Saturday, October 29, 2016

The Church of God and Halloween Myths


Its that time of year again and various Church of God groups are starting their annual Halloween traditions.   Satan and his demons are pictured running rampant around the earth on this night looking for naive COG members so they can be swayed away from the "truth once delivered." Church of God members turn off their living rooms lights and slink back into the rear of their houses and try to hide from the evil knocking at their doors.  It's amazing how a church that claims to be God's one true restored church have allowed Satan to have so much power over them.  No other church on the earth has to deal with the constant attacks by Satan than the COG.  Satan is obviously more powerful than that inconvenient Jesus dude.

In 2011 I had the following quotes up from a Conservative COG Yahoo page.  These are the kinds of silliness that occupy the minds of Armstrongites this time of year.

No one ever said Armstrongites were not creative in their thinking!  Eating mice for Halloween?  I feel so left out all these years!


A different spin on it where the kids go trick or treating?
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The church has never stated that. In the histories, when Jeroboam (I think) set up a golden calf in the north in Israel, it's been said that was at Halloween time. In any case, it was a different time than FoT, which it was made to replace.
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I've also heard that this particular holiday was moved from May 1 and that originally it was a remembrance of the dead when Noah & family came out  of the Ark. Imagine how they must have felt, knowing every other living soul was dead... This is how dead became associated with the day. Perhaps.
Is Isaiah a reference to the ancient pagan festival now called halloween with a
Isaiah 66:17 Those who sanctify and purify themselves to enter the groves, imitating one in the center, eating the flesh of the swine, the reptile, and the mouse, shall one and all come to an end - declares the Lord. For I know their deeds and purposes.
We actually have COG members who believe kids eating candy are practicing an ancient custom of worshipping in the groves and that it originally was the day set apart by Noah to commemorate all the dead rotting bodies that covered the earth after the flood.

Here are some pithy says by Richard Ames of the Living Church of God:

Pithy sayings of Richard Ames, Living Church of God 
Should we follow our neighbors, like proverbial lemmings, off the dangerous cliff of pagan practices?

By observing Halloween, we teach our children to make light of Satan the Devil—or even to think like him! Should we then be surprised when our children remain curious about evil—or even invite it—for the rest of the year?

Do we teach our children to attract and cultivate evil spirits at Halloween? Certainly, dressing up like a demon or a witch invites evil rather than opposes it!

Some parents encourage their children to participate in the world of demons. Are some of you parents sacrificing your children to Satan and to wicked spirits

It’s time for such so-called Christians to repent of supporting the Devil and rebelling against Christ!
Dress you baby up for Halloween 
and they will end up devil babies! 

Many years ago Keith Stump, a former Plain Truth writer, penned an article about Halloween that sent diehard COG believers over the edge.  He pointed this out:

"To all COG members out there: 
Is your children’s Christianity so feeble as to be endangered 
by a plastic mask and a few candy bars? 
Are your children so inadequately grounded in their religion 
as to be tempted into a life of witchcraft by attending a costume party? 
Are you yourself so poorly rooted in your faith that you fear your children
 will ask questions to which you have no satisfactory answers?"

I have seen no evidence of children being psychologically warped or seduced into a life of witchcraft and perversion as a result of innocent Halloween activities. I HAVE, however, seen many fearful and superstitious COG children who have been conditioned to be abnormally hypersensitive to anything blackened with the feared label “occult”. One child in particular comes to mind, whom I witnessed shrieking in stark terror at the mere sight of a jack-o-lantern. Are you raising fearful children who, like medieval peasants, see Satan lurking behind every tree and demons skulking in every dark corner? Are you raising children who fear they will “open themselves up” to “demonic control” at any moment by the slightest misstep? What a tenuous, precarious and paranoid spirituality! Satan is a defeated enemy! We need not shrink inanimate mortal remains. Explain that fear of black cats is an ancient superstition of the ignorant. Talk to them about the fanciful creations of horror fiction, like werewolves and vampires. It’s healthy to examine the things that frighten us. Tell them about “ghosts” or disembodied spirits. (The dead are relatively safe; it’s the living you need to watch out for!) And talk to them about the subject of life after physical death. Tell them about the Lord of Life who overcame death. Assuage their fears about those who can kill the body but not the soul.
So here’s my point: Objection to Halloween is a reflection of something much broader: an obsession with trivialities, a confusion of priorities, a primitive fear of the unknown, an arrogance that finds “righteousness” in being odd-ball and out-of-step. Fundamentalists can find something offensive or objectionable in almost anything. They have a world view in which virtually everything is “anti-Christian”. They have lost the ability to filter the important from the inconsequential. The traditional COG prohibition against Halloween ignores the facts of history, misrepresents the modern holiday, and demonstrates a woeful lack of spiritual discernment. 





See:  Halloween Hysteria Is Back In The Churches of God Again

Is Halloween Evil?  Responding to UCG

Keeping Halloween Makes You think About Evil??




Friday, October 28, 2016

The Troubled World of David C Pack and the Restored Church of God



I reached out to an RCG source to get their take on Dave Pack's latest escapade.

They feel that Dave is doubling down on what he has taught.  He has released so much information that even his own members are confused a times.  If they are confused then Church of God members who are not part of RCG are doubly confused.  It is vital to Dave that COG members understand what he has been preaching.  It is important to him that his message be made clear to them so that they can either accept or reject it.  If they reject it then they will be held accountable for that mistake by his god.

Dave feels that his message is similar to the "warning Israel" message that Herbert Armstrong proclaimed in the past, but is now to a new audience, "wayward COG members." Dave seems to think this is the "last step" till Christ returns to Wadsworth and confirms everything he has been teaching.  COG members know how much Dave has deviated from what Herbert Armstrong taught.  It is going to be a monument task for Dave to reconcile all of his previous messages to fit his current "understanding."  Every time Dave preaches or writes and article it deviates from last teachings.

One interesting thing was pointed out by the source about Dave and RCG members.  Now that Dave has sold his home in a public neighborhood and built himself a new home on the compound, he has further isolated himself from reality.  The source questions if Dave was really trying to draw in COG members, but acknowledges that some RCG members may actually believe that is what Dave is attempting to do, but that and they truly do not understand what others outside their group actually think of Dave's message. RCG members have isolated themselves so well that they only listen to what Dave and HQ has to say.  The source had this to say about RCG members perception of those outside the group:
"The thought inside is that people are "watching closely" and "really intrigued" because "their splinters aren't doing or producing as much." 
As has been pointed out here countless times in the past, there is no other Church of God on the entire planet that is as knowledgeable and God driven than the Restored Church of God.   No other Church of God has the depth of understanding that Dave and his church has.  The Philadelphia Church of God, Living Church of God, United Church of God, COGWA and also Bob Thiel and James Malm are incapable of being used by God to gather the church together before the end times.

While the source did not mention this part; I have a sinking feeling that we will see something horrendous happen with RCG members at some point in the future.  Dave is a troubled man that has the potential to be deadly. Those now outside the group are devastated at what they see happening to family members inside. It truly is frightening to see how these everyday church folk, that some of us may know, have let themselves be taken over by Dave's subtle brainwashing.