Prophet Bob vs. the Thermometer: El Niño Is Forming. Bob's Patience With This Blog Is Not

God's most favorite self-appointed crackpot prophet, Bob Thiel, has once again detected the unmistakable scent of the Last Days in a weather report. Europe had a hot summer. California is hot because an El Niño is forming. Therefore, the Fourth Angel is warming up his bowl; then that nasty scoffer website Banned by HWA  fulfilled 2 Peter 3, and anyone who points out that weather still happens is walking according to their own lusts.

This is the same raving lunatic who has been announcing the beginning of sorrows since at least 2009. Every flood, every drought, every slightly-above-average August is further confirmation that he, and he alone, is reading the fine print on God's climate policy. When Banned by HWA dares to note that heatwaves also occurred in 2003, 2019, and pretty much every year someone needed a headline, Bob clutches his leather-bound Bible and cries "scoffers!" as if Peter wrote that chapter specifically about a blog that makes fun of him.

Let's apply a little New Covenant thinking, since Crackpot Bob still quotes Deuteronomy 28 like the ink is still wet and the audience is still ancient Israel. Under the Old Covenant, God threatened bronze skies and iron earth if the people didn't keep the statutes. Under the New Covenant, Jesus said the Father "sends rain on the just and the unjust." Weather is no longer a divine performance review for whether you kept the Feast of Tabernacles or avoided pork. It is weather. Sometimes it is El Niño. Sometimes it is climate change. Sometimes it is just July and August. None of these require a 14-minute video titled "Prophetic Scoffers and Earthquakes" in which Crackpot Bob reminds everyone that he was mocked. Oh, the humanity!!!!!!!!!

Crackpot Bob's actual grievance is never the theology. It is that Banned keeps noticing when he does the same routine: take a real event, bolt it onto Mark 13:8, declare it a warning from God, then act wounded when people laugh. The laughter is the persecution. The blog post is the fulfillment of prophecy. The fact that his predictions have the same broken track record as his spiritual daddy, Rod Meredith, is never mentioned. Longsuffering, you see. The Lord is not slack. He's just waiting for Bob to finish another article about how hot it is.

The pattern is now so reliable you could set your air conditioner by it:

• Something meteorological occurs.
• Bob posts scriptures + old Worldwide Church of God quotes + a reminder that he called it in 2009.
• Banned by HWA says, in so many words, "weather exists."
• Bob writes 2,000 words about scoffers in the last days and how they willfully forget the Flood.
• Repeat next heatwave.

At no point does it occur to him that a prophet who needs a new "I was mocked" post every summer might not be the watchman on the wall so much as the guy who keeps yelling "fire" every time the oven preheats.

The world is hot. Crackpot Bob is hotter. And the only thing melting faster than the glaciers is his composure whenever someone refuses to treat his weather commentary as inspired.

September 11 and the Churches of God

It is hard to believe that 25 years have passed since the World Trade Center was attacked by Islamic extremist vermin. Today, in 2026, an entire generation knows very little about that horrendous day. The entire world stopped and watched. Some in Gaza cheered and celebrated. Europeans were shocked. Commercial air travel evaporated within hours. Inbound international flights were diverted to Canadian airports, where citizens of small towns opened their homes, schools, and churches to care for thousands of stranded travelers.

The only known Church of God member working in the World Trade Center that morning was Adrienne Johnson of the United Church of God. She worked on the 37th floor of one of the towers and escaped safely with coworkers. The United Church of God issued a statement the next day confirming that all its members were accounted for and expressing horror at the loss of life.

Here on the West Coast, Pasadena shut down and the streets were empty. I remember the Ambassador College campus and the surrounding area being totally quiet. At noon I went to Circuit City to buy a portable radio with an earpiece so I could follow the news while I worked. Authorities were anticipating a possible attack on downtown Los Angeles, so much of the city effectively shut down.

Three of the four hijacked flights-American 11, United 175, and American 77-had been scheduled to fly to Los Angeles International Airport. That is why so many of the passengers were heading to Southern California, and why LAX and downtown high-rises were placed on high alert and partially evacuated that morning as a precaution.

