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
John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.
John 15:10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
If you want clarity on whether we are saved by grace or saved by works you won't get it from the bible. The New Testament teaches both. Why? The reason is that some of the scriptures where written by men who believed that salvation is by works and some of the scriptures where written by men who believed that salvation can only be gifted and can't be earned, by grace. The bible speaks with forked tongue! More evidence that scriptures where not inspired by a God but written by men with their own agendas.
What a relief to be free of all those contradictions and nonsense. It's destroyed millions of people from unending strife, held civilization back centuries and keeps people enslaved to self-serving narcissists all with their own agendas, which usually boils down to power, wealth and self-serving control. I know most of you sneer at me for being a liberal, free, secular humanist atheist. I'm free. I'm happy. I laugh at your dire predictions for me. There's no god. There's no coming kingdom. Jesus is a farce invented by the Romans. Israel was a fanciful concoction dreamed up by a few Canaanite families who wanted to make something special of themselves while foisting their little god of war, YHVH, off as the only god after a few centuries. Get out of that illusionist facade and enjoy life as much as possible. I did. What a glorious relief!
Anon wrote: "If you want clarity on whether we are saved by grace or saved by works you won't get it from the bible. The New Testament teaches both. Why? The reason is that some of the scriptures where written by men who believed that salvation is by works and some of the scriptures where written by men who believed that salvation can only be gifted"
Good points, Anon.
I don't remember who it was that taught each of the various NT classes but I do remember leaving them totally confused. The issue of grace/works was supposed to be clarified at AC, but since one verse teaches one thing and another another, the emerging doctrine was just a big mess if you considered it any objective manner.
Not that the situation would be any different at any other theological seminary, of course. They're trying to make a unified sense of a collection of books that fundamentally don't agree.
After all, the concept itself is confused from the start. You can't earn salvation, it's a "free gift". God freely gives his grace to you. But getting grace and having faith is "dead" without works (if you don't obey). So yes, you do seem to have to "earn" it then, but you're just not allowed to call it "earning", because it's free from God (huh?), and requires faith, which by the way, you can't have on your own, even that's from God, so you really didn't do anything in the first place, but your salvation is still your own responsibility... ... and so on, oh boy.
Keeping the Sabbath is not trying to be JUSTIFED by law. It's trying to OBEY the law. It amazes me how people still don't get that (or pretend not to).
a) You will have a better life if you obey the traffic lights b) The fact that you live in a country with traffic lights is by pure grace alone. You cannot help it only quelch it. It is a gift to you. c) If no cars are coming in the mohave it is rather stupid to stop for the traffic light. Even more stupid to receive a penalty from an officer behind an ad sign. d) However to tell the kid in the car that it is ok to drive through that red traffic light in the Mohave is rather reprehensible and endangering others future and putting oneself on a slippery slope.
As most musicians know. To only play the notes (laws of music), makes for horrible music. The real music is the sound that happens between those notes some genius and inspired composer jotted down. Life offers ample opportunities to see how the notes fit the music.
How would you even keep the sabbath today? So much of the observance revolved around the temple and its activities. Also, there was no pre-written fixed calendar during Jesus' lifetime. The Priests observed the moon, and filled in the details as to what the calendar was going to be as they saw certain conditions. The sabbaths were figured from the new moon.
It is no longer possible in our day and age to come up with the precise facts that rigid legalism can be based upon. This is probably why every day is the sabbath for Christians who are resting from their old ways. The ACOGs never have observed the sabbath strictly in accordance with Old Testament law in the first place. They made an effort to observe it as HWA said it was to be kept, but he made some convenient changes along the way. Of course, that doesn't keep Armstrongites from claiming that they are obeying God when in fact they are obeying Herbie. Pretty disingenuous if you think deeply about it.
Another thing. Some people will probably expect a pass from God by telling Him that "Mr. Armstrong was Your apostle". That's how they "prove all things" now, during physical life.
