HWA: 29 years and still dead

herbertwarmstronginjapan-1

On this occasion, I would like to quote from my book, 2015 and the demise of the scattered splinters:

“… January 16 … COGWriter will likely honor HWA’s death with an article, which will probably feature a photo of HWA sporting his Order of the Sacred Treasure, Second Class. … and I repeat my warning, using that photo is not a good idea… pathetic ramifications… maligning with my statement… July 31 … COGWriter will likely write an article intimating we in the CCOG don’t celebrate birthdays but HWA is an exception … accompanied by the photo …”

Well, you get the picture. Yes, I did once try to help Bob by mentioning a few tweaks he could make to his website. Not using that photo of HWA was one of them.

Of all the stock photos of HWA, I have no idea what thoughts seeing the Sacred Treasure would bring to the mind of the avid reader. It should be the same reaction if Ford Motor Company honored its founder with a photo of Henry with his Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle, which he was awarded in 1938. After all, Emperor Hirohito was considered a war criminal, protected from prosecution by General MacArthur for political expediency.* There is still animosity toward Japan by Asian countries that suffered from their wartime invasion and occupation. The photo would certainly not be received positively.

Further, the Order of the Sacred Treasure carries pagan symbolism. The Sacred Treasure – Sacred to what? The Shinto religion.

The insignia of the order incorporates symbols for the three imperial treasures: the Yata Mirror, so sacred that not even the Emperor is allowed to look at it; the Yasakani Jewel, which is made of the finest jade; and the Emperor’s personal Sword.

Wikipedia, Order of the Sacred Treasure

So you can stamp the Sacred Treasure as pagan, along with Christmas trees and Easter eggs. Don’t we get enough reminding each year that Christmas is pagan?

As I mentioned, there are lots of stock photos of HWA. How about the one with HWA showing his beloved Star of David cufflinks? Oh, yes, Bob wrote that the Star of David had pagan origins…

* Trivia: A protégé of MacArthur, General Bonner Fellers, portrayed in the film Emperor (2012), also received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Second Class, and, like HWA, had a Quaker background.

hoss-c

Pentecost

Jean

Forty and still counting…

There are a few moments in history I can still remember vividly – the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy assassination, landing on the moon … and Pentecost 1974.

On the Sabbath before the first WCG Sunday Pentecost, we listened to a tape from Pasadena with “new truth” regarding D&R (Divorce and Remarriage) and the correct day for Pentecost. I remember GTA went over D&R, including some glaring problems he saw in hindsight with the old doctrine. After the tape was played, one local minister actually said he had some apologies to make to some people he had counseled years ago…

Then HWA explained how something had been brought to his attention regarding Pentecost. He said he contacted a Hebrew teacher about “counting from” and found his “common sense” counting of Pentecost was … well, not exactly correct. So, of course, he immediately fixed the problem, and the day changed from Monday to Sunday. “Immediately” fixed, amidst claims that for possibly ten years this issue had been a hot potato.

About a week before June 8, Bob Thiel posted the Pentecost section from HWA’s Holy Days booklet. (Does PCG hold copyright on this? If Flurry sues, just claim “fair use”.) Feeling it was time to put together a posting, I wrote a few paragraphs about the errors and assumptions HWA made in the article. Following a few days of procrastination, I noticed Bob’s June 8 Pentecost posting, and realized I wasted my time. Taking HWA’s theological framework, and expounding in more convoluted detail, I felt Bob, inadvertently perhaps, made it worse, and there was no point in trying to unscramble it.

For brevity, I’ll just say the claim that Pentecost is “the birthday of the Church” is just part of the “one true church” myth. Protestants see Acts as a “transitional” book, showing how Christianity evolved. COGs view snippets of the story in great detail while glossing over other parts – what is useful from the old system is transferred to “the Church” and the rest is tossed. But, even after the Acts 15 “conference”, Paul is still taking part in Temple worship, including a Nazarite vow, which involves animal offerings. Didn’t he read the book of Hebrews? Just joking of course; books like Hebrews and Galatians are great resources for “proof texts”.

