Gerald Flurry’s Masterclass in Irony: Preaching Forgiveness While Enforcing Family Exile

 

Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection do not make any of us “worthy” in the sense of earning God’s favor through our own effort. Scripture is blunt: every human being is a sinner who falls short (Romans 3:23). None is righteous on their own (Romans 3:10). Our righteousness is like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). What the cross and empty tomb do accomplish is far better. God made the sinless Christ to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). While we were still sinners, Christ died for us; we are justified by His blood (Romans 5:8-9). Salvation is by grace through faith—not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works (Ephesians 2:8-9). The believer’s standing is Christ’s perfect righteousness credited to them, not something they must continually earn or maintain by institutional loyalty, endless self-improvement, or returning to a particular group. Philippians 3:9 puts it plainly: not a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ.  Colossians 1:12 even uses language of being “qualified” or “made meet” to share in the inheritance—not because we worked harder, but because the Father has already done it through the Son. This is finished work. It is not a treadmill of perpetual proving.Gerald Flurry’s brand-new book, The Father’s Love, whose introduction (published in the September 2026 Philadelphia Trumpet) takes Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 and turns it into an urgent appeal to “God’s prodigal sons”—specifically those Flurry labels Laodiceans who have left his Philadelphia Church of God. Flurry correctly notes that the father in the parable represents God the Father. The younger son demands his inheritance, leaves, squanders everything, and finally “comes to himself.” He returns rehearsing a speech of unworthiness: “I am no more worthy to be called thy son.” The father sees him from a great way off, runs, embraces, kisses, and restores him completely—best robe, ring, shoes, fatted calf—without a single lecture. Flurry writes movingly of the father’s joy and of heaven’s rejoicing over one sinner who repents. He insists God is waiting with open arms for anyone who leaves “His Church” and returns in repentance. He also addresses the older brother, urging faithful members to share the father’s heart. All of that is true to the text of Luke 15. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife.  For roughly two decades, Gerald Flurry has enforced a strict no-contact policy that requires PCG members to completely sever relationships with former members and anyone deemed “Laodicean”—including their own parents, children, siblings, and closest friends—except in very narrow cases involving an unconverted spouse who is “pleased to dwell,” or you are one of the PCG elite where this rule has never applied.In a December 2005 Pastor General’s Report and subsequent sermons, Flurry clarified that partial contact (“as long as religion is not discussed”) is not forbidden, but later he  said the cut-off is to be total. He has described the pain this causes as useful: God wants the “sting” of shunning to drive people back. Former members and their families have documented years of silence, broken marriages, children cut off from grandparents, and in at least one tragic case a daughter’s body returned only after years of enforced separation. So the same organization that has systematically broken families in the name of “protecting the Church” is now publishing a book that celebrates a father who runs to the returning son and refuses even to let him finish his speech of unworthiness. Flurry tells “prodigals” that the Father is watching the horizon. Meanwhile, his own policy has instructed loyal members to keep those same people firmly off the horizon. The parable’s father never demanded the son rejoin a specific human organization or submit to a particular man’s government before the embrace. He simply saw repentance and rejoiced. Flurry’s version quietly inserts an extra condition: return to this church, accept this authority structure, and then the kisses and the feast can begin. That is not the father’s heart in Luke 15. That is institutional control dressed up in biblical language. True worthiness before God is not restored by crawling back into any human group. It was secured once for all at the cross and confirmed by the resurrection. Believers already stand clothed in Christ’s righteousness. They do not have to keep working to become worthy; they already are declared so by grace through faith. Any teaching that turns the father’s open arms into a recruitment tool for a particular organization has missed the point of the parable—and of the gospel itself. Flurry’s book may move some readers with its description of divine compassion. The lived history of the Philadelphia Church of God under his leadership tells a very different story about how that compassion has actually been practiced toward those who walked away. The contrast is not subtle. It is the definition of irony.

The Suspenders of Doom: How One Man in Iowa Just Demoted Germany and Promoted Trump to Full-Time Beast

 

God's greatest gift to the church (after Bob Thiel, of course) is Samuel Kitchen—the self-appointed restorer of the last true remnant of the Worldwide Church of God, just did a video broadcast straight from what appears to be a red-curtain bacchanal in one of those trailers at Stateline behind the casinos on your way to Vegas (or is that the official “ripped-off photo from Pasadena headquarters from the 1980s?). And what a fashion statement our new fearless end-time watchman was as he heralded in the imminent Beast system! Red shirt to symbolize the scarlet beast and black suspenders to symbolize its two horns.  

