tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post739735979001543549..comments2024-03-28T07:15:19.938-07:00Comments on Banned by HWA! News and Observations About Armstrongism and the Church of God Movement: Why Did The Race Admission Polices at Ambassador College Change So Rapidly In 1970?NO2HWAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02018654662518613623noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-14389981889241631902017-07-04T22:46:05.646-07:002017-07-04T22:46:05.646-07:00Yes,
That is the bottom line.
The realization of...Yes,<br /><br />That is the bottom line.<br /> The realization of being at the steering wheel yourself. Being abused by your employer, spouse, whatever denomination, multinational selling you sugar or political party.<br /><br />Ncknckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580008070423402328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-32301703896596041162017-07-04T14:48:45.017-07:002017-07-04T14:48:45.017-07:00Bottom line? I'm just ecstatic that the "...Bottom line? I'm just ecstatic that the "millions" referred to by nck never took the final dastardly step that my parents did in the '50s. Basically, the parents I knew died at that time. And life as I had known it ceased to exist until the sun began to peek out from behind the clouds in 1975, when we first knew that it was all shit. After that, there were probably about ten years of rehabillitation, followed by a fairly good life.<br /><br />BBByker Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15602697337552385535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-12243647208999271832017-07-04T12:53:31.052-07:002017-07-04T12:53:31.052-07:004:32
I think the difference is more if people wer...4:32<br /><br />I think the difference is more if people were into the "church" thing OR "the Work" which according to HWA was THE very raison de etre of the church.<br /><br />I have no scolarly opinion on that dogma. Just relating my experience as others are describing their "church" experience, which at least according to the posters on this blog was not satisfactory. <br /><br />Unfortunately it could never be a satisfactory experience without the works. Mushrooms would have done that job.<br /><br />Nck<br /><br />nckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580008070423402328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-7254533530044273722017-07-04T04:32:43.202-07:002017-07-04T04:32:43.202-07:00Nck,
You are addressing the outer face of the Herb...Nck,<br />You are addressing the outer face of the Herb abusive cult. By contrast, BB is discussing the inner face of the cult, which is what that cult really was and still is.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-4760307067896119742017-07-03T10:06:39.495-07:002017-07-03T10:06:39.495-07:00"In the 1950s, Armstrongism was most definite... "In the 1950s, Armstrongism was most definitely NOT a breath of fresh air! "<br /><br />Why then did the WTM draw millions of listeners and did all of the mainstream churches in the Western World loose members?<br /><br />It was new, refreshing, american (thus authoritative for a destructed world), attractive in its offering of a new home to the disenfranchised english speaking servants of the disappearing empires of the day.<br /><br />Your analysis is "after the event".<br /><br />nck<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />nckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580008070423402328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-31962162445052748132017-07-03T06:42:28.501-07:002017-07-03T06:42:28.501-07:00No, nck! In the 1950s, Armstrongism was most defi...No, nck! In the 1950s, Armstrongism was most definitely NOT a breath of fresh air! It was BAD halitosis! The worst! They took away anything about life that could possibly be pleasurable and attempted to substitute instead their little supposedly elite group living under threat of the absolute worst prophecies in the entire history of the world. We had no way of knowing at the time that they would end up being false prophecies, or that although initially cracked, we'd actually be able to recover and to live out some rather full lives. Still, a substantial number of us sincerely wish that Armstrongism had never, ever happened.<br /><br />BBByker Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15602697337552385535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-32819203274357311592017-07-03T01:43:31.321-07:002017-07-03T01:43:31.321-07:00As an aside.
