Saturday, March 17, 2012

Dennis on Ron Weinland: "Mr. Generalities..Truly, Truly Terrible Teaching"





 
 
 
Mr. Generalities..Truly, Truly Terrible Teaching
 
 

Dennis Diehl - EzineArticles Expert Author

The following is about a 15 minute statement survey of a most recent sermon given by Ron Weinland of the Preparing for the Kingdom of God cult.  Truly, Ron Weinland is one of the worst and most scattered speakers in all of COGdom.  It would not be so bad if Ron did not see himself as one of the Two Witnesses of Revelation who will inflict God's judgement on the earth just prior to the return of Jesus.  Personally, I am thinking most will die of boredom as "Mr Generalities" inflicts his special brand of teaching on the faithful.
 
 
Why people would drive hundreds of miles to hear this man speak is an enigma to me. On top of that, all one would really have to do is listen to any sermon given in the past year and it is the current one.  All his sermons sound the same and contain precious little comment other than his own comments. These ramblings were taken from 
today's sermon but could just as easily been taken from his past 100 sermons. 
 
 
 
"They have no understanding..
The Jews don't understand Passover
They don't obey God's law
They are blind
They are not free
When God opened your mind
You came kicking and screaming
They don't want to change
They don't want to obey God
This is the last Passover in history
People don't understand the bondage they are in
Don't you want to be free
What an incredible thing
We are not at a time when God has determined to work with a spiritual Israel
They are in spiritual Egypt
This indeed a most historic feast
God has begun to share more fully with us
We are to grasp the deeper meaning of Israel
God's message is intensifying
We are living it more and more the closer we get
The first nation of Israel would not and could not obey God
Except for a few who were special
They were  being worked with on a physical plane
You can't obey without God's spirit
Anyway...
Israel as a people have failed .
Their ways only bring oppression and destruction
Only with God can they succeed
To gain the mastery of life
People are in bondage
People are not in control
Only when you know the truth can you begin to come out of it.
What an awesome thing we have moving closer and closer to what God is giving us
The closer we get, depending on what God does....God has not revealed to us ...the more you are going to be tried.
Not everyone is going to make it
You should be sobered
Not everyone is going to come thru this
You need to apply it now in a way far greater than ever
Now is the time, more than ever before.
It isn't much further and it won't be easy to hold on
Not everyone will come through it
Always, always , always every year , some leave. 
Even at the very end, not too long before He returns, some leave
It all comes down to how spiritually alert you are and how sure you are
What an incredible thing God giving human being life
Then we can learn about the quality of life we can live by obeying God
Wisdom is of God
Well...anyway.....
We don't know how blessed we are
Morality, it is becoming less and less in the world
This feel good thing.
I loathe the Protestant spirit
It just make you sick inside
Everyone just love each other if you know Jesus
What a sad thing
Look at some of these platitudes in a store
This feel good thing about God
That's not what it is about
It's about NOT LYING TO PEOPE  (Watch it Ron)
If you lie, you have to keep track of the lies so you remember the lies  you told
it's not these feely good things
Have you accepted Jesus Christ
Not your Jesus Christ, thank God"
They don't understand Christmas
They kept it hidden
They are in bondage
They have this syrupy kind of song
No, that's a repulsive thing
Mr. Armstrong wrote a book called Mystery of the Ages
I got to hear HWA that day
He was so excited
After seeing all the 50 plus years and finally able to write a book from beginning to end with the truth ...
Put in plain terms
What an incredible thing
All of a sudden opens your mind
The sabbath and the seven thousand years
We are at the end of the six days
More awesome and more exciting
We can talk about it, we can share it with each other, we can't share it yet
Again, how awesome is that
It shows how things are so mapped out
So meticulous
We were talking about Adam and Eve and the attitude was like God hitting himself in the forehead...What am i going to do now
How narrow minded we were not to be able to see a fuller picture.
God knew exactly what it would take...
Sometimes we think Einstein was a genius
How did they build the pyramids
They weren't morons
Very skilled, some things were lost in understanding
Incredible
I have lost my place
awesome
 
 
Ok, enough.  I'm making myself dizzy.  You lost your place?  What place?   What kind of a sermon is this?  What the hell is the topic, the purpose?  Where is the flow and what is the point?  Who are the people that sit week after week and listen to this dribble believing this man is inspired by a God?  Why do they drive so far to be taught so little?  If this is Godly inspiration, I might suggest God is drinking and having a grand time.
 
 
Ron wanders all over creation from one topic to another and most are not remotely connected to any real point he is making.  Truly you can go from explaining the Exodus to how ignorant Catholics are about Christmas.  
 
