What exactly is missing from Christ's work that requires another man to come along and finish it?

The never-ending Armstrongist restoration project and the curious need 

for another human being to finish what Jesus Christ supposedly left undone.

For decades, Herbert W. Armstrong was presented by many of his followers as the end-time Elijah, the man commissioned by God to restore all the truths supposedly lost by Christianity. He was the great restorer, the apostle of the twentieth century, the man who supposedly brought back the original teachings of the first-century Church.

Then Herbert Armstrong died in 1986. The Great Tribulation did not arrive as anticipated. Christ did not return. The prophetic timetable continued to require adjustment, and the supposedly restored Church found itself divided into numerous competing organizations, each with its own interpretation of what Herbert Armstrong had taught.

But rather than reconsidering the underlying theology, Armstrongism did what it has become remarkably good at doing: it found another explanation.

Apparently, Herbert Armstrong wasn't the final Elijah after all!

And now, according to Bob Thiel's latest explanation, there must be another Elijah in the twenty-first century. Furthermore, the Continuing Church of God has supposedly restored truths that Herbert Armstrong missed, and it is apparently the place for the final Elijah, who is none other than Bob himself..

How convenient!

But underneath the sarcasm is a much more serious theological problem.

Why does Armstrongism continually need another human being to finish what Jesus Christ said he has already accomplished?

1. Herbert Armstrong: The Elijah Who Wasn't Quite Elijah

Bob begins his argument by acknowledging something rather inconvenient for those who insist that Herbert Armstrong was the end-time Elijah.

Herbert himself said: "I have been asked 'Are you the Elijah?' And I say 'No.'" That statement appeared in the March 6, 1981, issue of the Worldwide News. One would think that might settle the matter. After all, if the individual supposedly fulfilling the prophecy says he isn't Elijah, perhaps his followers should take him at his word.

But Bob has a different explanation. He points out that Herbert Armstrong also wrote that Elijah would come at the very end of the Church age and that the Church age had not yet ended when Armstrong died. Therefore, according to Bob, another Elijah must appear.

Notice the remarkable Armstrongite theological gymnastics involved here.

Instead of asking whether the entire Armstrongist interpretation of the Elijah prophecy might be mistaken, Bob simply assumes the prophecy must still be awaiting fulfillment by another Armstrongist personality. The original Elijah died. The restoration was incomplete. Therefore, another restorer is required.

It is a self-perpetuating arrangement. Every time the previous restorer fails to complete the assignment, the movement can simply appoint another one, or better yet, appointed oneself.

And apparently, the job description comes with an attractive collection of privileges: special prophetic understanding, authority over the faithful, the ability to identify everyone else's doctrinal errors, and the opportunity to explain why one's own organization is the one God is using.

2. Did Jesus Christ Leave Something Important Unfinished?

Here is where the entire Armstrongist premise needs to be examined against the New Covenant.

The New Testament does not present Jesus Christ as an assistant to some future human restorer. It presents Him as the culmination of God's revelation and the sufficient Savior and mediator of the New Covenant.

Hebrews 1:1-2 states:

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.

Notice the contrast.

God spoke through the prophets in earlier times. Now He has spoken through His Son.

The author of Hebrews does not introduce another prophetic personality who will eventually arrive to correct deficiencies in Christ's teaching. He directs attention to Christ.

Hebrews continues by describing Jesus as the heir of all things and the One through whom God made the worlds. This is not an insignificant theological detail. It establishes the supremacy of Christ.

The New Covenant is not a temporary arrangement waiting for some modern religious leader to complete its doctrinal restoration. Jesus Christ is the mediator of that covenant.

Timothy 2:5 tells us: For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.

One mediator.

Not Herbert Armstrong.

Not Bob Thiel.

Not a future apostle.

Not a self-appointed Elijah.

Jesus Christ.

The entire premise of continually looking for another human restorer raises a fundamental question: What exactly is missing from Christ's work that requires another man to come along and finish it?

Apparently, according to Armstrongist thinking, Christ established the Church, provided the Gospel, gave His teachings, commissioned His apostles, and established the New Covenant, but somehow left an important doctrinal restoration project unfinished for a twentieth- or twenty-first-century religious leader. That is a rather extraordinary way of diminishing the sufficiency of Christ.

Colossians 2:9-10 says that in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and that believers are complete in Him.

Complete in Him!

Not complete in Herbert Armstrong.

Not complete in the Philadelphia Church of God.

Not complete in the Continuing Church of God.

And certainly not complete only after receiving the latest revelations of whichever Armstrongist leader currently believes he has discovered something everyone else missed.

3. What About Elijah Restoring All Things?

Bob repeatedly appeals to Matthew 17:11: "Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things." He treats this passage as proof that another end-time human Elijah must appear. But there is something rather important in the very same passage that Bob's argument does not adequately address.

Read the surrounding verses.

Matthew 17:12-13 says: "But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished."

Then the disciples understood that He was speaking to them about John the Baptist.

This is important.

Jesus Himself identified John the Baptist with the Elijah expectation.

Luke 1:17 had already described John's ministry as going before the Lord "in the spirit and power of Elijah."

John was not literally the ancient prophet Elijah returned to earth. Rather, he fulfilled the prophetic role associated with Elijah.

John prepared the way for Christ.

And what was the central message of John?

Repentance.

He pointed people toward the coming Messiah.

He did not establish a new religious organization, publish a competing collection of doctrinal discoveries, or demand that people recognize him as the final authority over the Christian faith.

Most importantly, John pointed away from himself and toward Jesus.

John 3:30 records his attitude: "He must increase, but I must decrease."

That is a rather inconvenient attitude for anyone building a religious following around his own supposed prophetic importance. The Elijah passage cannot simply be turned into a blank check for every religious leader who believes he has discovered something previous generations overlooked. There is a difference between understanding the prophetic role of Elijah and using that prophecy to establish personal religious authority.

Bob needs to demonstrate why his particular interpretation requires a future Armstrongist restorer rather than simply assuming that it does.