The colonial system instituted many ...As an aside.<br /><br />The colonial system instituted many odd instances of racism.<br />for instance<br />-colored people from the former colonial areas were/are very much aware "who" is whiter and blacker amongst themselves and maintain those differences amongst themselves. This is a residu of the former system on identity and privilege.<br />-in the nineties we all witnessed the "racial" tensions between the hutu and tutsi in central africa. In fact they had come to see themselves as racial tribes due to former colonial favoritism by the former rulers toward one of the groups.<br /><br />Now. BB's remark on the reception on jazz in a rapidly changing society is very interesting. This was exactly NOT the constituency of the first rcg/wcg members in Britain and oversees. <br /><br />I think it is possible to make a case that the first people attracted to the "universal" message of wcg and the rising American Empire were exactly the servants of the former empire in collapse. Establishing or mentally transplanting a new "earth encompassing "kingdom of god" of peace and prosperity. <br /><br />Members joining in the seventies and eighties would follow in the already established mores of the former and perhaps influencing with their own contemporary fantasies on "whole foods" which was an extremely popular topic in the seventies. <br /><br />On a completely different note. Now in 2017. We see the culmination, acceptance and implementation of a lot of the ideals from the fifties up to seventies in larger society. Although they are called hipster or millenial values now.<br />Club of Rome is not so different from the current "Global Warming" movement.<br />And the PT was adressing these issues way before the current implementation of globalisation.<br /><br /><br />nck<br />nckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580008070423402328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-46548143951813855842017-07-03T00:01:46.146-07:002017-07-03T00:01:46.146-07:005:56
8:47
Yes. This subject cannot be covered in ...5:56<br />8:47<br /><br />Yes. This subject cannot be covered in a few blog postings.<br /><br />It deals with "social stratification", based on "birth", "merit", "wealth" etc.<br /><br />There are experiences and individual theories often related on this blog and there is institutional racism and corporate culture.<br /><br />HWA. Yes, as a 25? year old paymaster at the mill he dealt with the uneducated (offspring) of slaves who still suffered the consequences. His experiences with the uneducated did not favor his impression of their ability to act independently. He blamed it on education though not some dna defect.<br /><br />In Marseille he regrets not being able to see the Harlem Globetrotters who he had seen many times before and enjoyed their performance.<br /><br /><br />Pacific Northwest. (Bordering on Vancouver?) Interesting to see the history of the dissimenation of ideas. For the Southerners the biblical promised land for the tribes was "Northwest" as it says in the bible. <br /><br />Anyway, in the 1950"s Armstrongism was a breath of fresh air coming along/as a side effect of the democratizing/americanization of the world through the expanding american empire and the collapse of the european colonial system.<br /><br />In 1947 when HWA tries to establish Ambassador College in Italy OR Switzerland he still travels around as the naive, idealistic, "odd american". Gathering input from and more contacts "out" of the church than "in" the church, democratic and cosmopolitan priding himself in his English heritage as one of the first American families.<br /><br /><br />With the expansion of the church in size but also internationally to Bricket Wood. The British class system creeps in its institution and habits become institutionalized.<br /><br />One day, travelling to the SEP camp, I fled the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace because of heavy rain. I found shelter in one of the adjacent buildings. Looking at the sign I found myself in the "British Israel World Federation" building or something.<br />It was through this coincidence that I realized HWA had not expounded his theory on sole American ideas on tribal migration.<br /><br />nck nckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580008070423402328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-51203363040017771742017-07-02T20:47:05.040-07:002017-07-02T20:47:05.040-07:00Gee, nck! How refreshing! Most people blame &qu...Gee, nck! How refreshing! Most people blame "the South" and "rednecks" for the racism that crept into the WCG. But, as you've observed before, there was racism in the Pacific Northwest (KKK chapters) and many white militia types have moved to places like Idaho and Montana. I really don't think that anyone has the corner on racism. But, blaming it on that haven for jazz musicians, England, following World War II? That's a new slant!<br /><br />Actually, HWA's own autobiography tells the tale. It's been decades since I've read it, but as a young man, a supervisor at a mill or lumber place, HWA pulled a gun on a brother named Hub Evans, and he launched into some demeaning descriptives of people of color as he related this personal experience narrative. Racial prejudice was a long term character defect for HWA. He created his church in his own image. That's why they call it a personality cult.