Let Us Have A Moment of Silence For Our Brave Friend
Founding CEO of Evil Cult
The world is better off without him.
Play Evil Corp Video (note: some scenes may be disturbing to some people)
The Evil Corp portrays the functioning of crisis among upper management.
The Executive Vice President explains the situation.
The CEO, as her patron, explains to her why he can be so confident in the crisis.
CEO: I’m glad he’s dead — he was weak; the world is better off without him.
People may find the opinion of the CEO of Evil Corp concerning the crisis of losing $400 billion in one day, the confidence he had for the future and his perspective on his Executive Vice President of Technology puzzling, even disingenuous, but it is the result of the standard objectification used by those in the upper management of corporations who see others (and even themselves), as nothing but objects to be manipulated without becoming emotional about the choices they must make. Make note of the fact that though the Executive Vice President had a gambling and drinking problem, that was not the most important factor — the most important factor — and the one the CEO abhorred was that of weakness. A lot can be tolerated in the corporate environment, even adultery, but someone who is perceived as weak is doomed.
Herbert Armstrong — Evil Cult CEO detested the weak
Those who think that it is any different in the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia should be warned that Herbert Armstrong himself detested those who were weak. In fact, he saw himself as the strongest person and those under him were weak: He created those under him and gave them positions; as such they were far inferior to him. In fact, at the lowest levels, Herbert Armstrong had no enthusiasm for the church members and believed that none of them really had a shot at salvation except in the rare cases that they supported him enough [to be noticed]. The letter that Herbert Armstrong sent to Roderick Meredith, March 19, 1980, should dispel any doubts:
When you were made second Vice President, it became a standing joke among leaders at Pasadena, the saying, “Well, after all, I am the second Vice President.”
In fact, Herbert Armstrong often showed contempt for his evangelists in various ways: He saw them all as weak.
Fast forward to today: Herbert Armstrong has died, leaving a vacuum. The weak evangelists, pastors and local elders saw their chance to make their way free from the domination of those they could not previously rise against. Roderick Meredith was one of the first of these when he established Global. But he didn’t have the fortitude to keep his promises to submit to his own board: He rebelled, lied, broke his promises, bankrupted Global and established the Living Church of God to gather to himself those weaker than he was to submit themselves to him to make their cushy living.
Robert Thiel later left Meredith and Living as a prophet, but before he did, he was so weak that he had to have others in Living declare him as a prophet (there is some suspicion that he took some liberalities with quoting dead people he claims supported him as prophet). For heaven’s sake, if you are a prophet of God, you have the force of God behind you and you don’t need other humans to vouch for you.
Ah, the days of Victor Kubik sneaking around to find a way to support himself post Worldwide Church of God — he found someone he looked to: Dennis Luker. Though he was weak and did not have the faith to stand up against Joe Tkach alone (and if God is for you, who can be against you?), he found a champion to be his patron and the rest of two decades of history.
Just how weak is David Pack? He made a major failed prophecy that everyone in the churches of God would come flocking to Restored (not to mention that 3 major leaders of the ACoGs would die). It never happened. And it never happened again. How weak is that?
Some of us remember Gerald Flurry was relegated to quite a minor congregation in Quincy, Washington. Herbert Armstrong considered him weak. Quincy is really out in the boondocks. There’s just no respect for the weak.
Then there’s Ronald Weinland. He’s been weak from the beginning. And now he’s in prison for felony Income Tax evasion. How weak is that?
There is a whole cast of other weak characters skulking about. They’ve managed to eke out a niche and put up a shingle for the money and self-aggrandizement, but they really don’t have much and the world just isn’t listening to any of them. That’s pretty weak.
In the 1960s, Herbert Armstrong complained that there were no “men of character”. He was talking about prospects for those to support him in those days. Apparently, he finally found one worthy of his respect — Stanley Raider. Even that didn’t last. His last, final and disastrous search for the strong resulted in picking a psychopath to continue his legacy. It is fitting seeing that Herbert Armstrong himself was a weak man — morbidly obese, committing incest with his daughter for 10 years at the beginning of his ministry, having failed prophecies as a false prophet, basing his religion on British Israelism which can be scientifically disproved, having a donut and cup of coffee on the Day of Atonement to keep up his strength, never even finished high school and a boozing alcoholic with a violent temper — all of these are properties of a weak man.
