Armstrongism – Page 16 – The Painful Truth-Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God

November 8, 2012August 30, 2023

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.

October 19, 2012

Brilliant

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.

September 28, 2012March 25, 2020

Calendar

The Church of God Seventh Day is right! Herbert Armstrong got it wrong!

Herbert Armstrong declared many times:

The Sabbath stands or falls with the Feasts.

It’s strange, because the Church of God Seventh Day just doesn’t seem to think so. Here is what they say:

The Church of God (Seventh Day) teaches that Christians are not obligated to observe the feast days, the annual Hebrew holy days of Leviticus 23. Here are seven reasons for this position:

The annual holy days were part of the Levitical law of the old covenant and were intimately linked to its system of animal sacrifices.
The annual holy days were neither Creation ordinances nor included among the Ten Commandments, but they belong to a portion of law that may be called ceremonial.
The annual holy days were commanded to the nation of Israel when it departed from Egypt and were to be observed where the Lord placed His name: Jerusalem.
The annual holy days have an agricultural framework, inextricably tied to the land, crops, and climate of ancient Palestine.
The annual holy days were observed according to an ancient (Hebrew) calendar that is impossible to decipher from Scripture.
The purpose of the annual holy days was for the Hebrew nation to celebrate its own history and to anticipate the greater salvation that would come through Messiah.
Observance of the annual holy days often casts a shadow on the final work of redemption and grace that was accomplished by Christ on the cross.

Apparently, keeping the Feasts is a point of view.

Some of you know Alan Knight, either personally, through his interview in The Journal or from his book, Primitive Christianity in Crisis. The last time we had lunch, we discussed the current controversy surrounding Robert Thiel, since Mr. Knight had several exchanges with him and after lunch, I asked him the question of what he thought of the Feasts, given that he is something of a scholar on early Christianity. His response was that “Scriptural support for keeping the Feasts is weak”.

One’s skepticism is certainly piqued with Chapter 17, “The Most Important Holy Day” in Showdown At Big Sandy: Youthful Creativity Confronts Bureaucratic Inertia at an Unconventional Bible College in East Texas by Greg Doudna, now available at Barnes and Noble on Nook (apparently, Dr. Doudna took my advice to put it in an ebook). While the WCG nattered on about the other Feasts, the Wave Sheaf Offering, picturing the acceptance of Jesus Christ by God the Father, would, one would think, be the most relevant to Christians, if we were to keep the Feasts, but sadly, no, no there is no observance. Just keep the Lord’s Supper on the wrong day, keep the “Passover” as the Night to Be Much Observed and totally miss that the Days of Unleavened Bread start on the evening of the Passover.

Now one would suppose that keeping the Feasts could be a blessing… but certainly not to hear sermons about Doomsday and the lie of British Israelism.

But perhaps the biggest problem of all is that Armstrongists don’t actually know when to keep the Feasts. If you are going to keep them when they don’t need to be kept at all, you should, by all means, get the dates right. But with the nine variants that the Armstrongist churches of God use now are every one of them wrong — objectively, observably, technically wrong. It is time for them to admit that the Church of God Seventh Day is right and the calendar is impossible to decipher from Scripture.

Having failed to understand the Hebrew Calendar at all, Herbert Armstrong did the really stupid thing and went to the Jews as THE “authority” on the topic. This is a totally wrong move. Think about it: The Apostles went to the Pharisees in the First Century to ask them to tell them when the Feasts were? There’s nothing like stupidly making yourself a martyr. Besides, who would they ask after 70 A.D., do pray tell? The Old Covenant (if people believe the Bible) ended at the Death of Jesus: The veil to the Holy of Holies was ripped apart — there was no more authority of the Sanhedrin. The Christians just don’t go to the Jews for spiritual knowledge, because in the view of the New Testament, they don’t have any. Nevertheless, Herbert Armstrong went to the Jews for their calendar because he made the very wrong assumption that they were the keepers of the oracles and were the experts in such things in perpetuity.

