I received the following from Carolyn Smith-Kizer regarding an article her husband wrote about his observations on Herbert Armstrong's understanding of prophecy.
I am posting it for those interested in his premise. I have had previous contact with Homer Kizer in 2012 which was not presented in a favorable light. Homer responded to my first article with his own comments which I posted unedited.
Unrepentant Firstborn Will Firstborn Will Be Slaughtered On Passover (Again)
Homer Kizer Responds
I don't agree with
What Herbert Armstrong Didn’t Know
Argument: As a self-educated theologian, Herbert W. Armstrong as the Pastor-General of the former Radio Church of God and Worldwide Church of God, never understood the basic construction of Hebraic poetics, that the visible, physical things of this world reveal and precede the invisible spiritual things of God, with outwardly circumcised Israel forming the chiral (or left hand) image of circumcised of heart Israel, the assembly of inner selves born of spirit through the indwelling of Christ Jesus. Because Armstrong never understood theological chirality, Armstrong placed importance on the surfaces of things and people; importance on appearances, gender, skin color, and genealogy. He therefore prevented himself from understanding the mysteries of God, and was and remained a spiritual novice throughout his ministry that extended from 1934 to 1986
Some of his comments are:
Twenty-nine years have passed since members of the former Worldwide Church of God (WCG) learned their Pastor General died shortly before 6:00 a.m. PST, January 16, 1986 … in the summer of 1985, I was visited by a long time WCG member, Jack Etsel, who, during dinner conversation, said, Mr. Armstrong preaches that time is short because time is short for him. I was mildly shocked by what I heard; by what Jack said. I believed that the end of the age was or nearly was upon humanity. And without then responding to what Jack said, I nevertheless remembered his words—
When Jack Etsel said what he did about the senior Armstrong, I didn’t know Jack all that well. I had, the previous fall, killed a moose on a hunt with Jack. Otherwise, I knew Jack as a two year Washington (Seattle area) transplant to Alaska. Of course, I was an Oregon transplant from eleven years earlier. I knew other members of the Anchorage and Kenai WCG congregations better than I knew Jack.
I, too, was a WCG member, attending services since 1972, baptized prior to Passover 1973, journeying north to Alaska spring 1974, opening a chainsaw-outboard dealership on Poppy Lane just off K-Beach Road in late 1976. So what I will write about Herbert Armstrong doesn’t come from the perspective of an outsider, but from having heard what was preached from pulpits and having read what was written in Co-Worker letters during the 1970s and 1980s. However, I was then busy making a living, trying to get a woefully under-capitalized business operational; so though I heard what was preached and what wasn’t, I didn’t spend time worrying about whether chicanery was occurring in Pasadena. Armstrong’s racism troubled me less than it should have. And how tithe moneys were spent was between the administration and Christ Jesus (my responsibility for my tithe ended when I put the check in the mail).
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The senior Armstrong during the initial Advanced Prophecy Seminar session told his evangelists that all wasn’t known, that the Church had prophecy wrong,
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So before proceeding, let it be understood that Herbert W. Armstrong knew he had prophecy wrong four years after the Treaty of Rome was signed March 1957: the European Union wasn’t coming together as Armstrong had prophesied. Events were happening much more slowly than he expected, and were going in a direction he hadn’t anticipated. He realized what he had said throughout the 1950s, and as far back as 1934, was wrong.Why, then, did he continue to proclaim the same prophetic message throughout the 1960s and to his death in January 1986? And could a multi-million dollar a year ministry based on a particular understanding of biblical prophecy really admit it had prophecy wrong all along and still economically survive? No, it could not.
