Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Andie Redwine: "I Was Born and Raised in a Doomsday Cult"



Check out Andie Redwine's blog  Dear God, What Now? about life in the church.



One of my earliest memories is sitting on a blanket in a room filled with folding chairs, looking up at panty-hosed legs, playing with Fisher Price Little People, and listening to Herbert Armstrong’s voice. 

“And this gospel of the Kingdom SHALL BE PREACHED,” he’d scream while pounding a desk “in ALL the world for a witness unto ALL nations and then shall the end come.”


Now Herbert Armstrong wasn’t in the room.  But his Voice was.  He was on a cassette tape playing at the front of the assembly.  But there was a microphone.  A man would get up and talk, and then he would sit down.  And then the Voice.


I wasn’t aware of the cassette tape.  I believed that God was standing in front of that microphone.  Everyone was taking notes and staring straight ahead.  It had to be the Voice of God.


Unbeknownst to me and my family in this pre-Internet age, Herbert Armstrong was in quite a bit of trouble at his headquarters in Pasadena, California.  The state had placed God’s true church into receivership, and Herbert had left the state, and later?  The country. 


It turns out when you get a quarter of a million people to give you nearly 30% of their pre-tax income, you do pretty well financially, but it might be difficult to call yourself a non-profit corporation.


A lot of people close to the Headquarters of the Worldwide Church of God saw the corruption and gave up.
But we didn’t.  We were told that we were being persecuted, that it was all coming to pass the way Herbert Armstrong said it would.

And we became more committed, if such a thing is possible.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

All fundamentalists, literalists and right wing Baptist types are in a "doomsday cult." The Apostle Paul was the head of Doomsday Cult as was Jesus depending on how you read him. It's part of the message IMHO.

Now of course, there are leaders with common sense and at least a smattering of education on all things theological and then there are the COG literalists.

M.T.Doomspeak

Anonymous said...

Having just read from the blog some comments posted I realized that they're right! HWA based his "gospel" on fear which is totally opposite to the Holy Spirit (2 Tim 1:7; 1 Jn 4:18) and this sadly continues to this day with UCG, COGWA, LCG, RCG, PCG, etc that base their core message of the "good" news on the idea that every news item--especially bad news!--is "fulfillment" of the "end of the world" being just around the corner! Who wants to live like that?! No wonder so many ex-COGers experience PTSD! Instead of encouraging church members to show love and grace by donating to and supporting the poor, sick and helpless in our society and making a positive difference in the lives of those who are hurting HWA got his followers distracted by his own unstable visions of doom and gloom and used this as means for them to do nothing except to give him everything in time, talents, money and children so he could continue to spread the fear! And now there are even more people hurting because of his twisted message (2 Pet 3:16)--if only he had used his powers for good instead of evil!

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Andie Redwine.

Norm