New COG Splinter: The Signet Church of God: Yet Another Tiny Startup Stamps Itself as Zerubbabel’s Hands and Declares the Bride Can Finally Get Ready

Armstrongism never runs out of these. Every few years some earnest former member with a website, a PO Box, and a free PDF decides the last forty years of splintering, failed prophecies, and shrinking congregations were all just a dress rehearsal until he arrived to finish what Herbert W. Armstrong started. Enter the Signet Church of God, Bryan D. Weeks, and his book Zechariah and the Signet. Incorporated in Florida in 2021 as a 501(c)(3), complete with family board members and the usual modest online footprint (WT2, PT2, a handful of YouTube videos), it has now announced that the long national nightmare of Laodiceanism is over because God has intervened through their particular interpretation of Haggai and Zechariah.

The pitch is almost ritual at this point. HWA was the end-time Elijah and a modern Zerubbabel who laid the foundation of God’s “spiritual temple.” Zechariah 4:9 says Zerubbabel’s hands laid the foundation and his hands shall also finish it. Haggai 2:23 makes him God’s “signet.” HWA helpfully identified himself as that Zerubbabel in a 1981 member letter (“no one else had done it”). Therefore, since the man himself is dead, someone must now help “his hands” finish the house so Christ can return and marry His one true Church at the “Wife level.” Weeks and company have volunteered. The last four decades of every other group missing the boat as shepherds and builders, the “time of no more delay,” the midnight cry, the need to reunite everyone while starting a new corporation—all of it is solved by downloading their free book and tuning in to World Tomorrow II.

This is the same circular logic that has powered every post-1986 upstart. The founder of the organization declared himself the type, therefore the unfinished work requires successors, therefore the people currently promoting the book and the streaming service are the ones through whom God is putting things “back on track.” Ancient post-exilic temple-building oracles about Zerubbabel and Joshua get stretched across a 20th-century American media ministry and then handed to a 21st-century Florida nonprofit with a CRM and virtual phone system. The New Testament’s portrayal of Christ as the Branch, the true temple, and the one who builds His church is set aside so the narrative can land on HWA’s radio/TV empire and whoever claims to be completing it this decade.

The practical reality is what it always is with these groups. Modest online numbers, a Florida address, literature offered free, and the familiar Armstrongist package: the 18 restored truths, the God Family potential of becoming kings/priests/teachers, British Israelism via the old United States and Britain in Prophecy material, and the insistence that supporting “the Work” is the primary reason God called anyone. Meanwhile the call goes out to end schisms (I Cor. 12:25) by joining the newest schism. The chapter list in the book—Beauty and Bands, the modern Joshua decommissioned, the idol shepherd, Zechariah 6 “the Meeting,” the Two Witnesses—signals the usual detailed prophetic mapping that places the writer’s tiny organization at the center of end-time events. It is the same template Gerald Flurry used for his own Zechariah booklet, the same template Pack, Thiel, Kitchen, and a dozen others have used while announcing that this time the house will finally get finished.

Forty years of these efforts have produced the same results: further fragmentation, aging memberships, quiet walk-backs of timelines, and the next earnest volunteer declaring that everyone before him failed to “get it.” The Signet version adds the explicit “signet stamp of approval” language and the claim that Christ cannot return until their particular revival effort completes the organizational project HWA began. It does not escape the pattern. Armstrongism remains riddled with these small, self-appointed finishing crews that are failures from the outset—new names, new PDFs, same circular claim that the dead founder’s hands still need modern proxies, and the same invitation to treat yet another 501(c)(3) as the vehicle through which the Bride finally makes herself ready.

The book and sites are free. Anyone can read the interpretations and weigh them against both the broader biblical context and the long, repetitive track record of identical claims. So far the track record has been consistant. Nothing orginal. Just another Zerubbabel.k record has been consistent.

 Why we became necessary — in brief:

After Mr. Armstrong died the 7th Church era took center stage. The fruits of that succession have been bad ever since. So bad, in fact, that it has often looked like the gates of the grave would prevail after all. Thankfully, however, there are many verses that reveal God’s keen desire to fix this problem (i.e. Mt. 25:6; I Cor. 12:25; Rev. 3:18-21).

To that end God is now sending in the SCG to spearhead this revival! To understand why, we have to realize that Jesus Christ is NOT going to marry many divided and dysfunctional churches at His return (Mt. 22:1-14). He is going to marry that one loyal Church who has readied herself for marriage by finishing what His modern Zerubbabel started during the 6th Church era! (Zech. 4:9; Rev. 19:7).

We know who we are and what we have to do:

Herbert Armstrong set the bar during the 20th century for how to succeed in the God Family business (Luke 2:49; Rev. 3:7-11). But after some 40+ years of lukewarmness, most of God’s people have forgotten about his role as the modern Zerubbabel— how he built God’s Church God’s way and taught us to do the same (Mt. 24:14; 28:19-20). This is precisely why we are called the Signet Church of God. To succeed with what he started, we know that we are going to have to revive his building method. In other words, to attain God’s Signet stamp of approval on our efforts, we are going to have to build like he did (Hag. 2:23; Zech. 4:6-10).

The Great Whore of Revelation, Brought to You by Parallelomania and Armstrongism's Long, Weird Love Affair with a Debunked 19th-Century Anti-Catholic Books

For decades, Armstrongism treated Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons (1853 pamphlet, expanded 1858) and Ralph Woodrow's popularization of it in Babylon Mystery Religion (1966) as something close to sacred history. Herbert Armstrong and the various successor groups used the material to argue that the Roman Catholic Church was literally the continuation of ancient Babylonian worship of Nimrod and his wife Semiramis-the Great Whore of Revelation, mother of harlots, source of every "pagan" festival and ritual. It was the perfect prop for the "one true church" narrative: Rome was just baptized paganism, everyone else was a daughter of the harlot, and the little flock that kept the "true" calendar and Sabbath could claim clean hands.

The book is still reprinted and quoted in some conservative church circles. Most scholars, however, have long treated it as pseudohistory. Even the man who turned its thesis into a bestseller eventually dismantled it himself.

The Core Fantasy

Hislop's subtitle was not subtle: "The Papal Worship Proved to Be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife." He claimed that after the Flood, Nimrod and Semiramis founded a mystery religion of mother-and-child worship, sun-god motifs, and fertility rites. This system supposedly survived, mutated through every pagan culture on earth, and reappeared in Rome under Christian names. The Mass, Easter, Christmas, Lent, clerical celibacy, the rosary, the papal tiara, round communion wafers, and the letters IHS were all said to be Babylonian in origin. The Pope was essentially Belshazzar with better public relations.

