Samuel Kitchen’s Apostasy Alarm: Stay Inside the Crumbling “Spiritual Organism” or Lose Your Crown!

 

Samuel Kitchen has issued another urgent fatwa from the front lines of Armstrongist anxiety. Half the Church was supposedly destined to quit the Sabbath (Aaron Dean heard it from Herbert himself-and then gave out Aaron's phone number and said to call him). The faithful remnant (now numbering between 5-10 people) is the true Philadelphia Candlestick still burning inside the Worldwide Church of God, which is not a human organization but a "spiritual organism." Anyone who starts another group is polluting the temple whose foundation HWA already laid. Love God more by staying put; love the leavers less. Exit the other churches. Pour everything into the approved channel. Listen to HWA so Christ's voice gets louder. Otherwise your crown is being stolen, your bags have holes, and Satan's smooth-speech system is winning. It's a familiar sermon. It is also the exact opposite of the New Covenant. Kitchen's entire case collapses the moment you stop treating Herbert Armstrong as an untouchable apostle whose organizational shell is the ongoing spiritual temple. The Church is the body of Christ. Christ is the head. Believers are members. Paul did not write that there is one body, one Spirit, one faith, one baptism-and one true candlestick that must remain inside the corporate structure HWA built in the twentieth century. The foundation is the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ Himself as the cornerstone. Kitchen's move is the classic one: redefine "the Church" as "the people who still agree with me and my preferred leader," then brand everyone else an apostate for refusing the redefinition. That is how you keep people inside Sabbath-keeping, tithing, and hierarchical control long after the New Testament declared the law's role as tutor finished. The authority Kitchen wants to rest on HWA does not hold. The 1975 prophecy failed. Later date-setting and place-of-safety claims failed. A second-hand recollection that "half the Church would quit the Sabbath" does not become binding revelation just because Aaron Dean remembers hearing it. The scattered groups Kitchen condemns are what happens when a legalistic organization fractures. They are not proof that the "Philadelphia elect" must now reassemble under his particular banner. The New Covenant does not require anyone to keep the Sabbath as a covenantal obligation, tithe to a specific ministry, or remain inside any post-HWA entity in order to be "spiritually organized." Believers are free. That freedom is not compromise. It is the point. Kitchen's love language is especially revealing. True love for God, he says, means staying put and pouring everything into the approved channel, while following people who leave is loving them more than Christ. That is inverted. Loving God under the New Covenant means resting in the finished work of Christ, not performing the old-covenant calendar and financial obligations as proof of loyalty. The people who walked away from Armstrongist groups did not "start loving Jesus less." Many of them discovered that the real Jesus is not the one who needs an exclusive twentieth-century foundation laid by HWA before He can return to His own spiritual temple. The temple is already the people of God. It does not get polluted because someone starts a new congregation or simply reads Galatians and stops worrying about which corporate name still holds the candlestick. The fear tactics are standard issue: crowns being stolen, voices growing weaker, families destroyed, bags with holes, Satan's system of smooth speech. All of it is designed to make ordinary believers feel that exiting the system equals spiritual death. New Covenant Christians do not have to manage that anxiety. They are not under the Sinai administration. They are not required to "speak the same thing" HWA taught in order for Christ's voice to grow louder. They already have the Spirit, the Scriptures, and direct access to the Head. Kitchen's demand that people exit every other group and reorganize their households around his vision of the continuing WCG is not humility before Christ. It is another round of the "one true church" claim that has produced the very fragmentation he now decries. No New Covenant Christian needs to lose sleep over Kitchen's apostasy alarm. The real departure is the one that adds HWA's foundation, Sabbath-keeping as identity, and exclusive organizational loyalty to the gospel of grace. Those who have left that system are not polluting a temple. They are refusing to treat a human movement as if it were the temple. Christ is sufficient. The rest is optional religious infrastructure-and optional is exactly what the New Covenant makes it

Apostle John. and Polycarp Were NOT Charter Members Of The Continuing Church of God

 

By a Concerned Brother 

Who Can Actually Read Primary Sources

Bwana Bob has once again appointed himself the official historian of the first century, and the results are about as reliable as one of his prophetic timelines.