4. The New Covenant Does Not Need Another Herbert Armstrong

One of the central problems with Armstrongism is its persistent obsession with restoring supposed lost truths. Armstromgism operates on the assumption that Christianity lost essential doctrines and that God had to raise up Herbert Armstrong to restore them.

Then, after Armstrong's death, his followers began arguing over which of his teachings were correct, which were incomplete, and which needed further restoration. Now Bob tells us that Herbert failed to restore everything and that the CCOG has restored additional fundamental truths.

But consider what the New Testament actually teaches.

Jude 3 speaks of "the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints."

The Christian faith was delivered. The apostles proclaimed the Gospel, established churches, taught believers, and passed on the foundational message of Christ.

Ephesians 2:20 describes the Church as being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ Himself as the chief cornerstone.

A foundation is not something that must continually be replaced by another foundation every time a religious leader decides that the previous one was inadequate. Christianity certainly requires continued teaching, learning, correction, and spiritual growth. Nobody is suggesting that Christians have exhausted every possible understanding of Scripture.

But there is a tremendous difference between growing in understanding and claiming that an essential part of the Christian faith was missing until a modern religious organization restored it. The New Covenant does not require an endless succession of religious restorers.

It requires faith in Christ, obedience flowing from faith, love for God and neighbor, and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit.

The apostles did not tell Christians to wait for another Herbert Armstrong.

They told them to remain faithful to Christ.

5. Bob's Two Newly Restored Fundamental Truths

Bob then explains that Herbert Armstrong failed to restore two supposedly fundamental truths.

First, why God created anything.

Second, why God created each individual.

According to Bob, God created everything so eternity would be better, and each individual exists to develop character and eventually contribute uniquely to making eternity better through giving love.

There is nothing inherently objectionable about discussing God's purposes, the importance of love, or the idea that human beings have unique gifts and abilities. Those are worthwhile subjects.

But Bob takes these ideas and elevates them into two basic truths that supposedly required restoration through the Continuing Church of God.

Really?

Did Christianity somehow overlook the importance of love for nearly two thousand years?

Did the apostles fail to understand that Christians should use their abilities to serve others?

Did Jesus forget to explain that love was central to the Kingdom of God?

Matthew 22:37-40, where Jesus identifies love for God and neighbor as the foundation of the law and the prophets.

John 13:34-35, where Jesus gives His disciples the commandment to love one another and explains that this love will identify His followers.

1 Corinthians 13, where Paul explains the supreme importance of love.

Ephesians 2:10, which describes believers as God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.

1 Peter 4:10, which instructs believers to use their gifts to serve one a

Apparently, all of these passages were sitting in the Bible for centuries, waiting for Bob Thiel and the Continuing Church of God to discover the missing theological ingredient. One wonders how Christianity managed to survive without this particular restoration.

The problem isn't that Bob discusses God's purpose or the importance of giving love. The problem is his extraordinary claim that these ideas constitute fundamental truths that Herbert Armstrong failed to restore and that the CCOG has now recovered.

A religious leader can develop an interpretation of Scripture without declaring that he has restored a lost fundamental truth.

There is a difference between offering an explanation and claiming a special divine commission.

6. The Growing List of Restored Truths: A Convenient Way to Establish Superiority

There is a particularly circular quality to this argument. Bob says that the final Elijah must restore all things. He then says the CCOG has restored many things. He then concludes that the final Elijah must be associated with the CCOG. But where is the independent biblical demonstration that these particular teachings constitute the restoration Jesus described? Where is the proof that the CCOG's interpretations are correct simply because the CCOG publishes them?

And where is the New Testament instruction telling Christians that they must identify and follow a modern organization claiming to have restored truths missed by the apostles and the historical Church?

The number of subjects on a restoration list does not answer those questions.

It merely creates a longer list.

And if the measure of spiritual authority is the number of things one claims to have restored, the competition among Armstrongist splinter groups could continue indefinitely.

Each group can produce its own list, declare its own leader specially commissioned, and explain why everyone else is missing the truth.

It is religious one-upmanship disguised as prophetic fulfillment.

7. The Strange Obsession With Philadelphia and Laodicea

Bob also devotes considerable attention to the Philadelphia and Laodicean churches.

He argues that the Philadelphia remnant must continue until the end of the age and that the CCOG expects to be that continuing remnant.

He even makes an interesting linguistic observation about Hebrews 13:1, where the Greek word Philadelphia is translated as brotherly love.

But the fact that the Greek word for brotherly love is Philadelphia does not establish that Hebrews 13:1 is a coded instruction for the Philadelphia Church era to continue. The passage is an exhortation to Christians to continue loving one another. It is not a secret organizational endorsement.

This is a recurring problem with Armstrongist interpretation.

Ordinary biblical expressions are frequently turned into organizational labels, prophetic classifications, and declarations about which modern church group supposedly possesses God's approval.

The New Testament, however, places extraordinary emphasis on the character of Christian believers rather than their membership in a particular modern religious corporation.

Jesus said in John 13:35 that people would recognize His disciples by their love for one another.

He did not say that they would recognize them by their ability to identify the correct Philadelphia remnant, calculate prophetic timetables, or determine which modern leader had restored the greatest number of doctrines.

And Revelation 3:10 should not be treated as a blank check allowing any organization to claim that it alone possesses Christ's promise of protection.

A church leader cannot simply announce that his organization is Philadelphia and expect the announcement itself to establish the claim.

8. The New Covenant Replaces the Need for a Religious Celebrity

Here is the central issue that Armstrongism repeatedly seems unable to grasp.

The Christian faith is centered on Jesus Christ.

The New Covenant is established through Him, not through a succession of modern religious personalities.

Hebrews 8:6 describes Christ as the mediator of a better covenant, established on better promises.

Hebrews 10:12-14 describes His sacrifice as sufficient, offered once for all.

The New Testament does not present Christ's work as an unfinished project requiring another human being to restore essential truths before the Christian faith can finally be complete.

The Holy Spirit guides believers, enables spiritual growth, and helps the Church understand and apply the teachings of Christ.

Christians can learn from teachers, pastors, evangelists, and fellow believers. They can examine Scripture, correct errors, and deepen their understanding.

