From The Atlantic:
Glynn Washington is a former COG member who shares stories of his life growing up in Armstrongism.NPR’s Great Black Hope
The radio network’s stereotypical listener is a 50-something white guy. Can Glynn Washington, the fastest-rising public-radio star in memory, change that?
Read the full story here.
Many NPR hosts come from NPR-ish families. Not Washington. “I grew up in a cult,” he told me. His parents were members of the Worldwide Church of God, a sect founded by Herbert W. Armstrong, an apocalyptic radio evangelist based in Pasadena. Washington got out—a story he tells with an escapee’s pride—and went on to the University of Michigan and its law school. He studied in Japan, then worked for the State Department, then ended up directing a program at the University of California at Berkeley. Some of the best Snap Judgment segments are drawn from his own life, and you get the feeling he could carry several episodes a year by himself.
More stories that appeared here on Banned:
Glynn Washington weaves his childhood in the WCG into his stories on PBS
Glynn Washington: The Reunion
Glynn Washington: The Son of Ham
11 comments:
I remember being filled with a bit of pride when Mr. Tom Hall had his radio program on one of the L.A. talk radio stations. I'd often sat in the same area of First Year Bible class as Tom at AC in Pasadena. It appears that Glenn has taken this further, with the national exposure on NPR, where there are some very incisive discussions of relevant, controversial issues. It's good to know that one of us from the Armstrong movement is able to make such valuable contributions. One interesting aspect to this is that Glenn has higher visibility and name recognition than the personalities on the cookie-cutter ACOG radio, TV, and internet programs. But most of them do not realize this, because their tunnel vision has them locked into Fox, and most of them would never broaden their horizons by listening to NPR.
BB
Glen is a natural when it comes to story telling. He puts on a stellar show!
i been listening to npr, and have watched public tv for around 38 years, starting with red river radio and louisiana pbs back around 1979 in the land of my fathers; public radio has since gotten annoying, especially with the corporate impurities, and i get that cuz they need the revenue in order to survive...
but the programming is not as enjoyable as it used to be, either...e.g. i used to listen to a prairie home companion quite a bit, but since keillor retired i stopped listening because the show clearly has lost the flavor that made it popular...
i look at the shows on npr today as pretentious, imitations of past glory, insincere and lacking in authenticity; corporate sponsorship contamination has only enforced this notion...
i also am a black man what grew up in wwcg, but i dont have the luxury of a carnal platform to express the positives of what i got from being such a kid (because satan controls the airwaves, as it is Written)...
i figure my point of view is more objective, though: i recognize the negatives, which i have expressed on this blog, despite its censoring of me on several occasions, but i also try to point out the shining positives of having been raised in the Church...
see, i am what you may call: OBJECTIVE AND BALANCED?
i recognize the legitimacy of the grievances against the Church: indeed i witnessed both my parents become offended and fall away, and also my sisters...
but my beliefs are based upon what i have proven in the Word of God, not personal grievences and simple carnal motivated sentiments...
the Word of God trumps all, especially the meated headed and often racist mindset of the cogers, and the Spirit of God trumps all instances of being personally offended, or any sense of superiority complex that often plagues animals what think themselves above their maker...
Smug. Anonymous 8:08... The smugness and superiority of your sentiments are odious. Your reality is more objective? Based on what objective facts? You have your story and Glen has his. If you want to share the glory of your experience hearing about how black people are the sons of Ham in WCG, then go on YouTube and proclaim this masterful Hoeh doctrine. You can also talk about how interracial dating is wrong, and perhaps go into the reasons for the flood being interracial marriage.
10:50
On another blog I have shared my sentiments versus Glen's.
I don't see the smugness in 8:08's comment.
You however talk about being objective while quoting subjective experiences.
Both 8:08 and I have acknowledged the subjective truths, however they just might not be objective.
For instance you are quoting some real doctrines there. But you just might leave out (and I am just making this up) perhaps 8:08's experience of growing up in some dangerous area while a minister might have encouraged him to stay away from weapons and pursue an education.
But as 8:08 relates, This is a blog specifically dedicated toward exposing some extreme flaws in current off shoots. Speaking about positives and especially preaching is not something that fall within the boundaries of this blogs goal and attraction to its audience
nck
i rather be alleged smug than actually falsely accuse someone of saying something they did not say: textbook prejudice, and frankly demonstrative of the root of the anti cog movement...
the very nature of objectivity is the recognition of the valid points of opposing sides, something that critic of mines ignores...
What other blog, nck? Might make for some interesting reading.
BB
It might have been this blog some time ago.
In retrospect the Glynn related comments I made here are NOT a very interesting read.
My thoughts however were that his experience was not my experience.
He may technically be right on having been in a "white supremacist cult" but if it really had been I would have been around exactly 1 second. So it was but it was not.
Today I posted very interesting read on the "living armstrongism" but somehow the entire topic was deleted by the master after my comments. I do credit redfox for not having delted my postings but instead tore down the entire topic. He has the right to determine the contents of his blog but I fault him for not even trying to answer the questions I posed.
But hey Redfox is doing an incredible work and although interesting my comments perhaps were out of tune with his intentions.
nck
That topic looked to be a work in progress. There was considerable space in between some of the text, and one three paragraph section was a repeat of another. Maybe a more refined version will appear later.
Some of us, by the way, had thought that the coups and assassinations which were cited had made it appear that only people on shaky ground would meet with HWA. For a while there, all the people with whom he had recently had photo ops quickly met their demise, as if HWA had been a jinx to them, too.
BB
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