The Flurry cult is asking: "What's Lurking In Your Pocket?"
That's a pretty risky question to be asking, particularly for a COG minister, given the peccadillo's of various ministers throughout the years in the COG. Who can forget the horror stories of the PCG minister who likes to hang out with PCG youth at summer camp in his bike shorts.
Sadly though, this is another swipe at PCG youth. Apparently none of the youth in the PCG can be trusted. Sexting naked pictures back and forth and looking at porn seems to be common place with a lot of youth today, so Lord Six Pack and the PCG assumes their youth are too.
Usually when these kind of issues come up in church publications or in articles it is because some minister has been having problems in this area (I am not implying that the author of this article has these problems.) Is a PCG minister sending pictures of his privates to others, like several Senators have done in the last couple of weeks, or are they incessantly looking at porn on their phones?
The author of this article claims that Smartphones are now tools of Satan to destroy young peoples minds.
Facebook. Twitter. Tumblr. Snapchat. Instagram. Does anything stand out to you? Doesn’t it seem that everyone is using these apps to put their social life on the Internet?! The way people access these programs has developed over the last few years from desktop computers to the pocket cell phone. Most cell phones today are literally miniaturized computers in your pocket. It is also a window to a very evil world.Apparently no parent in the PCG has been able to raise their child to have values and not do these kind of things. Armstrongism has never trusted it's kids. Perhaps if they did there would not have been as many issues as there have been in the COG youth over the years.
The smart phone has not only become a status symbol, but many teens, and perhaps even you, view it as an absolute requirement to be accepted among your friends. Do you feel this pressure? To not own a smart phone is a virtual social disaster. Some teens want one so badly that they will even steal or commit murder to get their hands on one.
If you own one of these phones, or even if you wish you had one, I have a question for you to think about: Do you have the kind of character to use it properly? Many adults don’t. Many adults use their smart phones in a very wrong way. This problem can affect anyone.
Like everything in Armstrongism it has to be tied to sex. Sex permeates the church, the ministry and its articles and videos.
The most evil fruit borne from the misuse of these phones is sexual in nature. Whole dating patterns of teenagers are being formed and shaped around smart phones. Teenagers use their cell phones to send one another photographs and videos so they can “hook-up” with a teen of the opposite sex. And most parents in the world just go along with it.
Lewd teenage videos and photos have gone viral in schools and communities, to the great embarrassment and harm of those involved. If those photos or videos are uploaded to the Internet, the content is pretty much impossible to remove. God covers sin, but the Internet puts it out there for everyone to see and revel in.
For any youth in the PCG that is doing this they are now expected to immediately run to their parents and minister to confess. Going to their parents is the best and only step they should take. Going to the ministry is not! There have been countless horror stories of Imperial High students and Ambassador students counseling with ministers. They ended up asking the kids deeply personal questions about their sex life. All the juicy details would be dragged out of the kids. A couple of ministers even masturbated under their desks during these counseling sessions. Given the low quality of the ministerial peoples that defected to PCG over the years, I would be very leery about counseling with any of them!
The other thing the youth need to consider that every single thing they tell the ministry is written down and placed in a file. There are no secrets when you really get down to it.
Parents, you work with your children and don't allow the ministry to stick their sweaty big noses into your children's business!
24 comments:
"Going to their parents is the best and only step they should take."
Okay, so, we can all agree that sharing anything personal with a ministurd is a categorically BAD idea. But why should they go to their parents either? If there had been smartphones when I was a teenager and I had been sexting, I wouldn't tattle on myself to my parents. What good would that have done me? Embarrassment? Grounding? Versus real world bad consequences, which would be??? Real life isn't like Lassie or Leave it to Beaver with a nice little moral to the story after 22 minutes. No foul, no harm, I say.
If they are going to go to somebody, and some probably will now, it should be a parent and not a minister. Most PCGer's do what they are told to do and PCG has just told them to go to their parents and ministers. PCG is interfering once again in family life.