<br /><br />BBByker Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15602697337552385535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-87015683260070085822017-07-02T17:56:33.475-07:002017-07-02T17:56:33.475-07:00nck, You are wrong about the British, well I am o...nck, You are wrong about the British, well I am one, so I feel my opinion is valid. England was ruled by the class system which was way stronger than race, so that a person of color from one of the colonies who came from a well-to-do and well educated family was viewed as higher status than the regular mass of working class in Britain. The English elite were hated universally by the English lower classes, they were a lazy bunch who equated success with endless leisure broken up with hunting and gossipy social lives, and the occasional production of satirical writing. They sent their rebel sons to the colonies just to get rid of them and keep the status quo.<br /> <br />Generally the new world was populated with the British lower classes and the criminal and troublesome sons of the degenerate elite. The funny thing is that when America became prosperous many Americans aspired to become English gentlemen, when the English themselves had a hard time not doing what the French did to their aristocracy.<br />HWA was a good example of one who wanted to be an aristocrat when really everyone admires the American self-made man way more. <br /><br />So please don't tar the English with the same brush as elitist, superior etc. Never heard of 'the working class hero'?<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-36347101890216459702017-07-02T09:44:11.770-07:002017-07-02T09:44:11.770-07:00I believe some mistakenly believe that Pasadena wa...I believe some mistakenly believe that Pasadena was forced by the IRS to change its policy and through sheer luck managed to maintain the rules in England.<br /><br />It is my opinion that most of the elitism and racism creeped into the church through its worldwide expansion especially its exposure to the anglo saxon world, re former british empire.<br /><br />As has been shown often on "banned" originally hwa was quite "democratic" or "american" about issues like "church government". Reasoning in a way that would be incomprenhenisble in the "old country" and its established churches.<br /><br />Also HWA mingled freely among the students and members before the church was exposed to british elitism and fantasies about superiority of their race.<br /><br /><br />Only in the United States could a church like rcg emerge and flourish in the way it did. Rigourous governmental controls and ancient traditions were smashed by the swagger of the american churches. This newness must have been a major distraction from the rusty european ways. <br /><br />nck<br />nckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580008070423402328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-30171900928881117502017-07-01T20:38:36.377-07:002017-07-01T20:38:36.377-07:00The story wasn't completely unknown. I heard ...The story wasn't completely unknown. I heard that accepting single black students was done to preserve tax-exempt status, in late 1975 or early 1976, from someone who had been a Pasadena student in 1969-1973. (No, it wasn't Joe Junior.) What I didn't know was how recent it had been; I found that out in this post.<br /><br />I'm surprised that John Trechak didn't know. He was around during that time, wasn't he? I suspect he did know but never got around to publishing it. Or maybe the story would not have been as shocking then as it is now, forty years later.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-7657963656181344352017-07-01T19:42:44.470-07:002017-07-01T19:42:44.470-07:00I noticed thatWGN is not running World Tomorrow or...I noticed thatWGN is not running World Tomorrow or Key of David broadcasts anymore. I guess informercials about Lifelock or baldness are more importantthe Ocelothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07042237147554687481noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-15595144177492216692017-07-01T17:51:25.713-07:002017-07-01T17:51:25.713-07:00By the time I came along, this was in the past, an...By the time I came along, this was in the past, and I didnt learn its full scope until much later.<br />I did know racism in the WCG well, as bugeyed as they got when we "black brethren" got out of what they saw as our "place". Some overt, conscious racists, many more unconscious, unaware ones. <br /><br />RSKnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-84130747621420105342017-07-01T16:30:08.362-07:002017-07-01T16:30:08.362-07:00Four of five of these kids got expelled. The fift...Four of five of these kids got expelled. The fifth was faculty child and got to stay.<br />The shocked student that came in turned them in. lol<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52pPBjJKQ2A&list=PLO8WNcXElYpPdwQQ3GxStvF1OIApcygah<br /><br />Boys will be boys<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS1xz0PTHIQ&index=2&list=<br /><br />"The World's Most Unusual University"<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QusbrshfEew<br /><br />DennisCDiehlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10417850852638492246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-32945023645110824792017-07-01T16:14:10.668-07:002017-07-01T16:14:10.668-07:00Having lived 20 years within a couple blocks of Bo...Having lived 20 years within a couple blocks of Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC, known a number of students had students and faculty as clients, I can say it was Ambassador College on steroids. Billy Graham went to BJU and was rejected by them when he suggested going to all the world as he did. I suspect Bob Jones the first was somewhat jealous of Billy's success. The "Left Behind Series" is a product of BJU graduates. <br /><br />They had all the drama of the Armstrongs and HWA and Bob Jones the First were contemporaries and well aware of each other I believe. Every day when