To make this work, Hislop performed one of the most ambitious exercises in parallelomania ever put between covers. He equated Nimrod with Ninus, Tammuz, Osiris, Bacchus, Adonis, Apollo, Hercules, Mithra, Moloch, Orion, Pluto, Saturn, Vulcan, Zoroaster, and a long list of other figures. Semiramis was identified with Ishtar, Astarte, Isis, Aphrodite, Venus, Diana, Ceres, and others. A table of "father-mother-son" triads across cultures was offered as proof that the Catholic Madonna and Child, and even the doctrine of the Trinity itself, were simply rebranded Babylonian paganism.

The Timeline That Breaks Everything

The historical Semiramis (Sammu-ramat) was an Assyrian queen who ruled around 811-806 BC. That is more than a thousand years after any plausible post-Flood Nimrod horizon. No ancient source-Babylonian, Assyrian, biblical, or classical-connects them as husband and wife or makes Semiramis the mother of Tammuz. The Bible mentions Nimrod only briefly (Genesis 10; 1 Chronicles 1) and never mentions a wife or a son named Tammuz. Tammuz appears once in the Hebrew Bible (Ezekiel 8:14) as the object of women's weeping; he is not linked to Nimrod. The story of Nimrod + Semiramis + Tammuz as a foundational triad was invented by Hislop in the 1850s.

Lester Grabbe (WCG) and other scholars have noted that Hislop's entire argument, especially the identification of Ninus with Nimrod and Semiramis as his consort, rests on a basic misunderstanding of historical Babylon and its religion. Hislop relied heavily on Greek writers (who often mythologized the ancient Near East) and on the early, incomplete reports of Austen Henry Layard's excavations at Nineveh. He wrote before cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs were fully deciphered. The result looks footnoted and scholarly to the casual reader and collapses under primary-source scrutiny.

Specific Claims That Do Not Survive Contact with Evidence

Easter. Hislop wrote: "Easter is nothing else than Astarte... That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar." This is classic folk etymology. Philologists derive the English word "Easter" from Old English Ēostre (a West Germanic dawn goddess), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root for "east/shine." The linguistic link to Ishtar is rejected.

Christmas and the winter solstice. Hislop claimed the December 25 date commemorated the birth of the Babylonian "messiah" (identified with Tammuz/Nimrod) and that the Christmas tree and Yule log were reenactments of Nimrod's death and rebirth as the sun-god. Round objects (wafers, tree ornaments) were said to honor the sun-god. These are free associations, not historical genealogy.

Lent. Hislop linked the 40 days of Lent to mourning for Tammuz, allegedly killed by a wild boar at age 40. He cited Egyptian and other fasts of varying lengths. Standard references do not support a Babylonian origin for the Christian practice of Lent as he described it. Woodrow later listed this among the unsubstantiated claims that circulated for decades.

IHS. Hislop claimed the Christogram IHS (the first three letters of the Greek name of Jesus, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ) stood for "Isis, Horus, Seb." It does not. This is one of the clearest, most easily checked errors in the book.

Woodrow later summarized the tabloid quality of Hislop's reconstructed "history": Nimrod was portrayed as a big, ugly, deformed black man; Semiramis as a beautiful white woman with blond hair and blue eyes, a backslider, the inventor of soprano singing, and the originator of priestly celibacy. Shem supposedly killed Nimrod; Semiramis was later killed by one of her sons who cut off her head. Babylonians supposedly baptized because Nimrod and Semiramis had "suffered" in water. None of this appears in recognized history books or primary sources. Woodrow checked encyclopedias on Nimrod and Semiramis; none said they were husband and wife or that they lived in the same century.

The cross, mitre, wafers, candles, steeples, etc. Similarities were treated as proof of origin. A papal mitre was said to derive from the fish-god Dagon; round wafers from sun disks; the cross from the initial of Tammuz's name; black clerical garments, halos, and church steeples from pagan sources. The method is the same throughout: find a resemblance, declare a connection, move to the next item.

Ralph Woodrow's Rare Act of Integrity

Woodrow's 1966 Babylon Mystery Religion distilled Hislop into a readable, widely distributed form. Armstrongist circles used it. Then Woodrow did something rare among popular authors of polemical bestsellers: he actually checked the footnotes against primary sources and standard references.

What he found was myth, misquotation, and lack of actual historical connection. In 1997 he withdrew his own bestseller from print-at real financial cost. He stated that the book had provided more income to his ministry than all other books and offerings combined, and that he had faced significant financial loss by pulling it. Rumors of Catholic pressure or money motives were false. He simply refused to continue selling what he now knew was unreliable. He replaced it with The Babylon Connection?, a direct refutation of both Hislop and his earlier work. In his own words, he could not "in good conscience continue to publish a book against pagan mixture knowing that it contained a mixture itself of misinformation about Babylonian origins." He noted that even the Worldwide Church of God had begun taking a second look once the problems surfaced.

Woodrow's point was methodological: similarities prove nothing without actual historical linkage. One can invent "connections" between almost anything (he used the analogy of a murder case in which every piece of circumstantial evidence points to a suspect who was in another city on the day of the crime). History is not a game of connect-the-dots in which inconvenient dots are ignored.

The Armstrongist Irony

Armstrongism's anti-Catholicism was never subtle. Rome was the mother of harlots, the system of Babylon, the Great Whore. Hislop and Woodrow supplied the historical "proof" that made the prophecy charts feel airtight. Yet the same movement that claimed unique access to restored truth spent decades leaning on a Scottish Free Church minister's 1850s polemic that fails basic chronology, primary-source tests, and linguistic scrutiny.

This is a familiar pattern. When a source flatters the "we alone have the pure doctrine, the true calendar, and the right understanding of prophecy" narrative, its scholarly status becomes optional. Groups that mock mainstream scholarship on British-Israelism, the 1975 prediction, or later date-setting suddenly treat Hislop's footnotes as authoritative. When the popularizer of those ideas publicly walks them back and removes his own book from the market, the older material stays in the libraries and the talking points continue.

There are legitimate reasons to critique Catholic doctrine, practice, or historical developments on scriptural or historical grounds. Marian dogmas, the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, claims of papal infallibility, and various medieval accretions can all be examined without inventing a thousand-year marriage between Nimrod and an Assyrian queen or equating half the gods of the ancient world with one another. Relying on discredited parallelomania does not strengthen the case; it undermines credibility with anyone who checks the sources.

