ATTENTION MINISTERS
By Apostle David C Pack
A statement to all MINISTERS: God WILL reunite His people, and soon. Ministers for decades have been “scattering” them—and working “against” Christ (Matt. 12:30). Read what follows Matthew 12:30. Now comes a powerful word of caution to those men who at all fear God and want to remain in His ministry. Those who are known to have tried to thwart the active work of God’s Spirit to reunite His people need to know they have chosen to END THEIR MINISTRY! The government of God’s Church will make diligent inquiry with brethren now under your charge.
Most of you grew liberal in the 1970s—this was “strike one” in God’s sight. But you were forgiven by a loving and merciful God and given another chance. However, mostly the same men grew far moreliberal and heretical in the second “go-around” through the 90s, and all the way to the present—this was a very great “strike two” in God’s sight. But His plan is to forgive you AGAIN, upon repentance. If you fight His Purpose NOW—read “God’s People Back Together—SOON!”, and other recent announcements—the result will be “strike THREE,” and you will be OUT of the ministry by your own choosing. God’s duly appointed government will REMOVE you from office. You are STRONGLY counseled to at least remain NEUTRAL in the face of your headquarters asking or even demanding you to resist what “RCG is teaching”—when God’s Spirit in you should be making clear that what we are announcing is GOD’S teaching. Tell your flock you are “waiting to see,” and if circumstances so require, tell your headquarters that you are going to follow God not them when push comes to shove. Tell them you are “sitting this one out.” Do not trust that your current leaders will be able to save your ministry. They will NOT! Only you can do this.
Now aware of God’s AWESOME PURPOSE, you should in fact desire to “get out front” of what He is doing in order to help the maximum number of people. Other ministers and deacons already have. In any event, if you are not strong enough to do this, do not permit yourself to be coerced or even threatened into a position where you are soon sorry—DESPERATELY sorry!—for your actions, much like Esau found himself when he “was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (Heb. 12:16-17). Esau could not turn back the hands of time on what he had done. Some mistakes “go too far.” You are warned not to repeat Esau’s mistake! Time in this age is almost gone. You stand at the crossroads of history, prophecy and DESTINY. Humble yourself in the eyes of God and He will exalt you in the future beyond what you can now imagine. You could soon be serving more of God’s people—meaning larger congregations."
But it not, of course, about winning and the numbers...
El problema es que the only way you could actually restore an organization which was based on government from the top down is to restore it as a dictatorship. You would need one strongman equal to the autocrat who built the organization in the first place. This is what Dave is attempting to be.
ReplyDeleteWhat has happened is that limited democracy has broken out amongst the former ministry of the original organization. To one extent or the other, this democracy has trickled down to the member level, a condition which is most definitely not the case in RCG or PCG, clearly minorities in the greater scheme of things, probably because curchofgoddians never really liked the dictatorship aspects of their belief system in the first place.
It may be that the greatest majority of original members are independents, members of the Livingroom Church of God. I believe that David Pack has absolutely zero probability of reuniting this diaspora.
BB
Byker Bob is correct about autocratic leadership. In fact at one time, Armstrong himself was against hierarchy and one man rule government in churches, and "one central authority". Of course it was convenient and expedient at the time, for Armstrong was contending against the COG 7th Day at the time!
ReplyDeleteThe article, written in 1939 by HWA in the "Good News" is quite telling. It is also amazing on how much HWA flipped the teaching around once it was perceived in his own mind that is served his purposes to do so.
1939 Article
(can be found here)...http://hwarmstrong.com/history/wcghistory/coworker-letters/390200.html
*The Church is a Spiritual Organism.
*A Christian is one who has, and is being led, by the Holy Spirit.
*Church leaders do not have authority to enforce doctrine. Doctrine is not to be determined by church boards.
*Apostles do not have power to decide what doctrines other disciples must believe.
*There is no Bible authority for any super-government in the Church. Local congregations are to handle matters, and co-operate with other churches.
*Tithes are to be paid and used locally.
*We should work with, and co-operate with, even attend the Feast of Tabernacles with, other Church of God ministers and brethren, even if we differ on a few points of doctrine.
LATTER REALITY IN THE WCG...
*The Church is an Organization, the Worldwide Church of God (WCG).
*A Christian is one who is a member of the WCG organization.
*Church leaders must enforce doctrine, as determined by the headquarters
*There is only one Apostle, the current church leader (Armstrong, replaced by Tkach). He has all power to rule the Church.
*Local autonomy is of the devil. Headquarters is the ruler in all church matters.
*Tithes are to be paid centrally, and are under the sole jurisdiction of headquarters.
*There is no room for differences. God has only one organization, the WCG.
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
The Armstrongite preachers could possibly all reunite because they have one thing in common, they're all nuts.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever ran across any ACOG member and preacher wannabe on the Internet who wasn't a nutter?
The only good things that came out of the Armstrong 'church' were agnostics and atheists. All the rest are either splinter hoppers or evangelical fundies, pretending to know things they don't know. All totally unable or unwilling to accept the fact that the bible is not the word of the god of the Jews.
But, if a person wants to pretend the bible is the word of a god they should, at the least, acknowledge to themselves that they are pretending to know things they don't know.
Right, Bob, He's on a total fool's errand. At least, HWA was smart enough to sever ties with COG7 and build something on his own. Pack has neither the personality nor the skill to do that in today's world. Things have changed into a whole new universe in the meantime. Herb operated in a vacuum by comparison.
