Several LCG sources have sent things to me over the last several months complaining about Living University, the "educational" arm of the Living Church of God.
It looks like Living Church of God's mind-boggling "university" does not sit well with many LCG members. LCG, as does several other COG splinters, is attempting to mimic Herbert Armstrong's three campuses that were here in the United States and in England. No matter how much any of these groups try, they still cannot nor will ever measure up to anything HWA inspired. As anyone who has ever had any ties to the Worldwide Church of God and all of its hundreds of harlot daughters knows, HWA had a vision, regardless of how it was implemented, that hundreds of thousands bought into over the decades. Today in 2017 the top four Church of God groups, no matter how hard they try, CANNOT recapture anything that Herbert Armstrong envisioned.
Even naming their one-room schoolhouses as "universities" have not helped these groups. Only Gerald Flurry has a campus and probably comes the closest to mimicking HWA, while UCG and LCG are lucky if they can occupy a floor or two in their denominational HQ's.
Living Church of God members are particularly perturbed at the "university" they are paying for, that in their eyes is not producing any good fruits. Most of its "student body" is made up of church members in remote locations "auditing" classes online. The 20 or so full-time students in Charlotte are an expensive drain on LCG resources.
When you look at the "mission" of the LCG University, notice one group pf people they claim to be touching: "society."
The purpose of Living U is to "provide instruction relevant to the changing needs of the Individual, the church, and society." What relevant things is LU doing that is relevant to society? LU is geared inwardly towards the church and LCG members know this. It does nothing for society and has had zero impact. While it may look good on an IRS tax form, LCG members are not happy with LU's mission.double click to enalrge
Nor, are LCG members impressed with the rampant nepotism in the hierarchy of Living U.
This should be nothing new to LCG members. This is how the Church of God has functioned for decades. Family members always received priority in hiring, promotions, ordinations, etc. God forbid if any lay member was ever appointed to the board of any of these entities! Lay members have always been considered too stupid to help run any of the church entities. Only the sons and relatives of the top leaders qualified, no matter how stupid or abusive they are!double click to enlarge
The hierarchy of the Church of God has always been "incestuous" in the way all of the top families intermarried and kept control of the family business (the church). Nepotism was the rule of the day in the old Worldwide Church of God and remains so to this day in EVERY one of the larger COG splinters.
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What a pity on the self-absorbed and self-centered nepotism.
Some of the "dumb sheep" that aren't related in the top 4 splinters have:
* Advanced Degrees
* Successful careers that they've done on their own, without uncle or brother so and so
* Successful businesses that they've built themselves
* Held leadership/managerial positions in non-church organizations
* Serve totally unnoticed within their churches, serve because they care, unnoticed
because they don't seek the "praise of men"
* Done volunteer work in hospitals and other organizations that serve hurting people
Let the "big shots" in the Church strut and boast. . . Doesn't Matter! See John 12:43
Someday you that are spurned as "dumb sheep" will have the praise of God
NO FOOTBALL TEAM = NOT A REAL UNIVERSITY! ;-)
Connie, the scoffer, wrote:
NO FOOTBALL TEAM = NOT A REAL UNIVERSITY! ;-)
Behold: Football at LU
NO FOOTBALL TEAM
Despite Bob Thiel's grim view of LCG, he should be happy about that!
I went to LU and am sad to say I wasted thousands of dollars on a totally useless degree. The theology I learned ended up being nothing more than 4 years of justification of LCG beliefs. I had to leave the church to learn about Jesus and what salvation really is.
@3:56 - Sorry you had to learn the same way so many of us who went to AC and ended up with a degree in knowing how to speak and how to sell something or as they used to say for the young ladies...to get their MRS. degree. I have a son who takes an on-line course from LCG and it sounds like it too, is just a regurgitation of their beliefs and little independent thought or how to expand one's understanding.
“No matter how much any of these groups try, they still cannot nor will ever measure up to anything HWA inspired.”
That is correct!
This is the Laodicea era.
They SAY that they are “rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing” and know not that they REALLY ARE “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (see Revelation 3:17, KJV).
To make matters even worse, some people joined satanic imposter cults led by raging false prophets like Flurry, Pack, Weinland, and Thiel.
Well, okay, maybe nobody joined Thiel's group.
I am another one who went to LU and wasted my money. Thankfully I now am in a real university earning a real degree and loving every minute of it. Being surrounded by people with different opinions and life experiences has been enriching. I felt like I was in a version of the Stepford Wives while in Charlotte. Everyone acted and believed the same way because they thought they needed to conform to the church expectations. Never once did anyone share that they had doubts or questions about what we were told to believe. Lively debate in class never happened. Reading books on opposing viewpoints never happened. Learning about different theologians and their ways of interpreting things never happened. It was an eye-opening experience that I will never forget, and not in a good way!
LU....???
We have LU here in Lynchburg VA.... Liberty University....LCG rips off another college once again...at least Liberty offers real degrees.
As in sitting in on a poker game, there is an ante for those who wish to be taken seriously as players in the game of Armstrongism. Now, it should be noted that these things are important only to those who have been in the game for decades and see certain things as being part of an inherited mantle. They would certainly not be important to people who are just being exposed to the basic doctrines for the first time.
