That wild and crazy bunch in Edmond Oklahoma has an article up on their web site today that was written by Joel Hilliker. Hilliker's topic of choice is biblical manhood: The Protector of Women and Children. This is a strange topic for a PCG flunky to be writing about considering PCG's appalling history of negating women and kids to the bottom of the governmental church structure. Remember that this is also the same cult that told a family to abandon their child at the mall so the state could take care of it. I guess that is a shining example of protecting children...Church of God style.
We have been conditioned to assume real men only were in the Living Church of God since they follow the man's man, Rod Meredith. Now we know that just might be true! The PCG apparently has a manly man issue with its men. Maybe Rod's men are actually better!
Hilliker writes:
Men, pay close attention to this command from God: “Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child” (Exodus 22:22).
This is the inexorable law of the Ruler of the universe. And He is serious about it. “If thou afflict them in any [way], and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry; And my wrath shall wax hot,and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless” (verses 23-24).
You do not want to mess with this God.Women in the PCG and in many COG's have been relegated to the outer periphery for decades. They have been abused, molested and treated horribly by PCG ministers. Just look at the track record of deviate Cal Culpepper! Can there be a sicker man in the ministry?
Hilliker is excited that his god will kill any offenders of abuse. Culpepper had better put his big pants on and get ready to be held accountable!
Elsewhere in the Bible, the great Protector commands us to look after the blind, the deaf, the poor, the stranger. But of all those commands, Exodus 22 is God’s strongest, sternest and toughest. Elsewhere God prescribes the death penalty for certain sins—but nowhere else does He vow to personally administer it.
Next Hilliker asks...
Men—do you think like God?
Are you zealous like God about the duty He gave you to protect women and children? Are you vigilant against any threat to them? Do you shield them from harm and injustice, even at risk to yourself? Does finding them in affliction arouse your white-hot wrath?Apparently the men of PCG are effeminate emasculated man-boys who have no idea how to treat women and children.
To our great shame, our modern society sorely lacks this elementary mind-set of manhood. Men are confused about sex roles. Teaching men to protect women is not only lacking, it is condemned. The modern feminist attitude teaches that it is more “enlightened” to let women fend for themselves.
In prior generations, however, the stronger were obligated to serve the weaker in this way. And by that I mean nearly all generations, in almost all societies, in almost all of human history! So it is amazing that modern feminism has been able to confuse us about this.
For some of us, the false thinking of Satan’s world has rubbed off on us more than we probably realize. I believe that just a few generations ago, even carnal-minded people in the world had a better understanding of this subject than many in God’s Church today!Hilliker and others have written numerous articles over the last few years encouraging the man-boys of PCG to work on their strength and work out more.
When God made humankind male and female, He made one stronger than the other. God gave the man more native physical strength and a greater capacity for physical strength.
“The glory of young men,” He says, “is their strength” (Proverbs 20:29). God gave them that glorious gift of greater strength. We don’t have to apologize for that, and we certainly shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t exist. We should develop it and become stronger so we can use it for the purposes for which God gave it to us!
There are a lot of young men who do not have much of this kind of glory—because they haven’t developed their strength. That is a shame.
God also gave the man a tougher mental and emotional temperament than the woman, whom He calls “the weaker vessel” (1 Peter 3:7).
That is not to say that the woman is or should be weak. God exalts strength in women (e.g. Proverbs 31:17). However, God designed her capacity for physical strength to be less. And a godly woman expresses her strength differently than a man.
This is God’s design, and it wasn’t an accident. God created very different roles for men and women to grow in godly character. In the case of the man, much of the role revolves around strength.
God created half of the human population to be physically, mentally and emotionally stronger and tougher, and He implanted within them a sense of unselfish responsibility to protect, provide for and defend the other half.
Have you ever thought about that beautiful truth, plainly evident within nature itself as God designed it?
God wants men to use that strength to benefit others. He gave it to us to build a godly mindset: Care for those who are weaker; protect women, the weaker vessel.Next Hilliker has this to say about real masculine men:
Consider further: God designed human development so a little child is utterly helpless. He then created within fathers (and mothers) a strong protective inclination. This teaches us about His own nature and reinforces the lesson: A father protects his children.A father protects his children...unless of course he has been told by Cal Culpepper to take his child to the mall and abandon it. God's government demands that father would do that if told to.
