It'd been a week since the love fest between administrators of COGWA popped into Charlotte for coffee and scones with Rod Meredith and crew. This was a meeting where absolutely nothing was implied other than brothers getting together for some warm chats, or at least that's the story LCG and COGWA want people to think.
Popping into town were Jim Franks, Clyde Kilough, Doug Horchak and Britton Taylor. For a group of high ranking ministers from a competitive splinter group to pop in at Charlotte like this is unusual, especially when they bring along their church treasurer and financial operations manager, Britton Taylor. More went on here that some chit chat over coffee in Rod Meredith's office. It is surprising that anyone actually believe this.
Jim Franks claims it was nothing but conversations around the table. They spent time talking about the evil empire of the Tkach era that drove them all out. They talked about doctrinal changes, that ripped the church apart, their common bonds in beliefs and their own churches. It was just one big love fest!
Do conversations need church treasures in attendance? Everyone knows that LCG and COGWA are both facing money issues, LCG more than COGWA though. Meredith knows that when he dies that the money will dry up. No one will support his son, Gerald Weston is too much of a dictator and will drive more away, many others cannot stand the thought of being under Richard Ames.
If LCG and COGWA actually do attempt to merge they are both going to be in for a huge shock. COGWA members refuse to join up with the heretics in Charlotte. LCG members consider the COGWAites heretics. Its one big unhappy dysfunctional family. But then, that is the current face of the entire Church of God movement. Never has there been so many unhappy disappointed people than at this point in COG history.
Storm clouds are brewing and a chill fills the air.
Observe how migrants in a given city sort themselves. Even people from the same nation, pick a differed area depending on the city they came from, and the region they came from eg northern or southern part of the country. This is universal in all countries. The same dynamics are at work in the COG splinters. From my observation, it's along education, character/class lines.
ReplyDeleteOh, don't be so gloomy.
ReplyDeleteDeath, destruction, devastation -- it isn't the 'world' any more -- it's the Armstrongist churches.
And so much good will come out of their demise.
It's sort of like using dead corpses to compost into fertilizer to help grow roses.
Yes, it would be more spectacular to have blood up to the horses' bridles and be burying bodies for months, but the deaths in this war will smell a lot sweeter....
I understand NOAA, the NFL,NHL,NBA, and the Pope are holding meetings with Prophet Thiel to catch up on the truth about weather, craniums and what Catholics are to believe. Willard Scott, Hulk Hogan and former Pope what's his name will be in attendance.
ReplyDeleteLCG and COGWA lay people view a merger with as much excitement as welcoming new Syrian Refugees.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, should they merge, much like a plugged upped commode, there new acronym should be...
The CLOG-WAD
Truly witty.
DeleteI think the COG culture is beginning a major transitional stage: with the old guard is dying off (literally in some cases), the new people will now struggle for power and dominance. The critical battle will be between offspring of the old guard or new folks. I'm betting it will be the offspring who wins, but if they do, it will spell the end the COG's within a generation.
ReplyDeleteYour assessment is correct. And as these youngers agglom the diminishing resources of a diminishing clan of obedients into a pointless exercise of sterilized christianity you are still encumbered with a vapor-locked group of obedient and miserable and disenfranchised people who were only doing their best to be spiritual. Now they're too old and tired to fight absurdity. So they will just settle down, let rediculous power plays roll over them and wait to die with the dim hope that they still picked the One True Church. Pathetic and sad.
DeleteNormally in war or hostile takeovers there must be total capitulation by the side seen as being the loser. There would need to be really dire circumstances to produce this capitulation. I just don't see that happening in this case.
ReplyDeleteBB
This is the result of churches with 'ranks' and nepotism and cronyism.
ReplyDeleteChrist is supposed to head his church. I think the CoG never really understood that at all.
Christ is in last place in the church of God. He isn't in sermons, booklets, kids lessons. No where.
Grace is forgotten and replaced with an angry hard to satisfy god as they try to "make it" into the kingdom.
Money is the god of the CoGs. It all revolves around money and every letter they send out since HWA's time was focused on money.
They are blind as bats, spiritually dead and have lost grace with Judaizing.