Yes, brethren. Nothing says “I am the sole authorized spokesman of the New and Improved Worldwide Church of God, holder of the sacred name, collector of tithes, owner of the greatest aggregator of COG literature since Ron Stephens, and sole possessor of the official COG decoder ring for the Bible, quite like dressing like a 1950s short-order cook on Route 66.  

In this latest prophetic masterpiece titled “Donald Trump…Future Beast?” (59 whole views and counting!), our suspendered sage continues his noble quest of recycling Herbert W. Armstrong’s greatest hits—British-Israelism, Germany-as-Assyria, place of safety in Petra, the whole dusty catalog—except now he’s improvising. Apparently the classic “man from Germany” Assyrian plot twist is getting a little stale, so why not pivot mid-sentence and declare that the Beast might actually be…Donald Trump? 

Half-German, half-whatever, building a great economy, auditing the nation like a cosmic receiver, and preparing to be possessed by Satan for a tidy 3½ years.  

Brilliant. 

Decades of meticulous Armstrongist charts proving the Beast rises from a United States of Europe just got yeeted into the Iowa cornfields because one man in suspenders had a new revelation while blabbering in front of the beastly red curtain. 

The Worldwide Church of God “fell into the hands of apostates,” you see, so only Samuel can now properly warn the world that looking “across the pond” for the Beast is so 1986. Look in the backyard instead! Or the Oval Office! Or wherever the algorithm points next week!  

Truly the cutting edge of 21st-century prophecy. Dave Pack, Bob Thiel and Gerald Flurry are shaking in their boots right now.

Make-A-Will Month Special: Leave It to LCG, Because Family Is Just a Bunch of Esaus Waiting to Squander Your Money

 

“Dear Brethren… Please Die Conveniently”

Gerald Weston’s Latest Money-Grubbing Masterpiece

The classic Armstrongist con: wrap a naked cash grab in a few cherry-picked Bible verses, sprinkle in some “we never beg” false humility, and watch the faithful sign over the family farm. Gerald E. Weston has once again polished Herbert W. Armstrong’s favorite parlor trick—telling members that the best way to “lay up for their children” is to make damn sure a hefty chunk of that inheritance never reaches those children.

Weston opens with the charming discovery that August is “National Make-A-Will Month.” How convenient! Right on cue, the letter arrives in members’ mailboxes like a friendly reminder from the Grim Reaper’s accounting department. He assures everyone he “spends most of the time updating you on what your prayers and financial contributions are doing, rather than begging for more money.”
Translation: “I am totally not begging… except for the part where I am about to beg for your entire estate.”

Then comes the biblical smoke screen. Parents should leave an inheritance to their children (2 Corinthians 12:14, Proverbs 13:22). Noble! Heartwarming! Until you notice the immediate pivot: some kids are responsible, some are Esau-level losers who will “quickly squander” it. God Himself “discriminated” between Jacob and Esau, after all. So if your offspring look a little too much like the biblical bad boy who sold his birthright for a bowl of stew… well, maybe the Living Church of God would be a safer bet.  

Weston even throws in the Prodigal Son for good measure. The younger kid blew it, the older one came out ahead. Moral of the story according to LCG: better to give early and often to headquarters, just in case your own flesh and blood turns out to be a disappointment.  

But the real emotional blackmail arrives with the tragic tales of two dearly departed members who wanted to leave everything (or a “substantial sum”) to “this Work of God”… yet failed. One neglected to put it in writing. The other forgot to sign the will. Cue the collective gasp: their money went to the state! Or worse—actual blood relatives! The horror! Weston doesn’t say the quiet part out loud, but the message lands like a brick: Don’t be those guys. Don’t let your hard-earned assets slip through the church’s fingers just because you were too busy dying to update the paperwork.

And if you do feel a sudden holy urge to remember the Living Church of God in your will? Why, they’ll happily mail you their free booklet Planned Giving—only if you request it, of course. No pressure. Just a gentle, loving suggestion from the same organization that historically demanded multiple tithes while living and still keeps the collection plate open after you’re in the ground.

