Category: Douglas Becker

Douglas Becker’s views on the Churches of God

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War!

WW III 2012 Armstrongist Church of God Style
World War III, 2012: Armstrongist Church of God Style

The Armstrongist Churches of God are not war-like tribes — they are warring tribes, at war with one another, to the point that they not only don’t look Christian or necessarily godly, they look downright barbaric and uncivilized, as though they are waiting for civilization to catch up to them some time in the future — a future which will never come.

One of the many occurrences of the evidence of the constant battles of the war of ascendancy is the schism within the United Church of God, an International Association (UCGaIA), which resulted in the formation of the Church of God, Worldwide Association (CoGWA). The split wasn’t even about doctrine. It seemed to be about governance, but from the outside view away from the intimate internal dealings of the Church Administration, no one can be really certain why the split occurred.

Now, if it were a matter of Christian Soldiers fighting the war in the good fight against Satan and this world, that would be one thing, but it isn’t that at all: They are battling against each other in a manifestation of the works of the flesh.

The Apostle James in his epistle wrote:

From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

That’s part of it: The founders and leaders of this ancient religion of the War gods certainly is based on the lust for salary and retirement, along with the lust for power and narcissistic fulfillment by pathetic idolatrous narcissistic source borderline personality types hanging on every word of delusional pronouncements of the promises of future godhood and false prophecies of a short work, ended by a mythical Great Tribulation. People lust after that. It is emotionally satisfying.

But there is convincing evidence that that is not all of it: It’s just a part of the puzzle.

Why are the Armstrongist Churches of God at war — with one another?

Some of the explanation may lie in the fact that their religion does not appeal to even a miniscule segment of fresh blood out there in the world any more. The time of the cold war is past and the threat of nuclear holocaust just isn’t an inducement like it used to be. No, in these days of technological wonders of advancement beyond the wildest imagination of three decades ago, the world has changed so significantly that the old inducements for new membership just won’t cut it. As a result, with the severe entropy restricting the options and opportunities for a continued flow of money into the sub cults, the only solution is to resort to cannibalizing the remaining sheople amongst the various 700+ splinters, offering each one a “better deal” to sweeten the pot for preserving the life style to which the leadership of each cult would like to become accustomed. And make no mistake, this is ranchers quibbling about the branding on their livestock.

However, there seems to be a much deeper and sinister motivation lying behind the constant war going on, wherein there is no peace, and indeed, cannot be, as in the words of Isaiah:

For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.

The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

They are, in short, the very flower of the example of humanity.

The cults have inherited the warlike nature of Herbert Armstrong who fought and railed against everything from the Catholic Church to the Church of God Seventh Day (as being Sardis). The world was of Satan and he was the conquering hero to usher in the golden age of the War to come which was to bring ultimate peace after there was no one left who had any energy left to fight him — or at least that was the vision that he created. He created an environment geared to war from the very beginning, rebelling against society and science so he could have his own way. He often turned against his own employees in a fit of rage. His temper was legendary. He left a legacy of anger and war, and who of those guards he personally trained in his Ambassador College Prison Experiment could rise above the overwhelming tsunami of the West Point of God’s Work?

Science and genetic research has revealed interesting developments of late, with the discovery of the so-called “Warrior Gene”, DARRP-32 TC / TT variant allele of damaged chromosomes. Not only is there a basis for the reality of continuing chaotic strife for those with this sort of genetics, but there are tests for it — even to the point that Dr. Phil uses the test on his show to identify the cause of family disruptions by those with this damaged genetics: It’s built in.

It should be pointed out that this particular form of anger has no real evolutionary advantage: It will not promote the continuing life of the Armstrongist Churches of God, but will hasten their demise in an ever increasing downward spiral of entropy where the resources become ever less available.

Given the history of Herbert Armstrong and the history of such people as Roderick Meredith, whose pride is rooted in winning a Golden Gloves Championship in his teenage years, it is not difficult at all to believe that the War amongst the various Churches of God are spearheaded by the leadership who just can’t help themselves to engage in endless battles.

Any members who are still delusional about the opportunity for the path to peace, need to heed the words of II Timothy 3: “From such turn away”. Proverbs 22:24-25 add to the wisdom:

Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul.