12.18 pm. They also hide that God leads every Christian directly, with no middleman minister in between. Even the Copeland and friends ministry teach this. Obey, obey, government, government, but God has been pushed to one side. The sin of Moses.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteHere is a BRIEF SUMMARY of the COGS:
THE ONE TRUE CHURCH
Worldwide Church of God (WCG) -- Herbert W. Armstrong
Approximately 150,000 men, women, and children met in peace, harmony, and doctrinal unity in the WCG at its peak. All was sunshine, rainbows, lollipops, and unicorns (with a few delayed prophetic guesses thrown in) until HWA died in January 1986.
THE STUPID AND WICKED REBELS
Church of God, International (CGI) – Garner Ted Armstrong
Intercontinental Church of God (ICG) – Garner Ted Armstrong/Mark Armstrong
About 5,000 stupid and wicked rebels followed GTA out of the WCG to start the CGI after GTA finally got expelled openly and permanently from the WCG in the late 1970's by his own loving father HWA for being such an unrepentant, total, fucking dickhead. All of HWA's previous attempts to keep GTA in the WCG and set him up as his successor were wasted on that spoiled brat GTA, who had to be expelled for the good of the WCG. When GTA got expelled from the CGI too for fooling around with another sexretary, GTA and about 2,000 remaining sinful suckers started the ICG. Dead Ted can no longer hop in bed with just any co-ed. GTA's son Mark Armstrong now plays boring old videos of GTA babbling.
THE APOSTATES
Worldwide Church of God (WCG) – Joseph W. Tkach, Sr.
Grace Communion International (GCI) – Joseph Tkach, Jr.
The father and son Tkach team that succeeded HWA after his death in 1986 went on to destroy the WCG and renamed the leftover wreckage GCI. Afflicted by a severe case of “cognitive dissonance” (whatever that is), they got fooled into thinking that good was evil and that evil was good. Around January 1995, they openly wrote up their total apostasy in the church's newspaper. Joey Jr. later repented just enough to bring back tithing, but that was all. Any leading, ham-eating Sunday-keeper could have told him that you do not mess with the tithing law, just with every other law. Many of the hirelings who went along with this apostasy for the money are now running out of luck and paychecks anyway.
Continued below
ReplyDeleteContinued from above
THE TINY LITTLE “LARGE” SPLINTER GROUPS
United Church of God, an International Association (UCG-AIA)
Church of God, a Worldwide Association (COGWA)
Global Church of God (GCG)/Living Church of God (LCG) – Roderick C. Meredith
All of these largest splinter groups are actually only about one-tenth or less of the size of the WCG at its peak. In his old age HWA had made it appear to be so ridiculously easy to grow the church that everyone else thought that he was incompetent and that they could do it even better than he did. Now, the past thirty years have shown that none of them can grow the church at all, even after starting out by rustling their initial members from the WCG. All they can do is desperately welcome in the occasional unconverted weirdo so they can pretend that they are attracting totally new people who had never heard of HWA. Of course, the demons who send the unconverted weirdos their way have heard of HWA. While they cannot grow the church, they can shrink it and divide it some more.
THE FALSE PROPHETS
Philadelphia Church of God (PCG) -- Gerald R. Flurry
Restored Church of God (RCG) -- David C. Pack
Church of God--Preparing for the Kingdom of God (COG-PKG) -- Ronald E. Weinland
These are extremely bad people whose mothers obviously never taught them not to lie, steal, and destroy. If you like to read fiction, these fibbers like to write it. These rotten liars falsely claim to be HWA's true successors who are holding faithfully to everything that HWA had taught, but then always go on to totally pervert HWA's teachings far worse than anyone else does. These deceivers start off pretending to have the purest religion around, but then always go on to make it the filthiest. By the time these satanic false prophets are done, their victims who went along with them might wish that they had just gone along with the Tkach apostasy instead. Then, at least they would not be cut off from all their friends and relatives on the outside of the cult. These false prophets and their satanic impostor cults make even the apostate Tkaches seem reasonable and decent by comparison, and that is not an easy thing to do.