In his latest piece, (CG7, biblical accuracy, and Lucian of Antioch), Bob Thiel argues that the New Testament canon was essentially complete the moment John finished Revelation, that the Apostle John personally possessed the full 27-book list, and that he handed it off to Polycarp of Smyrna as part of a continuous "Church of God" chain of custody that somehow (after a brief 1,800-year nap) reappears in the Continuing Church of God. The entire argument is classic Armstrongist retrofitting: take real early Christian figures, strip away everything that makes them actual historical Christians, and rebrand them as proto-CCOG members who quietly believed in Sabbath, holy days, tithing, and the whole package.

1. The "John and Polycarp were True COG" claim is pure anachronistic cosplay.

Thiel treats the Apostle John and Polycarp as if they were early members of the same organization that Herbert Armstrong invented in the 20th century and that Bob now claims to lead. John was a Jewish-Christian apostle writing within the first generation of the movement that became the broader church. Polycarp was a second-century bishop of Smyrna who opposed Marcion, accepted the developing four-gospel collection, and operated within the emerging proto-orthodox network. Neither man left any evidence of British-Israelism, the specific Armstrongist calendar, the rejection of the Trinity in the modern COG sense, or any of the other distinctive markers of Thiel's group. Claiming them as "TRUE COG members" is the same move used for every other ancient figure Bob wants to recruit: if they mentioned Scripture or lived in Asia Minor, they must have been secretly running a Sabbath-keeping remnant that matches the 2026 CCOG website.

2. Selective quotation and circular "chain of custody."

Thiel cites Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians, the Harris Fragments, Irenaeus, Ignatius, the Didache, and 1 Clement as if they prove a closed 27-book canon under John's personal supervision. What they actually show is that early Christian writers in Asia Minor and elsewhere were using and quoting various apostolic writings and treating them as authoritative. That is normal and expected. It does not equal a formal, fixed canon list that John privately certified and passed to Polycarp like a membership card. Polycarp alludes to and quotes a number of New Testament writings; he does not provide a checklist of all 27 books, nor does any contemporary document record John compiling and sealing the collection. The argument is circular: "The true Church had the canon because Polycarp had it, and Polycarp had it because he was true Church."

3. Ignoring how the canon actually developed.

The New Testament collection was recognized gradually. Some books (the Gospels, Paul's major letters, 1 Peter, 1 John) were widely accepted early. Others (Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2-3 John, Jude, Revelation) had more varied reception. Athanasius's 367 Festal Letter is one of the earliest clear statements of the exact 27-book list that matches the modern Protestant canon; regional councils later confirmed it. Thiel's claim that the canon was locked once Revelation was written, and that only the "Church of God" in Asia Minor possessed it, requires ignoring the actual historical process and the fact that writings circulated across multiple Christian communities, not inside a single exclusive remnant.

4. The Asia Minor exclusivity argument is special pleading.

Yes, many New Testament books were addressed to or written from Asia Minor. That does not mean the churches there alone possessed or defined the canon, nor that every other Christian community was somehow outside the "true" line. Early Christian literature shows letters, Gospels, and apostolic traditions moving between Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, and elsewhere. Thiel's map of "only Asia Minor counts" is drawn to fit the conclusion that his preferred geography is the only legitimate one.

5. Textual history is pressed into service of the narrative.

The discussion of Lucian of Antioch, the Byzantine text, and the Textus Receptus mixes real textual scholarship with the usual implication that the "true" line preserved the pure text while everyone else corrupted it. This is a familiar pattern in certain Protestant and Armstrongist circles, but it does not demonstrate a continuous COG chain of custody from John through Polycarp to the present.

