Tuesday, January 17, 2012

COGer Teaching Other COGers about Cults


I guess it takes one to recognize one.  The only trouble is that cult recognition usually happens when a person leaves an Armstrongite splinter cult and their eyes are opened at the abuses they have just left behind.  It is worse when it is an Armstrongite who sees these things and then justifies it all by remaining in their respective splinter cult thinking their group has none of these traits.  Then there is also the group that claims that the early Christians and the Catholic Church was originally considered a cult therefore COGs are in good company..

So now we have another group in Armstrongism who thinks they have all the answers. Of course this is another Church of God like all the others. Just like all the other splinter cutls, its all about the law.  Law, law, law, hardly anyting about Jesus but tons of crap about the law.

This one is another Church of God but has attached Remnant to it's name: Church of God-Speaking to the Remnant.  Why do all these splinter cults think they are something special?  Remnant?  Really? REALLY?

Like in true Armstrongite blinded to reality in the church,  they have to start off bashing all the web sites and blogs that point out the foibles of Armstrongism.  This person has listed all the different character traits of those who expose Armstrongism. For all of you that expose the crap of Armstrongsm you are suffering from one of the following:

Sadly, many who know anything about the true “Worldwide Church of God” have gotten their information off of websites or out of books by people who no longer even believe in God. Many of these misfits were told to leave the Church because they abused their wife, practiced homosexuality, taught false doctrine, etc. After refusing to admit their sins and become clean in God's eyes, they instead chose the path of sin and began to make false accusations against the true Church. Anger consumes them! “For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief.” [Proverbs 24:2] 

Then he goes on to uses HWA's favorite method of reasoning: "Don't believe me, believe the Bible."   We have all seen how well that has worked out! 
Most of the hateful information found on these websites and books is arrogant jargon. They make claims that all true members of the Church are “evil”, “confused”, “lost”, etc. The fact is, these people should be testing all claims based on what the Bible says, not what any man says. I challenge all people who visit this website and read my articles to test it all against the Word of God. The fact is, these people just do not want to live the Christian life. Thats okay but why so much anger against the truth? This should not surprise us. These types killed almost all the apostles and hung Jesus from a stake. Making a clean break from false worship may not be very fun. Jesus warned that one's relatives may oppose such a course. But if we are called of God this should make no difference in our decision. [Matthew 10:32-37] If we truly love God we will run to Him. We will throw away all of our false doctrines and cherish the TRUTH!
This much he got right.  After Herb died hundreds of splinter cutls were formed.  Just a a few are: LCG, PCG, RCG, GCG, CBCG, UCG, COGWA, CGG etc.

It is true that after the first latter day apostle's death many broke away from the true Worldwide Church of God and started cults. Many of these groups have leaders who use scare tactics, power tactics and even pay people to help them control others. This also should not surprise the true Christian. The apostle Paul from the Bible warned: “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock
His qualifications for cults are as follows. Most of these are truly irrelevant. 
Cults Have False Apostles and Prophets: False groups teach false doctrines and their leaders have some sort of egomaniac problem. Instead of putting God, His Law and His Word first they seem to stress importance in themselves.

Cults Try to Control: Another aspect of cults is the fact that they use fear to try and control their people. Now we must remember that there is such a thing as “healthy fear”. We should be afraid of those trying to hurt us...Just because true Christians do these things does not, from a Biblical standpoint, make them “cult” members. God leaves it up to you, the individual to make the choice. No true Christian is commanded to control you or some how force you into believing the TRUTH. But cults do indeed try and use psychological tactics and sometimes physical tactics to do just that....

How You Live Your Life Matters: You have a choice in these Last Days...days of confusion and spiritual battle, to make a choice about your future. You can live a happy future or a miserable one. No man can make that choice for you. No cult leader, no denomination, no “spiritual” teacher. You must make the ultimate choice. How you live your life does not just effect you and others...IT EFFECTS GOD.