Just how wrong this is has been exposed scientifically: The calculated calendar by Hillel II, the last of the Sanhedrin, declared that the solar year is 365 days and 6 hours, based on the stellar advice of an astonomer friend. Unfortunately, the Universe is unforgiving in such things, and he had the year off by a surplus of 11 minutes and 14.4 seconds. That may not sound like much, but given the past 1,650 years+, the Hillel II calendar is 12 days, 21 hours 7 minutes and 12 seconds off, putting the calculated Spring Equinox around March 6th or March 7th (depending upon leap year). If this were to be continued about 21,000 more years or so, the Feast of Tabernacles would coincide with Christmas Vacation Week in December between December 25th and January 1st. This would mean that people would not have to ask for time off for their children to keep the Feast and Boeing Employees could go because they get the week off every year. So, in the scheme of things, it’s very convenient… maybe… some day.

Hillel II was also off on what the moon transit time was by 6 millionths of a day every month being about .5184 seconds. This might not mean much month to month, but over the centuries until now, the Jewish Calendar is about 2.94 hours later in its expectation of the New Moon. This, under some circumstances can amount to one day.

It gets worse, though.

Hillel II set about to make sure that certain things didn’t happen in the Calendar, such as having the Day of Atonement on a Friday. However, documents from Jewish History show very clearly that the Day of Atonement did occasionally fall on a Friday during Christ’s time First Century A.D. and there were instructions on how to deal with it. This is important because no one can arbitrarily set the Passover in the First Century AD by a Calendar issued later in 359 A.D. by Hillel II. It is for this reason that the Armstrongists insist that Christ died in 31 A.D. to make their Festival timeline fit, when, in fact, they have it wrong and according to the self-correcting Hebrew Calendar at the time, would have made 30 A.D. the year that Jesus Christ would have been sacrificed to be put in the tomb in the evening of the Passover.

Things really get dicey from here. For one thing, the prophecy of Daniel 9 is impacted. For another, the Armstrongists don’t keep all the Feasts any year, even though, sometimes they keep a few of them on the day set forth by correct calendar computations, meaning that they can’t claim to be keeping God’s Law of the Old Covenant Correctly, and since, according to Herbert Armstrong, the Sabbath stands or falls on the Holydays, they are technically breaking the 4th Commandment, and hence, cannot have salvation.

Does your head hurt yet?

It’s no wonder that Armstrongist leaders doesn’t want to open this particular bag of snakes and convinces their membership it’s too complicated to understand and we all have to leave it to the “Authority” of the Jews: They couldn’t get the people together to keep the Feasts, which would reduce the effectiveness of the control Armstrongism has over the people and most of all, they would lose out on the money. That is a lot of powerful incentive to keep the people in confusion and delusion.

In actual fact, it isn’t that hard. After all, the ancient Israelites seem to have been able to calculate the Feasts, didn’t they?

I first learned about postponements in 2003, when the beautiful full moon was out on Thursday and the Feast of Tabernacles started on Saturday and a member called the minister and asked why and the minister said he didn’t know. At the Feast in Redmond, Oregon, I asked a minister about postponements and he lied to me and brushed me off saying, “I studied that once but I don’t remember”. He knew. He just didn’t want the answer. It would foul up Armstrongism and threaten his job.

In 2005 and 2006, my wife and I kept the “Passover” with Wayne Bedwell and his wife Carol in his home, along with the Edwards. Shirley Edwards was a delight and quite a woman. In the 1950s, when women weren’t supposed to do such things, she learned to fly, got her pilot’s license and flew to Cuba! My wife still has the picture of Shirley on the wall where she receives the silver prize in the Arizona Senior Olympics 50 yard swim at the age of 83 years old! Wayne Bedwell and I had an opportunity to discuss many things during our stay in the Tucson area, particularly his booklet, The Original Calendar for Our Day. He was an Engineer who once worked for NASA. I guess this calendar thing really is rocket science. He told me that he had travelled to New York to study in the very extensive Jewish section of the New York Public Library to learn how to calculate the calendar. He mentioned the fact that the First Century Jews did not use postponements and that the Day of Atonement could indeed fall on a Friday. He also noted that 30 A.D. was the only year where the Passover occurred on Wednesday night within years on either side: It could not be 31 A.D., 33 A.D., 29 A.D. or any other of the dates picked by others. It is also convenient, he explained, that from 30 A.D. to 70 A.D. there was a 40 year trial period for the Jews.