Continued below
ReplyDeleteContinued from above
THE WCG EXPLOSION SENT NUTS FLYING EVERYWHERE
The Unknown Splinter Groups – Led by numerous, unknown nobodies.
Norman S. Edwards (a sneaky, deceitful rebel with an agenda, the “leader” of the leaderless Independents, and a failed herder of cats) once joyfully announced that the number of splinter groups, ministries, Bible studies, etc. was exploding. At the time, it was really just the WCG that was exploding after the Tkaches' open apostasy in 1995, and WCG people were being scattered everywhere. No new people were coming on the scene. Left to themselves, these scatterbrains have gotten into all sorts of mischief and have come up with all sorts of bad ideas. It does not occur to any of these nutcases to ask themselves why the spirits that are leading them are getting each and every one of them into a different set of ideas. The best they can do is try unsuccessfully to “disagree without being disagreeable.”
The ACoGs are finding out the hard way that 'The enemy of my enemy' is probably just another enemy.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, if you are mystified by all this, follow the money: It will clarify everything for you.
2:31 PM, Nice history lesson, but short on analysis. HWA did not grow the church, but rather God did. And God grew it in spite of HWA, who morally fell away after his wife's death. For instance, the Chinese commie suits the men were required to wear, with the accompanying commie type tyranny. Joe Ts 'apostasy' brought the physical church inline with it's internal moral deficiency. The false dichotomy of its poor character and physical church was resolved. The continuing fracturing is again an expression of the morally challenged character of the average church member. Why do you think people followed, by many accounts, a evil, tyrannical RM? The church members chose him, not the other way around. You blame the leaders, who are in fact the manifestation of members challenged character. Joe T shattered the charade. He should be seen for what he is, ie the effect rather than the cause. Stating the same point differently, responsible minister are free to start their own church. Why is this not the case? Why haven't members flocked to such a church?
ReplyDeleteat the end of the day what it all boils down to is who will have the preeminence...
ReplyDeleteDoes it occur to anyone that WCG collapsed at exact the same time as the Soviet Union, the Apartheid regime, the major changes being made in the other churches like wcg, like seventh day adventism and major moves of RCatholicism toward judaism and protestantism.
ReplyDeleteDoes it not occur to anyone researching these "coincidences" that they are all related.
The end of the Cold War heralded the age of Globalism and interconnectedness.
It was this revolution that had to bring all churches with a stated worldwide mission into the one fold.
The next level is that world oneness is perfected by technology. (China state company just today bought Syngenta). The level thereafter is we go into space. And to go into space is exactly in line with WCG teaching where man would rule other planets.
The Cold War ended so the mission of WCG ended as an extension of the UN as an instrument of the State department and the American empire. Now we are at the brink of the end of the American empire into the world of Globalisation. TTP has been signed, China is feeding 1.4 billion people, wars and rumors of war are used to herald the coming global community. Within 20 years all problems in the Middle East will be solved. Oil will be obsolete ending the power of the Arabs. As a matter of fact one of the reasons stocks are declining is because the Arab sovereign wealth funds are selling their assets like mad. This is just a foretaste of greater shifts toward a world community and the end of the present "world."
For the naysayers Non of the above is doomsday prophecy it is just scenario thinking.
nck
WCG was just not as succesfull as the seventh day adventist in the nineties to bring the fold into mainstream. With a loss of just a percentage of members.
ReplyDeleteMinisters were not able to explain the changes because they were never in what WCG was about because even HWA did not understand how he was nudged by his bosses. So he decided to call these "open doors". At least HWA was clear in making clear that none or at least most of the members "didn't get it" of course not he did't even understand where the open door was coming from. That's why none of the Ambassadroids was taught this and why they cannot come up with any viable adaptation to the present condition of the global community.
nck
Really, how many left loveless cg and went to cogwa? Will they think things have changed and will be different.
ReplyDeleteIf they are and were friends, why couldn't they get along?
Another thing, 200 members and 200 members does not add up to 400 members. It looks more like the start of another splinter group or two.
I guess you folks haven't heard the latest from the rumor mill. CoGWA members now believe that United and CoGWA are having talks to get back together. Really.