Al-Qaeda had considered West Coast targets in earlier planning. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed originally proposed a larger operation striking landmarks on both coasts, including the Library Tower (now the U.S. Bank Tower) in downtown Los Angeles. Osama bin Laden scaled the plan back to the East Coast for September 11. A later "second-wave" plot to fly a plane into the same Los Angeles tower was discussed after 9/11 but was disrupted in 2002 before it could be carried out.

The various Armstrongite Churches of God, of course, wasted no time slotting the attacks into the prophecy charts they had been updating since the 1930s. By September 12 the United Church of God had issued a pastoral letter of genuine shock and grief, then immediately noted that all their members were safe. Other splinters (Living Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, etc.) followed the same script: horror, prayers, then the inevitable Leviticus 26 citation. "I will even appoint terror over you... I will break the pride of your power." 

According to Armstrongite mythology, America is modern Manasseh, one of the lost tribes, so of course God would use terrorists to humble the pride of His favorite (if currently very disobedient) nation. Gerald Flurry of the Philadelphia Church of God was particularly pleased; he had already declared in May 2001 that the world had entered its "last hour," and 9/11 arrived right on cue to prove he was paying attention. Sermons and articles for years afterward treated the attacks as both a divine warning and further evidence that only their particular remnant was delivering the real end-time message. They also liked to point out that the death toll "could have been much worse," which in Armstrongite theology is usually presented as God's mercy rather than, say, the fact that the hijackers only had four planes. 

By this time the Worldwide Church of God had already abandoned most of Herbert Armstrong's distinctive doctrines by 2001, so the prophetic heavy lifting fell to the competing successor groups, each of which remained convinced it alone understood why the towers fell. It was an orgy of melodramatic end times malarkey from the splinters, and today, in 2026, the competing COG groups will put out articles marking this as the start of America's decline that they so vitally need and wish for. They so desperately need to be proven right. 

Malachi 3:10, Iowa Edition: Bring the Whole Tithe Into the Barn: The Storehouse Is Open. The Squeegee Is in the Closet.

 

For sixteen years, Samuel W. Kitchen would not touch the tithe. Not a dime. Not a widow's mite. Not even a spiritually significant Amazon gift card. He labored with his own fingers, as Isaiah apparently requires, and he did this because he believed a man cannot handle the holy tenth without proper authorization from Jesus Christ.

Then last year Christ worked through an ordained elder in the Philippines who was between COG church-hopping jobs at the time, who issued the missing paperwork directly channeled from Christ himself. The windows of heaven opened. The windows of Iowa, regrettably, did not.

Kitchen's latest pastoral update explains the situation with the calm of a man who has just discovered that declining personal revenue and rising ecclesiastical privilege are the same miracle wearing two hats. 

"This last year, since receiving authorization from Jesus Christ, my personal labors has been shrinking," he writes, "but at the same time God has replaced it with tithes and offerings from the Church!"

One can almost hear the squeegee hit the bucket.

He is careful to insist this is not panhandling. Panhandling is when a man asks strangers for money because work dried up. This is different. This is when a man asks followers for money because work dried up and a verse in Zechariah now points at his household. The distinction is doctrinal. Also postal. Checks may be sent to P.O. Box 126, Fairfield, Iowa, in the name of Support Services of the Worldwide Church of God, or simply to Samuel Kitchen, who is not making himself anything.

For sixteen-plus years he denied himself the tithe. Christ dispatched Jonathan Dicen, an elder who authorized the collection of Tithes and Offerings in the USA and then, in a plot twist worthy of the Book of Acts, took another position with another COG and severed the connection. Does a departing co-signer void the note? Kitchen has thought about this. No. Otherwise, marriages would be null, ordinations would be null, and more importantly, the P.O. box would be empty.

He is not ordained by any man. He is merely authorized to receive the money that ordained men receive. The difference will be explained after the deposit clears.