But no modern minister should be elevated into a position where his personal claims of restoration become the measuring stick of Christian faithfulness.

The apostolic instruction is to test teachings, not surrender one's judgment to someone claiming a special prophetic identity.

Acts 17:11 commends the Bereans because they examined the Scriptures daily to determine whether Paul's teaching was true. Notice that even Paul's teaching was examined against Scripture. How much more should the claims of modern religious personalities be examined?

A Christian does not need to wait for Bob Thiel, Herbert Armstrong, or another self-proclaimed restorer to explain whether Jesus Christ is sufficient.

The answer is already in the New Testament.

9. The Never-Ending Elijah Sweepstakes

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Bob's argument is its ability to keep the Armstrongist restoration system alive regardless of what happens.

Herbert Armstrong was supposed to restore the truths.

He died.

Another Elijah must come.

The final restoration was supposed to occur at the end of the Church age.

The Church age supposedly continues.

Therefore, another restorer must be waiting in the wings.

The CCOG has supposedly restored truths that Armstrong missed.

Therefore, the organization is apparently preparing the way for the final Elijah.

And somewhere in all of this, ordinary Christians are expected to believe that they cannot simply trust Christ and the apostolic Gospel without first identifying the correct modern religious organization.

It is a remarkable arrangement.

There is always another restoration to complete, another prophecy to explain, another doctrine to recover, another church group to reject, and another leader who understands what all the previous leaders supposedly missed. At what point does someone stop and ask whether the entire system is built on a mistaken premise?

If Jesus Christ is the mediator of the New Covenant, if the apostles delivered the Christian faith, and if believers are complete in Christ, why must Christians continually search for another human Elijah?

Perhaps the problem isn't that the restoration is incomplete.

Perhaps the problem is the assumption that Christianity ever needed the kind of restoration Armstrongism claims.

10. Christ Is the Way, Not the Latest Restoration Project

The most important question is not whether Bob Thiel has published more material than Herbert Armstrong, whether the CCOG has restored more doctrines than another splinter group, or whether some future Armstrongist leader will claim to possess the final prophetic commission.

The important question is whether Christians are being directed toward Jesus Christ or toward another human authority.

Jesus said in John 14:6:

"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Notice that Jesus did not say that He was the way, the truth, and the life until a future Elijah arrived to restore the missing pieces.

He did not say that salvation required membership in a particular Philadelphia-era organization.

He did not say that Christians would need a succession of modern apostles to explain what He supposedly left unfinished. He pointed people to Himself. Bob Thiel points people to himself.

That is the central distinction between the New Covenant and the Armstrongist restoration mentality. Under the New Covenant, Christ is sufficient. The Gospel does not need to be reinvented, repackaged, or repeatedly restored by men who believe they possess a special commission unavailable to the rest of Christianity.

There will always be more to learn from Scripture. There will always be room for better understanding, correction, and spiritual growth. But there is a world of difference between growing in Christ and claiming to be the instrument through which Christ's supposedly incomplete message is finally restored.And perhaps that is the one truth Armstrongism desperately needs to rediscover:

Christianity is not waiting for another Elijah. It is called to follow Jesus Christ.

Herbert Armstrong is dead. His religious empire fragmented. The various splinter groups continue competing over who inherited the mantle, who has the most truth, and who is faithfully continuing the Work. And now Bob Thiel wants everyone to understand that the restoration is still underway.

Perhaps it is time to put the restoration business aside and return to the One who actually established the New Covenant.

Because if Jesus Christ isn't enough, no amount of restored Armstrongist doctrine is ever going to be enough either.

Crackpot Bob's Grammar Scissors: How to Neuter the Holy Spirit

 

Crackpot Bob has once again favored us with a linguistic demonstration that the Holy Spirit is, in fact, not a person. In the May-June 2025 Sabbath Sentinel he carefully notes that the Koine Greek word pneuma is neuter, that some English translations sneak in the masculine "he" and "who," and that therefore the whole idea of a personal Holy Spirit is a pagan Trinity trick. Grammar, we are told, has spoken: it is an "it."

This is not new theology. It is simply the latest polishing of a doctrine Herbert W. Armstrong pounded for decades. In Mystery of the Ages and assorted Plain Truth and Good News pieces, Armstrong declared with absolute certainty that originally there were only two divine Personages. The Trinity, he insisted, "is nowhere found in the Bible" and was "formulated by men under the influence of Satan." Why the vehemence? Because a closed Godhead of three would ruin the sales pitch. Armstrong's gospel required an open "God Family" into which the faithful could eventually be born as additional Gods. A third Person would slam that door shut. Hence the Holy Spirit had to be demoted to "the agency by which God the Father works... an agency, a force, a power." Armstrong was explicit: "The Holy Spirit, we repeat, is not a person."

Crackpot Bob's article is the same project with more footnotes. He cites Daniel Wallace's careful grammatical work, notes that pneuma is neuter, and treats the personal pronouns in John 14-16 as unfortunate translation bias. Wallace himself, of course, is a Trinitarian who never claimed that neuter gender proves the Spirit is impersonal; he simply observed that the grammar does not force personhood. But never mind. The useful bit is the neuter, so the useful bit is kept. The rest of the New Testament's language-where the Spirit speaks, grieves, intercedes, forbids, sends, and can be lied to-is explained away as personification or grammatical necessity. It is a force that just happens to talk, feel, and act with purpose. Convenient.

The practical problem is that Armstrongism still needs the Spirit to do personal work. Conversion, begetting, guidance, and the "gift" that comes after baptism all require it. So the groups that descended from Armstrong-including Crackpot Bob's improperly named "continuing" Church of God-continue to baptize people with a formula that sounds suspiciously Trinitarian. They say something like "into the name of the Father and the Son and through the Holy Spirit," then lay hands on the candidate and ask for the gift of that same Spirit. They will not call the Spirit a person, yet they cannot perform the rite without invoking it alongside the Father and the Son. Consistency, as the old saying goes, is optional when the alternative is looking too much like the pagans you have spent fifty years denouncing.

