Doug Winnail from Living Church of God has some guidelines on what is dangerous to your salvation. We are not talking about those demonic Smurfs and My Little Ponies that are running around inserting demons in your children. Nope, we are talking about the evilness of the World Cup and the World Series. If you spend time watching those events then you are in danger of losing your salvation!
Watch and Be Ready! The God we worship is a God of love who has revealed the future to those He has called to serve Him (Amos 3:7; Genesis 18:17). Jesus repeatedly warned His disciples to be watchful and alert as the end of the age approaches. He stated that we should avoid getting caught up in the cares of this world—parties, material pursuits, the World Series, World Cup events, political contests, personal concerns, and other things that get our minds off the big picture (Matthew 24:37-39; Mark 13:33-37; Luke 21:34-36).
Satan's secret hand signals
God has apparently put one large obstacle course before those called into the cog's. First you have to avoid all the normal distractions and ways of the world. Then you have to correctly choose which particular cog sect to give your allegiance (tithes)to. So if you avoid the pagan filled practices of this world, you could still lose out because you have hundreds, if not thousands of choices as to which is really "true". Assuming you make the right choice, there are still obstacles like the World Series and World Cup to knock you off. Bummer...
ReplyDeleteFundamentalist Christianity is hardly an easy yoke and light burden. (Where'd I read that?)
ReplyDeleteYou have to be exactly right about everything and the exact right things are poured into your head by those who know what the exact right things are. Whew...no pressure there.
I'm afraid the Indy 500 would claim my spot in the Kingdom.
NO2 Where in "hell" do you come up with these appropriate pictures for your blog!
ReplyDeleteDD
I hope the Cardinals get whipped!
ReplyDelete"Why DID the devil challenge a world series team to a game of baseball?"
ReplyDeleteAnswer #1: Because he knew they didn't stand a chance in hell of winning?
Answer #2. Because satan had all the umpires on his side?
I give up. Why?
we should avoid getting caught up in the cares of this world—parties, material pursuits
ReplyDeleteYou mean like going off to party at the Church Corporate Feast of Tabernacles?
Be sure to give all that money you would spend on party treats, etc. to the ministry so they can party like there's no tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI guess we know where old Herb ended up according to this pompous idiot. Have these guys gotten even more crazy since his passing, or what?
I know it is emotionally pleasing to generalize at times over abuses, but honestly, while I am sure there are stories of minister and member, I did not see it as some hugely obvious ministerial abuse. I was in charge of ministerial hospitality and it was a well budgeted and rather simple all the time I did that. We did have dinners and "meetings" which were expected, along with widows luncheon which I also was over and actually the widows luncheon or older member luncheons were much nicer at times than the daily ministerial hospitality room.
ReplyDeleteThis MY experience. Alcohol was never available from what I remember or at least it was not in any budget of mine. What people did going out to lunch or dinner was their personal business.
I did find Joe Tkach Sr. to be more likely to smooze the ministers with big spreads.
I DO realize abuses happened but no more or less than what stories could probably be told about Bob Jones University and their ministry, students , members etc.
It's the nature of the beast
I was one of those who also worked in the ministerial dining room at the Pasadena Feast site. Every year before the Feast Robin Webber would have us go out and buy items to make gift baskets for Tkach, himself and other "important" ministers. At that tiem in the 80's these baskets cost well over 200.00 each. They were filled with fine cheeses, wines, imported chocolates and candies and an a sundry of other items.
ReplyDeleteThen we were sent out to stock the bar. It would have every imaginable liqueur, cases of wine, etc.
I remember one former department head over the Transportation Department getting sloshed every day. Others would sit there and drink multiple glasses of wine and several mixed drinks.
I knew many families that struggle to provide for their kids during the Feast and to see this excess was disgusting.
Regular members were barred from the room and for a while we even had a person outside the door to keep lookie-loos from getting a peak inside.
DD blurted out..."I DO realize abuses happened but no more or less than what stories could probably be told about Bob Jones University and their ministry, students , members etc."
ReplyDeleteMY COMMENT: So, since they weren't any worse than other "ministers"...? That's like saying, "Well, HWA made 'mistakes', but he was only human, and he was no worse than Hitler, or Osama Bin Laden."
Steve, I'm just telling you my experience as I experienced it. I"m not condoning anything but figured any comment on my own observations and experienced would be taken as justifying other things which I did not see or do. Other churches do things up really big for ministers all the time around here and put on expensive wastes of money like hundred thousand dollars xmas shows and lights or thousands of dollars to put on fourth of July fireworks shows to draw people to the church and compete with the city.
