The Philadelphia Church of God: Destroying Families in the Name of Family Values!
Gerald Flurry's Wonderful Little Doctrine of Christian Love: Abandon Your Children, Reject Your Parents, and Don't Forget to Call It God's Truth!
There is something almost breathtaking about the hypocrisy of the Philadelphia Church of God (PCG), headquartered in Edmond, Oklahoma. Here we have an organization that wants to lecture the rest of America about the destruction of the family, the dangers of secular ideology, the breakdown of traditional relationships, and the supposed epidemic of people abandoning their relatives. And yet, this same organization proudly defends a teaching that instructs its own members to sever relationships with family members who leave the church or turn away from what Gerald Flurry declares to be God's truth. Apparently, destroying families is a terrible thing when somebody else does it. But when Gerald Flurry prescribes it, suddenly it becomes a sacred biblical responsibility!
Welcome to the peculiar immoral universe of Armstrongism, where family loyalty is celebrated right up until somebody decides they no longer want to belong to Gerald Flurry's religious empire. At that point, apparently, your son is no longer your son, your daughter is no longer worthy of ordinary affection, and your husband, wife, brother, sister, or parent can become a spiritual contaminant to be avoided. How wonderfully Christian!
The article published by the PCG's Trumpet Brief is particularly revealing. It discusses a book criticizing modern family estrangement and identifies several supposedly destructive cultural tendencies: excessive individualism, victimhood, intolerance, and the abandonment of family relationships.
The article then acknowledges that critics might notice something rather uncomfortable:
The Philadelphia Church of God actually teaches its members to cut off contact with family members who leave the organization.
Well, at least they admit it!
But rather than recognizing the enormous contradiction, the writer attempts to explain why PCG's version of family estrangement is somehow different. According to the article, secular estrangement is based on personal feelings, whereas PCG's estrangement is based on God's authority. There you have it. Apparently, if an ordinary person abandons a family member, it is selfishness. If Gerald Flurry tells someone to abandon a family member, it is obedience.
What an extraordinary theological loophole!
The PCG has built a religious system in which loyalty to the organization and its leadership can become more important than maintaining ordinary family relationships. A member who leaves the organization may discover that the consequences extend far beyond losing a church congregation. Relationships with parents, children, siblings, and other relatives can become casualties of the organization's teachings.
Think about what that means.
A mother may be pressured to distance herself from a son who no longer believes Gerald Flurry is God's chosen leader. A father may be expected to withdraw ordinary fellowship from a daughter who decides that she no longer accepts PCG doctrine. A husband or wife may find that their spouse's religious loyalty is being tested against their marriage. Children may grow up learning that affection and acceptance are conditional upon religious conformity. And relatives who simply want to maintain normal family relationships may find themselves caught in an ugly religious loyalty test.
This is not the preservation of the family. It is the weaponization of the family.
The PCG may dress this teaching in religious language, wrap it in biblical references, and insist that it is motivated by love. But changing the vocabulary does not change the consequences. When an organization makes family affection conditional upon remaining in its religious system, it has created a profoundly unhealthy environment. And when people experience the loss of family relationships because they leave a religious organization, the emotional consequences can be devastating.
Former members have reported serious family disruption and psychological distress associated with these practices. Claims about specific deaths or their causes should be carefully documented rather than casually attributed, but the potential for severe harm should never be dismissed. Apparently, the PCG considers this an acceptable price for maintaining institutional loyalty.
The Trumpet Brief attempts to justify its doctrine by assembling a collection of New Testament passages:
Romans 16:17, 1 Corinthians 5:11, 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 1 Timothy 6:5, Titus 3:10-11, and 2 John 10-11.
The implication is that these passages authorize the PCG's practice of separating members from relatives who abandon its religious teachings. But there is a rather substantial problem with that argument. None of these passages establishes a general command to abandon your children, parents, brothers, sisters, or spouses simply because they leave a particular religious organization.
The PCG is taking passages dealing with specific circumstances involving serious misconduct, divisiveness, false teaching, and Christian fellowship and attempting to turn them into justification for a much broader policy of family estrangement.
That is a considerable interpretive leap.
Here is what the New Testament actually teaches.
1. The command to love your neighbor was not suspended for people who leave your church.
Jesus said:Matthew 22:37-40: Jesus identified love for God and love for one's neighbor as the two great commandments upon which the Law and the Prophets depend.Notice what Jesus did not say.He did not say to love your neighbor unless they stop attending your church. He did not say to love your children unless they reject your religious organization. He did not say to withdraw affection from your parents if they disagree with your interpretation of prophecy.The command to love others is not a membership privilege distributed by religious organizations.