Law vs grace was not an issue in the first century, but Protestants used Galatians for that purpose in the Reformation. Being one of Paul’s Jeopardy books (you get the answers but have to guess the questions) COGs tend to follow HWA’s guesses, which were wrong. Galatians wasn’t about the “Gospel about Jesus”, abolishing circumcision and the end of offerings (sacrifices); along with Acts 15, it was about Gentiles, and that they didn’t need to become Jews by ritual conversion in order to become Christians. Unfortunately in Greek word “nomos” (law) can mean Torah law, Oral law, civil and natural law, etc. “Law of Moses” as stated in Acts can refer to the Torah, or to the man-made Oral law. There was no Torah law that said a Jew must not enter the home of a Gentile, but Peter said it was “unlawful” to do so – it was against a man-made law. HWA used Galatians to remove “sacrifices” to deal with a possible problem from his misuse of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews gives a comparison of the Aaronic priesthood on Earth with the priesthood of Melchizedek in Heaven (both “eternal” priesthoods), but HWA twisted verses to “prove” the priesthood of Melchizedek (which he claimed was carried out by the church) replaced the priesthood of Aaron. But this was only to get tithing, not all the other priestly duties – so he had to “prove” they were abolished, and so he used Galatians. The “law” in Galatians 5:4 is most likely the Oral law. In ritual conversion, Gentiles had to agree to keep “the whole Law”, meaning Torah and the man-made traditions in the Oral law. In “becoming Jewish” the Gentiles were denying that accepting Jesus as the Messiah was sufficient. So, in the picture, “I kept the 7th day sabbath” should be, perhaps, “I didn’t wear makeup”, or “I didn’t watch professional football”, or some other Extra-Biblical Woo Woo.
If one reads the postings and comments of this blog to often one might be inclined to start believing that mankind doing things in certain ways and certain order in their effort to appease the God(s) is somehow an invention of HWA, that all ritual did not start with good old Nimrod initiating the catholic church (re clay tablets from the Hislopian empire) but HWA starting it all, ritual, religion, works, all with the express purpose of raking in the dough, dwarfing the emperor Constantine in the endeavor of centralizing power through religion. Even Putin re establishing the Orthodox Church and faith in Russia is not worthy to clean HWA's slippers since these works of rituals, power and mystery are nothing compared to HWA's edict to eat the dry cracker for seven days in a row.
Most of the posters here are old and know from personal experience the importance of law. Yet they pretend otherwise. I'd be interested to know what they taught their children?
"What a relief to be free of all those contradictions and nonsense".
What self delusion where an atheist ignores the scientific facts, that the Universe had a beginning. That means atheists have to "believe" that something as big as infinite universe, filled with immeasurable energy came from nothing. (of course you can always whip out the silly talk of infinite universes, which makes even less sense) Then you must ignore the most complex thing in the universe, life. Studying the inner workings of a cell shows nothing at all "natural" about it's extreme complexity which can not be explained without an supreme designer. No human would ever imagine the workings of the micro biological world.
It's amazing to anyone with common sense, who comes to this site, just how extreme hatred of other misguided human beings can cloud one's judgment. Their world is filled with contradictions and nonsense, that so blinded by hate, they can't see. Intelligent Design is all around you, but you don't allow your self to see with your own eyes. Read Romans 1.
The really hate-filled individuals were around perhaps 10-15 years ago. Most of the folks who are left have processed their personal holocausts and are simply trying to assist others in avoiding the scam, or in finding healing. We provide good alternatives and a valuable service, as anyone who reads the regular reports at ESN most certainly realizes.
As long as people continue to suffer abuse and toxicity, we will be raising red flags and trouble shooting. I think we have the majority of our work ahead of us. The craziness we're witnessing right now appears to be leading to a Waco or a Jonestown.
Allen Dexter I agree with your "enjoy life as much as possible." However I intend to do that on Christ's return and for all of eternity. For the time being, I am sacrificing and working hard to qualify for the kingdom, just like a university student working hard on a eg engineering degree. I gonna be in the kingdom, but you aren't. So who's the fool?
I don't think it's really about the Sabbath per se - its really about the COG's emphasis on keeping the Sabbath as a prerequisite to salvation and as a method of excluding "so-called Christians" from "God's church." I think the invention of a collective day of rest for people is brilliant, especially in modern times where, thanks to technology, we could work 24/7. The problem many here have with the COG's is their self-righteousness; if only they would accept "nominal Christians" or those in the "world's churches" as true equals, then I think everyone would get along much better.
