WCG Splinter Group Lords of Control
What exactly gives any WCG splinter group overlord, the right to have control of any splinter group?
You guessed it, absolutely nothing. Those who assume the posture of control as if they speak for
Jesus Christ or represent God to others, are among the most vain and egotistical of human beings on
planet earth.
Even you or I could form our own group if we were vain enough to want power and control over others. So why does anyone follow a WCG splinter group overlord? In my opinion it is because an awful lot of people are just plain LAZY human beings and unwilling to educate themselves. Knowledge and information is readily available in our age of computer technology and so there is
really no excuse to be led about with a hook in the lip, by unscrupulous and extremely vain men, who playact as if they are sent from God to rule over others.
Preachers by the thousands stand before people, with a book in their hand (called "the Bible") and quote from it as if it is God. Well folks, the Bible is not God and God is not the bible. Literally billions of human beings are held captive for life, by ink on paper and those who stand before them
quoting ink on paper, as if God is the author. Well, which "Holy" book is really from God? There are many so called "Holy" books in this world and none of them are alike.
The bible is actually interpreted in thousands of different ways and anyone who is a mesmerized WCG splinter group church goer, would be astounded to learn how others see the bible,
should such people be willing to remove themselves from their splinter group mind-prison.
It is highly doubtful that anyone who is willing to experiment and exit their WCG splinter group environment, and be exposed to mind-shattering other beliefs, would ever return to their former ways. Jesus came to set the captives FREE and all WCG splinter groups are religious prisons,
which is true of all religious cults. No overlord of any group is God in the flesh, nor are they "apostles", "prophets" or "pastors." What they really are, are frauds using the name of God/Jesus Christ or the excuse of "preaching the Gospel to the world", while all the time, they are really counting the free tithe $money in their bank accounts, as HWA did.
In the end Herbert W. left behind all his mansions, his fine arts, his jet airplanes, his luxuries and his bank accounts, just as ALL WCG splinter group heads will also. Why follow a looser? Jesus is free, salvation is free, eternal life is free, the forgiveness of sins cannot be paid for by $cash or credit
card and anyone who makes you think that you "must" tithe to them, is a LIAR and THIEF for ulterior motives.
Van Robison
18 comments:
The line of demarcation would seem to be as such:
If a knowledgeable individual wanted to assist a newbie with scripture or living principles, he could be a valuable resource.
However, his fund of knowledge would not authoritize (is that a word?) him to co-opt anyone's free will, or conscience, and it would not entitle him to take over anyone's finances.
Now, if someone were to have Biblical proportion spiritual gifts, such as 100% accuracy in prophecy, God using him to heal amputees and Down's Syndrome children plus the normal medically treatable garden variety of ailments and diseases, and ability to speak so that everyone could hear and understand in their own native tongue, those factors might under certain conditions be a game changer.
Somebody who knows a Biblical word such as "apostle" and suddenly proclaims "Yup, that's me!" and then proceeds to fake the gifts but, alas, isn't quite able to pull them off, is nothing, and has no authority. In fact, by all rights, we're supposed to write them off and shun them, regardless as to what doctrines they might have or preach.
"The bible is actually interpreted in thousands of different ways and anyone who is a mesmerized WCG splinter group church goer, would be astounded to learn how others see the bible, should such people be willing to remove themselves from their splinter group mind-prison."
According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, in mid-2011 there were over 42,000 Christian denominations worldwide. Furthermore, that number is increasing at an average rate of 2.2 new denominations per day. So that puts us at well over 42,000 different ways the bible is currently being interpreted.
One of my favorite alternate interpretations of the bible is how in countries where shamanism and tribal magick is still believed, people will take parts of the bible, particularly various psalms, and recite them to cast spells, and they also treat the bible itself as a talisman.
Well said.
Personally I'd leave out the "Jesus is free, salvation is free" part, but otherwise well said.
Human beings tend to want direction in life. What should I do? How should I be? What person should I follow to ensure I'm right with (fill the blank with deity's name)?
Because of this demand, apostles and pastors see their calling! :-)
I just saw the movie, "Saving Mr. Banks" with Tom Hanks playing Walt Disney.
Herbert W. Armstrong was of Walt Disney's generation - the generation that wasn't suppose to pass. I walked away from the movie thinking to myself the following question:
Who was a bigger and better visionary and who had more of an impact on people - Herbert W. Armstrong or Walt Disney?
