Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
Normally, we speak of innocent until proven guilty. It seems as if the state has a fairly strong case against Stephen. It is a reminder of how important it is for all of us to do the best possible job in living a good life.
It also illustrates what happens the moment one is officially arrested and arraigned for a crime. However, there are cases when mistakes have been made, where they got the wrong guy. We can see how churches and employers, friends and family find it very easy to give up on one of their own, more or less leaving them behind to die. ACOG members are not left by their church with a huge package of financial resources, nor are they savvy regarding police and court procedures.
Clearly, there are many lessons to be learned from this that are lurking behind what seems obvious and on the surface. These are things that should be carefully considered the next time your ACOG leader demands common, or asks you to drain your resources for his latest prophecy debacle, or to bail him out because he has not been a good steward with the tithes and offerings that people entrusted to him.
Think. Plan. Live the best way you know how, and keep your back-up plans in place!
I recall a murder/suicide in the WCG around 1980. The church husband killed his wife and them himself. The children were left unharmed. Acts like that are the end result of years of problems in the marriage.
Donald Weininger took a loaded pistol to his wife's Divorce Attorney in Spokane where he was WCG pastor, encountered here in the hall wanting to persuade her not to divorce him, shot and killed her and then shot himself.
This impacted the Spokane WCG for years. The impact on the children was profound.
In fact, for a long time, the major Armstrongists didn't meet in Spokane and the UCG had been meeting in Idaho across the state line. They are now meeting at The Avenues Event Center on East Mission with Mark Mickelson the minister (I believe I heard he had cancer).
A minister who has committed some major crime does affect the congregation greatly and the problems continue to exist for a long time. It is particularly intense in the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia because the cult environment is so very extreme with the minister as the center focus of the local group.
It sounds like this guy wanted to have sex with other women. Now normal people who are so inclined do this before they get married, but of course this person was in a weird religion. But even that weird religion had changed its strict rules and permitted divorce and remarriage, which is good as it might prevent people from murdering their mates if they felt too trapped. But this idiot couldn't leave her so he kills her instead and then makes his son witness his mother's dead body.
Did he do it for the life insurance policy? But then probably suicide would be excluded. I guess his lack of planning prevents him from having a first degree murder charge. He sounds like an idiot, but then who of us could coolly and intelligently carry out a murder?
I feel very sorry for his son and wife and have little sympathy for the selfish asshole.
In the papers the charges claim , "Without PreMeditation"
Are they kidding? It is self evident that he planned and meditated on this murder for months. Charge should be FIRST DEGREE MURDER!
Unfortunately, the death penalty was abolished in Minnesota in 1911. Alwine is 43 and his maximum sentence is listed as 40 years.
In 2005 Minnesota state law changed , making a life sentence mandatory, with no parole possible, for nearly all first-degree intentional murder cases. Allwine deserves a first degree murder charge IMHO!
In some TV program, they mentioned that the average prison term for murder in some states is 8 years. So someone can snuff out your life out of envy or similar evil motive, and be out of the slammer in 8 years. What a joke!
It's second degree, unpremeditated murder because while they are reasonably certain he is behind the DarkWeb activities, it's really hard to definitively pin it on him. Instead, the murder charges are based on his obvious staging of Amy's body after shooting her and the evidence that makes him the primary/only suspect in her death. They obviously know about the longterm planning and lay it out in the complaint, but they can't prove it enough -- yet -- to bring specific charges against him.
Once they break that barrier and charge him for hiring hitmen, buying drugs illegally and any other number of other crimes, his 40 year maximum could increase drastically when it's all considered together.
by this time we should have expected David Pack to chime in and say that he did these things because he was possessed with a demon (or several) and then go on to say that United ministers are bothered / possessed with demons.
That would be Almost Arrested Elisha Elijah Joshua Hababbuk Bob Thiel. I would expect that from before Pack. Pack will use this as a way to gather UCG members into his fold....which is not going to happen.
Just another nail in the coffin of the belief that belonging to specific religious group makes you magically different from the common herd. I used to think that. We had the "truth." We were different from all those deceived multitudes. We had the Holy spirit and they only thought they did, etc. We were healthier than all those pork and sea food eaters, etc., etc. Nothing has changed in the basic COG attitude since Hypocrite Herb first brought it into being. Under the surface hides a cesspool of self-righteousness and hidden sins and iniquities. When I saw that stark reality forty years ago now, I got out and didn't let my shirt tail hit my rear end.
That way they could listen for a few minutes and give you what to do about your problems off the top of his head without consulting anyone or doing further research, even if he had absolutely no experience with the problem. Go to the minister; get counselled; do what he says; problem solved!
Ah, that Spirit of discernment!
Wonder why it didn't work in this case for the other ministers to 'discern' what was going on....
Doesn't give you pause about the counselling you received over the years?
Counseling with the minister was the answer to everything, especially for my former wife. I knew better and for the most part kept my own counsel and tried to solve things my own way. I saw through that when Al Portune's wet behind the ears son was ordained and made a counselor for our congregation just after graduation, and I think recently married. If you had family problems, you were supposed to go bear your soul to him. I had by that time become smart enough to do no such thing. I don't recall hearing his name after the seventies and his father's departure. I wonder what became of him.
"...we should have expected David Pack to chime in and say that he did these things because he was possessed with a demon (or several) and then go on to say that United ministers are bothered / possessed with demons."
This tragedy is the culmination of the way of Armtrongism. The macrocosm and microcosm.
Doesn't this happen all the time to the sheeple who will no longer participate or play along with them?
14 comments:
This like king David who tried to cover up his crime. Look what happened.
Normally, we speak of innocent until proven guilty. It seems as if the state has a fairly strong case against Stephen. It is a reminder of how important it is for all of us to do the best possible job in living a good life.