ReplyDeleteTalk about urban legends.
Tribalism threatens to destroy the world, the human race and the earth itself. Tribalism has already destroyed everything we deluded saps tried to build in Pasadena over forty years ago and we are only witnessing the continuing and accelerating process. As the old guard dies off, the process will only accelerate and there is no way the original phenomenon will ever be revived. To try to do so is the ultimate fool's errand.
ReplyDeleteOh, My!
ReplyDeleteA CoGWA / UCG union could be a crazytown thingy, with Cowboy Joe Moeller lassoing CoGWA cows and peeps into into his gun-riddled compound.
Maybe Jesus wants a competition between gun-nuts at a bird sanctuary and gun nuts at an armstrongist ranch.
No matter what churches merge or split, one thing will remain constant: Tryng to find the "correct" ACOG amongst the splinters makes about as much sense as comparison shopping for diarrhea. Both processs end up as trading waste matter.
ReplyDeleteBB
I like your analogy, BB!
ReplyDelete"Tribalism threatens to destroy the world, the human race and the earth itself. Tribalism has already destroyed everything we deluded saps tried to build in Pasadena over forty years ago and we are only witnessing the continuing and accelerating process. As the old guard dies off, the process will only accelerate and there is no way the original phenomenon will ever be revived. To try to do so is the ultimate fool's errand."
ReplyDeleteI recall a passage early on in Herbie's stupid propaganda "autobiography" about someone sending him on a wild goosechase for pigeon's milk when he was just a kid. I don't know why he chose to include that in there, unless it was because he realized that was the formative experience of his entire life, when he realized that he wanted to spend his life doing that to others, because that's one way to read it.
The "original phenomenon" was the fool's errand, a wild goosechase for pigeon's milk for all of us deluded saps. We never built anything in Pasadena. Herbie built a monument to his own vanity. That was the only thing that Armstrongism ever built. And now that he's been gone 30 years, it's only to be expected that a monument like this is going to decay, tumble, and eventually return to jungle.
The fact that there are people out there still bickering over which tribe is going to "restore" the wild goosechase, or the monument to Herbie's ego is, not false, but kinda beside the point.
allow me to clarify, if you will, my previous comment: at the end of the day what it all boils down to is who, among each respective organization's leadership, will have the preeminence; i suspect this has been a major sticking point to such a merger...
ReplyDeleteGood point nk. The Soviet Union and the WCG both collapsed because their ideology was at variance with what the peoples true nature. Communism responded to its failure by claiming that 'human nature' must change. Armstrong stole this same childish lie. And Armstrongs famous 'people don't get it' is another left wing expression that he borrowed from the neo commies. Morally, his church was The Peoples Church.
ReplyDeleteI forgot y'all like cross referencing old nck.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.lutheranworld.org/content/resource-conflict-communion-basis-lutheran-catholic-commemoration-reformation-2017
nck
The facts are overtaking my ability for a timely cross referencing as requested of nck
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-05/chicago-stock-exchange-says-it-s-selling-to-chinese-led-group
nck
ReplyDeleteanon 2:31
after the Tkaches' open apostasy in 1995
How do you define "Apostasy"?
Christianity is an apostasy of Judaism
Christianity is the correction of Judaism
ReplyDelete'old nck' claims, "Within 20 years all problems in the Middle East will be solved."
ReplyDeleteHuh?
'old nck' has once again caused it to be facepalm time! (Or eyeroll time.)
Is there a definition by which the Tkaches' changes would not be defined as 'apostasy'?
ReplyDeleteIf the Tkaches were trying to fulfill the definition of "apostasy", I'd say their effort hit that one out of the park! Or if you prefer a Super Bowl analogy, it was a touchdown followed by a two-point conversion.
2:31 and 10:16, for the actions of the Tkaches to be defined as "apostasy," the errant teachings that developed in the deviant mind of a child molester would have to be accepted as truth.
ReplyDeleteI do believe you're barking up the wrong tree.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete"Is there a definition by which the Tkaches' changes would not be defined as 'apostasy'?"
ReplyDeleteYes. By the definitions used by virtually every non-cult protestant in the world.