In the end, we detest weak men.
Like the CEO of Evil Corp, we believe that the world is better off without them.
Herbert Armstrong claimed that he was the very first to bring the gospel of the Kingdom of God to this earth in over 1,900 years. The gospel Herbert Armstrong brought was far different from the one described in the New Testament — the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians, “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” and told the Romans, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” The gospel of Christ was one of redemption. Herbert Armstrong brought a far different gospel — not of the person of Jesus, but of a kingdom of laws, rulers, power and a fierce hierarchy with little room for sinners. To attain this ‘kingdom’ of power, glory and authority, you would have to be absolutely PERFECT! In fact, there was so little latitude for those with flaws, Herbert Armstrong had the perspective that only he had a lock on salvation and that the members of the Worldwide Church of God did not: The only use he had for them was related to how well they served and supported him as God’s Apostle and they might have salvation on his coattails depending on how well they fulfilled their subservient role. He saw the members as lesser ciphers which he held in contempt.
He had this attitude early on in his ministry as he told the story of when he met the leaders of the Church of God Seventh Day: He did not sense in them greatness and power — they were too ordinary, after all, he had dealt with multimillionaire Corporate CEOs and highly placed executives in major American Corporations. He viewed those not exuding the personal high power of Corporate Executives as being beneath him. In fact, when he was reduced to financial hardship, he was not only embarrassed to do manual labor, he was embarrassed to associate with the ‘simple folk’ of the Church of God. He was just out of place, having to deal with the lowly and humble, particularly since he had not only associated with the high powered Corporate types, but also since he spent so much time at the Central Library in Portland, Oregon where he had found the writings of G. G. Rupert, which in his mind — with its focus on Old Testament physical rituals, such as the feasts and British Israelism — was an enlightenment far beyond what the simpletons of the Church of God Seventh Day knew. He, as a novice, attempted to enlighten them without success, their having rejected his wrong-headed heresies.
This was too much for Herbert: He was great, he knew he was great — and superior too — and they didn’t have his understanding, wisdom and vision. At the same time, for the first 10 years from the beginning of his ministry, he committed incest with his daughter, which, undoubtedly, gave him the feeling of power with the complete domination of another human being who was at his mercy. It is fairly clear that Herbert Armstrong never really repented and did not have anything which could be deemed to be conversion. Add to that the record of his being difficult and uncooperative with the other ministers of the Church of God and the record is complete. In Chapter 23 of his book, The Journey: A History of the Church of God (Seventh Day), Robert Coulter clearly demonstrates that Herbert Armstrong was a liar and he also broke his pledge with the church. Herbert Armstrong insisted that he broke away from association with the Church in 1933, but actually continued until 1938 as one of the Salem Church’s seventy evangelists and reports in The Advocate show this very clearly. Mr. Coulter added this observation in “Demise of Armstrong’s church empire”:
But Armstrong, like most autocrats, reigned over his religious kingdom. Unilaterally he always had the last word! And as usually happens with autocrats, he failed to develop a plan for the succession of leadership in his church. During his lifetime, Armstrong assumed that the title of apostle and may have become a victim of the speculation of some of his members and clerics who reportedly speculated he would “live until Christ returned to establish his kingdom”.
Mr. Coulter adds:
God forbids gloating over the calamity of an individual. But if one believed in church eras, Armstrong’s church of his assumed Philadelphia era was short-lived and now looks more like the Laodicean church. It was advised, “You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Revelation 3:17, NIV).
Armstrong’s Philadelphia church has disappeared, while the Church of God (Seventh Day), which he described as Sardis, never experienced the “flash in the pan,” wealth or prominence he enjoyed. But it still lives! It continues to travel toward God’s eternal Kingdom proclaiming the gospel of Christ. It had no allusions of grandeur for itself. Its pace, while slow and faltering at times, never has been flashy, but its worldwide membership is approaching four hundred thousand, which matches or exceeds that of Armstrong’s church at the height of its glory.
