Category: Douglas Becker

Douglas Becker’s views on the Churches of God

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2013: What Could Possibly Happen Now?

‘Dr.’ Robert Thiel and the Continuing Sinking of the
Churches of God

Here at the Painful Truth, we analyze trends and project them forward; we do not predict, prognosticate: We are a non prophet organization.

So are the nanocults of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong (CoHA), if you look at their record… well, yes, they do have false prophets, there is that, but that’s not what we mean.

Consider our amazement then when 2012 pretty much ended up in ways we projected it might, with the caveat that it was actually a lot worse and certainly screwier than we could have imagined, and around here, we have pretty fertile imaginations: Some of the CoHA nanocult leaders did things beyond all reason, providing entertainment for some and a great deal of pain and embarrassment for others. Many of the scenarios were truly jaw-dropping.

The end of 2012 provided us with the greatest breath-taking events. I suppose you could say that we should have foreseen that Dr. Robert Thiel was going to start his own church after he had left Roderick Meredith and the Living Church of God, but, again, we aren’t prophets: We took our last crystal ball, bored holes in it and went bowling.

To begin with, we would have never guessed the name, which is Continuing Church of God Overseer and successors, a corporation sole. Technically, the abbreviation would be CCoGOaSaCS (I think the spell checker just committed suicide), but in a rare act of mercy with an even rarer flash of insight, Dr. Bob decided to use CCoG, which is a good thing because ccg is taken and so is ccg.org — much to the chagrin of the Canadian Coast Guard. He’s already got a mailing address, where he encouraging LCG members to send tithes as they wend their way from the fold of Meredith to the fold of Thiel. We rather assume that Dr. Bob will certainly have the Feast Days and the Feasts all planned out, replete with five star hotel accommodations and such. Maybe in California. Maybe not.

No matter what, projecting out past trends, we would expect a great deal of dampened enthusiasm as Dr. Bob works out the Church Corporate thing. He’s the heart and sole of it all. He may or may not have been planning this for awhile. He apparently severed from his membership with Living July 14th, 2012, which is 10 days after the celebration of the Declaration of Independence, which probably has no real bearing on anything.

Dr. Bob does bring a few pluses to the table. For one thing, there’s that PhD in something or other he bought online from some outfit in India. He doesn’t say much about defending his thesis, which we rather think is 2012: The Rise of the Secret Sect. We know what you are thinking. Maybe, just maybe, the book was about him and the Continuing Church of God Overseer and successors, a corporation sole. We suspect that he may have had that in the back of his mind, seeing as though he got the idea from Doug Winail that Dr. Bob himself (speaking of himself in third person, which is kind of weird for a PhD guy and more like a Felon Mental Patient) is not just a prophet of God, but he is one of the two witnesses. We’re not sure how many sets of two witnesses there are, but there have to be hundreds at the minimum.

We think that Dr. Bob should see if Baron Karl zu Guttenberg might join him in collaboration. It would be a perfect pairing: Dr. Bob, God’s Prophet and one of the two witnesses and the Baron as the Beast of Revelation. Maybe the Baron could run the office using his Beast Powers, if he’s not too busy. Instead of “Headquarters” or “Home Office” they could call it something like “Castle Greyskull”.

Weinland In 'Club Fed' Prison With Golf Cart
Weinland In ‘Club Fed’ Prison With Golf Cart

Which brings us to the topic of Ronald Weinland, who is also part of a set of two witness, of the which, he is the active member and his wife is the Silent Witness. We’re not really sure how that works out. One would think that a witness who stands up for the Word of God would say something, but apparently not. We don’t pretend to know the mysterious ways of the CoHA and its nanocults. Now if we were to take a wild guess, we’d probably say that Ronald Weinland, as a convicted felon with the tracking bracelet of humility giving sermons over the Internet from his basement as a sub dude, is going to be safely ensconced in Federal Prison for three and a half years around about Groundhog’s Day, but we’ve seen delays before, so we aren’t going to put a large bet on that one. He ran afoul of the Internal Revenue Service for Income Tax Evasion and was convicted in Federal Court by a jury of his peers (even if he does not see them as such). You’d think that as God’s Prophet, he could have seen that coming, but you’d be wrong.