Kitchen's credentials are otherwise airtight. In 1991 his father held him up like Hannah with Samuel, which in Iowa is how one applies for end-time employment. Nineteen years later - a complete time cycle, naturally - the work came online. A demon-possessed woman once shrieked at his father in a Wisconsin Dells restaurant. Gerald Waterhouse once implied a special job. Kitchen originally assumed Dad was one of the Two Witnesses. He now realizes Satan was after the children the whole time, which is convenient, because the children are the ones with the website.

Zechariah 6 involves his family. Josiah-Hen is the household where the tithes go so Joshua may be plucked from the fire and given crowns, which is the completion of the Philadelphia era, which is to say please stop funding the other groups. Those groups exist, Kitchen explains, because the devil does not want you protected. He wants you dead. The practical application is that your first tenth should not go to them.

Isaiah 17:7-8 is pressed into service as a business plan. Do not look to the altars. Do not look to the work of the ministry. Do not look to your own labors. Do not respect what your fingers have made. Look to God. God, in this rendering, looks a great deal like a small online fellowship that just decided it needs an office. Kitchen's trips were personally funded until God wanted square footage. God also wanted him to stop respecting the work of his own fingers at approximately the same moment those fingers were bringing in less work.

This is called faith.

The operation remains "small" and "very weak" compared with Herbert W. Armstrong, a comparison Kitchen loves to make.  A response is building. Phone calls have come in from around the nation. He gets nervous imagining growth. God will provide what he needs to handle it. What he needs, at present, is for the Church to stand up in Jerusalem by standing up at the mailbox in Iowa.

People have asked the obvious question: if you can handle the tithe, are you ordained? Kitchen's answer is a masterpiece of remnant logic. No man ordained him. Therefore, he must already be ordained, because otherwise he would not have authority to handle the tithe, which he now has, which proves the ordination he does not claim. The Oregon Conference laid hands on Armstrong as a sign they recognized what Christ had already done. Perhaps the remnant can do the same by recognizing Kitchen. Perhaps he is going off the deep end. He allows the possibility for one sentence, then returns to the fruit test. Either he is a wicked tree or a good tree. The good tree accepts checks.

He has undergone severe health trials this year to get the point strengthened in his own mind. The point is: stop looking at side work. Start looking at the storehouse. The storehouse is his. The tares are everyone still sending money to the other ninety-nine continuations of the one true church. When tribulation hits, golden oil will flow. Until then, oil is expensive and so is an office.

Armstrong, Kitchen reminds the flock, was not ordained by a Sardis minister either. Christ ordained him. The church merely caught up. Kitchen is offering the same courtesy. You may lay hands on the arrangement by laying a tenth on the envelope. You may also ignore him and be laughed to scorn in the wrong direction. He is willing to be kicked for the elect's sake. The elect, if they are paying attention, will notice the kicking goes a lot easier when someone else is covering rent.

For over sixteen years the family received no tithes to fund this work. He himself labored to provide personal funding, because he believed in authorization. Now he has authorization. Now he is viewed as wicked. The timing is unfortunate only if you are still looking at the work of his fingers. God says don't. God says look to Him. Him, in the current fiscal year, has a building fund, a website, AI-assisted hymn demos, and a growing sense that the Philadelphia era cannot finish itself on window money.

Bring the tithes into the storehouse. Try Him now in this. See if He will not open the windows of heaven. The other windows have already been washed.

In Jesus Christ's name, and in the name of whoever is still holding the letter from the Philippines.

How curiosity saved me from a doomsday cult | Gabrielle Steele | TEDxAirlie

 

What if the opposite of certainty isn’t doubt, but curiosity? Gabrielle Steele reflects on her 21 years inside an apocalyptic cult and how unquestioned beliefs can quietly shape identity, morality, and belonging. Through her personal story and research, she shows how curiosity disrupts inherited certainty and becomes a pathway back to empathy, responsibility, and freedom. 

Gabrielle Steele grew up in a cult — and lived to laugh about it. Now a clinical trials project manager with a master’s in Exercise Physiology, she blends science and satire to explore how we form and fiercely defend our beliefs — in cults, politics, and corporate culture alike. 

