Various individuals in the COG's have repeatedly denied that Herbert Armstrong ever set dates.
Here is a clip from the Worldwide News that shows he most certainly did.
HWA Told kids it would be 3-5 years until the "End" back in the early 80s.
Who can forget Rod Meredith and Gerald Waterhouse and their outrageous lies over the decades? Invading German armies, concentration camps, meat-hooks, roving packs of mad dogs, parents eating their children, famine, disease and pestilence.
These two guys would get extremely excited as they described the evil
they wanted to see fall upon the world.
Fists pounding the pulpit, spittle flying and red veins popping.
Many times they appeared quit giddy at the prospect and gave the impression they would be extremely disappointed if it doesn't.
This still goes on at COG summer camps around the world. Flurry's cult does it. Pack's cult does it. LCG's does it. UCG hints at it but doesn't quit come out and say it.
The Church of God is the Church of Fear.
Keep the sheeple in fear of their salvation and they will be pliable money machines.
Who can forget Rod Meredith and Gerald Waterhouse and their outrageous lies over the decades? Invading German armies, concentration camps, meat-hooks, roving packs of mad dogs, parents eating their children, famine, disease and pestilence.
These two guys would get extremely excited as they described the evil
they wanted to see fall upon the world.
Fists pounding the pulpit, spittle flying and red veins popping.
Many times they appeared quit giddy at the prospect and gave the impression they would be extremely disappointed if it doesn't.
This still goes on at COG summer camps around the world. Flurry's cult does it. Pack's cult does it. LCG's does it. UCG hints at it but doesn't quit come out and say it.
The Church of God is the Church of Fear.
Keep the sheeple in fear of their salvation and they will be pliable money machines.
15 comments:
I went to "worldly" camp a lot as a kid. In fact whole summers for many years, and then later working as a camp counselor.
We loved scaring the crap out of each other with ghost stories , legends and myths, fist fights, "grab ass" and all kinds of manner of mischief and pranks.
Trust me, SEP and HWA stuff was "baby poop" scary compared to what we did and experienced at worldly camp.
I miss my camp experience tremendously. If you are a pussy whip, then EVERY camp is going to be a bad experience. 12 guys in a room jacking around, is either going to be the best experience in your life or worst, depending on who you are.
Dont go to ANY camp ANYWHERE if you are sensitive, scared, or need mommy a little bit too much.
Not trying to sound redneck or macho here, but just telling the reality of things. Camp is not for everyone.
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
And what were the actual long-range RESULTS of telling these young, impressionable SEP kids such things (even though I think HWA had the best of intentions in doing so)? Well, it's been estimated that roughly 85% of them are no longer associated with any COG. So the scare tactics of fear-based religion just doesn't produce the kind of outcome that the COG's intend. So why do they keep repeating it? These people have no real vision at all, even though they may delude themselves into thinking they are true visionaries of the World Tomorrow. It seems wherever these gurus go, all kinds of human wreckage is left strewn behind them. Truly are they known by their fruits!
It is one thing to be scared of ghost stories, legend myths, fist-fights, and other such things at "worldly camps".
It is an entirely different thing to be told by "God's One and Only End Time Apostle" that your life as you know it is going to end in 3 to 5 years. It is an entirely different thing to be told that your mom and dad, basically, will become spirit beings and you're stuck on the Earth as a "pioneer human".
It is an entirely different thing to be told that you won't be able to get married, date, have "relations", or live out a normal life. For a kid, this is far scarier than "scaring the crap out of each other with ghost stories , legends and myths, fist fights, "grab ass" and all kinds of manner of mischief and pranks. "
That stuff goes away. But the fear of being told by the first out of several hundred "#3's under God and Christ" that your life is going to change forever in 3 to 5 years is scary!!
There is a video out there on YouTube of HWA talking to teens at SEP for Behind The Work 84. A few of The kids look absolutely terrified listening to HWA. And for good reason.
Sure, kids at a worldly camp or an SEP camp go through the usual "camp mischief". But HWA took it to a new level by lying and by scaring them into believing everything was about to change. But it did not happen, and his "speculations" were completely not truth. Obviously.
Anonymous 5:58 wrote: "There is a video out there on YouTube of HWA talking to teens at SEP for Behind The Work 84. A few of The kids look absolutely terrified listening to HWA. And for good reason."
And Anon, remember the dramatically inspiring ending to that 1984 "Behind the Work" film - the one with the family walking on a beach with the orange glow of the setting sun in the background, and the voice of Art Gilmore reading from Malachi 4? Do you know who that was? It was Ron Howe and his family, the WCG minister who 12 years later jumped off the Golden gate bridge out of what no doubt was unspeakable anguish and despair. These films really did rouse and inspire folks, they certainly did to me and my family. But look how it all eventually turned out.
"You will know them by their fruits."