I drove by there were former students, members and faculty walking out front protesting one thing or another. <br /><br />When I questioned one student on the origins of humans vs the Genesis account, the student just said, "I just believe what they tell me." <br /><br />Graduates were encouraged to get into local Greenville government as well as police departments. One Sheriff deputy I did some teaching with was one of the strangest human beings I had ever met on topics I will refrain from. They loved law and being the ones to enforce it it always seemed to me. <br /><br />You could get kicked out of BJU faster than you could imagine for things you couldn't imagine. They also have a fairly large gay community among students no different in proportion than any other place. Their art, drama and music programs attract and one gay client told me "it is the perfect place to hide because they think my compliance to not dating girls is being a good student." <br /><br />The standard joke in Greenville was that we had two Universities. Furman University, known as FU and BJ. One of the Bob Jones sons , they all were called Bob Jones in succession, left the family, came out as gay and went to work in Washington. <br /><br />Bob Jones Senior told students, when alive, that it would be over his dead body when kissing would be allowed on campus between students. Of course, he was buried on campus and ..well...you know where they go to kiss.DennisCDiehlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10417850852638492246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-36084387815516126882017-07-01T15:03:42.077-07:002017-07-01T15:03:42.077-07:00Connie Schmidt,
Thank you for your comment and in...Connie Schmidt,<br /><br />Thank you for your comment and insight. I certainly have no way to know to how LCG's 1% view this matter. You may well be right that this is some sort of strategic realignment of their strategy to get more converts.Redfox712https://www.blogger.com/profile/17734930967002040931noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-91754039471684320362017-07-01T14:33:50.699-07:002017-07-01T14:33:50.699-07:00Great article about racism at AC in the 70s. But ...Great article about racism at AC in the 70s. But don't forget what happened after the Feds had forced the college to do the right thing on race.<br /><br />After GTA's ouster, the Pasadena campus was closed. It was slowly resurrected -- at first as kind of a divinity school. Raymond F. NcNair was its new deputy chancellor. I was hired as his administrative assistant within days of his being put in charge.<br /><br />One of his top priorities seemed to be the reintroduction and enforcement of the no-interracial-dating policy. We used to wince when RFM's student Forum speeches included his infamous "dog and cattle stories" where he explained how you wouldn't want to mix your Holsteins with your Longhorns in the same way you don't want to mix black people with white people.<br /><br />I remember one black employee of the college. His name was Ray Willingham. He was dating a white student. RFM would call him into his office and merciless berate him -- trying to convince him to break up with this girl. Willingham never caved. So RFM had him first fired. Then he had him disfellowshipped.<br /><br />I still ask God to forgive me for being the one who delivered the disfellowshipment letter to Willingham at his home. I wish Willingham were still alive so i could apologize to him. But i understand he has passed away.Wes Whitenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-84409793552227604122017-07-01T14:19:15.644-07:002017-07-01T14:19:15.644-07:0012.03 PM
The term 'religious right' doesn&...12.03 PM<br />The term 'religious right' doesn't do justice to American Christianity. A list of traits would be more accurate. If you look long and hard, you find a mixture of left and right wing beliefs. For instance, most xCOGs are for strong national defence (stand up to international bullies) but teach members to be passive in their personal lives, especially in their dealings with ministers.<br />They hide it with bible window dressing, but American Christianity is a house divided in their beliefs.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-20348689949270510432017-07-01T13:48:29.614-07:002017-07-01T13:48:29.614-07:00The religious right, as does any broadbased moveme...The religious right, as does any broadbased movement, had multiple factors birthing it. Some have attempted to reduce it to a singular seminal event, as did Randall Balmer, who is widely regarded as being the first to attribute it all to racism. In an educated society labeling something as racist is considered the kiss of death (as well it should be if that description is accurate!) The truth is, the religious right was an inclusive umbrella-movement, not a one trick pony.<br /><br />There may well have been a handful of racists attracted to the religious right. Racists, after all, are not a monolithic group either. However, the Moral Majority attempted a more comprehensive solution to what they saw as a departure towards secular humanism, and away from traditional values, and they worked to reverse and repudiate the attitudes and values advanced by the hippie youth movement (sex and drugs and rock n roll), the women's equality movement, and the gay pride movement. When Jimmy Carter was elected as President, it appeared that the battle for the soul of the USA had been lost. Jerry Fallwell, through Liberty University (fully accredited) began graduating thousands of young people into fields and professions deemed influential, such as the legal profession, field of education, and journalism, in a calculated attempt to reverse the trends of the day. By the time Ronald Reagan was elected, the religious right was a very powerful group with which to be reckoned, and fully embraced by the Republican Party. It was in full bloom by the time of Reagan's reelection, and that of Bush I.