The pattern is consistent: real early Christians become honorary members of the Continuing Church of God, the historical development of the canon is flattened into a single apostolic hand-off, and any evidence that does not fit is either ignored or reclassified as the work of the "Greco-Roman" church. It is not historical method; it is membership recruitment conducted with ancient names.

PCG REJECTS: “Not Headquarters Material”

 

PCG REJECTS: 

“Not Headquarters Material”

Click Here For The Song

Dam Moffett

What happens when a PCG church member wants to move closer to headquarters—and is told she does not fit the image?

A few years ago, I met a woman at a church festival who lived in Seattle, Washington. She told me she was close friends with Steven Flurry’s wife and wanted to move to the Philadelphia Church of God headquarters in Edmond, Oklahoma. Her employer was willing to let her transfer to its Edmond location, so she had a practical way to make the move.

According to her account, her local minister approved but said she would also need permission from the headquarters minister, Wayne Turgen.

She told me his response was that she “did not fit the image they were trying to project.”

She said she broke down crying. She was a heavy woman and believed the rejection was because of her weight. I cannot say whether that was his reason, but that was how she understood the remark—and it hurt her deeply.

Another woman, Jennifer Ladd of the Cincinnati congregation, also wanted to move to headquarters. She was a Montessori schoolteacher and administrator and believed her experience could be useful at the school on the PCG compound.

Jennifer told me she asked Regional Director Cal Culpepper for permission to move. According to her, he told her she was “not headquarters material.”

What does that mean? What makes someone “headquarters material”? Shouldn’t a religious community value a person’s character, kindness, faith, and willingness to serve?

These are two accounts shared with me personally by the women involved. I did not witness their conversations with the ministers, but I heard how they described the rejection.

To me, these accounts raise a serious question about priorities. When members are told they do not fit an “image” or are not the right “material,” where is the concern for the people behind those labels?

James 2:1–4 warns against favoritism in the assembly. First Samuel 16:7 reminds us that people look at outward appearance, while Yahweh looks at the heart.

A “church” should take those lessons seriously. Members are human beings with feelings, abilities, and a desire to belong. They deserve to be treated with dignity—not left wondering what about them makes them unacceptable.

Contemplating Homo neanderthalensis: The Collapse of Armstrongist Racial Theory

 

Neanderthal: Probably One of Your Ancestors (fair use)

Contemplating Homo neanderthalensis

                                           The Collapse of Armstrongist Racial Theory

                                                                                                By Scout       

      

So a good rendering of Genesis 6:9 is that Noah was the only “just” man (in spiritual character), and also “unblemished” (in his genetic heritage) among his contemporaries. – Herbert W. Armstong, Mystery of the Ages, p. 147.

 

If Neanderthal is anything, he is a disruptor of Armstrongist racial theory. Of course, Neanderthal could never have foreseen the dust he would flap up with a small Millerite sect 40,000 years after he went extinct.  One of the Armstrongists beliefs that Neanderthal disrupts is the pedigree of Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA).  Evangelist Gerald Waterhouse commonly asserted that Herbert W. Armstrong, like Noah, was also racially pure.  Back in those days, the adulation of HWA’s racial purity was an internal support for the Armstrongist position against racial intermarriage and favoring segregation. Racial purity was the Armstrongist ideal and HWA symbolized that.  There are many reasons why Armstrongist racial theory of the past and maybe the present is not valid.  This essay deals with one of the most salient – HWA’s pedigree.   

HWA’s purity meant that there had to be a line of racially pure people who ran from Noah down to Herbert W. Armstrong.  Enter the science of genetics.  Genetics carries with it some embarrassment for all people who trade in racial purity. There is no exception for those who assert HWA’s pristine pedigree.  I will start with a look at Europe, whence HWA and many North Americans trace their ancestry. 

