Nothing quite warms the heart of Church of God members than hearing their leader casually announcing that he has achieved a level of spiritual excellence most of us can only dream of: zero major sins since baptism. And not only that — God Himself has apparently signed a binding contract promising that this same leader will never, ever be allowed to make a huge mistake that could damage “the Work.”
Because if there’s one thing the New Testament makes crystal clear, it’s that God has a VIP tier for certain ministers where catastrophic errors are magically rerouted like spam emails. This is the current thinking of Bob Thiel, Dave Pack. Gerald Flurry, Gerald Weston and almost all other COG leaders. All of these guys are grievous sinners yet we are supposed to give them a pass and pretend they are on a higher plain than us.
Remember when Rod Meredith said this:
We have brethren right now – and my word doesn't prove it to you – one thing I'm grateful, we have a lot of very human people in the work, but at least the leading ministers overall have been the most dedicated, the most solid, the most loyal men closest to God that I have ever experienced since the earliest days of the Church when just Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong were the father figure and mother figure. Pretty quick after that human nature came in and people were playing games – not horrible, I'm just saying we had a lot of [it], very obvious – now so many of the men like Mr. Ames, and Dr. Winnail, and Mr. Gerald Weston and others have been tested and tried, and tried and tested, and they have been walking with God, they've been put through the mill so to speak, and you have a group of men, that if anything happens to me, that have been tried and tested for DECADES, DECADES in the way of God. Will they make mistakes? YES! Did Mr. Armstrong ever make mistakes? Of course he did; he said many times, he said, "Herbert Armstrong has made HUNDREDS of mistakes." But he said, "God has never allowed me to make a huge mistake to destroy the Work." So he'll let us make little mistakes, but not huge mistakes, and then he'll straighten it out in his time.
Beautiful. Truly inspiring. It’s like having a divine bouncer at the door of your life who says, “Sorry, major sin? Not on my watch. Huge organizational disaster? Absolutely not. But feel free to stub your toe on minor errors — those build character.”
It must be a wonderful life, knowing you are incapable of ever doing anything seriously wrong or sinning in any significant way. That kind of logic is about as credible as claiming to be “doubly blessed” and then starting your own church. (This is why Pack refuses to apologize for lying to his followers, why Flurry will never tell his followers he is not a king and why Thiel will never correct the abysmal corruption in Africa - they don't care because they think they are not accountable).
According to this theology, Herbert and Loma Armstrong were basically sinless saints walking the earth in white robes until “a bunch of sniveling, backbiting members” showed up and introduced human nature into the equation. Because nothing says “humble servant of God” quite like blaming the entire body of Christ for your own potential shortcomings. The members didn’t just cause problems — they apparently corrupted the previously flawless leadership by their very presence. It’s the theological equivalent of saying, “I was doing fine until all these imperfect people started existing near me.”
The real crown jewel, though, is the claim that God has personally vetted a small group of men so thoroughly that He will now actively prevent them from making any mistake big enough to damage the Work.
Little mistakes? Sure, God’s cool with those.
Huge ones? Nope. Divine force field engaged.
This is apparently what “walking with God” looks like in practice: decades of testing that result in supernatural error prevention, available only to the top tier. The rest of us regular humans? We just have to muddle through with normal consequences, repentance, and the terrifying possibility that our mistakes might actually matter.
Here’s where it gets especially delicious. This entire framework is pure Old Covenant cosplay wearing New Covenant clothing.
Under the Old Covenant, sure — there were special anointed leaders who sometimes received extraordinary protection for the sake of the nation. Even then, most of them still managed to spectacularly crash and burn (David, Solomon, and roughly 90% of the kings of Israel and Judah would like a word).
But the New Covenant did something rather inconvenient for this kind of thinking: it ended the special protected class. Jesus became the one and only sinless High Priest. The rest of us — including every minister who has ever lived — supposedly received the Holy Spirit and the ongoing reality that we still sin, still make big mistakes, and still need grace, accountability, and occasionally public correction. Paul called himself the chief of sinners after writing half the New Testament. Peter had to be publicly rebuked by Paul.
The idea that any modern COG leader has graduated to “God will never let me destroy the Work with a huge mistake” level is not faith. It’s spiritual entitlement with a halo filter.
This theology is incredibly convenient. It means:
- No need for genuine accountability structures.
- Any major failure can be reframed as “God allowed a little mistake that He’s now straightening out.”
- The members remain “very human” while the leadership enjoys near-infallibility on anything that actually counts.
History has selectively rewritten so that the Armstrongs were perfect until the ungrateful rabble arrived. And, that long held belief that the original evangelists of the Radio/Worldwide Church of God were essentially sinless because God needed them to accomplish his mighty work. And even if they sinned, it was minor sins.
It’s almost as if the system was designed to protect the institution and its top men rather than reflect actual biblical teaching on human nature.
According to this worldview, some men have reached such a rarefied spiritual plane that God has installed a “no huge mistakes” clause in their contract. The rest of us are left with the old-fashioned New Covenant arrangement: daily repentance, mutual accountability, and the constant awareness that we are all capable of serious error.
How fortunate for the rest of us that these specially protected leaders exist to guide us.
After all, what could possibly go wrong when the people in charge believe God Himself has promised to stop them from ever making a truly catastrophic mistake?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Except, of course, all the times it has.