2. Jesus commanded forgiveness, not perpetual religious punishment.
Matthew 18:21-22 records Peter asking Jesus how many times he should forgive someone who sins against him. Jesus answered that forgiveness should not be limited to a numerical quota. Apparently, Jesus considered forgiveness rather important.The PCG, however, seems to have discovered an alternative approach: determine whether the offender remains sufficiently loyal to the organization, and if not, maintain the separation.That is a rather different emphasis!
3. Paul commanded believers to bear with one another.
Colossians 3:12-14 instructs Christians to put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and love.Read those qualities carefully. Where is the instruction to make family relationships conditional upon continued membership in a particular denomination? Where is the command to abandon children who leave? Where is the instruction to treat relatives as spiritual hazards simply because they no longer accept the teachings of a church leader?It isn't there.Instead, Paul describes a Christian community characterized by patience, forgiveness, and love. Apparently, those qualities become inconvenient when institutional control is at stake.
4. Paul explicitly recognized family obligations.
First Timothy 5:8 states:But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.That is an interesting passage for an organization that promotes religious separation from family members.Paul emphasizes responsibility toward one's household.He does not provide an exemption allowing religious leaders to override family responsibilities whenever someone leaves their organization.And what about Ephesians 5:25?Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.Did Paul add a footnote saying that husbands should stop loving their wives if they no longer believe Gerald Flurry is God's apostle?Of course not.
Perhaps the most embarrassing New Testament passage for the PCG's family-separation doctrine is the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32.
A son leaves his father's household, takes his inheritance, and goes his own way. He makes disastrous decisions and eventually recognizes the error of his conduct.
When he returns, what does his father do? Does the father establish a policy of no contact?
Does he instruct the rest of the family to avoid the son until he demonstrates sufficient loyalty?
Does he consult a religious authority to determine whether the son is spiritually safe to embrace? Does he make the son complete a lengthy organizational reindoctrination program before restoring the relationship?
No!
The father welcomes him home. He embraces him, celebrates his return, and restores him to the family.
Jesus used this story to illustrate the Father's compassion toward those who repent and return.
It is a picture of mercy, reconciliation, and restoration.
The PCG would do well to spend considerably more time contemplating that parable and considerably less time explaining why family members should be abandoned.
The father in Jesus' story was interested in getting his son back.
The PCG's teaching risks turning the family into another enforcement mechanism for religious conformity. What a difference!
One of the most glaring problems with Armstrongism is its tendency to take isolated biblical passages and turn them into institutional regulations designed to maintain control over members. The New Covenant, however, places enormous emphasis on the transformation of the heart.
Jesus did not establish a system in which religious leaders could demand that Christians abandon their families whenever someone disagreed with their interpretation of Scripture.
Consider the words of Jesus in John 13:34-35:
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you...
He continued by explaining that love would identify His disciples. Not organizational loyalty.
Not attendance records. Not obedience to Gerald Flurry. Not the willingness to shun a family member.
LOVE.
That was the identifying characteristic Jesus gave His disciples.
And what kind of love did Jesus demonstrate?
He associated with people religious authorities despised. He showed compassion toward sinners. He welcomed those who were rejected by the religious establishment.
He did not establish a religious bureaucracy whose leaders could determine which relatives were still worthy of ordinary family affection.
Romans 12:18 says:
If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
Notice the breadth of that instruction. Christians are encouraged to pursue peace. They are not instructed to manufacture estrangement whenever someone leaves their congregation.
Of course, there are legitimate circumstances in which people must establish boundaries, including situations involving abuse, manipulation, or serious wrongdoing. No one should be required to remain in an unsafe relationship. But that is an entirely different matter from demanding that people reject relatives simply because those relatives no longer subscribe to an organization's doctrines.
The PCG needs to explain that distinction honestly.
The Trumpet Brief invokes Matthew 10:34-37, where Jesus speaks about divisions within households resulting from allegiance to Him. This passage is frequently abused by religious organizations that want to convince members that opposition from family members proves they are following God.
But notice what Jesus actually says. He is describing the division that can result when people choose to follow Him despite opposition.
He is not instructing His followers to manufacture division. He is not telling religious leaders to order members to abandon relatives. He is not authorizing churches to use family relationships as weapons against those who leave.
