The Painful Truth-Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God
Understanding the psychology of religious seduction and spiritual abuse.
Revisiting Stagnation 8 years later. How did we do?
After 80 years of Armstrongism, you would think they would have gotten somewhere. Instead, Armstrongism is predicated upon stagnation, constantly reinventing wheels, and misguided attempts to “really get serious this time.”
Everything is fine!
Uh oh!
Everything's Not Fine!
How can you be so confident?
He was weak!
Let Us Have A Moment of Silence For Our Brave Friend
Founding CEO of Evil Cult
The world is better off without him.
The Evil Corp portrays the functioning of crisis among upper management.
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.
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.