<br /><br />The story of race relations (correcting one of what Dr. Condoleeza Rice termed as one of the USA's major "birth defects") is the story of societal evolution. But, the ACOGs do not believe in evolution, they only believe in degeneration. Unfortunately, evolution has many more miles to travel before the problem is completely resolved. And, it will never be resolved by Herbert W. Armstrong's "god" reimposing segregation upon humanity. According to his misguided precepts, you'd have to start with Manasseh and Ephraim's mommy, who could well have been a Nubian Egyptian. The Bible just doesn't specify.<br /><br />BBByker Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15602697337552385535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-58921080032983340042017-07-01T13:16:05.548-07:002017-07-01T13:16:05.548-07:00Wow 12:03
Since colored couples studied at AC. Al...Wow 12:03<br /><br />Since colored couples studied at AC. Along the children of Asian elites, japanese secretaries of state to be ahttp://www.oldpicsarchive.com/beautiful-ladies-of-1900-1910s-19-vintage-postcards/19/nd children of singapores key leaders. Are you proving AC was not part of the christian right but rather part of the globalist wilsonian faction of the us establishment?<br /><br />Ncknckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14580008070423402328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-23481177967444697122017-07-01T12:03:08.730-07:002017-07-01T12:03:08.730-07:00Desegregation helped create the religious right. E...Desegregation helped create the religious right. Even today, the Trump administration claims millions of illegal votes caused him to lose the popular vote.<br />I.E. not white voters.<br /><br /><br />http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133#.U4cuc15MkmY<br /><br />The Real Origins of the Religious Right <br /><br />They’ll tell you it was abortion. Sorry, the historical record’s clear: It was segregation...<br /><br />The IRS was not placated. On January 19, 1976, after years of warnings—integrate or pay taxes—the agency rescinded the school’s tax exemption. <br /><br />For many evangelical leaders, who had been following the issue since Green v. Connally, Bob Jones University was the final straw. As Elmer L. Rumminger, longtime administrator at Bob Jones University, told me in an interview, the IRS actions against his school “alerted the Christian school community about what could happen with government interference” in the affairs of evangelical institutions. “That was really the major issue that got us all involved.” <br /><br />Weyrich saw that he had the beginnings of a conservative political movement, which is why, several years into President Jimmy Carter’s term, he and other leaders of the nascent religious right blamed the Democratic president for the IRS actions against segregated schools—even though the policy was mandated by Nixon, and Bob Jones University had lost its tax exemption a year and a day before Carter was inaugurated as president. Falwell, Weyrich and others were undeterred by the niceties of facts. In their determination to elect a conservative, they would do anything to deny a Democrat, even a fellow evangelical like Carter, another term in the White House. <br /><br />But Falwell and Weyrich, having tapped into the ire of evangelical leaders, were also savvy enough to recognize that organizing grassroots evangelicals to defend racial discrimination would be a challenge. It had worked to rally the leaders, but they needed a different issue if they wanted to mobilize evangelical voters on a large scale... <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-48726768032135680902017-07-01T09:58:18.881-07:002017-07-01T09:58:18.881-07:00The point is that it should be left up to the peop...The point is that it should be left up to the people of color themselves to decide where they would like to go, and where they would prefer not to go. It is morally and ethically reprehensible to preach that you are the only true church, and the only path to salvation, only to exclude select individuals based on their genetic makeup, or to force them to endure treatment as second class as a proviso to their membership.<br /><br />Remember, British Israelism was actually extrapolated over the Millennium, too. Anyone with any readily noticeable "negroid" physical characteristics was supposedly going to be sent to "their own homeland". (a WCG euphemism if there ever was one). The ministers did not come right out and use the "N" word, or use blatant phrases like "send them back to Africa", but the sanitized verbiage in the church literature, official policies, and sermons managed to promote the same racism spouted by the KKK and other similar organizations.<br /><br />I really get sick of hearing the lame excuse that "God's Church" was a product of the times, and was simply mirroring what was going on in the surrounding society of the day. If an organization were "God's Church", what would be taught there would be truly transcendent, impacting the surrounding culture in a Christlike fashion, with the best and greatest information available. There are many ways in which we really sucked as a church, and this is one of the very worst ways.<br /><br />BBByker Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15602697337552385535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-69209279693744940702017-07-01T09:44:24.442-07:002017-07-01T09:44:24.442-07:00Continued ...
