From the False Prophet Ronald Weinland: Don't Drink the Flavor Aid Served by False Prophets
This post is timed for publication at the minute for sundown in Jerusalem at the start of False Prophet Ronald Weinland’s latest 1260-day period.
This well be the fourth Great Tribulation I’ve experienced. The first Great Tribulation was the one that began in 1972 leading up to the time that Christ didn’t return on Trumpets of 1975 per the prophesy Herbert Armstrong cleverly had surrogates put out so he could deny it.
The second Great Tribulation began in April of 2008, when Ronald Weinland prophesied “nukular” explosions in US port cities by the following July, but this Great Tribulation didn’t last very long. Weinland abandoned that timeline just two months later — but without his stopping his preaching in violation of his “If by Pentecost” promise made on March 29, 2008. Instead, he announced another timeline.
The third Great Tribulation began in December of 2008, with Weinland and the Mrs. traveling to Jerusalem a second time on the tithe-payers’ dime to “begin their jobs as the Two Witnesses”. But even though Weinland didn’t abandon this timeline, Christ did not return on May 27, 2012. Too bad for Ron because a couple of weeks later he was convicted on 5 counts of criminal tax evasion.
So now we have the start of the fourth Great Tribulation, with an extra 50 days padded in there to make Ron’s date counting come out. This time Ron isn’t in Jerusalem as he is still an involuntary guest of the Bureau of Prisons residing at the minimum security prison camp in Terre Haute, Indiana. But maybe he’ll breathe fire on the guards until they release him to take off his lime green jumpsuit and put on his $1500 suit of sackcloth in order to confront world leaders, turn water into blood, and strike the earth with plagues.
Somehow I think this is not the last Great Tribulation I will experience despite my advancing years.
27 comments:
Where is Kscribe when we need him? Considering all of his incredible video presentations, surely he could come up with some exquisite tribulation greeting cards!
Happy tribulation, everyone!
BB
Sorry...can't make it. I have to work today :)
Well, our home coffee machine broke down this morning. I don't know if that counts for "The Tribulation" or not, but it does for me!
"The first Great Tribulation was the one that began in 1972 leading up to the time that Christ didn’t return on Trumpets of 1975 per the prophesy Herbert Armstrong cleverly had surrogates put out so he could deny it".
MY COMMENT - Although I agree with the timeline long preached by WCG ministers prior to 1972 regarding the Great Tribulation and the return of Christ, I disagree that HWA didn't also put it out. First, I have a direct quote from Herbert W. Armstrong written in my sermon notes in the Feast brochure from the 1970 Feast of Tabernacles in Mount Pocono - "Our Work COULD be over in the first week of January, 1972".
Second, Mr. Armstrong often spoke of the significance of the 19 year time cycles as milestones in "the Work of God". The 19 year time cycles began with his broadcast on Oregon radio station KORE in the first week of January, 1934. The second 19 year time cycle began with the first week of January, 1953 when the World Tomorrow broadcast went into Europe. And the last time cycle was to happen in January, 1972 with the Work being completed and the Great Tribulation commencing with a German attack on America. I remember it like it was yesterday as I would look out my Laurel, Maryland bedroom window as I laid down to sleep looking to see if the Germans were attacking my neighborhood!
When the prophesied week passed without a German attack, I remember the silence was deafening in the WCG. Finally, a month later, Mr. Herbert Armstrong sent out a letter stating the true significance of the 19 year time cycle on January, 1972 was (drum roll please) .... ADVERTISING IN READER'S DIGEST!
Many of the dumb tithe slave sheep didn't get it then in 1972, and still don't get to this very day. Or, as B.T. Barnum would say, "You can fool some people some of the time, but you can fool "the weak of the world" in Armstrong's Church of God ALL THE TIME!
Richard
And this only is counting the WCG "great" tribulation, plus Weinland the Magnificent's 3 tribulations.
If we were to count all the tribulations of COGdom, there would surely be hundreds more. And if we were to expand our scope to include the rest of christendom's great tribulations, such as Harold Campings great tribulation, there would surely be thousands more, just within living memory. During the last 2,000 years, I am sure there has never been a time when there were not at least several great tribulations currently ongoing within the fevered minds of ardent and fearful believers. So common are these great tribulations, and so insignificant are they as to be totally undetectable, that the only thing that's "great" about them is their sheer quantity.
Which brings me to another question.
How many times, therefore, has Jesus returned in power and glory? How many days of the Lord has the Lord had so far? Hundreds? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Is it possible that the day of the Lord could occur and for no one to ever notice? According to the bible, it is.
