Tag: cults

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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.

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Brilliant

Mr. Know-It-All

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.

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The Last Days

 

Apocalypse

II Timothy 3:1 says —

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

In Apostolic Incest, Jon said:

“Why would the Armstrong crowd care about incest? Incest to them is nothing to sneeze about. It is normal to them. They approve of it and by endorsing the old pervert they endorse his ways. All of them.

Moms and dads, don’t forget to have the elders of the church babysit your kids. They might not be the same ever again but heck, you need a break!

Soon the feast of booze will be upon us. The members of the so called churches will imitate Herbert and drink themselves silly. Those who run the hotels will be busy cleaning out the empty bottles and cans. Maids and janitors will be busy indeed. Cleaning up puke, spilled drinks off carpets, but hopefully they can make a little more money doing their mundane jobs and return these bottles and cans for the deposit.

The feast is a bore, the sermons painfully repetitive. The fun starts at family day where your children can mix with a selection of ministerial brats and the local pervert can have his way when your not looking. Again, your children may not be the same, but it is your church. You own your decisions lock, stock and barrel.”

Jon’s comment might seem a little over the top: After all, from the external view, the Armstrongist Churches of God seem benign, if not warm and cuddly — well, cuddly might seem to be stretching it a bit with Roderick Meredith and the Living Church of God, but if you look at say, United’s Muppet type videos for the kids, it could seem like you have finally found a church home. That is sort of a point of view because the ACoGs don’t seem to have many church buildings nor do they seem to have much presence in the community, because they are now TV based and Internet based church groups renting places for their services and various rare occasions. The point is that they don’t seem that extreme and bizarre on the surface. Be sure you don’t scratch because what lies just beyond the surface is ugly and often deadly.

One could argue that many events lay in the past with Herbert Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God, but the tie to those times is far too tight with today because the same people, Roderick Meredith, Dennis Luker and some of the minor leaguers like Jim Franks, John Rittenbaugh, David Pack, Gerald Flurry and Ronald Weinland are still running things and the same problems keep cropping up over and over and over and over.

Back in the days of the WCG in Seattle / Bellevue, Washington while Dennis Luker was in charge as Regional Pastor, there was a lot going on. Chuck Harris was showing his pistol to folks under his suit coat in the holster after Sabbath services and trying very hard to date and marry Brenda James. At the same time, an elder and his wife in the church were pursuing The Tracker — an outdoors survivalist type of guy — with great enthusiasm, even mentioning him in Sabbath services. Glenn White was also tapped into this. It seems as if The Tracker was sort of an extension of the last days mania where people were stocking up for the Great Tribulation and the horrible things to come (while living in faith, we suppose). The elder spent a lot of  “outside time” with The Tracker. His son was spending a lot of “outside time” with Chuck Harris and so was another teen of a prominent and respected family in the church.

A number of things all seemed to happen at the same time. I remember the nice summer afternoon when my wife and I went down to the Seattle Center by the fountain from the World’s Fair and met the elder and his wife. We had a pleasant chat for a few minutes and headed off to the cat show. What none of us knew at the time is that the two teens who had been BFF with Chuck had been with a drug dealer the night before. The drug dealer wanted more than money and when he proceeded to attempt to seduce them, one of the teens whipped out the gun and shot the dealer dead. Subsequently, the elder’s teenage son went to prison and so did his friend, who wanted to be with Chuck Harris in prison where he had been sentenced after shooting Brenda James and several other people in the church. Chuck Harris was black and Brenda was white and the WCG was still in racist mode and would not permit them to marry. What Dennis Luker failed to fathom was that Chuck was already married to a woman in Canada who showed up rather unexpectedly.

Meanwhile, my daughter was BFFs with two other girls in the same congregation. One of them was the daughter of a psychopath and routinely took my daughter and the other girl on shoplifting tours of places like Nordstroms to take expensive items like scarves from the store. Her other friend shocked our daughter by revealing that her father had been committing incest with her and had raped her for years. These and many other events have scarred my daughter so horribly that she is terrified of attending any Armstrongist church again, even though it has been decades past: She just couldn’t stomach it. The sermons about demons didn’t help much and neither did the graphic descriptions of death, destruction, dystopia of the soon to come last days.

Somewhat earlier, a brilliant young teen with an unwed mother in the church experienced the benefits of having a WCG parent by ending up in a Juvenile Hall and being raped there by the other teens. He had done nothing, but his mother just wanted him to learn to stay in line. The situation ended up so bad that the State of Washington gave guardian custody rights to a single man in the church.