As for the glory Herbert Armstrong enjoyed, he was a Corporate CEO of a multimillion dollar world wide enterprise with a central headquarters with some impressive facilities, including an IBM Mainframe and full scale printing presses. While it was a small to medium corporation, it had the trappings of a major modern corporation, replete with all the internal politics and problems.
Those who have not experienced life as a manager in a Fortune 500 company as I have as a Manager at Weyerhaeuser simply cannot understand what it is like. The best guide is Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers. It isn’t just about the fact that what is right and moral is what the guy above you wants from you — it’s a whole superstructure hierarchy geared to amoral preservation of existence whose central core is that the end justifies the means. The book contains:
Introduction: Business as a Social and Moral Terrain
Moral Probations, Old and New
The Social Structure of Managerial Work
The Main Chance
Looking Up and Looking Around
Drawing Lines
Dexterity with Symbols
The Magic Lantern
Invitations to Jeopardy
Moral Mazes and the Great Recession
It’s appalling and I’ve experienced it personally. There is a certain surreal quality to what can be laughingly called reality — an interaction of dysfunctional environment with distorted perception. If you experienced this for yourself, you would seriously be questioning your sanity — not that it made any difference because as a sane person among crazies, you simply aren’t any better off in such a disturbingly chaotic insane asylum. You should pay attention to The Magic Lantern which is used to shape people’s opinions about the unreality of the Corporation: Every effort is made to make truth disappear to supplant it with feel-good emotions evoked by image making. A good example of this is the Ethyl Corporation making Carbon Tetraethyllead to prevent engine knock as an additive to gasoline, ending up progressively poisoning the world. We can all appreciate the the quote from the THE JUNGLE by Upton Sinclair that “It’s nearly impossible to convince a man of anything when his paycheck depends on it being otherwise”. Corporations do appalling things to survive and it’s especially bad when the corporation is headed by a wrong-headed autocrat. The Magic Lantern in the hands of an expert advertising marketer such as Herbert Armstrong can make the crazy, dangerous and expensive look benign and appealing — consider the topic of three tithes in lesser hands.
If there is one thing we know about The Corporation, it is that it is soulless without a conscience, a non person person which is relentless in its goals without regard to humanity. This is what the Worldwide Church of God became under Herbert Armstrong with the ever expanding goal to influence more and more people. It is what the core of the Armstrongist churches is about today. Make no mistake, I gave United Weyerhaeuser corporate documents which were incorporated into their ‘governance’ — which is why the Council’s endless discussions of exactly the right word and phrase in their organizational documents made the minutes of the meetings look like Novocaine in print. Along with the other sects of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia, it is The Church Corporate with little internally to even imply there is a spiritual side to the business.
What Herbert Armstrong was pushing as the Kingdom of God was nothing more than his vision of The Corporation of God™ replete with God as CEO, Christ as President, himself as one of the high ranking executive vice presidents and a very strong powerful hierarchy of laws, standards and procedures very much like a modern American multinational corporation — or maybe the 1800s version of the same. Be sure that it has a dress code. You can be assured that there are definite classes in a highly defined class structure. Unlike modern politically correct corporation (that way because it’s easier than dealing with litigation from the government), women are lesser creatures relegated to Their Place as are those of races other than whites. There certainly are favorites.
God as CEO isn’t that nicey-nice, lovey-dovey, kind, grandfatherly type of warm and fuzzy deity. He’s harsh, hard, implacable, nasty, arbitrary, touchy with a vile nasty temper and you never know what will set Him off to send floods to Texas, drought to California, earthquakes, tsunamis, lightening strikes for forest fires, mud slides, volcanoes or even an asteroid or two. He’s a God of Power and He exercises it in a reign of terror. As CEO of The Corporation of God™ He knows His brand of justice and fires people (as in the lake of fire) when they do not measure up to His impossible and secret standards of perfection. His Office is a place where even angels fear to tread.
