On Exit and Support the following letter was posted. It shows how sick the various splinter groups are in making demands on their members to the point they will willingly divorce spouses in order to remain in the "church."
Those who have been disfellowshipped and marked over the decades will all most agree that being put out was the greatest blessing imaginable. Freed from the shackles of despotic church leaders people finally experience what true freedom is. Whether one is led to leave organized religion to those who revel in grace, being free is a tremendous feeling.
March 20, 2017I was disfellowshipped from PCG 4 years ago; when I told my wife to leave also, she told me, "Where will I go, what other church shall I go to?" In her mind she had to find another church to go to before she left PCG, or she wouldn't leave. This is what high demand churches do. They instill in the member's mind that without their "church"--in this case PCG--the member is doomed, and will not have God’s favor. My wife was willing to end a 23 year marriage, with two children, so she could remain in PCG.
At the time I was disfellowshipped, I thought I was lost forever, but I did not know it was a great blessing in disguise, even though my marriage ended (she is still in PCG). I have never regretted how God pulled my out of that cult, and opened my eyes up to the truth of the scriptures, that we are saved by Christ alone, by grace, through faith.
I guess it is true what people say, you only get rid of poison in your system, when you stop receiving the needles. At first it will be hard to let go, but as time goes on, the truth will come into focus, and you will see all the lies you were led to believe. To those who are thinking about leaving, don’t be afraid, it is God who is guiding you. --S. A., former PCG member
19 comments:
EVERYBODY, yes , everybody gets disfellowshipped sooner or later! Every splinter member and minister from WCG has been disfellowshipped by them.
Even , then , you will run afoul of someone for something, it all is a matter of time. I find it amazing that there is some sort of statute of limitations on disfellowshipments, as you will see visits from the leadership of UCG with those of the CGI , who were disfellowshipped way back around 1980. (Write for our free booklet "Just When Does Disfellowshipment Start and End" at PO Box 111).
It is sort of like the old Dean Martin song ... "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime"...
Sing A Long here --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whku41_v-ZQ
Everybody, gets kicked -out sometime...
Everybody gets the "shove" somehow...
Something, in your dismiss just told me...
My Sometime Is NOW!
;-)
If anyone needs a disfellowship certificate I have been authorized by the Graveyard Church of God to do so. But you must join the GYCG and remain in good standing!
The holy spirit told me to be a stay at home Christian over 30 years ago. It's the best thing that happened to me. There are advantages to church services for sure. But the price is way too high. You pay through the nose. Attending church, you can never fully grow up. It's like in some dysfunctional households that don't allow their children to grow up by incessantly verbally stomping on them.
The ministers by using a variety of evil ploys, mentally cripple church members so they can be lorded over. As a matter of observation, it's only ministers and their wives that radiate confidence and poise. Everyone else in church services has been beaten down. It was the same in the former commie Warsaw pact era. You could tell who were the government officials purely by their walk. Only government officials held their heads high.
With the internet, a abundance of inspirational religious programs are available. The splinters no longer have their old time monopoly.
Not going to church services is a package deal with positives and negatives. But it is the better package deal.
I think we can be truely grateful for the internet.It is so hard to hide anymore.Abuse sooner or later becomes common knowledge.As can erroneous doctrines.We really are without excuse.Sites like this one provide a great public service in shining a light into the often dark world of the cogs.
We literally can "dis fellowship "ourselves now.
I hope many in these obnoxious groups will be able to help themselves escape and "dis fellowship "themselves without help from so called ministers.
May this blog and others like it lead them back to sanity.
Dis fellowship can open doors to a new life.
Sadly many have been hurt by it and families torn apart.The cogs have a lot to answer for.
