This is off topic for this blog, but it is put here for referencing. It is adapted and heavily edited from correspondence with a current Armstrongist, and continues to be edited. Thus it is likely at times to appear disjointed and repetitious. I am less concerned about the smoothness of my prose than I am the reality which people of my former religiosity need to face.

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Classic “Armstrongism,” for want of a better term, teaches that the “True Church” is defined in its visible/physical identity and authority by a lineage of ministerial ordinations (sometimes termed “apostolic succession”). Christ ordained the original apostles, who ordained people, who ordained people, yada-yada-yada, who ordained people, and at least one of those people personally ordained by the laying on of hands Herbert Armstrong. All of these people will have followed “true” Christianity, which means they were seventh-day Sabbatarian. They will not have descended from the supposed Simon Magus counterfeit religion, as Armstrong would elaborate, and at no point will there be a non-Sabbatarian in this lineage. 

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