Through humor, resilience, and sharp insight, Gabrielle challenges audiences to question their certainties and trade judgment for curiosity. When she’s not speaking or writing, she’s mentoring others, riding her bike, and raising two sons — approaching life, like a long ride, with endurance, humility, and a little mischief. 

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Thankful for the Truth Nobody Else Is Allowed to Understand

Armstrongism has always sold itself as the last unlocked room in the house of Christianity. Everyone else had the furniture. Only Herbert W. Armstrong, we were told, had the key. "The Truth" was not merely the gospel. It was a restored package: Sabbath from Friday sunset, annual holy days, meats, tithes, God as a Family, British-Israel identity, sequential church eras, and one visible organization still obedient enough to qualify as the Church Christ actually built.

That claim was exclusive by design. If God hid the meaning of Scripture from historic Christianity and then handed the decoder ring to one twentieth-century broadcaster, then gratitude becomes a membership perk. You thank God not only for Christ, but for being among the few who can see. Satan, conveniently, has blinded everyone else-Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, and, after 1986, every Church of God that did not follow your particular evangelist out the door.

Living Church of God still writes in that voice. Douglas Winnail's Sabbath reflection asks members whether they are thankful for truths "hidden from the world," including a real God guiding history, a purpose for life, and Christ's return to restore all things. Fine sentences, as far as they go. Then comes the Armstrongist turn: the capacity to understand the plan of God is a gift God is "only giving to a few at this time." The rest of the planet, apparently including two millennia of Christians who somehow managed to preach Christ without Ambassador College or the Worldwide Church of God, remains under a special blackout.

It is a moving piety, until you notice that Bob Thiel, David Pack, Gerald Flurry, and Gerald Weston can all read the same paragraph and assume it describes their flock. Each man inherited the same grammar. Each insists his group is the one still proclaiming what no other group quite proclaims. The binders are identical. Only the letterhead changes.

Herbert Armstrong taught that other churches were not simply wrong on the calendar. They were a counterfeit. God had restored lost truths through him. The true church would be identifiable by Sabbath, holy days, the name "Church of God," hierarchical government, and a message about the coming Kingdom. After his death, when the old Worldwide Church of God dropped most of that package, the system did what exclusive systems always do. It shattered, and every shard claimed to be the original vase.

Pack's Restored Church of God says Christ's body is not divided into fellowships; it is one organization in full doctrinal agreement, and his is the restoration of the pre-1986 work. Flurry's Philadelphia Church of God says the apostasy was prophesied, Malachi's Message identified it, and Philadelphia continues in Edmond. Thiel's Continuing Church of God says the Philadelphia remnant can be documented by restored truths, early church history, and prophetic credentials the other groups lack. Weston's Living Church of God says it practices original first-century Christianity, restored through Armstrong and Meredith, and that members should thank God not only for being called into the truth but for being preserved in it.

The sarcasm writes itself, except the people in the pews are not a joke. They tithe, rearrange family calendars around holy days, and are taught that leaving the right corporation is spiritually dangerous. Meanwhile, the leaders treat one another as Laodicean, compromised, or simply not the Work. If "the Truth" were as self-evident as advertised, it would not need four incompatible copyright pages.

The deeper issue is not that these men believe Jesus will return. Plenty of Christians believe that. The issue is that they will not let the New Covenant be what the New Testament says it is.

Armstrong taught that the New Covenant is largely still ahead-a marriage covenant to be finalized at Christ's return-and that Christians now live between covenants, still bound to selected Mosaic requirements. Sabbath, meats, and holy days remain identity markers. The old covenant is "amplified," not administered into obsolescence. That maneuver lets a church quote Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8 while still policing belonging with Sinai's sign-laws.

Exodus 31 is blunt: the Sabbath is the sign of the covenant with Israel. Colossians 2 is equally blunt: festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths are a shadow; the substance belongs to Christ. Hebrews 8 is blunter still: in speaking of a new covenant, God has made the first obsolete. Armstrongism keeps the shadow in the display case and postpones the substance until the Millennium, when it will be safer to admit the new covenant has actually arrived.