It's commonly said that "with the Lord one day is like a thousand years." It's a staple of apocalyptic calculations. But the other half of 2 Peter 3:8 says, "...and a thousand years are like one day." Now, on the Gregorian calendar, there's an average of 365,242.5 days, and if that is equal to just one day with god, then such a "Day of the Lord" would last only .236 of our seconds. It gives new meaning to 1 Corinthians 15:52 where it says, " In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump..." There could even have been a millennial utopian rule, but since it only lasted 24 hours, nobody realized that's what it was.
So perhaps one day, with the right instrumentation, and searching using the right time scale, science will eventually confirm the truth of christianity, and why it seems that Jesus has been delaying his coming. Maybe it's just that no one has ever been able to detect it before.
There are going to have to be SEVEN "Great Tribulations," right? That's traditional COG preaching, after all.
given the Word of God in Malachi 4:6, i wonder if there is even going to be a great tribulation...
Know what's such a gas about this? The idea of a tribulation during our lifetimes was absolutely terrifying to young kids growing up in classic old school WCG. "Unconverted" relatives who were watching us from the outside looking in had their suspicions, but who could have come up with solid material that would have rebuttled 1975 in prophecy, and set our families straight? Where could one have even gone to learn of HWA's failed prophecies during World War II, the fact that he had sequentially mislabeled both Mussolini, then Hitler as the beast, and then connecting the dots directly back to the Adventist Movement, and William Miller? I can tell you that "the Germans" were far scarier than the Dracula and Frankenstein movies, or The Thing that Could Not Die. We're talking serious nightmares, horrible sadness for friends and relatives who had no knowledge of Armstrongism, and abject fear that maybe we ourselves would not even qualify. The internet, had it been present back then, would at the very least have mitigated our own personal holocausts.
What is truly a gas is that this raw untreated prophecy sewage has been run into the ground so badly, and failed so repetitively that it's almost a standing joke now when some self-ordained prophet or apostle goes on the rampage with yet another burst of street theatre forecasting it all anew. You'd think everybody would be screaming, what possessed HWA to single out Ussher as the basis for his dates? Jewish sources seem to indicate that there are perhaps 200 years until absolute year 6,000, if in fact the extrabiblical theory of a 7,000 plan is true! If I look back on the past forty years, had I not wised up in '75, I would have been tortured and abused by the so -called "church" for four whole additional decades versus only 3-1/2 years of letting the Germans take their best shot!
In some ways, I feel badly for kids today that are still being raised with the same type of fear. But, in another way, I believe them to be far more fortunate than we were, because the truth is just a few mouse clicks away. Information is more readily available, and much much more is known about cults. The kids may have to live in the same types of cultic circumstances until they are 18, but at least they have the possibility of realizing that it is all bogus, and can get out earlier, salvaging a bigger portion of their lives, and maybe limiting the damage. Let us pray that that is exactly what most of them do! Wouldn't it be great if their June calendars listed graduation day, and the next day was noted "Leave ACOG! Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life!"
BB
BB,
The 19 year time cycle theory ending in 1972 or 1975 would have been a hard nut to crack even if internet would have been around. It's something that needs to be waited out, like graduation day.
Connecting the dots back to Miller and 1844 was easy to do from the local library or Dr Hoeh's 1955 booklet the true church.
One has to put the fear into the context of the Cold War era which was serious and imminent. The doomsday clock was brought forward by the best scientist of the age.
That said, people with even limited, basic education should have known that Germany or the European Union for that matter, never had, still don't have and may not have in the foreseeable future capability to conquer even part of the USA as big as a poststamp. You need nuclear weapons, aircraft cariers, transport cariers etc etc . This had been clear to me during my entire captivity in wcg. So the fear of the Germans that still grips my family today never got to me personally, because in my mind to built these capabilities would take years even if such building program would commence. So even if it is true and bb and I are wrong about all cog's flaws than still the great tribulation will not be in another 10 years. That is basic kindergarten knowledge.
I do agree that all this stuff about fleeing and being afraid to die by the hand of the germans was and is real to most trapped. However from a personal perspective I felt that one could only die once and fear never got to me to the point that it made me stay. I agree that whereas monte wolverton had some effect on me but this type of problem is indeed solved by the ready availability of multiple media in this day and age. As a matter of fact some 10 years ago when I stumbled on one of the church splits youth camps, it occurred to me how good looking, healthy, fresh, modern and wealthy all that youth looked in comparison to us in our time. All product and evidence of ever improving science on healthcare and education.