Man, when I was growing up in WCG, the kinda kids that woulda been doing this shit woulda been the ministurds kids in the first place, and they weren't doing anything the church or their ministurd parents told them to do to begin with, so I don't know why they would have done this either. Who knows, maybe some of their parents were even encouraging them. I dunno, maybe today's kids are less hardcore than when I was a teen. Frankly can't imagine that tho.
The real issue here is that no one should be in any Cult of Herbert Armstrong. We've effectively demonstrated that no one can trust the leaders, ministers or administration. They lie. They practice deception. They gossip. They ruin lives. There is no real upside to attending with them or being members.
Beyond that, I recommend to the teens constructive uses for their smart phones: Giving and sharing (and researching) information devastating to the PCG and all the other editions of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong.
This would be the best use of the teens' smart phones and may lead to a consensus of how to eliminate the Cult of Herbert Armstrong at the grassroots level of our youth.
It's another one of those technological blessings.
Don't you just love science?
"There have been countless horror stories of Imperial High students and Ambassador students counseling with ministers."
That is horrible, but I would definitely say it was isolated to that area/HQ. No minister I knew would have ever been that depraved, or did anything like what you have suggested happened. I'm sorry, and feel bad that those things happened. Not hard to see why the Church was punished, if that was going on in certain corners!
In fact, we used to mock Spanky's obsessions with sex and deviancy, whenever he did the speaking circuit. Anyone who protests that much, for something that has nothing to do with us in the first place (at least, none of the members in the two congregations I attended when I was growing up), must have his own issues he's working through.
At least, that was the conclusion we came to, in the 1980s or so. Long after Meredith had already been disfellowshipped, so it's no surprise he missed the mark.
"Man, when I was growing up in WCG, the kinda kids that woulda been doing this shit woulda been the ministurds kids in the first place, and they weren't doing anything the church or their ministurd parents told them to do to begin with, so I don't know why they would have done this either."
I'm inclined to agree with Anon @ 3:20am, the ministerial kids definitely DID get away with murder --- and for all that both the pastors in Victoria begged people from the pulpit not to be clique-ish, THEIR kids were always categorically the worst for that, from what I recall.
Wisdom dictates that you be very careful about what you put out online. All kids need to understand that whatever is put out on the net is somehow there forever.
Employers are checking facebook pages. Insurance investigators, the police etc. Post pictures of yourself getting blitzed on FB and the job interviewer down the road might see them.
Look at the trouble that Congressman Weiner got for texting pictures of his johnson, or Brett Favre in texting "personal" pics to NY Jets cheerleaders.
So discretion is the key, whether you are "in the church" , out of the church, whoever you are, GUARD your privacy and realize that the internet world is VERY transparent.
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
PS- I confess to having texted while in Church services, and also looking up ball scores and checking email. Sometimes a sermon is so boring, you do what you got to do to get through it!
You teens out there need to learn the proper use of your smart phone.
First and foremost, you need to use your smart phone to form a network with your peers in your own church and the other churches in your cult. You need a full address list. Have frequent texting and conversations with other in your particular cult.
Next, you need to collect the documentation. Your smart phone has a camera and may even be able to shoot video. Be sure to capture the ministers and their kids on camera when they are up to mischief (better known as committing crimes).
Share the information about the illegal and immoral activities of your church elders and deacons -- particularly the ones which are most heinous. Text back and forth amongst yourselves to collect live witnesses to these events along with any pictures or videos you have. This is known as "building a case".
Look up on the 'net information about collecting evidence and learn to do the forensics.
Now here is the really difficult part: It is tempting to use this body of evidence to blackmail the perps, but that's short sighted. Instead, you must package this up and with your associates take it to the police or sheriff's department in your jurisdiction. In some cases, you may need to turn this over to the FBI and the Justice Department, depending upon the crimes which have been committed (which is why you need to do Internet research to find out the classification of the crimes and which law enforcement agencies have jurisdiction).
