Gerald Flurry and his splinter cult, the Philadelphia Church
of God, have been running a series of articles using HWA's world travels as supposedly
significant earth shattering events. HWA's meetings decades ago are being
trotted out as if God himself was speaking directly to these world leaders. With numerous speeches talking about “a strong
hand from someplace” what exactly does Flurry think HWA accomplished? Did the leaders convert? Did hundreds of thousands of citizens
convert? HWA claimed that through his speaking
with the leaders he was presenting the gospel message to the leader and it was
his/her responsibility to give it to the people. That was a great way of wringing you hands from
the mess of nothing ever happening. “It’s
the leaders fault no one converted to the Truth, not HWA’s.” I don’t know how many times I heard that
asinine comment from evangelists and ministers.
Gerald Flurry and his minions continues to pimp out HWA day in and day
out. His latest pimping episode is the
most appalling. Flurry claims HWA has a
message for the Olympians gathered in London.
Right now the world
has its mind focused on the Olympic Games,” wrote the internationally
recognized unofficial ambassador for world peace to worldwide readers in the Plain
Truth, July-August 1984.
The same is true
today for the 2012 Games. All eyes are focused on the host city of London.
Perhaps Trumpet readers are unaware or have forgotten about former
Ambassador College faculty member and renowned athletic coach Harry Sneider. As
recently as last year, Mr. Sneider acknowledged Mr. Armstrong’s direct
contribution to Olympic success, writing, “Back in 1967 I came to Ambassador
College to study a way of life that had a major impact on my life, my marriage,
my home and family as well as my work.
“My mentor was Mr.
Herbert W. Armstrong. He told me that I had a gift of working with top-notch
performers in sports. In 1984 I was nominated head coach for the United States
Olympic Team in Track and Field.
“Mr. Armstrong
wrote a wonderful booklet called The
Seven
Laws of Success. I used these laws in my coaching and training.
They are very simple. They can be found in the Scriptures ….”
Coach Sneider went
on to encourage readers to study those seven laws of success.
Besides pimping
HWA, Flurry is also pimping out Harry Sneider who was a former employee in the PE
Department in Pasadena. Sneider is known
around the world for his training techniques that he used for Dwight Stones,
1984's track and field team and an Olympic swimmer. Sneider is still active locally with sports training.
One reader here
comments about Sneider:
“Fine, so
Harry felt there was validity to the 7 Laws. That's fine, they're common sense.
But he made the contacts with athletes, not HWA. He also had fabulous
facilities at his disposal, and free reign to use them. Being in Southern
California put him in touch with connected people, and the ideal weather made
training in SoCal a perfect situation. Nobody really begrudged Harry his
projects, but he pretty much did his own thing for years.”
After discussing Sneider, the Flurry cult jumps the high bar
with this:
Yet how many
athletes, spectators or viewers around the world ask the question: What does
God think of these Games? You need to take the time to request The
Seven
Laws of Success and find out that simple formula that Harry
Sneider spoke of.
In the same Plain
Truth article, Mr. Armstrong continued, “The law of God is the way of
righteousness. Sin is the transgression of the law. The law of God is given us
in the broadest principle and also magnified into the Ten Commandments, and
even into many further specific points that are magnifications of the
principles of the Ten Commandments. God expects us to apply these principles of
His law to specific actions.
“The basic law is
love, outflowing toward God above all else, and secondarily, Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself.”
Does Flurry and his minions actually think any Olympian is going
to be asking such a question let alone writing in for a book that is so out of
date that it is laughable? I guess what
Flurry and his minions are trying to say here is that when Olympians compete
they are NOT loving their neighbor. If
they truly loved their neighbor they would let the other person cross the line first.
Then the craziness continues:
Twenty eight years later, Stones will serve as a commentator
for nbc during this year’s London 2012 Olympic
Games, and one wonders whether he recalls those seven-laws-of-success-based
training sessions at Ambassador College and the indelible principles of God’s
law of love expounded by the book’s author and college’s founder.
Um, what “indelible principles of God’s law and love did
HWA expound? Broken marriages? Suicides? Untimely deaths of members because doctors
were prohibited? Rampant alcoholism in the Church? Wife swapping by ministers and
employees? I am assuming this is what
Flurry and crew are really talking about.
Then the Flurry camp continues:
Trumpet founder Gerald Flurry, supported by co-workers and members of the Philadelphia
Church of God, went so far as to fight a six-year court battle to preserve
these seven laws, keep them in print and promote them worldwide through
television and distribution over the Internet.
Flurry fails to
report that he LOST the court case and had to pay the Worldwide Church of God for
the rights to all the materials that he had previously plagiarized. Flurry wasted millions of dollars in legal
fees on top of the 3 million he was forced to pay the WCG for publication
rights.
In addition, he
founded Herbert W. Armstrong College in Edmond, Oklahoma, featuring liberal
arts education and including a balanced sports program founded on the
scriptural principles of the seven laws of success as established by its
namesake.
Add to this his continuance in the example and
legacy of Mr. Armstrong by ensuring you could
receive that foundational knowledge freely, as a gift without request for
money, obligation or follow-up.
I would add to this
the continual worship and pimping of Herbert Armstrong by Flurry makes him
come out looking like a complete fool.
All Flurry is accomplishing is letting the world know that he has absolutely
no creative ideas in the alcohol damaged brain of his. Flurry and his minions cannot come up with anything
without pimping HWA into the mix. There
is no originality anywhere in the organization. Flurry dresses like HWA, poses for photo’s like
HWA, builds similar buildings like HWA did, uses the same names for buildings,
schools and literature as HWA did. Buys
personal items of HWA and places them in prominent places for idolatrous worship.
Then, to cap it all off, he names his pretend unacredited college after HWA and starts a concert
series and “foundation” named after HWA.
The list could go on and on.
During these
Olympic Games, request your free copy of The
Seven
Laws of Success to understand the keys to the eternal joy of
lasting physical, spiritual, emotional and mental success. When sincerely
applied, those laws truly do work to produce real and lasting success in your
life! •
Any Olympian or
other person that would dare to order the Seven Laws of Success would be subjecting
their selves to a life of eternal unhappiness and fear, broken relationships
and spiritual bankruptcy. Emotional and mental scars would prevent any Olympian from ever
competing again.
Thought it all
Flurry and his crew want us to believe that Herbert Armstrong contributed significantly
to the Olympics. When pigs fly.