This is pure Armstrongist tradition, distilled. Herbert used to preach that the “Work” was the only thing that mattered in the end times. His successors refined the pitch: your family might waste it, the government will seize it, but we—the self-appointed guardians of “true” Christianity—will use it for prophecy charts, telecasts, and whatever else keeps the headquarters lights on. Families get the guilt. The church gets the check.  

Disgusting? Absolutely. But in the world of Armstrongism, it’s just another Tuesday… or rather, another “Make-A-Will Month.” So next time Gerald writes to remind you that “death does not always come at old age,” remember: he’s not worried about your legacy. He’s worried about theirs.  

Your kids can always get a nice framed photo of Dad instead. The church prefers the cash. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

A lot is happening around the world, but I want to get back to something I only learned a few days ago. I opened a letter from an organization that I follow and learned that “August is Make-A-Will Month” in the U.S. I wondered: Is that correct? Is there really a month to highlight this purpose? Sure enough, a quick Internet search shows that August is recognized as National Make-A-Will Month to encourage individuals to create or update their wills, thus protecting loved ones and preserving their legacy. Canada is beginning to do the same, though our friends north of the border designate the month of November.

Now before you stop reading, those of you who receive these letters know that I spend most of the time updating you on what your prayers and financial contributions are doing, rather than begging for more money. You also know that on our telecasts and in our literature we do not ask the public for contributions. Everything we have we give away absolutely free of charge, thanks to you members and co-workers. You are the only ones who receive these letters.

However, I do want to say a few things about the subject of wills and legacies, as this is vitally important no matter how you distribute the assets you accumulate in this life. What you do regarding your legacy is very personal, and although we greatly appreciate the fact that a few people do remember us in this way, my message to you, and why I bring this up, is that the advice to make a will and keep it updated is important. Death does not always come at old age. As Solomon wrote, “For man also does not know his time: Like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them” (Ecclesiastes 9:12).

God tells us that even in death we have responsibilities. We are told in 2 Corinthians 12:14 that parents ought to lay up for their children. And Proverbs tells us, “A good man leaves an inheritance [even] to his children’s children” (13:22). But it is important to make your wishes known in writing to ensure that the assets you have worked for all your life are distributed as you desire. If you die without a will, your wishes may not be fulfilled.

My parents left equal amounts to my sister and me, and they had everything in perfect order, but some parents may have valid reasons to leave a greater or lesser amount to each of their children—not because some are favorites, but because a parent may realize that one child is responsible and he or she will benefit from that gift, while another child would quickly squander it. Even God discriminated between Jacob and Esau. Neither child was perfect. Jacob was a crafty man who had to learn some painfully hard lessons in life—and he did—but Esau is described as a “fornicator” and a “profane person… who for one morsel of food sold his birthright” (Hebrews 12:16). We also read that “Esau despised his birthright” (Genesis 25:34). He failed to value the inheritance that would normally have been his by right of birth. Even though Jacob was not a very nice brother in his younger days, he looked beyond the immediate and God knew it would be better to pass along the birthright promises to his descendants rather than to those of his brother.

But even here, if you read the whole story, you see that God did not totally neglect Esau, and it is important that parents leave something to each child, if for no other reason than to mitigate a legal challenge that could follow. We must also not forget one of the most famous of Jesus’ parables, that of the Prodigal Son, who squandered the inheritance his father gave him early in life. Yet, his father still loved him, as God our Father does us despite our sinfulness. Nevertheless, since the younger son squandered his inheritance, the older son would have come out further ahead as his inheritance would have grown greater over time before it finally came to him.

It is remarkable how selfish people can be when it comes to inheritances. We have all heard stories about how one sibling cheated (stole) an inheritance from the other siblings. How sad, but it happens all the time. Maybe it happened to you. There is a proverb addressing this subject that indicates this problem is not new. “An inheritance gained hastily at the beginning will not be blessed at the end” (Proverbs 20:21).

The importance of putting your house in order was brought out this last year when two individuals that we know of wanted to leave all or a portion of their estates to this Work of God. However, in both cases, they failed to have their wills or trusts in order. One man I personally knew quite well, and I know that he wanted to leave a substantial sum to the Church. Even though he was in failing health the last few years, he neglected to put his heart’s desire down on paper. The other man made out his will but failed to sign it. In this latter case, the man had no heirs, and his substantial estate has gone to the state in which he lived—something he definitely did not want.