Involving your parents may be a judgment call: Can you trust them? Will they be fair or are they so blind that they will turn on you and get you sent to juvie? (This has happened to innocent children in the church and it is not pleasant!) Be certain. You have a mission here and you must be circumspect (if you do not understand the full impact of that word, please look it up on Google).
With these efforts, you can put your church leaders into prison or jail as the case might be. You will be able to be proud of yourselves because you have done your patriotic citizen's duty.
The adolescent years are a training ground for adulthood. Learning proper use of your smart phone as a teen can make all the difference in the world as you enter the adult work place.
Velvet, did you actually say, "No minister I knew would have ever been that depraved..."
Have you not been paying attention? Lol
That gal is pretty hot.
Douglas Becker:
That was awesome.
That is all.
Posted from my smartphone. I guess they really ARE tools of the devil.
Mae West
Joe Moeller writes, I confess to having texted while in Church services, and also looking up ball scores and checking email. Sometimes a sermon is so boring, you do what you got to do to get through it!
Joe, that's because you attend UCG services!
If there's a suggestion box there, here's one you can slip into it-
Next time the sermon is about to get extra-boring, the minister should put on a hat like this one. And make sure the minister makes it clear that the "t" on the hat is for "text", and not a cross
The article was authored by a know-nothing college student. He's just adding more useless but potentially dangerous pages to the PCG library.
"Some teens want one so badly that they will even steal or commit murder to get their hands on one."
Typical PCG rhetoric/drama. Let's apply the same logic to religion: Some religious people steal or kill for God, so God is dangerous!
Right on Douglas.
Philadelphia Church of God Asks: Hey Big Boy, "What's Lurking In Your Pocket?"
What's lurking in my pocket? Just some lint.
The real danger is what lurks in deliberately deceptive cults like the PCG. There are too many sexually immoral and utterly perverted old men and women in that satanic cult who simply cannot control their shameful lusts. Week after week, month after month, and year after year, all they think about is their own depraved sexual desires.
Satan's PCG impostor cult has everything so completely backwards that old sex maniacs, sex perverts, and predators can actually complain when singles a fraction of their own age do not want to go out with them or go along with their vile agendas. The sickos that Gerald set up as "ministers" when no real WCG ministers went with his group will kick out the victims, telling them indignantly about how they have done so much for them and tried so hard to help them. The sicko PCG ministers will happily and proudly announce that they will have to make an example out of the person.
Do not worry so much about what is lurking in your pocket, or even about what might be lurking under your bed. Rather, worry about the demoniacs that are lurking in the PCG.
Many demons reside within the UCG.
There are seventy times seven demons who actually reside in the picture of Herbert Armstrong which hangs at the UCG cult headquarters!
The more ministers, parents, and teachers harp on something, the more it takes on allure as "forbidden fruit". I've often wondered how many people took up masturbation simply because Uncle Roddy was constantly blasting it as a horrible sin. Seems he could never give a sermon, teach a class, or write an article without that topic coming up (no pun intended).
You instill good values in kids by making a code known, and by correcting them for infractions. But, if you assume every kid is guilty, or over correct, they're going to gravititate to those things automatically simply because of the overemphasis.
As for bad things happening in the congregations, apparently there were some anomalous congregations where nothing we discuss here ever happened. Some congregations in Canada and (judging from input from another forum) some regions in the US Southeast apparently were able to naturally filter out all of the effect part of the WCG cause and effect equation. However, for those of us not from those regions, we all know what was all too common throughout the rest of the country.
BB
"Velvet, did you actually say, "No minister I knew would have ever been that depraved...""
Yes, I did say that, because it's the truth. No minister I knew ever would have done the things recounted. In fact, all of them are still with the Church.
"Some congregations in Canada and (judging from input from another forum) some regions in the US Southeast apparently were able to naturally filter out all of the effect part of the WCG cause and effect equation. However, for those of us not from those regions, we all know what was all too common throughout the rest of the country."
