From a reader here. Note that this is not the first time we have heard this. This has been an ongoing issue Charlotte and elsewhere. It also is not confined just to LCG. It got its start in Pasadena. The spy base in Pasadena was astounding in the web it wove.
LCG is full of spies. They are completely unscrupulous and know no boundaries.
They spy on members Facebook pages and feel A-Okay ordering members to remove posts that MIGHT be misconstrued (think: wearing a toga - God forbid). They will guilt-trip the member by saying something like, "we know that nothing bad was really occurring when you took those pictures, but now they are on Facebook and people out in California [who don't know you] might get the wrong impression".
Funny thing is that some people can get away with costume parties (especially in Kansas City) while others are constantly criticized and beaten down for the exact same things. The scales of justice at LCG are anything but fair and just.
I remember a minister at LCG Headquarters (Roger Bardo) telling me that he came back early from lunch one day and found other HQ's ministers in his LOCKED office searching through his desk. He 'resigned' soon after and is now pastoring a small congregation far from Charlotte. I'm sure his life is exponentially better now that he's free of the brood of vipers that is LCG headquarters.
LCG also spies on all employees who use their internet servers. The cleaver one's have gmail or Hotmail accounts for personal email because they know that Big Brother is watching.
To make matters worse, these spies rarely report just the facts. It's far more salacious to add a little spin to it. Rod Meredith is always willing to believe the worst about people and never seeks both sides of the story so he buy it hook, line and sinker.
It was one of these LCG Super Spies that ultimately ended the headquarters careers of Davey Crockett, John Robinson and Bill Bowmer just to name a few.
LCG HQs is notorious for back-biting and lies. They preach brotherly love and servant leadership but what they actually practice is despicable.
I honestly don't know how they sleep at night with all the horrible things they have done to God's people over the years.
Within 10 seconds of posting this, Charlotte lite up again:
Spying has always been the church culture. When I just started attending services in the 1970s, a member invited me to diner at his house. Being new and naïve, I opened up about myself. I found out that he had written a letter to the minister, stating everything I said. When I complained about this to another church member, he told me that when he was recently at a members home, he found a tape recorder under the dinner table. yeap, a tape recorder under the table. Some church, Big Brother is listening. Please point out where such behaviour is authorized or encouraged in the bible.
ReplyDeleteSeems as if those in power don't trust God to fight their battles. This sort of paranoia sets off a very bad cycle that could have a devastating ending. All it takes is one off-balance individual who thinks that he has unfairly lost everything.
ReplyDeleteIf we were writing a booklet in the Armstrong genre, this would be among the 7 proofs that LCG is not God's church.
BB
fear and insecurity I suppose.....
ReplyDeleteIn the Land of Stepford, the truth doesn't matter, it's all about appearances, remember? Now they are weeding and pruning with Facebook? Just imagine when androids come available!
ReplyDeleteIt is saddening to think that people highly revere and respect the people who work at LCG's HQ while such vicious acts occur.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you expect with HWA being the top spy.
ReplyDeleteDiscussing most world leaders, "fears, concerns goals and aims" in frank manner as an agent from the American Empire imprinting the elites (of the time) that the use of US nuclear weapons would be more of a reality than a threat.
Davos avant la lettre.
nck
And for those who will say I am nuts.
ReplyDeleteJust yesterday the (in 4 days) President of the United States declared that the EU is a German tool for world domination.
Either Donald Trump is an avid PCG Trumpet reader or he is just saying what has been "esoteric knowledge" in the American establishment for ever.
nck
BB
ReplyDeleteThey don't trust God or His ways at all. What they trust in is lying, cheating, threatening, intimidating, dominating, slandering, enslaving, brainwashing, being partial to their bootlickers etc. In their eyes, it's these things that really work. To them, Gods ways are impractical. They sound nice on paper and in sermons, but they don't deliver the goods. Only Satans way does that.
I agree, 1:54! I've said many times before that the Armstrongist churches do not trust God, and don't understand or trust the Holy Spirit on a member's lives level. The tipoff is that the leaders go off the chart doing too many things, taking so many "counter-measures" on their own. Spying, suspicion, trashing members without God's second or third witnesses or any due process, using the court system, respecting the rich amongst them over the humble, exemplary poor, maintaining their version of an entitled class, the list goes on, and on, and on. Not all mainstream Christians are innocent of these same rotten things, but there are some exemplary ones out there who "walk the talk".
DeleteBad fruits and false prophecy always cast doubts on the messages of and group character of a church. They don't even do anything to help those who are hurting in the towns and cities in which they live. You have, instead, a group of separatists who even feed on their own!
BB
Its OK to wear a Toga! (Just don't go "commando") !
ReplyDeleteTorah / Toga .... HOO RAH!
If you have been watching season 2 of Man in the High Castle, you would realize that Armstrongism is based on the framework of Nazi Germany, where spying was just one of the many tools to keep tabs on who was loyal to the Reich and who was not.
ReplyDeletePlease let us not forget how Pasadena kept impeccable records on all baptized members tithes. If you were a faithful tither and generous offering giver at the holy days, you would hopefully scratch your way up to chair setter upper, then to Deacon or Deaconess, and then on to the hierarchy. As teenagers in the 60's, we'd term the ministry as the Gestapo, reporting every single personal flaw to the minister up the chain. Seems like that practice is alive and well in Charlotte.
ReplyDeleteThis is just the same old made-up trash by people who hate anything COG and/or LCG who have zero substantial evidence of anything that they supposedly report to us here on this blog given to them by "insiders". I happen to know quite a few top-level real insiders in LCG and many of the regular church members attending in Charlotte - and not one of them agrees hardly with anything that is posted about LCG and Charlotte on this blog. But go ahead, have your fun. Nothing that is "reported" here is going to effect anyone in LCG anyways.
