Monday, March 30, 2015

Living Church of God "Updates" On Understanding Has Led To Major Discontent in LCG



There has been several years of constant rumblings about discontent of LCG members in what the Living Church of God is doing.  I received the following email that sheds some light on what has been transpiring and what has led to the continuing discontent.




This letter from Meredith, in my opinion was the beginning of the end for LCG. Around this time was when I noticed members start to openly criticize the leadership in LCG. Winnail came out with an "upgrade" about the "Falling Away" wherein he promoted the notion that the entire world was going to fall away from Christ and His teachings in opposition to the belief that only the little flock or God's true church would have members fall away in the end times which had been widely preached in the COGs for decades. Ames came out at the same time with the "upgrade" that the Saints would go to heaven for the wedding supper in opposition to the belief that was, again, preached for decades, that only the Father and Son were ever to be in heaven and that the Saints would be resurrected to establish the Kingdom on earth. They both gave one sermon on the topic and then expected the sheep to just accept their new "knowledge" without question. They were inspired by God after all so we sheep should just swallow it whole. Forget the notion of "prove all things". We sheep are no longer allowed to think for ourselves. If one were brave enough to question the ministry it would likely lead to the accusation of "causing division". It was at this time that they began to promote the notion that if RCM supported it, it was the same as if Christ himself had stamped His name to it. The mistrust of LCG ministry has been growing ever since. 
 
 



LCG Weekly Update: May 10, 2012
From the Presiding Evangelist

Greetings dear fellow servants,

It was really great to see nearly all of you at our recent General Ministerial Conference! It was so wonderful to renew old friendships, make new ones and have the loving fellowship and inspirational talks that we did. Many, many of the older ministers expressed their feelings that it was the “best ever” conference even going back to Worldwide days.

So I want to thank all of you for your part, for your prayers, and for your love and loyalty. I especially appreciate the wonderful help in organizing and setting up this conference which came from Dr. Doug Winnail, from Mr. Ames, from Jim and Sue Meredith and so many others here at Headquarters. So many pitched in to make it a success—for which we are thankful. All remains well here at Headquarters, and we appreciate the outpouring of positive response to the conference and for the Work in general.

Please follow through by doing all you can to build, to strengthen and inspire our brethren around the world to draw closer to God and to do their part in this vital Work which Christ has given us to do! Please help them think through these “upgrades” in our understanding of the Wedding Supper, of the timeline of final events and also the great apostasy. This is a vital challenge for all of you, and I hope that you can be alert to anyone’s misunderstanding and help them—or help your local elder to work with them to come to understanding on these basic issues and help them realize that these changes are, in fact, simply “updates” of our understanding. As you know, we have always said—at least I have—that “someday” we would get the chance to go to heaven to see our Father even before the end of the Millennium. But we have not nailed it down and given the details of all of this—as Mr. Ames has done in recent months. We have always indicated—at least Mr. Armstrong, and I—that the apostasy would be much broader than just the falling away of a few people in the Worldwide Church. As I indicated at the conference, over 99% of the world never even heard about the Worldwide Church and certainly nothing about that falling away. So the really huge apostasy is still ahead of us—as we have explained—and will affect billions of human beings before it is all over!

Also, I hope all of you will do all you can to “hustle” and personally contact or visit all of the new prospective members coming in from the telecast, from our campaigns and from the Internet and other sources. Please realize the opportunity we have out there right nowbefore they lose interest—and help bring these new people along and bring them into the Church, if God is calling them, so they can be truly strengthened and made part of the “body” which is helping back the Work and get this Message to the whole world.

Things are moving! Even since our conference, as you know, the state of North Carolina overwhelmingly voted against “same-sex marriage.” Yet, the very next day, our American President came out in favor of men marrying men and women marrying women! As one who has been in the ministry now for about 60 years since my graduation from Ambassador College in 1952—this frankly is astonishing in one sense—though many knew this was in President Obama’s heart all along. Never would we have even dreamed of such a thing back during the years of Presidents Truman, Eisenhower or Kennedy. May God have mercy upon us, and upon the other nations where all of us live. We need to pray for our leaders that they will at least not interfere with our opportunity to worship and to do the Work. But we need to cry out more than ever, “Thy kingdom come”!

It is very obvious that God’s Government is desperately needed as more people in Syria are butchered by their own government, as more people are “starving” or being raped or humiliated in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere, and as our own “western,” former “Christian” nations turn further and further away from the God who gives us life and breath. But we can take heart, “fellows,” for as Jesus said, “When you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near” (Luke 21:31).

May God continue to inspire, use and bless all of you in this end-time Work. My prayers are certainly with you—and I deeply appreciated seeing so many of you again. Thank you, again, for your love, your prayers and your dedication to serving God’s people and preparing for His Kingdom!

Your brother in Christ,
 
Roderick C. Meredith

13 comments:

Byker Bob said...

And, where have we seen this before? This could be considered as a move more towards mainstream theology, but just as David Hulme discovered as he attempted to come clean about British Israelism, you just can't change certain things, or the people will revolt. There is no educating away from a mind-set in Armstrongism. Members practically see HWA as a theophany.