And that is truly unfortunate, and I am very sorry for that...I am also not saying that the congregations I grew up in were flawless or perfected, etc. (If I have not made that point abundantly clear, let me state it unequivocally right now.)
It would have been better, in my opinion, if the rest of the country, and portions of the UK, had taken after these allegedly "anomalous" congregations, instead of turning to foreign gods and false idols.
Then again, the fact that "what was all too common throughout the rest of the country" actually occurred, is what led to the Church being in the state it is in today. If the congregations I attended, some congregations in the US southeast, and some congregations in the UK, as well as Dennis' congregations, had been the standard, instead of the exception, then none of us would be sitting here, going back and forth like this.
That was apparently not how God wanted things, however. So here we sit.
Well, it would be difficult, as an example, to convince some kid who was mercilessly beaten, berated, and starved into submission over a decade of time that his parents actually had the Holy Spirit motivating them and providing anger management, even if they did get ordained during that period.
I thought it couldn't get any worse, until I heard of ministers' kids suffering the additional indignity of attempted exorcism. Others who couldn't hack this type of home life enlisted in the military and got killed overseas.
That wasn't "church" that was just plain shit!!! And it was caused by garbage doctrines. You may be on the wrong forum here.
The ACOGs should be speaking out about an emerging societal trend, but they're missing it.
Fast forward the clock about 10 years. As the general population becomes desensitized to gay marriage, what is going to happen is that gay people will begin to openly replicate the heterosexual dating ritual. And, they won't be using their "gaydar" to stay in their own groups.
In our local weekly free tabloid newspaper is a column called "Savage Love". It's "Dear Abby" type questions and response, but put on by the well known gay columnist who got the movement going to apply Rick Santorum's last name to a byproduct of gay sex. Most people believe that gays stay amongst themselves. Not true according to Savage Love! One questioner asked about a straight person having a gay person as a friend. Savage advised the questioner to make sure he was not the prospective gay friend's type, that is unless he didn't mind eventually getting hit on, and possibly even seduced.
I worry about a time when one might be in a bar enjoying live music, and upon feeling a hand in one's pocket sometime close to closing time, seeing not a smiling black chick attached to the hand, but a dude instead. Because of the way all of this has been carefully packaged and spun, it just hasn't dawned on most people where this is going to end up.
"Well, it would be difficult, as an example, to convince some kid who was mercilessly beaten, berated, and starved into submission over a decade of time that his parents actually had the Holy Spirit motivating them and providing anger management, even if they did get ordained during that period."
And I would hope they would not be convinced that their parents had the power of the Holy Spirit motivating them...because clearly they did not. And they were not following the dictates of the Church, either. (Point #6 on page 2 of that file.) Note that the document I have linked, has been dated to ca. 1983.
Remember what I said about my congregations not being perfect, despite not being as bad as some of the horror stories told on these websites? (None of which I have ever disputed, nor will I ever dispute. Of course, those accounts are true, and that is all the more horrifying.)
Well, there was a deaconess in the Victoria congregation, in the mid-80s, who refused to follow this progressive understanding of the Church, and not only did she beat her own kids, she went around beating on other people's children. Which the current pastor at the time repeatedly, and clearly, told her from the pulpit to stop.
So, I ask you, who was at fault in my experience? The Church? Or the woman who took it upon her own self to ignore what the Church was telling her?
All that said, I can see where those who followed "Spanky" Meredith certainly got off the track. But that, again, will be held over Spanky's head. And Garner Ted's, as his "philosophy" seems to be where most of the poisonous child-rearing practices stemmed from. Which is hardly surprising, considering the source. And those who would have been following Spanky or GTA, were following men anyway. With horrifying, but unfortunately predictable, results.
I'm sorry for your experiences, Anon, I wish they had not happened. But to say that they were true of absolutely everyone in the Church, and every child was systematically treated like this, is not correct, at least not for the Church in the mid-70s to late 1980s.
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