2016: What’s Ahead?

Road to Nowhere

We examine the trends again to try to determine what the future might hold for the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia. Given the back pedaling, entropy and weak pathetic attempts of the CoHAM Armstrongists, we can certainly look forward to another year of mediocrity. The culture of the elite has produced depressive dissatisfaction in a less than stellar showing of activity. In 2015, United again spent a lot of time, effort and money on a failed extensive media campaign turned flop. Now there will be no Good News Beyond Tomorrow. It seems so very pointless, particularly if you have seen Beyond Tomorrow. The UCG can barely see beyond today. The one thing they have as an absolute is that the United Church of God, an International Association exists solely to provide the first and second tier ministers with a salary and retirement. Robert Dick has retired. Of course, it was all downhill the moment he stepped down as chairman of the board, since those at Homequarters do not have the competence to grow the cult. Many of the first tier ministers have retired… now all United has to do is get all the second tier ministers retired and then the UCG can go out of business, since there is no other reason for its existence. The Living Church of God continues to provoke their membership with inequities, Ronald Weinland missed yet another prophesied Great Tribulation, Robert Thiel has resorted to using his dreams to prove he is a prophet, the PCG keeps losing ground in spite of its spiteful recruiting measures, David Pack continues to be an embarrassment to the Restored Church of God (just where is Dale Schurter anyway?). Moreover, Davie is buying up property with money he doesn’t have. This is typical of people with Manic Depressive Illness: They go into a funk and spend themselves out of it and then go manic, making questionable decisions. It’s important to boost those dopamine levels when you’re depressed, but manic mode can be a killer wherein, the bipolar must find additional funds from somewhere to make up for their profligate spending. At least David Pack is following the time honored traditions of Herbert Armstrong who seems to have had the same problem. Eric King seems to have fallen off the grid (maybe whisked away by those demons piloting those flying saucers?) , Apostle / Prophet James Malm continues to have financial problems — the list goes on and on. One word could be used to describe this — mediocrity — but it’s more than that (or less, depending on your point of view).

The future of Armstrongism in 2016 seems to be that of mediocrity in all its infinite variations, but the mediocrity road to nowhere results inevitably in something else — something we are seeing more and more of all the time. The trend of elitism seems destined to overtake the entirety of all the congregations of the cult. Armstrongism is doomed to incompetence.

At the Feast of Tabernacles, at least a couple of years running the minister in charge of the proceedings said words to this affect in his sermons:

I had just been ordained an elder and was attending the Feast in the Poconos. The ministry had a meeting with Garner Ted Armstrong. I sat at a table with a woman across from me. She asked me when I had attended Ambassador College. I told her that I had not attended.

She then turned her nose up into the air, talked to the person next to her and ignored me for the rest of the meeting.

It’s interesting that the Wizard / Warlock, Herbert Armstrong, established his own Hogwarts, Ambassador College — little better than a glorified high school for near adults — which produced hubris of pride in those who attended and automatically separated the class society of the cult into well defined strata, wherein those who had not been gifted to grace the halls of the school of wizardry and magic were relegated and consigned to second class citizenry to be treated as the untouchables. This was true of those who were actually ordained as elders, destined to be treated with contempt and disdain as lesser entities as Proles not privy to the outer party, let alone the inner circle.

The story of this man is interesting in that Armstrongists in his area asked him to be their minister. With great gladness, they attended the Feast of Tabernacles with him in 2010. It was a glorious time. As with many of these more benign version of the cult, there was great happiness that there was finally a(nother) place for refugees of the despotism of United and the other church cult corporates that grace the dystopian alternative universe of Herbert Armstrong. It was quite the site: Away from much of the worldly stuff, but with just the right balance of the perks of Corporate Conference Culture: There was an indoor water park for the kiddies and waterlogged adults with a gondola ride just a few feet away. 2011 was also a joyous time with many, particularly those from Canada, rejoicing in their triumph to be free of their warfare with the United Church of God an International Association Council of Elders. There was also a refugee from the megalomania of David Pack — who invaded their home for a weekend and spewed hurtful nonsense at them the whole time. It was a time of peace and harmony with happiness along with bike riding and hiking.