The entire exercise is driven by the same two-Person architecture Armstrong locked in. John 1:1 is read as revealing only the Father and the Word. Everything else must be forced to fit. The Spirit that conceived Jesus cannot be personal, or it would have been his Father. The Spirit that can be "poured out" or "stirred up" cannot be personal, because persons are not poured. And the Spirit that is grammatically neuter is therefore ontologically an "it." All of this keeps the God Family open for new members while still allowing the leadership to claim they are simply following the Bible and the original Armstrong revelation.

Crackpot Bob's grammatical scissors are sharp enough for the magazine article. They just do not cut the deeper inconsistency. Armstrongism continues to need the Holy Spirit's power, presence, and activity for its members to be considered real Christians, while simultaneously insisting that the Spirit is not a person at all-lest the Family of two stop being expandable. The neuter gender is real. The personal actions of the Spirit are also real. The baptismal formula is still spoken. And the God Family sales pitch remains the point of the whole exercise.

Wade Cox’s “Unitarian Bible” and “Council of the Elohim” Claims

Wade Cox's "Unitarian Bible" and "Council of the Elohim" Claims

By a Concerned Believer

Wade Cox (Christian Churches of God) and his Armstrongist fellow travelers. particularly Bob Thiel, love to announce that "most reputable theologians" have quietly admitted the Bible is Unitarian and subordinationist, that Calvin, Harnack, and Brunner all said so, and that Trinitarians have spent centuries doctoring translations to hide a vast "Council of the Elohim" of which Christ is merely one member. The claim is both overconfident and false. It selectively quotes, ignores context, and treats specialized scholarly observations about the divine council as if they vindicate Cox's particular Unitarian/subordinationist system. Most serious biblical scholars-critical or confessional-do not agree with Cox, Bob Thiel, or the rest of the Armstrongist crowd on this.

Calvin, Harnack, and Brunner Did Not "Admit" What Cox Claims

John Calvin was a thoroughgoing Trinitarian. He wrote extensively on the three persons in one essence, condemned Arius for stripping the Son of eternal divinity, and insisted that Father, Son, and Spirit are each fully God. He used traditional language of relations while defending the Son's aseity with respect to the divine essence. Claims that Calvin "admitted" the Bible is Unitarian require ignoring large sections of the Institutes and his confessional statements. Subordination language appears in the economic Trinity (the Son's functional submission in the incarnation and redemptive work), but that is not Unitarianism.

Adolf von Harnack was a liberal Protestant church historian. He argued that classical Trinitarian and Christological dogma was a later Hellenization of a simpler ethical gospel centered on the fatherhood of God and the kingdom. That is a reconstruction of an "original" Jesus, not a demonstration that the New Testament texts themselves teach Unitarianism. Harnack did not claim the biblical writers were Unitarians in Cox's sense; he claimed later church dogma departed from what he thought the historical Jesus taught. Critical scholarship continues to debate the development of Christology, but early high Christology (John 1, Philippians 2, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1) is widely recognized as present in the first century, not a fourth-century invention.

Emil Brunner was a neo-orthodox theologian who affirmed the deity of Christ and treated the Trinity as important Christian teaching, even while critiquing certain classical formulations and emphasizing personal encounter. He was not a Unitarian. Cox's appeal to these three men is selective citation or misrepresentation.

The Divine Council Exists-and It Does Not Support Cox's System

Scholars have long noted a "divine council" or heavenly assembly in the Old Testament (Psalm 82, Psalm 89, Job 1-2, Deuteronomy 32, etc.). Leopold Sabourin and many others discuss it. Modern work by figures such as Michael Heiser has popularized the concept for a broader audience: elohim can function as a category term for spiritual beings who inhabit the unseen realm, with Yahweh as the unique, incomparable, uncreated Creator who alone is worthy of worship. The "sons of God" or members of the council are subordinate beings under Yahweh's authority.

This does not mean the Bible is Unitarian, nor that Christ is simply one more elohim on the same plane as the rest of the host. The council consists of created beings. Yahweh remains uniquely other. Evangelical scholars who accept the divine council (including Heiser) still affirm high Christology-the Son as uncreated, the unique monogenes, the one through whom all things were made, and the one to whom the angels are commanded to worship (Hebrews 1). Critical scholars who see more developmental or polytheistic background material still do not endorse Cox's reconstruction of a singular Eloah who "extends" into an elohim host of which Christ is a subordinate member. Armstrongist Ditheism (two co-eternal beings) and Cox's Unitarian alternative are both minority systems outside mainstream scholarship.

Textual and Translation Claims

Deuteronomy 32:8 is a well-known textual variant. The Masoretic Text reads "sons of Israel"; the Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint support "sons of God" / "sons of El" (or "angels of God" in the Greek). Most textual critics regard the "sons of God" reading as earlier. The change in the Masoretic tradition is widely viewed as a monotheizing or clarifying edit, not a conspiracy to hide Cox's theology. The verse depicts the Most High allocating nations under subordinate divine beings, with Israel as Yahweh's own portion. It does not demote Yahweh or support Unitarianism. Similar observations apply to other passages Cox cites; the existence of a heavenly assembly is not news, and it does not do the doctrinal work Cox wants.

Psalm 8:5 uses elohim. The Septuagint translated it as "angels," and Hebrews 2 quotes that rendering. This is ancient and contextually defensible (the verse is about humanity's status relative to the heavenly host). It is not a Trinitarian plot to hide an "extended order of beings." English translations that follow the Septuagint/Hebrews or render "heavenly beings" are reflecting the textual and interpretive tradition, not covering up Unitarianism. Bullinger's notes in the Companion Bible are interesting but not decisive against the broader scholarly and translational consensus.

Claims of widespread Sopherim "forgeries" in Job and elsewhere to conceal a Unitarian council are exaggerated. Textual criticism acknowledges variants and scribal activity; it does not support a coordinated effort to disguise the theology Cox prefers.

The Real Issue

Cox's system treats the One True God as singular Eloah, with elohim referring to an extended host (including a subordinate Christ) that humans can join. This is a particular Armstrongist reconstruction. It is not the consensus of "reputable theologians." Mainstream biblical scholarship-whether conservative (affirming early high Christology and the uniqueness of the Son) or critical (tracing development and ancient Near Eastern parallels)-rejects the idea that Trinitarians have systematically altered the Bible to hide a Unitarian council, and it does not endorse Cox's or Thiel's particular solutions to the nature of God.