After dinner at the Night to Be Much Observed, the host sat with me and told me about the elder in the church who was a pedophile favoring young boys. He taught the Sabbath School. She told me the leading women in the church reported him to the local ministry. When they did not respond, they reported it to headquarters. Headquarters and Herbert Armstrong did nothing. She told me that the only thing left to them was to “watch” him on the Sabbath and the Holydays. I wondered what moves he may have tried to put on my son.

By this time, nearly everyone is familiar with the UCG stalking case where the ministry, supported by Dennis Luker, defended the protagonist instead of following Scripture and putting him out of the church. The couple had to pursue getting a court to issue a restraining order. What many people did not know is that there were other stalkers in United. One weird and creepy woman stalked a young man up until he married and left on his honeymoon. When he returned, she confronted him and told him (and this should sound so very familiar to people who have been stalked), “You are mine!”. A single woman in the Midwest had a man stalk her, also under the watchful eye of Dennis Luker, and he had the gall to sign her up secretly with an insurance agent for life insurance, with his wife and him as the beneficiary! We are all familiar with the Philadelphia Church of God under Gerald Flurry where young women are pushed into a relationship with weird creepy older bachelors.

We are also familiar with Terry Ratzmann and the Living Church of God in 2005 when he entered into Sabbath Services and shot the minister and several members. Attending church could very well be hazardous to your health (not that the other stories here diminish from that concept). Roderick Meredith’s little group isn’t particularly impressive in the realm of the fruit of the spirit and neither is the apologist Robert Thiel.

The positioning of the “leadership” in the hierarchy makes the following scenario believable:

The minister in Topeka has committed murder.

Do we think he can get away with it?

Yes, I think so.

Good! What can we do to cover it all up?

Byker Bob had an interesting comment in the last PT blog entry:

“I think this issue is simply too mind boggling for stalwart Armstrongites to even consider, let alone believe and react accordingly. The greater majority chalks it all up as persecution, and considers Satan to be the author.

The period of incest coincides with the time period when Herbert alleges that God was revealing to him the restored truths, which are the backbone of Armstrongism. Anyone who reads the Bible knows that the God described in its pages did not work directly through individuals involved in ongoing and systemic sin. Sin whores up the spiritual channel, so to speak. God does convert evil, kind of like spiritual karate, and turns it against itself, ultimately producing good, but in every case of perennial sin in the Bible, it had to be cleared up and corrected before God worked with and through different individuals as His spokespersons. Even the most diehard Armstrongite would recognize that basic truth, which is why there is such a wall of denial. To acknowledge ten years of this type of sin, they’d have to question and ultimately reject the so-called restored truths.

BTW, incest is an example of “mala in se”, an act considered so totally evil by all society, that a perpetrator is automatically reduced to non-person status, and anything that person had to say, or any good activities throughout his or her life are totally invalidated.”

BB

Herbert Armstrong was the source of this mess: His actions were so totally evil that by the standards of all society, that he would be automatically reduced to non-person status, and anything that he had to say, or any good activities throughout his life would be totally invalidated. Yet here we are. He is thought to be a great man. People idolize him. They call him, “Mr. Armstrong”. They say (in excusing his behavior): “But he brought us the truth!”. The reality was that Armstrong was responsible for warping and twisting the thinking of his followers — and worse, his ministers — so badly that they accept the weirdness and the risk of attending church in a completely dysfunctional environment fraught with danger. It might not seem so, but lurking behind those smiles and quality wool suits, there is a darkness that would never accept a message from any Holy Spirit.

Here we are, just days away from Ronald Weinland of the CoG-PKG being sentenced for 5 felony convictions of Income Tax Evasion by the Justice Department.

We also have other history, such as the minister who ended up in John Rittenbaugh’s Church of the Great God. The man was originally in the WCG where, as was related to me by Rex Sexton in the United Church of God, an International Association over lunch at Azteca, he raped 16 teenage daughters and 8 of their mothers. The man went from the WCG to Global under Roderick Meredith where he eventually was fired and he went with John Rittenbaugh and the Church of the Great God. In 2003, at the Feast of Tabernacles in Redmond, Oregon, I talked with John Cafourek — who, incidentally, has a degree and certification in counselling — who told me that he was the first one to report this man to headquarters in Pasadena. Their response to Mr. Cafourek? “Oh, but he gives such great sermons!” We’ll wait while you roll your eyes.

The reason I met with Rex Sexton in Azteca was to present to him my “Ministerial Guide to Mental Disorders” and discuss it with him: I knew that there was a dearth of material from which to draw and there were many problems in the Armstrongist Churches of God in this regard. (Later, I sent information and a link to the leader of every major church of God about the solution to the problem of alcoholism in the church — Rational Recovery — which was also ignored and rejected, particularly by Gerald Flurry.) He proceeded to tell me about a woman in his congregation who was married and had a job with a governmental agency. Once a month, she received her paycheck and disappeared for three or four days: She went binge drinking and sleeping around with other guys; then she would go back to work, to start the whole cycle over again. I’m not certain why he told me this in front of the other patrons and the wait staff.