Fatherless children—those who lack that protection—are two to three times more likely to become victims of child abuse. Imagine how God feels about that!Tell that to the kids who have been sexually abused in PCG by ministers and members!
Hilliker next lectures the weak men of PCG who like to find girls that have no fathers in their lives so that they are not accountable to another man when they ask them out or want to marry them:
One single woman told me that she feels men treat her differently because she has no father. “If a guy knows that a man is looking out for a girl,” she said, “he seems to be very aware of how well he takes care of that girl, knowing she has a male in her life that he would have to deal with.” Sadly, she is talking about her experiences with men in the Church—particularly single men!
Men: Are you more careless in how you treat a woman if she has no father? If so, read Exodus 22:22 again—and realize that she absolutely does have a Father! And if you take advantage of that woman in any way, that Father is going to come after you!So men, what kind of man are you:
Do you think like God toward widows and fatherless? Or do you think like the evil people God protects the widows and fatherless from?
A man who thinks like God is a protector.
Men, this is the way God designed us physically, mentally, emotionally. This is how God commands us to think. This is a duty He has given to every man, barring legitimate incapacity—and He expects us to fulfill: Protect the women and children.With so many effeminate man-boys in leadership positions in PCG this is a tough concept for these man-boys to handle.
God’s Church should be a stronghold of manliness!Yep, just look at all of those manly studs Irish dancing men or the men dressed in toga's as they prance around the stage pretending to be David or Jeremiah. Manliness just oozes through out the Edmond compound.
Flurry has solved this problem by invoking Herbert Armstrong and Daniel. Those hyper-masculine men of the Old Testament are a man's man. No need for that effeminate carpenter called
The late Herbert W. Armstrong said one of the big jobs of a minister is to keep worldliness out of God’s Church. Pastor General Gerald Flurry took this a step further in Daniel Unsealed at Last! “The great responsibility that each of God’s members has is to keep the world and sin out of God’s Church,” he wrote. “It is a continual battle when you have God’s truth. Satan is totally committed to destroying that truth” (emphasis added).For some reason the COG has been in one continual battle with its satan , so much so that it lays all blame and power upon it. That dude has more power than the Christ they claim to follow.
Its long been a tradition in the Church of God that when an article si written for a church publication it is because there has been an issue int eh church. Have the women in PCG had to defend their homes at night when trouble happens or defend themselves when insulted?
Do you look after the women in your life? Are you the first to step up to a difficulty, a challenge, a threat? If you’re married, when you hear a bump in the night, surely you are the one who investigates, rather than hiding under the covers and sending your wife. But are there other ways in which you are failing to defend your family?
If someone insults your wife, do you step up and defend her? Do you safeguard her honor and respect her in the way you talk with her? Does she feel safe and looked after in your presence? Can she call on you for help, even in little things, and know you will intervene on her behalf?I can just picture the men cowering in the bedroom as the women head down the stairs in the middle of the night to investigate some strange noise.
Not only are PCG men weak but they must also be over bearing and outright mean. Thus the reason for this admonition:
Every man must protect women and children from his own worse nature. This includes curbing his anger, impatience, cruelty and mean-spiritedness.
Simply treating women with dignity and honor is a form of protecting them. A man who demeans his wife causes her to feel defensive around him, when she should feel protected!Hilliker wants his men to be hard...
Life requires hardness—hardness to go out and succeed in a job in the world, to deal with carnal people, to earn money and provide for a family. It takes hardness to establish order and discipline in the home. It demands hardness to ward off negative, worldly influences and protect the family from predators. God wants men to develop the greatest share of that hardness so women don’t have to! He wants men to use the strength He gave them in order to fulfill those functions.
Hardness of this type is for men. When a man has that manly kind of hardness, he enables a woman to be soft. If a woman is too hard, that could indicate that the man is too soft.
Hilliker's advice just get funnier as he goes along.