 
The vast majority of the COG ministry are mere Bible readers.  They are commentators perhaps, but not teachers.  While the Apostle Paul may be "hard to understand,"  Ron Weinland is easy to understand and hard to stomach.  There is no real content.  There is no hint of understanding the background of the books he so freely comments from and reads as one would read a newspaper.  Ron betrays no modern knowledge of Science truly so called nor would he ever speak of it.  To Ron, the earth is 6000 years old and the full plan 7000.  (Look up Golbeki Tepi Ron) For a grown man, who claims to know the mind of God and how everything all is on this planet and yes, even the entire universe,  to utter such ignorance of science is simply unacceptable in an age when such information is freely available.  COG ministers, for the most part, are 2000 years out of date.  
 
 
One of the proofs that COG ministers are stuck on auto pilot for decades is that no newer understanding of even some of the most basic scientific realities can be acknowledge. Most have to know that in fact the earth is 4.5 billion years old and our universe around 14 billion.  Most have to think about the implications of fossil hominid finds or the pictures from Hubbell that show how utterly insignificant we are on this one of now thousands known in our neighborhood that may or even must hold life.  I can't believe an educated or even curious man in our times would think that there literally was an Adam and Eve as presented and the origin of language is the Tower of Babel mythology.  The problem is that so much New Testament theology does depend on the mythologies being literally true. They are not.
 
 
And finally, I do have to wonder what kind of thinking keeps people stuck in their seats listening to the same things over and over and believes the unbelievable as spoken by Ron Weinland?  Does the average PKG member not know how to read or look around the Net for other ways of explaining what Ron so badly generalizes? Are they afraid for him and themselves to not be correct and so won't consider anything else?  Do they not see they are heading over another "time is short," cliff and all that is left then is to tell them that "I NEVER said it was literally true.  It is spiritually true!"   Will that send them back into Theocomas again for yet more speculation and repetition? 
 
 
I truly don't understand what keeps the average COG member attached to their seat as these old memes and stories play over and over each week, without end and all coming to nothing.  I suppose  "almost here" is just such a powerful hope that some minds can't see that almost postpones their living in the actual moment they have in this life.  
 
 
Always living for the future is such a waste of the present moments in life.  You can't get them back.  I predict that all these men will simply get old and die like everyone before them.  I expect they have yet to even consider this reality for themselves but life has a way of making its point.   
 
 
It is obvious Ron is deeply wounded by his WCG experience.  He refers to it often in his sermons and how incredible and difficult it all was.  It was difficult.  That part I can attest to.  It has and does leave its scars.   We all process our pain and disappointment differently.  Some just church hop looking for the cure of the anxiety we all have over our mortality and "what's going to happen to me."  Others , as myself, become cautiously skeptical no longer willing to commit to the ideas of others.  
 
 
It's a journey I suppose, but I do marvel at those who hunker down in a COG and allow that one man to tell them how it all is and to draw their identity from the lives and minds of how other men like HWA saw and filtered his world.  Around here when you ask many who they are, they respond by "I am a Bob Jones student," or "Jonesers"as the locals call them. Kinda sad actually.  They draw their identity from a man and a theological dynasty and his name sticks to them. 
 
 
So, the beat goes on.  The Weinlanders, Flurrites, Meredithians, Packers and Tkachians sit each week hearing the same thing over and over.  In the case of the Tkachians, they hear over and over how to invent the wheel yet again.  None of it has much basis in reality and from the above example, it is clear some are getting nothing from it or if they are, what's wrong with them?  
 
 
I don't know.  Maybe it is all awesome and amazing, unbelievable and incredible, it really is brethren, but I just don't see it and I surely cannot understand how anyone gets anything of value for the heart and soul from the above example of a sermon from Mr. Generalities. 
 

8 comments:

Andrew said...

It is absolutely true that COG ministry are merely bible readers stuck on an autopilot of regurgitating whatever Herbert Armstrong said. Nothing they say is ever new. They have never had an original thought of their own. They have never battle-tested anything they preach. The bible says "prove all things." COG ministers have never proven anything in their lives. They're just pollyparrots telling you what someone else told them. Time marches on; the world marches on, but Armstrongism long ago stagnated in a past that is growing increasingly distant and irrelevant day by day.

Lake oif Fire Church of God said...

Doesn't this "witness from the book of Revelation" have a roundezvous with destiny soon - and I don't mean in Jerusalem clothed in sackcloth? I mean the Federal Pen for tax evasion and failure to report $350,000 in income over a four year period?

How is this buffoon Weinland going to keep his brain dead followers and their income stream from behind bars? And will the other witness of the book of Revelations, wife Laura, be there with the buffoon Weinland witnessing Ron in the Federal Pen, or did she turn "States' Witness" and testified against the buffoon Weinland? She's his wife - did they file joint tax returns or did she file separately?