Garner Ted Armstrong, in a correspo...Continued ...<br /><br />Garner Ted Armstrong, in a correspondence to me, traced the racism in the WCG to British-Isrealism. In the letter he did not deny racism, notice, but simply acknowledged it as fact implicitly by tracing its origin. <br /> <br />When I showed up on the AC BS campus in the early Seventies, I was told by a former AC Pasadena student that Gentiles (including Blacks)were not admitted to AC because the Gentile mind could not comprehend the Godly education taught there. It was "Israelites" only. Gentiles were like Tolkien's Orcs - without human hearts. This was an earlier stage of racism that rejected not only Blacks but anyone who could be thought of as a Gentile by the standards of British Israelism. This appeals profoundly to the people of Greater Appalachia who have a secular history of racism and the enslavement of Blacks. (The people of Great Appalachia also dislike Jews but that loose end was taken care of some years later on the AC BS campus with the promulgation of the idea that the people we call Jews are really Gentiles.) I believe it appeals to them to this day and to their representatives in the WCG. The Confederate South, to the dismay of every reasonable mind and to the joy of the bigoted, rose again at AC BS. <br /><br />After this background, my observation is that it is remarkable how adept the WCG was at dissimulation when there was a threat from the IRS. This is a sign not of spirituality but of cynical expediency. The artful dodger pirouettes again.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487906691943831671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226103369043606765.post-47031696632623710872017-07-01T09:43:52.320-07:002017-07-01T09:43:52.320-07:00"... their God-given right to be racist on bi..."... their God-given right to be racist on biblical grounds." <br /><br />This statement needs to be unpacked. The Bible is not inherently a racist document. The Bob Jones people, the Armstrongists and others of that ilk may interpret it to be so. That is their idiosyncratic interpretation that originates in their trove of personal and secular beliefs. They mapped their personal racism onto the Bible. <br /><br />The bible is, rather, a document of election. The Jews were elect and, hence, mankind is divided into two groups based on spiritual and not biological principles:<br />Jews and Gentiles. This is a leitmotif in the bible up to the time that Paul proclaims this partitioning between Jew and Gentile to no longer be in effect.<br /><br />How racial differences are dealt with is a matter of pragmatism in human culture, ethics, social viewpoint and maturity. It lies outside the pale of biblical revelation. How racial differences are treated is a criterion on which people will be judged like the handling of property and sexual relations and other forms of human activity. It has to do with the treatment of other human beings who bear the image of God. This is a litmus test that many right-wing religious organizations fail dramatically. The Southern Baptist Church of Greater Appalachia is a notable failure in this along with the WCG. <br /><br />In other words, for a Black person to marry a White person is not a religious issue that must be addressed by Church Administration but must be decided pragmatically. But people always want to believe that their personal opinions are held also by God. <br /> <br />I have written about this many times before so I will try to be mercifully brief. The bible nowhere says that the Canaanites are of a different race than the Jews. Herman Hoeh said that. He derived this from what Armstrongists would call pagan churchianity. The erroneous idea is that the races of the world all derive from Shem, Ham and Japheth and that the events of early Genesis are not local but global. Genetics provides scientific evidence that this interpretation of reality is profoundly flawed.<br /><br />Against the backdrop of Genetics, Adam was a Neolithic farmer who had to have been haplogroup J and gave rise to a group of clans (erroneously called "The Table of Nations" by the King James people)who were also haplogroup J. Not surprisingly, some geneticists supported by the National Geographic Society discovered that the ancient Phoenicians and their Canaanites predecessors were haplogroup J just like the Jews and most other Middle Eastern peoples. Canaanites were racially indistinguishable from Jews - the art of the day supports this. They were not Blacks and biblical condemnation of them was not based on race but on religion. Phoenicians are identified by the National Geographic researchers with the modern day Lebanese. Adam and all his descendants were haplogroup J. And there is much more to this account.<br /><br />Herman Hoeh, a few years before he passed away, claimed in correspondence to me that there was never, ever a religious foundation to the WCG belief in racial segregation. He claimed that it was entirely a matter of the WCG following the norms of American Society at the time. Like the kid who steals from the cookie jar and then says "well, everybody's doing it." Hoeh's argument was, of course, facile. Why he claimed this is yet a mystery. Especially since the flawed religious foundation of WCG racism is easily to be found in WCG documents, literature, much eyewitness testimony - such as G. Doudna's astute research has revealed. <br /><br />Continued ...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487906691943831671noreply@blogger.com