Part of the reason I presented my Guide was because I knew of the terrible problems with mental illness in the church, not just among the members, but the ministers as well. One of these ministers wrote an article in the Good News about The Bible Keys to Mental Health. I knew that he had a mental illness when I met him — people in the church told me that he was just not coming to grips with his problems with mental illness, which is certainly clear in the Good News article. If you read it and know something about the issues, the advice to just be positive conveniently sidesteps the potential danger of not having the disease treated. Scripture claims that those with the Holy Spirit have the power of a sound mind. If that is true, there is something very wrong with the Armstrongist Churches of God. Do you really want to have mentally ill ministers giving you sermons and then advise you about mental health, when they have unresolved issues themselves and their advice (of non treatment from mental health professionals) could lead to your death?

It’s hard to write this: It brings such pain. If it were just history, I wouldn’t mention it, but it never really gets any better. The only thing that happens is that there are fewer opportunities for the sociopath and psychopath ministers and members who do such things — but make no mistake, they still go on and that’s the point! The injustices go on and on and there is no real advocate. Joyce, whose husband is the Living Church of God, related the tragedy that her husband has become a terror in following Roderick Meredith: She wanted to know what she should do? Their long term marriage was falling apart. The only real advice I could give her was to try to find what she needed in “Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships” by Janja Lalich and Madeleine Tobias. Though the book as a resource is not specific to Armstrongism, you will certainly find that it has all the elements of it and does a good job on how to escape and recover from such cults as Armstrongism.

So while it may seem like Jon was over the top in his comment, the truth lies in the horror that many people face in the mean spirited practices of the ministry and membership of the Armstrongist cult. As a side note, the man whose father was the publisher of a sacred names newspaper who also debated with Herbert Armstrong in the 1940s, told me that he had an inside memo from Squaw Valley, telling the Church to clean up the bottles and cans of booze the members had left around. Jon’s comment, “Those who run the hotels will be busy cleaning out the empty bottles and cans. Maids and janitors will be busy indeed. Cleaning up puke, spilled drinks off carpets, but hopefully they can make a little more money doing their mundane jobs and return these bottles and cans for the deposit.”, may be sarcasm, but it is on spot. Armstrongism has a history and that history has taken us into the new millennium — but certainly not the millennium the Armstrongists were promised, and they should all think really hard about that.

If there is one thing we should have learned is that people in the WCG absolutely did not know one another. We may have been told, “We are family,” but it simply was not true — it was all artificial. When the WCG began changing the doctrines and when it all came to a head, people went their separate ways: People who sat together in services for decades simply did not know what their “brethren” in the church really believed. When it was all said and done, people were spun off in all sorts of directions and certainly did not speak the same things.

The reason that everyone stayed together as long as they did should be evident: It was, as Herbert Armstrong said, the Worldwide Church of Gossip. People were addicted to curiosity to find out what was going on. Many think it was because they had a social connection, but it is clear that they wanted to get the goods on their church “neighbor”. That yellow sheet journalism experiment, The Journal, continues the stupidity with Dixon Cartwright knowingly maintaining a newspaper filled with strange articles, with stranger advertising, written by extremely strange people, all in an effort to make the entire Armstrongist community seem genteel and civilized when it is nothing of the kind. People are addicted to infotainment involving perceived celebrities at the center of their eschatology with a slavish dedication to watch church news so they can be counted worthy of attention of their associates in the church. If people left, they would sorely miss the continuing soap opera of “as the church turns”. They just can’t leave — they are slaves of their passion to get all the news of the other church people that can fit in their minuscule minds. It’s like a small town, best described by Bob Hope: People are so narrow, their ears overlap.

If you are disfellowshipped, you will learn instantly that you really didn’t have any friends in the Armstrong community, particularly if you brought to light something the cult wanted to keep hidden. It could be worse than that: In some of the extreme Armstrongist cults, people have found themselves stalked or worse. Many have had repeated phone calls late at night with those who hang up immediately when they answer. Some have had to contact the police and the FBI. A few are threatened in other ways, such as being threatened with lawsuits or other forms of extortion. If you leave, it depends, but under some circumstances, you might just want to drop off the grid when you leave.

Indeed perilous times have come.

So yes, we do seem to be in the last days.

The last days of Armstrongism.

And we’re just fine with that.