I have great hopes for those with their June calendars as their major fixation.
nck
Well, "N", They did touch on the Disappointment of 1844, but dismissed Miller as a false prophet with no insights from God, and then of course proclaimed that HWA was the real deal. There was a PT article by HWA in the early '60s, titled "No, I Was Never a Seventh Day Adventist, or a Jehovah's Witness." The ministers sometimes referred to Mrs. Ellen G. White as "Mrs. Egg White." Seems like they had great contempt for all other previously established versions of Christianity, and openly mocked them.
Also, in our public schools, the history teachers had us writing a variety of papers, some of them on the anticipated European Union, and possible unions involving the countries on the western hemisphere, similar tomwhat we know today as NAFTA. So, we were hearing about the United States of Europe not only iat sabbath services and through the PT, but also at school.
The drama queens in WCG didn't just teach us that the Germans would kill us. Tales of starvation, beatings, fingernails pulled out, babies smashed against walls, rape, experimental operations without anaesthetics, and other torture were interwoven in the sermons of the day, and movies about the worst elements of the holocaust and Third Reich were shown to the campers at SEP, and the students at Ambassador College. Parents told their children that had the good sense to rebel that God would supernaturally keep them alive for the entire tribulation so that they could suffer the full brunt as opposed to mercifully dying. It is difficult to express one's reactions to this using G-rated language, especially after watching last night's episode of NCIS Los Angeles which was themed around a cult. Hope NCIS Jimmy was watching that one! Armstrongism is not a truthful, nurturing church in any way, shape, or form.
You mentioned Monte, who was a personal friend of mine at AC, but I think you might have meant Basil, his dad, and his very effective art work illustrating Armstrong's booklets. Monte was a good enough friend that I got to spend some time with his parents when they came to visit him at college. Basil was not a monster. He had a great sense of humor, and was fun to be around. He seemed to be a fairly typical church member, humble in a way that distinguished him from most of the other ministers, and interested in how "the work" was growing and such.
One need only read "The Journal" to realize that Armstrongism today is not only tohu and bohu, (see the advertisements), but is also slowly dying. No charismatic GTA types are surfacing to take things to the next level, and all of the marketing approaches and gradual changes are failing. I don't believe people are even turned off by their leaders' false prophecies any more. It's when the authoritarianism, disingenuousness, power struggles, and purges affect them directly that they are reluctantly leaving.
BB
BB
You are right.
Your story of Basil reminds of the fact how many nice and kind people there were/are in the cog's and especially the wcg of old, albeit at times spouting the worst kind of racism, colonialism and other horrors while naively and casually conversing. I was indeed not speaking of the "man" Basil but about the drawings that affected me somewhat in my younger years.
Your other "horrific" comments remind of the fact that the WCG in USA differed somewhat in tone and content in "the outer realm." In the USA I encountered true fascism in the WCG whereas in the outer realm wcg was more benign. Race relations in the rest of the world were different from the USA and the German members certainly didn't look upon themselves as "the Germans" comitting horrors on the campus. When I was late for services in Germany one time as a visitor and apologized profusely, they kindly remarked that they "were not like you guys". Also in the youth camps I found that the European camps were seen as a breath of fresh air from the American camps.
I do not want to imply in any way that wcg was benign but if time and place allowed it we could have a very nice conversation how American fascism coloured the US churches in a way that was culturally very different in the Kenyan churches and sometimes even illegal in the European churches.
Kind of how culture influences the world of Islam showing more benign versions in some countries and extreme in other parts of the world.
Ok,
I give it to you.
KKK doctrine as originating in the Oregon area seeping into American Fundamentalism was also incorporated in lectures at the European Youth Camps every year.
I believe it is Pam Dewey doing some marvelous research on its consequences in the USA. (starting to learn referencing here)
My only point is and has been that to many HWA was solely a religious figure.
Looking at the demographics of the "International franchise" HWA was also a messianic American, ushering in the pax Americana in a time that the ruling empires of the day folded, nostalgia to the british akin to visions of empire, helping a deposed belgian king retain some of his view on the world, indeed give the greeks meaning in a new construct etc etc all in the name of that unseen hand of economics that sweeps you away like a Bric if you don't yield.
Nck
Nick wrote:
"KKK doctrine..."
Be specific. Don't just cite a boogeyman like the KKK. What doctrine are you talking about?