The European Mixing Vat

Europe is geographically connected to other land masses such as Asia.  If you had the time, interest and good pair of shoes, you could walk from western Portugal to eastern Siberia.  Migrations have been frequent.  In fact, the people who live in western Europe now are descended in part from people who lived in Central Asia and migrated westward about 5,000 years ago.  The Armstrongist idea that God created geographic barriers to contain various races seems to be sophistic.  On average the people in southern Europe carry genetic influences from various peoples in Africa despite the barrier of the Mediterranean Sea.

So, as one might expect, many different peoples down through history and prehistory migrated into Europe and made their mark.  And this is written in the genomes of the European people.  You can set aside all the ancient, hoary histories and read the biology directly. Which is more trustworthy – something dubious that Tacitus wrote or your own genetic structure?  And what this tells us is that the idea that the people in some isolated Scottish village in the fastness of the Highlands are racially pure is false.  The Scots are a mix of three strains of people just like everyone else in Europe: Western Hunter-Gathers, Anatolian Farmers and Steppe Pastoralists (plus whatever racially diverse Roman legionnaires brought with them). One of the Highland Clans is principally y chromosome haplogroup E which originated in Africa.  And, finally, mixed into the mélange is a small dose of Neanderthal of uncertain speciation.  The One Drop Theory of the American South wreaks havoc on Scottish genetics. 

Some may argue that these waves of ancient migrants who came to Europe were all White people but that is not the case.  Genetic research also tells us that most of the population groups of Homo sapiens that migrated to Europe, beginning with the Aurignacians who interbred with Neanderthals, were originally dark-skinned. Light skin reached its heyday in Europe only around 3,000 years ago.  Archaeologists began to find the genes (primarily SLC24A5 and SLC45A2) for light skin in increased frequency in excavated remains dating to that period.  This is a brief profile of the base population that HWA came from. 

The Neanderthals and Armstrongism

 Neanderthal heritage is written on our genomes.  This is something established by the science of genetics. What genetics means is that the Armstrongist model of the origin of races collapses profoundly.  The Armstrongist model was that God is a racially White, Adam was racially White, Noah was racially White, as people were intended to be, and non-White races arose as a result of mutation (read “as an anomaly”).  There is a kernel of truth here.  Genetic analysis of our genomes indicates that the different varieties of Homo sapiens arose from mutation.  But it also indicates that the original human stock was Black and that Whites and Browns mutated from these Black forefathers. Somehow I feel that if Herman Hoeh had understood this and taught it back in the Fifties and Sixties, a totally different group of people with a different mindset would have been attracted to Armstrongism.  I always ran into people in the Worldwide Church of God who seemed like they came out of some kind of Neo-Confederacy. 

A Final Note

I feel I need to add this in anticipation of the donnybrook.  Armstrongists trade in conspiracy theory, ulterior motives and sometimes paranoid tendencies when it comes to history and sociology.  It’s all that fantasy stuff in the Hoeh Legendarium.  So, let me state explicitly that I do not advocate racial intermarriage but I also just as firmly do not believe it is a sin.  That any marriage would be a success is a long shot.   So, marrying as close as you can to your own background is good conventional wisdom.

Conclusion

So, was HWA pure in his generations like Gerald Waterhouse asserted? Of course not.  He was part Neanderthal just like other Europeans.  Neanderthals are not only a separate race; they are another species (some scientists argue that they are a separate sub-species.  In either case, they are more distant than a separate race). While HWA is deceased and cannot be tested directly without excavation, we can know his genetic condition from the general population from which he originated.  As Google AI states, “All modern Europeans carry Neanderthal DNA, typically making up about 1% to 2% of their genome.”  So, asserting the ideal of a racially pure HWA as an important support of the Armstrongist policy on race is simply flogging a dead horse. 

