It’s been what… maybe two years? The discussion is over. It’s now become a dead issue! We’ve won! British Israelism has been thoroughly debunked! Even Dixon Cartwright, Editor of The Journal, declared that he did not believe in British Israelism. When someone like that makes that sort of declaration, the losers need to shut up and go away! There’s no way to win on this issue. There is a growing awareness among many of the Armstrongist Churches of God that British Israelism is the key to false prophecy and to becoming a false prophet. Some of the more “progressive” ACoGs are trying to distance themselves from British Israelism because they know that it’s going to come back and bite them. Some of the Armstrongist ministers are even taking open pot shots at Herbert Armstrong. There is no future to British Israelism. It’s about as dead as it can be.

And yet… and yet… some people haven’t gotten the memo.

If you take a look at the above UCG local bulletin, you can see the ridiculously stupid attempt to invoke British Israelism as authority to evoke fear! No, the United States is not a lost tribe of Israel. We’ve settled that. Nevertheless, irrelevant Bronze Age writings of Leviticus and Deuteronomy are supposed to be relevant. What’s really insulting is using the passage in Isaiah to Israel as a prediction of a curse on “our people” — the United States. “As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them.” Is this some sort of prediction for the 2016 elections? Hillary Clinton hasn’t even been elected yet! No! No! No! Does not apply! Go check with Dixon Cartwright. Go check with the United ministers who are on the staff of The Journal. While you’re at it, check with them about just how viable the Bible is. You might be in for a shock — if they will admit it to you.

This UCG sinister shock-jock just isn’t with the program. He’s still sticking with all the old stuff. Does he not know what’s coming 2Q in 2015? Check out United’s plans:

Nerds with technology! How cool is that? Happy times! The format attractive, the technology sound, the message? Crap.

If you’ve watched the video, tell us, just where in all that is there even room for British Israelism? If the appeal is to the public on social media, then British Israelism with doomsday prophecies sort of kills the buzz, doesn’t it?

Dixon intimated that British Israelism is harmless. He should have checked out

Kooks: A Guide to the Outer Limits of Human Belief

Check out Part I: Religion under The Anglo-Israelites on page 13:

One of the earliest American Anglo-Israelite treatises was Two Sticks, or the Lost Tries of Israel Discovered, by an anonymous minister in the Church of the Brethren. But it was J.H. Allen’s Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright, published in 1902, that introduced bible students, among them Herbert W. Armstrong, who would later spread the doctrine through his Worldwide Church of God.

She tells the tragic take of Randy Weaver who believed British Israelism. Here is an account of what happened as a result of his embrace of British Israelism:

The problem with British Israelism is that it lends itself to racism and people who espouse it can get into trouble for no particularly good reason except they want to be left alone.

The story of how things unfolded at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1992 isn’t always clear. This is our best take on it.

Randy Weaver was a former United States Army Combat Engineer who moved to the remote mountaintop Ruby Ridge to live in a cabin that he and his wife built themselves with no electricity and no running water.

He had grown up in a deeply religious family and accepted Jesus into his life at the age of 11. He met his wife Vicki who had also grown up with strict religious views. He married her after leaving the Army where he had become a Green Beret.

Their paranoia about the government was intensified by their intense deep religious commitment. Randy Weaver had never been a part of Aryan Nations but was a separatist. He and his wife had quite the collection of firearms. In 1989, undercover Feds purchased two sawed-off shotguns from him in hopes that he could be an informant within the Aryan Nations, but he refused to cooperate and instead he was indicted on two felony counts of making and storing illegal weapons. He didn’t show up for trial and the Feds watched. Finally, in 1992, his 14 year old son Samuel engaged in a gun battle with Federal Marshals and was killed. After that, the tragic events of Ruby Ridge unfolded and more family members died, including his wife. The trial revealed that it was ATF entrapment and eventually the government paid Randy Weaver and his family $3.1 million in damages.

Randy Weaver visited the Waco Branch Dividian site in 2000.

Timothy McVeigh cited the Ruby Ridge incident as a factor in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.

Of course, because British Israelism is at the very core of the teaching of Herbert Armstrong and his teachings cannot have existed without it, the incidents of extremists in the Worldwide Church of God certainly had their roots in British Israelism. Dennis Michael Rohan springs to mind.

Look folks, for the sake of sanity and safety, all current Armstrongists need to do a dump and run — it’s not safe to espouse British Israelism and it sure isn’t harmless.

The core belief of Herbert Armstrong he called “The Key to Prophecy” carries with it an enormous amount of baggage. The above United Church of God bulletin article from the pastor of a local church is case in point: The article caused distress and near hysteria in some of those in the congregation that read it. It is unfortunate that Armstrongism attracts the spectacularly unstable types. It’s even more unfortunate that Armstrongist ministers never really get to know their congregants. There’s no time to visit them in their homes. No time to have lunch and dinner with them. No time for their families to get to have one-on-ones. So the minister is blissfully unaware of the extreme fears prompted from the little opinion pieces in the local bulletin: People terrified that ISIS is coming — it’s right across the border and that the United States is going to be attacked because they are a lost tribe of Israel to be punished by Islam extremists because Americans don’t obey the laws of Judaism. Maybe minister in question knows that Americans are Gentiles or maybe not. The big question is, why is this garbage in a church bulletin? It brings misery, not comfort.

Donna Kossy rightly labels proponents of British Israelism kooks. For Armstrongism, the kooks include:

• Roderick Meredith and Guy Ames
• Gerald Flurry and Stephen Flurry
• John and Richard Rittenbaugh
• David Pack
• James Malm
• Robert Thiel
• Victor Kubik
• Jim Franks
• Fred Coulter
• David Hulme (on the edge…)
• Ronald Weinland
• Eric King (in a kook class all of its own…)

And so many more. There are at least 700+ of them. All kooks.

Only in the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia does a local church bulletin create concerns for mental health issues….