But then, Armstrongists never have been very careful to follow “The Word of God”, otherwise, they would not have followed Joseph Tkach. The Ambassador Report tells of the anger management challenges of Dr. Tkach with his first wife, Jill. The temper of Senior is legendary and there is at least one account where he yelled at an innocent woman in his office for five hours straight, doing great emotional damage to her. There are much more recent examples of the fury of Armstrongist leaders in the churches of God today because it is a continuing problem which will not abate.

So let the Armstrongist founders and leaders take the test.

We already know what they will find.

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VIP Trust

One Person, no matter who he or she is, is a very small part of a population. Why are some individuals given so much artificially  created importance? It’s not artificial, you may say. People need  leaders, and it’s perfectly natural that the leader of a large group will be very important to the welfare of the group and will  bear a disproportionate share of the burden for maintaining that welfare. In at least one sense it certainly is natural.

The way humans treat their leaders–and the way some of them become  leaders–is at heart pretty much the same as the hierarchical social structures of, say, baboons or chimpanzees. Males fight one another with the hope of becoming “alpha male;” those who don’t win are subservient to him, and females are subservient to all of them, with finer degrees of hierarchy of their own. The differences between how baboons do it and how we do it are more in details than in the essence.

That’s not surprising. All of us–baboons, chimps, humans–are primates, with common evolutionary roots both biologically and culturally. Our social systems look like modified versions of theirs because they are modified versions of theirs. And it works pretty well, for baboon troops. Their hierarchies, for all the conflicts they entail, probably do serve the group’s long-term welfare by preventing more extensive conflicts that would likely arise if nobody were imposing some order, and presenting a united front to external threats.

Dr. Stanley Schmidt, Editorial: “VIPs”; Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July/August 2012.

In one fell swoop, Dr. Stanley Schmidt just described the sociological world of Herbert Armstrong in the Worldwide Church of God: A strongly hierarchical structure with him at the top over a group of primates, acting every bit like baboons.

Generally speaking, as civilization matures, the evolution is toward the individual having freedoms in a venue where it is recognized that, for the most part, there is an equality among the people and there isn’t one particular super human to become the supreme autocratic leader. This assumes that each member of the citizenry take ownership to maintain order and act responsibly. It would appear that autocracies based in a stong hierarchical structure are regressions negating our social evolution, obliterating the hope of pursuing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by the singular individual.

It has become painfully obvious that Herbert Armstrong imposed order to present a united front to external and internal threats: It is obvious, because with his death, the conflicts have increased 700 fold and are certainly doing nothing to serve the group’s long term welfare. Even though Herbert Armstrong was one small fat short man, he rallied others to him as the “alpha male” to gain control of the group.

During his time, Roderick Meredith, Gerald Flurry, David Pack, Dennis Luker, Ronald Weinland, were all the losers and became subservient to him, with the females subservient to all of them, with finer degrees of hierarchy of their own. No real intelligence was needed: It’s pretty much social genetics, making the victims mere pawns in the evolutionary scheme of things, in yet another minor league cult. And yes, there are many more groups and larger groups of “baboons”, but what has happened in Armstrongism is instructive in the understanding of how locked into a system primates can be. In reality, Herbert Armstrong had absolutely no worth as either a person, an apostle or a false prophet, but he was in charge, and darn it all, we were going to believe and follow him, no matter what, without much thought put into it, following, as it were, our animal passions.

Dr. Schmidt continues:

Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?

People need leaders, you may say again, and I must agree at least in part: Some people need leaders most of the time, and perhaps most do under some circumstances. We’re sometimes told that  people tend to be either leaders or followers, and in my experience many do tend to lean more toward one or the other–the in the complex hierarchies of our present societies, many people play both roles in different subgroups. And I don’t buy the idea that everybody has a natural preference for one or the other. Personally I don’t like to do any more of either than necessary. I prefer to work as independently as possible as much of the time as possible, and it’s how I usually work best.

Now, in the realm of religion, particularly Christianity, one would think that there would be more individuality: According to Scripture, when Christ died, the veil to the Holy of Holies was ripped down the middle, and symbolically, was a metaphor that the people no longer needed the High Priest as the leader to go directly to God the Father. One would think. It was to be a new world with the Old Covenant done away and a New Covenant written, so that there was no more hierarchy to get to God. The good news of the gospel is that your sins separating you from your God were covered and you had redemption. This was now a higher plane above, not just above the primates, but mankind itself. Old habits die hard. And there are a lot of successful con men out there, ready and able to recapture people as livestock to live off of them, promoting the very vision of the 1972 Princeton Prison Experiment, replete with the Warden Superintendant, guards and prisoners, reducing the supposedly spiritual plane back to the animal level: Herbert Armstrong invoked in us a regression to the primal.

