Glynn Washington talks about what its like growing up in the Worldwide Church of God and what its beliefs did to the emotional growth of its youth.
Learning the Craft of Storytelling from an Apocalyptic Cult
Glynn has national award winning radio show on PBS.
There is also a response from WCG/Grace Communion to the show.
16 comments:
I can see some of the diehard Armstrongites out there labeling him as an uppity negro who has his facts wrong and that the church was never racist.
The only racist that was ever part of the church was Anonymous.
How is it your first response is to bait people about race? Liberal DNA buddy, that’s the only way to explain it.
I got through the first 15 minutes but couldn't take it anymore.
He left as a teenager so that kind of gives away that he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. I’ve heard a little bit about churches in Michigan. I visited the Troy area once but it was after the split in 95.
No one ever set a date in 1987? What a preposterous lie that is. On PBS you can say anything because no one listens to PBS.
What he’s saying about white people in the church being part of the lost tribes of Israel is so beyond absurd. The doctrinal belief was that the entire Unite States was a recipient of the blessing of Jacob to his grandson Manasseh. It wasn’t an original idea. The pilgrims had it as well.
Now be honest you guys. What this guy is saying is totally baked.
Southern California was very diverse in our congregations. Never once was there anything said in print or at any lectern that said anything racist. He talked about Ham. I can see how that would affect a teenager. Imaging telling that in today’s PC environment. Again, not original or anything Armstrong came up with.
He’s not say the kind of racism of when dare to disagree with Obama anything. He’s saying it was more subtle. My guess is it came from his local school that pumped it into his head. Possibly he was in the class of the Retired Professor.
I’m not going to let this go by without a response when I see it. He’s lying.
I was there, what he’s saying didn’t happen.
Um. I was there, too. Not too far from Troy, Michigan. Not just once. For decades. "Anonymous" wasn't the only racist that was part of the church. I was there, and it happened. I saw it. First hand. At church activities. I could give you direct quotes even now, it made such an impression. And I'm white.
Um. I was there, too. Not too far from Troy, Michigan. Not just once. For a couple decades.
"Anonymous" wasn't the only racist in "the church." I saw it. First hand. Not at my "liberal" midwestern school, but at church activities. It made such an impression that I could give you a direct quote even now. I was there, it happened. And I'm white.
i grew up in the church, and yes there was racism, and no, pointing this fact out is not race baiting, but merely point out the facts...
people who like to proclaim "race baiting" or "race card" do so in a knee jerk and simplistic fashion any time a discussion happens about whites abusing people of color because they dont want to acknowledge the pain such abuse causes, and because they do not like to admit to the legitimacy of the complaints about such pain;
decades ago, two of my teen aged sisters went to a square dance on the big sandy campus of ambassador college; they were told by staff and chaperones that they could not dance with the whites, but had to square dance in a seperate group with the rest of the black teens...
this bizarre situation happened in the mid 1980's...
such was the kind of insanity that ruled the day in the world wide church of God, and to this very day racism and white supremecy remains a problem in the cogs (as is evidenced in the way they market to the public, or the fact that they refuse to comment on the state sanctioned murder of unarmed blacks, etc., even though they are always harping about abortion, homosexuality, etc.) regardless of the denials and self-righteous indignatiion...
personally, i dont care because the bible says of the children of israel that though they number as the sand of the sea, only a small number of them will be saved; regardless of how highly they think of themselves, and how they look down upon others, they will ultimately be humiliated...
i can remember a in a sermon that dr. meredith gave more than a decade ago where he praised the election of george bush, and claimed that maybe the bush presidency would extend the life of the united states; ironically the bush presidency brought the country to the brink of collapse, and the man whom lcg and thiel have currently been so critical of has basically bought us a little more time...
if you say the sky is blue when it is gray, and you say the sky is gray when it is blue you end up losing credibility and respect, and that is exactly what has been happening in the cogs from the beginning, especially if the opinion you make is so clearly racially biased...
I don't know how Dale is claiming Anonomous is racist by the comment written. The person is pointing out exactly what certain Armstrongites would say and still say to this day. I heard for decades how everyone not of the British Israelite blood line was referred to as Gentiles. It was the disguised way to say racist things about blacks and Hispanics.
Armstrongism has always been racist at its core. For many decades one of the popular books that floated around Pasadena HQ employees and church members was the Protocals of Zion. Dale can stick his head in the sand all he wants and deny racism in the church. He is a liar!
Herbert Armstrong was a racist. Of course he was, hailing, as he did, from a 19th century pre-separate-but-equal midwestern America. That's why Ambassador College accepted no black students until the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 forced his hand, at which point he would ONLY accept married black students to his college, so that there would be no excuse for black students mingling with white students, dancing with white students, or "miscegenating the races" with white students. Not on his watch!