ReplyDeleteWhen they aren't being evil, they're just being stupid. Watch this new LCG video that basically elevates able-bodied status to a spiritual condition.
ReplyDeleteChristians MUST Exercise!
It's just about what you would expect from a coddled wealthy minister's kid.
At least LCG is broad-minded enough to endorse yoga (shown at the 1 minute mark in the video).
Of course, exercise is good. But it takes a rule-bound Armstrongist to make a sin of "not exercising" and confuse the physical with the spiritual.
anon 12:15
ReplyDeleteI am sure if the only people you check in with to "verify rumors" are the butt-kissers in Charlotte then you will certainly received a rosy glorified story that HQ is the most unified it has ever been and every one looooooooooves each other. Those on the receiving end of the manipulation, spying and the constant back biting know differently. Get you head out of the sand and wake up! I know. I work for the church and see first hand the unChristian actions of those in charge.
Wait a minute. They'll throw you out of LCG for wearing the same kind of toga the Christians in Rome used to wear. But they'll attract new members by promoting yoga as a health-promoting regimen? This makes absolutely no sense.
ReplyDeleteI just wanna throw a shout out to Spanky and Our Gang over at LCG HQ!
ReplyDeleteGo Charlottens!!!
Ronco
I just watched the video 4:06 posted and I am fuming. Meredith went on a tantrum in a MUST PLAY sermon in the winter of 2014-15 on how people who spend time in the gym are vain and have the wrong focus (themselves and not the Church). When the sermon was later released online the ranting was taken out. I know I am not the only member (now former because of all the hypocrisy) that noticed. This coming from Spanky, former Golden Gloves Meredith. Man I am so glad I no longer have to listen to this garbage and deal with the backstabbing congregations.
ReplyDeleteAll of these former "members" posting here and complaining about the "hypocrisy" they saw at LCG HQ and Charlotte congregation, I suspect, were not really with LCG anyways or are just flat out lying and making up their "observations". Come on people, give me a break. I can't take these commentators seriously. These "members" posting here on this blog and calling their supposed brethren names (e.g. "spanky", etc.) is proof positive, to me, that they were not really with LCG or even converted.
ReplyDeleteOh? But you're here commenting with them? I suspect you're not as sure as you claim.
DeleteThese "members" posting here on this blog and calling their supposed brethren names (e.g. "spanky", etc.) is proof positive, to me, that they were not really with LCG or even converted.
ReplyDeleteSo when Meredith and HWA called Raymond McNair "Buffie" (short for "Buffoon") this means they weren't really converted? You may be on to something, Anon 7:23 AM.
Ah yes, the favorite Armstrongite weapon of choice: "You were not converted." Who in their right mind would let some sniveling legalist determine whether they were "converted" or not? No COG member or minister has the capability or theological understanding to determine that.
ReplyDelete"These "members" posting here on this blog and calling their supposed brethren names (e.g. "spanky", etc.) is proof positive, to me, that they were not really with LCG or even converted."
ReplyDeleteGood ol' Spanky earned his name in legendary fashion...
http://armstrongismlibrary.blogspot.com/2013/06/christian-domestic-dispiline-cog.html
Ronco
One problem with LCG's fear religion is that they don't think very hard about the logic of the fear they are spreading. Have you seen their latest article, "Hidden Costs of Mega-Cities"?
ReplyDeleteIf mega-cities are so awful, will LCG members fight against the New Jerusalem -- the ultimate Godly "mega-city"?
7.23AM the Pharisees were called snakes and vipers in the NT. Christ called Herod a fox. Appropriate 'name calling' is not evil.
ReplyDelete@anon 7:23
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think the people who post here are "former" LCG members?
I post all the time and I'm a current member...
Just because it's ugly, doesn't mean it isn't true. Most of the stuff I read on here about LCG I have personal knowledge of and its 99% true.
"All of these former "members" posting here and complaining about the "hypocrisy" they saw at LCG HQ and Charlotte congregation, I suspect, were not really with LCG anyways or are just flat out lying and making up their "observations". Come on people, give me a break. I can't take these commentators seriously. These "members" posting here on this blog and calling their supposed brethren names (e.g. "spanky", etc.) is proof positive, to me, that they were not really with LCG or even converted."
ReplyDeleteMy Comment:
It seems that this anon can't differentiate between being "converted" and being loyal to Rod Meredith. This may come as a shock to anon 7:23 but they are not the same thing.
I will go even further than that and say that people who recognize the wrongs (doctrine, character, abuses) in LCG and have the courage and conviction to leave are MORE converted than those who see these horrible things and lack the conviction to stand up for what is right. God tests us all in mysterious ways. Maybe He wants to see if you will do the right thing and follow His Word or if you will shrink back and go with the flow.
When I was with LCG I was "really with LCG" but I got to a point where I could no longer trick myself into making excuses for the behaviors of the men at Headquarters. That being said, I am still what you would call "converted". I just care more about being loyal to the Father than to Rod Meredith. We all make our choices.
Regarding your accusation that people on here are "flat out lying"... about what? When? The things I see posted here are true.
Unfortunately for you and other RCM followers, even if something on here was incorrect (and I have yet to see that be the case), people would all believe it because Rod Meredith and the other leading men at LCG headquarters have demonstrated poor character for DECADES! There documented lies, abuses and other "unconverted" behavior is literally a matter of church history. So if someone posted something un-true, we would all believe it because it's so easy to believe bad things about people who have shown us who they really are time and time again.
I pray that the Almighty will one day take your blinders off and that you will call what's right, right and walk away from what's wrong. Loyalty to LCG is not earning you ANYTHING in God's Kingdom.
I remember that story about Roger Bardo. Sad.
ReplyDelete