Whether you want to pass along a portion of your legacy to the Living Church of God, which is the sponsor of Tomorrow’s World, or to family, friends, or another charity, please be sure to make your wishes known in a manner consistent with your desires and the laws where you live. Having a simple will is a starting point, but it is always better to receive legal advice to ensure that your legacy goes where you want it to go. And if you do want to give a portion to the Living Church of God, or need general advice on wills, we can send you a copy of our short and easy-to-read resource Planned Giving. We will only send it if you request it. It can also be accessed online at lcg.org/planned-giving.

Thank you again, dear brethren and co-workers, for your dedication to this Work of the living God. Let us remember one another, recognizing that there are many dangers in our world and that we are one body. Let us pray for one another, whether in our own country or somewhere far away.

Sincerely, in Christ’s service,

Gerald E. Weston

Shake, Rattle & Roll… Straight Into the Cult: Crackpot Bob's Earthquake Evangelism

 

Crackpot Bob, the self-appointed prophet of perpetual doom, is once again staring into the camera from his book-lined bunker of doom, waving his hands like a man who’s just spotted a magnitude-12 personal crisis on the horizon. This month’s special? Earthquakes. Not the ordinary ones that keep seismologists employed and insurance companies solvent—no, the really big one. The Revelation 16 special. The “cities of the nations fell… every island fled away… mountains were not found” model. Bigger than anything Pliny the Elder ever hyperventilated about. And conveniently, if you’re one of Bob’s loyal followers and manage to scramble into the rocky embrace of Petra, you’ll get a front-row seat to the fireworks while the rest of us heathens get turned into tectonic confetti.

Armstrongism has always been a masterclass in marketing misery. Herbert W. Armstrong perfected the formula decades ago: scan the headlines, cherry-pick every famine, pestilence, and tremor, then scream “BEGINNING OF SORROWS!” until the donation envelopes start arriving. Bob simply inherited the family business. His writings don’t just mention tragedy—they dwell in it, roll around in it, build a timeshare on it. Every article is a guided tour of the apocalypse gift shop: “ San Andreas Research is Small Potatoes Compared to the Really BIG ONE!" And don’t forget the scoffers of 2 Peter 3 who dare to suggest that tectonic plates have been doing their thing for a few billion years! The message is crystal clear: the world is a dumpster fire, Jesus is basically the fire marshal with a very specific guest list, and the only way to avoid getting roasted is to join the club, keep the Sabbath, avoid the unclean meats, and start packing for Jordan.

New Covenant Christians, however, have this radical idea that the New Testament might actually mean what it says.

Under the New Covenant, we are not trembling children waiting for Daddy to finish the global demolition project so He can finally notice us. We are already reconciled. Already seated with Him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). Already sealed with the Holy Spirit as a guarantee (Ephesians 1:13-14). The “day of the Lord” that will melt the elements is not a surprise pop quiz for those who are in Christ; it is the final cleanup of a creation that has been groaning for redemption (Romans 8:19-23). And when that day arrives, believers are not scrambling for a cave in Petra—we are “looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God” because we already belong to the One who holds the keys.

Perfect love, Scripture insists, casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Not “perfect doctrinal charts about the place of safety.” Not “perfect attendance at the Feast of Tabernacles in a Jordanian canyon.” Perfect love. The kind that flows from knowing the finished work of the cross. The kind that lets us watch the news, shrug at the latest 6.8, and still sleep at night because our security is not measured in Richter scale readings or the slip rate of the San Andreas.

Bob, of course, cannot dwell there. Armstrongism never could. If you stop selling fear, the entire revenue model collapses. No more “watch therefore… that you may be counted worthy to escape.” No more urgent calls to “consider your ways” while the real consideration—grace, rest, the indwelling Christ—gets quietly ignored. Misery is the product. Tragedy is the branding. And the New Covenant is the competition that must never be mentioned, lest people realize they don’t need a cult membership card to survive the end of the age.

So keep watching those earthquakes, Bob. Keep updating the “biggest one ever” spreadsheet. Keep pointing the faithful toward Petra like it’s the ultimate Airbnb for the elect. New Covenant Christians will be over here, sipping coffee, reading the actual gospel, and marveling that the same Jesus who predicted “earthquakes in various places” also promised, “Peace I leave with you… Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).