 

 

 

 

LCG: The Millennial High Lasted Exactly Six Days: LCG's Annual Post-Feast Scolding

 

Living Church of God members are freshly back from the Feast of Tabernacles, where they spent eight days marinating in "millennial bliss." Love, unity, answered prayer, the usual harvest of glowing surveys, and the obligatory "this one was even better than last year" testimonies. Opening Night sermons painted vivid pictures of Christ's coming kingdom. The Last Great Day closed with hope for the masses. For one week, the brethren were kings-and-priests-in-training, rejoicing before the Lord and generally acting as if the world had already been remade.

Then they came home-and right on schedule came the familiar reminder that they cannot be trusted with the vision they just received.

Douglas S. Winnail's latest piece makes the point with the usual historical parade. The lessons of history, we are told, show that both mankind in general and God's chosen people have drifted off course again and again, due to Satan's deceptive influence. Adam and Eve made wrong choices that sent human history in the wrong direction. Ancient Israel turned away from God and suffered serious consequences-and modern Israelite nations are heading down the same path. The implication is clear enough for the recently returned Feast-goers: you are cut from the same cloth. You just spent eight days hearing about the Kingdom, and the moment the hotel checkout is complete you are already at risk of repeating the same fatal drift.

The Church, the piece continues, was established to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, to warn the world of the consequences of sin, and to announce events that indicate Christ's return is near. Its mission also involves preparing a people to rule with Jesus Christ as kings, priests, and teachers in His coming Kingdom. To qualify for this exciting reward, members must avoid being distracted by the trials and temptations of this world and remain faithful and focused on their calling and God-given mission. The closing exhortation is pure post-Feast form: "Let's stay focused on that mission!"

There it is-the annual transition from millennial preview to managerial scolding. The good feelings and warm intentions did not even last one week. Members who just left Feast sites where they were told they are in training for rulership are now being treated as people too prone to distraction, too easily deceived, too stupid to keep from losing their way once ordinary life resumes. Every week brings some fresh perceived indiscretion: a moment of ordinary human weakness, an insufficiently intense zeal, a failure to remain in permanent Feast-level focus. The leadership does not pause to be simply grateful that people rearranged their lives, spent their second tithe, traveled, and showed up. Gratitude is quickly subordinated to the next warning that the brethren are one careless step from the ditch.

That is the problem with the law. Under a system that measures people by continuous performance, holy-day observance, and ministerial oversight, the members are never good enough. The Feast high is temporary by design; the insufficiency is permanent. No amount of "best Feast ever" reports changes the underlying arithmetic: the law demands what human beings cannot sustain, then interprets the inevitable drop as evidence of Satan's influence, spiritual drift, or failure to stay focused on the mission. The New Covenant says otherwise. It speaks of a finished work, of righteousness that is not earned by perpetual self-examination, of a Spirit that writes the law on the heart rather than requiring weekly reminders that the people who just spent eight days in "millennial bliss" are already in danger of repeating Adam's mistake or Israel's apostasy. LCG does not teach that concept. It teaches the old pattern: rejoice on schedule, then brace for the correction that proves you still need the system to keep you from drifting.

The Feast pictures a future kingdom of peace. The post-Feast admonition pictures the present arrangement: members as perpetual spiritual children who cannot be left unsupervised for more than a few days without wandering off. One is a prophecy. The other is simply the management style of a law-based organization that has never quite trusted its own people with the freedom the New Covenant actually offers.

Bwana Bob’s Sabbatarian Superheroes Storm the Vatican Gates

By a Concerned Brother 

Who Can Actually Read Primary Sources

Bob Thiel (a.k.a. COGwriter, a.k.a. the man who somehow keeps discovering that every interesting early Christian was secretly a proto-Armstrongite) has once again delivered a masterclass in selective historiography. In his latest article, he assures us that Church of God sabbatarians "confronted the Bishops of Rome" about the Sabbath. The actual historical record? It shows people arguing about the date of Passover/Easter, not marching into Rome waving seventh-day Sabbath tracts while demanding the Bishop of Rome keep the weekly rest day. 

Let's walk through the parade of "sabbatarian" heroes Thiel has assembled. 