Hislop produced myths while trying to expose paganism. Armstrongism imported those myths to bolster its own exclusivity. Ralph Woodrow, to his credit, eventually chose the evidence over the sales and the applause. The rest of the story is how long certain groups will keep quoting the original version of a book whose most influential modern champion spent money to take it off the market.

Silent Pilgrim

Did Christianity Absorb Paganism?

The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Armstrong Churches of God have promoted the notion that traditional Christianity has absorbed many of the practices and traditions of paganism. In this service, they have employed many of the long-discredited and anti-Catholic narratives of the Protestant Reformation. The real narrative, however, is that Christianity triumphed over paganism, and very nearly obliterated all traces of the religions of the Western World! Indeed, as we will demonstrate in this post, the Christians of the first four centuries of the Church were inexorably opposed to the pagan religions of the Roman Empire.

In his The Triumph of Christianity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2018), Professor Bart Ehrman's analyzes the causes/reasons for the growth of Christianity and its eventual victory over other faiths of the Western World. He wrote: One thing lost in this triumph was all the massive and glorious diversity of religious expression found everywhere throughout the pagan world. We can never lose sight of just how varied the thousands of pagan cults were. They did share common features--sacrifice and prayer, for example. But they involved the worship of different gods, known from different myths, adored through different practices, cults devoted to Zeus, to Athena, to Apollo, to Haphaestus, to gods of forests and streams and meadows, to gods of the household and gods of the family. As a rule this enormous diversity brought with it a widespread tolerance of difference, a sense that varying paths to the divine were not only acceptable and allowed but also desirable. Tolerance was to be encouraged. Freedom of religion was to be embraced. One of the greatest aspects of ancient paganism, taken as a whole, was the widespread willingness to accommodate an even revel in diversity. That was lost with the triumph of Christianity.

We will now survey the writings of some of those "early Church Fathers" of the first four centuries of the Christian era to demonstrate just how negative their reaction to the paganism of the Roman Empire actually was. In looking through these writings, it will become very clear that these leaders of the Christian Church were unalterably opposed to paganisms in all of its many forms and practices. This, alone, should be enough to discredit the narrative of the Jehovah's Witnesses and Armstrongists about the infiltration of paganism into traditional Christianity. Even so, this blog and others (like As Bereans Did and Banned by HWA) have published numerous well-researched posts dealing with specific holidays and religious traditions which also disprove this false narrative. Nevertheless, let's take a look at what those Church Fathers had to say on the subject of paganism.

Justin Martyr (100-165)
For of philosophy, too, some assume the name and the garb who do nothing worthy of their profession; and you are well aware, that those of the ancients whose opinions and teachings were quite diverse, are yet all called by the one name of philosophers. And of these some taught atheism; and the poets who have flourished among you raise a laugh out of the uncleanness of Jupiter with his own children. And those who now adopt such instruction are not restrained by you; but, on the contrary, you bestow prizes and honours upon those who euphoniously insult the gods.

Why, then, should this be? In our case, who pledge ourselves to do no wickedness, nor to hold these atheistic opinions, you do not examine the charges made against us; but, yielding to unreasoning passion, and to the instigation of evil demons, you punish us without consideration or judgment. For the truth shall be spoken; since of old these evil demons, effecting apparitions of themselves, both defiled women and corrupted boys, and showed such fearful sights to men, that those who did not use their reason in judging of the actions that were done, were struck with terror; and being carried away by fear, and not knowing that these were demons, they called them gods, and gave to each the name which each of the demons chose for himself. And when Socrates endeavoured, by true reason and examination, to bring these things to light, and deliver men from the demons, then the demons themselves, by means of men who rejoiced in iniquity, compassed his death, as an atheist and a profane person, on the charge that he was introducing new divinities; and in our case they display a similar activity. For not only among the Greeks did reason (Logos) prevail to condemn these things through Socrates, but also among the Barbarians were they condemned by Reason (or the Word, the Logos) Himself, who took shape, and became man, and was called Jesus Christ; and in obedience to Him, we not only deny that they who did such things as these are gods, but assert that they are wicked and impious demons, whose actions will not bear comparison with those even of men desirous of virtue.

Hence are we called atheists. And we confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of this sort are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, who is free from all impurity. But both Him, and the Son (who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels who follow and are made like to Him), and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, knowing them in reason and truth, and declaring without grudging to every one who wishes to learn, as we have been taught.
From The First Apology

Clement of Alexandria (147-215)
Chapter 1. Exhortation to abandon the impious mysteries of idolatry for the adoration of the Divine Word and God the Father.
Chapter 2. The absurdity and impiety of the heathen mysteries and fables about the birth and death of their gods.
Chapter 3. The cruelty of the sacrifices to the gods.
Chapter 4. The absurdity and shamefulness of the images by which the gods are worshipped.
Chapter 5. The opinions of the philosophers respecting God.
Chapter 6. By divine inspiration philosophers sometimes hit on the truth.
Chapter 7. The poets also bear testimony to the truth.
Chapter 8. The true doctrine is to be sought in the prophets.
Chapter 9. "That those grievously sin who despise or neglect God's gracious calling."
Chapter 10. Answer to the objection of the heathen, that it was not right to abandon the customs of their fathers.
Chapter 11. How great are the benefits conferred on man through the advent of Christ.
Chapter 12. Exhortation to abandon their old errors and listen to the instructions of Christ.

Explore not then too curiously the shrines of impiety, or the mouths of caverns full of monstrosity, or the Thesprotian caldron, or the Cirrhæan tripod, or the Dodonian copper. The Gerandryon, once regarded sacred in the midst of desert sands, and the oracle there gone to decay with the oak itself, consigned to the region of antiquated fables. The fountain of Castalia is silent, and the other fountain of Colophon; and, in like manner, all the rest of the springs of divination are dead, and stripped of their vainglory, although at a late date, are shown with their fabulous legends to have run dry. Recount to us also the useless oracles of that other kind of divination, or rather madness, the Clarian, the Pythian, the Didymæan, that of Amphiaraus, of Apollo, of Amphilochus; and if you will, couple with them the expounders of prodigies, the augurs, and the interpreters of dreams. And bring and place beside the Pythian those that divine by flour, and those that divine by barley, and the ventriloquists still held in honour by many. Let the secret shrines of the Egyptians and the necromancies of the Etruscans be consigned to darkness. Insane devices truly are they all of unbelieving men. Goats, too, have been confederates in this art of soothsaying, trained to divination; and crows taught by men to give oracular responses to men.
From Exhortation to the Heathen

Mathetes (Second Century)
Come, then, after you have freed yourself from all prejudices possessing your mind, and laid aside what you have been accustomed to, as something apt to deceive you, and being made, as if from the beginning, a new man, inasmuch as, according to your own confession, you are to be the hearer of a new [system of] doctrine; come and contemplate, not with your eyes only, but with your understanding, the substance and the form of those whom you declare and deem to be gods.