Boy, you really told me, didn't you, 10:06. I'm sure you're very smugly satisfied. You just forgot one crucial thing. If the universe and life is too complicated to come from, as far as we know, nothing, just where did your all-knowing, all-powerful, all-everything else that had to be even more magnificent than the universe we're trying to fathom come from? Who made him/her/it? I'm sure you must know. I'll be waiting with bated breath. Or, are you going to fall back on, "He's always been," like a now departed creationist former associate assured me. "Always" covers it. "Splain it please.
Anon wrote: "Studying the inner workings of a cell shows nothing at all "natural" about it's extreme complexity which can not be explained without an supreme designer."
Which is more complex, a cell, or the supreme designer of it?
Allen asks 'splain it please.' certainly. Based on the scientific method (you shall know them by their fruits), we know that the universe had a beginning, since suns have a finite lifespan. From observation, we know that in every day life, a design needs a designer, etc. Hence the universe has a designer. As for who created God, using observation and reason, we simply do not know. In fact there are many things we do not know. But that does not invalidate the scientific method and its many verifiable conclusions. The 'we don't know everything, therefore we can't be sure of anything' is a old and hollow argument.
You're mighty sure of magic. If it's beyond figuring out at the present, god had to do it. Nice and simplistic, no research or study necessary. That's why Western society stagnated for centuries under people with your approach. Now, you have a strangle hold on this country through that idiot who sits in the White House and the other idiots who control congress, put there by Bible Belt idiots.
Research it. Proteins only come from hundreds of specially designed proteins working in harmony to create a new protein. Any intelligent person can see Evolution is a myth. The greatest "group think" fraud played on mankind.
What part don't you get?
ReplyDeleteJohn 14:15 If you love Me, keep My commandments.
John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.
John 15:10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
Galatians, the book that Church of God members conveniently ignore. Why did God have to go and screw up the sabbath with grace.
ReplyDeleteAnon11:30AM said:
ReplyDelete"What part [of lawkeeping] don't you get?"
What part of "contradictory" don't you get?
http://visual.ly/bible-contradictions-interactively-visualized?view=true
keep my commandments . . . Not Moses' commandments. Love God . . . love your neighbor.
ReplyDeleteIf you want clarity on whether we are saved by grace or saved by works you won't get it from the bible. The New Testament teaches both. Why? The reason is that some of the scriptures where written by men who believed that salvation is by works and some of the scriptures where written by men who believed that salvation can only be gifted and can't be earned, by grace. The bible speaks with forked tongue! More evidence that scriptures where not inspired by a God but written by men with their own agendas.
ReplyDeleteWhat a relief to be free of all those contradictions and nonsense. It's destroyed millions of people from unending strife, held civilization back centuries and keeps people enslaved to self-serving narcissists all with their own agendas, which usually boils down to power, wealth and self-serving control. I know most of you sneer at me for being a liberal, free, secular humanist atheist. I'm free. I'm happy. I laugh at your dire predictions for me. There's no god. There's no coming kingdom. Jesus is a farce invented by the Romans. Israel was a fanciful concoction dreamed up by a few Canaanite families who wanted to make something special of themselves while foisting their little god of war, YHVH, off as the only god after a few centuries. Get out of that illusionist facade and enjoy life as much as possible. I did. What a glorious relief!
ReplyDeleteAllen C. Dexter
Anon wrote:
ReplyDelete"If you want clarity on whether we are saved by grace or saved by works you won't get it from the bible. The New Testament teaches both. Why? The reason is that some of the scriptures where written by men who believed that salvation is by works and some of the scriptures where written by men who believed that salvation can only be gifted"
Good points, Anon.
I don't remember who it was that taught each of the various NT classes but I do remember leaving them totally confused. The issue of grace/works was supposed to be clarified at AC, but since one verse teaches one thing and another another, the emerging doctrine was just a big mess if you considered it any objective manner.
Not that the situation would be any different at any other theological seminary, of course. They're trying to make a unified sense of a collection of books that fundamentally don't agree.
After all, the concept itself is confused from the start. You can't earn salvation, it's a "free gift". God freely gives his grace to you. But getting grace and having faith is "dead" without works (if you don't obey). So yes, you do seem to have to "earn" it then, but you're just not allowed to call it "earning", because it's free from God (huh?), and requires faith, which by the way, you can't have on your own, even that's from God, so you really didn't do anything in the first place, but your salvation is still your own responsibility... ... and so on, oh boy.