9:06 you didnt like my scenario about the arrogant saudi being stuck in the sand with their stranded assets wondering why allah deserted them. Kinda like joey i shrunk the church sitting in the empty campus at the turn of the millenium.
ReplyDeleteStill face palming?
Nck
" JT said...
ReplyDeleteChristianity is the correction of Judaism"
All Judaism is ancient, ignorant tribal nonsense from a barbaric and ignorant time. Most of it was out and out forgery and invention with no real basis in historical or any other facts.
Apostasy is simply leaving a belief. You "apostatize" from one belief to embrace another one any time that you change your beliefs. There is nothing inherent in the word in and of itself to indicate that apostasy means leaving "God's True Church". That shade of meaning might be applied to others by those who retained the original beliefs, but is not part of the definition of the word itself. Many people apostatized from Catholic and Protestant beliefs when they became "Churchofgodians". Muslims who become Christian apostatize from Islam. You probably can't apostatize from atheism, because that is the absence of belief. But you could apostatize from Scientology.
ReplyDeleteBecause there was a change in belief systems involved with the Tkach corrections, it is not incorrect to refer to that process as apostasy.
BB
bb
ReplyDeleteatheism is not the rejection of belief but the rejection of the belief in deities.
communism was atheist but a similar belief in a better world as "the world tomorrow".
In my research Islam seemed to be somewhat of an apostasy of churchofgodism (refugees from jerusalem to medina). Or at least syriac orthodoxism mixed with jewish orthodoxy and arab paganism.
nck
I'm not trying to be nitpicky.
ReplyDeleteIt's just that in the concentration camps communists, protestants and other true believers seemed to have a higher survival rate than non believers.
Science proves that holding any belief makes for better survival rate under certain circumstances than holding none. Certain political viewpoints or ideas qualify for a "belief system".
Belief is an evolutionary remnant. Just like why women always feel cold. It's the evolutionary remnant of the yearning for the stove....
nck
Technically, BB, you're correct. In the COG world, however, "the Tkach apostasy" has been tossed around as an invective. The premise I get from the posts that reference "the apostasy" is that the Tkaches deviated from the truth HWA taught, and, since then, so has everyone else. If the point is to illustrate the universal buffoonery of it all, OK. But if there's a smidge of HWA-on-a-pedestal thinking, it needs to be countered, and strongly.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete4:56 & 4:59
Yeah, it's okay to call Joe an apostate, as long as we don't attach a negative connotation to it.
As even Judaism is an "apostasy" of Egyptian & Mesopotamian nonsense.
4:46
ReplyDeleteIf it is any standard, but after consulting wikipedia bb is 100% wrong on the definition of an apostasy. From a religious and sociological perspective.
No one changing their belief would call themselves an apostate. Moreover it implies the active struggle against the old faith. It is not "merely" changing ones belief.
From my personal perspective Tkachism is not apostatism but simple thievery.
Exactly 24 hours after hwa died, most of HWA's personal staff was technically terminated and their offices raided by the Tkach mobsters.
Most of Tkach claims about his history turned out to be blatant lies made up by his team.
By saying this I'm not in any way putting hwa on a pedestal. But an apostate is a very chique term for mobsters stealing a couple of hundred million dollars in assets. (of course not stealing in a legal way since it was handed to them through the bylaws.)
nck
Apostasy: 1) renunciation of a religious faith. 2) abandonment of a previous loyalty.
ReplyDelete(Merriam-Webster).
And, of course, this is not generally a word with which a person would self-define, any more than one would use the phrase "false prophet" to self-define. In religious circles, both are pejoratives.
BB
ReplyDeleteAnonymous at 4:59 AM said...“If the point is to illustrate the universal buffoonery of it all, OK. But if there's a smidge of HWA-on-a-pedestal thinking, it needs to be countered, and strongly.”