The New Testament repeatedly presents Jesus as the unique Son, the one through whom all things were made, the one who shares the divine name and receives worship, and the one who is greater than the angels (Hebrews 1). Attempts to fold him into a larger council of created elohim require special pleading that most scholars do not accept. Cox's confident appeals to Calvin, Harnack, Brunner, Sabourin, and alleged translation conspiracies do not hold up under scrutiny. They are Armstrongist special pleading dressed up as scholarly consensus.

Conclusion

Wade Cox's bold assertions amount to little more than an Armstrongist shell game. He points to real scholarly discussions of the divine council, real textual variants, and the occasional liberal historian's reconstruction of early Christianity, then pretends these add up to a consensus that the Bible is Unitarian, that Trinitarians have been systematically rewriting the text for centuries, and that his own version of a singular Eloah plus a subordinate host of elohim is what the texts actually teach. It isn't.

Most reputable theologians and biblical scholars do not agree with Cox, Thiel, or the rest of the Armstrongist crowd. Calvin was not a Unitarian. Harnack was not saying what Cox wants him to have said. Brunner was not a Unitarian. The divine council, where it is acknowledged, consists of created beings under the absolute sovereignty of Yahweh; it does not demote the unique, uncreated Son of the New Testament to the status of one more member of the host. Translations that render elohim as "angels" in certain contexts are ancient and contextually grounded, not the product of a centuries-long Trinitarian conspiracy. And the textual changes Cox highlights (such as Deuteronomy 32:8) are well-known to scholars and do not support his system.

Armstrongism has a long habit of announcing that "the scholars" or "reputable theologians" have finally come around to its views, only for those same scholars to remain blissfully unaware of the supposed conversion. Cox's treatment of the "Council of the Elohim" is simply the latest installment. The texts are open for examination. The scholarly literature is public. And neither supports the confident Unitarian-subordinationist reconstruction Cox is selling.

Another Armstrong Preacher Added to The List

 

Michael Armstrong, great grandson of Herbert Armstrong is now preaching for Intercontinental Church of God. You can watch him here leading songs and speaking. He's got that familiar GTA ring to his voice.

He also has a lot of video shorts on their Youtube channel.

Theodicy, Armstrongism and Performance Christianity: The Attempts to Figure Out the Puzzle of Evil

 

I Don’t Like Puzzles

Theodicy, Armstrongism and Performance Christianity

The Attempts to Figure Out the Puzzle of Evil

By Scout

“But who indeed are you, a human, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, “Why have you made me like this?”  Romans 9:20, NRSV

Some parts of Christianity I have thought a lot about.  Other parts, not so much.  This is mostly a matter of interest but sometimes it can be a matter of perplexity.  I am bothered by theodicy.  I do not believe that Christianity has made much of this important, nay critical, part of Christian doctrine. And I think Armstrongism is similar to other denominations on this topic but not worse. 

Theodicy is a study of why there is a good and perfect God yet an evil world.  For me, this topic has been the elephant in the room I didn’t want to talk about.  Because I had no answers and I mostly found the answers of others to be inadequate.  In Christian theology, theodicy has a forensic flare.  Theologians seek to justify God, as if he is being sued in court, for the existence of an evil world.  So they come up with various justifying arguments.  Mankind holds the same perspective as Job – God needs justification.  What binds all these arguments together is the perpetually troublesome concept of anthropomorphism.  Armstrongism, strong in anthropomorphism, of course, is in the fray.  So, I don’t have an answer for this, but I do have a viewpoint.  Let me give you my line of reasoning.

A Theodicy Sampler

If God is perfectly good, why is this world a vortex of evil?  A number of attempts have been made to unravel this perplexing issue.  David Bentley Hart has asserted that God has nothing to do with evil.  Rather, Thrones, Principalities and Powers are the source of evil in the Cosmos.  (I am never sure if I actually understand what Hart writes.)  My opposing view is that all sentient beings, whether good or evil, operate under the license of God.  Nobody can exercise any level of free will without permission from God either implicitly or explicitly. 

Another view is that God is engaged in soul-making.  The world is a boot camp and we are all being put through the exercises that will produce the good character that will serve us and others throughout eternity. But often the outrageous evil of this world does not build people but crushes them into uselessness.  Living on this planet is not a pleasant trip to the exercise salon to build biceps. Another problem is that not everyone is put through a prescribed regimen that is the same for all even though the ultimate purpose must be the same.  Some people have an easy ride and others ride in terror.  What’s that about?

Others believe that God defends the free will of people and this naturally results in the generation of evil.  God wants people to have the free will to choose good.  Only if good is freely chosen is it a product of good character.  Coercion doesn’t count.  If we are all Calvinist automatons, our actions are empty of genuine heart except once in a while as a matter of coincidence.  So, if humans are accorded free will, they may produce both good and evil.  You can’t let people do what they want to do and learn from it unless there is the potential for them to screw up.  And we have screwed up widely.

Yet, others believe that God is a Cosmic Accountant who offsets debits against credits.  He assures that if an evil is committed it is matched to some good that accrues. And because the books will be balanced in the Eschaton, all is well that ends well.  The problem with this is that it connects good to evil as if evil is a necessary principle in the Creation. Evil has a necessary place at the table which denies the perfection of a loving God.

Then there are those that reject typical beliefs about God and evil.  Often cited is the character Ivan in Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov.  Ivan accepts the idea of God.  He even believes that one day evil could yield some kind of a good outcome.  He just does not believe that any outcome is worth the horror of a tortured and murdered child.  It is a cost/benefit problem.  There is no benefit that makes the cost acceptable.

I am not familiar with all conjectures concerning theodicy.  But of the ones I have examined, including the Armstrongist view which I will turn to later, seem to be burdened to the point of collapse with anthropomorphism.  They assume that God is a human-like being, who thinks like a human, acts like a human and who, like a human, must be defended in the court of theology for permitting evil where it should not be.  I believe this viewpoint is in error. 

