UCG is the first COG I have seen to openly admit that there are serious mental health issues with it's members. I think that is a good thing to admit that its members are just like the rest of the society instead of being a "special called out group" who is immune to life issues. You will never see Davie Pack or Gerald Flurry's cults ever admit such a thing. "True COG members can never have mental health issues because they are True followers of God."
Mental health issues have been a tremendous problem in Armstrongism over the decades and it was always swept under the carpet. If the Church had met those issues head on we would not have the rampant alcoholism problem plaguing ALL of the COG's today. We would not have the rapists, stalkers, child molesters, murders and suicides that have plagued the Church.
When a person grows up in a sect that isolates it's self from society, imposes strict rules and regulations, demands high use of members time, prohibits everything under the sun it starts to mess with peoples minds. You hear the same familiar strain over the decades. "If only I can graduate from High School," followed by "If only I could graduate from college," then "If only I could get married before the end times," "If only I I could have kids before we have to flee," "If only we could have our first home a few years before we have to sell it for the final push." The list could go on and on.
There is even more anxiety if you are a rebel rouser and make waves. Your eternal salvation is at risk if the Church kicks you out and disfellowships you. Being marked and shunned was equivalent to a death.
We are placing more focus on educational issues such as addictions, anxieties, self-injury, depression, abuse and other relevant maladies that afflict many in our congregations.
We would like to form a team of “experts” who might be able to write or bring presentations to educate others on the seriousness of abnormal behavior. With that knowledge our brethren will be able to get the affected person the necessary help and encouragement needed to overcome one’s difficulties.
If you have special skills or have experience in focused education issues, please send me an e-mail explaining your credentials. Once I have that information, we will form a team who will be able to write and/or present relevant information for the edification of the brethren.
Much remains to be seen how this "new" focus of UCG will accomplish. As it attempts to break all ties from the past will they eventually dump Armstrongism?
I bet Malm will see this as a further eroding of the truth and law. We can't put too much into that "love" crap can we?
ReplyDeleteGood to see. Life in or out of religion can be difficult without the skills needed to get through. Even as a minister, I had to get help with some issues that at the time were labeled as "chemical imbalances." Fair enough, could be. I was told "you'll be on these meds the rest of your life..." uh....no.
ReplyDeleteIn time, I came to realize my depression was anger internalized and repressed. My sarcasm was my only outlet and I called it my "anger turned sideways." Expressing the anger at that time would prove more expensive than I wished to spend at the time.
I was angry at the perpetual stress and embarassment the WCG put me in about every three years with one disaster after the next. The drama of the WCG was eating a hole in me. I had not come to WCG for this nor would have expected it as a young man. I learned the art of denial and leave me alone.
But such things don't go away and they don't leave you alone. The meds made me indifferent because the issues were unfaced and unresolved.
Church blows, stopped meds, ideals crumble, relationships change, new ones develope, then collapse, stupid rules for a time, lessons learned, and you wake up older, wiser and exhausted.
Most disappear. Some write to process it all and those who are still alive who caused most of the stress go on to become millionaires for Jesus or Christ depending on whether your Jesus is sweet or kick ass. They compete for the shrapnel left by the explosion and try rebuild something that resembles the true church from it all.
Of course, I never met ANYONE who belonged or went to the false church, so any church will do if it makes you happy.
The complete fools rise to the top and give us all someone to marvel after and thank God we did not follow or become like.
And we keep seeking because that's just what intelligent and critically thinking humans do...
The Armstrong movement both attracted those seeking healing from mental health issues, and caused mental problems in people who had not previously had them through their basic doctrinal and human resources approach.
ReplyDeleteYou would have thought that Jesus had taken "the end times" completely off the table as a manipulative evangelistic hook or tool by stating that even He did not know when the end was going to occur. Jesus knew that selfish, "save your butt" decisions made under duress are valueless anyway because they do not truly come from a person's heart, and He was deeply concerned with the state of the heart of humans.
If you artificially keep your members on edge, then that's what they are motivated by, as opposed to being motivated by the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit. Yet, the time of the ends, and authority from the top down were substituted throughout Armstrongism for the true workings of God's Spirit. Under such hostile conditions, how could the Holy Spirit do His work, let alone heal and refurbish the mind?
BB
I remember the first time I visited a WCG congregation. While I met many nice people, I also noticed a few people who were quite obviously "off". I must say that this tempered my interest a bit.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Anonymous February 3, 2012 12:51 PM, the following is an excerpt from my unpublished essay - My Worldwide Church of God reflections: 1972 in Prophecy! God’s Practical Joke?
ReplyDeleteExcerpt:
A Chosen People – A Peculiar People For Sure!
Third, in retrospect, the Church seemed to attract some of the strangest and “fringe” members of society. To mention a few, I remember “the Rockefeller lady”. She believed Nelson Rockefeller controlled the whole world and was head of a secret organization known as “The Illuminati”. The belief was that this secret organization was trying to establish a new world government with Rockefeller as its head dictator. I remember a lady from West Virginia who took the Church’s ban against the use of cosmetics one step further. Apparently, she didn’t believe woman should be attractive at all – so she didn’t believe in shaving her legs! Grossly protruding out from under her dresses were the hairiest legs you’ve ever seen rivaling any of the ape characters in the movie Planet of the Apes.
