Category: Hoss Cartwright

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A Disclaimer

My Point – and I do have one…

In the Monty Python “Argument” sketch, a man wants to take lessons in having an argument. But the instructor, rather than teaching the skills of constructing a rational argument, just says the opposite of whatever the man says. Some defenders of the COGs appear to believe the rationale of web-authors who disagree with anything COG-like is like that of the instructor.

When I see the Painful Truth and other COG-blogs labelled as anti-COG, I take some offense. In the COG universe, COG and anti-COG collision theoretically results in annihilation. As this does not happen in the real world, I have always preferred terms such as COG-critical or critique of purely unreasonable COG for sites that point out the anomalies, inconsistencies, and downright asinine antics of the WCG splinters.

Back in Spokesman’s Club, we endured harsh, even brutal, criticism of our speaking foibles. Tempered with the motto iron sharpens iron we were being “groomed” to add to the lay pool of men available to carry out minister-assigned duties. We were supposed to be thankful for correction, and use the admonishment to our betterment.

This has been my feeling about COG-critical posts – they provide feedback to the splinter leaders, who can use the observations to correct problems and clean up their act! Rather than dismissive attacks on these sites, splinter leaders should thank those who post articles for the service they provide free of charge, without cost or obligation!

Personally, I prefer to criticize trivial matters in more jocular jibes and tend to use more serious statements to chip away at the fundamentally flawed foundation on which Armstrongism is built.

Note to COG leaders – of course, not everything you read on critique sites contain useful suggestions for you to immediately apply to save your troubled ministry. Many posts are simply humorous observations, sometimes taken to the extreme. I’ll conclude with a story heard at Spokesman’s Club: the anecdote of a farmer and his mule. As the farmer was about to lead his mule to the field, he grabbed a club and whacked to mule on its head. To the horrified onlookers he explained, I did that to get his attention.

Hoss.

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Covenant? Which Covenant?


When you want to find the difference between COG Brand X and COG Brand Y, where do you go? Well, I almost always go to COGWriter, where one can find the major splinters and other selected organizations diligently compared to the same rigorous standards, “we in the LCG CCOG” and quotations from HWA – particularly, his 18 Restored Truths (or as an Australian friend said, “strewths”.

While one may find such comparisons as priority of spreading the word as opposed to caring for the flock down to birthdays, voting and what falling away means, there is no mention as to which covenant a group claims to be under. But, HWA claimed this (“Old” or “New” Covenant) to be “one of the most important doctrines” (Good News, Dec 18, 1978). Wouldn’t that be a worthy category for COG disection and classification?

Most non-COG churches would claim the “New Covenant”, started with the bread and wine of the Last Supper (which was most likely the fourth cup and bread of the Passover Seder, but that’s another story.) HWA uses the “marriage” analogy to show that Jesus’ death cancelled the “Old” Covenant with Israel (at Sinai, the plains of Moab, or both?) but leaves us to assume the covenants with Noah, Abraham, David, remained intact. HWA gives us a situation that the WCG was under the “conditions” of the “New” Covenant but it hasn’t actually started yet, or at least hasn’t formally started. From WCG doctrine, it seems the conditions of the pending New Covenant are a selective subset of the Old.

Of course, HWA did his usual fancy footwork to come to his conclusion. For starters, using Noah Webster to distinguish between “testament” and “covenant”, rather than explain term “testament” was adopted from Jerome’s Vulgate as a translation of “covenant”. And some COGs do a soft-shoe shuffle as well: making statements about being “under the New Covenant”, with no explanation at all given for their assertion.

GTA once remarked in a sermon he sees where there will be a new covenant with the “House of Israel” and the “House of Judah”, not with “The Church”. And of course there could be complications to explain a covenant with the “House of Israel” under the Anglo-Israel teaching that still permeates many COGs.

Back in Dr T’s LCG days, he said we are “truly under the New Covenant”. I once wrote to him to say, not looking for an argument but to state a fact, HWA never taught that. Perhaps that is why “covenant” is not used as a comparison between COGs, as LCG and CCOG have deviated from HWA’s teaching. It would nice to see a major splinter leader actually claim “HWA was wrong”.

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The Big Whopper!

What was HWA’s biggest whopper?

Seeing the remark by Reichsleiter Goebbels, and remembering the line on lies from Mein Kampf, I wondered, What was HWA’s biggest whopper?
He did like to repeat things – The Two Trees, Give and Get, 1900 years, his unique “training”; disregarding any doctrinal concoction, what about himself personally – something repeated, something said for a reason, something of which the truth was known only to himself, or to very few.

What about “Loma’s dream”? On its own, not really significant. That he was revealed the truth “by no man”? We know how HWA understood “revealed” –  as John Kiesz observed, it can mean reading an article in the Bible Advocate, checking the proof texts, and he was “revealed” some new truth. Perhaps “I was never a member of the Church of God, Stanberry, MO or Salem, WV” – he could have a esoteric definition of “member”. “I never tried to steal members from other churches” – some methods of siphoning off members may not be considered “stealing”. There was the car steering wheel incident, the story of his son Richard’s death, and many other tales vary in significance and veracity. I’d first like to consider something earlier – HWA the business tycoon.

An article in the Ambassador Report, Herbert Armstrong – Man on the Move, summarizes HWA’s accommodation situation during his affluent years. Where did all his supposed wealth go? It certainly wasn’t put into personal real estate, nor into good investments, as he was wiped out even before the crash of ’29. Why would he want to exaggerate his success? The same reason as his business failures – it is part of the “proof” he was called. In later years, the “early success” story was repeated, with alleged income always given as the current equivalent value.

Another repeated story is Loma’s bible study with Ora Runcorn that proved the Sabbath, and HWA’s challenge to refute it. It is possible that the “Sabbath challenge” may have been fabricated, but I’ve only read anecdotal evidence for this. From some WCG accounts (of the Tkatch Jr era) HWA went searching for religion, and encountered Andrew Dugger, a few years earlier than Loma’s bible study. Bill Dankenbring wrote that HWA was inspired to turn to religion (as a source of income) when he met a Seventh-Day Adventist minister who lived in a fine home paid for by his congregation’s tithes. It was also stated that HWA turned to writing and selling religious tracts. If these accounts are in any way true, it makes more sense that HWA needed a good cover story for his transition from failed ad man to religious con man.

The Sabbath challenge adds a nice touch  – even HWA’s critics mention it without question. And it is not unique in WCG history, appearing from time to time along the path from William Miller, a non-Sabbatarian adventist, up to COG-Seventh Day.

And I certainly wouldn’t deny the time spent in the Portland Public Library – others have documented that the library’s card catalog showed a good selection of resource material that could have “revealed” a lot of “truth”. And as for HWA’s unique training – yes, I doubt if any other church leader on earth received his training at Portland Public Library.