American fundamentalism, especially of the southern baptist variety, has been steeped in ideas that would later be championed by the KKK since colonial times. Something like that didn't "seep" into American fundamentalism later, because it was already there long before the formation of the KKK.
"HWA was also a messianic American, ushering in the pax Americana in a time that the ruling empires of the day folded, nostalgia to the british akin to visions of empire, helping a deposed belgian king retain some of his view on the world, indeed give the greeks meaning in a new construct etc etc all in the name of that unseen hand of economics that sweeps you away like a Bric if you don't yield."
HWA was a kook. He wanted to rub shoulders with royalty and the elite, but he didn't operate in their circles. He wasn't elite. Who outside of WCG members and co-workers took him seriously? The protestant world detested him because he denigrated them unfairly. He didn't usher in anything. All this CIA-WCG bullshit is the most nonsensical conspiracy theory I've ever heard.
HWA was a pedophile, and a sociopath. We, the chumps he despised, donated to him an operating budget of $200M per year at the height, with which he was able to buy some limited influence and spew his apocalyptic garbage on TV and in print, and bribe his way into audiences with foreign leaders. They were willing to take his money, but let's face it, on the world's stage, he was an embarrassment.
Unless you can pony up proof, everyone is justified in remaining highly skeptical about any CIA-WCG connection.
9:01 am
Thank you for engaging in fair manner.
I will not attempt to write a doctoral thesis here since ALL I claim is out there on the internet from reliable sources and mostly from church publications. The missing dimension in all this free available information is knowledge by the readers in how actual contacts between/with heads of state come into being and how debriefings by the security services after such contacts work.
Hell, even Sadam's poo is examined after an international conference and just recently british services bugged all press and all computers made available to diplomats and press. This is well known and published in all major newspapers so I am not quoting.
"KKK doctrine..."
Be specific. Don't just cite a boogeyman like the KKK. What doctrine are you talking about?
In this case I am of course speaking out british israelism.
Why am I to quote from the autobiography. All here read it. HWA an high school drop out studied extensively in Oregon libraries.
In case it is deleted I am including one of the many links on KKK activism in Oregon in the early twenties.
http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/ku_klux_klan/#.VkOCFvkveM8
It is in Oregon where HWA got in contact with the BI theory of white supremacy.
Salem specifically was a hotbed for Kkk activity.
American fundamentalism, especially of the southern baptist variety, has been steeped in ideas that would later be championed by the KKK since colonial times. Something like that didn't "seep" into American fundamentalism later, because it was already there long before the formation of the KKK.
Fair. HWA however was specifically dismissed by his church for insisting it adopted BI Identity movement and other KKK teachings.
Now if you are truly interested in the history of the kkk, history of the kkk in oregon in the twenties, british israelism and fundamentalism, I will have to refer you to the best Universities of the Nation.
"HWA was also a messianic American, ushering in the pax Americana in a time that the ruling empires of the day folded, nostalgia to the british akin to visions of empire, helping a deposed belgian king retain some of his view on the world, indeed give the greeks meaning in a new construct etc etc all in the name of that unseen hand of economics that sweeps you away like a Bric if you don't yield."
HWA was a kook. He wanted to rub shoulders with royalty and the elite, but he didn't operate in their circles. He wasn't elite. Who outside of WCG members and co-workers took him seriously? The protestant world detested him because he denigrated them unfairly.
To dismiss HWA as a kook , is to dismiss other (important) charismatic figures as kooks without truly understanding what their attraction was.
For you it might have been that you had finally proven the final interpretation of the bible for yourself. I was merely explaining that HWA as a charismatic figure had different points of attraction to others for instance the british living in a completely different universe (collapse of their empire) and replacing it with the american empire. To you wcg may just have been a church. For those in outer realms the church was an american corporation that needed police protection on the holidays after US military personel were bombed in Lebanon.
He didn't usher in anything. All this CIA-WCG bullshit is the most nonsensical conspiracy
theory I've ever heard.
This conspiracy thing is a label put on me by others. I have only stated and can easily be verified that payments for the world tomorrow broadcasts on many more radiostations than radio swan were a major part of the funding of the cia program to broadcast the american empire to the world. The contribution of world tomorrow was more than substantial.
I did not one time claim cia contacts with hwa. i ve heard sermons in which he couldn't even find switzerland on a map. As a matter of fact he was extremely "self educated." hwa however was one of the most effective speakers ever among other talents. His combination of talents was a valuable asset and they have been used extensively.