Even with something as harmless as a spider or mouse, if a woman screams for help, you have a choice. You can ridicule her for that and tell her to take care of it herself—or you can skip the sarcasm, step in and eliminate the problem—and be thankful for the opportunity to be her white knight against this “threat” rather than against a barbarian or a fire-breathing dragon.
Look for opportunities to step up and take care of things so that she doesn’t have to. Deal with those nagging home maintenance issues. Be the one to make that difficult phone call. Quickly intervene when you see her struggling with something heavy. Establish the habit of being the one to secure the house before everyone goes to sleep at night.
Again, why would any REAL man ever take this man-boy's advice?
It must be all of those butch women picking on their men!
Recapture this true value of masculinity. Purge your mind of worldly thinking, and replace it with God’s thinking.
God’s Church needs more-feminine women—women who look to God as their Protector, and even to the men in God’s Church, encouraging them in their roles. We need manlier men—stronger men, who use their strength to serve and to defend the weaker.
ReplyDeleteThe PCG “men” certainly should stand up and protect their grandmothers, mothers, wives, daughters, and granddaughters and refuse to cut off all contact with them just because That False Prophet tells them to.
ReplyDeleteSome of those horny old hags in the PCG are quite capable of taking care of themselves and getting what they want with their lying mouths. The single PCG guys need protection from them.
There sure a lot of men's men there, but not a lot of masculine men.
ReplyDeleteIf my experience in the PCG is anything to go by I wouldn't worry too much about what Joel Hillker says or writes, as less and less people even in the PCG really listen to or read much of anything that is being produced.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is PCG's editorial department and student body are constantly producing material like this prescriptive little article. In all probability apart from that same student body and hard core suck-ups in the field, Joel's piece will for the most part go unread by the average non-HQ PCG member.
Joel Hilliker constantly churns out this manliness-related drivel, I suspect deep down he knows that he has lived a sheltered and privileged existence for most of his adult life. Writing this article probably helped ease the burden of guilt.
It's kind of a bizarre situation in the PCG when privileged college boys like Joel Hilliker, Ryan Malone and Stephen Flurry who have zero credibility speak or write. It's like deep down we all know they are not respected, and yet we members together with these men continue playing the game of smiling and pretending to listen as they smile and pretend they can teach.
There is a growing sense of disillusionment within the PCG as more and more members finally cotton on to the fact that the college and by extension PCG HQ with its member-funded lifestyle, buildings, music and dancing have become the work. Growing numbers in PCG are finally beginning to see through messages like this.
Although many in PCG still physically attend you have to wonder in terms of morale and general level of interest how many members have already mentally left......Joel's article won’t be helping in the process.
Again as stated earlier, not too many out in the field will even bother to read this article, and even fewer out in the world will even know it exists, just like the PCG itself……
The reason they must harp on this, and they do it in all of the ACOGs, is that they emasculate the men by forbidding them to even tactfully negotiate minor points with members of the ministry, their bosses, or anyone else who supposedly has authority. How can you break mens' spirits and cow them before the ministry, and then expect them to eat a few punches or face a firearm in defending a lady or a child? They really ought to examine the mixed message that they send to their men in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI suppose that what they really want is for the men to be hypermacho about promoting and defending all of their ACOG's teachings. They want selective masculinity. Be forceful and macho as you defend ol' Cal.
BB
The church leaders constantly beat down and tear down the men in order to gain power and superiority over these men. They then complain that the menfolk are weak. How ridiculous is that.
ReplyDeleteThe irony is that the strong men are the everyday guys out there in the congregations. The weak-ass dudes strut around HQ in their Men's Wearhouse suits. It's always been that way, going back decades.
ReplyDeleteSo where does this put selling your daughter into slavery?
ReplyDeleteShouldn't the PCG support that so the Flurrys can get more money for Irish Dancing?
There's quite a black market out there for this sort of thing and it's a win-win: You get money for your daughter, give it to the PCG cult leadership and save money you'd waste on bringing her up to be able to give the PCG even more money.
Well, it's not easy to take this route: It takes a real man to stand up to the challenges and risk prison to follow the Old Testament Law!
The fact that no one has kicked Cruelpepper in the ass by now is proof there are no resl men in PCG
ReplyDeleteI would concur, Anon 9:07.