Fault Finders & Accusers of the Brethren: For those who have the true Gospel be prepared for hard times! We [true Christians] have the TRUTH, not “a truth”. When we fail sometimes to live up to the truth we find many around us begin to swarm in like flies to begin the “breaking down” process. These are nothing but demonic attacks to try and discourage you and make you turn from God's truth. Just because a Christian fails sometimes to live a perfect life it does not change the fact that Saturday is Sabbath, Jesus is Lord, and His one true church is the one and only Worldwide Church of God....There are many instances in the Bible where the people would judge the messenger instead of the message. This happened with the prophets. King David murdered, worshiped false idols and many other sins he committed but through him God wrote part of the Bible. King David wrote many beautiful Psalms. When we look at the type of people Jesus chose to be His apostles we see some sinful men. But no matter who God ultimately chooses God continues to tell them to not give up, to continue to try and follow His commandments no matter what anybody else says.   


He never touches on the dangerous aspects of cults and how they damage the person mentally, spiritually and physically.  Instead it is just superficial fluff.  If he exposed the falsehoods, lies, the mental manipulation, the physical abuse and spiritual abuse he would have to condemn his own splinter cult. But no, it is better to keep one's head in the sand with their butt in the air as they continue to make asses of themselves.



10 comments:

Andrew said...

"Sadly, many who know anything about the true "Worldwide Church of God" have gotten their information off of websites or out of books by people who no longer even believe in God."

Sadly, many know the true "Worldwide Church of God" inside and out, backwards and forwards, from decades of first-hand experience. We've been there, done that, got the postcard and drank the kool-aid. We were true believers who gave it a good-faith effort. Then, from one corner or another, or maybe just through the natural course of maturity, we came to realize that not only had we been lied to, but we had been taught to lie to ourselves. And we came to realize that we couldn't live like that any longer. Sorry, but no little diatribe flogging the ol' dead horse for the thousandth time, rehashing the same familiar accusations one more time, can possibly overturn the soul-searched realizations that were drawn out of decades of experience.

"The fact is, these people should be testing all claims based on what the Bible says, not what any man says. I challenge all people who visit this website and read my articles to test it all against the Word of God."

The fact is, if we back up one extra step, unfortunately, it was men who told us all that the bible was the word of God. It was also men, in some cases the same men, who told us all that the "Worldwide Church of God" was the true Church.

"The fact is, these people just do not want to live the Christian life."

The fact is, I would be happy to live a specifically Christian life--as opposed to just a good, or moral, or upright, life--if anyone could show me that there was any correlation between those two! I would be happy to live a Christian life if anyone could show me that Christianity wasn't just created by 12 guys to part a few fools from their shekels. I would be happy to live a Christian life in the company of other Christians if I could find any "Christians" living a Christian life. I would be happy to live a Christian life if living a Christian life worked, and helped me in any way. What I can no longer do, is lead a life of hypocrisy, in the company of other hypocrites, while pretending to live a purely theoretical "Christian" life.

"Thats okay but why so much anger against the truth?...If we truly love God we will run to Him. We will throw away all of our false doctrines and cherish the TRUTH!"

Honey, there's no anger against the truth. You just aren't ready to admit that what you call "the truth" is a pearl of great price made out of plastic. You might have paid a lot for it, heck, we all did, but that still doesn't make it worth anything. If you really cherished hard-won honesty, you wouldn't be saying what you're saying right now. Because all you're doing is repeating the same worn out old lies we were all told a thousand times. But you're not really lying to us, you're lying to yourself. If you can do that for the rest of your life, I for one am not going to stand in your way, but as for me, I can't live that way anymore.

DennisCDiehl said...

'The Eye that sees, cannot see itself'

Buddhist observation

Anonymous said...

Deaf leading the blind. Blind lead the lame. Lame lead the dumb?

Just a thought...

Anonymous said...

In the blog of E. W. King, from January 6th, comes this gem:

Today America does not even realize who it really is. They have an identity crises. America was made up of the lost tribes of Israel, specifically Manasseh. What does prophecy tell us about this great nation?