Back before there were local church areas, Armstrongism was quite literally a radio church. Members had a deep hunger to visit and interact with others of the same mindset. The broadcast, the magazines, letters and articles held everyone together as they anticipated the raising up of local church areas, pastored by men who had been personally trained by Herbert W. Armstrong. The question "How did you come to the knowledge of the truth?" was a spontaneous and sincerely asked question, not just something expected from the approved or programmed script. Each Feast of Tabernacles provided the opportunity for meeting and fellowshipping with other members. Petra was often a hot topic of conversation, as 1972-75 had not yet passed, disappointing everyone.
These exact conditions would be very difficult to replicate following Armstrongism's very own "Tower of Babel" incident. While 20 people in a sizable city was encouraging back then, members today have the knowledge that this is the number to which their local area has shrunken. Think "endangered species" vs "this is just the beginning!". If there ever were a mantle, it was something that was constantly growing, and changing, not a fixed set of acoutrements or practices that existed in the church's heyday.
This is why I have characterized the ACOGs as largely being a nostalgia act. Where is the excitement and enthusiasm in doing things just because the founder of your organization did them? When you reach that stage, the thrill and excitement are gone, members are "phoning it in", and anyone who might otherwise be attracted to the movement can easily perceive that, and becomes turned off, as opposed to enthusiastically joining in.
Alas, for those still trapped in the ACOGs, we must borrow a blast from the past, a proviso which appeared in some form in every Plain Truth article: "There is no solution to this problem until Jesus Christ returns". Just don't expect Him to install Armstrongism as God's government for planet Earth for all eternity.
BB
5.34 PM
Church culture in the XCOGs is that everyone pretends to be Stepford Wives. Otherwise one get bashed or threatened by the mafia ministry. It's a sick game of pretend, played by everyone including the elders and even the ministers. Herbs church didn't fall apart on his death for no reason. Only God knows what really exists beneath the waterline.
The Pretend Church of God.
BB
Are you telling me that a sip of Bristol cream at the Feast is not a ritual biblical requirement for salvation?
Anyhow quite sad but perceptive piece at 7:48.
-I could use it for lectures on "risk aversion" in behavioral finance.
-It also explains some of the split in Shia and Sunni Islam after the demise of the prophet. (should we follow the leading families or the doctrine)
I also find your 1972 Petra talk comment interesting.
The mental make up and pychology of the American people would alter somewhat after the SALT I negotiations in may 1972 resulting in the approval in august 1972.
The heyday and zenith of WCG's power in money and numbers, was during the START negotiations by Ronald Reagan who was much revered by HWA. This also coincided with the zenith of the "televangelists", the spread of american wall street values through Dallas, Falcon Crest and Dynasty and the break down of traditional bariers in trade and satellite communications and tv around the world.
Then the Soviet Union collapsed, the American Empire was the remaining entity through which it seemed liberal values had come at their final fulfillment. The battle was over and the decision was made to dissolve WCG and the order it represented.
nck
True Bread,
At least your LU, Liberty University, is producing scholars with real degrees. Living University is aware of the difference. You'll notice that in Living University's list of faculty they include no one with a Living University degree, but they have one with a Liberty University M.A.
Meet Our Faculty
How strange that Living University appears to have only one professor rating, and no overall ratings of the school, at RateMyProfessors.com. Why haven't Anon 3:56 and LU Phew! and others made their feelings known?
Living University at RateMyProfessors.com
True Bread:
I drive through LU several times a month and I am appalled at their latest monument to the Falwell ego: that tower that they are building which is the first thing that you see as you round the curve on 460 at Airport Road.
And as much as I hate to give Falwell any credit, his college does, as you said, offer real degrees. The LU graduates I have worked with have been competent workers. But I would not hire one of their biology majors with their evolutionist nonsense.
LU uses hundreds of thousands of tithe-payer dollars each year and for what?
What a total waste of hard-earned money!
If LCG actually cared about 'preaching the gospel" as their top priority, they would use all that cash to do a greater work instead of paying Dr. Germano and Doug Winnail over $100k a year.
LU is about 2 things that LCG specializes in: PRIDE and EGO
It serves no other purpose but to waste money.
For better or worse, Liberty University has tried to counter the placement of liberals and anti-Christians prevalent in various professions by graduating prolific numbers of professionals to more or less infiltrate and influence the power base in the USA. They state this in no uncertain terms. They've taken a lesson from the radicals of the sixties who were able to turn counter-culture values mainstream, and LU is attempting to use some of the same techniques to reverse the trends which they believe are undesirable.
I don't believe they have succeeded to any great extent in this. But there are others who have joined in the fray, such as Hillsdale College. It's a movement which appears to be growing, but there are headwinds. There's a fight ongoing for the soul and culture of America, and the key players on both sides appear to be anything but moderate.
BB
We have a couple of Liberty grads at my workplace. I've not really been impressed by any of them, but I've met a ton of idiots in my lifetime who managed to get degrees from somewhere.
Maybe a more accurate name would be "Living Uniperversity". Almost has as nice a ring to it as Embarrassing College!
BB
In Living Univ., there are more teachers and staff than students, that's a sad fact.
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