ReplyDeleteAnnon: I don't doubt the Robin Weber story. He was a Tkach aid and probably kissing up and had a budget to do so. Again, I only speak from my practical experience with such things away from those types.
and Steve, I did not "blurt out" anything. I mentioned it. Your bitterness shows on such topics and your throwing everyone into the same kettle shines thru. I was there. At least I have the guts to speak up about my own experience. I'm not your symbolic enemy.
ReplyDeleteDennisCDiehl said...
ReplyDeleteand Steve, I did not "blurt out" anything. I mentioned it. Your bitterness shows on such topics and your throwing everyone into the same kettle shines thru. I was there. At least I have the guts to speak up about my own experience. I'm not your symbolic enemy.
MY COMMENT: Dennis, it just sounds like you're trying to justify what they did. Why do you COG and ex-COG people always use the bitterness card of accusation when someone calls you on something?
Who cares what other churches do when it comes to spending money on their holidays? We're not talking about other churches. So what? How does that justify the smug "ministers"(who used to be your buddies)who KNOW they are "gawd's true church"?
MY COMMENT: Dennis, it just sounds like you're trying to justify what they did. Why do you COG and ex-COG people always use the bitterness card of accusation when someone calls you on something?
ReplyDeleteSorry it sounds that way. If you don't understand what I am saying I'm sure I can't explain my perspectives without defensiveness and the "you ministers" thing. I'm at peace with myself on these matters and have a valid bird's eye view.
Dennis wrote:
ReplyDelete"NO2 Where in "hell" do you come up with these appropriate pictures for your blog!"
According to those that hate me,it must be satan........ Maynard accuses me of being in league with satan now, so I must be doing something right! :-)
TThe HWA government that he always claimed was "God's government" was simply lifted from Corporate America. But the odd part about it is the VPs and Executive mucky-mucks are nominally "ministers," which translates as "servants" and yet they are the ones being served by the members, not the other way around. In Corporate America, nobody says that the VPs are supposed to be "servants," so if they're the ones sitting in the "chief seats" it's not odd at all. But in the COG's the ministers are acting exactly like the Pharisees, playing all the political games in order to be the "greatest" even thought the example of Jesus was 180 degrees opposite. What's more is, every year at Passover, all these "ministers" do the footwashing ceremony, right? And every year, once again, they totally fail to learn anything from it. I guess "ministers" must think the lesson of the footwashing ritual is about instilling in the sheeple how they really need a refresher course in how to "wash his feet" better over the next year than they did the past year.
ReplyDeleteMY COMMENT: Dennis, it just sounds like you're trying to justify what they did. Why do you COG and ex-COG people always play the bitterness card of accusation when someone calls you on something?
ReplyDeleteDennisCDiehl said..."Sorry it sounds that way. If you don't understand what I am saying I'm sure I can't explain my perspectives without defensiveness and the "you ministers" thing. I'm at peace with myself on these matters and have a valid bird's eye view.
MY COMMENT: Ok, so you're a good guy, but it sure sounds like you're doing a little down-playing of all the abuse that went on, and, yes, there was MUCH abuse by "you ministers". We've read hundreds of testimonials to that fact. Sorry you have to be lumped in there with 'em, but you seem to be in a little denial by calling the abuses a "generalization".
You said..."I know it is emotionally pleasing to generalize at times over abuses, but honestly, while I am sure there are stories of minister and member, I did not see it as some hugely obvious ministerial abuse."
MY COMMENT: Are you blind??
The HWA government that he always claimed was "God's government" was simply lifted from Corporate America.
ReplyDeleteYes Andrew, and the UCG got its "Governance" straight from Weyerhaeuser -- I was a corporate manager there and I gave it to them.
The CoGWA got theirs from United. I know because I was sitting there when one of the ministers told the people about it.
Minutes of Board meetings are novacaine in print.
Before you blame me for what happened with UCG and CoGWA, let me explain that, yes, I did give them the Corporate processes, but they never learned how to use them properly. They, for example, took a summary of one part condensed in a little booklet which was supposed to have three days of training behind it, but they didn't wait around for the additional education. They did what they always did and created myth out the whole cloth of their imagination and badly mangled the processes.
And that is why I say, they have adopted the worst of the Corporate model and implemented it badly.
I remember so very well, waiting a week before making reservations, because "it was the right thing to do".
