were specific,” he then argues:

So what are all those predictions Herbert Armstrong made? Rather than call them prophecies (which they were not) and him a false prophet (which he was not), his predictions were more correctly speculations, theories based on true but insufficient and unclear evidence. Speculation is not sin.

People just blandly accept the lies as docile domesticated slaves.

Today’s Liars

Roderick Meredith, Davy Pack, Gerald Flurry, John Rittenbaugh, Ronald Weinland, Jim Franks, David Hulme are all liars (extracted from the Silenced Rogues Gallery). They all lie.

Now some may say, “But they are sincere and they don’t know they are lying”.

Baloney.

But suppose that it really were true (which it isn’t — witness all they lies they get caught in at Banned!)?

The problem with that is that they all tell the biggest lies of all: The lies they tell to themselves.

Once someone has been dishonest about his true state of integrity, the lies pour forth not just flowing fully and easily, but with dynamic force of apparent belief: Credibility is shored up by the apparent confidence and sincerity. This is why it is called a “confidence game”. They are all cons. They all have to escalate to generate more and bigger lies to support the lies they’ve already told.

The Big Lies of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong

These are the main central lies which support the Cult of Herbert Armstrong in the various splinters:

  1. British Israelism
  2. Church History
  3. Prophecy
  4. Law keeping to gain salvation
  5. Respecting and declining to Authority is the greatest virtue

Without these, the Cult of Herbert Armstrong could not exist.

Making it all work

There is only way to make this all work: The Ninth Commandment, Thou Shalt not Bear False Witness, must be excised from the Ten Commandments. The leaders, ministers and administrators must gloss over and completely ignore this precept to make their cult work. If they could not lie, they could not do business. While they blast forth their evangelism, replete with Law Keeping, spreading the gospel of the Commandments and championing the Old Covenant, they must conveniently ignore being the watchmen to Corporations to tell them that lying is resoundingly condemned in the New Testament by Jesus himself and that Satan was a liar and a murderer from the beginning. Include that in the meeting with world leaders telling them about the two trees and see how far you get.

Now the amazing thing is that it really all does work. The ministers lie and the people lap it up. One only need look at the double talk of Ronald Weinland over at False Prophet Ronald Weinland to see the abject nonsense of it all. The problem is that he is just an example of a liar who got caught and went to prison. The same sort of lies lay in the weeds at the other 300 to 700+ sects of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong. All you have to do is do a little research and find the lies and lies and lies and lies — they never stop. Roderick Meredith said, “I have never committed a major sin since being baptized”. Maybe he doesn’t know what major sin is, but whatever it is (like lying and being a false prophet — which reward is death), he’s committed it — not only committed it, but has for a very long time and it appears he will not repent but he will keep it up until he dies.

Reaction to enforced lies

There is an observable cycle consistent with those who are living under an oppressive regime where they are lied to but must act as if the lies are the truth and perfectly rational.

First, the people probably don’t know they are being lied to.

Second, the people learn about the lies but they cannot do anything about it. In this phase, there is usually much grumbling behind the scenes, but the people continue to submit to the lies in misery.

Third, there is a glimmer of hope that there may be a way of escape from the oppressive lies. The expectation of the people is lifted and they have hope.

Fourth, they find their way and they rebel. Mostly they will leave.

Fifth, often the people will seek retribution.

The end result is that if there is a steady progression to this end, there will be freedom. Lies are slavery. They are also often costly.

Despite the popular opinion

The majority is wrong. We know it feels right to think that if a person who lies is sincere, he is not a liar. This is wrong.

People who lie are liars.

Lies have consequences.

Honesty is still the best policy and it always will be.

Can we have the Ninth Commandment back now?