After reviewing and seeing the flaws in a number of theodicies, maybe theologians are barking up the wrong tree.  Maybe this is something that nobody is going to figure out this side of the Parousia.  Like dark matter in the Cosmos.

The Reasonableness of not Knowing

We know God by analogy and anthropomorphism is just one big analogy.  God is described in human terms, mostly, in scripture because that makes him understandable to humans.  Some mistakenly believe that the analogy, an instructional literary device, is actually God’s essence and this leads them to believe in a limited, human-like God.  For some, the limitation of God is useful in that it makes the idiosyncratic idea that humankind’s destiny to become God-as-God-is-God much more plausible. 

Analogy is very useful if it is understood to be analogy. It is the principal means we have of understanding God.  But the clarity is lost if we believe that analogy is essence.  God is absolute and we are relative.  Yet, analogy works because we are made in his image (not his essence).  Everything in the created, relative realm is an analogy of the Divine realm. Even wording that seems technically precise is really anthropomorphic.  To say God is all-powerful is to take the limited human concept of power and escalate it far beyond human experience.  Though this is an ardent sublimation, the meaning still remains rooted in humanness.  It is just much larger on the relative human scale ― a scale that does not pertain to God at all because he is absolute and not relative.  

The point is that we as relative beings will still be relative beings when we are resurrected.  We are relative because as created beings we are contingent on the Creator who prescribes limits for us. God, on the other hand, is uncreated and unlimited.  Hence, God transcends us and we will never know God in the fullness of his essence. Isiah 55 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways."  Our understanding of the absolute God is naturally apophatic.  We can characterize the relative through analogy but our metaphors for the absolute are spare.  

So, what does this apophatic view mean for developing theodicy?  It means that we cannot develop a theodicy.  God transcends us.  He is of a different category that we are.  It is presumptuous to believe that we can justify God.  And this justification is the driver behind the formulation of theodicies. We cannot even understand his plans, purposes and principles beyond what he has revealed to us in our limited and contingent condition.  

Carefully note that I am not asserting that there is no theodicy.  I am agreeing with the idea developed by some theologians that the true theodicy is in the divine realm and it transcends our understanding.   God does not act without purpose; it is just that we do not understand his purposes.  We enjoy a scaled down understanding, dependent on analogy, but in theodicy we bump up against its limits. I had an Armstrongist commenter on this blog once say that if we can’t understand God, what is then the value of being a Christian.  There is a difference between having and exhaustive understanding and having a working understanding.  We have the latter.

The Armstrongist View – Maybe

This must be conjectural.  I searched one of the online archives of Armstrongist literature and the word “theodicy” was not found by the search engine. So, I will rely on my 30 years of experience as a one-time Armstrongist.  It is safe to say that Armstrongists believe that people have free will and can do either evil or good.  Otherwise, the Armstrongist view aligns mostly closely with soul-making.  God is producing righteous character in his followers and the potential for evil is a tool in this process.  People must learn that evil is destructive and they must not follow evil. 

Earlier, I mentioned some of the flaws with the idea of soul-making.  Theologian Robert Fortuin expands this further.  He points out that soul-making treats atrocities as if they were useful lessons, like classroom exercises.  In my mind this flaw belittles the empathy of God for humanity.  Another flaw he identifies is the mistaken belief that we can actually understand the logical connection between human suffering and divine purpose.  Instead, this is a mystery to us with our limited capabilities.  Further, it makes evil a useful constructive tool instead of a parasitic tragedy on human existence.  So, the idea that evil exists so we can all develop character fails.

Conclusion

My belief that God’s intents are far beyond our ability to understand when it comes to evil in our world has a name.  I have seen it termed Apophatic Non-theodicy. It sounds like a denial and it is.  The denial is inescapable.  And the reason why theologians cannot come up with a cogent, credible theodicy is not a problem of persuasive logic in the justification of God but a problem of the doctrine of God.  We, Christians and Armstrongists, have the doctrine of God wrong.   God is absolute and we cannot apply our relative categories to him.  We find ourselves in a place of humility.  Like it says in Job 40, “Then Job answered the Lord: “See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.” If someone asks me why the kid in our neighborhood, who everyone agrees was a great kid, got runover and killed in the street, I will say, “I don’t know.” 

Rod Meredith Didn't Listen, So God Had To Choose Crackpot Bob

The latest installment in the continuing saga of Bob Thiel's theological self-importance provides an excellent opportunity to examine a familiar Armstrongist phenomenon: what happens when a man becomes convinced that he possesses special prophetic insight, only to discover that the people he believes should recognize his brilliance are not particularly interested in doing so.

An Armstrongist tale of prophetic brilliance, ecclesiastical rejection, and one man's determination to prove that everyone else is spiritually blind.

There are few things more entertaining in the fractured world of Armstrongism than watching one of its self-appointed prophetic authorities explain why every other church leader is wrong, why the brethren are too spiritually dull to recognize the truth, and why his own personal understanding of biblical prophecy should apparently be treated as a matter of divine importance.

Enter Bob Thiel, the self-proclaimed, self-annointed, leader of the Continuing Church of God, whose latest prophetic performance demonstrates that the old Armstrongist tradition of theological self-importance is alive and well.

And what is the source of this latest drama? None other than the late Dr. Roderick C. Meredith, former leader of the Living Church of God.

Apparently, Bob still has some unfinished business with Meredith. The disagreement concerns the interpretation of Daniel 9:27, the famous prophecy involving a covenant, a mysterious prince, and the ever-popular Armstrongist obsession with a coming European superpower. But beneath the biblical arguments lies a much more entertaining story: Bob's apparent conviction that he had the right answer, Meredith once agreed with him, and the Living Church of God subsequently wandered into prophetic confusion.

One can almost hear the frustrated prophet muttering:

"Why won't they just listen to me?"

According to Bob's account, he and Meredith discussed the interpretation of Daniel 9:27 in November 2003. Bob claims that they independently arrived at the same conclusion regarding the identity of the mysterious prince and the supposed seven-year covenant. Bob then reminds readers that Meredith subsequently published an article in the Living Church News in 2004 that reflected this understanding. Naturally, Bob considers this significant. After all, if the great Dr. Meredith once agreed with Bob, then surely that agreement ought to establish something important about Bob's prophetic credentials.