We can wade in reverse through the dregs of 2012 briefly: It was the year that the United Church of God, an International Association found that it’s income is stable, but insisted on a fast for the budget, requested by their new chairman of the board, Robin Weber. Expenses are up, probably because of hiring some ministers or something. The biggest percentage cut seems to be 44% off the International travel budget. This does not mean that the UCG, along with most of the others didn’t have their Christmas Family extravaganzas. The non Armstrongists have something like that every summer and it’s called “Super Sabbath”, but having the CoHA celebration at XMass is awfully suspiciously like some sort of pagan celebration they should really avoid, lest they have the appearance of evil. We project that they will have one of these in 2013 as well. We’ll see. Budget, you know. We suggest they cut the biggest expense of all and slash membership by 100%. Of course, the only reason that Robin Weber became chairman is that Melvin Rhodes stepped down and out at UCG because of some past undisclosed indiscretion.

Roderick Meredith as Herbert Armstrong's MiniMe
Roderick Meredith as Herbert Armstrong’s MiniMe

No posting like this would be complete without mentioning false prophet Roderick Meredith at least twice (it’s like mentioning Hitler: It has to come up some time as some sort of law). Roderick Meredith prophesied, yeah, verily and forsooth, that the Price of Gasoline would drop so LCG members could keep the Feast. This was a major fail, especially in some areas, where, like in California, the gasoline prices went up to a record high just before the Feast and came down a few weeks later. We’re still looking for Meredith to fail predict the past which has already happened, but he just didn’t get the message. Now we aren’t saying the old fool hasn’t failed to predict the past accurately, we just don’t have an obvious example to point to. Living is still unable to escape being under the shadow of the Ratzman shooting and we can certainly say that attending could very well be hazardous to your health. We wonder if Dennis Luker is sizing the drapes. Thiel may have first dibs.

David Hulme with his Church of God, an International Community, apparently is on the skids. We wouldn’t have noticed, except for the posting at Banned! This is really small potatoes among the nanocults, folks.

Davy Pack is our personal favorite with his Restored Church of God. We’re not sure what it’s restored from, but they may want to do a little more remodel over there. Shovels have been turned for Davy’s theme park to rival Ambassador College, but the banks just weren’t buying it for the loans. Something about ROI and that’s even without the internal member letters and documents being leaked. We say, if you want to keep your secret, don’t tell anybody. Davy blabs. Probably an ego thing.

We’d mention CoGIC, but it’s so obscure nobody much ever pays attention to it. Apparently, in 2012,  people paid even less attention to it, if that’s possible.

Jim Franks over at the Church of God, Worldwide Association was up to his chin with alligators draining the swamps again in 2012. The CoGWA still has not significant media presence, were forced to start media projects from scratch (although using Flipping Books on their website was a master stroke, even if the material is garbage). Some of the members are still visiting the UCG and really lack a commitment to one of the newer nanocults of the CoHA. Nevertheless, it does appear that our illustrious Mr. Franks did a bit of damage by exposing Melvin Rhodes to the United Leadership to force his exodus, proving once again that politics in the Armstrongist Churches of God is alive. Not alive and well. Just alive.

Craig White (Europe to sell Alaska to Russia for helping to invade the United States), “Apostle” Malm, E. W. King (with multiple insignificant generalistic type prophecies fulfilled), M. John Allen (Yahweh is a reptilian extraterrestrial from the planet Nibiru [no mention of whether he comes through the Stargate at the bottom of the ocean]), Gerald Flurry of the Philadelphia Church of God and a host of other colorful characters litter the dump of the CoHA nanocults.

After all of this, do you want to know what could possibly happen in 2013?

We think we see trends and we suspect they will continue:

1) Expect the unexpected;

2) It seems likely there will be more scandals to rock the CoHA nanocults;

3) More divisions may be coming (well, duh!);

4) Weirdness will increase;

5) Budgets will fall;

6) Hyperbole will increase;

7) Indecision will continue;

8) Problems won’t find solutions (but keep looking, innovation may not help, but it sure could be entertaining);

9) Very few things will be hidden for long, in spite of the best efforts of cover up;

10) Jesus will refuse to return in 2013 and won’t even bother to initiate the Great Tribulation as the start of the end of the end;

11) But you can be sure, someone will predict it anyway.

Will people keep the Feast of Tabernacles in 2013? Yes.

Will there be fewer people attending the Feast of Tabernacles in 2013? Yes.

Will it be more difficult for people to attend the Feast of Tabernacles in 2013? Yes.

Will it be more meaningless to attend the Feast of Tabernacles in 2013? Yes.

See! We’re not all negative!