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The entirety of Armstrong’s ministry was built not on Sabbath observance or believing the writings of Moses, but on Armstrong’s understanding of biblical prophecy that caused him to write in a 1948 Co-Worker letter the following:
December 8, 1947Dear Family of Co-Workers' in God's Service:GREETINGS! in Jesus' name: TIME is running out! This world is moving swiftly to its destruction! Yet there is still time---and just barely enough time---to finish the work of God for this present age. THERE IS NO TIME TO LOSE. But the work of God is progressing on schedule---amid handicaps, thru obstacles and trials that try our souls, our patience, and our faith to the limit---under the divine direction of God, and as a result of MIRACLES performed by him in our behalf.The "Big Four" diplomats are locked in an uncompromisable duel between East and West---between Russia and the United States---between Communism and Democracy---between Atheism and professed Christianity. At the London conference, the nations merely lock horns and fight, and quarrel, and deadlock, in their efforts to restore the peace of Europe and the world.The United States announces the invention and production of horrible, terrifying new atomic weapons---without giving the public any hint as to the nature of those weapons. The Russians give out hints that they, too, either HAVE the atomic bomb, or have its secret and are now preparing to actually produce it.The United Nations recommend the partitioning of Palestine, and actual setting up, at last, of a new Jewish NATION in the holy land. This sets off the Palestine powder-keg. The Moslem nations, 300 million strong and solidly ORGANIZED these past three years, have announced they will never permit it---they spring to action---fighting and violence is intensified in the holy land, and terror reigns.Europe faces its hardest winter, and the United States, with diminishing food supplies, sets out to try to feed the world to save it from chaos and communism and starvation.Yes, this world is being hurled rapidly TOWARD UTTER DESTRUCTION---we approach the END OF THE WORLD!---which means the end of this AGE!The WORLD TOMORROW will soon dawn, bringing peace, prosperity, happiness and joy at last;---and in the short time that remains our calling and sole important mission in life is to SHOUT THIS GOOD NEWS (the true Gospel of Jesus Christ) TO THE WORLD! It must go, not only to America and Canada, as it is now going, it must go to ALL NATIONS, in ALL LANGUAGES! To this end, AMBASSADOR COLLEGE is now operating in sober earnest---instructing consecrated, eager young men and women in the true Message, training them in speaking foreign languages.THE OUTLOOK, at the moment, is for six or seven more years of PROSPERITY here in America---(even tho it is an artificial, unsound and inflated "prosperity")---while meantime the world moves relentlessly toward WORLD WAR III and final DESTRUCTION!YOU, dear Co-Worker, are not going to be permitted to enjoy your home, your freedom, your present privileges and pursuits, many more years. Just a few more years---perhaps six or seven---perhaps twelve or fifteen---and a re-united Fascist-Nazi Europe will STRIKE---America's great cities will be blown out of existence in one night without warning---we shall see such tremendous atomic destruction as the world has never even dreamed ---more than 40 MILLION Americans will perish in the horrifying blasts! At the same time drought and famine will strike dead another THIRD of our entire population---men, women, and children ---thru starvation and disease! And our second great commission ---our divine calling from Almighty God---is to WARN our beloved nation, and other Israelitish nations, before it is too late! Every individual who HEEDS this warning, turns to God, is WATCHING and PRAYING ALWAYS, being filled with God's Spirit, living by every Word of God, with a life consecrated to Him, will be given special divine protection---taken beforehand to a place of SAFETY--- preserved thru the final horrifying tribulation, time of plagues and human anguish soon to visit this earth!But if we to whom God has revealed this terrible future thru His divine prophecies fail to heed it---if we fail to each play his or her full part in WARNING this nation and the world, now, while we may---then God says we shall not escape, but He will require the blood of this entire people at our hands!All emphasis is that of Armstrong … the letter goes on, but enough is here presented for the tone and tenor of the message Armstrong proclaimed to be grasped—
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An issue that cannot be avoided is the racism, sexism of Herbert Armstrong, who was a product of his age, not a new creature in Christ Jesus … in ancient Israel (and in modern fundamentalist Islam), women were chattel, property analogous to a circumcised man’s house: “‘You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's’” (Ex 20:17).
"An issue that cannot be avoided is the racism, sexism of Herbert Armstrong, who was a product of his age, not a new creature in Christ Jesus … in ancient Israel (and in modern fundamentalist Islam), women were chattel, property analogous to a circumcised man’s house..."
ReplyDeleteI think it is beyond question that HWA was a product of his age, the Guilded Age. He four when the Plessy vs. Ferguson "Separate but Equal" doctrine was ruled by the Supreme Court, he was 28 when women got the right to vote, and he was 72 when Civil Rights was passed. He wanted to build his own empire and be a titan, like Rockefeller or Carnegie, and rub shoulders with the "elite." And when he did build one, a religious one, was either he or his empire taking a leadership role, establishing themselves as being out in front in matters of morality and ethics? Certainly not. Ambassador College got a few token African-American students post Civil Rigts because government legislation forced it, not because HWA was guided by a superior moral code. GTA wasn't busy seducing hundreds of co-eds and HWA wasn't molesting Dorothy because of some superior moral code.
