In some of the comments on Malm's blog there are some telling remarks about the UCG/COGWA debacle. Neither side comes out looking good. Both were and still are manipulative power hungry organizations that strategically planned and manipulated brethren into following each of their causes. Great will be the day these men all loose their jobs and have to do some real work for once.
Despite what Jim Franks says, the split was carefully planned from at least mid 09 by BOTH sides. And it came as the end result of fifteen years of fighting between the two groups... Denny was right this was about power and control; but by BOTH sides and not just by COGWA as he would want us to believe. This was a mutual divorce and both sides are glad to be separated from the other; although the dividing of the brethren is regretted.
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People have been fed a lot of self justification in BOTH groups. I was kept up to date through 2010 on the steps taken by the dissenters from my friend John Kilough [Clyde's father] as well as other highly placed persons. [John was disappointed that I did not take COGWA's side and is no longer communicating; altough I still have other sources.] The attempts to reconcile were deliberately set up to make one side look good and the other bad; in other words they made offers that looked good to their supporters, but which they knew contained serious issues entirely unacceptable to the other side. This was done to make the COE seem to be much worse then the dissenters and vise versa. For example to call for a special elders meeting made them look very good, on the other hand, why could they not wait a few months to the regular meeting? It was all a VERY DIRTY political game to win over as many brethren as each side could. There were NO genuine attempts at reconciliation by either side that I am aware of; and I was very well informed through the entire process.
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The elders on both sides had carefully conditioned their brethren into their take on doctrine leadership etc and it is the case that most of the brethren follow the elder. The brethren split mainly along congregational lines. The split process was a fight over the brethren who could be moved to stay or leave, of course causing some local congregations to split. I was directly told from the top of those organizing the split that they were in no hurry because the CoE was continually “shooting itself in the foot” and making itself look worse and worse causing more and more to join with the dissenters. Of course this was helped along by the disengenous appeals to reconcile, which were really loaded to bring about a coup for the dissenters if the CoE went along with them. This was a VERY NASTY DIRTY fight over the brethren, making merchandise of them for their tithes and support. BOTH sides were very wrong in much that was done. Just like BOTH sides are morally very wrong in Zambia. James
Yawn! This story is getting boring. So....what else is new?
ReplyDeleteThe split wasn't PLANNED in 2009. There were problems that we were dealing with then and we attempted to sort them out. We weren't expecting to split but later on it became an obvious possibility.
ReplyDeleteAnd just for the record. "Despite what Jim Franks says"?
Jim Franks said and agreed that problems were brewing back in 2008 and that this has been going on for a while. I'm not sure if this was ever mentioned online, but he DID say that.