ReplyDeleteBy the time I made reservations, the best places were already taken by the ministers. Some caught on to this and they made their reservations the same Sunday as the ministers and got better places than the rest of us.
The insulting thing is that we all paid for the ministers being able to go and take the best places away from us.
In later years, I smartened up and found places that were cheaper and better than the church specified housing. Living well was the only revenge in that case, because, well, after all, we all paid double -- once for ourselves, and once for the ministers.
Give no offering before its time.
Or none at all (and for heaven's sake, if you're going to give offerings -- not recommended, since they use them to abuse people -- give three times a year, not seven, but still, none is better).
I wasn't so much thinking of all the splinters as the Mothership itself. UCG may have gleaned some tips from Weyerhaeuser about how to do the board and the voting and all that, but the true inspiration for the heart, core, and spirit of UCG's governance is still WCG. And I guess it isn't rocket science to figure that Armstrong got that from the turn-of-the-20th-century millionaire's club that he initially flunked out of. He must have really looked up to the titans of the Guilded Age. So when he finally started a business that worked, he structured it to be just like his role models: captains of industry, such as Rockefeller, Carnegie and JP Morgan. Armstrong wasn't the only entrepreneur of his time, and most of his peers created governance systems with the same values, beliefs, and attitudes at the heart of their corporate cultures. The only difference was his peers started legitimate businesses, and didn't need to claim that God had anything to do with it.
ReplyDeleteEvery "business" that I've ever come across in which in order to be customer you first have to be a stakeholder are pyramid schemes, except for one: churches.
ReplyDeleteNo Steve I am not blind. I pastored 14 congregations in 5 states over 26 years. 90% of those churches were rural and miles apart where I was the only minister. I rarely, once, had a ministerial assistant who indeed was arrogant no matter what I told him to stop doing. He is still in the now split UCG as a I don't know what.
ReplyDeleteMy first two years I was in Minneapolis and Chicago. Minneapolis under four other guys was a great experience and I did not see much more than I would expect in any ministry.
Chicago was a different story. There I saw arrogance of the Regional Director who took me in to assist him in whatever. It was so boring and I was mowing his lawn and babysitting his kids, that I asked to leave the area and actually be a minister. Dave Tear Up the Church Pack was rehired there and I see he has not changed a bit decades. He also pastored in my parents church and had to call him once to ask him to leave my father alone and stop dragging him all over creation visiting at his age. My parents often took care of Dave Packs kids when young and it was easy to see they were in for one hell of a life.
My first church picnic in Ohio, I got to see the outgoing minister and visiting minister, one whom I just last year debated in Dallas, sitting in a cordoned off with yellow ski rope area reserved for ministers sitting. It made me sick and it was there I vowed that would never again happen at any church picnic. I even did away with the concept of the "head table" at dinners that I had control over.
Of course I have seen abuses. I called "HQ" about the fact that Gerald Waterhouse caused more problems visiting than he solved. No reply just live with it. I called "HQ" for lots of "what the hell is this guy doing" moments. Not much of a reply. I was called fairly often by surrounding church members to please talk to or help them deal with a dumbass minister doing dumbass things and hurting folk. They just moved those guys around but never confronted them on their dumbass ways.
I grew up Presbyterian and never had the deep link to the Church or the Armstrongs or anyone really that so many had. I thought the church was something it was not but at 14-19 years old, I could not see it and thought it was normal for ministers and the drama of churches. Had seen it in my own Presby, church growing up.
My experience is why I write about abusive churches, organizations, doctrines, ideas and ministers. I belong to a group of former types who help ministers who have outgrown or grown up realizing they have made a mistake and want out. Everyone one of those men and women are highly educated theologians and not booklet bred wannabe's.
I'm doing the best I can for the experience I have and the eyes through which I see the world and process the experience personally.
And now I have to go teach Deep Tissue Massage......amen
Dennis, I don't mean to offend you. I know you've been through hell and back. All I'm saying is that it just seems like you're trying to minimize the abuse that went on, and is still going on, by the bosses who run the COGs. Maybe you're not aware of the fact that you seem to come across that way.
ReplyDelete#1. You think people just "generalizing" the abuse.
#2. You do not see it as "hugely obvious ministerial abuse".
#3. Then you minimize it by saying, "It's no more or less abusive than other churches".
#4. Then, on top of all that, you call me "bitter" for pointing out how wrong you are.
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteI certainly don't mean to minimize anything. I have been out of it a long time and moved on. I suppose I react to being lumped in with "you ministers" is all and i don't mean to come across that way either.
