The latest issue of The Journal, News of the Churches of God is out.
This issue has an article about the Amy Allwine murder by UCG minister Stephen Allwine.
United Church of God president Victor Kubik released a statement after police charged a UCG elder with murder in the death of the elder’s wife.
President Kubik, who works out of the church’s headquarters in Milford, Ohio,
expressed “profound shock and sadness” upon learning about the arrest of Stephen Allwine, 43, of Cottage Grove, Minn., on Jan. 17, 2017, on charges of second-degree
murder of his wife, Amy Louise Zutz Allwine, two months earlier on Nov. 13, 2016.
There is also an excellent article by David Antion about the 1974 "rebellion."
Another minister who was there tells about the so-called rebellion in the WCG in 1974
I present here the memories I have of the experiences I went through during those times.
I am dealing here with one phase of the complex and many-faceted interactions that took place from 1972 through 1974 in the Worldwide Church of God. This represents only the dealings of my talks with the leaders of the 1974 crisis and a little of what led up to it. Here’s some background that led up to 1974.
At last Helen Stiles told me I could go in. I thought this was strange because Mr. Armstrong usually came out to greet anyone who had an appointment. Nevertheless I went in.
When I opened the main door to his office, to my surprise there was Herbert Armstrong flanked by Garner Ted Armstrong and Stan Rader. Behind them were the head- quarters evangelists—Dibar Apartian, Norman Smith, Wayne Cole, David Jon Hill, Ronald Dart, Roderick Meredith (as I remember)—and Robert Kuhn.
(Robert was trying hard to keep a lid on the explosion that was about to happen. He was understanding and sympathetic because he knew the need for changes in doctrine. Later he was the primary force in changing many of the church’s teachings on healing and D&R. To this day Robert and I are still close friends.)
I felt alone, like I was standing before the Sanhedrin.There are also the usual advertisements by several of the extreme COG splinter groups with each one proclaiming they alone have the truth.
Don Billingsley is back with his off the wall comments and predictions...all of which have been failures. This time he is predicting that because of Donald Trump being elected President this will allow the building of the end time temple in Jerusalem.
The Third Temple—Another major reason for his presidency will be to make possible the building of the third Temple in Jerusalem (more about this in a future article in our magazine). This will lead to the count- down of Jesus Christ’s coming back to this earth (Daniel 12:11-12).
You can red the latest issue here.
10 comments:
The latest The Journal has again given us yet another window into the Insane Asylum where those in control of the Asylum are the most crazy of all.
It absolutely confirms once again how evil, rotten, divisive and Satanic the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia is and even provides the history to prove it.
There is absolutely, positively NO reason to give one shred of respect to anyone still associated with this abusive useless sociopathic cult.
The whole thing demonstrates why Armstrongism can NEVER have one shred of credibility.
Only the naïve, stupid and utter fools can look upon the contents of The Journal without disgust and loathing for the whitewash job it does to make the garbage dump of Armstrongism look more appealing.
I am sure in due time ,"The Journal",will go down the same road into oblivion as the cogs.That must be "good news".
Sadly, as sure as the dawn of another day,some other religious organisation will arise to mislead many.And the cycle of abuse will continue.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Interestingly, in the last two issues, the tarnish which existed in the early '70s has been documented through the archival articles of Ken Westby, and now, David Antion. This is important, because over the past several decades there has been an orchestrated effort to clean up the image and legacy of Herbert W. Armstrong, and to depict him as being pure as the driven snow. Reality is that he was morally flawed and failed to an extent equalling that of Garner Ted. As the man-made Armstrong movement winds down, the journal in its own slow and plodding way appears to be assisting in the removal of blinders from the eyes of the stalwarts. The "mushrooms" really have very little remaining excuse for their spiritual world view.
BB
Well,
It is that Back Opps has professed experience in the corporate field and brandishes the characters there with the same vitriol. Otherwise he would hold no legitimazy in his personal opinions.
A quick read of the article reveals to me my established believe that HWA posessed no managerial/organizational qualitiues whatsoever and that Stanley Rader was in 100% control.
(Perhaps even until 2001 behind the scenes.)
HWA had other merits and those were exploited to the max! By himself and the 9th economic power in the word in the 1970's. (Which is the Chamber of Commerce of the State of California)
nck
Herbert Armstrong not only possessed no managerial / organizational qualities whatsoever, he had no academic credentials, no foresight, no structural visualization, was a boozing alcoholic and most of all, was completely, totally, wholly incompetent as a religious person or a leader at all.