There were only 5 members of wcg. Wcg was controlled by stanley rader. He did not take stupid pills. He was the person and I am quoting "knowledgeable of the ways of the world."
Some of his friends and chief wcg financial controllers still work for his succesful son.
Stanley Raders influence certainly didnt stop after his resignation and his final act was putting tkach in place. It is no coincidence that the Auditorium concert series stopped and the AICF folded the very minute the last lease payment to the banks was finalised. Of course you know that the church never owned a GII jet or other jetss these were leased to the church by Stanley Rader.
end of two
You are right hwa was no elite. I don't understand however you remark that he didn't operate amongst them. Others here have claimed that I put too much importance on HWA. That is their reading of conspiracy theories. I said HWA was a messenger, his special gift was communication. He operated amongst figures like the Rothschildts in Israel and London, through cooperation in archeological digs or other sponsoring. Now I can write another epistle on the importance of archeology and political implications of biblical archeology in Israel. But you do the research if interested.
When I mention a name like Rothschildt, all jump on me for claiming conspiracy. To me these people are just part owners of one of the banks I partly own. Yes they have established (by pressuring dIsraeli etc) Israel and paid for most of its important public buildings not unlike the Rockefellers donating the land in Manhattan where the UN is build on. Is that conspiracy. To me it is just fact and history.
HWA was a pedophile, and a sociopath. We, the chumps he despised, donated to him an operating budget of $200M per year at the height, with which he was able to buy some limited influence and spew his apocalyptic garbage on TV and in print, and bribe his way into audiences with foreign leaders. They were willing to take his money, but let's face it, on the world's stage, he was an embarrassment.
Unless you can pony up proof, everyone is justified in remaining highly skeptical about any CIA-WCG connection.
May be later. I m tired of first having to explain first basic knowledge.
Perhaps you are right about the cia and now one was interested in a guy visiting most world leaders in the seventies. (oh I just remembered, hwa already dined with sheiks on was it the lusitania in 1915, can remember exactly, its in his letters somewhere, you look it up if interested)
I also invite you to study the Japanese political system in the sixties and seventies. This democracy thing imposed by the US never really caught on. You study the lives and families of HWA "sons" and the industrial political empires they represent. Of course they flew in Raders GII to Kuwait, Africa, South America for the next Alpaca wool import. Do it yourself I'm sick of having to explain basics.
You are probably the type of person believing that the USA paid a lot of money for waging the First Gulf war. CIA master GWBush managed in such a phantastic way that after the First Gulf War the USA actually made money. Of course large part of the war was paid for by Japan.
So in this huge complex of phantastical connection of many dots hwa in my opinion served as a postman. And yes in the big world postmen don;t come on bikes but fly signature GIII jets.
nck
nck-
Unsubstantiated conspiracy theories can be debated till the cows come home. The burden of proof to establish these "basics" as more likely true than not true lies with you, however. Just making unsubstantiated claims achieves nothing. Got it?
To speak of British Israelism as though it were invented by the KKK or something, just so you can include "KKK" as a buzzword is sensationalistic, misleading, and kinda irresponsible. Just like any typical conspiracy-monger. It's just one more reason to categorize your tripe as tabloid-worthy. It's not like we need to stoop to making up shit with which to sully HWA.
If you want to say that HWA got British Israelism SPECIFICALLY from the KKK, and NOT from some other source such as John H. Allen's 1902 Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright, then once again, the burden of proof to make such a connection lies with you.
The reason for people with pet doctrines, conspiracy theories, or claiming new revelation is the same. It's egotistical attention-seeking behavior. By running off at the keyboard, you think you can fool people here into thinking that you're special. How is this different from HWA or his minion's motivations? Get in line, johnny-come-lately. You're late to this particular party and your schtick is already old hat.
5:37
I see what you mean.
You are forcing me to write scientific articles instead of storytelling. I make more money storytelling but you are right to call me on the BI details if it is a subject that matters.
-Perhaps we can agree on the following that albeit hwa infringed on Allen's copyrights ideas do not come to fruition in total isolation. It is like claiming a certain german leader in 1929 wrote a book and suddenly 40 million people are convinced that book told the truth. The 17th century BI theory found its way into Christian Identity and 3k.
-I provided a link into the all pervasiveness of 3k in the Oregon area at the time. So we can agree on cultural aspects of that environment. It was not a Thai cultural environment. So we agree on that too.