We enjoyed rereading Daughter of Babylon: The True History of the Worldwide Church of God by Bruce Renehan again in 2012 (in the new Flipping Book version) from AmbassadorReports.com. We were reminded that the True History of The True Church is nothing of the kind, but pure rubbish stolen from Ellen G. White through the auspices of Dugger and Dodd. Bruce Renehan actually went to the effort to write to the Waldensian Society to prove they were never Sabbath Keepers, let alone kept the Feasts: They considered themselves good Catholics at the time and are now Protestant.

What is so unsettling about this is that during his research, he found others he had known in the Worldwide Church of God also searching the archives. Many of them were or had been ministers. They all knew that the History was a lie, but continued to teach it as if it were true.

This is the magic of Armstrongism in the Cult of Herbert Armstrong in the nanocults: They know they are wrong — totally wrong, but they teach and preach it anyway. By this time, they all know that British Israelism is pure rubbish, easily scientifically disproved once and for all, but they still hold to the Herbert Armstrong fallacy that “British Israelism is the Key to Prophecy”. You can see how that worked out: Herbert Armstrong was a false prophet and so are they all.

They also know that their teaching on tithing cannot be supported Scripturally. Moreover, because there is no such thing as a “second tithe” (look it up in an exhaustive concordance — we’ll wait), there is no funding at all to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. You are on your own time and money on that one. And yes, it could be a blessing, if it weren’t for all those doomsday sermons based on British Israelism you hear in Feast sermons to addle your brain. Everywhere you look, the cult religion falls apart. There is no viability in it at all.

Armstrongism is a purely physical ceremonial cult religion which was the only thing a non spiritual Herbert Armstrong could understand in his ego and greed as a failed ad copy writer going through a psychotic break he interpreted as a religious conversion. He admitted in his Autobiography that he could go weeks at a time being “off” and unable to produce anything and then having a burst of energy to be able to do “brilliant” work. Anyone who owns a DSM-IV ought to be able to suss that one out as bipolar disease manic-depressive illness. This is not to say he wasn’t a sociopath as well, having, as it were, an adaptive conscience which enabled him to lie successfully as the basis of his “Executive Ability”.

With this background, his “descendants” in this dead end evolution at the shallow end of the gene pool populated with a crowded community of alpha males looking to be top banana, having cemented their Folie à deux permanently into a distorted perception of cult mentality, went forth with their delusions and hypocrisies to form their own cult organizations with them in control with no integrity and no accountability — knowing perfectly well that what they taught was pure unadulterated recycled swill.

As the realization of this dawns, you can rest assured that there is not one shred of possibility to trust these men. None. You cannot trust them. They are unreliable. They just make up stuff. What’s so maddening is that we all can prove that they just make up stuff which has no reality whatsoever and they can perfectly well ignore the dissidents. In some cases, they even threaten those who tell the truth. They have a lot of incentive to keep the lies in place. It is their ego, their salary and their retirement. It is their power base.

And so it is no stretch of the imagination at all and take does not take a rocket scientist or nuclear physicist (with a real PhD and experience working with the HADRON collider) to understand that this is all going to continue into 2013. They will lie to you and take your money.

These are the trends we think we see.

Nevertheless, if you are a member in the Armstrongist churches of God, you may just want to do yourself a favor and skip 2013.

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Sourcecode

In this article which is 11 years expired, notice what happens to the links when all their prophecies turn to shit….

Herbert Armstrong can be seen as bad source code of particularly malicious aggressive religious malware, difficult to detect and even more difficult to remove.

 On the False Prophet Ronald Weinland blog, an anonymous contributor commented:

I am ashamed for becoming caught up in this. I am very naive and trusting, and was really hoping for a better more just world, and excited to have a sound framework to live by. But that leaves people open for being taken advantage of. I have learned now to be yourself and trust your instincts no matter what anyone says, I just hope it is not too late to rebuild a life.

 Those of us who have been infected with the Armstrongism malware understand and empathize with this perspective. We can heartily recommend Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich and Madeleine Tobias from Bay Tree Publishing as a recovery and guard against cult malware. It has the best in-depth coverage of the religious cult malware of any resource and can serve to inoculate unwary users from the nasty effects of religious malpractice hackers, such as Roderick Meredith, Dennis Luker, Jim Franks and others dedicated to spreading debilitating religious viruses and worms to the public.

The original source code for this religious malware stems from Herbert Armstrong, who used snippets of script from various religious hackers of previous decades and centuries. He was no Biblical coding expert, but he was able to cut and paste from various illicit sources like some novice teenager unqualified to produce viable products but plagiarized source in order to create havoc and chaos. Although, at first, he set upon his discoveries in the Portland Public Library, his repertoire, as we will see later, was built upon a foundation of another whose influence can be seen in his works and was expanded by the pseudo-intellectual, Dr. Herman Hoeh.

