Today, the Living Church of God had their weekly newsletter go out and one of it's headlines is persecution of Christians in the middle east. That might be eye catching to mainstream Christians who read this, but this is the Living Church of God who does not consider anyone outside the Living Church of God to be true Christians. Anyone who is not a Sabbath keeping, holy day keeping, kosher eating Christian is NOT considered to be a true Christian. Just look at the drivel Bob Thiel writes and you will see this teaching is quit predominate. All I can say is THANK YOU Bob Thiel for being the OFFICIAL mouthpiece for the Living Church of God. Thanks to YOUR writings the truth is out there!
So who is LCG really referring to in this post? Is it the Coptic Christians in Egypt who are being murdered? Iranian Christians? Egyptian Christians? LCG's own self -righteous prophet damns all these people as fake so-called Christians which immediately puts them outside God's protection. So just WHO is LCG talking about here since they call these people "so-called Christians?"
Why doesn't the Living Church of God include a preface in their "news report" and clarify that there are no Christians outside the Living Church of God and that the Christians being discussed here will actually be LCG members at some time in the future. Armstrongite teachings clearly states that Satan hates the true Christians in the Church of God and will attempt to kill them until they are taken to the place of safety. Regular Sunday Christians are mere dung in God's sight.
Newsweek magazine recently reported that "Terrorist attacks on Christians in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia increased 309% from 2003 to 2010." The article described how Christians in the Middle East are being attacked and suffering for their religious views. The author's rhetoric is more alarming than one would expect from the mainstream press. "Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm... [it is] the conspiracy of silence... Nothing less than the fate of Christianity--and ultimately of all religious minorities--in the Islamic world is at stake... It is a spontaneous expression of anti-Christian animus by Muslims that transcends cultures, regions and ethnicities" (Newsweek, February 13, 2012). The Bible reveals that Satan's society at the end of the age will hate followers of Jesus Christ (Matthew 24:9). In fact, Jesus said the world would hate His disciples, because they are of Him (John 17:14). The prophet Daniel reveals that in the last days, a predominantly Muslim King of the South will "push against" a predominantly "Christian" King of the North but will be overcome by the King of the North (see Daniel 11).
Source: CIA World Factbook
The recent surge in violence and intolerance against Christians could be one of the ways the King of the South will attempt to "push against" the North. This aggression against Christians in the Middle East will likely generate a backlash from the future Catholic European Beast Power. For more information on this long-prophesied confrontation, please review our booklet, The Beast of Revelation.
5 comments:
So true. On this point, COGers talk out of both sides of their mouths, always have, for expediency's sake.
I love their little tagline on the Living University website: "Where All the World Is Our Campus."
Should read, "Where All the World, Though Deceived, Is Our Campus."
Christians in other lands, indeed.
Every time a Christian is martyrred, it brings attention to Jesus Christ. It's a difficult path for personal evangelism, but such a powerful and horrible event bears perhaps the ultimate testimony. I personally feel, and this is based on reading first and second century primary source history, that the sabbath keeping Jewish Christians, and the early non-sabbatarian Gentile Christians who were often martyrred side by side for their belief in and faith in Jesus Christ absolutely had to have had God's Spirit to get through horrific torture and ultimate death.
Armstrongism consistently downplayed, devalued, and dismissed the works which God has done through the broad spectrum of Christian people, and counts their belief and sacrifice as nothing, if they did not adhere to the shadows from the Old Covenant.
This past year, I've been reading the Bible from cover to cover, and have been amazed at what I've learned. You obtain quite a different picture reading each book in context, rather than following a machine-gunned line of scriptures presented by a Herbert W. Armstrong minister. Some books, such as Proverbs, and the Psalms, are filled with self-contained thoughts, which can be lifted and applied. However, many of the books, particularly the writings of St. Paul, are well-organized and thematic. It would be a mistake to isolate and lift passages from context in the case of a thematic book. Yet, we did this all the time!
Paul writes of Judaizing Christians who taught that converts must first become practicing Jews. These people were causing great discord in the gentile churches throughout the Roman Empire. He even sought an edict from the Jerusalem Council, and basically, James and the elders stated that circumcision which had been a lynchpin of nearly all of God's covenants, was no longer required. Whoever wrote Hebrews (some have said Apollo, while others name Barnabas) then takes these Hebrew Judaizers to task, calling them weak and never getting to the meat, and attempts to re-explain the New Covenant to them. It's all as plain as the nose on one's face, yet Armstrongism also confines itself to the milk by continuing to blind itself with the shadows.
I look forward to the time when Bob Thiel and others realize the powerful work God is doing through Christians around the world, and stop being so self-absorbed and elitist. Hate to cop a Dave Pack phrase, but these people seriously need their eyes annointed! It's just that the results will be quite different from those Pack visualizes!
BB
One more thing. Isn't it a funny coincidence how the ACOGs always seem to jump to address the issues we raise here?
What did we actually say when we shared that thousands of Christians were being martyrred each year around the globe? We made it obvious that mainstream Christians are being led to give more powerful testimony than is evidenced in the ACOGs. This is yet another way in which the Armstrong movement experiences a disconnect from the book of Acts.
BB
BB: For decades I have heard COG ministers stand up and say the Book of Acts had no ending because it would eventually include the stories of the COG in it. They felt, and many still do, that they are doing a far more important work than the early Christians did.
The issues is that Armstrongism has accomplished nothing more than leave a trail of deconstruction and misery in it's wake. There are far more Christians around the world, outside Armstrongism, who live deeper faithful lives and practice Christian charity than any Armstrongite ever has. That hold be shameful to them, but it is not. They are too puffed up in their self aggrandizing back slapping than to care for the lesser of these.
Well, NO2HWA, you have to wonder how the whole Adventist movement that HWA was actually part of would be described in a hypothetical continuation of the book of Acts. Probably many in the ACOGs believe that HWA would be on an equal or even greater standing than Paul, Peter, John, James, etc. They may even believe that some of the coworker letters would be preserved in a section called "The Epistles of Armstrong to Modern Israel".
With my current understanding, it is difficult for me to theorize anything beyond something similar to Luke's brief description of Simon Magus (WCG did seem to teach that you are saved by their special knowledge, or gnosis), or perhaps something similar to Paul's dissertations on the Judaizer heretics who were trying to derail his Gentile churches.
You have to wonder how their Volume II of Acts would treat the ever postponed 1975, three tithes,
and the racism associated with British Israelism which directly contradicts Jew and Gentile equality under the New Covenant.
These wishful thinkers may not end up wanting to read what actually gets written, although they probably believe they'll get to write it themselves!
BB
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