And as it is in many corporations and as I have seen for myself, there is going to be a great deal of boozing going on. The Corporation of God™ doesn’t just allow alcohol, it promotes it. Wine cheers the hearts of God and man, don’t you know. Herbert Armstrong won’t have to give up Dom Perignon as it will be a staple in his diet, unless there is a higher quality vintage that’s more expensive. Know too that those in the upper echelons will have the nicer stuff, not available to the ones on the lower rungs of the God Corporate (“Hurray, we’re on the bottom” as Gerald Waterhouse would say). Rank, privilege and power along with heaps of lots of narcissistic source attention will be granted to such as Herbert Armstrong by the rest of the few of us who make it, albeit by accident. (I’ve seen the corporate drinking parties first hand and it’s just another reason I abstain — note that the old guard Church of God Seventh Day ministers are not in favor of drinking alcohol, which might have been another minor incentive for Herbert Armstrong to jump ship.)
What is the real reason Herbert Armstrong would promote The Corporation of God™ instead of the Biblical Kingdom of God?
We’re delighted with the support the latest The Journal has given our cause! It starts innocently enough on page 3 with the article, The old class system’s roots run deep by David Havir. For those who do not know, David Havir is described at the top of the article as The writer is a church pastor and a regular columnist for THE JOURNAL. Of course he is: He is the church pastor for the Church of God Big Sandy which is the church where the editor, Dixon Cartwright, attends. They are good friends and David Havir’s columns seem to make it into nearly every The Journal there is, without all that mucking about with paying advertising costs. The article he wrote is about “Servant Leadership”. What he wrote about Herbert Armstrong in the article, we think you’ll agree, is significant:
Coercive hierarchy
Many people claim that the major problem with Mr. Armstrong’s approach to government was that he became an advocate for a hierarchy headed by one man. I don’t believe that the worst problem was that he chose to head up a hierarchy. (For the record, I presently participate in a congregational form of government, and I do not recommend a one-mangoverned hierarchy.) I believe the greater problem was that he administered a coercive hierarchy. In other words, there was much psychological pressure to accept the supposed spiritual authority of the hierarchy. (A coercive hierarchy can also be administered by a group of rulers. If you look around, you will see coercive hierarchies being administered by one-man leadership and by group leadership.) I believe the greater problem was that he viewed himself as (1) the leader of God’s government on earth, (2) the leader of the main part of the Body of Christ, (3) spiritually outranking every other human being and (4) the leader of the ruling class.
His last book Let me refresh your memory with excerpts from Mr. Armstrong’s book Mystery of the Ages (published in 1985). All the emphasis is his.
Reading these quotes helps me understand why some people reject the principles of servant leadership. Mr. Armstrong taught that Peter was the chief apostle. (The primacy of Peter is one of the foundational principles of the hierarchy fostered by the Roman Catholic Church and the WCG.) He wrote on page 221: “The surname Peter had for centuries been a surname or TITLE, designating a religious LEADER, HEAD or HEADQUARTERS. Peter was the first and chief apostle.” Mr. Armstrong taught the need for loyalty to the government of God. (Remember, his faulty premise was that loyalty to God meant being loyal to the one true church, over which he presided.) He wrote on page 227: “Bear in mind further: In order for Christ to RESTORE God’s government over the earth, he would need with and under him a qualified and organized personnel of GOD BEINGS—all having rejected Satan’s false way and having
proved their loyalty to the government and righteous ways of God!” Mr. Armstrong taught that there was only one church, and those who splintered off from it were no longer in the one true church. (Remember, his faulty premise was that to leave the church, over which he presided, was to leave the one true church.) He wrote on page 243: “Notice especially, there is only the ONE CHURCH. Not MANY churches. The CHURCH is not divided. There is only one Church. Not a parent church and many little daughter churches that have split off in disagreement. Divisions splintering off are NOT STILL IN THE CHURCH. It is the CHURCH that is to marry Christ in the resurrection at his coming—not disagreeing churches—not groups who have broken off! Not a parent church and apostate daughters.” Mr. Armstrong taught the military model of government with ranks of authority. He wrote on page 256: “The CHURCH, as initially called in this life, is NOT YET capable of RULING the earth [and] . . . of administering THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD. And THAT IS WHY God has placed HIS GOVERNMENT in his Church. That is WHY God’s Church government is theocratic instead of democratic. That is why God has set ranks of government in his Church, apostles, evangelists, pastors, elders, both preaching and non-preaching.”