The ground may shake. The mountains may move. But the New Covenant doesn’t.

The Vine and the Dead Sticks: How the “One True Church” Became a Forest of Splinters

Fitly Joined Together? Herbert Armstrong’s One True Church Meets the Reality of a Thousand Splinters

Samuel Kitchen recently posted a 1981 quote from Herbert W. Armstrong that paints a picture of beautiful, organic unity. Armstrong declared that the Church of God is “fitly joined together,” founded on the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone. He leaned on the vine-and-branches imagery of John 15: the branches are joined to the vine and to one another through that vine. Break one off, he warned, and you break it off from Christ. God has one Church. He never said He would create several different groups. “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” And, Armstrong insisted, that Church was still here in 1981—organized, together, and speaking the same thing.

Illustration by Samuel Kitchen 

Forty-five years later the landscape looks less like a single healthy vine and more like a vineyard after a hurricane.

The organization Armstrong led did not remain “fitly joined together.” Before his death, there were already hundreds of splinter groups and self-appointed group leaders. Then, HWA had to go and die, and all hell broke loose. The Worldwide Church of God became a cascade of competing claims: United, Living, Philadelphia, Restored, Continuing, Church of God Eternal, and hundreds more. Each new group insisted it was the true remnant, the Philadelphian era, the sole organization still joined to the vine. Leaders rose, declared themselves the rightful successor or the end-time Elijah or the final apostle, and promptly cut off anyone who questioned the new arrangement. Disfellowshipping became the preferred pruning method. Congregations split, re-split, and split again. Today the COG world operates as hundreds of independent fiefdoms, each demanding exclusive loyalty, each warning that leaving their particular group is the same as leaving Christ.

The irony is thick enough to cut with a knife. Armstrong’s own words are now used by men who lead separate, mutually exclusive organizations to prove that only their group is the one true Church. The very quotation that insisted God would never create several different groups is posted by leaders who have spent decades creating and maintaining those groups. The “one thing” they claim to speak is no longer a shared voice; it is a chorus of competing claims about calendars, governance, prophecies, titles, and who is allowed to sit at the table.

This is the natural fruit of the exclusivity model Armstrong taught. When the identity of the true Church is tied to a single hierarchical organization, every disagreement becomes a potential schism. Every strong personality becomes a potential new headquarters. Every failed prophecy or internal scandal becomes an opportunity for the next man to declare that the previous group has been rejected and that he now carries the true mantle. The result is not a fitly joined body. It is a landscape of rival claims, competing websites, parallel Feast sites, and endless accusations that the other groups have “broken off from Christ.”

New Covenant Christians are under no obligation to play this game. The New Testament never requires believers to locate the one correct corporate organization in order to remain joined to Christ. The Church is the body of those who are in Christ by faith. The vine is Christ Himself. Union with Him is by the Spirit through faith, not by membership cards, hierarchical approval, or the ability to recite the correct list of end-time titles. Believers are joined to one another through the vine, not through a single human headquarters that claims exclusive rights to the vine.

That means a Christian who fellowships with other believers outside the Armstrongist orbit is not automatically “broken off.” A believer who refuses to accept the latest self-appointed leader’s claims is not cut off from Christ. The gates of the grave have not prevailed against the Church Christ is building—because that Church is not identical with any one of the splinter groups that claim the Armstrong brand.

Armstrong’s 1981 words reveal the high ideal he held. The history since then reveals how quickly that ideal collapses when it is married to organizational exclusivity and hierarchical control. The fractured COG world is living proof that tying spiritual life to the claim of being the sole true Church produces endless division rather than the unity it promises.

New Covenant believers are free to leave any COG out there and the exclusivity contest behind. The vine is still there. The branches that abide in Him remain joined—both to Him and to one another—without needing permission from any of the competing headquarters that still insist they alone hold the keys.

Crackpot Bob's “Greco-Roman” Smear: When Historical Illiteracy Masquerades as Spiritual Superiority

Crackpot Bob’s “Greco-Roman” label is not the devastating smear he imagines. It is a self-refuting rhetorical tic that collapses under the weight of the New Testament itself, the historical setting of the apostolic church, and basic honesty about how ideas and cultures actually work.