So "the Truth" becomes a backward glance. Correct day. Correct diet. Correct feast. Correct era nickname from Revelation 2-3, as if Jesus mailed seven letters to first-century congregations so that a California radio ministry could later assign you a prophetic ZIP code. The future kingdom is preached with real urgency. The present church is managed like a museum of Leviticus.

They will say they do not teach salvation by works. Armstrong said eternal life is a gift. The successor groups repeat it. Functionally, though, assurance, identity, and often fellowship are tied to the package and the organization that claims to guard it. Grace gets you in the brochure. The calendar keeps you in the directory.

In Scripture, truth is not a secret curriculum restored in 1933.

Truth is a person. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." Knowing the truth is knowing Christ, not passing an exam on whether America is Manasseh.

The New Covenant is not waiting in a file cabinet until the Second Coming. Jesus said the cup is the new covenant in his blood. Paul called himself a minister of a new covenant, of the Spirit rather than the letter. Hebrews says Christ is already mediator of a better covenant, and that the first is aging and ready to vanish. One may debate how Israel's national promises reach their public fullness. One may not, with a straight face, use that debate to keep the church under Sinai's worship schedule.

The law is not thrown in the street. It is written on hearts. That is not "a few insiders finally decoded the holy days." It is the Spirit forming people into the likeness of Christ. The moral will of God remains. The Mosaic covenant as the terms of belonging does not.

The church is not one corporation with a successor evangelist. There is one body, and it is made of those united to Christ by the Spirit-not those who survived the correct 1990s split. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 1 to rebuke "I am of Paul, I am of Apollos." Armstrongism cites the same chapter to congratulate a remnant for having information the rest of the household of faith missed.

And the gospel is public. When Paul said the god of this age blinds minds, he was talking about the gospel of the glory of Christ, not about people who celebrate the resurrection on Sunday or eat shrimp. The apostles preached in streets and synagogues. They did not require a proprietary restoration before anyone was allowed to understand.

Under the New Covenant, gratitude sounds different. You thank God that the veil is taken away in Christ. You do not thank him that your group finally obtained the decoder ring and that Satan has, for some reason, issued a communications blackout to every other pulpit on earth-including the three Armstrongist pulpits across town.

The tragedy of COGland is not that it takes the Bible seriously. It is that it takes Armstrong's restoration so seriously that Christ becomes the mascot of a remnant brand.

A faith that must keep insisting "no one else has ever understood this" is already nervous. A faith that then splits into hundreds of groups, each repeating the sentence, has confessed the problem out loud. If the truth were the person and work of Jesus, it would be large enough for the catholic church of all who belong to him. If the truth is a restored code plus the right human government, it will keep shrinking until it fits inside one man's office.

Winnail asked whether readers were thankful for the opportunity to understand truths hidden from the world. A better question: thankful to whom, and for what? If the gift is Christ, the Spirit, and sins remembered no more, then the thanksgiving is Christian. If the gift is exclusive sight, withheld from the rest of the body and located in one lineage of evangelists who cannot agree which lineage is real, then the thanksgiving is just the old boast in a Sabbath suit.

The New Covenant does not need a replica Armstrong. It already has a Head. He does not require four competing press secretaries to protect him from the rest of Christianity. The substance belongs to Christ. The shadows were never the prize. And a truth that can only survive by declaring everyone else blind is not the truth that sets people free. It is a flashlight fight in broad daylight.

Are You Thankful for the Truth?