Most certainly HWA was never a "new creation in Jesus Christ" in any terms we'd like to think about. He was a sociopath a sex offender, and a racist. Has anyone ever benefited from becoming a "new creation in Jesus Christ"? I doubt it. I never did. In fact, I too am a product of my times. Not to say that I am a bad person, or that my time served in modern christianity didn't instill a decent moral code in me. But any transformation I have achieved seems to be the product of my own human effort, not anything supernatural. There was certainly no reversion of my morality following my deconversion.
On the other hand, given the morality of the ancient middle east, compared to modern morality, and given an unchanging Jesus Christ, why shouldn't we expect someone who did become a "new creation in Jesus Christ" to be transformed from a modern man with decent modern ethics into a significantly worse person, rather than being a step forward? Likewise, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has gone on the record saying, "If we want to be part of civilized society, we have to say that the prophet Muhammed, especially in his years after Medina, he cannot be a moral guide for good. He was, from our 21st century perspective absolutely immoral."
If we seek moral guides for good to teach us how to be more effective members of a civilized society, I don't think we can look back to significantly more barbaric times. Nor do I think we can look to religion, which, instead of maintaining a leadership position, being out in front in matters of ethics and morality, is consistently lagging behind, and is having to be dragged into modernity by Enlightment philosophy and government legislation, and is constantly being rocked by scandals revealing that "holier than thou" institutions are no better than any other sample of humanity, in which we could also expect to find similar immoral and criminal conduct. No, we have to look to philosophers, not gods. It's either pick and choose from "the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" or else feast on the putrid and rancid ancient "fruit of the tree of life" planted by immoral barbarians. Whatever we may or may not owe them, at this point, they are in need of our help, not the other way around. Same goes for their gods.
I had run across Homer's name before, but was totally unfamiliar with the name Jack Etsel. This is also the first time that I've seen any information on an advanced prophecy seminar, or an alleged admission on HWA's part that he knew prior to 1972 that he had prophecy wrong.
ReplyDeleteIf these allegations are true, it means that HWA placed a bet that if he spun things correctly, his empire would not collapse with the failure of the prophecy. In other words, he knew as early as apparently 1961 that he was going to have a crisis on his hands as 1972 approached, but rather than completely back off and hit the brakes, he feathered the gas pedal, riding things out to his death.
The question becomes, how much of this do the leaders of the splinter groups know? I know and have shared before right here that at Ambassador College in 1966-68 three math equations were being taught "proving" that Jesus would return in 1975, but here we have indication that the evangelists knew well in advance of Herbert's private admission that this could not be true. And, yet, the splinters are still able to serve up this same bogus stuff, because HWA/WCG spun this as opposed to having come totally clean
I used to laugh when people who left the church said that it was all simply a big business, and that preserving that business was HWA's primary motivation. On one hand, I am just so thankful that I held them accountable to the original 1975 date. On the other hand, all of the additional years of angst caused by this bogus prophecy could have been avoided if we had simply gone into "Jews for Jesus" mode back in 1961.
HWA was some kind of piece of work!
BB
Not to mention that since Herbert Armstrong committed incest with his daughter after he was baptized in the first ten years of his 'ministry', there's no evidence that he was what anyone could call 'converted'. If he had been caught, he would have died before his 'ministry' got off the ground.
ReplyDeleteIt also is true that he was freaking nuts and is aptly named as one of those who is a kook by Donna Kossy.
If you have any doubts at all, you should check out Herbert Armstrong's prophetic record.
It should come as no surprise that Herbert Armstrong would know he was wrong... if he did.
It should be noted that it's entirely possible that he excelled in personal delusion about his place in the universe, so it's entirely possible that he really was clueless that he was clueless.
I don't get the point of this article. It seems that you ended unfinished.
ReplyDeleteDear Blogger,
ReplyDeleteLately, I have been coveting one of UCG's cows. His name is Milkdud.
I realize that the "cow wars" have become an important part of these End Times, so I see myself as part of God's Great Bovine Plan.
That Great Bovine Plan isn't well articulated in the Bible, so do you think it's OK if I lasso Milkdud and ride him home?
Or should I pray my chaps off that The Lord will remove these coveting thoughts from my barnstorming brain?