But here is where the story becomes interesting.

Meredith's published writings demonstrate that he was willing to examine the biblical text and discuss competing interpretations. The Living Church of God eventually acknowledged that Daniel 9:27 could be understood in more than one way. The church's 2019 discussion explicitly recognized the possibility that the prophecy referred to Christ, a future prince, or even a dual fulfillment.

Bob, however, was not impressed. In his view, the church had lost knowledge. It had deviated from the teaching he believed Meredith had once supported. Its leaders apparently no longer understood the prophetic details that Bob considered essential.

And so we arrive at the familiar Armstrongist conclusion:

If the church agrees with Bob, it possesses prophetic understanding. If it disagrees with Bob, it has lost prophetic understanding. What a convenient arrangement! The church apparently had prophetic insight when Bob was involved in the discussion, but once it began examining the matter differently, its understanding deteriorated.

One wonders whether the Holy Spirit has been reduced to an ecclesiastical endorsement machine, dispensing divine approval whenever Bob's interpretation receives a favorable vote.

Bob repeatedly invokes Meredith's earlier statements to support his own interpretation. But there is a problem with this approach. Meredith's writings do not establish that Bob possesses exclusive prophetic authority. Nor do they demonstrate that Meredith's earlier agreement with Bob was a divine endorsement of Bob's future leadership. Meredith was a church leader who held particular theological views. He could agree with Bob on one subject and disagree with him on another. That is how ordinary human reasoning works.

But in Bob's prophetic universe, a former agreement seems to carry considerably more weight than subsequent disagreements. The implication is that Meredith's earlier support validates Bob's position, while the Living Church of God's later uncertainty demonstrates its spiritual decline.

This is an extraordinary way to construct a theological argument.

Imagine a mathematics teacher agreeing with a student on a particular equation, then later reconsidering the problem. Would the student be entitled to announce that the entire school had lost mathematical knowledge because the teacher no longer agreed with him?

Perhaps Bob would.

After all, the Continuing Church of God appears to have perfected the art of turning disagreements into evidence of spiritual blindness.

The actual theological disagreement concerns the identity of the "he" in Daniel 9:27.

Bob insists that the passage refers to a future European ruler who will confirm a seven-year covenant and break it after three and a half years.

The Living Church of God has acknowledged that the passage is not entirely clear. The United Church of God and Church of God, a Worldwide Association have also presented interpretations that differ from Bob's.

And here is the inconvenient reality:

The biblical text does not contain Bob's name.

It does not identify him as the exclusive interpreter of Daniel.

It does not declare that the Continuing Church of God will possess the only correct understanding of the prophecy.

Yet Bob's writing repeatedly moves from disagreement over interpretation to claims that other churches have lost knowledge, will fail to recognize prophetic events, and will not know when to flee. This is where Armstrongist prophecy becomes less about understanding Scripture and more about maintaining institutional control.

Accept our interpretation, because we understand what is coming. Reject our interpretation, and you may not recognize the events that will supposedly determine your survival.

That is a remarkably effective way to keep people anxious, living in fear and under control. It is also a remarkably convenient way to establish the authority of the man making the predictions.

Bob's insistence that Meredith once agreed with him raises another question. Why is this historical agreement so important? If Bob's interpretation is correct, it should stand on its own merits. If Daniel 9:27 clearly identifies a future European ruler, then Bob should be able to demonstrate that from the text without repeatedly reminding readers that Meredith once agreed with him. But the repeated references to Meredith create the impression that Bob is still seeking validation from the very organization he left. It is almost as though the Continuing Church of God has become a permanent monument to an unresolved ecclesiastical disagreement.

Meredith is gone. The Living Church of God continues to exist. Its leaders have expressed uncertainty about the prophecy. And Bob is still explaining why they should have listened to him. One might reasonably ask whether the real issue is Daniel 9:27 or Bob's apparent need to be recognized as the man who understood it first.

There is an even larger issue that Armstrongist prophecy enthusiasts frequently overlook.

The New Covenant is not primarily a countdown clock to a European political arrangement. The New Testament emphasizes Christ's finished work, the forgiveness of sins, the transformation of believers, and the life of faith.

Hebrews 8:6 describes Christ as the mediator of a better covenant, established on better promises.

Hebrews 10:14 declares that Christ has perfected those who are being sanctified through His sacrifice.

Hebrews 10:17 states: "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."

Yet Armstrongist prophecy discussions often revolve around identifying future political leaders, deciphering European reorganizations, predicting the beginning of the Great Tribulation, and determining which church possesses the necessary prophetic knowledge.

The result is a religious environment in which the believer is constantly encouraged to look toward the next prophetic development.

The question becomes: Are we watching the right European ruler?

Rather than: Are we living faithfully in Christ?

That distinction matters. Christian faith is not supposed to depend upon an endless succession of prophetic predictions and institutional claims.

The Continuing Church of God presents itself as the continuation of the true Church of God.

But its own history raises an obvious question. If the Church of God is supposedly guided by divine revelation, why do its various splinter organizations repeatedly disagree over major prophetic interpretations? Why does one organization claim that Daniel 9:27 refers to Christ, while another insists that it refers to a future European ruler? Why does one group claim that the other has lost knowledge? And why does every splinter group seem to believe that its own leadership possesses the understanding that everyone else lacks?

The answer may be less mysterious than Armstrongist leaders would like to admit.

These organizations are human institutions. Their leaders interpret Scripture, develop doctrines, and sometimes disagree. There is nothing inherently surprising about that. What is troubling is the tendency to transform those disagreements into claims of exclusive divine authority. Bob's dispute with the Living Church of God is a perfect illustration.

Rather than simply acknowledging that Christians can disagree about difficult prophetic passages, Bob portrays the disagreement as evidence that the church has lost knowledge. The Continuing Church of God, meanwhile, becomes the institution that supposedly possesses the missing understanding.

How convenient.