And of course, HWA and the WCG were not the only ones to use scare tactics. Listen to this short audio of Sheikh Feiz Mohammed, an Australian imam influenced by Wahhabism, the same brand of Islam that was the driving force behind Osama Bin Laden. Feiz Mohammed was the religious inspiration behind the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvJ-QlYjLQ4
By the way, here's the end sequence of that 1984 "Behind the Work" film I mentioned above, which inspired me greatly the first time I saw it, which, though not directly stating it, very subtly implies, especially in the context of the rest of the film, that HWA was the coming Elijah mentioned in Malachi 4: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”
My question is not (ala A. Boocher) “Does this serve to emotionally comfort people?” – but rather “Was it actually true?” If not, then I assert that it was a false “comfort” provided.
I’ve asked a number of ministers over the years if they believed HWA was “the Elijah to come” (quite aside from the question if such an understanding was even true to begin with) – and only one, Gerald Waterhouse, said that was his belief.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQvO9N6CvZY
hwa learned a lot from the zio media control machine that runs dopey america
Just saw an article posted on lifehopeandtruth titled something like "Why God is so angry at America." Well played, COGWA. Keepin' it classy as usual.
Anonymous 7:16, if you don't like "dopey America" then why don't YOU leave it for some other nation that has an ideology that you can be more comfortable with - like the paradise of North Korea, perhaps, or maybe some other Jew-hating culture like Iran or Syria? You drone on and on about the “Zionist-controlled media” and other such conspiracy-based lunacy, and yet, without exception, the shallow, cosmetic and depth-less comments you regularly post here are not exactly paragons of cogent reasoning and clear expression. You never provide any kind of evidence or rationale whatsoever for your statements at all. You just act as if merely asserting an uninformed, tweet-like opinion about something makes it true, and the rest of us just have to take your word for it. Really, Anon, whose actually being naive and rather one-dimensional here?
I went to summer camp both in Tejas and in Minnesota. Actually, I managed to have fun, mostly because supervision and discipline were extremely lax as compared to the legalism-based abuse I and my siblings suffered daily in our WCG home.
It was a given that WCG members were going to be hit with "the end" at every possible opportunity, and encouraged to look forward to Jesus' returning and establishing Armstrongism as God's government for the Millennium. So, it was no different at SEP. In Tejas, we were "encouraged" by being shown documentaries on the German concentration camps which existed throughout WWII, and I might add, in gruesome detail!
Armstrong-revisionists who deny their legacy of false prophecy have long since forgotten the three mathematical equations taught at Embarrassing College and in the field "proving" that Jesus just had to return at about 1975.
During the closing days of the 1965session in Orr, the U.S.'s east coast was suffering such a horrific drought that sea water was backwashing into the Schuylkil river in Philadelphia, and threatening to contaminate all fresh water supply. And, of course, the ministry took this as an opportunity to forecast the beginning of the tribulation. Shortly thereafter, it rained, and the trib was once again postponed.
Harmless? Well, you'd need to interview and psychologically profile the young people who were bombarded with this horrible crap, and to chronicle their lives and achievements as compared to some sort of baseline group of their peers. I suspect that it was much more devastating than being lied to about Santa Clause.
BB
Byker Bob wrote: " In Tejas, we were "encouraged" by being shown documentaries on the German concentration camps which existed throughout WWII, and I might add, in gruesome detail!"
Did that actually happen? I remember seeing a very sobering black & white film once in high school history class on German concentration camps, and must tell you that I found it a very disturbing thing to watch. But I can't imagine exposing SEP campers to this kind of thing.
Yes, it did happen! And, we were also shown a Hollywood film on the Neuremberg trial! At AC, we were shown a British film realistically depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war, and actual German films produced by Hitler's propaganda machine during the heyday of the Third Reich. Believe me, we got hammered with all of this stuff, and they weren't all that reassuring about God's protection, either. The emphasis was on obeying "Mr." Armstrong and the ministers, the alleged gatekeepers to the place of safety.
In the years since leaving WCG in 1975, I've never encountered any groups or cults that even remotely sink to this level. You'd probably have to become a jihadic suicide bomber to get a worse religious experience than old school WCG.
BB
Incredible. And I thought the Basil Wolverton drawings were bad enough! By the time I came to AC in 1976, this kind of thing wasn't being done, and evidence that it had been done was swept under the carpet or strongly de-emphasized. But I can see how such things did occur in the lead-up to 1972, fleeing to Petra, etc. I only later learned of all this "1975 in Prophecy" nonsense from students who had been raised in the WCG, and also from reading the old literature located in the AC library.
And then you have nutcases like Dave Pack (and others) wanting to recreate a modern version of all this craziness!
That's why I am so very leery of religious zealots, because there's no telling what can happen when you get folks whipped up into a mindless frenzy by an apocalyptic religious ideology. Just look the Boston Marathon bombing brothers - it's becoming very clear now that they were under the strong influence of a radical Islamist imam from Australia. I've some of his videos out on Youtube and you can strongly detect the hate and rage and fanaticism in the tone of his voice.
you forgot Uganda, Leo. its the christian nation all these folks have been wishing for.
I had an American friend of mine who lived in Uganda as a minister - or actually I think it was just right across the border from Uganda. Boy, does he have some hair-raising stories to tell! This place is every bit the hell-hole that North Korea is.
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