Mr. Armstrong taught that he had the rank of apostle. (In other writings and sermons he taught that the main purpose of a saint was to support him.) He wrote on page 266: “What part does the individual local member have in taking the gospel message to ALL THE WORLD? This is done primarily and directly by the APOSTLE.” Mr. Armstrong taught that saints could not grow without his help (as a perceived apostle) and the help of others in the rank system. He wrote on pages 267-268: “The author, Christ’s apostle, can say emphatically that the apostles, evangelists, pastors and elders could not carry on the work of God without the loyal backing and continual encouragement of the lay members. Neither can the individual lay member develop and build within him God’s holy, righteous and perfect CHARACTER without the operations of the apostle, evangelists, pastors and elders.” Mr. Armstrong taught that there was only one way to be trained. (Remember, his faulty premise was that the only way to be trained was in the one true church, over which he presided.) He wrote on page 270: “The ‘loner’ —the ‘individual Christian,’ who wants to climb up into the kingdom some other way than by CHRIST and HIS WAY through his CHURCH—is not being trained in CHRIST’S MANNER OF TRAINING, to rule and reign with Christ in his kingdom! . . . The person who says ‘I will get my salvation alone, outside of the Church’ is totally deceived.” Mr. Armstrong taught that church leaders could put people out of the Body of Christ. (Stopping someone from attending a particular congregation is different from claiming to remove him from the spiritual organism.) He taught that a main reason for
people to be “put out” was “opposition to church government.” (Since that ethereal reason can be subjective and political, it has led to much unjust treatment of saints.) He wrote on pages 271-272: “What about one who has been IN Christ’s ‘spiritual BODY’—the Church—and is PUT OUT for cause (causing division or rebellion or opposition to Church government)? The CHURCH is like a human mother who is pregnant. If there is an abortion, the HUMAN LIFE departs totally from the fetus. There is, however, perhaps one difference in
this analogy. A human who goes out, or is put out of God’s Church, could, on repentance and renewed belief, be admitted back into the body again.” Mr. Armstrong taught that God would raise up a human leader in the spirit and power of Elijah to restore truth. (In other writings and sermons he emphasized that the end-time Elijah would restore the truth about the government of God.)
He wrote on pages 290-291: “Although it is plainly revealed that John the Baptist had come in the power and spirit of Elijah, he did not restore anything. The human leader to be raised up somewhat shortly prior to Christ’s Second Coming was to prepare
the way—prepare the Church—for Christ’s coming, and restore the truth that had been lost through the preceding eras of the Church.” Mr. Armstrong taught that he fulfilled Matthew 24:14.
He wrote on page 291: “These prophecies have now definitely been fulfilled. The true gospel has been restored and has now gone in power into every nation on the face of the earth.”
Mr. Havir goes on to show how wrong this all is and ends with a section entitled “No Easy Fix”. There is no easy fix because every Church of God that has come from Herbert Armstrong is tainted by his arrogant controlling hierarchy, even the Church of God Big Sandy (that also includes the Grace Communion International). If it weren’t for Herbert Armstrong, neither the CoGBS would exist, nor would any other of the 700+ club. He started it all and without him there would be absolutely nothing. There is no way to hide from his influence. The only way to fix anything is to abandon it all and go where someone else has established a social group for those refugees from the Radio / Worldwide Church of God.
Here is what Neotherm had to say about the article at Otagosh:
Black Ops made a reference to Havir and his writing about HWA. So I went back and read the article and was blown away. I cannot believe that Havir would write this and Cartwright would publish it. It is the best article I have seen on this topic to come out of the Armstrongite offshoots.
Havir has it exactly right. Armstrongites do not understand leadership. Most of the “great leaders” in the WCG that I encountered personally were boorish snobs. They thrived inside a system that mistook insensitivity for courage, oppression for teaching, arrogance for dignity and stolidity for perseverance. They were taught and believed that they controlled the salvation of individual adherents. They believed that they were of such importance that they could run interference between God and people. Pretty breathtaking. All these sins were forgiven by their unwavering devotion to HWA. The fact that Havir would strike directly at the black heart of this system is amazing and no doubt will compromise his ability to be an influence on other Armstrongites who hold the traditional HWA-centric views. But I am glad he did it.