Luv,
Billy the Bandanna-wearing Backslapping Bunkhouse Bushwhacker Bronco Buckaroo
This gets filed along with the apocalyptic WWII information which HWA was disseminating in the 1940s, the "Hitler is alive in Argentina" stuff from the 1950s, and the many revised prophecies which followed 1975. The condemning evidence at this point is overwhelming, You can take your pick between British Israelism or the clearly "unguided" prophecies, either one gets the job done.
ReplyDeleteIt appears we were had from the very beginning, although there is absolutely no way that any of the current prosperous franchisees would cop to that. Could it be that Joe Tkach Sr. really was asked by HWA to correct the mess? I mean, JT botched the corrections by continuing with the same awful authoritarianism (which most of us had earlier acceded to based on believing the prophecy!) but it is becoming totally reasonable and credible that once HWA realized that he was at the end and had nothing to lose, the old man might have actually suffered pangs of conscience.
David Jon Hill revealed some interesting things in his memoirs, and I had great hopes that as part of working his program he was going to come clean. Unfortunately, he passed away before getting to complete them.
BB
That would be "Gilded" as in golden.
ReplyDeleteIt is easy for Homer to say HWA got it wrong. All we have is hearsay. No hard evidence of any sort.
Homer looks like a mountain man. Needs to shave and get himself a haircut.
Herbert Armstrong did not know that I was making out in the parking lot with a cute girl I met at FOT during his 1984 feast broadcast.
ReplyDeletefor Byker Bob on _Being Had_
ReplyDeletecopy of email:From "slow reader"
Sunday, March 31, 2002 4:18 PM
From:
"RaymondDick@cs.com"
To:
cskizer@yahoo.com
I Got your manuscript, nearly through reading it. Thanks for the hard copy.
This is for your consideration. I may have told you, In January 1962, Mr. Armstrong decided to have a class in advanced prophecy. He conducted the first class and told us there was much we still did not know or understand about prophecy. In this class he wanted everyone to give any ideas that might come to mind. If of no value no harm done but if valuable they needed to be heard. It was important that we be right.
He taught only that first session. Ted finished the semester and his first comment was that we already know all there is to know about prophecy and there would be nothing new! Those in that class were Hoeh, Meredith, Zimmerman, Hill Portune, Apartian, McCullough etc. These all sat quietly for the rest of the semester. What you may think is the wisdom of HWA may be the stupidity of Mr. Knowitall. For this reason, this is for your consideration.
You said you agreed with Mr. Armstrong's explanation of the seals. In Matt. 24:1-2, Disciple showed Christ the buildings of the Temple. Christ answered that the time would come when not a single stone would not have been cast down. We were taught this meant the stones in the Temple. The Temple was destroyed in 70a.d. but Christ did not return. That doesn't bother anyone. So what! We got rid of those stones and that date is past so we are not looking to when the real stones will be cast down. That key has been disposed of.
The false Christ's were identified as the false ministers who had preached a false Gospel since the time of the Apostles. If Christ had returned when the first of those false teachers arose we might have a reason to think they were the ones Christ meant. It is now centuries later and Christ has not returned but the error is firmly embedded. We don't need to look for the real false prophets. We think we already know who they are. Therefore, the real ones mean nothing to us. We won't be here when they come because all we Philadelphians and will all have fled to Petra.
Furthermore, Christ is wrong about the first seal. It is not a man with a bow who gets a crown and goes forth to make war. That seal is "false prophets." Ask any minister and he will assure you that the rider of that white horse is all the false ministers since the time of the Apostles. Of course!! How plain!!!!!
Christ was wrong about the stones to be cast down. He didn't know who the real false prophets will be, and we have wiped out the meaning of the first seal, What about the next three seals? Aren't they wars and rumors of wars, famines, and pestilences and death?
The four horsemen were no longer MEN. They were conditions. Therefore, we need not look for four men to arise 1335 days before the end. These conditions have all been, so the next item on our agenda is the 5th seal -- the great tribulation. The heavenly signs are an absolute farce. So much for prophecy ALA Ted!
If you depend on the definition of the seals and the rest of prophetic understanding to be correct, you have some major problems. Every definition of every seal is wrong.
The spoken word drifts off into space and disappears. The written word is preserved forever. This is why it is very important to be right.
Carry On!
Ray
Homer hasn't shaved since 1976, and he is a mountain man.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Carolyn. This stuff gets really deep. I didn't know Raymond Dick, but his son Ron was a year ahead of me at AC, and Ron and I were in the same Ambassador Club one year.