Some may wonder how the Source Code is built. It’s not that difficult to understand, even for the naive novice unfamiliar with the processes to create illegitimate applications destructive to their users. The basic process is to build on snippets that are created out of the imagination. Once someone creates the snippet, another comes along and quotes the first “creator”. Then the first creator quotes the second source, forming a double-bond of self-referential substantiation with no substance at all. This is scalable to a much larger community of sources.

John D. Keyser at Mysteries of the Bible website, in the article The Coronation Stone — Jeremiah in Ireland, debunks the whole idea of Jeremiah being in Ireland, ably assisted by Dr. Greg Doudna’s Showdown at Big Sandy: Youthful Creativity Confronts Bureaucratic Inertia At An Unconventional Bible College in East Texas. John Keyser debunks the myth that Jeremiah was in Ireland, establishing that the premise that he  (in the company of his scribe Baruch) took King Zedekiah’s daughter to Ireland where she founded a line of Davidic kings that has continued on down to this day. It never happened. Herbert Armstrong wrote in The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy wrote:

Then, in 569 B.C. (date of Jeremiah’s transplanting), an elderly, white-haired patriarch, sometimes referred to as a “saint,” came to Ireland. With him was the princess daughter of an eastern king and a companion called “Simon Brach,” spelled in different histories as Breck, Berech, Brach, or Berach. The princess had a Hebrew name Tephi — a pet name — her full name being TEA-TEPHI.

Modern literature of those who recognize our national identity has confused this Tea-Tephi, a daughter of Zedekiah, with an earlier Tea, a daughter of Ith, who lived in the days of David.

This royal party included the son of the king of Ireland who had been in Jerusalem at the time of the siege. There he had become acquainted with Tea-Tephi. He married her shortly after 585 — when the city fell. Their young son, now about 12 years of age, accompanied them to Ireland. Besides the royal family, Jeremiah brought with them some remarkable things, including a harp, AN ARK, and a wonderful STONE CALLED “LIA-FAIL,” or “STONE OF DESTINY.”

….many kings in the history of Ireland, Scotland, and England have been coronated over this stone — including the present queen. The stone rests today in Westminster Abbey in London, and the coronation chair is built over and around it. A sign beside it labels it “Jacob’s pillar-stone” (Gen. 28:18).

The royal husband of the Hebrew princess Tea was given the TITLE HERREMON upon ascending the throne of his father. This Herremon has usually been confused with a much earlier Gede the Herremon in David’s day — who married his uncle Ith’s daughter Tea. The son of this later king Herremon and Hebrew princess continued on the throne of Ireland and THIS SAME DYNASTY CONTINUED UNBROKEN through all the kings of Ireland; was OVERTURNED and transplanted again in Scotland; again OVERTURNED and moved to London, England, where this same dynasty continues today in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II….

In view of the linking together of biblical history, prophecy, and Irish history, can anyone deny that this Hebrew princess was the daughter of King Zedekiah of Judah and therefore heir to the throne of David? 

Well, yes we can!

It’s all nonsense.

Here’s the answer from John D. Keyser:

No References! In preparation for the writing of this article, and several others on the royal house of Britain, I searched out and read literally DOZENS of books written by British-Israelites in order to more accurately understand the BASIS for the Jeremiah/Tea-Tephi legend so eloquently penned by Herbert Armstrong. I also consulted primary and secondary sources on the Irish and Scottish annals.

To my surprise, I found that the British-Israelite books all REPEAT the same Tea-Tephi story (with slight variations), each aggressively claiming that the story is found in the ancient annals. In my research I have NOT FOUND a single British-Israelite book that actually gives a REFERENCE to WHERE in the Irish and Scottish annals the supporting material may be found! Armstrong’s booklet does not — nor does Joseph Allen’s earlier book on the subject.

As also discovered by Greg Doudna (former Ambassador College student, now with the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University), “they all seem to draw from previous British-Israel writings. They speak so confidently it sounds like there must be something in the annals to which they refer. The NAMES mentioned in the Tea-Tephi legend appear in the annals, true enough, but I have discovered they are TOTALLY DIFFERENT PERSONS IN THE ANNALS than the British-Israel legend makes them out to be. The annals simply don’t say what the British-Israel literature, or the Worldwide Church of God, SAY they say. It is a LEGEND that someone somewhere within British-Israel circles began, stated it as fact, and it has been repeated as fact within British-Israel circles ever since, down to the present day in which the Worldwide Church of God repeats it to millions. It may make an interesting story, but IT IS COMPLETELY FABRICATED.” (“Afterword on British-Israelism”, p. 121).