There is a tremendous difference between accepting that one's religious convictions may cause disagreement within a family and deliberately creating family separation as an organizational policy.
One is a consequence that may occur. The other is something religious authorities actively promote.
The PCG appears remarkably comfortable confusing the two.
Now let's return to the original Trumpet Brief article.
Its author spends considerable time condemning modern family estrangement. We are told that modern society has become selfish, narcissistic, intolerant, and increasingly willing to discard family relationships. We are told that people should stop treating relatives as disposable. We are told that family loyalty is a precious part of God's design. All wonderful sentiments.
But perhaps the author should have spent a few additional paragraphs examining the PCG's own practices. Because the organization is essentially saying:
Don't abandon your family because of disagreements, politics, personal convictions, or differences of opinion. That's selfish and destructive. However, if your relatives abandon our religious organization, you may be expected to cut them off. That's biblical!
Seriously?
Can anyone explain why the emotional devastation of family estrangement suddenly becomes acceptable when the organization itself is responsible for promoting it? Why is a parent who distances themselves from an adult child because of political differences condemned, while a parent who distances themselves from a child because that child leaves the PCG is supposedly demonstrating spiritual obedience? Why is one form of estrangement described as narcissistic, while the other is elevated into a religious virtue?
The answer appears embarrassingly simple.
The PCG believes its own religious authority provides an exemption from the standards it applies to everyone else. That is not moral consistency. It is institutional self-interest dressed up as biblical interpretation.
Perhaps the most important people missing from the Trumpet Brief's discussion are those who have actually experienced the consequences of this teaching. Consider the young adult who decides that PCG teachings are no longer convincing. Perhaps they simply want to attend another Christian congregation. Perhaps they have discovered serious problems with the organization. Perhaps they no longer believe Gerald Flurry is God's end-time apostle. Whatever the reason, they make a decision to leave.
What happens next? Do their parents continue loving them? Can they visit their family?
Can they celebrate birthdays, holidays, weddings, and ordinary family occasions together? Can they call their mother or father simply because they miss them? Or must every interaction be evaluated through the organization's interpretation of spiritual separation?
Imagine the emotional burden placed upon someone who discovers that leaving a church may also mean losing the ordinary affection and companionship of family members. And consider the parents. Imagine being told that maintaining a loving relationship with your own child is somehow a betrayal of God. Imagine being pressured to choose between your child and your religious organization.
That is not a minor doctrinal disagreement. It is a profound intrusion into the most intimate relationships human beings have.
Former members of high-control religious organizations have described the devastating effects of shunning and family separation. In some cases, the resulting isolation and emotional distress have been associated with severe mental-health crises and reports of suicide. These experiences deserve compassion, serious attention, and responsible documentation.
An organization that promotes practices capable of inflicting such damage should not be congratulating itself for its supposed defense of family values.
It should be examining the consequences of its own teachings.
Here is something the PCG desperately needs to understand:
- Your family does not belong to Gerald Flurry.
- Your children are not the property of the Philadelphia Church of God.
- Your marriage is not an organizational asset.
- Your parents do not become disposable because they disagree with a religious leader.
- And your brother or sister does not suddenly lose their humanity because they decide that the PCG is not where they belong.
- Religious organizations have no legitimate claim to ownership of family relationships.
They may teach their doctrines. They may explain their interpretation of Scripture. Members are free to accept or reject those teachings. But when a religious organization attempts to dictate who its members may love, associate with, or maintain family relationships with, it has crossed a very dangerous boundary. And when it wraps that interference in the language of divine authority, the danger becomes even greater.
People can leave a church without abandoning God. People can reject Gerald Flurry without rejecting Jesus Christ. People can walk away from Armstrongism without abandoning Christianity.
And people who leave the PCG deserve the same dignity, compassion, and ordinary human affection they had before they walked out the door.
The Philadelphia Church of God wants to present itself as a defender of traditional family values while simultaneously defending a doctrine that can tear families apart. It wants to condemn the modern epidemic of estrangement while excusing its own brand of religiously prescribed estrangement. It wants to lecture the world about love, loyalty, and family responsibility while demanding that its members potentially sacrifice those very relationships on the altar of organizational obedience. And it wants everyone to believe that this is somehow God's plan.
Sorry, Gerald. The New Covenant does not work that way.
Jesus did not command Christians to make family affection conditional upon membership in a particular church. Paul did not establish the Philadelphia Church of God as the final authority over family relationships. And nowhere did Jesus instruct His disciples to abandon their children, parents, or spouses simply because they stopped attending a particular congregation.