Polycarp of Smyrna vs. Anicetus: The Great Sabbath Showdown That Wasn't 

Polycarp, the aged bishop of Smyrna and disciple of John, did indeed travel to Rome and meet with Anicetus. They disagreed. They parted in peace. Anicetus even let Polycarp celebrate the Eucharist in the Roman church out of respect.

 What were they arguing about? Whether the annual Christian Passover (Pascha) should be observed on the 14th of Nisan (the Quartodeciman position, common in Asia Minor) or on the following Sunday. Irenaeus, who knew Polycarp, recorded this. Eusebius preserved it. Britannica summarizes it. No one-not Irenaeus, not Eusebius, not any early source-describes this as a confrontation over the weekly Sabbath. Thiel's version turns a calm, respectful disagreement between two bishops who both claimed apostolic tradition into evidence that "Sabbatarian/Church of God leaders" were standing up to Rome about the seventh day. Polycarp was not leading a separate sabbatarian sect outside the mainstream church of his day. He was a highly respected bishop within it.

Polycrates of Ephesus and the Same Exact Argument, Round Two 

Decades later, Polycrates of Ephesus wrote to Victor of Rome defending the same Quartodeciman practice-keeping the annual feast on the 14th-citing Philip, John, Polycarp, and other "great lights" of Asia who had done likewise. Victor threatened to cut them off. Others (including Irenaeus) told Victor to calm down. The churches of Asia held their ground on the annual observance. Again, the primary sources (Eusebius, Church History V.24) are explicit: this is about the date of the Paschal feast, not the weekly Sabbath. 

Polycrates even notes that his relatives "always observed the day when the people put away the leaven." That is a reference to the annual Feast of Unleavened Bread timing, not "we kept Saturday every week and Rome hated us for it." Thiel lists nine bullet points about Polycrates' fidelity to the Gospel and refusal to submit to Rome. All of them are about the annual festival date. The weekly Sabbath is simply inserted into the narrative by Thiel's framing. 

The Supporting Cast of Late and Dubious Claims 

• Pius I: Later traditions (especially the 6th-century Liber Pontificalis) credit him with decreeing Easter on Sunday. Early sources show that he and his predecessors did not themselves observe Nisan 14 but stayed in peace with those who did. Thiel's claim that Pius forced converts to renounce the biblical Sabbath is an inference drawn from a secondary modern summary, not a primary confrontation by sabbatarians. 
• Eleutherius and unclean meats: The Liber Pontificalis (again, centuries later) attributes to him a decree that Christians need not reject any food as unclean. Scholars widely regard this as likely anachronistic-possibly retrojected from later concerns. It is not strong evidence of a specific sabbatarian showdown. 
• Sylvester I and the desposyni: Thiel leans on Malachi Martin's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church, which describes a 318 meeting between Sylvester and Jewish Christian leaders descended from Jesus' family. Martin himself notes that the interview "was not, as far as we know, recorded." There is no contemporary source. Martin was a colorful and frequently controversial figure whose historical reconstructions often lack documentation. This is not the kind of evidence that holds up under scrutiny. 
• Cathari and Paulicians: These were later groups that opposed the Roman Church on various grounds (dualism, rejection of sacraments and images, etc.). They were not "Church of God sabbatarians" maintaining an unbroken seventh-day Sabbath lineage from the apostles. Armstrongite literature has long appropriated various dissenting groups for the succession chart; the actual doctrines rarely match the modern COG package. 

The Actual Pattern 

The early sources show a real and significant dispute in the second century over the annual Christian Passover date, with Asia Minor defending a practice linked to the Jewish calendar and Rome preferring a Sunday-centered observance tied to the resurrection. That dispute is well attested. What is not well attested is a parallel, organized movement of "Church of God sabbatarians" specifically confronting the bishops of Rome over the weekly seventh-day Sabbath as a binding New Covenant requirement. 