ReplyDeleteFrom Ray's letter, which of course was written fully 40 years after that advanced prophecy class, it appears that HWA and GTA were at considerable odds regarding what the church knew about prophecy. Ray's thought patterns and writing become difficult to track from that point on, with the statements (probably sarcasm) about Christ being wrong (we hear this from our atheist friends from time to time as well), but it appears that Ray felt that some of the church's assumptions identifying the symbolism that the prophecies were based upon were inaccurate, meaning that the interpretation of the prophecies would then also be inaccurate.
For myself, years ago, I decided that most major catastrophes are just so huge and devastating that you just can't prepare for them in advance, so therefore it is ridiculous to get hung up on or be manipulated by prophecy. That stuff can ruin your enjoyment of living in the moment. Further, I concluded that prophecy can't be interpreted reliably in advance for any useful purposes, such as a warning, It is only in retrospect, after events have happened, that we can see that something that happened was foretold in advance. This wisdom came to me after decades of being jacked around by and scared into compliance with totalitarian religion that masqueraded as "true" Christianity.
So, basically, the value for me in your husband's writing was the possibility that HWA had known sometime in 1962 that his prophecy mold was incorrect, but had continued to milk it anyway. And, of course that would be just one more coffin-nail for Armstrongism. It's not as if we're experiencing a shortage of those, is it?
Thanks again,
BB
Herbert Armstrong was a boozing alcoholic.
ReplyDeleteJust how much of the addled prophecies he preached that he got from G. G. Rupert did he realize were wrong? Would he have had the presence of mind to know?
Does it even matter?
I think Homer's logic from the first link is kinda funny:
ReplyDelete"Time is the arbiter of whether the claim that another Passover slaughter of firstborns will occur, will begin the Tribulation is true. There is no other arbiter from inside time. Popularity, following, acquired physical facilities mean nothing. Either what I write will happen, or it won't. If it doesn't, then I will rightfully disappear into the flotsam of history. If it does, then you are without excuse..."
So, Homer doesn't seem to be terribly sure he's right. He doesn't seem to be claiming to have access to "special revelation." It seems to be just a guess. It's a possibility, along with an infinite number of other possibilies. He is convinced of it either because of a feeling, or for reasons that he knows are so poor that no one else should be convinced (that's what a guess is, isn't it?).
Of course, the problem here is that he's not the only guesser around, hawking his guesses. How are we supposed to guess who the right guesser was, if any? Indeed, we may have our own competing guesses. So the fact that Homer is hawking his guess really doesn't do anything to narrow down our choice when we make our guesses.
But if it turns out he is right, not because he knew, but just because he happened to win the lottery and guess right, then, all of us who guessed wrong will be "without excuse" because we weren't as lucky, or were bad guessers, bad at guessing who the right guesser was, or something like this? This is like a lottery where if you guess the person who guessed the right numbers, you win a million bucks, but if you guess wrong, you get sent to the guillotine?
Matthew 5:3 Blessed are the good guessers, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Why are we making a big deal about a man named Homer Kizer?...because his name is Homer...Kizer?
ReplyDeleteOK, that does it. I'm changing my name to Homer...Pigeon!
This next remark is not intended to single out any one person specifically. And, I'm going to go out on a limb in posting it, but here goes!
ReplyDeleteI have come to the conclusion that it is actually SINFUL to conduct a Christian ministry (or for that matter, any other kind) either based on prophecy, or using prophecy as a spike or recruitment technique.
Why?
If indeed the Bible prophecies are even intended to be understood in advance of their fulfillment, the fact that the versions presented by any known ministry simply do not come to pass, especially when dates are a part of them, proves that no living, breathing person on planet earth today even remotely understands them. Therefore, anyone teaching prophecy is (Ginger Baker drum roll) *lying*!
We must also examine how these ministries use and cheapen what the Bible describes as a sacred and special gift. They fake this gift to motivate people, not into individual study or into an independent prayerful relationship with God, but to scare them into their own collectives, to modify behavior, careers, future hopes, loyalties, and finances, to the ministry's benefit. It is a psychological entrapment not unlike an addiction or dependency, often lasting not only for life, but into the lives of subsequent generations.
Coerced character is of great value to these collectives, especially if the coercion applies to the time and financial resources. However, coerced character is of no spiritual value. It has nothing to do with free will, or transformation. The moment the coercion and supervision are gone, so often is the character.