I am not sure however if we agree on the level of all pervasiveness of this type of culture. Your next door neighbor or the next person in your grocery store could be a member of such club in that time.
http://armstrongism.blogspot.nl/2008/03/common-beliefs-between-ku-klux-klan-and.html
All agree that hwa is seen as the main distributor of BI doctrine in the world. No organisation in the world provided so much media in spreading the anglo saxon supremacy theory. That the Anglo Saxons are entitled to the goodies of the earth because of some promise. And mixing of races would lead to total degenaration. (7 laws of success early version).
Now to claim a connection between tim mcveigh the bombing of the murray building and hwa would probably be considered by you as wide speculation and sensationalistic. Now from a legal perspective I understand that position. However from a total outsiders perspective, let's say chinese it is all the same. From our perspective I understand we would claim no there is no connection and hwa was the more benign type.
It is not my intention to write an essay. Your specific question was about how I established a link between hwa and 3k ideas. After a 5 minute search amongst hundreds of websites I found a book by Timothy Miller "americas alternative religions"
He states that is was in the Pacific Northwest that the beginnings of the theological cracks between bi and christian identity appeared in the early 1920's. Reuben H Sawyer a clergyman from Portland Oregon was both influential in both the growth of bisraelism and christian identity.
Sawyer helped draft the constitution of the BIWF and was present at its first congress in London in 1920 (along with J. H. Allen who wrote Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright)
Also, by the 1920s, Reuben H. Sawyer had another interesting focus. He was a key player in the Oregon Ku Klux Klan with Klan leader Fred Gifford, from 1921 to 1924. The Klan work then occupied much of his time (per Orr).
Reuben spoke to 6,000 people at Portland’s Municipal Auditorium about the Klan on Dec 22, 1921. The next year, 1922, he also spoke to a crowd in Eugene, Oregon on a stage decorated with a sword, “Bible,” flag and an image of a burning cross (per Orr).
Now you cannot claim that hwa operated in a complete vaccuum and was totally isolated from the world doing his research in portland and oregon at the time.
Now for lack of time I have to stop now.
Let me make 2 more things clear. a) For now I have proven that hwa did not operate in total vacuum and isolation. There was something "in the air" in Oregon at the least.
b) Before you called me out on this subject I didn't know this. This is all new to me and I had never heard of Sawyer. I am surprised that even a five minute search on the internet brings up such interesting information on the culture in which hwa operated in his younger years. If there was something in the air in 1920 oregon it was not revelation by god as proven sufficiently for this blogs purpose.
Now if this is so easy. And of course much more research on Frank Armstrongs printing business (hwa defact school) and the books that were printed there can be done. How about do some research yourself on my other "wild speculation"
nck
Oh my,
There is so much more specific on Oregon whitetopia and its constitution
https://meetmythamerica.wordpress.com/2015/08/30/whitopia/
Other origins
https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/amerstud/article/viewFile/2905/2864
Thanks so much for calling me out and force me to investigate. I'm learning a lot of things I didn't know.
nck
And finally from an accredited source.
Encyclopedia of Right-Wing Extremism In Modern American History
Door Stephen E Atkins
A summarization of the oregon - hwa - bi - 3k connection.
By the way BB there is also the Yale, connection you blasted me for. I esteem Yale very highly, but not all of its alumni.
Well, this stuff just seems to follow me around everywhere I go these days. We were participating in a technology exhibit yesterday and a guy came into our area of the hall absolutely co-opting the whole show with a two hour rant against the Federal Reserve Banks, the FBI, the ATF, and the hopelesness of our two sides of the same coin political parties. Just as we hoped everything was calming down, another attendee who had seemed fairly normal earlier joined in the conversation to introduce Bible prophecy, the Olivet discourse, the end times, and the book of Revelation into the conversation. It was weird. Where do these people come from?
BB
"Where do these people come from?"
Mainstream Christianity.
(Maybe they are kooks who liked your claim that people are now being raised from the dead in Jesus' name, as well as your blaming the "mainstream media" for keeping such alleged modern-day "truths" from the populace.)
So, this is your "source" then. This is what you're claiming as the support for your "oregon - hwa - bi - 3k connection." You do realize that in order to be a source, it has to say the same thing as you're saying, right?
So, I'll reproduce the relevant portion so everyone can just read it and see what your "source" actually says:
Encyclopedia of Right-Wing Extremism In Modern American History. Stephen E. Atkins. p. 137:
"British Israelism came to the United States in the 1880s. An early convert was Joseph Wild, the minister of the Union Congregational Church in Brooklyn. New York. Wild had converted to British Israelism after reading John Wilson’s book in the late 1850s. He was preaching on Anglo-Israelism topics already when he was exposed to Edward Hine's works in the late 18703.27 Wild accepted the theory that the tribe of Manasseh had migrated to the American colonies and had established the institutions of the United States. Another early convert was Reuben H. Sawyer, a pastor of the East Side Christian Church in Portland, Oregon. His conversion to British Israelism connected to his right-wing viewpoint. Later, in the 1920s, Sawyer became active as a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon."