Plagiarism is a long, well-established practice with Armstrongists and the calendar presented by Wayne Bedwell was no exception. It is true that Ted Phillips of the Church of God Modesto used his calendar for the Feasts with full attribution. However, James Russell over at the Church of God In Truth did not acknowledge the source, particularly when he changed the assessment for the occurrence of the new moon: To wit, to change the beginning of a new moon from the time that the earth, moon and sun were in conjunction, all nicely lined up, to the very first moment Jerusalem time, when the moon went down before the sun did. Another cult leader set the time differently by insisting that the Sabbath didn’t begin at sunset, but at nautical twilight. The differences could mean a full day’s difference. Nevertheless, this wasn’t anywhere near as bad as when the official Jewish Calendar was one full month off from the non postponed one. One should note that there are those who insist that the new moon really begins with the crescent of the moon, usually two days later than the real true lunar new moon. While it is completely silly in practice, there is a rationale to it because of yet another problem.

In 2008, when I met Paul Woods at the Feast of Tabernacles in Fruitland, Washington, hosted by his church, the Seventh Day Church of God of Caldwell, Idaho, I discussed the calendar also, since he publishes the Hebrew Calendar through The Herald of Truth, of which he is editor and publisher. The Seventh Church of God is quite independent from Herbert Armstrong, and their particular group came from Gilbert G. Rupert and has been keeping the Feasts since 1919. In our discussion, he showed me from Exodus, that the Passover, beginning on the evening of the 14th day of the First Month is also the beginning of the Days of Unleavened Bread and that the Armstrongists have that all wrong as well — so at the very least, the Armstrongists always begin the Days of Unleavened Bread at least one day late. Paul Woods solves the inherent problem with the Feast of Tabernacles with one simple assumption: That, as he puts it, the moon rules the day. What that means that on the day of the new moon, the moon must have arisen either at sunrise or shortly before sunrise before that evening can be declared the beginning of the new moon. This means that there will be a very slight sliver of the moon visible, but not as great as those who, say, follow William Dankenbring’s assessment of the timing. This solves the very great problem that there is a full moon on the 15th of the month each time and every time, meaning that the Israelites would have had a full moon on the Night to Be Much Observed when they left Egypt and also the Feast of Tabernacles always, always, always begins in the light of the glorious full moon in the fall, with either the Harvest Moon or sometimes more rarely, the Hunter’s Moon.

So just exactly how does one find the First Month in all this? Go out and look for sprigs of springing up barley in the hills in Israel like Carl O’Beirn does? In all of this, you have to remember that the ancient Israelites were not carrying iPods, having reflecting telescopes and certainly didn’t have orbiting satellites they could use for JavaScript programs to calculate new moon conjunctions at midnight, when they couldn’t even see the moon. It is a “keep it simple, stupid” scenario which could be understood by those not in tune with calculus and geometry: Remember, observations, pen and papyrus only. They did know when the Spring Equinox was (before it was fouled up by Hillel II in 358 A.D.). Here is a simple formula from Paul Woods for figuring the Holy days:

1) Find the spring equinox;

2) Find the new moon nearest the spring equinox (either before or after);

3) Use Jerusalem time (The moon is new to the whole earth at one time);

4) The first night the moon has completely ruled (had authority) over the is counted as number one (1). This day is the Biblical new Year Day;

5) Count to the fourteenth (14th) day of that moon and you have the Passover Day. The Lord’s Supper Service is to be held the evening of the preceding day.

Say what!!??!!!

Yes, it’s true: If you are going to do it right, you need to read the New Testament (along with the Old) very, very carefully — the Lord’s Supper Service is to be held on the evening of the 13th Day of the First month and the Passover begins the Days of Unleavened Bread on the next evening.

Here’s how it works in 30 A.D.:

Tuesday evening, Jesus has his last supper with his disciples;

Wednesday, during the day, Jesus is crucified, dies and at sunset is in the tomb and sealed in just as the evening of the 14th begins the Passover;

Thursday, Christ is in the tomb;

Friday, Christ in the tomb;

Saturday, Christ is in the tomb, but at sunset, after three days in the tomb, he is resurrected and leaves the tomb; 50 days later he ascends into the heavens on Pentecost;

Sunday morning, Jesus ascends as the Wave Sheaf Offering.