DeleteRCM was an intellectual eunuch, castrated by HWA himself. Could he could ever engage in an honest debate over a doctrinal issue? Or would he simply shut you down? Declare that you have a "bad attitude." Have any of you sat through "first year Bible" at AC? Ever heard someone ask an honest questions? Have you ever heard a minister demonstrate strength by saying, "I don't know"? or even demonstrating more strength by saying, "I was wrong in my understanding."? The churches of God face the same dilemma that the Roman Catholic Church faces. If the leadership claims infallibility on issues of faith and doctrine, if they admit error in one area, it opens the door to other issues. This, I think, is why the Pope can't allow priests to marry or for women to become priests.
ReplyDeleteIt is discouraging for me to see that there continue to be so many who look to the pages of ancient mythical books to determine how to live their lives in this 21st century. Do we believe it is true because it is old, or are we simply unable to break old habits?
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is time for another quote from Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason".
"The Bible-makers have undertaken to give us, in the first chapter of Genesis, an account of the creation; and in doing this, they have demonstrated nothing but their ignorance. They make there to have been three days and three nights, evenings and mornings, before there was a sun; when it is the presence or absence of the sun that is the cause of day and night, and what is called his rising and setting that of morning and evening."
The ignorance, violence and depravity in the pages of this book is astounding, and yet we proclaim it to be the 'Word of God'.
If we could actually commit the 'unpardonable sin', I think it may be willful ignorance.
I was just contemplating, over the weekend. What reasons could people possibly have for remaining in Armstrongism?
ReplyDelete1) Friends and family are still there.
2) It's unshakable habit after all these years.
3) Somehow expect the BI and German-Assyrian prophecies to actually end up being fulfilled in this lifetime.
4) Believe their splinter leader is the only apostle or prophet, and HWA's only legitimate heir; live in fear of him.
5) Committed to HWA's apostleship and the 18 restored "truths". Believe that any splinter is acceptable over non-sabbatarian church communities.
6) Have come to accept and enjoy the pain and abuse because it makes one feel more spiritual and as if qualifying for a greater reward.
7) Realize something is horribly wrong, but have been conditioned to mistrust anything and anyone outside of Armstrongite circles.
8) Suffered major church induced depressive episode, and just barely dragging along the last few yards to the finish line.
9) Truly like their splinter leader and find him to be spiritually edifying.
10) Believe in the great commission and are somehow convinced that their splinter's invisible "work" is fulfilling that commission.
These are all no-brainers from the outside looking in, but it's hard to imagine that the missionary zeal and confidence which was an integral part of church membership prior to 1975 could exist in the present. The crop of ministers currently "performing" don't seem to be creating any excitement anywhere at all, with the one possible exception of Jamaica.
BB
I'm calling on the real men in PCG, both of you, to throw Cruelpepper n Hellicker out....
ReplyDeleteGerald, I read the bible every day because it is accurate. Some things never change. The laws of the universe, human behaviour, Gods dealings with people. Today's culture pretends evil doesn't exist or trivializes it. The bible by contrast, pulls no punches. Cain versus Abel, the wicked trying to destroy the righteous is constantly mentioned. Personal experience confirms this phenomenon. The closest even conservatives get to condemning evil, is talking in terms of collectivism versus individualism. It seems that they too are afraid of being thrown over the cliff, as they attempted to do with Christ.
ReplyDeleteThe bible is the most accurate book ever written, if read with a open mind.
ReplyDeleteGerald Bronkar said...
“The ignorance, violence and depravity in the pages of this book is astounding, and yet we proclaim it to be the 'Word of God'.”
The World is full of all sorts of ignorance, violence, and depravity. It is what it is, whether you believe in God or not. The Bible just records the way things are and what actually happens in real life. If you want to see ignorance, violence, and depravity, just look inside the PCG.
The laws of God, if truly obeyed, would cut out a lot of the ignorance, violence, and depravity that exist today. Of course, many people would not like that. Realize that there is some disagreement today about what constitutes “depravity.” Remember that what God calls an “abomination” (KJV) and “detestable” (NIV) is what some people today consider to be normal and good and something to be proud of. As one of the Psalms puts it, “The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men” (Psalm 12:8, NIV).