Keeping the Sabbath is not trying to be JUSTIFED by law. It's trying to OBEY the law. It amazes me how people still don't get that (or pretend not to).
ReplyDeleteGood summary, Michael. Just drives my points home even further.
ReplyDeleteAllen C. Dexter
I am not a biblical scolar at all.
ReplyDeleteBut isn't the logical answer aking like.
a) You will have a better life if you obey the traffic lights
b) The fact that you live in a country with traffic lights is by pure grace alone. You cannot help it only quelch it. It is a gift to you.
c) If no cars are coming in the mohave it is rather stupid to stop for the traffic light. Even more stupid to receive a penalty from an officer behind an ad sign.
d) However to tell the kid in the car that it is ok to drive through that red traffic light in the Mohave is rather reprehensible and endangering others future and putting oneself on a slippery slope.
As most musicians know. To only play the notes (laws of music), makes for horrible music. The real music is the sound that happens between those notes some genius and inspired composer jotted down. Life offers ample opportunities to see how the notes fit the music.
nck
How would you even keep the sabbath today? So much of the observance revolved around the temple and its activities. Also, there was no pre-written fixed calendar during Jesus' lifetime. The Priests observed the moon, and filled in the details as to what the calendar was going to be as they saw certain conditions. The sabbaths were figured from the new moon.
ReplyDeleteIt is no longer possible in our day and age to come up with the precise facts that rigid legalism can be based upon. This is probably why every day is the sabbath for Christians who are resting from their old ways. The ACOGs never have observed the sabbath strictly in accordance with Old Testament law in the first place. They made an effort to observe it as HWA said it was to be kept, but he made some convenient changes along the way. Of course, that doesn't keep Armstrongites from claiming that they are obeying God when in fact they are obeying Herbie. Pretty disingenuous if you think deeply about it.
BB
Another thing. Some people will probably expect a pass from God by telling Him that "Mr. Armstrong was Your apostle". That's how they "prove all things" now, during physical life.
ReplyDeleteBB
Law vs grace was not an issue in the first century, but Protestants used Galatians for that purpose in the Reformation.
ReplyDeleteBeing one of Paul’s Jeopardy books (you get the answers but have to guess the questions) COGs tend to follow HWA’s guesses, which were wrong. Galatians wasn’t about the “Gospel about Jesus”, abolishing circumcision and the end of offerings (sacrifices); along with Acts 15, it was about Gentiles, and that they didn’t need to become Jews by ritual conversion in order to become Christians.
Unfortunately in Greek word “nomos” (law) can mean Torah law, Oral law, civil and natural law, etc. “Law of Moses” as stated in Acts can refer to the Torah, or to the man-made Oral law. There was no Torah law that said a Jew must not enter the home of a Gentile, but Peter said it was “unlawful” to do so – it was against a man-made law.
HWA used Galatians to remove “sacrifices” to deal with a possible problem from his misuse of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews gives a comparison of the Aaronic priesthood on Earth with the priesthood of Melchizedek in Heaven (both “eternal” priesthoods), but HWA twisted verses to “prove” the priesthood of Melchizedek (which he claimed was carried out by the church) replaced the priesthood of Aaron. But this was only to get tithing, not all the other priestly duties – so he had to “prove” they were abolished, and so he used Galatians.
The “law” in Galatians 5:4 is most likely the Oral law. In ritual conversion, Gentiles had to agree to keep “the whole Law”, meaning Torah and the man-made traditions in the Oral law. In “becoming Jewish” the Gentiles were denying that accepting Jesus as the Messiah was sufficient.
So, in the picture, “I kept the 7th day sabbath” should be, perhaps, “I didn’t wear makeup”, or “I didn’t watch professional football”, or some other Extra-Biblical Woo Woo.
If one reads the postings and comments of this blog to often one might be inclined to start believing that mankind doing things in certain ways and certain order in their effort to appease the God(s) is somehow an invention of HWA, that all ritual did not start with good old Nimrod initiating the catholic church (re clay tablets from the Hislopian empire) but HWA starting it all, ritual, religion, works, all with the express purpose of raking in the dough, dwarfing the emperor Constantine in the endeavor of centralizing power through religion. Even Putin re establishing the Orthodox Church and faith in Russia is not worthy to clean HWA's slippers since these works of rituals, power and mystery are nothing compared to HWA's edict to eat the dry cracker for seven days in a row.