 The bottom line here is that one “expert” historian quotes another and that one quotes the first and a third one quotes the previous two and so on and so forth. It’s like an urban legend where you can never find the original source. Scratch that — it’s not like an urban legend — it is an urban legend. This is a #1 law for religious malware: If you don’t have the source, just make something up, then find someone else to quote you and then quote that as a legitimate source to make the whole thing legitimate. No dishonesty has been harmed in the making of the myth.

British Israelism is another example of this phenomenon. As nearly all Armstrongists know by this time, originally — and though there may have been a few others who threw around the idea previously — Richard Brothers was the primary source of British Israelism. Oh sure, there were predecessors as is told by The True and Noble Origins of the Anglo-Israel Message, but Richard Brothers was a focal point, with his first publication, released in 1794, The Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies & Times. The prologue had this to say:

First wrote under the direction of the LORD GOD & published by His Sacred Command, it being the first sign of Warning for the Benefit of all Nations; Containing with other great and remarkable things not revealed to any other Person on Earth, the Restoration of the Hebrews to Jerusalem by the year 1798 under their revealed Prince and Prophet. London, Printed in the year of Christ, 1794.

He only had 4 years to wait before his prophecy failed. The rest of us have had to wait a lot longer.

It should be noted that Richard Brothers, in connection with his odd ideas of British Israelism, was committed to an insane asylum as being a danger to himself and others. Thus it is that British Israelism was popularized by a kook madman.

It took John Harden Allen with his Judah’s Scepter and Joseph’s Birthright published in 1902 to truly give Herbert Armstrong the fodder he needed as he preached the True Gospel as The End Time Apostle and Great False Prophet, the source code basis for the Key to Prophecy. Low and behold, major portions of it were plagiarized for The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy, all of which has the curious propensity to prompt us to recall the riddle posed by Professor Maximillian Arturo, played by John Rhys-Davies, in the science fiction television show, Sliders:

Why doesn’t the sun set on the British Empire?

Because God can’t trust the British in the dark!

British Israelism was the source code to set the stage for the angst ridden prophecies of hyperbole, aptly described in the November-December 2012 Church of God Seventh Day Bible Advocate article, It’s Doomsday Again!

Written into the folk memory of all peoples is the concept of an “end”. It may be a subconscious memory of the worldwide destruction of the great Flood. But disasters do happen and failed predictions of such an end abound.

The article notes:

Such fearsome factors can be found in Scripture and are highlighted by most who write about prophecy, often with a barely suppressed sense of glee!

As it turns out, fear of gloom and doom are big business:

Many prophecy buffs are excited by the thought of the end.

If you are still wondering about the source code which produced Herbert Armstrong, one might consider “Questions and Answers” in the latest Bible Advocate:

Andrew N. Dugger became editor of the Bible Advocate magazine in 1914 and a popular president of the General Conference (1921-27; 29-30). He injected futurism into the Church’s prophetic interpretation, and championed futurist doctrine amid the controversy that led to the 1933 division between Stanberry and Salem.

In Summary, Elder Dugger believed 1) the two-horned beast would be a revival Roman Church, enforcing its mark of Sunday keeping on Sabbath observers; 2) the Church of God’s main task was to give the third angel’s message, warning believers against the mark of the beast; 3) the seven plagues were literal and future judgments upon those who received the mark; 4) the giving of the third angel’s message and the outpouring of the plagues would lead to Christ’s return; and 5) Christ’s descent from heaven to receive His kingdom would occur in the midst of Armageddon.

Elder Dugger’s argument for the imminent fulfillment of his end-time prophecies in the 1920s, 30s and 40s led the Church to become disinterested in his failed version of them. For more than a generation, the Church struggled to recapture its true mission to preach salvation in Christ and His grace alone, rather than serve as a prognosticator of events.

The Church’s return to its heritage of preaching Christ and His advent without enigmatic add-ons was reflected in its doctrinal revisions of 1994 and 2006, which dropped the futurist predictions and suppositions that prevailed for much of the past century.

