LCG preacher James Wells is irritated that someone posted excerpts from one of his sermons on Facebook. Then later on in his sermon he laments on how the Israelites were whining and gripping and forgetting the things God did for them in the wilderness. Its just like LCG members who forget the "truth" they have leaned and leave the LCG.
We are beginning to see the same things happening to the new testament church. Members are hardening their hearts. They are not "enduring to the end." Members are weak and weakening as they lack in faith.
Some are not with us today here. They've shut their ears to the truth. People are leaving the church because they believe we are turning away from the truth. They have the facade of faith.
People are leaving the Living Church of God because of the ABUSE, the heretical doctrines and asinine leadership/preachers! Plus, the day Jimmy Meredith is made the new pope of LCG the church will fracture in a huge split.
If you want to listen to this incredibly BAD preacher then have at it. It just reminds me of the boring garbage that talentless men blabbered on and on saying nothing worthwhile.
James Wells
Not enough are leaving.
ReplyDeleteNo. They have not shut their ears to "the truth", they continued to grow, to develop, and to prove all things, leading them to move on, after having been artificially restricted. As we all know, Armstrongism identified these processes as leading to him. Once you found him, you were to freeze your fund of knowledge, to confine it to what he and only he taught, and to stop being a seeker of the truth. In other words, you were supposed to act as if he actually were some sort of apostle, the be all and end all of your quest.
ReplyDeleteBB
Well, BB, it was one thing when HWA was alive.
ReplyDeleteYes, he may have been capricious, and changed doctrines to benefit himself, and it was certainly still restrictive to limit yourself to that which came from one man, but at least the "fund of knowledge" wasn't hermetically sealed.
But once he died, then it really was frozen, all the modifications that have been done by various church leaders since notwithstanding. (They do this to benefit themselves, the same as HWA did, but they'll tell you that HWA did teach exactly what they're teaching now, even though he didn't.)
Now HWA's been dead coming up on 30 years, and the Armstrongist "fund of knowledge" has been effectively on ice, even if HWA ever did teach anything worthwhile, and I'm not saying he did, but even that would by now be obsolete and irrelevant.
Could you imagine anyone seriously listening to an HWA tape about prophecy, and how Cold War politics are going to lead to "the great tribulation"? I'm sure there are some who do, and then spend an hour prognosticating about how Germany's going to try to take over the world again. Sometimes history repeats itself. Sometimes it doesn't. But out-of-date is out-of-date.
Leaving for this or that? How bout being kicked out every time you turned around. I felt like Dino on Fred Flintstone jumping back in the window only to be thrown out the door again!
ReplyDeleteAnd I wasn't even mean and sarcastic back then!! lol
I think the last verse to the Eagles "Hotel California" is appropriate here...
ReplyDeleteLast thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
"Relax, " said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,...
BUT YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE ! "
Anonymous 12:43 - Basically, what you have illustrated, is a natural function of the human condition. You stated that all of these ACOG leaders teach and believe that HWA taught exactly what they teach now. Yet, they err. Their individualized interpretations, the ways in which they have personalized their beliefs as all humans do, has altered the state of the Armstrong system of beliefs. So has time, and the increase in human collection of knowledge or data. This is an example for us from real time, after a mere 30 years.
ReplyDeleteIs this something that should be embraced and celebrated, or should it be repudiated and an effort made to get back to the "faith once delivered"? This is perhaps the ultimate dilemma of Armstrongism, for the staunch preservers of all things HWA. The only solution to their dilemma would be for HWA to once again be present to provide the factors which he had originally contributed, the things which are missing now that he is no longer a part of the equation. Yet HWA himself was an alteration of the faith delivered by his sources, Dugger and Dodd, or G.G. Rupert. HWA's teachings were not even a constant throughout his own ministry. His followers attempt to base their teachings on best guesses from snapshots of time, the beliefs from the 1940s, through the final 1980s.
HWA taught degeneration. He did not believe that circumstances and conditions were evolving to a higher and more enlightened state, he taught that they were constantly decaying and disintegrating, and needed rejuvenation and correction. He saw his role as repairing Satan's cumulative damages to Christianity from the past 1900 years.
The fact is, for those who believe in and react to God, beliefs, spirituality, are a personalized expression. They are a function of our individualized nature and our genetics. The minute you attempt to impose and enforce someone else's legalistic interpretation or expression of this, the purity of the expression, the love behind it all, goes out the window, and you get a rigid, robotic system practiced by automatons whose motivation is fear of punishment, fear of pain, and constant fear of loss of salvation. Also, the concept of minister as enforcer or police man, not minister as spiritual guide. Judgmentalism and the "whitened sepulchre" syndrome become a part of daily life, as was true of the Pharisees.
There really is no mystery about the state of Christianity today, with all of the various "brands", such as Catholicism, Lutheran, Presbyterian, or evangelical.
We have witnessed in microcosm the dynamic personalization of Armstrongism over a period of just 30 years. Is it any less logical to realize that a very similar process began almost immediately following the life of Jesus? We actually read about the keys of Peter, the policy decisions of the Jerusalem Council, and about the interpretations which Paul contributed to the teachings of Jesus. Paul spoke very eloquently as to how to react to elements of paganism, and it is vastly different from the root it out and shun it mentality of HWA which he adapted from Hislop.
You are not going to find one true church today, one that is 100% faithful to following even the most basic surviving information we have concerning Jesus. The fact that HWA was fallible in the area of prophecy demonstrates that he was also fallible in other areas of understanding. He is not, and cannot be a gold standard, a person whose life could be used as a pattern for those of our own. That would be the worst kind of idolatry. He is also not a reliable reference point for getting back to the faith once delivered.
And yet, one thing remains constant. You can find sincere believers, amongst all of the existing "brands" who express their faith in personalized, individualized ways. It's not the legalism that counts, it's what is in the heart.
BB
Roderick Meredith may die in 5 to 7 years.
ReplyDelete