Check out The Supreme Cult today and it's article about how your life is in danger if you attend a Church of God Sabbath keeping church that has descended from Herbert Armstrong.
Read the rest of this article here: Violence In Our Church: It's Killing Us
If you attend Sabbath Services or Feasts with the Living Church of God cult, you run the risk of being shot to death by another member who finally lost it after years of the craziness in the cult. You don’t really know what is going on in the deluded mind in the person sitting next to you.
If you think this is a single incident, think again. In the Worldwide Church of God, a precursor of sorts to Living, Chuck Harris gunned down Brenda James and several others. He had been showing his gun to other members after church services in the hall they were meeting.
18 comments:
In a group of disillusioned and put upon people as large as WCG has spawned, yes, I think there is a certain risk to certain men responsible for sure abuses.
Enough time has gone by now or a small unstable minority to look back and see the waste of time, the abuse, financial losses and life disruption to pose a threat in some way. It would be normal to have such abnormalities in such an experience.
I was a bit surprised it surfaced first in LCG but that may have been something that could happen under the best of times as well in one specific area. I thought something might first occur in Pasadena and to those most directly responsible for the carnage of irresponsible change.
Foolish men thought to change in months what in history has taken hundreds of years. It truly is an insane story and I will go to my grave saying the leadership, falsely so called, should have left themselves to find happy slappy Jesus on their own, left their salaries, titles and positions and let the church be the church without them. Few would have cried to see them go.
They just traded misunderstanding for foolishness and reinvented the wheel.
I'm waiting for some WCGracie minister to become bored over the double talk about the triune God and Jesus now having his physical body now gloried like God, yet human, on The Surprising God Blog (as if they knew this)and say, "But we need to teach not just about Jesus, but about what Jesus said!"
The Surprising God Blog is truly one of the most annoying, doubletalking, swoozy Jesus site on the web.
Round and round we go....
M.T.Pews
While I don't claim to know much about the LCG in terms of a visiting program for the membership, I am familiar with others, such as UCG.
It occurs to me that the root of the problem is the avarice of the cult organization: It is a cash machine. The members are objects to be manipulated for the sole purpose of the continuing existence of the the cult itself.
In such cases, the ministers are only interested in themselves, their immediate families and personal friends. Others, even in the cult, can go take a flying leap. Only when one of them is perceived as a trouble maker will the minister show up.
In the UCG, for example, when the new minister came along, he promised faithfully that he would visit every family in the church in the next six months. Years passed and nada.
Besides the "glass ceiling" and the obvious limiting hierarchy to prevent the officers from fraternizing with the "enlisted" (extreme example: AC Big Sandy -- Contientous Objectors vs ministers and AC Students), there are other kinds of alienation, making the ministry "superior" to the member in ways which transcend the assumed spiritual knowledge.
These dimwits think they have answers to everything and are experts in everything. If they don't really know something, they will just make it up, just like they always have. "God" reveals it to them. No doubt, if called upon, they could single handedly operate a nuclear power plant with no education or experience or fly a 787 jet from takeoff to landing.
Such empty headed twits appear to be impressive at first blush to the unititiated, but (as Dennis can probably tell you), after awhile people catch on to their uncaring narcissistic dysfunctional stupidity posing as expert spirituality without the credentials to back it up.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and these vacuous incompetents are the sort of vacuum into which confused thinking rushes to create dangerous environments because of needful members who have been left alone to fend for themselves as best they can without any support.
"It occurs to me that the root of the problem is the avarice of the cult organization: It is a cash machine. The members are objects to be manipulated for the sole purpose of the continuing existence of the the cult itself.
In such cases, the ministers are only interested in themselves, their immediate families and personal friends. Others, even in the cult, can go take a flying leap. Only when one of them is perceived as a trouble maker will the minister show up. "
IMHO this is a gross overstatement of the motives, intentions, practices and beliefs of the vast majority of pastors I knew. Of course I can't speak for others. This may have been your personal experience but it can not be inflated to be the experience of all.
It was not true of most faculty I knew. It was more noticeable with those who were "elevated" beyond reason or who had too much ego and not enough humanity left in them.
As Jesus said..."where two or three are gathered together, one inflicts his will out of ignorance, one listens attentively and one has to clean up."
Or something like that :)
The Living Church of God under Roderick Meredith can be a dangerous cult: Here is a reminder of the sort of problems inherent with it.
It's sad to realize that for all the warnings over the years of COG persecution, the most violent act against COG members since 2000 came from within.
But there's a form of satire which is godly, and there's also a form which is unloving and hurtful. To me, this cover crosses that line.
IMHO this is a gross overstatement of the motives, intentions, practices and beliefs of the vast majority of pastors I knew.
Dennis, please note that I said, "the avarice of the cult organization".
The Church Corporate as a corporation is an "it", a "thing".
No ministerial motives were imputed... necessarily... except maybe the leadership at the top.
It is recognized that the ministers of the WCG were but (mostly) cogs (pun intended) in the machinery to provide the unending supply of cash from the WCG membership as the ultimate in cash machines.
