Living Church of God released its financials this week. They took in a total revenue of 19 million dollars. That sounds like a lot for the church to take in considering tithing is not a new covenant command. Since they still enforce tithing, what do they really have to show for it? LCG is virtually unknown in the world. They have no churches in communities that do good works or provide stability to neighborhoods. Turn on a TV anymore and one will be hard-pressed to find their program. Sure it may be on Roku and other streaming devices, but truly, who watches it?
Its track record of instilling fear in humanity no longer works like it did for Herbert Armstrong. People are sick of fear mongering and endless articles and programs on war, famine disease, death, gloom and sex, and sex, and more sex. LCG obsesses over the dumbest things while ignoring the Jesus they claim to follow.
Never mind the message of grace and reconciliation though, it is more important that the money goes into the pockets of Meredith and McNair kin keeping them endlessly comfortable while the member struggle.
24 comments:
The devil is in the detail and not much detail is given.
As it was in WCG, so it is with all the spin-off cults, it is all about the almighty dollar. For those cult leaders it's about getting and not giving, getting more for them to live high on the hog.
Where did they hide they hide the ministers pay? How much did rcm and others make?
And where did they hide the ministers getting free five star hotel accommodation during the feast of Tabernacles. In exchange, members were given Kenneth Copeland sermons.
Comment was made saying: "...Never mind the message of grace and reconciliation though, it is more important that the money goes into the pockets of Meredith and McNair kin keeping them endlessly comfortable while the member struggle..."
It is all about mammon or God; it can't be both.
"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Matt 6:24
The faithless former hireling leaders of this Living group, like the United Ass. and other xcogroups, all fled Pasadena and left their ministerial credentials behind, took sheep ($$$$$$) with them and kind of set up their man-made group and kind of re-credentialed themSELVES and were determined to accomplish more than was accomplished under HWA.
Of course, it is obvious that God never provided any of them groups a leader. What were they supposed to do? Select their own leaders and vote them in and out. God forbid, any one man should be "in charge." Committees, councils, don't work...as time is telling.
That does not bother them; they have their paychecks whether they care for the sheep or not:
"The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep." John 10:13
These faithless hirelings lost confidence in God's ability to work through one, so, in stupidity, figured it would be a whole lot smarter if God worked through some committee of 12 (pick any #).
Some of the top-ranking leaders gave themSELVES very high saleries, but they seen to have forgotten they were working for a "non-profit" organization. They can't even sense any shame in any of this, perhaps b/c pride (Job 41:34) and lust/envy (James 4:5) swells up so much within them. They can't help themSELVES!
How much, as a minumum, is for "FEEDING" themSELVES?
For starters, $6,908,767 (support local congregations)/$19,000,000 (removed about $1/2 million in reserves) = 36.36% for SELVES! That percentage would perhaps be higher if we could somehow "read between the lines" with those other remaining items.
Obviously, they would be far more efficient to have one leader (like a HWA?), who could preach edifying messages and feed the flock electronically with strong meat, than to have hundreds of speakers speaking stuff (Milk and Junk Food) out of their own "great" minds. Get rid of a bunch of unneeded hirelings, save lots of money, and give more to feed the sheep. Oh, yes, HWA had his share of Milk and Junk Food, too, and life went on...
But, that's probably none of our business. But preaching their FEAR RELIGION? That is something else. They can't do anything else.
And "the message of grace and reconciliation?" They cannot preach Paul's words to the sheep or to the world, b/c they, driven by another spirit (James 4:5; I John 3:8):
"To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them..." 2 Cor 5:19
"They can't even preach Jesus Christ's words of: "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." John 3:17
These faithless leaders also preach another Jesus and another gospel. They really do think they earn their salvation by meeting certain conditions, prerequisites, etc. by their "good" works (If you don't think they preach this, then as Doug Winnail). Certainly their god isn't powerful enough to be able to NOT IMPUTE TRESPASSES to this world, let alone themSELVES!
Time will tell...
John
So, Living University took in $85,822 in fees and other donations....however, managed to cost the tithe-payer $928,328.