Dr. Schmidt adds:

It’s also prudent for a large organization to have mechanisms built into it to ensure that its smooth functioning is not too dependent on which individual is currently doing whatever executive duties need to be done. That’s where most of them fall down. It’s nice to have a competent, well-liked and respected leader in those cases where you need a leader at all. If you’re lucky enought to have one, it’s naturally a sad thing to lose him or her–just as it’s a sad thing to lose any competent, well-liked and respected person. If that loss is a violent one, the perpetrator is a crimnal and needs to be dealt with as such. But it’s not the end of the world, whether violent or not, and reacting to it as if it were is likely to do far more harm than good. Wouldn’t it be better to have a social structure strong and resilient enough to deal appropriately and propotionately with both the loss and the crime, and meanwhile make the necessary adjustment to go on with the rest of its business in a reasonably normal fashion?

In the case of cults, no. Cults are cults because they focus on one man (or woman or a small cadre of “leaders”) to excess. It’s best to let them die. Now it should not have escaped any of you what the lesson here is: While it is true that Herbert Armstrong was a “success” in the sense that he got all he wanted out of life, he was a failure in providing a lasting legacy because people were entirely focused on him. In the aftermath of his death, there has been a vacuum left. Those familiar with science knows the old adage that nature abhors a vacuum.

Unfortunately, the “alpha males” rushing in to fill the void, simply can’t fill it. Armstrongism is a spectacular failure with sociopathic nutjobs popping up nearly weekly like mushrooms on the lawn after a rainy day. The final words of Dr. Schmidt in his editorial should give us all pause, even if taken out of context:

And if that happens, our reaction to any problem with it is likely to be as extreme and destructive as with any of its human predecessors.

So those now involved with Armstrongism — particularly now that we have the robust example of Ronald Weinland, the prophet that failed — have a clear choice: Make your own choices and be responsible for them or pursue social evolutionary regression to follow the baboon alpha male leader.

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Trust

 

“Trust”
Who do you trust? Do you trust your Armstrongist minister? Should you trust your Armstrongist minister?

by

Douglas Becker

Who do you trust?

Do you trust your Armstrongist minister?

Should you trust your Armstrongist minister?

The answer to the last two questions is “No!” and “No!”.

Let me tell you why.

Now it may be that your Armstrongist minister in whatever ACoG you may be attending might be totally sincere. Perhaps he is very nice. Maybe he is even helpful at times. But in the scheme of things, is that enough?

We live today in May, 2012, on the cusp of yet another meltdown of the membership of an Armstrongist Cult, as the target date of the false prophet for Christ’s returns comes at Pentecost and goes, without so much as a whimper of a hint of a whisper of the event taking place. Ronald Weinland has set up the dupes of his little cult for yet another “Great Disappointment” to rival the one of 1844. No, Jesus isn’t returning, the Great Tribulation won’t have happened, there is no Beast Power over the 10 nations of Europe and there isn’t any possible that the Two Witlesses Witnesses will die in Jerusalem after prophecying there for 3.5 years and be resurrected in 3.5 days after which Christ will take a near pass and spirit them away to heaven for the Great Bridal Shower.

But they trust him!

If we knew the answer to why, we could know a lot more about the Universe.

In business accounting, there is something called “Goodwill”. Goodwill is an accounting concept meaning the value of an entity over and above the value of its assets. The term was originally used in accounting to express the intangible but quantifiable “prudent value” of an ongoing business beyond its assets, resulting perhaps because the reputation the firm enjoyed with its clients. This is important in the sale of a business when the sale price is above and beyond the actual tangible assets of the corporation and is used in the accounting ledgers to represent the gap as a firm dollar value.

Like it or not (we don’t), the branding of Herbert Armstrong is a monetary asset advantage which trades on the principle of “Goodwill”: The religious product thus branded has earned the trust of a small cadre of consumers, not unlike that of Amazon.com (which has a much larger cadre of loyal consumers). To them, the Goodwill has been earned over the decades (for no particularly good reason, as we shall see), and anyone who trades on the trust in the religious product automagically inherits the Goodwill.

There are limits, of course.