ReplyDeleteJoe is right, when HWA was on the subordinate side of church hierarchy, he had no trouble finding the scriptures that taught against it. But when he had the opportunity to seize power (apparently at the prodding of Hoeh and Meredith), he conveniently brushed scripture aside by saying, "I didn't have a good understanding of government."
ReplyDelete<brTo all of those who still adhere to HWA's government teaching, have you ever seen an article that refutes what HWA said in 1939? You can't just disregard scripture because you changed your mind. I want to see a point-by-point refutation of HWA's 1939 article. . . Anyone?
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ReplyDeleteI often wonder, "Was HWA sincere? If so, when did he go wrong? Was he like Solomon? Was he sincere at first, then when wealth was available, he went off the deep end? He was smart enough to have a good lawyer to keep him on this side of the law, unlike the moron sitting in prison in Terra Haute.
ReplyDeleteAnd GTA, was he ever a "true believer" or was he misled, and if he was, was he so entangled with the power and money of the WCG, that he too was "imprisoned"?
Who is left to provide an inside view? Perhaps a few former ministers? Perhaps LARRY GOTT? HWA's grandson who is an atheist. Who is left who had an inside view who can tell us what was really going on in the minds of HWA, GTA, etc.? Larry was a student at AC in the early 70's, as I was, and others. Though I didn't know him, others must have and there are probably some who still know him. Who else is left? Someone knows more than we do. Who are they? How about a 60 Minutes type of investigative report on those who knew them back then?
Anonymous 9:08, in the Mafia, there is a term, "omerta", which was taken to mean "silence at the pain of death". While silence was not enforced to that same extent in the Armstrong empire, there seems indeed to have been a similar wall, or barrier. As a former AC student, I began to learn certain things from my friend John Trechak, but, John kept the names of most of his sources confidential. Also, remember that Gary, the owner of this blog, worked in HWA's home in Pasadena for many years, and learned many things which he has shared from time to time.
ReplyDeleteWhat most of us have wanted to happen is for an insider from higher up to come clean, and to tell all. It appeared several years back that David Jon Hill was about to do exactly that, and then several chapters into his memoirs, he passed away. We did glean some little nuggets, indicating what might have come had he survived to tell us more. Al Portune Sr. gave us some good information, as did David Robinson and Marion McNair, Al Carrozzo, and Bruce Renehan.
Back in the day, GTA had a very close personal friend in Jim Thornhill. I suspect that if anyone had any confidential insights into GTA's innermost thoughts, Thorny would have been the most likely, but he is also no longer with us, and to my knowledge, maintained confidentiality on all matters GTA, right up to his death.
Regarding HWA, Stan Rader probably knew the most, but he never told. James Simpson, HWA's early chauffeur was said to know a lot, and the last we heard anything of him, it was when we were asked to pray for him for the resulting drinking problem which nearly killed him. Floyd Lochner allegedly knew a lot, but never shared.
We also have the information which came out in HWA's divorce trial in synopsis form from the newspaper articles of that time. About ten years ago, I visited the facility in Tucson which maintains all of the court records to obtain a complete transcript of the divorce proceedings. It is a formidible set of documents, and at the time was all on mocrofiche. In working with the officials in that office, it became obvious that obtaining a print out was going to be both time consuming, and very expensive. They suggested excerpts, but this meant spending hours reading it all at their facility on the microfiche equipment, and then printing the most salient information to share with all of you. I have a business to run, and do not have that kind of disposable time.
There is enough compelling information out there, shared by various reliable sources, that an objectively thinking person can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the entire movement was a fraud. It would have been nice if one of the original, old school evangelists had come clean, providing a single source detailed overview, but it appears that time has run out on that possibility. Perhaps it is actually more compelling to to have the testimony of multiple witnesses who have shared specifics from within their own particular scopes.
You also have to remember that a huge number of committed church members will neither read nor believe anything which would suggest that WCG was other than God's true church, or that HWA was anything less than God's endtime apostle. There is an additional subset who partially acknowledge what is known, but believe it is irrelevant because they are loyal to a philosophy. They believe all the failed prophecy is simply delayed prophecy, and that there is an as yet unknown supernatural factor which will in the end, validate British Israelism. There is no arguing with such an ignorant mindset. Some will carry it to their death, all the while being exploited and defrauded by the people who continue to teach it.
BB
"The government of God’s Church will make diligent inquiry with brethren now under your charge."
ReplyDeleteWhat in the world is that clown talking about????
If by "government of God's church" he means himself, he better not call my house! lol
"You are STRONGLY counseled to at least remain NEUTRAL in the face of your headquarters asking or even demanding you to resist what “RCG is teaching”—"
This one is even funnier! No one at our headquarters even has RCG on the radar, much less is there any worry about what he's up to...lol... He's just another of the multitude of false prophets in the world.
Give it up DCP, the best you can do is draw away the weak, and mislead them. I would not want to have to answer to God for something like that!
"Most of you grew liberal in the 1970s—this was “strike one” in God’s sight."
ReplyDeleteIf anyone grew liberal it was those that stayed with HA. What a double minded hypocrite this man is,CEO of Synogogue of satan! First of all, DCP stayed with HA when the failed prophecy did not happen and with all the changes of doctrines with D&R to HA liking. These men will have a lot of blood in their hands. Grande problema, indeed!