Early Gentile Christian writings (Ignatius, the Didache, Justin Martyr, and others) predominantly point to Sunday as the day of Christian assembly. Jewish Christians retained more of the older practices for a time. The Quartodeciman controversy was real; Thiel's rebranding of it as proof of a distinct sabbatarian "true church" confronting Rome on the Sabbath is the Armstrongite myth at work-taking real historical figures who disagreed with Rome on one issue and inserting them into the required succession narrative. 

Bwana Bob's article is less history than theological wish-fulfillment: every bishop who ever argued with Rome about anything Jewish-adjacent becomes a proto-COG sabbatarian hero, and every later heretical group that hated Rome becomes evidence of the remnant. The primary sources simply do not support the claim as stated

Why I am Ex-PCG

 

WHY I’M EX-PCG

By Dan Moffett

My wife never wanted to be part of the Philadelphia Church of God. She attended because I did. During those years, we had painful experiences with the man who later became the regional director in our area.

Then my wife died suddenly from a brain aneurysm.

Her death devastated me. At first, I hardly cared whether I lived or died. I did not even want to go home. What brought me home was knowing that my two sons, who still lived there, needed their father.

At a time when I desperately needed compassion, I felt very little from the church leadership. The regional director did not want to conduct her funeral. During the announcements at Sabbath services, the local minister said only a few words about her death. He told me the director had forbidden him from saying more because it was the Sabbath and would be inappropriate.

I was too overwhelmed with grief to argue. I brought photographs of my wife and placed them on a table. She had been my companion for decades, and I wanted her life to be remembered.

A few weeks later, our first grandchild was born.

That day was both beautiful and heartbreaking. My wife had looked forward so much to becoming a grandmother, but she was not there to hold that baby.

When I held my grandchild, something changed inside me. I knew I wanted to live. I wanted to see this child grow up, and I knew I needed to improve my health to give myself that chance.

Over the next two years, I lost 160 pounds. Eventually, I began to believe that I was not too old to find companionship again.

There were no single women in my congregation, so I traveled to meet people. My minister cautioned me against traveling too much and reminded me that my local congregation was where I belonged.

A friend who was a minister told me about a single woman in his area. She was a schoolteacher, close to my age, and someone he thought I should meet.

I went to visit, and we connected. We began spending time together, traveling back and forth to see each other. Sometimes I stayed in her area for a week so we could visit every day.

We grew close and believed we were in love. We began talking about marriage.

During that relationship, we became sexually intimate. We understood that this went against the beliefs we professed, and we agreed that it would not happen again before marriage. I take responsibility for my part in that decision.

One day, my minister called while she was visiting me. He asked whether we were in love and wanted to marry. I answered yes to both questions.

After he spoke with the regional director, I was told that we should stop spending time together until the ministers had met her.

She came to meet the local minister, but afterward she was so frightened that we stopped seeing each other for a time. When several difficult things happened in her life, she came to believe they were punishment for what we had done. The guilt weighed heavily on both of us, and we ended the relationship.

That was another painful loss, but I tried to move forward.

Later, I went on a few dates with another woman. There was no sexual involvement. We had not even kissed. I was determined not to repeat my earlier mistake.

That year, I arrived a few days early for the Feast of Tabernacles. While walking through the hotel, I encountered the woman from my first relationship.

We went to dinner. She began crying and told me she still loved me and wanted to marry me. I told her I felt the same way.

The second woman was also attending the Feast. When she learned that the first woman was there, she went to the regional director. I was then instructed not to see either woman until he spoke with me.

He arranged meetings with all three of us, speaking with the women first. When I saw the first woman come out crying, I feared what was ahead.

During my meeting, he questioned me about our relationship. I explained that we had dated, wanted to continue seeing each other, and hoped to receive counseling for marriage.

He pressed for more details. I admitted that we had been intimate. When he asked directly whether we had had sex, I answered honestly.

He called me a “sexual predator.”

I was stunned. I told him that, in 38 years, I had been sexually involved with only one woman besides my deceased wife. I asked whether that made me a sexual predator.