There is nothing like Armstrongism to put Cult into Culture.

We've proved that DNA Refutes British Israelism. Therefore, anyone who prophesies using British Israelism is a false prophet and will be damned to the lake of fire for sure (well, if you believe in those sorts of things).

The United States is not Mannaseh.

End of story.

Herbert Armstrong was a false prophet. Any "remnant" of his Radio Church of God -- later renamed, but still as wildly cultic -- is just plain wrong, heretics and can lead no one anywhere but into delusion.

E. W. King likely (from the diagnostic indicators) suffers from Schizophrenia Delusional Disorder. He needs help from mental health professionals, if it is true, because he is crazy.

What ever happened to the proposition that the Holy Spirit is the power of a sound mind?

The only way that would work is if he lived in the Pacific Northwest and then he could have a "Puget Sound Mind".

Byker Bob said...

Like communism, the so-called 18 restored truths of Herbert W. Armstrong have been tried many times, and have always corrupted many of the good natural innate human characteristics and traits, causing aspiring leaders to become megalomaniacal, narcissistic, and dictatorial. Also solipsistic.
Actually, this usurps and grieves the Holy Spirit.

If one practices these restored truths Lone Ranger fashion, in the privacy of one's own home, the bad effects can often be minimized, but the minute one puts them into the context of a corporate church group, the oppressiveness, toxicity, and intrusive legalism and its fruits simply ooze from the group.

This has always been true of false teaching and false teachers.

BB

Mish-Mash said...

I have a new graphic for you to use on this one.


Picture of a Pot and a Kettle
-Both Black

NO2HWA said...

MishMash: I had thought about the pot and kettle, but then say the bat shit container and thought it more appropriate. So many of these Armstrongites are truly bat shit crazy!

Questeruk said...

Douglas, you say ‘We've proved that DNA Refutes British Israelism’

Really? I tried typing ‘can races be identified by DNA’ into Google, and all the sources seem to be saying that the reality is that race can NOT be determined by DNA.

And some of them have high credentials.

For example:-

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/humanmigration.shtml

(The US Government human genome project) states:-

Will genetic anthropology establish scientific criteria for race or ethnicity?

DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other. Indeed, it has been proven that there is more genetic variation within races than exists between them.

You would think they should be qualified to know - and they state ‘There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity.’.

There are plenty of other sources that state much the same – a couple of random examples:-

http://newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mole00/mole00404.htm

http://backintyme.com/essays/item/44

So who do I believe - the experts or Douglas Becker?

Questeruk said...

The full reference to the US Government human genome project reference got chopped off in my comment, maybe some sort of wrap round problem.

‘http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome’

needs to have ‘/elsi/humanmigration.shtml’ added to the end of the reference to get to the quote that I was referencing.

John said...

2 points if I may...

...Many of these misfits were told to leave the Church because they abused their wife, practiced homosexuality, taught false doctrine...

1. And what about the "apostle" of "the Church"?

Wasn't he guilty of incest with his own daughter?

Wasn't he guilty of adultery a) by having sex with his second wife, Ramona Martin, prior to their getting married? And b) marrying her, a divorcee, while her ex was still alive? And this was in spite of his teaching against divorce and remarriage for years prior?

Wasn't he guilty of teaching false doctrine too from triple tithes, Monday Pentecost, failed prophecies like 1975, claiming scriptural titles for himself like "Elijah to come", etc?

Honestly I think HWA never even really knew what he believed anymore after the death of his first wife or 1975 or maybe it was the lavish living and compounding jet lag from all his trips that got to him close to the end that he lost touch with reality since he changed his mind far too often about so many things.

...it does not change the fact that...His one true church is the one and only Worldwide Church of God...

2. Oh dear hasn't he even heard yet? Can someone please put this poor fellow out of his misery and tell him that the WCG doesn't even exist anymore and hasn't, in the way he thinks at least, for over two decades!