The Sabbath is a good time to thank God for giving us an understanding of His truth—that there is a real God who is guiding the course of history (Job 12:23; Daniel 2:21; 4:17), that there is a real purpose for life (1 John 3:1–3), and that Jesus Christ is going to return to bring peace and justice to the world and restore all things (Isaiah 9:6–7; Acts 3:19–21). We are told that the saints will reign with Christ and fill the earth with a knowledge of God’s ways (Daniel 7:27; Isaiah 11:9). The capacity to understand the truth about the plan of God is a gift that God is only giving to a few at this time (1 Corinthians 1:26). The Bible reveals that Satan has blinded the rest of the world to these important and wonderful truths (2 Corinthians 4:3–4). Are you thankful for the opportunity to understand these truths that have been hidden from the world? —Douglas S. Winnail

The Ministry Vacated So Christ Had To Ordain Me

 

There is a special kind of confidence that only exists in the Armstrongist remnant universe. It is the confidence that allows a man in Keosauqua, Iowa, to look at the wreckage of the old Worldwide Church of God, notice that almost every ordained minister either changed doctrines, started their own group, retired, or died, and conclude: "Well, that leaves me. Christ had no choice."

Samuel Kitchen has made the claim with remarkable clarity. The ministry vacated their posts. Therefore Jesus Christ was compelled to ordain a man still inside "the church." Either Kitchen is a false minister, he writes, or he has been ordained by Jesus Christ. There is no third option. The logic is airtight if you already accept the premise that the entire visible ministry of a denomination that once numbered over 100,000 members simply walked off the job and left the Son of God holding an empty clipboard. 

That is the entire argument, dressed up in a thick coat of King James verses. Herbert W. Armstrong was ordained by Christ. The Worldwide Church of God is "the vine." Everyone who left is scattering, planting tares, and will be uprooted. When the hired help disappears, the Owner of the vineyard is forced to tap whoever is still standing in the building. In this case, that person happens to be a third-generation member who runs websites, writes AI-assisted hymns, collects tithes under a letter of authorization from a Philippine elder who later moved on, and explains that the authorization remains valid because Jesus is still Head of the Church. 

It is an elegant solution to a staffing problem. No messy laying-on-of-hands by existing evangelists. No need for the kind of public recognition Armstrong himself insisted upon. Just a quiet, private promotion issued after everyone else "vacated." The verses about false prophets, blind guides, and plants the Father did not plant are then aimed, with impressive precision, at everyone except the man now claiming the office.

The same texts that warn "leave them alone" are offered as both shield and sword. Hosea's "let him alone," Christ's warning about blind leaders of the blind, and the fruit-inspection passage in Matthew 7 are all pressed into service. The implication is straightforward: anyone who questions the new arrangement is the one who should be left alone. Those not "with the vine" will find themselves barred from the Kingdom. It is a tidy theological circle.

Forty years after Armstrong's death, the old organization is gone. Grace Communion International kept the legal shell and dropped the distinctive doctrines. Dozens of splinter groups claim to be the faithful remnant. Into that crowded field walks a man who argues that the vacancy itself constitutes the call. The ministry left; therefore Christ ordained the remaining occupant. The claim is not that Kitchen sought the office. The claim is that heaven ran out of options.

One can almost picture the scene in the heavenly HR department: the last qualified candidates have all taken other positions or started competing franchises. The position cannot stay vacant. A third-generation member in rural Iowa is still showing up, still posting sermons from the 1970s and 1980s, still insisting the corporation may have died but the spiritual organism did not. Fine. Stamp the papers. Forced ordination it is.

Whether this produces good fruit or simply another small website asking for tithes to "restore the storehouse" is, of course, the test the same scriptures Kitchen quotes actually recommend. In the meantime, the rest of the former Worldwide Church of God diaspora can be forgiven for treating the announcement the way most people treat a coworker who declares himself CEO after everyone else quit: with a mixture of pity, amusement, and the quiet decision to not join forces with him. Exactly as the verses suggest.

Armstrongism's Favorite Control Issue Just Got Smaller: Crackpot Bob and the Case of the Missing Covenant Skin

 

Crackpot Bob, self-appointed prophet of the Continuing Church of Prophetic Recycling, and pretend professional commenter on everything from European beasts to wearables as 666-adjacent, has decided the great moral crisis of the hour is whether Europeans should be allowed to look sideways at ritual circumcision. Belgium investigates a handful of unlicensed mohels; Jewish groups (quite reasonably) defend a core religious practice; EU officials scramble to say they are not trying to ban Jewish life. And Crackpot Bob, who is neither Jewish, Belgian, nor a pediatric urologist, inserts himself like a man who just discovered a new lever for other people's bodies.