I am being serious, folks!
Richard
All "control" is provided by you being "needy".
Tame your desires and insecurities, and you remove your neediness. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose!
Janis Joplin -"Me and WCG" (Bobby McGee)
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose,
Nothing, that's all that WCG left me, yeah,
But feeling good was easy, Lord, when WCG sang the end time blues
Hey, feeling good was good enough for me, hmm hmm,
Good enough for me and the WCG in 1973.
(But Remember that it is 2014 and we must leave our foolish yesterdays behind)
Your Friend,
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
It's loser, not looser.
Loose refers to teeth and certain women or very large pairs of pants.
From a psychological perspective, I suggest that the leaders tend to be narcissistic and the followers dependent personalities (submissive and passive). They fit together like a lock and a key.
This is what keep some members in the group.
The New Testament itself does give the template for the one man control of thought. Take out the Gospels and you have three or four men vying for control of just who they thought Jesus was and once the Jerusalem church leaders are factored out in a rather short time, we are left with know who. You know who write ALL the final and acceptable views of Gospel Jesus though he never read a Gospel, since they were written after he was long gone. He never met any Gospel Jesus and never quotes one so we have basically one man telling us his view of things because either he heard the voice of Jesus in his head (Acts) or he was called from the womb (Galatians) to have Jesus revealed in (not by) him.
COG members seem to be also be looking for a new Moses, like a Herb-moses, Zerubbabel, Joshua or Jere-daviah or Egeralda. It's a bad habit and one set by HWA to begin with. Being told what to think or do is a far different kind of person than one who seeks, knocks and opens. That is discouraged by head apostles it seems .
Growing up in just about any other Church you will never see the emphasis on the minister in anyway you will remember growing up. They were helpers of your joy I suppose but then you'd have to have some joy being in the church to begin with. Seems most COG members are just toughing it out with their gurus antics and self promoting.
The New Testament itself does give the template for the one man control of thought. Take out the Gospels and you have three or four men vying for control of just who they thought Jesus was and once the Jerusalem church leaders are factored out in a rather short time, we are left with know who. You know who write ALL the final and acceptable views of Gospel Jesus though he never read a Gospel, since they were written after he was long gone. He never met any Gospel Jesus and never quotes one so we have basically one man telling us his view of things because either he heard the voice of Jesus in his head (Acts) or he was called from the womb (Galatians) to have Jesus revealed in (not by) him.
COG members seem to be also be looking for a new Moses, like a Herb-moses, Zerubbabel, Joshua or Jere-daviah or Egeralda. It's a bad habit and one set by HWA to begin with. Being told what to think or do is a far different kind of person than one who seeks, knocks and opens. That is discouraged by head apostles it seems .
Growing up in just about any other Church you will never see the emphasis on the minister in anyway you will remember growing up. They were helpers of your joy I suppose but then you'd have to have some joy being in the church to begin with. Seems most COG members are just toughing it out with their gurus antics and self promoting.
That what you're going to tell God on judgment day, Dennis? That the only testimony of Jesus Christ which we get to have is too messed up for accountability purposes? That what is supposed to lead us to salvation has ended up being the history of an unresolved, and unresolvable conflict?
To Anonymous at January 19, 2014 at 10:49 AM:
On the one hand you have Paul's salvation by grace through faith without works "lest any man should boast" of his works.
On the other hand you have Peter, James and John's salvation through the works of the law.
When it was all said and done the orthodoxy combines the faith doctrine with the works doctrine and, viola! Confusion.
It's not that anyone would boast of their Sabbath keeping as a sign that they are not of some (gasp) worldly church, is it? Of course not, none of the ACoGs do that...do they? What else do they "boast" of? Well, how about keeping the Jewish festivals and food laws?
I'm sure you could think of more if you tried real hard.
There are situations in which a human does well as an individual, and there are situations in which one does better as part of a collective effort. In some sets of circumstances, we humans need a collective to fight for us and to advance our goals. When someone sets themselves up as Grand Poo Bah, surrounded by "yes men", then a collective is doomed simply because there is not a trained person who can think independently, experienced and able to take over the collective if something happens to the main person.
That is the leadership crisis which destroyed the Armstrong empire, and it effects most of the splinter groups today. Watching what is happening within the Weinland splinter provides probably the most poignant example, a harbinger of what is to come for the rest of them in the near future. When it gets down to a level of a Malm, a Thiel, or a King, there is zero future for a big, expansive. work. These gentlemen will never rise above the level of simple commentator without authentic team- building skills.