As for Stanley Raider, it should be remembered that in actuality, at the Worldwide Church of God and Ambassador College, NO ONE was in charge.
The only thing in charge with the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia ever is entropy.
The Journal has blown its wad on its nostalgia issues, proving once again that nostalgia is not what it used to be. It also proves just how corrupt Armstrong really was and is: People boxing themselves in to cooperate with a crazy incompetent sociopath for no particularly good reason. If Herbert Armstrong ever worked for me while I was a manager for a misfortune 50 company, I would have documented all his malfeasance, fired him and made sure he never ever got another job. He actually had no skills of any worth except the talent to advertise crap convincingly, but since the business for which I worked didn't see any crap, his one and only skill would have been wasted. With his rebellious nature, lack of skills and narcissistic ego, he would not made it anywhere in the corporate world, being incapable of networking cooperatively with peers. He had to be at the top and in charge... and yet was incapable of doing so and that is why the Worldwide Church of God eventually collapsed.
Moreover, The Journal as a useless rag only really had one good thing in it and that was the praise from Dr. David Barrett, author of Fragmentation of a Sect, for the help and assistance of Gavin Rumney. Dr. Barrett deserves some sort of advanced degree for his work....
As The Journal continues to decline, currently wallowing in the past that The Painful Truth has already documented fairly well and is doing more with the exposition of the value of J. Orlin Grabbe currently, which actually reveals more about Armstrongism of the time in 1974 that the David Antion did in the current The Journal... it's just that Mr. Grabbe is accounted to be a lesser contributor... and yet... he impacted the whole world with his stellar work in Economics, particularly with the exposition of derivatives.
Yes, there was an insipid article about the Alwine situation which reminds us once again the talent a certain editor has for making a toxic waste dump appealing by covering it with a layer of snow. Watch where you step.
David Havir reminds us about the contribution to Armstrongism John Robinson made. It's too bad the son of David Robinson did what he could to cover up his father's book, but it got out anyway in The Tangled Web.
The Journal reminds us of the TV series Roswell, that story of teenage extraterrestrial angst where the three of them were flipping through the channels on TV and said in unison as each channel flipped by, "crap, crap, crap, crap, boring, crap, crap, crap".
We look forward to the next edition of the review of cult entropy where at last we can read the obituary of Roderick Meredith. No doubt The Journal will wallow in the nostalgia about his career -- insulting because he has not only been worthless, but he has ruined the lives of so many people. It will be interesting to see how The Journal whitewashes him....
Nice little article about Ron and Allie Dart on the back cover. Commemorating their 60th wedding anniversary celebrations from 2013. How they worked as a team together and mentions the various church jobs held by Ron Dart.
I read The Journal with mixed emotions because many of the people featured were old friends and acquaintances I was once reasonably close to. We've taken different forks on life's road, and now share basically nothing except a past. Still, there's an emotional connection to people like Ron Dart and David Antion. Why they've hung on to the fantasies and I have not is a puzzle I'll never know the answer to. I think a large part of it was the fact that they were just too deeply immersed to make a clean and total break. It still took me decades of mental and emotional turmoil to fully embrace rationality, science and reality.
Allen C. Dexter
Black Ops. You are one of a kind. I have come to apreciate you and your relentless uncompromising ways regarding certain issues. Nck
HWA published The Plain Truth magazine. He studied the question of the Sabbath to find the truth. Yet, when it came to dealing with employees, it appears that his mind was made up about firing them before they even had a chance to discuss it with him. What happened to his desire to find "the plain truth"? He could fire and then destroy the reputation of people he has worked with for decades. Do you see any traits of Christian character or fruit of the Holy Spirit in any of these stories? Shouldn't Christian leaders exhibit at least a minimal degree of kindness, patience, gentleness, etc.? Having never been employed by "God's Work" upon graduation from AC in 73, I can only say, "Thank God for unanswered prayer."
In latter years Ron Dart mentioned in his sermons how we have to walk away from Armstrongisim but take God's Holy Days with us. Keep the faith in God Almighty. He talked about being sat in his office chair realizing and thinking about everything. I forget his exact words. He was a man of faith and never wavered in his belief in God.
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