— Elder Robert Coulter

It is difficult to imagine that the fiery preachments of Andrew N. Dugger did not impress the impressionable Herbert Armstrong as he began on his quest for ministerial truth. The extremism of futurist ideas of Andrew Dugger impressed on Armstrong’s impressionable young mind was enough to provide the source code upon which to build the religious malware foundation of the heretical extreme cult religion. Apparently, the Church of God Seventh Day eventually outgrew it, while Armstrongists remained trapped in the eternal childishness of seeking the thrills of thinking they have special knowledge of what comes next. This foolishness has spun off over 700 versions of the original malware, just waiting to infect the uninoculated unsuspecting innocent.

Protect yourself: Prevent damage by avoiding downloading any more malware from the Internet pages of the UCG, LCG, CoGWA and the whole host of religious malware servers.

And for heaven’s sake, don’t allow them to charge for the service.

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Brilliant

Mr. Know-It-All

Brilliant, smart, clever, shrewd, cunning, witty, sophisticated, precise, complex, accurate — you can be all of those things and more. You may be highly educated with an M.B.A. from Harvard, a PhD in Nuclear Physics from M.I.T., an Aeronautical Engineer from Princeton and / or a whole host of other credentials. You might be an experienced and highly regarded linguist, archeologist, astronomer, Corporate Director / Vice President, historian, nutritionist, Medical Doctor, Lawyer, C.P.A, Network Engineer, automotive designer or working in a whole host of other careers.

Last week, I interviewed with Boeing at the Aeronautical Engineering Division where jets are engineered to fly. It’s complex and engineers are treated well — they are respected professionals and their time is highly valued. I’ve known any number of people in the WCG and United who have worked at Boeing and even IBM. One engineer I knew designed the Boeing 737 autopilot. He went to retire, but Boeing kept calling him back to work on it up to the age of 75 years old. I’ve met a man in the church who actually writes assembly language code for started tasks on the IBM Mainframe z/OS environment. He designed and wrote an interface to an artificial package which was bought by IBM. The IMS team shipped him over the code to use as a pattern. He quickly noted that the IMS started tasks had a fatal error and showed them how to fix it, before he went on with his own work.

There have been any number of brilliant people in the Armstrongist churches of God.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t mean a thing.

God only reveals his truth to His Apostles and Evangelist leaders in the cult of Armstrongism.

Nothing you say has any credibility.

No matter what facts, data, truth, witnesses you may bring to the table, if you disagree with the Cultmeister over you, you are rebellious, know nothing and have no status or standing to say anything.

It does not matter if you can absolutely prove beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt six ways from Sunday that British Israelism is a steaming pile of horse manure.

It does not matter if you can absolutely prove that church history is fabricated and there is no such thing as eras.

It does not matter if you can absolutely prove there is no such thing as second tithe.

Your job is to be lied to and provide the money: Only The Leader matters and you are wrong and nothing, no matter what.

You must learn the very first law of cults from the Orange Papers: The Guru is always right!

If you violate this #1 law, Frances Horibe, author of “Creating the Innovation Culture: Leveraging Visionaries, Dissenters and Other Useful Troublemakers in Your Organization”, tells you what comes next (note that the illustrations are for the Corporate environment):

Stage 1: Arguing

At Stage 1, it is assumed the dissenter just doesn’t know any better and is amenable to “rational” discussion. Some of the arguments you’ll her:

“It’ll never work.“

“The boss will never go for it.“

“It’s not what we do around here.“

“Things are okay as they are.“

Stage 2: Listening But Not Hearing

If the dissenter persists in his wrong-headed view, things stay polite but subtle messages are sent.

“Yes, we’ve heard from you on that. Anybody else got some different ideas?“

“Thanks for your contribution.“

“Maybe you should put that in writing so we all have a good idea of what you mean.“

Stage 3: Laughing It Off

Before they hit this stage, most team players are astute enough to realize they need to tone down their advocacy. But those who don’t get it begin to get teased about their persistence.

“This is a real hobbyhorse, isn’t it? When are you going to get off and give somebody else a chance to ride?“

“If you’re so smart, how come you ain’t rich?“

“Can I give you a quarter to phone somebody who cares?“

You note that nowhere are people talking about the real issues — like how inconvenient, threatening, or difficult it will be to implement the dissenter’s idea. Often, it’s because the idea is inconvenient, threatening, or difficult that this whole process gets invoked to begin with. It is at this point that the focus moves from the dissenter’s ideas to the dissenter himself [the ad hominem argument]. It stops being about whether the idea makes sense and starts being about the dissenter’s personality flaws.