Is not one of them a stone similar to that on which we tread? Is not a second brass, in no way superior to those vessels which are constructed for our ordinary use? Is not a third wood, and that already rotten? Is not a fourth silver, which needs a man to watch it, lest it be stolen? Is not a fifth iron, consumed by rust? Is not a sixth earthenware, in no degree more valuable than that which is formed for the humblest purposes?

Are not all these of corruptible matter? Are they not fabricated by means of iron and fire? Did not the sculptor fashion one of them, the brazier a second, the silversmith a third, and the potter a fourth? Was not every one of them, before they were formed by the arts of these [workmen] into the shape of these [gods], each in its own way subject to change? Would not those things which are now vessels, formed of the same materials, become like to such, if they met with the same artificers? Might not these, which are now worshipped by you, again be made by men vessels similar to others? Are they not all deaf? Are they not blind? Are they not without life? Are they not destitute of feeling? Are they not incapable of motion? Are they not all prone to decay? Are they not all corruptible?

These things you call gods; these you serve; these you worship; and you become altogether like them. For this reason you hate the Christians, because they do not deem these to be gods. But do not you yourselves, who now think and suppose [such to be gods], much more cast contempt upon them than they [the Christians do]? Do you not much more mock and insult them, when you worship those that are made of stone and earthenware, without appointing any persons to guard them; but those made of silver and gold you shut up by night, and appoint watchers to look after them by day, lest they be stolen? And by those gifts which you mean to present to them, do you not, if they are possessed of sense, rather punish [than honour] them? But if, on the other hand, they are destitute of sense, you convict them of this fact, while you worship them with blood and the smoke of sacrifices. Let any one of you suffer such indignities! Let any one of you endure to have such things done to himself! But not a single human being will, unless compelled to it, endure such treatment, since he is endowed with sense and reason. A stone, however, readily bears it, seeing it is insensible. Certainly you do not show [by your conduct] that he [your God] is possessed of sense. And as to the fact that Christians are not accustomed to serve such gods, I might easily find many other things to say; but if even what has been said does not seem to any one sufficient, I deem it idle to say anything further.
From The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus

Tertullian (160-220)
The principal crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry. For, although each single fault retains its own proper feature, although it is destined to judgment under its own proper name also, yet it is marked off under the general account of idolatry. Set aside names, examine works, the idolater is likewise a murderer. You may ask, whom he has slain? If it contributes ought to the aggravation of the indictment, no stranger nor personal enemy, but his own self. By what snares? Those of his error. By what weapon? The offense done to God. By how many blows? As many as are his idolatries. He who affirms that the idolater perishes not, will affirm that the idolater has not committed murder. Further, you may recognize in the same crime adultery and fornication; for he who serves false gods is doubtless an adulterer of truth, because all falsehood is adultery. So, too, he is sunk in fornication. For who that is a fellow-worker with unclean spirits, does not stalk in general pollution and fornication? And thus it is that the Holy Scriptures use the designation of fornication in their upbraiding of idolatry. The essence of fraud, I take it, is, that any should seize what is another's, or refuse to another his due; and, of course, fraud done toward man is a name of greatest crime. Well, but idolatry does fraud to God, by refusing to Him, and conferring on others, His honours; so that to fraud it also conjoins contumely. But if fraud, just as much as fornication and adultery, entails death, then, in these cases, equally with the former, idolatry stands unacquitted of the impeachment of murder. After such crimes, so pernicious, so devouring of salvation, all other crimes also, after some manner, and separately disposed in order, find their own essence represented in idolatry. In it also are the concupiscences of the world. For what solemnity of idolatry is without the circumstance of dress and ornament? In it are lasciviousnesses and drunkennesses; since it is, for the most part, for the sake of food, and stomach, and appetite, that these solemnities are frequented. In it is unrighteousness. For what more unrighteous than it, which knows not the Father of righteousness? In it also is vanity, since its whole system is vain. In it is mendacity, for its whole substance is false. Thus it comes to pass, that in idolatry all crimes are detected, and in all crimes idolatry. Even otherwise, since all faults savour of opposition to God, and there is nothing which savours of opposition to God which is not assigned to demons and unclean spirits, whose property idols are; doubtless, whoever commits a fault is chargeable with idolatry, for he does that which pertains to the proprietors of idols.

We observe among the arts also some professions liable to the charge of idolatry. Of astrologers there should be no speaking even; but since one in these days has challenged us, defending on his own behalf perseverance in that profession, I will use a few words. I allege not that he honours idols, whose names he has inscribed on the heaven, to whom he has attributed all God's power; because men, presuming that we are disposed of by the immutable arbitrament of the stars, think on that account that God is not to be sought after. One proposition I lay down: that those angels, the deserters from God, the lovers of women, were likewise the discoverers of this curious art, on that account also condemned by God. Oh divine sentence, reaching even unto the earth in its vigour, whereto the unwitting render testimony! The astrologers are expelled just like their angels. The city and Italy are interdicted to the astrologers, just as heaven to their angels. There is the same penalty of exclusion for disciples and masters. But Magi and astrologers came from the east. We know the mutual alliance of magic and astrology. The interpreters of the stars, then, were the first to announce Christ's birth the first to present Him gifts. By this bond, [must] I imagine, they put Christ under obligation to themselves? What then? Shall therefore the religion of those Magi act as patron now also to astrologers? Astrology now-a-days, forsooth, treats of Christ — is the science of the stars of Christ; not of Saturn, or Mars, and whomsoever else out of the same class of the dead it pays observance to and preaches? But, however, that science has been allowed until the Gospel, in order that after Christ's birth no one should thence forward interpret any one's nativity by the heaven. For they therefore offered to the then infant Lord that frankincense and myrrh and gold, to be, as it were, the close of worldly sacrifice and glory, which Christ was about to do away. What, then? The dream — sent, doubtless, of the will of God— suggested to the same Magi, namely, that they should go home, but by another way, not that by which they came. It means this: that they should not walk in their ancient path. Not that Herod should not pursue them, who in fact did not pursue them; unwitting even that they had departed by another way, since he was withal unwitting by what way they came. Just so we ought to understand by it the right Way and Discipline. And so the precept was rather, that thence forward they should walk otherwise. So, too, that other species of magic which operates by miracles, emulous even in opposition to Moses, tried God's patience until the Gospel. For thenceforward Simon Magus, just turned believer, (since he was still thinking somewhat of his juggling sect; to wit, that among the miracles of his profession he might buy even the gift of the Holy Spirit through imposition of hands) was cursed by the apostles, and ejected from the faith. Both he and that other magician, who was with Sergius Paulus, (since he began opposing himself to the same apostles) was mulcted with loss of eyes. The same fate, I believe, would astrologers, too, have met, if any had fallen in the way of the apostles. But yet, when magic is punished, of which astrology is a species, of course the species is condemned in the genus. After the Gospel, you will nowhere find either sophists, Chaldeans, enchanters, diviners, or magicians, except as clearly punished. Where is the wise, where the grammarian, where the disputer of this age? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this age? 1 Corinthians 1:20 You know nothing, astrologer, if you know not that you should be a Christian. If you did know it, you ought to have known this also, that you should have nothing more to do with that profession of yours which, of itself, fore-chants the climacterics of others, and might instruct you of its own danger. There is no part nor lot for you in that system of yours. He cannot hope for the kingdom of the heavens, whose finger or wand abuses the heaven.
From On Idolatry

Origen (185-232)
But now, since we are treating of the manner in which the opposing powers stir up those contests, by means of which false knowledge is introduced into the minds of men, and human souls led astray, while they imagine that they have discovered wisdom, I think it necessary to name and distinguish the wisdom of this world, and of the princes of this world, that by so doing we may discover who are the fathers of this wisdom, nay, even of these kinds of wisdom. I am of opinion, therefore, as I have stated above, that there is another wisdom of this world besides those (different kinds of) wisdom which belong to the princes of this world, by which wisdom those things seem to be understood and comprehended which belong to this world. This wisdom, however, possesses in itself no fitness for forming any opinion either respecting divine things, or the plan of the world's government, or any other subjects of importance, or regarding the training for a good or happy life; but is such as deals wholly with the art of poetry, e.g., or that of grammar, or rhetoric, or geometry, or music, with which also, perhaps, medicine should be classed. In all these subjects we are to suppose that the wisdom of this world is included. The wisdom of the princes of this world, on the other hand, we understand to be such as the secret and occult philosophy, as they call it, of the Egyptians, and the astrology of the Chaldeans and Indians, who make profession of the knowledge of high things, and also that manifold variety of opinion which prevails among the Greeks regarding divine things. Accordingly, in the holy Scriptures we find that there are princes over individual nations; as in Daniel we read that there was a prince of the kingdom of Persia, and another prince of the kingdom of Græcia, who are clearly shown, by the nature of the passage, to be not human beings, but certain powers. In the prophecies of Ezekiel, also, the prince of Tyre is unmistakeably shown to be a kind of spiritual power. When these, then, and others of the same kind, possessing each his own wisdom, and building up his own opinions and sentiments, beheld our Lord and Saviour professing and declaring that He had for this purpose come into the world, that all the opinions of science, falsely so called, might be destroyed, not knowing what was concealed within Him, they immediately laid a snare for Him: for the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers assembled together, against the Lord and His Christ. But their snares being discovered, and the plans which they had attempted to carry out being made manifest when they crucified the Lord of glory, therefore the apostle says, We speak wisdom among them that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, who are brought to nought, which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
From De Principiis (Book III)

Athanasius (296-373)
For now the understanding of mankind leaped asunder from God; and going lower in their ideas and imaginations, they gave the honour due to God first to the heaven and the sun and moon and the stars, thinking them to be not only gods, but also the causes of the other gods lower than themselves. Then, going yet lower in their dark imaginations, they gave the name of gods to the upper æther and the air and the things in the air. Next, advancing further in evil, they came to celebrate as gods the elements and the principles of which bodies are composed, heat and cold and dryness and wetness. 2. But just as they who have fallen flat creep in the slime like land-snails, so the most impious of mankind, having fallen lower and lower from the idea of God, then set up as gods men, and the forms of men, some still living, others even after their death. Moreover, counselling and imagining worse things still, they transferred the divine and supernatural name of God at last even to stones and stocks, and creeping things both of land and water, and irrational wild beasts, awarding to them every divine honour, and turning from the true and only real God, the Father of Christ. 3. But would that even there the audacity of these foolish men had stopped short, and that they had not gone further yet in impious self-confusion. For to such a depth have some fallen in their understanding, to such darkness of mind, that they have even devised for themselves, and made gods of things that have no existence at all, nor any place among things created. For mixing up the rational with the irrational, and combining things unlike in nature, they worship the result as gods, such as the dog-headed and snake-headed and ass-headed gods among the Egyptians, and the ram-headed Ammon among the Libyans. While others, dividing apart the portions of men's bodies, head, shoulder, hand, and foot, have set up each as gods and deified them, as though their religion were not satisfied with the whole body in its integrity. 4. But others, straining impiety to the utmost, have deified the motive of the invention of these things and of their own wickedness, namely, pleasure and lust, and worship them, such as their Eros, and the Aphrodite at Paphos. While some of them, as if vying with them in depravation, have ventured to erect into gods their rulers or even their sons, either out of honour for their princes, or from fear of their tyranny, such as the Cretan Zeus, of such renown among them, and the Arcadian Hermes; and among the Indians Dionysus, among the Egyptians Isis and Osiris and Horus, and in our own time Antinous, favourite of Hadrian, Emperor of the Romans, whom, although men know he was a mere man, and not a respectable man, but on the contrary, full of licentiousness, yet they worship for fear of him that enjoined it. For Hadrian having come to sojourn in the land of Egypt, when Antinous the minister of his pleasure died, ordered him to be worshipped; being indeed himself in love with the youth even after his death, but for all that offering a convincing exposure of himself, and a proof against all idolatry, that it was discovered among men for no other reason than by reason of the lust of them that imagined it. According as the wisdom of God testifies beforehand when it says, The devising of idols was the beginning of fornication Wisdom 14:12 . 5. And do not wonder, nor think what we are saying hard to believe, inasmuch as it is not long since, even if it be not still the case that the Roman Senate vote to those emperors who have ever ruled them from the beginning, either all of them, or such as they wish and decide, a place among the gods, and decree them to be worshipped. For those to whom they are hostile, they treat as enemies and call men, admitting their real nature, while those who are popular with them they order to be worshipped on account of their virtue, as though they had it in their own power to make gods, though they are themselves men, and do not profess to be other than mortal. 6. Whereas if they are to make gods, they ought to be themselves gods; for that which makes must needs be better than that which it makes, and he that judges is of necessity in authority over him that is judged, while he that gives, at any rate that which he has, confers a layout, just as, of course, every king, in giving as a favour what he has to give, is greater and in a higher position than those who receive. If then they decree whomsoever they please to be gods, they ought first to be gods themselves. But the strange thing is this, that they themselves by dying as men, expose the falsehood of their own vote concerning those deified by them.
From Against the Heathen, Part 1

Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
That the Romans Did Not Show Their Usual Sagacity When They Trusted that They Would Be Benefited by the Gods Who Had Been Unable to Defend Troy. And these be the gods to whose protecting care the Romans were delighted to entrust their city! O too, too piteous mistake! And they are enraged at us when we speak thus about their gods, though, so far from being enraged at their own writers, they part with money to learn what they say; and, indeed, the very teachers of these authors are reckoned worthy of a salary from the public purse, and of other honors. There is Virgil, who is read by boys, in order that this great poet, this most famous and approved of all poets, may impregnate their virgin minds, and may not readily be forgotten by them, according to that saying of Horace,
The fresh cask long keeps its first tang.
Horace, Ep. I. 2:29.
Well, in this Virgil, I say, Juno is introduced as hostile to the Trojans, and stirring up Æolus, the king of the winds, against them in the words,
A race I hate now ploughs the sea,
Transporting Troy to Italy,
And home-gods conquered.
Æneid, 1:11.
And ought prudent men to have entrusted the defense of Rome to these conquered gods? But it will be said, this was only the saying of Juno, who, like an angry woman, did not know what she was saying. What, then, says Æneas himself —Æneas who is so often designated pious? Does he not say,
Lo! Panthus, 'scaped from death by flight,
Priest of Apollo on the height,
His conquered gods with trembling hands
He bears, and shelter swift demands?
Is it not clear that the gods (whom he does not scruple to call conquered) were rather entrusted to Æneas than he to them, when it is said to him,
The gods of her domestic shrines
Your country to your care consigns?
If, then, Virgil says that the gods were such as these, and were conquered, and that when conquered they could not escape except under the protection of a man, what a madness is it to suppose that Rome had been wisely entrusted to these guardians, and could not have been taken unless it had lost them! Indeed, to worship conquered gods as protectors and champions, what is this but to worship, not good divinities, but evil omens? Would it not be wiser to believe, not that Rome would never have fallen into so great a calamity had not they first perished, but rather that they would have perished long since had not Rome preserved them as long as she could? For who does not see, when he thinks of it, what a foolish assumption it is that they could not be vanquished under vanquished defenders, and that they only perished because they had lost their guardian gods, when, indeed, the only cause of their perishing was that they chose for their protectors gods condemned to perish? The poets, therefore, when they composed and sang these things about the conquered gods, had no intention to invent falsehoods, but uttered, as honest men, what the truth extorted from them. This, however, will be carefully and copiously discussed in another and more fitting place. Meanwhile I will briefly, and to the best of my ability, explain what I meant to say about these ungrateful men who blasphemously impute to Christ the calamities which they deservedly suffer in consequence of their own wicked ways, while that which is for Christ's sake spared them in spite of their wickedness they do not even take the trouble to notice; and in their mad and blasphemous insolence, they use against His name those very lips wherewith they falsely claimed that same name that their lives might be spared. In the places consecrated to Christ, where for His sake no enemy would injure them, they restrained their tongues that they might be safe and protected; but no sooner do they emerge from these sanctuaries, than they unbridle these tongues to hurl against Him curses full of hate.
From The City of God (Book 1, Chapter 3)

All of the above can be found at New Advent: Church Fathers

Thus, we have demonstrated that early Christian leaders were very much averse to paganism in all of its many forms and were hypervigilant not to be tainted by its faith and practices. Moreover, when we consider the destruction of statues, temples, and writings associated with those pagan faiths by Christians down through the centuries, the narrative that they were somehow tainted by those practices becomes grotesque and absurd!

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix

Pampered Flurry Family Continues On From Ireland To Cyprus Then To Israel

While ordinary church members are asked to sacrifice and contribute their tithes, the Philadelphia Church of God has its own way of spreading the message: 

a Gulfstream G4 hopping across the Atlantic and Mediterranean. 

Based on estimated operating costs, this Oklahoma City–Ireland–Cyprus–Israel journey and a projected return could represent roughly $154,000 to $212,000 in aircraft operating expenses. 

Apparently, proclaiming the Kingdom comes with a rather impressive travel budget!

November 5, 2026 A. Philadelphia Church of God (Gerald Flurry) - Gulfstream G4 from Shannon, Ireland to Larnaca, Cyprus to Tel Aviv, Israel. B. 1430 GIV LLC (Revival Today/Jonathan Shuttlesworth) - Gulfstream G-IV from Pittsburgh, PA to Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://t.co/WYVGdtEYO6

— pastorplanes (@pastorplanes) November 7, 2026

Reconstructed flight itinerary 

The November 4 flight report identifies Oklahoma City to Shannon. The November 5 report identifies Shannon to Larnaca and then Tel Aviv.
Sotwe+1

Approx. flight time
Oklahoma City → Shannon
8.1 hours

Shannon → Larnaca
4.6 hours

Larnaca → Tel Aviv
0.4 hours

Tel Aviv → Shannon (estimated return)
4.9 hours

Shannon → Oklahoma City (estimated return)
8.1 hours

Total
26.1 hours


These are great-circle distance estimates using approximately 459 knots cruise speed. Actual flight times depend on routing, winds, and operating conditions. 

Estimated operating costs

GlobalAir's October 29, 2026 Gulfstream IV operating-cost report provides:
Variable operating cost: approximately $5,922/hour.

Fully allocated operating cost: approximately $8,148/hour.
Globalair.com

Estimated cost for 26.1 flight hours
Variable operating expenses
$154,268

Fully allocated operating expenses
$212,255

Estimated fuel component alone
$87,915 Using 447 gallons/hour and an illustrative $7.55/gallon fuel price.
CRAFT 

What about charter-equivalent cost?