Dear SA
I am thinking about leaving COG but I am deathly afraid of God abandoning me and of course the lake of fire. You left PCG but what are your thoughts about UCG, COGWA. When I listen to sermons now the "messages" are good but it's the idea that this cog that cog is only where God is at. Or, you go to each cog site and they ALL say the same thing. But, they are not one accord. They all have or celebrate the same days as in Feast of Tab, Days Of Unleveand Bread etc. and God is ONLY with them. Uh...uh... Winter Family Weekends, some kind of "college" some kind of youth leadership. But they are not "one accord". What I want to do...is leave them...but not God. To me or how I want to believe is that God IS everything and everything belongs to Him. He loves me and wants me to use the talents HE gave me..for all...not just the church. I want to believe that His plan IS His plan and it's going to happen as He wants/when HE wants and what I do..doesn't make a bit of difference. I want to believe that HE will save us, bring us peace and a great world. This is what I WANT to believe. But, I struggle with the doom. I really don't think that the God of all put us on this turf to live like that. But, to capture life and run with it full stride using the talents HE gave us all and still have the promise of like instead of Lake even though we or I don't belong to a COG. Sometimes I do think HE is trying to tell me something. A lot of my life and talents were wasted waiting for "it" to happen. In 1975 and at sixteen..sad. Also sad is sometimes I wish I could be hypnotized with no memory of WCG or whatever but have a mindset that God IS good, loving , gracious and kind...to all. I know HE is. He said so Himself. But what I have learned is if I am not in COG I am not of His. I welcome your insight(s). Change your thoughts...change yourself
My story is a bit different. I wasn't really kicked out. I walked away and stayed away. It was the beginning of my return to sanity which led through steadily increasing critical thinking and eventual secular humanist atheism.
Allen C. Dexter
Anon @ 6:43
UCG and COGWA are just as deadly to your spiritual life as the Philadelphia Church of God and Restored Church of God is. Any COG that denies Jesus, as they ALL do when they coddle up to the law over being agents of grace, justice and mercy. The church is not unified when over 400 some groups are out there with every leader preacher preaching something different. They are all liars and blasphemers, particularly when it come sot Dave Pack, Bob Thiel and Gerald Flurry.
6.43 PM
The definition of a Christian is not one who attends church. We have all experienced members who were not the least bit converted. Rather a Christian is one who follows Christ. Or as Christ expressed it 'my mother, father, brethren are those who do my Fathers will.' No church attendance mentioned.
To: Anonymous @ 6:43
I really do feel for you and any other captive in the COG-Web.
You requested some "thoughts" from the rest of us. Here are my thoughts to you -- and any other unfortunate captive in the same position -- to mull over:
I was 17 years old during 1975 when caught in the web. HWA was my hero and role model ... Just after Passover, 1989, I've contacted the late Dr Roy McCarthy (one-time RD for South Africa,) and informed him of my decision to disassociate myself from the then WCG. Boy, did I make a mistake at that specific point in time! ... But I've survived it all. It was not easy, but I've walked away after writing a last letter to Dr. McCarthy, wherein I've spelt out in no uncertain terms that I prefer to be on my own and not to be harrassed any further by officials of the Church. That letter apparently did it. Sure, I've lost contact with all the "bretheren," but as the years went by, I've made new friends and acquantences and grew ... spiritually!
One thing I've promissed myself was to never-EVER allow ANY other human being to lord it over me or to try and run my personal life for me.
I used to wake up in a sweat with images of destruction in that fabled, mythological, awefull Lake of Fire, but as time went by, I've survived and outgrown all those superstitions ... even the god of the bible :D
I've never stopped praying or walking with God. All I did was to realize just WHAT the Armstrong-cum-Bible-God was all about, and in so doing changed my focus/perspective, and as a result, I'm a much happier and productive person and citizen today. I love my fellow human beings NOT because some ancient text or church tells me to, but because I WANT to :) There's lots of LIFE and LOVE outside any COG.
Dare to be different - DARE to be YOURSELF
When I got disfellowshiped from Philadelphia Church of God I went over to Living Church of God. Now for the past 12 years I have also been attending United Church of God and Restored Church of God. To keep from being Disfellowshiped Is not not run and tell the minister every bloody detail of your private life.
It is a blessing to be disfellowshipped.