The defining characteristic of Christianity is love.
Not fear.
Not coercion.
Not religious isolation.
Not the destruction of family relationships to protect an organization's authority.
The PCG should read 1 Corinthians 13 again, particularly the description of love as patient, kind, and not self-seeking.
Perhaps it should also spend some time with Galatians 5:22-23, where Paul identifies the fruit of the Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
There is no fruit of the Spirit called institutional shunning.
There is no fruit of the Spirit called abandon your children for Gerald Flurry.
And there is certainly no New Covenant commandment that says:
Thou shalt destroy thy family relationships whenever somebody leaves the Philadelphia Church of God.
That commandment exists only in the peculiar theological imagination of Armstrongism.
If the PCG genuinely believes that family is sacred, perhaps it should start by allowing families to remain families, even when somebody decides to leave Gerald Flurry's religious empire.
Because a church that demands the destruction of family relationships in order to preserve its own authority has a rather serious problem with understanding what Christianity is supposed to be about.
The question isn't whether people who leave the PCG are worthy of love. The question is why an organization claiming to represent Jesus Christ would ever encourage its members to withhold it.
Silent Pilgrim
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Good morning,
More than a quarter of American adults are estranged from a relative, according to a national survey by Cornell sociologist Karl Pillemer. In her new book, No Contact(summarized in this American Spectator piece from yesterday), Noelle Mering of the Ethics and Public Policy Center argues that much of this is the result of a toxic ideology.
Mering identifies five factors causing this breakdown. They all grow from a new idea of what it means to be human, built on “two opposing principles: the exaltation of autonomy and the incentivization of victimhood.” Each takes something God designed to bind families together and turns it into a reason to walk away.The family is demoted: The ideology recasts God’s command to honor father and mother as an unjust special loyalty that exists only to hide abuse and protect power. Better to prioritize yourself.
Disagreement becomes contamination. The ideology emphasizes identity politics, judging a person not by his character but by his political tribe. Combine that with intolerance for differing convictions, and a young progressive concludes that a conservative parent is not just wrong but morally unclean.
Everything is trauma. Whereas trauma once applied only to victims of war or abuse, now it applies to a 12-year-old told to do laundry. Many of the estranged parents Mering spoke with had made mistakes—but ordinary ones, the kind earlier generations dealt with and forgave. Therapists and social media influencers teach young adults to search their pasts for trauma until they find it.
The child is always right. Influencers with this ideology prod and coach people on breaking away from members of their family. When a parent objects, that is presented as proof of toxicity. Online, estranged parents are mocked while estranged children are applauded.
Narcissism is everywhere. Mering points to data showing self-focus rising and empathy falling over decades, with the sharpest shift among the young. Self-preoccupation tends to make a person less agreeable, yet this ideology promotes such “self-actualization.”
The parents taught the lesson first. Decades of casual divorce taught children that family members are replaceable. Mering asks how a culture that shrugs at divorce can condemn young people for “divorcing” their parents.
Critics of the Trumpet’s sponsor organization might say this sounds familiar. The Philadelphia Church of God does instruct members to cut off contact with family members who turn away from God, a doctrine Gerald Flurry explains at length in Chapter 8 of The Father’s Love. That deserves a direct answer.
The difference is who sets the standard.The no-contact movement makes the self the judge: my feelings, my politics, my peace.
Biblical separation (e.g. Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 5:11; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; 1 Timothy 6:5; Titus 3:10-11; 2 John 10-11) makes God the judge, and it cuts against the self. No one obeys it for comfort. It is painful, and it is perhaps the most criticized doctrine the Church holds.
Its goal is not a break but a return: “that he may be ashamed” and repent (2 Thessalonians 3:14). When a disfellowshiped man in Corinth repented, Paul told the congregation to forgive and comfort him (2 Corinthians 2:6-8). The door stays open for the prodigal son.
Christ foresaw households divided over God’s truth (Matthew 10:34-37). Today’s America divides families over the self.
The Apostle Paul saw it coming. He prophesied that “in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves … disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection …” (2 Timothy 3:1-3).Notice what came first: self-love. That prophecy, written nearly 2,000 years ago, foretells exactly what Mering has diagnosed.
Modern secularist progressivism says: shift blame, love self, hate family. That exposes its satanic origins. It is antithetical to God, who says: take responsibility, master self, love family. The reason family is under such vicious attack in Satan’s world is that it is at the heart of God’s beautiful plan for human beings.