"Even more important in the growth of British Israelism was the visit of Edward Hine to the United States and his travels around the country between 1884 and 1888. Hine converted several figures who were to continue the growth of the British Israelist movement in the United States. Most important of these converts was Charles A. L. Totten, a U.S. Army officer at Yale University who became chief spokesperson for the movement during the rest of the 19th century. Totten was a prolific writer, and two of his books, The Order of History and Our Race: Its Origin and Destiny, were influential in spreading British Israelism in the United States. Under his influence, several religious leaders adopted British Israelism. Among the most prominent were J. H. Allen, the founder of the Church of God (Holiness); Herbert W. Armstrong, the founder of the Worldwide Church of God; and Charles Fox Parham, a Kansas evangelical leader."
Here's what your source claims: Edward Hine → Charles A. L. Totten → HWA. Your source makes no connection between HWA and Reuben H. Sawyer or the KKK.
It seems you're contradicting your source by trying to plug HWA into this BI lineage instead: John Wilson → Joseph Wild → Reuben H. Sawyer.
Care to try again?
Assuming the autobiography is trustworthy enough to believe HWA really did spend 6 months in the Portland Library in 1926-27, he only notes having read Darwin, Haeckel, Spencer, Huxley, Vogt, and Gibbon. He does not say whether he got his British Israelism from Brothers, Wilson, Yeatman, Gawler Hine, Bird, Aldersmith, Rand, Fisher, Garnier, Totten, Allen, Wild, or Sawyer. I'm not sure anyone alive can be precisely sure where he got it from. One thing I do know is that Allen's Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright was very big in Pasadena during the 60's and 70's.
But, for argument's sake, let's nail down exactly what heretofore unsubstantiated claim you're actually trying to make. Are you claiming that HWA made contact with Sawyer at his East Side Christian Church, or are you claiming they met as fellow klansmen?
STATUS: FAIL
1
9:04
After 5 minutes of research I provided an extensive answer of about 5 postings of which only a small part of the tail got published. Since the monitors did not provide additional information, I must assume there was some technical glitch of somekind. My “great disappointment” made me take a break.
In this retry I will therefore stick to being short and basic, refraining from my usual flowery use of interpunction. Although I found your research and conclusions extremely limited, at least you gave it try. So you deserve an honest answer too.
First of all your argument is extremely limited. It is as if you are saying. There cannot be a left wing politician/peson in the USA since Hillary Clinton did not personally hand her books to voters in book stores. As if a certain book in 1929 had to be personally delivered by a certain german leader at the time and only then 40 million germans were suddenly convinced by the strong argument in that book.
History doesn’t work that way and you know it.
So let me provide some background information.
Let’s start with something familiar. The White Tribes of Israel were to move North West. In our little denomination this was interpreted as the British Isles. Now how about someone from the Southern States in the USA, how could that be interpreted. North West is of course Oregon.
Oregon
From meetmythamerica.com whitopia article
https://meetmythamerica.wordpress.com/2015/08/30/whitopia/
There is only need to read until the 1921 picture of the Portland Mayor and Police Chief.
The Oregon constitution of 1920 -1930 is information I only found out after you forced me to research. So I have to thank you for that. Isn't it fascinating to read about that dark side of Oregonian history and the “fertile soil” HWA was studying his new found ideas.
2
Now to claim that HWA operated in complete isolation from the pervasive culture and tucked away in a Portland library studying only books he mentions in his Autobiography is an extremely limited way of doing research.
Sawyer
Let’s turn to Sawyer
Sawyer for sure played a key role in the organization of the British Israel World Federation (BIWF) which came into being in 1919. Orr says that Reuben was “instrumental” in the establishment of that organization (quoting Michael Barkun’s “Religion and the Racist Right”).
Sawyer helped draft the constitution of the BIWF and was present at its first congress in London in 1920 (along with J. H. Allen who wrote Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright). At the congress, Reuben gave three addresses and presided over a session (per Orr). He also spoke at other BI conferences in England at that time. In 1929, Herbert Garrison, the president of the BIWF, journeyed to Toronto, Canada for a meeting. Sawyer was on hand to meet him.