The prophetic authority that was supposedly lost by one organization has conveniently reappeared in another organization led by the man who says he possesses it.

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of this entire episode is not the interpretation of Daniel 9:27. It is the attitude that surrounds it.

Bob's article repeatedly emphasizes his personal involvement in the development of Living Church of God teaching, his conversations with Meredith, and his conviction that the church has subsequently departed from the correct interpretation. The implication is difficult to miss.

Bob believes he was right. Meredith once agreed. The church later disagreed. Therefore, the church has lost knowledge. And Bob is left to explain the situation to everyone else.

One might almost feel sorry for him.

Almost.

But there is something genuinely revealing about a religious leader who repeatedly uses his disagreements with other churches to reinforce the idea that he alone possesses the understanding necessary to interpret biblical prophecy correctly. It is the same old Armstrongist game.

A man claims special understanding. His followers are told that other churches are spiritually blind. Disagreement becomes evidence of apostasy. And the leader's personal interpretation becomes the standard by which everyone else is judged. The only thing missing is a trumpet announcing the arrival of the next prophetic genius. Perhaps Bob should consider adding one to the Continuing Church of God stationery. After all, when you have spent years explaining why the rest of the Church of God world has lost prophetic knowledge, it must be terribly frustrating when the rest of the Church of God world continues to disagree with you.

The prophecy remains disputed. The church remains divided. And Crackpot Bob remains convinced that the problem is everyone else.

Some things in Armstrongism never change.

Dixon Cartwright, longtime publisher of The Journal: News of the Churches of God, has died.

For more than two decades, Cartwright and his wife Linda ran one of the few independent, cross-group publications in the fractured post-Herbert Armstrong world of the Churches of God. From their base in Big Sandy, Texas, they produced a subscription newspaper that refused to function as a controlled mouthpiece for any single organization. In a landscape of hierarchical groups that tightly managed information, The Journal offered something rare: a forum where members across the various COG splinters could read news, share views, and sometimes confront uncomfortable realities.

Cartwright launched The Journal in February 1997, one month after John Robinson shut down In Transition. Cartwright had worked with Robinson's paper and tried to keep it going, but the two could not reach an agreement. Rather than let the idea of an independent COG newspaper die, he and Linda started their own. The first issue appeared as the post-1986 and post-1994/95 splits were still reshaping the old Worldwide Church of God world. United Church of God, Living Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, Restored Church of God, and dozens of smaller groups and independents were all competing for members, legitimacy, and control of the narrative.

Cartwright's stated purpose was practical: help people maintain contact with other COG Christians across organizational boundaries and provide a place for discussion. Unlike many church publications of the era, The Journal did not require articles to pass a doctrinal purity test. It published news of congregations and leadership changes, Feast reports, historical pieces, governance debates, and letters to the editor from a wide range of perspectives. Major COG organizations largely stayed away from advertising in it-precisely because they preferred to control the message. That absence itself was revealing.

Over its run of roughly 202 issues, the paper covered concrete problems inside the movement. It reported on governance conflicts, leadership struggles, financial and organizational decisions that affected ordinary members, and events such as the 2005 shooting at a Living Church of God service in Brookfield, Wisconsin. It carried historical material on the WCG era, Ambassador College, and the early years of the various splinters. It also ran opinion pieces and letters that questioned aspects of Armstrongist practice and authority. Critics in the more hardline groups sometimes dismissed it or attacked it; some in the stronger anti-Armstrong circles called Cartwright an "enabler" for continuing to operate inside the COG orbit rather than fully repudiating it. Cartwright's response was consistent: he was not trying to prop up any particular leader or group. He was providing a forum and an avenue for communication and fellowship among people who still identified with the Churches of God.

He continued publishing through health setbacks, including a heart attack in 2011 that reduced his energy. In late 2017 he announced that The Journal would end after the January 2018 issue. At the time he noted that the paper would turn 21 the same month he turned 71, that his reasons for publishing had changed, and that he no longer saw the same necessity for the project that he had felt in 1997. He remained active in one or more COG groups and described himself as a COG member, though he said he was not the same kind of Christian he had been when he started the paper. The website continued for a time under other oversight, and plans were made to archive the issues.

Cartwright's contribution was not that of a full outsider or relentless polemicist. It was that of an independent publisher who refused to let the major organizations monopolize the flow of information. In a movement long marked by top-down control, suppressed dissent, and careful public relations, a newspaper that reported across group lines and allowed competing voices had a corrosive effect on the old closed system. It documented the ongoing fractures, the governance problems, and the distance between the promises of the Armstrong era and the realities of the later COG landscape. That documentation helped members and former members see the picture more clearly.

Dixon Cartwright's death closes a long chapter in the independent reporting on the Churches of God. The Journal was never the most aggressive exposé vehicle, but for twenty-one years it was one of the few consistent places where the news and the arguments of the post-Armstrong world could appear without being fully filtered by the organizations being written about. In that role it performed a real service.

The Death of Dixon Cartwright

Mr. Reginald Killingley of Texas informed me today that Dixon Cartwright died yesterday. Many of my readers will remember Dixon as the publisher of The Journal, News of the Churches of God - a long running newspaper tracking schools of thought and happenings within the Armstrong Churches of God. He edited, reported and wrote for the paper until he retired some years ago. 

 

I will always remember Dixon as a friend, and as the person who encouraged me to write about my experiences and views regarding human sexuality - especially concerning issues surrounding homosexuality and the Christian faith. Indeed, Dixon published several articles by me on this subject in his newspaper. True to form, Dixon was unafraid of controversy and invited the expression of different perspectives on a host of topics. 

 

I remember many long conversations on a host of theological questions over the years, and some over political views where our disagreements were sometimes very profound. I had the honor of hosting Dixon in my home when he attended the funeral of Tom Justus of Arkansas many years ago. Despite the sad circumstances, Dixon and I thoroughly enjoyed our time together, and I will never forget that occasion. 

 

May God bless Dixon on his journey, and may God bless his family and friends as they grieve his loss. Bottom line, everyone who experienced the Armstrong Church of God culture owes Dixon a debt of gratitude for his indefatigable and clear-eyed reporting on it. 

 

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix