Latest Armstrongite Flare-Up: WCG Wales

You would have thought all the legalists that worshiped all things HWA would have left WCG/GCI by now.  It seems they have not in Wales.

There has been a rebellion recently by a deacon there who is leading a small group of people away from WCG.  It seems a WCG minister came to celebrate Unleavened Bread in a small Welsh church and brought a loaf of regular bread.  Drama ensued and the deacon is seeking to negotiate with Spanky Meredith about bringing his group into Spanky's cult.

There is another extremely small splinter cult in the same area (Church of God in Wales), but the deacon will not join with them because he had a falling out with them previously.  They want to get back as close to HWA's teachings as possible.

From the UK Apologeticss site:

Here in Wales a WCG group which has met in the southwest Wales area for several years (some of them known to your writer) have suddenly become more militant, insisting that pure Armstrongism should be revived in their area. Apparently, civil war broke out when a minister from the UK 'headquarters' attended their west Wales meeting place on the First Day of Unleavened Bread, 2011, taking only fully leavened bread which he openly ate in the presence of all. He also preached, effectively telling them that it was time for them to grow up! I have now received a few reports of what ensued, though, as always in such reports, there are variations. According to one report, the anger almost came to blows being landed, certainly the official WCG 'minister' was accused of 'preaching heresy.'

We are told that the deacon who seems to have led the local rebellion now states that he will lead the west Wales WCG grouping out of the officially "reformed" WCG and will make contact with the 'Living Church of God' (Roderick Meredith's old, diehard Amstrongist group; website here), in order to recover full-blown Armstrongist teachings. Of course, numbers are now absolutely tiny, we speak here of about 20-25 people at the very most. But the official WCG in Wales is already very small so if this breakaway goes ahead this will make their numbers even more meager.

Interestingly, this part of southwest Wales (around Whitland) already has an extremist Armstrongist group, the so-called Church of God in Wales, Now this group is truly tiny, 3-7 people the last time I heard, but the new deacon-led grouping is currently insisting (although this could change) that they will not make contact with that group because of former clashes between the deacon and the former WCG local elder who later set himself up as leader of this COGW ('Church of God in Wales'). I understand that further damage was done when the former WCG local elder did not attend the funeral of a long-standing member in the area.

This is not something new to WCG.  Almost every congregation still contains a few members who are loyal to HWA's teachings.  They remain in WCG/GCI because that is where God placed them. They feel that God will correct the situation in due time.  Many feel that by staying put they will become leaders when the GCI repents of it's errors and they can begin teaching 'the truth'. to the returning and repenting flock.  They are sad, miserable people who make everyone around them equally miserable.

Robin Brace sums up their state of mind quite well:

One could be somewhat amused by all of these rather sad goings-on but the real tragedy is that the Lord Jesus Christ is not enough for these people, they are firmly legalistic, believing that they cannot be "true Christians" without being in subservience to a whole group of Old Covenant laws. These people hold to what is sometimes now called Galatianism, and the Apostle Paul's ringing condemnation of Galatianist legalism should be a warning for us all....

So the WCG legalists (yes, there obviously still are WCG legalists, whatever you might have been led to believe) just seem to be committed to judging their brothers and sisters and causing friction. When will some of these people grow up? When will they actually study the Scriptures for themselves instead of worshipping at the shrine of Armstrongism?
Robin A. Brace. June 25th, 2011.