Bored

The hint of trouble began in 2013 when many of the singles opted to go to other feast sites — there just wasn’t enough ‘social’ to keep them interested. For one thing, there were only two viable restaurants in the town and one of them was closed for the month during which the feast was held. The nearest real grocery store was two miles down the freeway. In 2014, the problem was even worse where virtually no singles attended and there was nothing to keep them there — they went for greener pastures.

BoredCat

2015 came and went. People have been agitating for a ‘better’ feast site. The festival coordinator is out looking for prospects.

At the same time, the Seventh Day Church of God (Caldwell, Idaho) with Pastor Paul Woods had another glorious Feast near Deer Lake Washington. This joyous group focused on Jesus. As it was in the past at Fruitland, everyone got together and had lunch together each day, with the ministers doing some of the cooking and serving. There was special music, events for the adults and children, all far away from the distractions of industrialized civilization. They were quite happy with it because their focus was religious not on frivolous activities devoid of spiritual content. There was harmony. They were not bored nor agitating for more exciting digs. And as Paul Woods told me, the typical cost of going to the Feast with them is around $20 a day — not thousands of dollars for the whole feast. The people go there not out of obligation but because they love Jesus and want to be closer to God the Father — not for a glorified hot spot vacation and shopping spree, replete with the free flowing alcohol so endemic, pandemic and epidemic for Armstrongist Feast sites (expect long lines at the liquor stores — if there are liquor stores).

Boredom seems to be the watchword for 2016. Sure the election for the President of the United States will be taking place and there’s a lot of stimulation for the non political Republican Dog owners of the Armstrongist churches of God watching Fox News, but as far as the cult itself is concerned, it’s I’m bored, bored, bored out of my gourd. And why not? Decades of failed prophecies, demands for more and more money, no growth, no church facilities as a center of a church community all add up to apathy in entropy.

Meanwhile, the Church of God, Seventh Day — ten times larger than all the Armstrongist churches combined — keeps right on going in its own social context, having just successfully transitioned in the leadership and moving forward with their own work. It’s a venue Armstrongists simply cannot understand and the Armstrongists think that the CoG7D is just like them minus the Feasts. The fact the Armstrongists don’t understand is that the CoG7D is so very different from Armstrongism that there is no way to contrast the social structures. For one thing, the focus is not on the leaders and the individual congregations are largely autonomous. It’s not vertically integrated and simply does not have The Man in the High Castle. Armstrongists are uncomfortable with the CoG7D because of a lack of hyperbole and stimulation for them — the Armstrongists are addicted to chaos and constant disruption of dystopian futures impinging on their sensibilities from every direction — every news report is construed as a fulfillment of prophecy — a stimulation to high energy for the end just around the corner. As so many Armstrongists have said, “I can’t wait for it to all be over”. The statement is reflective of clinical depression, which the CoG7D avoids by concentrating on what is spiritual, not physical.

There is such a thing as over stimulation. The constant bombardment of potential prophetic fulfillment raises adrenaline levels, but at some point the body just plain wears out after decades of impact to the endocrine system. The pancreas, pituitary, thyroid and adrenals just don’t continue at the same levels of production over time when they are abused. Dopamine,  norepinephrine and epinephrine production diminishes. With Armstrongism, the additional impact of alcoholism also has devastating effects on the body of the Armstrongite. You can’t just abuse your body with delusions and false prophecies without paying the price. Your get up and go will have gotten up and be gone.

The only real viable solution to this problem is to leave the stressors causing it. Unfortunately, cult living is addictive. Every day requires a new fix. Every year that goes by, the doses have to get greater and greater. As a junkie, you have to pay more and more to your dealer and it never delivers the same high. Never.

The result?

Boredom.

And that’s the way it looks for 2016.

Caste System

And so it begins: We don’t care, we don’t have to — we’re the ministers!