He said yes.

Then he asked whether I had had sex with the second woman. I told him no and explained that we had not even held hands or kissed.

He insisted that I had. He said “NO YOU HAD SEX WITH HER”

I denied it again, but he repeated the accusation. It was deeply disturbing to tell the truth and have a minister insist that I was lying.

He then questioned me about pornography and masturbation. I felt humiliated by the direction the meeting had taken.

The local minister sat quietly with a distressed expression. I cannot know what he was thinking, but I felt very alone.

The first woman and I were suspended immediately, and I was ordered to leave the Feast.

I left early the next morning. As I passed her hotel room, I noticed a bill beneath her door and thought she might also be leaving.

About an hour into my drive, I stopped at a Walmart and called her. She had traveled to the Feast with another family, and I was concerned that she might not have money or transportation to get home.

She did not answer, so I left a message offering to send money if she needed help.

After she reported that call to the minister, he called me and said I would be “marked” for contacting her.

When the regional director called, I asked whether I could receive counseling. He told me I was out, no longer a member.

After more than 33 years of involvement in the church community, I asked, “That’s it? No counseling? No second chance?”

He told me not to call again.

He also said he was having to put out many people in the region. To me, he spoke as though the burden was his, while the people losing their relationships and community were given little consideration.

I had devoted decades of my life to that religious community and raised four children within it. Two had attended Armstrong College.

Now I felt discarded.

The emotional consequences were severe. I went through a period of profound despair and did not know how I would recover.

Then the separation reached into my family.

My daughter who lived with me was required to leave home. My other daughter and my granddaughter were forbidden from seeing me. My son at Armstrong College was not allowed to have contact with me.

Losing church membership was painful. Losing contact with my children and grandchild was far worse.

Thankfully, one of my daughters and her husband decided to leave the PCG. They saw what had happened and would not participate in keeping their daughter from her grandfather.

My youngest son also remained with me. What he witnessed damaged his confidence in religion and caused him to question whether God existed. That was another heartbreaking consequence.

I wrote to Gerald Flurry, whom the church called “That Prophet,” explaining what had happened.

I never received an answer.

I later learned through my son-in-law that the regional director knew about the letter and had accused me of lying to Flurry. That director was Cal Culpepper.

I have described these events as I experienced and remember them. I acknowledge my own mistakes. What I cannot accept is the humiliation, the accusations I denied, the refusal to offer further counseling, and the separation of my family.

In time, I began rebuilding my life.

I made friends among people we had been taught to avoid. I discovered kindness, generosity, and genuine concern outside the church community. Those friendships helped me recover.

At the time I first wrote this account, my daughter, son-in-law, two granddaughters, and youngest son were part of my life. Their love helped me move forward. We continued to grieve the separation from my other two children who remained in the PCG.

My hope was—and remains—that our family could be reunited.

I share this account because decisions made by religious leaders can have lasting consequences. Behind every suspension, expulsion, and no-contact instruction are real people: parents, children, grandparents, and grandchildren.

This is why I’m ex-PCG.




An update, fourteen years later

Since I first wrote this letter fourteen years ago, my youngest son has died by suicide.

I believe he never fully recovered from the loss of contact with his only brother and his sister. They were still alive, but the separation meant they were no longer part of his life. I cannot know everything that contributed to his death, but I believe that unresolved grief weighed heavily on him.

When I wrote this account, I still hoped our family would be reunited. Now I carry the sorrow of knowing that, for my youngest son, that reunion can no longer happen in this life.

I continue to hope for contact with my other children. I also hold to the hope of the resurrection, when I believe I will see my youngest son again.

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If all this has happened to me, just one person.

Imagine how many other people have had their lives ruined by this evil controlling cult church.

This site has been warning of this group for over 33 years. You will find hundreds of damaged lives, broken marriages, destroyed families and even member and ex member suicides. Exit And Support Network