Jews consider Shavuot (Pentecost) the day Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mt Sinai. Tradition holds that on that day a voice came from Mt Sinai that was heard in “Seventy Languages” – considered the languages of all the nations. So, the “speaking in tongues” could have been viewed the same way – Peter’s zealous quoting of end-time prophecy may have been because he thought the word had gone to all nations. Not the same as hits on websites that are mostly in English.

 

hossHoss.

A Prophetic Itch

 

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future” – Yogi Berra

This comment brought back another annoying little itch:

It remains my concern that, because the government of the USA has discounted biblical prophecy, US government officials seems to think that China (along with Russia) is the USA’s the biggest threat militarily.  – from a COGwriter post

Hmm, was following Bible prophecy ever tabled as an option in determining US foreign policy?  Not that I know of, but George W Bush claimed biblical prophecy was a reason for invading Iraq. But that was the GWB, not the HWA, version of biblical prophecy. If he had followed HWA, would he have blamed 911 on the Germans? Would he have been after Gerhard Schroder, not Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein?

I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy’s famous speech, and watching the Pentagon conferences on television when I got home from school each day. So why did Kennedy stand up to Khrushchev instead of invading Cuba?

Because President Kennedy does not understand prophecy! – GTA, PT Dec 1962

Okay, invading Cuba would have been the preferred option, because GTA explains if the Soviets retaliated, the US would counterattack, and that wasn’t in the Bible.

But President Kennedy did not know exactly what Khrushchev might do in Berlin, in India, in Formosa, or elsewhere in the world should we attack Cuba. – GTA, ibid.

Had Kennedy allowed the planned invasion of Cuba, Castro may have fired a few missiles in self-defense. Whatever the Soviet Union would do, the US doesn’t retaliate, but pummels Cuba, prophecy remains intact, but lots of people on both sides are dead. But that didn’t happen, and Khrushchev backed down, and removed the missiles…

Well, in the very next article in the December 1962 Plain Truth, Dr Hoeh informs us that while the Cuban Missile Crisis diverted our attention, China was about to invade India. So the US should have considered China a military threat. Not against the US, but against a neutral nation. And back to the present, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan are US allies, and each have issues with China. (Okay, in Taiwan, it depends on which way the political wind is blowing.)

Of course, HWA claimed his “master key” to understanding prophecy was British-Israelism. Do you know that under that paradigm Stalin invaded Israel? Yes, in 1939. But since Dr Hoeh didn’t tell us that Finland was Issachar until years later, we can let that one slip by. Besides, we’re only interested in the House of Joseph, not Uncle Joe.

HWA and his men have expounded hundreds of cases of his interpretation of Biblical prophecy that have failed miserably. For a final look, let’s go back to when it began, the years before World War II. In HWA’s one week of radio shorts in October 1933, he started with promises made to Abraham – his foundation for British-Israelism. The very first Plain Truth brought up world dictatorship. Then came the war, and everything seemed to fall into place, once earlier guesses were discarded and the key players were sorted out. Until the predictions started to belly-up.

What if FDR had set his foreign policy based on HWA’s predictions?

In 1939, Germany invades Poland, the UK and France declare war on Germany, and the US declares neutrality.

A war has started; the paradigm is that the US and UK would lose, what should FDR do in light of HWA’s spin on Bible prophecy? Perhaps he did make the right move, keep out of it! Then Japan attacks in 1941. Ooops. Germany declares war on the US, but the reason was that the US violated neutrality. You can’t remain neutral in a war while supplying one side. (Or both sides, if you consider companies like IBM and GM and their dealings in Germany).

So again, what to do if you “know” you’re going to lose? Die fighting, surrender, or seek peace?  Well, we know FDR chose to fight until the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. And that happened. Ooops again.

Even if our leaders “know” what a prophecy meant, how should they react? And HWA’s interpretations? He not only missed the mark on prophecies yet to be fulfilled, but ones that supposedly were fulfilled. Referring to a prophecy about Tyre in “The Proof of the Bible”:

This prophecy, much misunderstood, is not the challenge to the skeptic we assumed. – Herman Hoeh, “A new look at Ezekiel’s prophecy on Tyre”, GN, Dec 1980

HWA could not even correctly predict the past…