There is so much more than just “a smidge of HWA-on-a-pedestal.” It cannot be stopped, or countered at all, much less “strongly.” Every other self-appointed leader today is so far down in the gutter (especially the drunken runt type false prophets like GRF vomiting on his followers) that HWA appears to be continuing to grow taller and taller, and is on a very high pedestal indeed. No one else can ever reach the same heights as HWA, because his pedestal is a growing pedestal that just keeps on growing up to the heavens. Of course, perspective is also an important factor here. Maybe it just appears that way because every other self-appointed leader today is continuing to sink further down into the depths.
1:38
ReplyDeleteYou already give the answer yourself. In the stock market, some of the more succesfull split offs (in appearance) would be defined "a dead cat bounce". Even a cat falling from a 10 storey building will temporary rise again after hitting the bottom.
bb
you are citing the authoritative website of merriam-webster.
on that same website I find
Origin of apostasy
Middle English apostasie, from Late Latin apostasia, from Greek, literally, revolt, from aphistasthai to revolt, from apo- + histasthai to stand
again in the word is implied "the active" resistance against the old. Not merely the change of ones belief.
For the myopics here. Indeed the word apostate can be applied to people changing their belief from Islam to Zoroastracism. It does not necesaraly imply a deviation from the "true" faith. Because what is true is of course in the eye of the beholder as it appears from 100.000 years of religous interpretation.
nck
Labels are tricky things. Let's just stick with the facts. Different splits and splinters have done different things regarding the original mishmash HWA came up with. Others of us have completely cast it and all other religion aside over time. I guess we could be labeled apostates too, but we're really just rejectionists, if one insists on a label. Today, I'm simply a humanist atheist. If I believe in anything, it's the unlimited potential of man once he gets around to really using it without all the superstitious golbbldegook.
ReplyDelete10.35 PM. You might be a atheist, but the reality is that humans are religious creatures. Even atheists commonly embrace religions like left wing liberalism, with its main street media being the priests,
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm liberal, totally liberal. If you want to make that a religion, go ahead. Gotta get back to campaigning for Bernie!
ReplyDeletenck
ReplyDeleteApostasy is alternatively described by religious folk through the simple terms "falling away". The word isn't even one of the more commonly used terms of the English lexicon. People who have been injured by their previous philosophy may indeed turn on it for various reasons, not the least of which would be as an act of love, to prevent others from suffering a similar fate. However, many apostates simply walk away, and concentrate their efforts in the new. Just that simple change, even if it is their only action item, nearly automatically makes them the enemy to the original group. The original group perceives it not as a benign intellectual exercise, but as outright betrayal. And, that's what has happened in the Armstrong movement. The Tkachs may not have stolen or misappropriated a single cent. They may not have huge art collections and gold flatware, or secret offshore bank accounts as did HWA. The fact that they did not use the resources and income in accordance with the visions of HWA, however, automatically brands them with an assortment of damning pejoratives.
That is not to say that there was not a huge amount of human suffering caused by the sudden demise of the status quo. People who had not paid into the Social Security Administration because they believed in the end times were shanghaied when they lost the jobs they thought would last until "the end". This was all stuff, that according to their iron clad beliefs, was not supposed to happen. The problem is, how could anyone orchestrate changes for the greater good, without some hardships for some of the original members? The ego-infested people who all went out and started their own splinters are certainly culpable for exacerbating the problems. Given Armstrongism, any attempt at reform was nearly guaranteed to be countered with individual perceptions of just what the "faith once delivered" (and not by Jesus, but by HWA) might be. I've said practically forever that WCG could not have been reformed or corrected. It should have been dissolved and disbanded, but how could one even accomplish that? There was going to be a money grab no matter what. I am pretty well satisfied with the overall state of impotence to which Armstrongism has been reduced. However, I do feel sympathy and empathy for all of the people who were hurt by the original group, and in its aftermath. This experience provides powerful lessons as to the damages that false teachers such as HWA bring into peoples' lives, and their resistance to repair.
BB
1st : Just today I heard the word apostate in an Al Jazeera interview with a british pegida leader describing the impossibility for muslims to leave the fold without harm.
ReplyDelete2nd : Most of what you say is a powerfull statement
3rd : From a managerial perspective. Seventh Day Adventism managed in the same period of the demise of wcg to succesfully transfer from a "Cult" (ellen g white as major prophetess) toward a mainstream "church" growing in incredible rate.