BB
"These gentlemen will never rise above the level of simple commentator without authentic team- building skills."
2Peter 1:20 says, "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation."
The first thing HWA did was drop the "prophecy" and expand the meaning of this verse to "all scripture." In doing so, he hypocritically created his own private interpretation of 2Peter 1:20. But that's just mistake #1.
To read a text at all is to forge one's own personal, private interpretation, opinion, and meaning from that text. And the old mantra of "letting the bible interpret itself" doesn't really solve or answer anything, because in a book that long there's still an infinite quantity of internally-consistent possible interpretations of the gist of the text as a whole, and therefore the gist of any particular passage as well. It all boils down to what your priorities happen to be. Once you come to see this, it really is a no-brainer to realize how inescapable "private interpretation" is. People cannot do otherwise. To assume people can is not reconcilable to a consistent theory of the human mind.
What we're seeing in Armstrongism is a proliferation of opinion-leaders who have each formed a private interpretation of the bible in their own image without realizing it. Each also has formed his own private interpretations of what HWA taught or should have taught, along with his own Herb-style black-&-white version what is good and right and what is wrong and evil. Furthermore, all of them think that their private interpretations, opinions, and judgments are identical to those of a fictional deity, who, as a product of their imagination, has actually been constructed as a reflection of themselves. Via the machinations and conveyor belts of each opinion-leader's peculiar thought factory, they succeed, also without realizing it, in attributing divine authority to ideas that started out as their own, which they then proceed to use as clubs, savaging especially those who believe most similarly to themselves. Having accepted all those mistakes as irrefutable "truth," they then proceed mistakenly assume that such intellectual brutality will win souls for Jesus by hopefully converting other people to their personal private interpretation of a book that, not only is it's divine attribution a dubious proposition, but also whose origins appear to be at least half forged.
And that's the best case scenario, because it assumes that all 700+ self-appointed opinion-leaders are sincere, which I have come to sincerely doubt.
So much needless bickering. It's all predicated upon such a house of cards...
"700 + self-appointed opinion-leaders....."
I was reviewing some of the historic materials on the different large splinters that emerged during the 1990s over at Exit and Support Network. The editor over there seems to believe that at least the first splinters were created by design, via collaboration of or conspiracy amongst the various elements of the power structure of original WCG. It comes off as an effort to capture or corralle preservationists, liberals, and those with mainstream Protestant leanings. I had seen this theory before, but considering the continuous splintering since, which erupted almost immediately, I can't possibly imagine this as all having happened by conscious design, or cooperative effort. It is as if, as someone once said, all of them have been spewed from the mouth of God.
What you say about the reading of text actually also relates to how a person formulates and pursues relationships as well, including, in the case of church, a relationship with God. Personality cults impose what a leader believes of all of that on the members of his cult. Really, to attain purity, the splintering needs to continue until there are no groups, but only individuals. That way each individual will make worship of God into a function of his or her own personaliity instead of faking someone else's.
BB
Biker Bob wrote, "...I can't possibly imagine this as all having happened by conscious design, or cooperative effort."
I can.
There's no need to see the splinterings as an "act of God", although I can see how both those in favor of splinterings, and those against, might see what happened as an "act of God", despite all the human reasons why these men did what they did.
Case in point- the UCG split from the WCG- which definitely was by conscious design and cooperative effort(albeit filled with lies and a lack of morals) for the 'armstrongist elite' to retain their positions of power and income.
Corky...Did you just say "Paul's salvation".."Without works"?
Rom 3:31
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law. Rom 6:23
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Rom 7:12
Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
2Pe 3:15
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; 2Pe 3:16
As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
Anonymous said...
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law. Rom 6:23 and blah blah blah
Oooo, one of those "gotcha" moments, huh? Yep, I agree the Law identifies sin and sin brings the death penalty and without the law we wouldn't know what sin was etc etc.
Rom 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
So, by the law then is "the knowledge of sin"...okay, cool. However:
Rom 3:21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Can't really get any clearer than that, can it?
The Greek Emphatic Diaglott literally reads, “And knowing that a man is not justified by works of law, except on account of Faith of Messiah Yahshua.”http://www.yrm.org/galations-unveiled.htm
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