Now, Herbert Armstrong. Now there's a man filled with avarice. Not to mention anger. Not to mention... oh, well, lots of things, none of which are good.
Avarice is not the thing with Roderick Meredith, although he does need the giant cash machine to keep going to fuel his anger: He is an angry man -- and one to avoid. His fury is addictive as his prognostications of destruction, devastation and death -- what one woman in his cult referred to as "better prophecy" (better in the sense of appealing to blood lust).
I stand by my original statement.
Or something like that.
And yet, Richard, in all the years of people speaking out against the excesses and abuses of Armstrongism and particularly Roderick Meredith and the Living Church of God, nothing has worked — people still embrace the false prophets.
The cover is not so much a parody but a real warning which must be heeded.
Proverbs says not to go with an angry man lest you learn his ways: The point of the cover is not to be funny — it is to express the outrage of the anger pervading the Living Church of God! It portrays the true hidden face of the violence within. The Living Church of God is dangerous, and that is the point.
This morning someone posted about how Roderick Meredith and the Living Church of God is threatening her marriage as her husband is threatening divorce after 30 years of marriage. He has only been in the LCG for three years but has turned secretive and turned against her: Either she goes along with it, or she will suffer!
Granted, this cover is extreme, but it is extreme to match how extreme Armstrongism has become while everyone sleeps on, seemingly not noticing the threat Armstrong poses any longer because they have become so used to it.
Elijah was also "over the top" and "crossed the line": "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him", he said. And the people answered him not a word.
That's just it, isn't it? Everyone is waiting for something to happen. And when someone actually does something, they go, "What did you do that for?". Meanwhile, thousands continue to suffer. I keep wondering what it will take....
The cover is a wake up call.
Are you awake yet?
The basic modus operandi of Armstrongism involved systematically destroying joy or trust in anything but his WCG. The problems would then become, 1) How do you deal with life thereafter under that basic assumption?, and 2) What happens when one becomes enlightened to the fact that HWA was a false teacher, and the WCG was an heretical and false church?
I've come to realize that one of the primary causes of depression is a severe lack of faith. I believe the massive incidence of depression in the Armstrong movement was largely attributable to the fact that members' faith was largely shifted to HWA personally as "God's Apostle", and to WCG as the only place on earth where God was actively doing His work. Given that, obviously something there is destined to burst.
BB
This seems like a good place to share a related experience from last week.
I received, as part of a blanket bulk mailing, a flyer from Scott Hake ministries this past week. The art work nearly demanded attention, and as I reviewed the flyer, couldn't help but notice that his upcoming tent meeting was going to be devoted to teaching what we all had come to recognize as Herbert W. Armstrong's basic eschatology.
I speculated that Hake might be part of a WCG splinter group, although his name was totally unfamiliar to me as are many, since I left in 1975. Imagine my surprise when a Google search revealed that the "splinter" Scott Hake was a member of is the Seventh Day Adventist church! You have to wonder whether most ACOG members realize that HWA lifted or plagiarized his entire prophecy schtick from the SDAs! Certainly, the SDAs have more of a claim to ownership of this than did the Armstrongs. David Koresh, at the very least, should have provided some gentle hints to the unknowing in this area.
It's no wonder why we were always told not to get our spiritual input from sources outside of WCG! Doing so would have provided incontrovertable evidence, creating massive doubt about HWA's apostleship. What is so funny (or pathetic) is the quotes Gary occasionally posts from people who think that the Evangelicals or other groups have co-opted HWA's restored "truths", and are now teaching them as their own.
BB
"It is recognized that the ministers of the WCG were but (mostly) cogs (pun intended) in the machinery to provide the unending supply of cash from the WCG membership as the ultimate in cash machines."
This is NOT true. True to you maybe but not in reality. You paint with way to broad a brush in motive and intent.
Dennis, the WCG in its hay day took in around $225 million per year. There were many parts to the collection of that money and contributions came from all over.
In moving from the telescopic point of view to the microscopic point of view, each church member contributed a tithe (mostly on the gross income) to the church, along with offerings, building fund, excess second tithe and third tithe. While each member was loyally addicted obsessing on Herbert Armstrong and his preachments and may have continued to provide the cash without a minister in place to keep up the "rah, rah, the Place of Safety, Great Tribulation and the Kingdom of God is coming," the minister in each area was certainly instrumental in "keeping the machine well-oiled" as an over all functioning whole. Therefore, in the bigger picture -- moving again to the telescopic point of view -- part of the minister's purpose (and perhaps in the eyes of Herbert Armstrong, the totality of the minister's purpose) was to simply be a relatively unimportant interchangeable cog in the machinery to keep things flowing smoothly.
If we look at this from the immediate point of view, then the minister kept people feeling as if they were an important part of "the family".
I am not certain how this differs from your viewpoint, but would like to understand.
I'm a peaceful, basically loving, person. Yet, there were occasions, after I deduced how taken in and used I had been, that violent and hateful thoughts did creep over me.
I was able to rise above them and just move on with my life, but not everyone reacts the same way. I'd say an ACOG is definitely a potentially dangerous place to spend time.
BB, you've "come to realize that one of the primary causes of depression is a severe lack of faith."