Thiel uses “Greco-Roman” as a pejorative shorthand for the Catholic and Orthodox traditions and, by extension, the Protestants who emerged from them. In his wildly misguided view, these churches compromised the pure, original faith by absorbing Greek philosophy, Roman imperial structures, and pagan practices, while his Continuing Church of God supposedly preserved an uncontaminated stream that somehow avoided all of that. The term is meant to sound damning—syncretistic, worldly, philosophically polluted, and therefore not truly Christian. It is none of those things. It is simply descriptive of the world in which Christianity was born, grew, and produced the very documents Thiel claims to follow.

Jesus lived and died under Roman rule in a thoroughly Hellenized Jewish environment. Greek was the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean. The Jewish Scriptures most early Christians used were the Septuagint—a Greek translation produced in the Hellenistic world. The New Testament itself was written in Koine Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic. Paul’s letters, the Gospels, Acts, and the rest are Greco-Roman documents in language, rhetorical style, and cultural reference points.

Paul quotes Greek poets with approval when it serves the gospel (Acts 17:28). He debates Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens and frames the unknown God in terms they could grasp. He is a Roman citizen who invokes Roman legal protections. He travels the Roman road system. The church expands through the infrastructure, urban networks, and multilingual culture of the empire. To treat “Greco-Roman” as a contaminant is to treat the actual historical matrix of the New Testament as a problem. That is not biblical fidelity; it is historical denial.

Second Temple Judaism was already interacting with Greek thought long before Jesus. The idea of a pure, isolated “Hebrew” Christianity floating above Hellenistic culture is a later myth. The apostles did not operate in a cultural vacuum. They operated in the real world of the first century—and that world was Greco-Roman.

The label reveals more than it accuses. Thiel’s dichotomy requires two cleanly separated streams after the apostles: a pure Church of God that kept the original faith, and a “Greco-Roman” confederation that sold out for imperial favor and philosophical respectability. Reality is messier. Early Christianity was diverse. Practices and emphases developed over time. Some shifts were gradual, some contested, some influenced by surrounding culture—as every religious movement in history has been. Pretending there was a pristine, non-Hellenized remnant that simply continued unchanged until Herbert Armstrong rediscovered it in an Oregon library, requires selective reading of the sources and the invention of a purity narrative that the evidence does not support.

There is also a glaring practical irony. Thiel writes in English, attempts to use modern Western historical methods, organizes a church with contemporary administrative structures, and argues using categories of evidence and logic that are products of the broader Greco-Roman intellectual tradition filtered through later Western development. He selectively cites “Greco-Roman” church fathers and scholars when their words can be made to support his reconstruction, then dismisses the same tradition as compromised when it does not. That is not historical method. It's typical Armstrongist wishful myth-making.

The gospel was never meant to remain a Palestinian Jewish sect. Paul insists it is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). The inclusion of the nations—Gentiles living in the Greco-Roman world—was not a late corruption. It was the point. The cultural forms of that world (language, rhetoric, urban life, legal categories, philosophical questions) became the vehicle through which the message traveled. Using those forms is not betrayal; it is incarnation in history.

Calling mainstream Christians “Greco-Roman” is therefore not the exposure of a fatal flaw. It is an admission that Christianity took root in the actual Mediterranean world of the first centuries rather than in an idealized, culturally pure alternative universe. The smear only works if one already accepts the Armstrongist premise that any development after a certain early cutoff, any engagement with surrounding intellectual culture, and any organizational continuity outside the preferred lineage is automatically apostasy. Once that premise is questioned, the label loses its force.

The phrase functions as identity boundary maintenance. It creates an in-group that is pure by definition and an out-group that is compromised by definition. It allows Thiel to claim continuity with the apostles while treating the vast majority of historical Christianity as a deviation. It flatters the small remnant that stays with him by portraying everyone else as the product of philosophical and imperial sellout. That is useful for group cohesion. It is not useful for understanding history or the New Testament.

Christianity has always been a faith that enters cultures, uses their languages, answers their questions, and is in turn shaped by the encounter. The New Testament itself is the first and most important example. Pretending otherwise, and turning the very setting of the apostolic church into a slur, is not a defense of original Christianity. It is a refusal to take the historical particularity of the gospel seriously. But, when has Bob ever taken the gospel seriously?