ReplyDeletenck
whoever made that meme clearly does not understand the law or grace.....
ReplyDeleteMost of the posters here are old and know from personal experience the importance of law. Yet they pretend otherwise. I'd be interested to know what they taught their children?
ReplyDeleteDexter at 7:52 Pm says
ReplyDelete"What a relief to be free of all those contradictions and nonsense".
What self delusion where an atheist ignores the scientific facts, that the Universe had a beginning. That means atheists have to "believe" that something as big as infinite universe, filled with immeasurable energy came from nothing. (of course you can always whip out the silly talk of infinite universes, which makes even less sense)
Then you must ignore the most complex thing in the universe, life. Studying the inner workings of a cell shows nothing at all "natural" about it's extreme complexity which can not be explained without an supreme designer. No human would ever imagine the workings of the micro biological world.
It's amazing to anyone with common sense, who comes to this site, just how extreme hatred of other misguided human beings can cloud one's judgment. Their world is filled with contradictions and nonsense, that so blinded by hate, they can't see. Intelligent Design is all around you, but you don't allow your self to see with your own eyes. Read Romans 1.
The really hate-filled individuals were around perhaps 10-15 years ago. Most of the folks who are left have processed their personal holocausts and are simply trying to assist others in avoiding the scam, or in finding healing. We provide good alternatives and a valuable service, as anyone who reads the regular reports at ESN most certainly realizes.
ReplyDeleteAs long as people continue to suffer abuse and toxicity, we will be raising red flags and trouble shooting. I think we have the majority of our work ahead of us. The craziness we're witnessing right now appears to be leading to a Waco or a Jonestown.
BB
Allen Dexter
ReplyDeleteI agree with your "enjoy life as much as possible." However I intend to do that on Christ's return and for all of eternity. For the time being, I am sacrificing and working hard to qualify for the kingdom, just like a university student working hard on a eg engineering degree.
I gonna be in the kingdom, but you aren't. So who's the fool?
I don't think it's really about the Sabbath per se - its really about the COG's emphasis on keeping the Sabbath as a prerequisite to salvation and as a method of excluding "so-called Christians" from "God's church." I think the invention of a collective day of rest for people is brilliant, especially in modern times where, thanks to technology, we could work 24/7. The problem many here have with the COG's is their self-righteousness; if only they would accept "nominal Christians" or those in the "world's churches" as true equals, then I think everyone would get along much better.
ReplyDeleteBoy, you really told me, didn't you, 10:06. I'm sure you're very smugly satisfied. You just forgot one crucial thing. If the universe and life is too complicated to come from, as far as we know, nothing, just where did your all-knowing, all-powerful, all-everything else that had to be even more magnificent than the universe we're trying to fathom come from? Who made him/her/it? I'm sure you must know. I'll be waiting with bated breath. Or, are you going to fall back on, "He's always been," like a now departed creationist former associate assured me.
ReplyDelete"Always" covers it. "Splain it please.
Allen C. Dexter
Anon wrote:
ReplyDelete"Studying the inner workings of a cell shows nothing at all "natural" about it's extreme complexity which can not be explained without an supreme designer."
Which is more complex, a cell, or the supreme designer of it?
Allen asks 'splain it please.' certainly. Based on the scientific method (you shall know them by their fruits), we know that the universe had a beginning, since suns have a finite lifespan. From observation, we know that in every day life, a design needs a designer, etc. Hence the universe has a designer. As for who created God, using observation and reason, we simply do not know. In fact there are many things we do not know. But that does not invalidate the scientific method and its many verifiable conclusions. The 'we don't know everything, therefore we can't be sure of anything' is a old and hollow argument.
ReplyDeleteYou're mighty sure of magic. If it's beyond figuring out at the present, god had to do it. Nice and simplistic, no research or study necessary. That's why Western society stagnated for centuries under people with your approach. Now, you have a strangle hold on this country through that idiot who sits in the White House and the other idiots who control congress, put there by Bible Belt idiots.
ReplyDeleteAllen C. Dexter
Dexter,
ReplyDeleteResearch it. Proteins only come from hundreds of specially designed proteins working in harmony to create a new protein. Any intelligent person can see Evolution is a myth. The greatest "group think" fraud played on mankind.
But you'll have to open your eyes first.