In addition to his work on the umbrella BIWF, Sawyer in the 1920s had a role in the establishment of Portland’s Anglo Israel Research Society, helped organize a speaker’s bureau to promote Anglo Israelism and supported a BI bookstore then in business in Portland (per the Nizkor Project on the Internet).
Reuben spoke to 6,000 people at Portland’s Municipal Auditorium about the Klan on Dec 22, 1921. The next year, 1922, he also spoke to a crowd in Eugene, Oregon on a stage decorated with a sword, “Bible,” flag and an image of a burning cross (per Orr).
Another meeting in Portland, evidently in 1922, brought out a full house (the meeting hall was guarded by robed Klansmen) and the need to turn some 1,500 people away from the meeting hall as they could not get in to hear Sawyer.
In 1922, Sawyer wrote and published a writing on “Truth about the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.” This pamphlet is available as a part of the Oregon History Project, now on the Internet.
Reuben spent about sixteen years from 1921 to 1937 speaking throughout the Pacific Northwest and Canada on British Israelism and evidently the Ku Klux Klan. He traveled widely and must have had some recognition and appreciation from his audiences. At some point in time, he seems to have retired to Modesto, Stanislaus County, California
Herbert W. Armstrong’s radio work in Oregon surfaced in about 1934. And quickly, in Southern California, Clem Davies (who was from Vancouver BC), Wesley Swift, San Capt, Bert Comparet, and others began having periodic “Bible Studies” by 1938 to lay the groundwork for the Christian Identity focus. Of course, the whole BI effort can be partially laid to Sawyer, as well as the Ku Klux Klan focus on Israel Identity.
3
So not only do we have wide and extensive and pervasive thought patterns in Oregon. There is also a connection beween the North East, Oregon - Vancouver and Southern California.
Now did hwa get his personal copy from Sawyer to infringe upon? That is limited thinking.
Sawyer was there in Portland and Eugene preaching to thousands in a state with interesting Constitution. Sawyer met the writer of Judah’s sceptre personally and was instrumental in the birth of the Christian Identity movement. Man, that is even more convincing evidence than trying to establish a direct link from the early apostles to hwa’s ministry.
Now perhaps you will claim that hwa’s type was the more benign type and distinct from the Christian Identity people blowing up buildings in Oklahoma. Perhaps you will point out other differences. In the end it is a story about how the anglo saxon white people are entitled to all the goodies on earth because of a promise. And sadly others missed out. I wish I had an investment in that franchise at the start of the American Empire.
I will not now go into discussions on how we had an evangelist of color. It was preached to me personally and handed out in the seven law of success booklet that the mixing of races would not lead to positive results. So If you argue the benign version of what I call 3k doctrine. Than I will need to provide extremely damning evidence about hwa, which I will not, since you have shown capable of some research of your own.
There are more sources about the origins of Christian Identity, the climate in Portland, Oregon in the twenties/thirties. But you know ther buzzwords so it might be interesting to find these yourself. Also an investigation into the books printed by Frank Armstrong might provide a clue into hwa's early education.
But let me finish here with a positive and personal story comparing that to your limited research.
In all my years in the church/ christian world and study of the bible. I knew for sure that a person called yeshua was brought up in a small town of nazareth. That he was called a carpenter. Suddenly this youngster was teaching and astonishing the most learned people in the country with incredible insight. I never understood how that could have happened to a rural guy from a small town in the mountains.
It was only after I visited Israel that I learned that this small little hilltown of Nazareth was somewhat of an outskirt of one of the most important cities of the Empire. (Sepphoris)
It was the seat of government, an astonishing major Synagogue a military base and a major trade route connecting the Eastern World with the West.
It suddenly all made sense to me how a younster could teach the scribes about the world, the heavens, kingdoms and empires knowing all, wise as the best philosophers.
Now, no one ever told me about a city of Sephhoris because it is not in the bible.
Now probably no one ever told you about the Constitution of Oregon, rallies of thousands of people listening in fertile ground. I know many facts can be found in the autobiography, but don’t limit yourself to the book of an ad man as if everything that ever occurred is written there.
Meetings in Oregon of 6000 people in 1920, would approximately be comparable to meetings of 40.000 people nowadays. The impact of such meeting on society would be much greater since this was before the time of radio, women had no voice and information and knowledge was distributed in completely different way and means than today. I'm not sure if resident numbers also included children. Then 6000 Oregoneon adults would represent 100.000 people nowadays.
Post a Comment