I would replace "lack" with "loss." I realize you're not claiming that everyone who lacks faith is depressed. Thank you for that. I hope you also recognize that some believers cannot escape debilitating depression.
I suspect the cases of depression you're thinking of arise in doubters who used to believe, or who are under pressure to believe. The depression may be a sign of turmoil over the conflicts rather than simply an inability to believe: a transitional depression, as in someone who has lost a job or a loved one.
I am a skeptic myself. I am not depressed, and neither are most of the unbelievers I know. It puzzles me to hear my fundamentalist cousins say I must have an empty spot, a hunger in my soul, that only Jesus can fill. I never feel what they claim I am supposed to feel. If they were very intimate relatives, I can see how their expectations might move me to depression. But it would arise from my inability to measure up, not from my lack of faith per se.
I'm a sceptic also, actually an atheist and anti-theist, and I have no problem with depression.
Financial difficulties are about the only kind of thing that gets me down anymore. At the present, that isn't even a factor.
So, BB, lack of faith might depress you since you seem to have a gaping hole of need for it, but I and many others don't suffer from the same thing. We're actually rather elated to no longer have the encumbrance of faith.
Douglas noted:
"If we look at this from the immediate point of view, then the minister kept people feeling as if they were an important part of "the family".
I understand what you are saying. In the big view perhaps I was being used and had not clue. I felt in my soul I was a pastor and took good care with compassion, understanding, encouragement and such expected of a pastoral type. I knew I did not have the education I needed so that is why I just kept up my own . In hindsite, I realize that was a rare thing but is responsible for hearing all my life in WCG, "Dennis, you say what only I think," "You are ahead of your time," "You study a lot, let me ask you...."
The church kept me feeling that I also was part of the family. I think this is why when that all went away, absolute anxiety, abandonment and fear issues arose. It, alone with one other abandonment issue in life (and I have done it to others so don't talk much of it,) almost put me down.
If estimated I gave (and all gave) about $80,000 over the years. I had 35 extended family in the WCG. And I "inspired" the people to give about 70 million over three decades. Here I sit wondering what the future holds and how can I afford it, so the consequences of my naivete' are ever with me.
2012 will be some kind of year of change again as the massage program I am teaching is closing down. I have no idea what to do or even to stay or leave, but go where? More abandonment issues I guess.
Next life: Univ of Penn/Paleontology!
I realize I kept myself in a bubble. My common sense upbringing did not make me feel connected to HQ, HWA or "the church" in the same way as many others must have. If something sounded stupid, it sounded stupid and I noted it as such. There were many things I ignored along the way and many tapes that said "To be played in all the churches," I listened to, and never played because i had more interesting things to say and teach ,I thought, to my congregations. I got away with it.
So my connections to it all were looser and less rigid, I see in hindsite. The only time I was rather amazed was when members in adjacent church areas called for "help" because their minister was nuts ha. I was always amazed at how HQ knew of these guys abuses and never did anything. They moved them around to torment other congregations. Dave Pack comes to mind.
Anyway, Sunday morning blather. I know what you mean and I only react when I feel, "in my house it was not so." etc.
Byker Bob,
Interesting observation about Scott Hake ministries. I had a similar experience recently.
I picked up a disc offered free at a local grocery store - the sound of the title made me think it was another WCG offshoot, so I picked it up to see who it was. When played in my car, the introduction sounded EXACTLY like the Art Gilmore introduction to The World Tomorrow broadcast.
The entire DVD recording on the subject of prophecy sounded typical Armstrong worldview. Only at the end, the speaker identified himself as a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, sponsor of the DVD.
I thought to myself that fear religion has come full circle, that the ties between the Seventh Day Adventist movement, The Church of God Seventh Day, Herbert W. Armstrong's WCG and all the splinters is a large "circle jerk".
Richard
Yeah, Dennis, I know and I'm sorry.
But on the bright side, we're all in this together: Not a single one of us mattered all that much in the grand scheme of things as far as Herbert Armstrong was concerned and we all chipped in to his Ego fund.
We are all nothings who don't matter.
Herbert Armstrong was the only one on the face of the earth who was really of any worth.
And now his glorious works are facing the wrecking ball.
At least we can take small comfort in that.
Richard,
Yes, the SDAs are a belligerant bunch. Think of them as the LCG of the Armstrongists. They are absolutely vicious.
In the last couple of years, they threatened CoG7D over the logo, not because it looked anything like the SDA one, but because the SDAs were being mean spirited. They have wanted to destroy CoG7D from the very beginning.
The CoG7D is a mild friendly group who are peaceful. To paint them with the same brush as the SDA is not entirely honest, since they don't have the prophecies of doom, destruction, devastation and death like the SDA and the LCG do. Both the SDA and the LCG carry on endless attacks on CoG7D, slandering and libeling them at every chance they get. This past week, Booby Thiel struck at them again by proof texting The Bible Advocate.
The SDAs should be held accountable.
It would be nice if people got their facts straight about CoG7D. After all, if it weren't for them, the heretic false prophet Herbert Armstrong who rebelled from them with his lies and deceptions would not have created the cult which eventually spawned this blog.
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