Stage 4: Ignoring

If ridicule doesn’t work, the powers-that-be start to get a little ticked. Although they’d never say it, they’re beginning to feel that if the dissenter had any sensitivity or even manners, he’d stop bothering them. They bring into play one of the most powerful weapons–silence. When the dissenter speaks, no one replies; the conversation continues as if he had never spoken. If he persists, he gets:

“We’ve been over that ground before. I was looking for new ideas.“

“I don’t think we’ll get to your item today. Maybe next time.“

While in the previous stage people kept their expressions carefully neutral, now nonverbal cues are more evident. Rolling eyeballs and sighs are prominent.

Stage 5: Making Invisible

Still some people don’t get it. They persist despite the increasingly unfriendly environment. The heat is turned up. Not only will the boss refuse to engage in further discussion but also funny things start to happen. Somehow, the dissenter’s name gets left off distribution lists. Invitations to important meetings aren’t forthcoming. Decisions are taken without his input. It’s as if he has disappeared.

Stage 6: Forbidding

Some dissenters won’t take their invisibility lying down. Then the big guns come out. If the dissenter continues to push his unpopular views, someone will finally drag him into a room and say:

“You are to focus on assigned projects, not just on the ones you want to do.“

“Stop wasting other people’s time by pushing your pet project.“

“I forbid you to work on that idea.“

Sanctions may or may not be threatened. If the dissenter has taken the issue this far, he may see his fight as a matter of principle. Backing down would be a comment on him, on his integrity. But equally, the boss has had it, and the idea the dissenter has will be implemented only over several dead bodies.

Stage 7: Getting Rid of the Dissenter

If the situation gets to this stage, war has been declared and both sides are focused not on what’s good for the company but on winning. And, just given the way of the world, the power is on the side of the higher-ups. If the dissenter ignores the previous injunctions, any number of things can happen.

“I don’t think your skills are up to this position. There’s a job for paper-pusher in Division M.“

“You need to report through Bob now. He’ll vet any of your ideas.“

“Somebody has to be laid off. I regret it has to be you.“

“We don’t have a place for you in this organization.“

For those of us who have read The Ambassador Reports, this is all too familiar — since it was standard practice in the WCG in Pasadena and Big Sandy Texas and is the methodology of the GCI. Of course, it goes on within the rest of the Armstrongists, all the way from Arguing to Disfellowshipment. This doesn’t always work out, as United might be able to tell you, having lost at least 40 congregations in ten years (we’ve lost count, sorry) to the split with the Church of God, Worldwide Association. With Weinland and his PKG group, he seems to alternate between laughing it off and ignoring the dissidents — the only problem is, he’s about to be sentenced, so whatever he does probably has very impact on the dissenters except to make them more determined to expose him for the fraud he is.

All the people in the Living Church of God under Roderick Meredith need to perform the following experiment: Gather your facts and go to him to prove once and for all that British Israelism is nonsense, church history is a fraud and that he is a false prophet. You might even be a Pastor ranked minister or a Regional Pastor. You know, he’s the legacy from Herbert Armstrong who said, “Prove us wrong and we will change”. Of course, you need to keep firmly in mind that Roderick Meredith has proclaimed that he has not committed a major sin since his baptism, so be certain to document in writing the major sins he has committed to show them to him. Then stand back and see how quickly he runs through the seven stages.

One of the more, shall we say, colorful, of the gurus which sprang forth from the high school dropout with just an eighth grade education, turned Chancellor of a College, Herbert Armstrong is Yisrayl Hawkins. It’s interesting to see his former wife’s book, The House of Yahweh: My Side of the Story by Kay Hawkins is treated at Amazon.com. A comment by James A. Schmelig says: “Now that you’re read the obviously biased hand wringing of a woman scorned, maybe you would like to read the most authoritative investigative report about The House of Yahweh ever published. It is titled “The House of Yahweh EXPOSED! – Saints or Sinister?” by James Arthur. When we look up The House of Yahweh EXPOSED! – Saints or Sinister?, we spend so many pages looking at how corrupt the United States government is and how the truth has been covered up, until we find that James Arthur is actually for Yisrayl Hawkins. We also learn that The House of Yahweh started in the Garden of Eden. The author also tells us a bit about himself: A former (?) alcoholic (no such thing), drug abuser, liar, thief, sexual degenerate, despot, convicted felon and ex-convict who spent 10 years in prison by the time he was 28 years old. (Page 215) He tried the shallow superficial dogma of Christianity, but (darn it all!) Yisrayl Hawkins brought him the light and reformed him! Of course, Yisrayl “Buffalo Bill” Hawkins is a proven false prophet, not unlike Ronald Weinland. He did, however, write his own version of Scripture, The Book of Yahwey. Many reviewers question the source of the translation and not a few reject the book as being heretical. One reviewer noted how many references were changed in favor of polygamy.