Some of the customers are rather picky over which particular branding they select: For some it is United, others, the LCG, CoGWa, CoGBS or a whole host of alphabet soup Armstrongist communities. They become loyal to the sub brand they have selected. It’s sort of like which washing detergent a person chooses. You tend to stick with it because it works for you: Whiter, brighter, whatever. The choices aren’t, in this case, particularly rational. It is based on emotions and feelings. It is based on how the leader impresses and how you might fit in with the rest of the crowd. In extreme cases, like the PCG, RCG, CCG, PKG, it makes no sense at all: It’s just how you feel about it.

Objectively speaking, there are a lot of problems, challenges and consequences to choosing emotion over logic and it can lead to a lot of ugly results down the road. The future is not always what it seems to be, particularly in the Armstrongist Churches of God, where no one is exactly what they seem to be. Sacrificing resources for the hope of some big score at the end may feel good, but in the end, it is all a con game whose end game is that they lie to you and then take your money. It wouldn’t be so bad if they just lied to you (no matter how sincere they might be), if they didn’t take your money, but you trust them and they do take your money. In fact, in the final analysis, it is the love of money (mostly in the form of salary and retirement), along with ego-stroking narcissistic self-agrandizement, which is a root of all evil there in the ACoG groups. The hidden agenda never becomes public until it is too late for most folks.

There are three major things wrong with Armstrongism: British Israelism is a fraud and it leads to false prophecies by false prophets; church history is a provably concocted fraud (plagiarized from Ellen G. White) and the entire religion is based on rebellious heresy. No one in Armstrongism wants to look at the facts because it just doesn’t feel right to them. Besides, they are afraid of what is behind the curtain — it may show them that they have been wasting their time in fear, false hope and a sense of well-being through associating with people they think of like mind (the WCG / GCI certainly proved how wrong that concept was), achieving a level of comfort participating in what can be termed “Old Testament Christianity” under Old Covenant Laws. To think of giving up would be unthinkable.

But it gets worse.

The narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths, many of whom came from Ambassador College, have the background to grant them credibility to gain that all-important Goodwill trust they need to prey upon duped fools. It is a world of golden opportunity which is difficult for the covetously minded idolators to resist as they plunge in to embrace the con for their own gain.

Trust.

In the case of the Preaching the Kingdom of God (PKG, also known as the “Pathetic Kook Group”), the experience they are going through is a consumate betrayal by a man plying contemptuous fraud. Ronald Weinland’s little collection of sheople will find themselves sheared, especially after going to trial for Felony Income Tax Evasion Fraud when the Great Disappointment is past. People are maxing out their credit cards, doing foolish things with their careers and their associations and choosing a path of self-destruction because it is inconceivable that God would let anything happen to them: After all, aren’t they faithful to God by following His Apostle Prophet?

It is a tragedy, of course, but it serves a useful purpose in the scheme of things. Think for a moment: Is Ronald Weinland that far from someone like Roderick Meredith who, himself, has been a false prophet for fifty years? Are any of the false prophet apostle leaders within Armstrongism really that far from what PKG portrays? They all have the same basic doctrines. Maybe they don’t say that specifically Jesus Christ is returning next Tuesday, but it is the very same spirit of deception working within them.

L. Ron Hubbard founded Scientology in the 1950s after a semi-successful career as a science fiction writer. He deliberately rebranded his alternative earth history into a religion and wrote about it in Dianetics, specifically targeting actors in Hollywood. It is pure fantastic fantasy, but people have bought into it, believing sincerely with all their being that this is it! This is the truth! When Armstrongists look at Scientology, they see a weird false religion that is so obvious that they wonder how anyone could ever be a part of it.

The answer, of course, is trust. It is that Goodwill.

Since this is so clear to the Armstrongists, perhaps it is time they stepped back and looked at themselves and their chosen religion. It too, is based on an alternative earth history which never happened and cannot happen. The future is simply not going to happen the way it was predicted by Herbert Armstrong. In fact, all of his prophecies failed in his lifetime. If you are skeptical, just ask a member of the PKG after May 27th, 2012 how well their trust worked for them. There will be reasoning and excuses even as they are proven yet again so very wrong.

All of Armstrongism is at risk because of Ronald Weinland. Even as Harold Camping did great damage to Christianity, so has Ronald Weinland done great damage to the followers of Herbert Armstrong. Furthermore, all Armstrongists should consider themselves nothing more than Sabbath keeping, Feast going Scientologists. It just isn’t going to work out. You are wasting your time. You are also wasting your money. Most of all, you are wasting your trust.

Trust.

Sometimes it is best not to just give it away: It needs to be earned.