In fact, the very idea that black people are inferior to white people is a biblical idea that arose in medieval times to justify serfdom and later black slavery, and it's biblical in at least two different ways:
First, there's the passages of Genesis that deal with the "curse" pronounced by Noah (and presumed to have been confirmed by God) upon Canaan the son of Ham, and that show that Canaan's brothers Mizraim (Egypt) and Cush (Aethopia) were black northern Africans. Hence, it's a convenient shorthand to assume any darker skinned person than you are has been "cursed" to be your servant in perpetuity. The darker your skin, the more of this "curse" you obviously inherited.
Second, there's the biblical idea that light and white symbolize goodness, purity, and godliness, while darkness and black symbolize evil and the satanic. Obviously, "white" people have God's favor and it only makes sense that those "black" people are "bad" in some way. The darker your skin, the more damned you obviously are.
Obviously.
Of course, this is absolute garbage and just one example of the kind of havoc that religion wreaks. But fundy christians have been eating this up for literally centuries!. I wish I could all that was in the past, but sadly, it isn't. It's one reason why the most racist part of America is the bible belt of the south and midwest, and why that's the place where racism will die last.
Genetics shows a couple of things:
First, dark skin is the original, and white skin is a later mutation caused by defects in the genes for the catabolic pathways for skin pigmentation.
Second, genetics shows that the 60%-80% of R1b men that populate the British Isles share a common ancestor NOT with the Jews, but with the black men of northern Cameroon! Which means that the reasons for external morphologies like skin color over thousands of years have nothing to do with lineage and everything to do with mutation.
my theory for why there is a bias in this world against darker skin (and there truly is a bias, whether it be in the mexican culture, the culture of the people of india, or brazil, or the african american culture, etc) stems from a single passage in Revelation 4, and also the fact that satan influences bad behavior:
i believe the book of Revelation describes Jesus in chapter 1:12-17, BUT in chapter 4 the description is of a Person who had the appearance of a jasper or sard stone; the colors those two stones have in common are a dark reddish brown...
i believe that Person to be the Father, and i think that satan's knowledge of His appearance and his contempt for anything of God leads him to influence us to even be biased against someone just because their complexion is dark...
Hell, Im German, and Im white too, and there was racism and racist statements made against Germans too in the WCG.
Always the idea that you are some kind of "Evil Assyrian" or that "your people will be the Beast Power" and "You are not part of the Israelites" etc.
Such nonsense, and very funny too, as the number one ethnicity of the counties of the United States (70% of all USA counties) are German descended!
DNA conclusively proves that Germans are not any different than English, Dutch, Dane, Swiss or any other Celtic, Anglo Saxxon peoples. But HWA had a unique spot for the Germans, and the church culture always treated even Germans as a "slightly less desirable white person".
"... the fact that satan influences bad behavior..."
The "fact." LMAO
"... the fact that satan influences bad behavior..."
Probably what the writer meant to say is "SATIN influences bad behavior."
I remember, for example, that time my wife and I slept between satin sheets in a hotel, and. . . .
definition of scoff: to speak derisively; mock; jeer..
this has been the general reaction of non believers to any notion of there being a spirit world; no scientific investigation, no research, just a knee jerk, uncontrolled attempt to belittle and humiliate; a behavior that takes little if any rationale, and is indicative of the influence of an invisible force...
yet another prophecy being fulfilled, for it is Written in the last days men will be scoffers...
dna tests have concludes that germanic peoples are indeed distinct from celtic peoples, but are related to nordic peoples...
dna tests have also concluded that celtic people were native to the british isles long before any anglo saxon arrived; dna tests have concluded that celts are also related to the basque people of northern spain...
Know what's funnier than rubber dog crap about the revisionists who deny the past racism of the Armstrong movement? In denying the obvious, they are opening the door for a shitstorm to hit their own lives, in real time, the present. IOW, folks, this is a self-punishing offense. It is to be laughed at, pathetically, not debated as if it had any merit.
We've all heard of lying for Jesus, but this isn't even that. It's lying for Herbie-Pervie, an activity for which all brownie points are totally imaginary!
BB
I thank God that I came out of Armstrongism not to long ago, however I do think that some of the facts Mr. Washingtion gave about Armstrongism are inaccurate. Mr. Washington was absolutely correct by calling WCG a cult, he was correct about what he said regarding Herbert Armstrong, and he was correct with his comments about the racist church doctrine of Anglo-Israelism and about the sons of Noah. It's a shame that he isn't rooted in relationshipe with Jesus Christ, otherwise he would still be a professing Christian instead of someone who admits that in his own spirtual life as he says "I simply do not know what the nature of this creation is about", and this is all because he read a book that says that the Holy Bible contradicts itself given to him by a WCG minister. Although I agree that Armstrongism is a cult, I thought the interviewer rode Mr. Washingtons jock by calling him a "great story-teller". Not to mention, I got the sense that this dude is a very full of himself too.
Post a Comment