Long after I had stopped attending, I still had some knowledge of Church people through
contact with my family members who remained in the Church after I departed in 1976. In
the 1980s, there was a drifter that attended Church that my family gave work to. The drifter laced watermelon with the drug PCP and caused one of my family members to be drugged and hospitalized. A couple years later, the same drifter walked into a Montgomery Wards Department store, went to a gun rack in the sporting goods section, loaded a gun and blew his brains out. There was a tax cheat in the Church that was about to go to prison for tax evasion, who also committed suicide. Suffice it to say, the Worldwide Church had more than its fair share of weirdoes!
End of Excerpt
Richard
And how does anyone know this isn't a marketing ploy to offer people help with mental health problems to increase membership?
ReplyDeleteNote they are seeking people with credentials.
Nevertheless, the UCG approach has long been to get people addicted to their programs so that United is the place people stay with an endless round of "support groups" and programs to hold people and to convince them that the UCG is good for them.
A certain amount of circumspect analysis should be done before people settle on beginning to attend United instead of seeking out mental health professionals.
Of course, the UCG will offer their own services as "free", but one wonders about the value of these "free" programs developed by not just amateurs, but people who have the same problems. One can also ask if United hasn't aggravated some of these problems. The stalking hasn't ended and there are still weirdos there.
But then, with all this "love, love, love" stuff, people can feel good about being mentally ill and feel they don't have any problems.
Hmph. A ministry which needs to heal itself -- after all, they do believe in the preachments of a dead false prophet. That's crazy, isn't it?
A really major problem with United is that they are trying to market a branded product without really knowing what it is.
ReplyDeleteThe search for the product goes on.
NO2HWA said...Much remains to be seen how this "new" focus of UCG will accomplish. As it attempts to break all ties from the past will they eventually dump Armstrongism?
ReplyDeleteMY COMMENT: What?! It IS Armstrongism, otherwise it wouldn't exist to this day. If they would break ALL ties, which they won't, they'll have to give up their hierarchical government, titles, offices, positions, and stop stealing money from the people, tell them the truth about tithing, then go out and get a day job. They'll have to get rid of the Jewish sabbath and Jewish holidays, get rid of their false "gospel", British/Israelism, and a host of other Armstrong teachings. So, what would be left? Nothing. They exist BECAUSE of Armstrongism. They ARE Armstrongism.
Douglas Becker said...
And how does anyone know this isn't a marketing ploy to offer people help with mental health problems to increase membership?
MY COMMENT: You can bet it's another marketing ploy to increase their money income. They're in business to bolster Armstrongism.
With the CoG history of tracking what people are and have done, this actually is a glaring problem. Sorry Dennis, this is not good to see. This organization wide attempt to fix peoples problems leaves people open to having others know all about them. Hence, a further reduction in privacy. These clowns are less and less able to affect change in peoples lives. Getting experts together to 'help' those with certain problems is not a help at all. If you believe in fixing people, send them or create a referral service where they can get private counselling, not this church wide effort. This will most likely be the Manpower Papers drilled down to the individual member. The United Gestapo will then drill and drum people out as they become all the more Tkach like. This is the 'love' they are talking about. Look for a few former Nazi types to take the lead in this as well. Time to get out of United fast. What a farce. Hayze
ReplyDeleteWith the CoG history of tracking what people are and have done, this actually is a glaring problem. Sorry Dennis, this is not good to see. This organization wide attempt to fix peoples problems leaves people open to having others know all about them. Hence, a further reduction in privacy.
ReplyDeleteDennis Luker has a reputation for blabbing what was discussed in private counselling sessions and divulging it, often in announcements or sermons. Some of the others in United have a similar disposition.
There is not only no reason to trust these yahoos with secrets, it can leave you open to extortion and other pandemic problems from which you might never recover.
Going to a UCG support group is yet another ploy to make you a target of not-so-secret contempt for the congregation.
Just remember, in the churches of God, things get around.
And that's no help at all, particularly with these incompetent amateurs.
Leaving Armstrongism will probably solve half or more of your mental illness since metal illness is a natural symptom of Armstrongism.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't too long ago I met a bloke at a UCG service who you could tell just by lookin' at 'im that he wasn't exactly the full quid. Even most of the people at church would move away from him and not really include him in much conversation. I felt sorry for the guy and heard he later went to another group like RCG. I also met a drifter at my first--and last(!)--UCG feast site who was "wee-ird" to say the least. The pastor persuaded me to offer him accomodation at my place for the rest of the feast, but after putting up with his kookiness for a couple of days I had enough and moved out! Later when I spoke with a few people about it they admitted that the ACOGs have always attracted weird and eccentric types into the church. And I think that's putting it mildly! :)
ReplyDeleteArmstrongism has never recognized client-patient or parishioner-clergy confidentiality.
ReplyDeleteBack in the '60s, there were three forms of rapid communication: Telephone, television, and tell a WCG member.
BB