Some people ignore Jesus' warning to beware of false prophets, and follow a false prophet like Gerald Flurry, even though HWA had taught that the church was led by an apostle, not by a prophet, and that, “No prophets are mentioned as having either administrative, executive or preaching functions in the New Testament Church” (see Mystery of the Ages by HWA, pages 244-245 of the original hardcover edition). [NOTE: This line got deleted from Gerald Flurry's edited and changed version of the book.] Gerald Flurry committed the identity theft of the ages in the so-called COGs when he originally stole from Jesus for himself the title of “That Prophet” from Deuteronomy 18:18-19 so that people would fear and obey him rather than Jesus. One of God's own Ten Commandments says, “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12, NIV), so it is not surprising that That False Prophet would now try to get his followers to break up their families.
Some people go a whoring after false prophets like Gerald Flurry. When they become dissatisfied with the false prophet, they reject the Bible too, even though they never actually followed it. These demon-followers wasted their lives closing their eyes, covering their ears, and blathering away about the “evil Laodiceans.” They would neither look, nor listen, nor learn. The Bible was of no interest to them. Eventually, some of them leave the PCG. Then, they speak out against the Bible, the book that they neither read nor understood nor obeyed, because they were too busy following a false prophet who got them used to doing the exact, diametrical opposite of what the Bible teaches.
6.12PM you fail to mention that Herbie was frequency addressed in reverential tones of "Gods chosen apostle," so he too had a fancy pants title. Christ said 'call no man you Master,' but there's no getting around human creativity.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes the bible holy?
ReplyDeleteIt was never called "holy" till 1611. Till then it was considered a collection of books.
ReplyDeleteFlurry declared himself an apostle in 2010. Oddly, on the same reasoning that his kid maligned Tkach Sr for using the title.
ReplyDeleteSince the PCG obtained the copyrights to HWA's literature everything has fallen apart.
ReplyDeleteUp to that point they strung the members along to the tune of "once we obtain the rights to print Mystery of the Ages we will be able to do a worldwide work".
The members happily sent millions in and waited with eager anticipation. In 2003 the PCG acquired the copyrights, then what?
As soon as they got the copyright in 2003, then PCG HQ had to have college buildings, then a multi-million dollar admin building, then an auditorium, then another multi-million dollar college building in the UK, then a million dollar-plus Irish dance facility, and soon a multi-million dollar jet plane because the Flurry family don't like rubbing shoulders with the tourist scum in economy whilst on their way to Irish dancing competitions.
You get the drift...
"What makes the bible holy?"
ReplyDeleteApparently, for many people, it became "holy" when fancy pants Herbie said it was.
ReplyDeleteRSK said...“Flurry declared himself an apostle in 2010. Oddly, on the same reasoning that his kid maligned Tkach Sr for using the title.”
Herbert W. Armstrong had explained that the word “apostle” does not mean something weird or strange, but rather “one sent forth” to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God. HWA had taught that preaching the good news of the coming kingdom of God and feeding the sheep was the real purpose of the church (see page 265 of Mystery of the Ages by HWA, under the subheading Real Purpose of the Church).
Gerald Flurry immediately dropped preaching the gospel, saying that HWA had already preached it, and made up his own new commission to bad-mouth the Laodiceans and cause massive division in the church, including in his own members' families. Gerald Flurry had bumbled around for about the first twenty years of his PCG scam wanting to be a prophet before he even realized that HWA had taught that the church was led by an apostle rather than by a prophet. So, Gerald finally added that title too to his collection of titles that he had been making up for himself over the years to try to find meaning and purpose for his miserable little existence.
Anon @8.35am, on reading the next passage in MoA p 265:"...The prophets set in the foundation of the Church are those of the Old Testament, whose writings were used to form a considerable part of New Testament and gospel teaching and functioning. No prophets are mentioned as having either administrative, executive or preaching functions in the New Testament Church...."
ReplyDeleteAnd poof! goes the claim that GRF is "that prophet" according to HWA. Of course this particular section is edited out in the PCG's version of MoA.