The issue here is how people are silenced and certainly the comment, “Now that you’re read the obviously biased hand wringing of a woman scorned…” is designed to question the credibility of someone who actually lived with the cult leader.

Armstrongism is based on silencing visionaries, dissenters and troublemakers, because Armstrongism itself is based on lies, deceptions, weirdness (the favorite of which is the guy who claims demons are coming to earth through a stargate at the bottom of the ocean), insanity (Richard Brothers who invented British Israelism was in an insane asylum because he was a danger to others) cast by narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths and nutjobs. Yet, they expect us to swallow their Flavorade with a straight face.

In the book, Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, authors Dr. Paul Babiak and Dr. Robert Hare answer the question, “What is the difference between a sociopath and psychopath” beginning on Page 19:

Psychopaths are without conscience and incapable of empathy, guilt, or loyalty to anyone but themselves.

Sociopaths may have a well-developed conscience and a normal capacity for empathy, guilt, and loyalty, but their sense of right and wrong is based on the norms and expectations of their subculture or group.

In other words, sociopaths have what is known as a “conditional conscience” based on the beliefs of those with whom they associate. The best example of this is the Mafia, where the behavior toward members of the group is far different — and the expectations are far different — than from the rest of the world: You can lie, steal, cheat, murder in order to advance the cause of your group, but not to those in the hierarchy within the group. As a Mafia Don, people were loyal to Herbert Armstrong and it was fine for both he and the members of the WCG to lie, steal, cheat and practice deception as long as the goal was to advance the WCG. The ministry was indoctrinated with “the end justifies the means” ethic (which is no ethic at all), so by implication, most of the Worldwide Church of God and the Armstrongist churches of God is basically populated by sociopaths, with the exception of the narcissists, psychopaths and nutjobs which occupy various levels within the hierarchy. Nothing matters except to protect the viability of the organization (which has no socially redeeming qualities within itself). All dissenters will be dealt with in the manner revealed by Frances Horibe. If you don’t believe that, just try dissenting and see what happens.

Those who leave Armstrongism need to be very much aware that their conscience has become warped and twisted in ways to adapt to the nature of the thinking of Herbert Armstrong. You’ve been adapted to accept injustices which would not be acceptable to the normal ordinary member of the rest of society because you have become a sociopath with antisocial behavior: You are looking for the end of the world, the destruction of society and, in most cases, have come to believe that people in terrible circumstances out in the world must attend to the dead burying their dead. You’ve been conditioned to do absolutely nothing but stand by, watching the horrors of others in your life, waiting for Jesus Christ to return to fix everything. You’ve accepted the idea that even if you could do something about it, you won’t because you feel that it’s just not your job. As Robert Dick in the United Church of God, an International Association said, “This is not the time of justice”. And folks, he also means it as far as the church is concerned. You have a conscience that was not bothered by false prophets spouting false prophecies and you have been satisfied to just sit back and prove exactly nothing. You take your cult leader’s word for it. You march on as a loyal soldier in your cult and never question your General, whether it is the Pastor General, Coordinator General or General kook leader, no matter how corrupt and wrong he is — up to and including becoming a convicted felon. If you know of a crime committed by a minister or you Leader, your job is to cover it up, ignore it and act as if it is normal.

It will take a very long time to construct a valid conscience, if it is even possible.

So you can be brilliant, smart, clever, shrewd, cunning, witty, sophisticated, precise, complex, accurate, but not within the confines of the craziness of the Armstrongist cult. They will find ways to make you submissive, for example, they will tangibly lower your IQ by making you feel stupid. Research has shown that the IQ of people can be lowered by as much as 40 points by convincing people they are stupid — and the Armstrongists certainly do a good job of that. They have these secret wonderful “truths” (lies) to which the world is not privy — which means that you are a novice when you take up with them to enter into their ranks: Nothing you say, do or are means anything, because the leadership has all the truth and your vision, perspectives and knowledge is irrelevant. You can’t know the truth. It is only revealed to the incompetent false prophet End Time Apostle. Only when you realize this and become nothing more that a stupid drone can you become someone.

Brilliance.

It means nothing unless you have the power.