I used to work with David Havir at Big Sandy at times. Students were assigned to me and others like me for various work details. Havir was atypical for an AC student. He was friendly and egalitarian. He seemed to not be easily deluded. I was at the lower end of the servant-class at AC and he had no trouble treating me as if I were a person – something I found to be rare in that environment. So I am not surprised that he would write such an article. On the other hand, Don Ward, with his degree in Educational Psychology and considered by many to be the authority on leadership, could not have written such an article unless he has undergone a sea change. (One must be careful with semantics. Armstrongites will maintain that what their ministers do is “service.” This demonstrates how removed they are from a correct understanding of the pastoral function.)
— Neotherm
Probably not. People will read this in The Journal, along with other articles in other issues which will undermine everything Herbert Armstrong stood for, and they will pass right over them without being struck by the obvious cognitive dissonance. It’s all part of the chaotic landscape that’s been created there with absolutely crazy daft advertising mixed with a few sensible observations. It’s easy to get caught up in the noise.
Now some people will applaud the approach of David Havir, and by extension, Dixon Cartwright, many of the staff of The Journal, many of those at the top and near the top of the Church of God Big Sandy hierarchy and quite a number of those associated with the ideas and ideals within the United Church of God an International Association. Behind the scenes, they have abandoned British Israelism. Heresies and false prophets are irrelevant. Many of them seem to have found the research of the Christian Theologians that indicate that most of the books of the Bible were forged, few of the books could have been written by those with their names on them, that there are 40 gospels floating around of which only 4 were part of the New Testament (and were written 30 to 60 years after the events described in them by people who weren’t there to observe the events), II Peter, James, Jude and John are forgeries along with at least half of the epistles of Paul, that Revelation barely made it into the Bible and was suspect from the beginning, that the epistles of Paul were written before any of the other books of the New Testament and the rest of the books are “back fill”. The folks at The Journal and the others associated with it are just fine with that.
David Havir has thrown down the gauntlet, not that anyone is much going to react one way or another, because what is important is keeping the social group together. It certainly mitigates the pain of going “cold turkey” alone without social support.
The main problem with all of that is that the people in the social group do not know. They have the assumption that they are faithfully following Herbert Armstrong and his original ideas. The leadership knows that Herbert Armstrong was crap and his plagiarized ideas from G. G. Rupert are just plain stupid and wrong. They are manipulating the group for both their own agendas and to keep the group together. Clearly, building a new social structure of people who were in a cult of lies and delusions is not the best approach. There is still a class system at work here and it isn’t going to solve the underlying problem. There’s no reason to believe that someone inside a system can objectively observe that system nor assess it. Reinvention in place won’t solve the problem, particularly when members of the social group don’t actually believe the same things (especially considering they don’t believe the same things as the leadership) and this fact is hidden from them. This is similar to the machinations of the Grace Communion International, except that no one is trying to get anyone to change their ideas: They just let people keep their beliefs (which may be wildly divergent from the ideas of those around them), while they happily go forth and perform the physical rituals and pretend that it’s a religion that keeps them all together with Sabbath Services, socials, potlucks and Feasts. It could be any sort of social group, it’s just that it began as a cult.
The leadership can never fully admit to any of this because it would threaten the stability of the group, so a certain amount of deception is required to hold it all together. Not to worry, because as the decades roll on, people in the group will intermarry and become codependent, original ideals will be forgotten and lost and the cult becomes more mainstream even if it does contain some odd and unworkable practices. If it’s going to be like that, then eventually, keeping the Feasts will have to be voluntary and the concept of second tithe will have to disappear: We’re letting people follow the course of least resistance, providing “inspiration” supposedly based on “Biblical principles”. We’ve all seen this sort of thing before. While it may not end badly, it can’t end well either, with people in a society based on cult devised by a nut.
So David Havir and The Journal have sort of done our job for us. It’s nice that Herbert Armstrong was resoundingly criticized openly and cut to shreds by people who have automatic credibility with the Armstrongists. Still, the underlying direction has become rather disingenuous.
While we’re grateful for the help, we’ll take it from here.
I believe the greater problem was that he administered a coercive hierarchy. In other words, there was much psychological pressure to accept the supposed spiritual authority of the hierarchy. (A coercive hierarchy can also be administered by a group of rulers. If you look around, you will see coercive hierarchies being administered by one-man leadership and by group leadership.)