It also illustrates what happens the moment one is officially arrested and arraigned for a crime. However, there are cases when mistakes have been made, where they got the wrong guy. We can see how churches and employers, friends and family find it very easy to give up on one of their own, more or less leaving them behind to die. ACOG members are not left by their church with a huge package of financial resources, nor are they savvy regarding police and court procedures.
Clearly, there are many lessons to be learned from this that are lurking behind what seems obvious and on the surface. These are things that should be carefully considered the next time your ACOG leader demands common, or asks you to drain your resources for his latest prophecy debacle, or to bail him out because he has not been a good steward with the tithes and offerings that people entrusted to him.
Think. Plan. Live the best way you know how, and keep your back-up plans in place!
BB
I recall a murder/suicide in the WCG around 1980. The church husband killed his wife and them himself. The children were left unharmed. Acts like that are the end result of years of problems in the marriage.
Donald Weininger took a loaded pistol to his wife's Divorce Attorney in Spokane where he was WCG pastor, encountered here in the hall wanting to persuade her not to divorce him, shot and killed her and then shot himself.
This impacted the Spokane WCG for years. The impact on the children was profound.
In fact, for a long time, the major Armstrongists didn't meet in Spokane and the UCG had been meeting in Idaho across the state line. They are now meeting at The Avenues Event Center on East Mission with Mark Mickelson the minister (I believe I heard he had cancer).
A minister who has committed some major crime does affect the congregation greatly and the problems continue to exist for a long time. It is particularly intense in the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia because the cult environment is so very extreme with the minister as the center focus of the local group.
It's bad.
Really, really bad.
It sounds like this guy wanted to have sex with other women. Now normal people who are so inclined do this before they get married, but of course this person was in a weird religion. But even that weird religion had changed its strict rules and permitted divorce and remarriage, which is good as it might prevent people from murdering their mates if they felt too trapped. But this idiot couldn't leave her so he kills her instead and then makes his son witness his mother's dead body.
Did he do it for the life insurance policy? But then probably suicide would be excluded. I guess his lack of planning prevents him from having a first degree murder charge. He sounds like an idiot, but then who of us could coolly and intelligently carry out a murder?
I feel very sorry for his son and wife and have little sympathy for the selfish asshole.
In the papers the charges claim , "Without PreMeditation"
Are they kidding? It is self evident that he planned and meditated on this murder for months. Charge should be FIRST DEGREE MURDER!
Unfortunately, the death penalty was abolished in Minnesota in 1911. Alwine is 43 and his maximum sentence is listed as 40 years.
In 2005 Minnesota state law changed , making a life sentence mandatory, with no parole possible, for nearly all first-degree intentional murder cases. Allwine deserves a first degree murder charge IMHO!
In some TV program, they mentioned that the average prison term for murder in some states is 8 years. So someone can snuff out your life out of envy or similar evil motive, and be out of the slammer in 8 years. What a joke!
@Connie Schmidt,
It's second degree, unpremeditated murder because while they are reasonably certain he is behind the DarkWeb activities, it's really hard to definitively pin it on him. Instead, the murder charges are based on his obvious staging of Amy's body after shooting her and the evidence that makes him the primary/only suspect in her death. They obviously know about the longterm planning and lay it out in the complaint, but they can't prove it enough -- yet -- to bring specific charges against him.
Once they break that barrier and charge him for hiring hitmen, buying drugs illegally and any other number of other crimes, his 40 year maximum could increase drastically when it's all considered together.
TL;DR: more charges could be coming
Perhaps it's coming, but...
by this time we should have expected David Pack to chime in and say that he did these things because he was possessed with a demon (or several) and then go on to say that United ministers are bothered / possessed with demons.
Anyone taking bets?
That would be Almost Arrested Elisha Elijah Joshua Hababbuk Bob Thiel. I would expect that from before Pack. Pack will use this as a way to gather UCG members into his fold....which is not going to happen.
Just another nail in the coffin of the belief that belonging to specific religious group makes you magically different from the common herd. I used to think that. We had the "truth." We were different from all those deceived multitudes. We had the Holy spirit and they only thought they did, etc. We were healthier than all those pork and sea food eaters, etc., etc. Nothing has changed in the basic COG attitude since Hypocrite Herb first brought it into being. Under the surface hides a cesspool of self-righteousness and hidden sins and iniquities. When I saw that stark reality forty years ago now, I got out and didn't let my shirt tail hit my rear end.
Allen C. Dexter
Remember counselling with the minister?
They had the special Spirit of discernment!
That way they could listen for a few minutes and give you what to do about your problems off the top of his head without consulting anyone or doing further research, even if he had absolutely no experience with the problem. Go to the minister; get counselled; do what he says; problem solved!
Ah, that Spirit of discernment!
Wonder why it didn't work in this case for the other ministers to 'discern' what was going on....
Doesn't give you pause about the counselling you received over the years?
Counseling with the minister was the answer to everything, especially for my former wife. I knew better and for the most part kept my own counsel and tried to solve things my own way. I saw through that when Al Portune's wet behind the ears son was ordained and made a counselor for our congregation just after graduation, and I think recently married. If you had family problems, you were supposed to go bear your soul to him. I had by that time become smart enough to do no such thing. I don't recall hearing his name after the seventies and his father's departure. I wonder what became of him.
Allen C. Dexter
"...we should have expected David Pack to chime in and say that he did these things because he was possessed with a demon (or several) and then go on to say that United ministers are bothered / possessed with demons."
This tragedy is the culmination of the way of Armtrongism.
The macrocosm and microcosm.
Doesn't this happen all the time to the sheeple who will no longer participate or play along with them?
DBP
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