Unfortunately, after my revealing epiphanies, bashing, exposing, mocking and otherwise disseminating uncomfortable and intolerable inconvenient truth about the Armstrongist churches of godlessness for years, none of them have seen fit to disfellowship me.
I've certainly given them ample opportunity to do so. I may well be the most infamous, most hated of all people among the 1%ers of the Cult of Herbert Armstrong Mafia (itself a pejorative term which should have earned me the disrespect of the CoHAM to take action against me).
But they are stubborn. If you really want to be disfellowshipped, they will be incorrigibley recalcitrant. They will rebel against taking any action against you.
If any of you are in this position, you can, of course, take The Painful Truth Editor's kind offer to give you a certificate of Disfellowshipment (as if that's a real word). I finally had to engage with The Painful Truth and get one. It will always be a deep disappointment that I've failed to get one. They are really cruel and know how to hurt a guy. It would been such a mark of honor and achievement.
It's really disappointing.
I suppose if you really want to be officially disfellowshipped, you could pretend that you didn't want to be -- to beg and plead to stay. Maybe then you could have your own blessing with a letter (or an email -- these people are like bad boyfriends that dump you with emails these days, not having the courage to do it face to face).
The worst is the stealth disfellowshipment where you can't attend anymore and everyone shuns you, but there's been absolutely nothing official.
As it is, some of you can take your special blessing with you.
And some of us will never know the heights of blessing afforded to those who have been 'marked' by the servants of Satan the Devil (assuming he exists).
It's called discrimination.
It's a hate crime.
Just so like the ACoGs.
"My story is a bit different. I wasn't really kicked out. I walked away and stayed away."
Blessed are those who walk away without needing to be disfellowshiped, marked, and shunned, for theirs is a personal kingdom of peace.
You are not the only Christian that does that. I myself attend Church of God, International and Intercontinental Church of God. Most people visit various spin-off groups of WWCG.
"...that we are saved by Christ alone, by grace, through faith. "
yes it's good that he's out of PCG, but that statement is probably the most misused, misunderstood of any...
kinda like "the finished work of Jesus"....implying that there is nothing for us to do, just sit back and live however we want, because we're "saved"...
that fellow would do well to remember that faith without works (actions, obedience) is dead, it won't save him or anyone else....
"One thing I've promissed myself was to never-EVER allow ANY other human being to lord it over me or to try and run my personal life for me."
if every Church member had that attitude, the churches would be so much better....the ministers can teach, and we can soak in that which is accurate, and toss aside the parts where they err..
and when the error is too great, we can leave and join up with those whose teaching is more accurate.
the term "church" comes from the German word for CIRCLE, and CIRCE, and it was where the pagans and druids worshipped, and still worship today....inside of a CIRCLE....all of them are pagan to the core and have no idea who or what "god" even is...
keep the faith
(ex WCG,GCG,ICG,TPM slave)
thought I'd just leave this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff4pEe-6WUw
Sorry, True Bread, but Old English *circe* (pronounced /cheercheh/, evolving via regular phonetic changes to *church*) is not related to *circle*. It derives ultimately from the Greek kȳ́ri(os), "master," as part of a phrase meaning "master's house."
*Circle* derives ultimately from Latin *circulus*, "round geometric figure," via Old French *cercle*, borrowed into Middle English with the same spelling and later respelled to look more like the Latin original.
I know nothing about pre-Christian Celtic worship practices, but if Stonehenge is any example, it gives weight to your "worship circle" description. It may be instructive to note that early Christian worship spaces were arranged in the shape of a cross, not a circle.
Most excellent explanation 8:55.
The Roman an Celtic languages use loans from "ecclesia" (eglise) for example.
The Greek word for "the masters house" travelled through the Eastern Empire through the Slavic peoples, then through the Goths into the Nordic languages (keeping the original consonants) from Kirke, Kirche, Kerke to the Frisian and Anglo palliative pronunciation Tjerke, Church. The Latin word cicle would be Kreis in Germanic.
It was the study of language that led me to search for better proof of us bi on prophesy than the flimsy etymological "proof" offered in the " bestseller."
Nck
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