You lost your job; you’re struggling to exist? We don’t care, we don’t have to — we’re the ministers! Now send in more money so we can keep our elite privileges of easy living with our Luxury Fund.

You desperately need transportation to get to work? You need new clothes because you are threadbare? You need health care you can’t afford? We don’t care, we don’t have to — we’re the ministers! Now send in more money so we can keep our elite privileges of easy living with our Luxury Fund.

You face retirement and don’t have enough? We don’t care, we don’t have to — we’re the ministers! Now send in more money so we can keep our elite privileges of easy living with our Luxury Fund — we have our own retirement to worry about.

Any problem you face, from having mentally ill teenagers, to having a teen pregnant out of wedlock, to having to live in a poor neighborhood threatened by crime? We don’t care, we don’t have to — we’re the ministers! Now send in more money so we can keep our elite privileges of easy living with our Luxury Fund.

The ministers live a life of power and privilege not accorded to the average person in the congregation. The ministers never have to pay more than one tithe: Their feasts are paid for by you, the Prole at the bottom; their homes are paid for by you, the peasant; their fleet autos are paid for by you, the untouchable. You are lower than the low. You are worth nothing. You deserve nothing. You only exist to provide for those in the lofty castes above you. Know your place: You are nothing like the ministers who are so far superior to you in every way, led from the top by the all glorious grand leader of your cult religion.

We don’t care, we don’t have to — we’re the ministers!

You need to care about us! It is your destiny! Make every sacrifice so we don’t have to make any sacrifice.

An anonymous commenter at Banned! says:

In the early 1980s, when I was attending Worldwide in Pasadena, I was hit with a stomach virus and couldn’t seem to shake it after a pretty rough couple of days. I regained enough strength to make a trip to the store for some Pepto, juice, etc. and decided to stop at the Hall of Administration to be anointed. It was a Friday afternoon.

I entered the local church office and was face to face with one of the pastors who now chairs the council of elders of one of the splinters. He was dressed casually and was sitting on the corner of a desk in the lobby, talking to someone in a side office. I knew him, said hello, told him I’d been ill and asked to be anointed. I was shocked at his response. He said they were getting ready to leave for a department camping trip that afternoon and that he was too busy, and referred me to the Church Administration office upstairs. I stared at him for a moment with, I’m sure, a look of disbelief on my face. He just looked back at me. I thought, we’re supposed to call on the elders of the church, and that’s what I’m doing, so there’s no way he could be saying no, is there? So I asked again if he could just take a minute to do this for me. He reiterated that he was too busy but that someone upstairs would be able to help. He was doing nothing, just sitting there shooting the breeze with someone else in the office. Even the look on his face let me know that he couldn’t be bothered with my request. I was stunned. I turned around slowly and left.

I very nearly walked out of the building and out of the church. Instead I went upstairs to the Church Administration office, and was able to be anointed. But the attitude of that Pasadena “pastor” was not lost on me. It was, from my experience, consistent with the attitudes of so many pastors and Pasadena department heads who regularly lorded over people with a lofty view of their titles and offices.

Over the years I began to realize that it was not possible to separate such attitudes from the doctrines and practices taught by HWA and Co. The hierarchy, the control, the capriciousness, and the downright shoddy scholarship had everything to do with what was taught and why. It appears that it continues today, which I guess shouldn’t come as a surprise. Personally, I moved on 20 years ago. It’s sad to see that people remain under the grip of such controlling tactics in the various COG organizations.

Don’t bother us — we’re busy! We are so important that you need to drop everything for what we need and want because nothing you do has any importance in the scheme of things at all.

Failed Experiment
Failed Experiment

Certainly one of the most illustrative examples of the hubris of the elite is contained in The Failed Experiment as illustrated by the treatment of 1-W Conscientious Objectors on the Ambassador College Big Sandy Campus. The stomach turning disgusting behavior of oppressing the helpless by the members of the higher class and their teen children represent some of the worst examples of humanity.

All of Armstrongism is a failed experiment: The caste system is unChristian, artificially promoting stratification of social classes where the elite does not care because it does not have to.