We need a witness!

Richard

Lake of Fire Church of God said...

Dennis Diehl said, "It's a journey I suppose, but I do marvel at those who hunker down in a COG and allow that one man to tell them how it all is and to draw their identity from the lives and minds of how other men like HWA saw and filtered his world."

MY COMMENT - I think there is a certain small segment of people who will believe a snake oil salesman which most ACOG leaders are because they are heavily invested in time, money, energy, mental activity and belief.

It's no different than riding a $45 stock investment all the way down to corporate bankruptcy and delisting on the pink sheets. After the initial investment and watching the stock drop like a rock, common sense would be to stop losses at $25 or $30 per share. But like the WCG and its loony derivatives, the investment has already been made in tithes, offerings, special offerings, the Emergency Fund and the all important Building Fund (because time is short), The investment in Armstrongism is HUGE. Let's not forget the family estrangement and personal pride. "How could I be wrong and mislead for 30+ years, or a lifetime?"

So, like the $45 bad stock investment, there are people who will ride it all the way down to delisting. Who were the people who were left "holding the bag" in the stock of once high rollers such as Enron, WorldCom, PSINET, Teligent ($100 per share with only $50M in reveneue and never made a profit - went from $100 per share to ZERO in a little over a year), etc.

PSINET and their corporate ego put their corporate name on a NFL stadium because that was more important than demonstrating that their business model worked and making a profit for their common stock investors. PSINET went belly up in two years. The example of PSINET is no different than Packatolla and Flurry building Colleges for their personal Church ego even though they can hardly afford it (Oooops, I mean the dumb sheep brethren who will be abused and threatened with eternal Lake of Fire damnation for years in order to payoff the bank loans).

The stock market equivalent of "stop losses" on individual stock investments never kicks in with these dumb sheep even after hearing for 50 years from the Rod of God that we only have 3 to 5 years left, or from HWA that "time is short" and "1975 in Prophecy" booklet pulled from Church circulation because it documents another failed prophecy.

So Dennis, what is there to marvel?

Richard

Homer said...

Very good analogy Richard. I once worked for an telecommunication firm who sold downward trend stocks to their employees. I bought about $1700 worth and within a couple of years it was worth about $50. I also had some Worldcom stock. Lost about $10,000 in the stock business. But that is not anywhere near what I had given to WCG/UCG through almost 35 years of tithes and offerings and other emergency needs. I no longer invest in the stock market or give to any religious organization. They have both been losers.

Allen C. Dexter said...

Homer, at least you could start a fireplace, if you have one, with those worthless stocks. That's more to show than any of us can claim from our COG experiences.

Anonymous said...

Dennis, Nice job disecting the ramblings of a mad man.

Really, not one thought linked with another and it makes you wonder how close he might be to a nervous breakdown if he did not have one a few years ago.

My thoughts on the 7000 years though would be that most who listen to him would have in perspective that man and 'this world' (age) would have 6000 years after the fall of man, keeping in mind the 4+billions of years of earths existenced was covered by what some refer to as the gap theory.

That being said, this man has no context for his word, no concept of true humanity and real christianity and no conscience.

Good review Dennis and thanks for the comment on the Tkachian's. Looks like the UCGers are headed the same way. They are always starting from the beginning with Jesus and his sacrifice and little more beyond that.

Thanks again for your clear thoughts. All the best.

John said...

"Ron Weinland is easy to understand and hard to stomach"

That in so few words says it all about every single one of 'em who has sought to follow in HWA's footsteps and appoint themselves as his "successor"!

"COG ministers are stuck on auto pilot..."

So true not unlike what Andrew said, "They're just pollyparrots telling you what someone else told them"! In my own experience, they refuse to "repent" and change themselves and admit error when confronted with new truth that threatens their worldview just to keep their own traditions as "Pope" Herbertus Armstrongus set! And a recent experience of mine proves how stuck in the past they are e.g. After a Sabbath service one time a few of us hung around to listen to a recording of HWA giving a Bible study. I can't even remember what it was on! But, it was so boring a few even fell asleep! I didn't even want to stay as it was mid-afternoon, but the guy giving me a ride home wanted to stay and I didn't know how to get back home! So I was stuck in a time warp of sorts praying for it to end. Arrgghh!!!

Anonymous said...

Well, there's an anti-Obama bumper sticker that was just recently banned. Fact is, it never should have seen the light of day. I won't quote it, but I'll paraphrase it, thus providing good advice for Weinland's followers:

"Don't re-Wein in 2012"

~Miguel de la Rodente