Someone is always out trying to get Church of God members and its leaders. What other purpose could the church have than to be the scapegoat of big meanies so they can claim persecution?
Gerald Flurry whines:
We are facing problems today that God’s Church under Herbert W. Armstrong never faced. The United States is terribly different than it was before he died in 1986. It is ready to collapse, and it will shortly. The radical left is attacking conservatives with all sorts of lies. What do you think they will do about our message? Once they focus on us, it will be much worse, at least for a short time. I don’t know when that will be, but I do know we must pay attention to what God revealed through Ezekiel because it is for us in the PCG!
We have to believe Ezekiel’s prophecy: A storm is coming. We must go through this storm and thrive in it! We have the God of Ezekiel 1 right here with us! That is why the book of Ezekiel begins in this order: God is first—the top priority! Everything flows from there. Even the persecution God’s Church members face will have a positive side because it will cause people to feel ashamed when the world continues to unravel just as God prophesied. This will help them repent and probably many of them will become part of the great multitude (Revelation 7:9). Royal Vision, Sept/Oct, 2014
12 comments:
Storms come and go in all of our lives. Every day! Flurry and his followers, however, expect "the perfect storm" to hit them, and to validate their beliefs and their work. The problem they face is that they are so few in number, that what person or group powerful enough to make the trouble they expect will even notice them, or be able to separate them from the other conservatives?
Armstrongites have historically failed to recognize or properly interpret natural cycles. They gravitate towards certain pendulum swings, calling them signs of the end times. The swings between social liberalism, and social conservatism have proven to be yet another natural cycle. We are just as likely to see a sudden swing towards extreme conservatism as deepening liberalism. All it would take would be a modern day Carrie Nation. The funny thing is, PCG actually expects ultra-conservatism to emerge amongst the Germans!
BB
"Once they focus on us"? Gerry, begging is so uncouth.
Carrie Nation created Al Capone. Flurry will create...well nothing but ruined lives!
The radical left are not aware of Gerald Flurry's existence. The entire human population of the planet has no idea he exists. Probably most WCG or ex WCG members have never met or heard of Gerry Flurry. The only persecution he might suffer is if an Oklahoma mosquito bit him.
Hate to break it to you Gerry, but as a big 'ol scary liberal, one of the things my conservative friends and I can all agree on together is that you're a sanctimonious twit.
As far as your delusions of notability, all I can say is that of all the disassociative megalomaniacs in the world, you're one of them.
" Probably most WCG or ex WCG members have never met or heard of Gerry Flurry."
Certainly true of me. To my recollection, I never laid eyes on the guy. For him to think anyone outside the sphere of the COGs pays any attention to his blather just shows how self-aggrandizing he is.
When we existed in Pasadena, the average Pasadena citizen only had a vague awareness of us, if any at all, and the campus was huge. It's like the big Catholic church just north of Cottonwood. I go there to donate blood periodically, but the rest of the time, they're just a recognizable landmark on the way to Sedona and they have no significance to me.
I'm wondering what Gerald considers to be persecution. Will it be like the eggs outsiders occasionally threw at cars on the old AC campus on certain holydays? Ministerial houses being toilet papered?
Or do they think that members will all be rounded up and taken to liberal reeducation camps where they will be forced to participate in drug use, lesbianism and homosexuality (with minority members!), and deprogrammng efforts?
To me, if ministers are constantly forecasting fearsomeness over disfellowshipment, future persecution, or torture by the Germans, it eclipses the value of any positive life values they might be teaching from the other side of their mouths. How do you make the daily torture of even being an ACOG member seem less bad, or acceptable? Why you constantly refocus the minds of the membership on even worse scenarios! You make ever worsening imaginations a part of the programming!
Armstrongism does not increase the quality of one's life, or promote sanity.
BB
Worth reading in this regard is Ezra and Nehemiah by Gerald Flurry and Dennis Leap. As well as Gerald Flurry's booklet The Royal Book of Revelation (near the end).
Both contain paranoid screeds that Satan will send in infiltrators into PCG who must be decisively removed by PCG ministers away from the congregation. It is asserted that they are wolves seeking to destroy PCG and must be removed to protect PCG and make sure no PCG member leave because of their influence.
Here is one example:
If we don’t have God’s government, “wolves” are prophesied to come in and tear the inner court apart and make it the outer court. God says if you have people like that, cast them out (Revelation 11:2). That means using force or power and being decisive doing it. God wants to make sure we keep the inner court holy. If we have somebody acting like a wolf or causing serious problems, we cast them out. That’s what Christ told us to do. Either we cast out Satan or Satan casts out Christ! (Gerald Flurry, The Royal Book of Revelation, current 2011 version, Chapter 7, p. 70.)
Redfox712 I realize thay you are merely quoting, but Gerald Flurry is being very naive. What he is proposing might control people who accept his authority and leave. It will not prevent a future Terry Ratzmann, and it will not work on someone who is obsessed, like a determined stalker type.
Actually Flurry has long fantasized that some sort of persecution would befall his PCG. Even in his second booklet, The Lion Has Roared, the first booklet PCG produced after Malachi's Message, he speculated that Tkach's WCG would somehow conspire with the authorities of the United States to somehow silence PCG. So Flurry is repeating this delusional nonsense yet again with this Royal Vision article. He even seems to have similar words in his new book that is to be released during their so-called Feast of Tabernacles.
Anonymous 8:46:
It is hard for me to verify how PCG members react to these words from Flurry.
Why would Flurry say such things? As far as I can tell it is some sort of divide and conquer stratagem against PCG members to train PCG members into ignoring any discontent any other PCG member may express. Essentially an attempt to teach them to commit thought stopping. Once they hear or read any information contrary to PCG's dogmas they automatically ignore it. This has the effect of keeping them reliably contributing their money and efforts to supporting the interests of PCG's leaders.
Interpretation: You're all probably gonna go through hell soon or possibly die a hellacious death, even all you supporters of MY work!
But never fear you have hope...The Great Multitude...maybe. So keep giving me all your money in the meantime...stupid.
This seems more like either clinical depression or schizophrenia. Of course it would be more clear if there hadn't been drinking problems.
The real question that no one is asking is, just what do you mean by conservative? Can we by any stretch of the imagination classify Flurry as a conservative, particularly considering how he spends other people's money? He's certainly not a fiscal conservative -- constantly spending more than he has.
Finally, as for notoriety, Dr. Stanley Schmidt did mention Flurry in an editorial in Analog because of Flurry's extreme outlook on doomsday for the United States and the world. Not sure that was persecution though.
Flurry is seriously mental and nothing is on the RADAR to ever fix that.
Yes, there is persecution of the PCG... members... by the ministry. That hardly counts under the circumstances.
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