Prophecy has also been used to create elitism. "We know, they don't, and we'll be protected, while they have to suffer! Ha Ha Ha!" Or, how about racial elitism? Instead of seeing all Christians of all colors as the new Jews, or the New Israelites, it is "We White Europeans, as the lost tribes of Israel, are going to dwell in the New Jerusalem with Jesus, while all of the non-Israelites will be sent back to their homelands!
Christian churches exist in which people know that there is such a thing as prophecy, but they do not make it the basis of their faith. They realize that since it is basically unknowable, it deserves no special emphasis. They concentrate on teaching and living the Christian lifestyle, and entrust their future to God. Donations, or tithes and offerings are given from the heart, unenforced by ministerial police. Herbert W. Armstrong was not about warning the world. That was basically a display for the benefit if his supporters. Had warning the world been his goal, he was one of the most abysmal failures in history. Unlike his contemporary Billy Graham, HWA even wussed out when he finally was in the presence of presidents and kings. No warning, no gospel, just "a strong hand from somewhere"
He was about scaring "dumb sheep" into his own self-serving empire, an empire in which he was able to exercise absolute authority, and live better than royalty while technically owning nothing. Everything else we saw was simply fluff in support of the con and coercion. I suspect that he was every prophecy-based ministry in microcosm.
BB
"Herbert W. Armstrong was not about warning the world. That was basically a display for the benefit if his supporters. Had warning the world been his goal, he was one of the most abysmal failures in history. Unlike his contemporary Billy Graham, HWA even wussed out when he finally was in the presence of presidents and kings. No warning, no gospel, just 'a strong hand from somewhere.'"
ReplyDeleteTrue, HWA was not about preaching any gospel or warning anyone of anything. That surely could not have been his goal. But it wasn't just a display. That was merely the cover story to hide the true purpose of his "gospel" from his supporters. That's right, the true purpose had to be hidden from his supporters.
HWA was an advertising man and he had a rare talent. The World Tomorrow program was an infomercial for his cult. This was his advertisement and his marketing. This was how he found his prospective supporters, the willing dupes around the world who would declare themselves to be his "sheep," beat a path to his door, and demand to be fleeced. He was, of course, all too willing to oblige. But this was how he hooked his suckers, and I have to hand it to him here, he was good at it. And we can be thankful that nobody else in all of Armstrongism has been able to duplicate what he did.
Likewise, meeting with presidents and kings wasn't about preaching any gospel either. That was about HWA's bucket list: hobnob with world leaders, check! It didn't hurt that it was an extra angle for his marketing scheme to tell prospective supporters that he had "met with world leaders to proclaim the gospel message that jesus christ himself preached" except that he hadn't done any such thing. All he really did was pay large sums in order to check something off his bucket list.
Of course, those who are still HWA's willing dupes, still demanding to be fleeced by those who come in his name, will dispute this perspective on their history. They will say that he did warn the world of something that is still going to happen, most likely still "in the next 3-5 years!" But I think it's becoming increasingly obvious that this perspective was, indeed, HWA's own privately held perspective. This is what HWA thought he was doing. Not that he was going to ruin everything by spilling his own beans. HWA may have been mad, pathological, and completely off his rocker, but he wasn't crazy!
Plain and simple, "rophecy" sucks moose balls.
ReplyDeleteSadly, even today the concept is cherished by people who wannabee 'oh-so-special' in the highest sense possible.
But the concept of "prophecy" was invented to enslave and manipulate people.
It's interesting how people with ideas of being "totally free and knowledgeable and in God's best graces" get ensnared by the traps of various delusions and then have a psychological need to try and spread their imagined holy interpretations.
Getting others to high-five them is their way to convince themselves that they're right.
Heck, haven't there been a bunch of presidential candidates who have stated that God wants them to be elected President? (Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney, Allen West, Ronald Reagan, Ben Carson, etc etc etc etc etc etc.)
What Herbert W. Armstrong Didn't Know, Section 2 is now available and addresses the Bible's infallibility.
ReplyDeleteBTW: Byker Bob, your comment of 1-13-15 in encouraging …
Section 2 states:
ReplyDelete"Herbert Armstrong never ceased being physically minded."
Thus disqualifying him as being any sort of religious leader because he could never understand anything 'spiritual'. He did not qualify as a minister under New Testament standards.
His followers are stuck in the physical, keeping the Feasts (sans the animal sacrifices which were an inherent part of the original), and, of course, tithing (but on wages and not on produce).
A real winner.