From there, you are on your own.

That’s as close as I think we can get: You may have different ideas, but they probably don’t work. One thing is clear: Herbert Armstrong was wrong about the calendar and most of the 700+ spit-offs are wrong as well. There are all sorts of excuses, the main one being, “We need to keep the brethren together”. It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? Wrong in the first place and wrong ever since. If the Jews didn’t get it right, what chance do you think Armstrongists had, when they went to the Jews for faulty advice?

Perhaps, and likely, this is all wasted effort: The question remains as to whether or not there is a requirement for Christians to keep the Feasts. The best evidence is that support for keeping the Feasts in the Bible is rather weak, if it exists at all. The Feasts, were, after all, a shadow of things to come, about half of which already have. As for keeping the Feast forever, it’s not going to happen, since, according to Revelation 22 there will be no sun or moon. So much for forever.

Moreover, there is no good Christian way to fund the Feasts given in the Bible, even if there might be a blessing in keeping them. There is no such thing as second tithe to keep the Feast. In Greg Doudna’s book, he points out that in 1975, the WCG very nearly cancelled the Feast to have everyone stay home so the church could get the money. You don’t really believe that the Armstrongist leaders are in sincerity and truth when they claim that the way to salvation is to keep the Feasts, do you, when they can propose cancelling them altogether? Besides, how much of a blessing is it to listen to sermons filled with false prophecies from false prophets about doomsday scenarios based on the ridiculous fully disproven British Israelism scrap? It’s no wonder the Church of God Seventh Day doesn’t keep them, even if we could figure out when they really are.

There is a lot that the Armstrongists don’t volunteer. It isn’t just that Herbert Armstrong had a cup of coffee and a donut on the Day of Atonement “to keep his strength up” before he gave the sermon; there is the matter of special dispensations that many members did not know: For example, those with health problems could skip fasting on the Day of Atonement — at first under doctor’s orders and approved by headquarters, and then later, anyone with diabetes had an automatic dispensation. There are all sorts of different various exceptions to the Sabbath and Feast Days, hidden away from the rank-and-file members, with special exceptions given, especially to those of the ministry (we are not forgetting that the ministers did not have to keep “second tithe” and “third tithe” because they were “spiritual Levites”. There’s nothing like corrupting a corrupt system adapted arbitrarily for whatever purpose someone wants and have it enforced by God and the Bible. It’s no wonder that the Prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 1:14-15,

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

But then the record of Old Testament Scripture was that the Israelites didn’t keep the Feasts for centuries at a time and God didn’t seem to mind — it was the idolatry that got to Him: The same kind of idolatry the followers of Herbert Armstrong commit today. Some of those Armstrongist church history theorists insist that at least one era of the church had so many problems that they did not need to keep the Feasts — that God just looked the other way as yet another entitlement. The problem is that there is no such thing as church eras and what was that about Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever? Is that forever, as in thou shall keep the Feasts forever in your generations? If so, it never happened. Armstrongists paint God the Father as being so fickle, double minded and inconsistent that it’s hard to take anything they say seriously: There are explanations everywhere as to why they don’t do what is commanded in the Bible in the Old Covenant that after awhile, it becomes little more than confused mental mush. It’s no wonder they don’t understand the Calendar… not that it makes any difference, since they don’t really keep the Feasts anyway: Hey! It’s a church corporation type convention — HP, IBM, LINUX Expo, Promise Keepers. Go for it. If you can afford it. If not, don’t worry, since it apparently isn’t required anyway. And don’t forget to booze it up: Just remember that the word Symposium comes from the Greek word for “drinking party”. Maybe the Armstrongists should rename it to the Symposium of Tabernacles and be done with it.

If you do attend the Feast of Tabernacles, do insure that you go someplace with good reception so you can be connected to the world through the Internet and your cell phone: You wouldn’t want to miss out on anything that is going on — after all, the world could come to an end and you wouldn’t know it.

The Calendar is always an interesting exercise.

Let it not be an exercise in futility.