Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Philadelphia Church of God: Is Your Child Safe Attending Their PYC Summer Camp?




From a reader here:

My son was "accepted" as they call it in PYC, to attend his first camp in 2011 when he was thirteen. It seems a lot of things the PCG does seems good, but the problem is, the ministers don't practice love for their fellow man. They are on too much of an ego trip they can't think straight. Camp was a good learning experience IF some of the psychopath ministers would stay away. For instance, Calvin Culpepper, a minister was playing ball with my son's dorm and one of the balls he hit to my son knocked him in the head. He had big headaches after this and got sick and had to sit out a few days in sick bay. Calvin Culpepper never called me to tell me this nor Wayne Turgeon, camp director, (Gerald Flurry's son-in-law). As a matter a fact, because we were not allowed to get in touch with our kids but at certain times, I didn't get the whole impact of what could have happened to the inside of my son's head until he came home three weeks later. We're out of the PCG now. We survived, thank God!

You can read more PCG summer camp horror stories here: “PCG Summer Camp Horror Stories”

PCG has a track record of totally disregarding the youth in the church:  Philadelphia Church of God Parents Abandon Minor-Aged Daughter

Philadelphia Freedom - Arbeit Macht Frei?  The PCOG holds youth camps at Armstrong College during the summer trying to create positive public relations buzz in packaged news reports released to local Oklahoma news outlets. However, unfiltered reports from the direct participants of what actually has occurred at the camps have surfaced. Letters about the camps sent to ESN with a reported camp sermon tirade by Flurry may be read by clicking here. Concentration on camp sporting activities combines with mandatory bible studies, harsh discipline, and campers being closely guarded twenty four hours a day. Reports of sleep deprivation; completely exhausted youth; inadequate meals; severe dehydration, heat exhaustion; camp injuries; nonexistent, or negligent medical care; and of military boot camp type techniques used to enforce constant, severe discipline have emerged. The Edmond, OK church college camp is for those who are 13-19, whose parents are baptized members of the PCOG. Acceptance at the PCOG Youth Camp can serve as an indoctrination and recruitment tool for idealistic, religiously inclined church youth to apply to Gerald Flurry's unaccredited Armstrong College.


Other widespread concerns for family members impacted by the PCOG include no further contact orders with family, once family members are disfellowshiped by the ministry. Philadelphia church members are ordered to shun any contact with family members or others who have been excommunicated, or disfellowshiped for any reason, valid or not, by the minister. The slightest criticism or minor doubt expressed about Malachi's Message, purportedly written by "That Prophet" Flurry as the "little book" referred to in Rev. 10, is strictly verboten upon pain of disfellowshipment. Philadelphia church members are only allowed PCOG approved reviews of Malach's Message, Raising the Ruins, Mystery of the Ages, and other such church writings at such booksellers as Amazon.com if they wish to remain a member of the church. Nor are PCOG family members who are outsiders allowed to post uncensored reviews of PCOG literature or risk disfellowshipment and permanently losing contact with their own family loyal to Flurry. Personal letters of PCOG family members directly impacted and hurt by PCOG's no family contact policy or otherwise may be found at ESN here.

5 comments:

Byker Bob said...

Yep. There you go, brethren. God's true church! Somehow, you can always tell by the fruit, can't you?

BB

Anonymous said...

The disregard for camper's safety, the isolation of campers from any contact with parents, even when an injury has occurred, the "big brother" and highly regimented military techniques used to run the camps, the apparent attempts at brainwashing, the inadequate meal portions, inadequate time scheduled for sleep, preferential treatment of PKs, abusive "sermons," and "forced" show of having fun, make PYC sound like anything but fun. How do they campers to come back the next year when camp turns out to be such a negative experience?

You know you're not very good at mind control when people leave the experience feeling kinda pissed off that you were trying to brainwash them. With any luck, PYC, instead of stemming the flow of youth jumping ship, will have the effect of driving the retention rate down to zero.

Last but not least, I thought she hit the nail on the head in her description of HWA idolizing doctrines being preached by PCG: "Throughout PYC, we were taught that you have to physically do things [sacred rituals] in order for God to accept you, whether that is attending services every Sabbath, tithing, praying "X" amount of times a day, etc."

From my time in Armstrongism, I always felt that what was preached was that some people here are called, chosen, and elected, but that unless you are able to ascend to pretty amazing levels of performance, you're probably not going to "make it," and whatever the future might hold for you, you're definitely unacceptable now, both to God and to the ministers. Armstrongism always made me want to return to my Catholic roots, and pray to St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. Brainwashing you into making you feel like a lost cause is the one bit of mind control that PCG and WCG always did well.

DennisCDiehl said...

Come on PCG lurkers. Man up and put Flurry and Company in their place. They are no more authoritative and special than you allow them to be. Set YOUR boundrries, confront and give no wiggle room to stupid.

You can bet had the boy hemorraged overnight and died in his sleep as is common with baseball hits when all seems well at first, they would have changed the dates and times and made you feel like they did their very best to get in touch as soon as it happened and would be lying to cover their asses.

We are in a time where the left over COG members who follow without question the likes of Flurry and Pack deserve what they get though we do not wish that for them.

These kinds of religious men do well under rocks but not in the light of day

Unknown said...

NEW! - LETTER HOME FROM PCG CAMP

Hello Mudda, hello Fadda,
Here I am at PCG Camp Manilla
Camp is very entertaining,
And they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining.

I went hiking with Joey Spivy;
He developed poison ivy.
You remember Leonard Skinner;
He got salmonella poisoning last night after dinner.

All the counselors hate the waiters,
And the lake has alligators,
And the head coach wants no sissies,
So he reads to us from something called "Ulysses".

Now I don't want this should it scare ya,
But my bunk mate has malaria.
You remember Jeffrey Hardy,
They're about to organize a searching party.

(From the famous "Camp Granada" song)

Joe Moeller
Cody, WY

Byker Bob said...

Here is another issue, held over from the old WCG. I wonder if conditions have been changed so that the virgin daughters of the church are safe from sexual exploitation by the top ministers' sons.

BB