In a sense, this is similar to attempting to convince members of certain aboriginal cultures to go to the hospital rather than to see a shaman or witch doctor.

BB

Anonymous said...

Near as I can tell, the Great Apostasy began in the 1930s.

Lake of Fire Church of God said...

The Rod of God said, "As I indicated at the conference, over 99% of the world never even heard about the Worldwide Church and certainly nothing about that falling away".

MY COMMENT - Wait a minute Rod! How can your statement be a true statement from YOU (even though it is true a true statement)? Perhaps you are going senile and have preached but through your 2nd Vice President support of Mr. Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God, we were told that the most important work on earth was being accomplished. Remember the final Gun lap? We were told the Gospel would be preached into ALL the world...that Mr. Armstrong accomplished this Great Commission...and, then the end will come.

You were intimately part of that teaching when you were part of WCG. If 99% of the world have not heard of Worldwide, then how can the Gospel of the Kingdom have been preached into ALL of the world? How can the final witness and warning of the coming Great Tribulation that YOU and the WCG preached for 50 years have been accomplished if as you state 99% of the world have not heard it?

Which is it Rod of God?

Which Rod of God should we believe? The Rod of God from the Worldwide Church of God OR the Rod of God of the Splinter Living Church Of God that appears being more Sardis than The Church of God Seventh Day ever did?

Your statement is public acknowledgement that Herbert Armstrong and the WCG were frauds, and you are too stupid that you don't even understand how you implicated yourself in the fraud when you made this statement.

Why should anyone believe or listening to anything you say now?

Richard

James said...

Richard said: 'Your statement is public acknowledgement that Herbert Armstrong and the WCG were frauds, and you are too stupid that you don't even understand how you implicated yourself in the fraud when you made this statement.

Why should anyone believe or listening to anything you say now?'
____________________
Yes, Richard very well put! HWA was a fraud. Just before he croaked, HWA said that the gospel had gone out to the world. He was implying that the work was done. Herbie and the church just had to wait for Jesus to get off his ass and come on down and smite all the heathen scum that populates this earth.

Meredith and company have changed Herbies words/intent to their discredit. After all, wasn't the false prophet an apostle?

Anonymous said...

I don't know... with all the anger, why isn't it called the Livid Church of God?

Anonymous said...

Lake of Fire Church of God...

The answer is the Rod says that he had to keep Mr. Armstrong on track all the time and keep correcting him. That it was Meredith that had to keep the church together. He has also said that "Mr. Armstrong did not understand who Jesus Christ is." So if Mr. Armstrong did not know Christ...The head of the church. Then was it the Church of God? So whose church is it?

Michael said...

Lake of Fire Church of God said:

"If 99% of the world have not heard of Worldwide, then how can the Gospel of the Kingdom have been preached into ALL of the world? How can the final witness and warning of the coming Great Tribulation that YOU and the WCG preached for 50 years have been accomplished if as you state 99% of the world have not heard it?"

The more members begin to realize this, the better.
That WCGdom is only a thing in their local milieu while being so irrelevant to 99.999% of the world.
There is no "big work" going on in WCG splinterdom, nor was there any.
(For comparison, the JWs have been far, far, far more successful in their evangelism than HWA's followers could ever hope.)

The "final witness" is only in the imagination of the leadership.
Nobody's being "witnessed to", there is no "final gun lap".
Just an religious organization that needs your financial support.

By the way I find it quite laughable when you see the likes of Flurry, Pack or RCM having gained a single subscriber in some country and proclaiming that that country has now been "reached". :-) You can now check off that country on your map.

Michael said...

Oops, the above quote was from Richard, not LakeofFire...

Anonymous said...

oooook then.....they're going to fight and split over a couple of points of prophecy? and minor ones at that??

did it occur to any of them that those things they are disputing about are irrelevent to salvation? (obviously not, since they are getting all worked up over then)

Anonymous said...

The upgrades won't cause a split.

The ungodly behavior of the ministry and prevalent mistrust it creates among the flock will.

Anonymous said...

"oooook then.....they're going to fight and split over a couple of points of prophecy? and minor ones at that?? did it occur to any of them that those things they are disputing about are irrelevent to salvation? (obviously not, since they are getting all worked up over then)"

And it goes without saying that it never occurred to them that "salvation" itself might not be a real thing. Much ado about nothing.

Brian said...

It's sad; all the argument over nothing that has to do with salvation. Just pure speculation from old men - and people will split over which old man's opinion should be believed. Even though most members probably haven't spent more than 10 minutes over the last 10 years caring about the details of the wedding supper - just tell them HWA taught one thing and now it's changing...then watch the sparks fly. So many years of majoring in the minors leads to this.

Anonymous said...

Wow! 2 Timothy 2:14,23; Romans 12:18; Isaiah 42:20;Matthew 4:4;Romans 15:4;Romans 4:23-24; 2 Timothy 3:16; 1 Chronicles 17:24; Matthew 5:17; Romans 3:31; 2 Timothy 2:15 do your own study and get busy with your own business instead of looking for faults of others. We all fall short and want the same thing. God is righteous Christ is righteous and God's law is righteousness Psalm 19:7-12; Romans 7:12 on an on.... do not judge what God may be doing in others James 4:11-12