I do not agree with either. My example is just a flimsy example of how wcg could have transferred to a more benign/ not dependent on one person setting the law, toward a more rational modus.
Just observing from strategical perspective. It is all obsolote now. You yourself said on the Otagosh site that perhaps in the future a more benign strain might survive. As I say if we would meet we would agree on far more than in the virtual world.
nck
ReplyDeleteOooh. There appears to be some uncertainty here about whether or not Joseph Tkach, Jr. was an apostate or not, and if so, whether it was a good thing or not.
Kindly allow me to provide some much-needed clarity on this subject.
Joseph Tkach, Jr. was definitely an APOSTATE in the very worst sense of the word. He rejected and abandoned things that God had said in the Bible in order to go chasing after the silly and unbiblical customs and traditions of other ignorant and sinful people whose praise and approval he sought. You cannot get much worse than that.
A lamentable number of hirelings, hypocrites, and sinners from the Graceless Community of Iniquity (GCI) don't like anyone exposing their precious leader who told them that they are free to sin. Their unfaithfulness and disloyalty to God's laws and their abandonment of them would be to their everlasting shame if they had any shame. But they have other things to worry about right now, such as their paychecks abandoning them after they were so faithful and loyal to their paychecks for so many years.
So, there now. Hope this clears things up!
P.S. Please don't get me started on the question of whether Joseph Tkach, Jr. was once a true Christian who fell away and went bad and is doomed to the lake of fire and eternal death, or whether he was never truly converted in the first place, just someone chosen to do the Great Apostasy job for God's great prophetic purpose, and will get his chance at salvation later.
ReplyDelete--5:26--
It was Pauline Christianity that, in an act of apostasy, rebelled against the Torah. Then 30 to 60 years after Paul wrote Galatians, the fiction writers of the Gospels & Acts tried to throttle back on Paul's antinomianism to reconcile divided factions of the movement. Unfortunately for you, Armstrongism accepts the Pauline writings. Have a happy time with the NT contradictions.
5:26, I may not agree with the management decisions of Joe Tkach Jr. and his colleagues 20 years ago -- decisions which persuaded me to eventually depart from the organization. But to say that Tkach teaches that people are free to sin is the sort of deliberate misrepresentation so characteristic of Armstrong followers that it deserves to be countered.
ReplyDeleteQuite simply, Tkach doesn't say that, and never has. Your boasting, then, of clarity is muddled by such an errant claim -- one that appears to be deliberate.
Don't worry, I wouldn't dare get you started on anything else. You can't even get that right.
Does Tkach teach people that it's OK to sin or effectively teach people that it's OK to sin?
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteAnonymous at 5:08 AM said...“Does Tkach teach people that it's OK to sin or effectively teach people that it's OK to sin?”
Oh, Tkach is very effective at teaching people to sin, and that it is somehow all okay. He turned many of the clean-eating Sabbath-keepers in the WCG into a bunch of ham-eating Sunday-keepers in his GCI. The Sabbath commandment is listed in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:1-17, and the laws about clean and unclean animals are listed in Leviticus 11:1-47. The Bible explains in the New Testament that “sin is the transgression of the law” of God (I John 3:4). Jesus said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfil” (Matthew 5:17, KJV).
One WCG member who loved the Tkach apostasy but initially tried to act restrained said that he didn't plan to go too totally wild fornicating and committing adultery now that it was okay since they were no longer under the law, but he did soon go on to date-rape another one of his girlfriends and then dump her. After you have seen what people are really like you will no longer be quite so quick to believe all their deceitful smooth-talk professing to be such spiritual, loving, forgiving, New Testicle christians.
To make an analogy, some people misinterpret Colossians 2:14 to say that the law against speeding was nailed to the cross, rather than that their own personal speeding ticket that they received for their law breaking was nailed to the cross.
Notice that Anonymous at 8:21 AM won't counter the apostates like Joe Tkach, Jr. and the truly outrageous “management decisions” that he made, but will indignantly counter the truth with silly arguments about words so that he/she/it can attempt to excuse and justify his/her/its own sinful and shameful behavior in life.