I am at peace with my role in abuse. I was not one personally.
300,000 downloads on my articles on church and ministerial abuse and lousy theology is encouraging to me. Few if any attack me for what I say in them. Many have written and said, "you say what I only think," and "can you help us with our church and pastor problems."
I'm very familiar with those in high places in the COG now. They rose there doing what they have always done and the way they have always done it. On the backs of those that still stay and buy into the meme.
I'm doing the best I can to help in the recovery of others and the enlightening theologically of the few who have the guts to see it is more wrong than they ever imagined.
PS I can't unring my bell or yours. I can, not ring the same one again. That's the best I can do for the sincere experience I have had with WCG.
ReplyDeleteHi Dennis, I guess you're NOT aware of the fact that you seemed to have come across differently here than your usual style. Am I the only one who picked up on that? Again, you seemed to minimize the abuses by stating, "It's no more or less abusive than other churches". Then you minimized it again by stating, " I did not see it as some hugely obvious ministerial abuse". Then you stated, "I know it is emotionally pleasing to generalize at times over abuses", inferring more minimizing of those abuses. Then, you add insult to injury by stating, "Your bitterness shows on such topics and your throwing everyone into the same kettle shines thru", when, in fact, I wasn't throwing you into the same kettle(If the kettle fits, wear it:-), and how can you detect if someone is bitter over the internet? I'm not bitter. I'm just calling it as I see it. You don't have to give me a list of your great accomplishment or try to impress me with how many people read your material. I'm not talking about any of that. I know you're trying to wiggle out of answering my concerns. I just saw some flaws in your statements and brought them to light. So, you can take it, or you can leave it. So far, you have decided to justify your stance at every turn.
ReplyDeleteThis ploy wears thin after a while....
ReplyDeleteThe ecclesia is suppose to be IN the world but not OF it.
So whatever is EVIL in this world we should shun. That must be determined by each individual in their own mind.
For example, if a TV show has a lot of things which I don't want to put into my mind, I will choose another or turn the TV off.
One can clearly see that PROFESSIONAL SPORTS addiction foisted on the public by those who profit the most is not a good thing. Violence among amateur and pro leagues is increasing radically. Check out YouTube.
Something is obviously wrong with our perverted culture and hiding your head like a ostrich and having a laughfest over the COG concerns isn't going to make the serious erosion of our society disappear.
Little sleeping pouty boys need to 'get up' eventually - how about now on the precipice of some real world disaster?
Getting up in the morning is dangerous to your salvation if you are a member of an ACOG, because they aren't aware of the sealing nature of the Holy Spirit, and eternal security. They believe that each conscious act carries the possible consequence of loss of salvation.
ReplyDeleteThese same people who go anal over whether it's sin to watch a ball game think nothing of shaking their head and telling a homeless person to get a job rather than doing the Christlike thing and helping him out.
BB
BB, you wrote: "...They believe that each conscious act carries the possible consequence of loss of salvation..."
ReplyDeleteThat's called "Fear Religion." They preach "Fear Religion," which isn't of God. Fear religion is of god: Satan, who was created to be a special way:
Job 41:33 Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.
34 He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.
Doug Winnail, like so many others, teaches fear religion...
John
BB, you also wrote: "...Getting up in the morning is dangerous to your salvation if you are a member of an ACOG, because they aren't aware of the sealing nature of the Holy Spirit, and eternal security..."
ReplyDeleteThat was interesting comment you also made, b/c once an individual is sealed by God's Spirit it is a done-deal until the day of redemption...again, something that the Doug Winnails are totally ignorant of. If Doug understood that he would not teach/preach that fear religion, which is of Satan: the god of this present evil world. God is of life (Thankfully God has the power of resurrection or I wouldn't say that); Satan is of death:
Hebrews 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
And if Doug thinks Christ is some sort of a wimp with those God has sealed by His Father, one may be confident of the following:
"My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand." John 10:29
No world series game or world cup can affect the Father's hand. It's a done deal!
John
When you take fear out of religion, it loses its greatest tool.
ReplyDeleteIt starts with the myth of original sin and automatic damnation at birth. An horrible doctrine. But, it has been very effective in keeping the ignorant in line.
As I've stated before, human beings have no need for salvation and never have. Once I realized that, life became gloriously simple and joyful.
No, I don't rape, cheat, steal, kill, etc. I practice humanist morals and ethics just because I want to be a descent, upright human being.