Bob Thiel can keep saying “Greco-Roman” as if the words themselves prove corruption. They do not. They simply describe the world God chose for the incarnation, the apostolic mission, and the writing of the New Testament. Treating that world as the enemy is not a mark of greater faithfulness. It is a mark of a historical narrative that cannot survive contact with the sources it claims to revere.

Bwana Bob’s Exclusive Bible Franchise: From the Apostles Straight to Arroyo Grande, CA

Bob Thiel’s grand claim is that the true “Church of God” alone possessed and preserved the New Testament canon (and for that matter, the ENTIRE Bible) from the apostles forward, that Catholics and Protestants were latecomers and interlopers, and that this pure chain of custody somehow terminates in his own “Continuing” Church of God in 2026. This is not history. It is pure fictional COG mythology.

There was no organization in the first or second century that looked, taught, or behaved like modern Armstrongism. The groups Thiel waves at (Nazarenes, certain Asia Minor congregations, later Waldenses) did not keep the Armstrong package: British-Israel identity, the specific holy-day calendar HWA adopted, the rejection of the Trinity in the exact way the COGs do, the mandatory third tithe, or the “one true church” hierarchical structure that ends with a living apostle/prophet. Claiming them as “our people” is the same move every restorationist group makes: find someone who kept the Sabbath or rejected Rome and declare them your spiritual grandparents.

Bwana Bob's “chain of custody” is pure mythology. Yes, the apostles and their immediate successors knew which writings were authoritative. That is not news. What is news is the leap that only a continuous, doctrinally pure “Church of God” line ever possessed them while the rest of Christendom wandered in darkness. Polycarp of Smyrna is claimed by Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants as one of their own early witnesses. He did not hand a sealed packet of 27 books to a secret COG courier with instructions to keep it away from those nasty Greco-Romans. The early lists, quotes, and disputes show a broad Christian community gradually recognizing the same core writings. The fact that some later Catholics and Orthodox included extra books (or temporarily disputed a few) does not magically transfer ownership of the canon to a 20th-century American splinter movement.

Crackpot Bob's timeline is a classic Armstrongist history rewrite. It treats every mention of “sacred scriptures” by an early writer as proof of the full modern Protestant canon already locked down and exclusive to “us.” Then it jumps centuries, waves at the Waldenses (who were not Church of God or Armstrongist in nature), skips the total absence of anything resembling the Radio Church of God or Worldwide Church of God for most of Christian history, and lands triumphantly on Herbert Armstrong in the 1930s. From there it is only a short, bitter hop through successive splits until Bob Thiel declares that his group now holds the true custodianship. This is not a chain. It is a series of historical non-sequiturs connected by wishful thinking and the magic phrase “Church of God.”

The claim that “the Bible is entirely a COG project” is laughable on its face. The books were written by first-century Jewish and Gentile believers, circulated among multiple congregations, quoted by a wide range of early Christian writers, and eventually standardized through the broader church’s process of recognition. No exclusive COG copyright office existed. The idea that God left His word only with a tiny, mostly invisible flock that somehow resurfaces every few centuries just long enough to hand the baton to the next true remnant is the same mythology every exclusive group tells itself.

Bwana Bob's endpoint is pure farce. Even if one granted every previous claim, the final link—“and therefore the Continuing Church of God under Bob Thiel is the true custodial church in 2026”—requires believing that a man who left Living Church of God over personality and prophetic disagreements, started his own group, and began issuing dreams and self-promotions is the living terminus of the apostolic canon. That is not continuity. That is a man writing himself into the story replacing God's hand in the entire matter.

Greco-Roman and Protestant churches have their own historical problems and anachronisms. That does not make Thiel’s alternative true by default. Two competing myths do not produce one historical fact. The books of the New Testament were recognized, preserved, and transmitted by the wider Christian movement. The idea that only one tiny, doctrinally specific stream ever truly “had” them is the kind of claim that sounds profound only if you already need it to be true.

In short: the apostles wrote letters. Later Christians recognized them. Centuries of ordinary transmission followed. Then, in the 20th century, a former advertising man in Oregon decided he had restored the true church. Decades of splits later, Bob Thiel decided he was the final custodian. That is not a chain of custody. That is pure Armstrongite myth making..