This is classic Armstrongite muscle memory. Herbert Armstrong's heirs spent decades turning optional, cultural, or ceremonial items into identity tests. Sabbath? Fine, that's actually in the New Testament conversation. Holy days? Debatable. Then came British Israelism charts, makeup bans, three tithes, and the quiet pressure to treat every Old Testament physical sign as if Jesus merely paused it instead of fulfilling it. Circumcision is the latest exhibit: officially "not required," unofficially "you're unloving and deceived if you don't."

The New Covenant is not subtle about this

Acts 15 is the Jerusalem Council's memo to the Gentile churches: no circumcision requirement. The issue was not "wait until the baby is eight days old." It was whether belonging to Christ required the Abrahamic flesh-sign. The answer was no.

Paul is even blunter:

• Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters. (1 Corinthians 7:19)"
• For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation." (Galatians 6:15)"
• If you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing." (Galatians 5:2) 

Romans 2:28-29 and Colossians 2:11 relocate the sign inward: circumcision of the heart, made without hands. That is the New Covenant version. The physical rite was a covenant marker for Abraham's physical descendants and for those entering that national covenant. It was never presented as a universal health ordinance that Gentile Christians must impose on infants to prove they love them.

Paul had Timothy circumcised (Acts 16:3) for missional reasons among Jews, not because the Council got it wrong. That is the opposite of turning it into a standing pastoral recommendation wrapped in CDC citations.

Early Jewish believers in Jerusalem kept many Jewish customs. Of course they did. They were Jews. That does not convert a fulfilled covenant sign into a Christian parental duty. Justin Martyr and later Gentile churches dropped it for a reason. Pretending "the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were circumcised, therefore you should snip your son" is like arguing that because Peter kept kosher until the sheet vision, every COG kitchen must still avoid shrimp."

Not required, but..." is how control works

Thiel's own writing admits Gentiles need not be circumcised to be Christians. Then the paragraph immediately pivots: parents who skip it are unloving; opponents are "evil men and impostors... deceiving and being deceived"; science and Moses both demand it; infants should not get to decide later. That is not "optional." That is a guilt sandwich with extra prophecy.

Health organizations do not speak with one voice the way Thiel pretends. WHO and CDC have supported voluntary medical male circumcision in high-HIV adult populations in parts of Africa-an entirely different context from routine neonatal cutting in low-HIV Western countries. Many European pediatric bodies do not recommend routine infant circumcision. U.S. rates have been falling for years. Benefits exist in some analyses (UTI reduction in infancy, some STI associations); so do costs, complications, loss of tissue, and the ethical question of permanently altering a non-consenting minor for non-therapeutic reasons. Adults can choose. Infants cannot.

Jews and Muslims have a religious claim that is their business and their covenant. Christians in the New Covenant do not inherit that claim as a command. Some families will still choose it for culture, family resemblance, or personal medical judgment. Fine. That is liberty. What is not fine is a tiny Church of God fiefdom treating foreskin policy as another loyalty test, another way to mark who is "in" and who is worldly, deceived, or insufficiently faithful to "the fathers."

Armstrongism has always been hungry for distinctive physical markers. When the big distinctive (you are the one true remnant, the rest of Christianity is deceived) starts to look thin, the smaller ones get louder. Diet. Calendar. And now, apparently, whether your son's anatomy matches a Bronze Age covenant sign that Paul said no longer avails anything.

If Bob wants to argue medical statistics, he can do it without 2 Timothy 3:13. If he wants to defend Jewish religious liberty in Belgium, he can do it without implying that Gentile Christian parents who leave their sons intact are failing Deuteronomy. The hissy fit is not really about Europe. It is about a movement that cannot stop managing other people's bodies and calling it love.