For comparison, published Gulfstream G4 charter rates are approximately $14,500–$16,500 per flight hour.
CRAFT

At 26.1 hours, that represents approximately:
Lower estimate: $377,725
Upper estimate: $429,825

This is a comparison of charter pricing, not what PCG necessarily paid. 

What did the trip potentially cost tithe payers?
Estimated full-trip operating expense
$154,000–$212,000

Assuming the return was via Shannon, with approximately 26.1 total flight hours.

This estimate excludes any unusual additional expenses, such as special handling, accommodation, ground transportation, and other travel costs. 

The question worth asking

The Philadelphia Church of God regularly asks members to support its religious mission financially. That makes it reasonable to ask what purpose these international trips serve, who travels aboard the aircraft, and whether the expense is justified by the benefit to the membership.

A Gulfstream crossing the Atlantic and Mediterranean is certainly a comfortable way to conduct church business. Whether it is a responsible use of donated funds is another question entirely.

Have The Faith And Conviction of Rahab The Prostitute

Focused Upon Abraham While Jesus Is Shoved To The Shadows

Armstrongism has an unusual fascination with the past. Its ministers seem perpetually occupied with Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, and the prophets, presenting these Old Testament figures as the ultimate examples of faith and obedience. Yet one has to wonder why Jesus Christ and the men and women who followed Him under the New Covenant so often receive comparatively little attention. Crackpot Bob's latest presentation on having the faith of Abraham provides another perfect example of this curious religious backwardness.

There is nothing wrong with recognizing Abraham's faith. He believed God, trusted His promises, and demonstrated his convictions through his actions. Scripture itself commends him. But Crackpot Bob's discussion eventually moves from Abraham's example into the familiar Armstrongist territory of Sabbath keeping, Holy Days, tithing, rejecting Christmas, and supporting the organization's religious mission. Suddenly, Abraham's faith becomes another convenient vehicle for promoting the same old Armstrongist checklist. Apparently, even a discussion about Abraham cannot escape becoming a fundraising and religious-obligation opportunity!

The problem is that Abraham lived before the establishment of the New Covenant. Christians are not called to recreate ancient Israel's religious arrangements but to follow Jesus Christ. Abraham was an important servant of God, but he was not the Messiah, the head of the church, or the mediator of the New Covenant. Those distinctions belong to Jesus, and perhaps Armstrongism should occasionally remember that Christianity revolves around Him.

Jesus taught His followers to love their neighbors, forgive their enemies, practice mercy, serve others, and reject religious hypocrisy. In Matthew 23, He condemned religious leaders who placed burdens upon others while neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness. In John 13, He demonstrated servant leadership by washing His disciples' feet. In John 15, He commanded them to love one another as He had loved them. Yet these teachings about humility, compassion, and genuine Christian character often seem to take a back seat to endless discussions about religious observances and organizational loyalty.

And where are the New Testament heroes? What about Stephen, who remained faithful under persecution? Paul, who endured imprisonment and hardship for preaching Christ? Peter, who boldly proclaimed the Savior he had once denied? What about Mary Magdalene, Priscilla, Phoebe, and Lydia, whose devotion and service helped shape the early Christian community? Hebrews 11 celebrates Old Testament examples of faith, but Hebrews 12:2 directs believers to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of their faith. Apparently, the author of Hebrews understood something that Armstrongism repeatedly struggles to appreciate: the Old Testament examples point beyond themselves to Christ.

The deeper problem is that Armstrongism frequently uses these Old Testament figures to justify importing Old Covenant requirements into Christianity. But Paul's discussion of Abraham in Romans 4 makes precisely the point that righteousness was credited through faith, not earned through religious performance. Abraham was counted righteous before circumcision, a distinction Paul deliberately emphasizes. Ephesians 2:8-10 likewise teaches that salvation is by grace through faith, not works, while making clear that believers are created in Christ for good works. Good works are the fruit of God's grace, not a payment made to secure salvation.

The New Covenant does not eliminate obedience; it places Christian obedience within a relationship centered on Jesus Christ. Hebrews 8:13 speaks plainly about the first covenant becoming obsolete. Yet Armstrongism seems determined to keep dragging Christians backward, recycling Old Covenant practices while insisting that it is restoring authentic Christianity.

Perhaps this explains the constant fascination with Abraham, Moses, and Elijah. Their stories can be conveniently employed to reinforce lawkeeping, religious authority, institutional loyalty, and the familiar Armstrongist prophetic narrative. The New Testament, however, presents a far more challenging standard. Jesus condemned religious hypocrisy, Paul confronted attempts to place Gentile Christians under the Mosaic law, and Galatians warned believers against returning to bondage. Christianity is about transformation through Christ, not simply maintaining an inventory of religious regulations.

Just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with having the faith of Abraham. The real question is why Armstrongism spends so much time looking backward when Christians have been given the teachings, example, sacrifice, and faithfulness of men and women in the New Testament and in church history. Abraham looked forward to God's promises, but Christians have been given their fulfillment in Christ.

Abraham was a man of faith, Moses was a servant of God, David was a king, and Elijah was a prophet. But none of them died for humanity's sins, established the New Covenant, or rose from the dead to become the head of the church. That distinction belongs exclusively to Jesus Christ.

Perhaps Armstrongism should spend less time looking for Abraham and considerably more time actually following Jesus. Christianity has moved beyond Genesis. It is about time Armstrongism caught up.

Armstrongism's Strange Bedfellows: Continually Seeking Credibility From People Outside Its Own Movement

There has always been something remarkably contradictory about Armstrongism. For decades, its leaders have proclaimed that Herbert W. Armstrong restored lost biblical truths, that their particular organization represents God's true Church, and that mainstream Christianity has been deceived. Yet, despite all those claims of possessing exclusive truth, Armstrongism has developed an almost embarrassing fascination with outside personalities, religious commentators, prophetic sensationalists, and organizations that have little or nothing to do with the Church of God movement.

Apparently, possessing the supposedly restored truth isn't quite enough. Armstrongism must continually seek out credibility from people outside its own movement.

Consider Mark Armstrong, United Church of God, Living Church of God, and Bob Thiel's fascination with WorldNetDaily (WND), its personalities and contributors, individuals such as Joe Kovacs, Jonathan Cahn and his The Harbinger phenomenon, and various other religious and political commentators whose teachings and prophetic interpretations appeal to Armstrongite audiences. These personalities become useful allies whenever they reinforce the movement's worldview, particularly its obsession with America's supposed prophetic destiny, national judgment, biblical numerology, end-time catastrophes, and the impending collapse of civilization.

The irony is extraordinary. Armstrongism condemns mainstream Christianity for allegedly abandoning biblical truth, yet readily embraces outside voices when those voices happen to echo its own theological prejudices. Suddenly, people who would otherwise have little connection to the Church of God movement become valuable sources of prophetic insight and religious validation.

But why should a Christian embrace someone's teaching simply because it reinforces what he already believes?

The Harbinger and the fascination with prophetic sensationalism

Jonathan Cahn's The Harbinger became particularly attractive to audiences already conditioned to interpret contemporary American events through an Old Testament prophetic framework. Its central premise draws parallels between ancient Israel's judgment and the circumstances of modern America. 

That approach should immediately raise questions for anyone who understands the distinction between the Old and New Covenants. God's covenant relationship with ancient Israel was unique. America is not ancient Israel, nor does the United States occupy Israel's covenant position simply because a religious commentator discovers similarities between contemporary events and passages in Isaiah.

The New Testament does not authorize Christians to manufacture national prophecies by transferring Israel's covenant warnings to modern political circumstances.

Yet this is precisely the sort of material that appeals to Armstrongism. Having spent decades teaching that biblical prophecy revolves around modern national identities, national punishment, and geopolitical speculation, Armstrongite audiences naturally gravitate toward anyone who supplies another supposed confirmation of their prophetic expectations.

The problem isn't merely that such interpretations may be questionable. It is that they encourage Christians to look for hidden messages, prophetic patterns, and mysterious warnings rather than concentrating on the finished work of Jesus Christ and the responsibilities of living under the New Covenant.

The Berean Call itself published criticism of The Harbinger, questioning its handling of Scripture and its application of Israel's covenant warnings to America. The controversy surrounding WND's promotion of Cahn demonstrates just how easily religious personalities and organizations become entangled in competing claims of prophetic authority.

The WND problem: Borrowing credibility from questionable religious alliances

WND and its associated personalities have also provided a convenient platform for religious ideas that appeal to Armstrongite thinking. When an organization promotes a personality or interpretation that supports their existing worldview, many Armstrongites seem perfectly willing to overlook doctrinal differences they would otherwise condemn.

This creates a peculiar double standard. A mainstream Christian teacher can be dismissed as deceived because he disagrees with Armstrongism, while an outside commentator can be enthusiastically embraced because he happens to promote a theory about national judgment, biblical prophecy, or the end of the age.

That is not biblical discernment. It is confirmation bias dressed up in Armstrongite hypocrisy.

A Christian's responsibility is not to find personalities who reinforce his preferred prophetic narrative. It is to examine every teaching in light of Scripture, including teachings coming from people he admires.

Paul's warning in Colossians 2:8 remains particularly relevant: believers must beware of being taken captive through human philosophy and traditions rather than remaining rooted in Christ.

The deeper problem: Armstrongism never really left the Old Covenant

Here is where the entire discussion becomes considerably more important.

Armstrongism's attraction to these outside personalities is not accidental. It grows out of a theological system that continually returns believers to an Old Covenant framework. Its obsession with national identities, physical blessings and curses, Sabbath enforcement, ceremonial observances, prophetic calculations, and national punishment creates an environment in which modern-day prophetic interpreters become especially appealing.

The movement may speak frequently about Christ, but its theological instincts repeatedly direct attention elsewhere: to Herbert Armstrong, organizational authorities, prophetic personalities, Old Testament national identities, and the latest supposedly significant world event.

The New Covenant, however, establishes something fundamentally different.

Jesus Christ is not merely another personality in a succession of religious authorities. He is the fulfillment of God's promises and the mediator of a better covenant (Hebrews 8:6). The believer's standing before God is not determined by attachment to a religious organization, acceptance of a modern prophet's interpretations, or participation in somebody's prophetic timetable.

The New Testament repeatedly directs believers toward Christ, not toward an endless succession of religious personalities claiming special insight.

Hebrews 1:1-2 establishes the significance of God's revelation through His Son. Colossians 2:16-17 explains that the Old Covenant shadows find their fulfillment in Christ. Galatians 3:24-25 explains that believers are no longer under the former arrangement as their governing covenant authority.

These passages should be enough to make any New Covenant Christian cautious about religious movements that continually attempt to resurrect the authority and obligations of the former covenant.

Why would a New Covenant Christian follow these personalities?

A Christian is certainly free to read books, examine commentary, listen to teachers, and consider different perspectives. Nobody should be expected to accept every statement made by a particular ministry or denomination. But there is an enormous difference between examining someone's material and treating that person as a trusted spiritual authority.

A New Covenant Christian does not need WND, Jonathan Cahn, Kovacs, Herbert Armstrong, Mark Armstrong, Bob Thiel, or any other religious personality to explain why Christ is sufficient. Nor does he need somebody's interpretation of America's political circumstances to establish his relationship with God.

The standard is Scripture, understood through the revelation of Jesus Christ and the New Covenant.

That means rejecting sensationalist prophecy when it goes beyond what Scripture actually teaches, questioning interpretations that transfer Israel's covenant promises and judgments indiscriminately to modern nations, and refusing to give religious personalities an authority that belongs to Christ.

It also means recognizing that somebody can occasionally say something correct without being a reliable guide to Christian doctrine. Agreement on a particular political or prophetic issue does not establish theological credibility.

Conclusion: Armstrongism's borrowed authorities

Perhaps the greatest irony is that a movement claiming to have restored the truths of the Bible appears so dependent upon outside personalities to keep its prophetic imagination alive. One day it is Herbert Armstrong, another day it is some modern prophetic commentator, another day it is WND, and another day it is the latest book promising to uncover some mysterious biblical warning about America.

The personalities change, the sensational headlines change, and the supposed prophetic discoveries change, but the underlying obsession remains.

Meanwhile, the New Covenant continues to point believers in an entirely different direction.

Christ does not need Herbert Armstrong to complete His work. He does not need Jonathan Cahn to uncover hidden warnings in Isaiah. He does not need WND to explain the destiny of America, nor does He need another self-appointed interpreter to reveal some supposedly forgotten biblical mystery.

The finished work of Christ is sufficient.

Perhaps Armstrongism should spend less time collecting borrowed prophets, political commentators, and prophetic celebrities and considerably more time understanding the covenant established through Jesus Christ.

After all, if Christ is truly sufficient, why does Armstrongism continually need somebody else to tell its followers what God supposedly meant?