That, right there, sums up what some of the more intelligent LCGers think - that the whole university was a tax scam to siphon off more money into the pockets of certain ministers.
No university needs to spend nearly $1,000,000 to "educate" about 20 people on their campuses. Oh yes, I forgot, and a couple of hundred sitting in their homes doing classes on-line! Well, that would cost LCG very little too. Once Scott Winnail (earning around $90,000 just for his participation in LU alone, and not for his other ministerial duties) records a lesson in the TV dept. studio that's it - no more expense for teaching that class online ever again. And the on-line students have also paid more than enough in fees to offset any expense LU ever spent on them.
LU stinks of greed.
Scott Winnail....$90,000?
Jesus H Christ!
What can any of us really say that hasn't alteady been said about the Armstrong scam? The best comment I can muster is that none of these $19 M is mine. They do not meet any of the criteria I've established for accomplishing anything good or of significant value that would merit my contributions or support. They fall firmly in the "net bad" area of the spectrum. When practiced as intended, their teachings always cause damage.
BB
At 19 million revenue this would place LCG at #1 in terms of revenue in the COG universe. UCG and Flurry are right behind at 17-18 Million range. COGWA is around $10 Million.
A good question to ask is what other Christian denomination has ALL of the money collected and directed from just one central location? Baptists, Mormons, Adventists, COG 7th Day, Jehovah Witness, heck , even Catholics, do not have money sent to just one central location and have its activities directed from just one entry point.
This is the downfall of the COGs as a whole, and it is a matter of economics. Big government, and centralization almost by definition will equal inefficiency, politics and corruption, whether it be on a national basis or even in a church.
There is not one single LCG administrator, evangelist, minister, or department head that are worth receiving 90,000.00 salary, particularly for a tiny church under 8 thousands members.
Word for the day. kakistocracy. From wikipedia:
"A kakistocracy (English pronunciation: /kækɪsˈtɑkɹəsi/) is a system of government which is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. The word was coined as early as the 17th century."
Examples of this are Darth Vader and ministers like Dave (give me all your money) Pack.
Corruption abounds throughout, it does not matter if it is centrally organized or not. For the love of money is the route of all evil.COG Committee run and COG free and easy independants can be corrupt, the same as big centralized COG organizations are. For they are all run, without much, if any real accountability.
In the case of most of the ACOGs, 8:51, we need to do further modifications on the new word which you shared with us. They are cacastocracies, because metaphorically they are all dealing in crap. This is particularly applicable to LCG and Living Uniperversity.
BB
Wow Connie, are the COG's still raking in about 70 million dollars? In a time of digitalisation multplier that amount equals HWA's top performance of 200 million. Had it not been for that nasty inflation. But hey wcg suffered 10 percent dollar inflation per year in the seventies.
Nck
Dennis wrote:
Scott Winnail....$90,000?
Do you think he is any less valuable than the higher-paid Michael Germano? Without Scott, LU would have been an even bigger disaster than it has been.
In 2016, they spent more than three times as much on their university than on all their youth programs (928K vs. 273K). That doesn't seem like a very wise allocation of resources, does it?
Interestingly, BB, both the Greek root *kak-*, "bad", and the current baby word *caca*, "excrement," probably both derive from the (reconstructed) Indo-European root *kakka-*, "defecate."
As is often pointed out, etymology is not a reliable guide to current meaning. Still, I find the development of word forms and meanings fascinating, especially since this one justifies paraphrasing *kakocracy* as "shitty government." Also, *cacophony* as "sounds like shit."
This metaphor may not be confined to Indo-European languages, or even human communication. I have read that Koko, the sign-language-using gorilla, dismissed a male she refused to mate with, with the sign for excrement. Of course, she could have been emulating her human handlers.
It is sad to see that there are still a lot of tithe slaves in the COG's.
The dollar has lost half its value since 2000. So todays $70 million is closer to $35 million in Herbs day. A big drop from $200 million.
5:30
Yes, you are right. I mentioned inflation. I was talking corporate value estimation with a higher multiplier for an internet publisher than a print publisher for margins. Btw the famous 200 million number was a Tkachian number. HWA was about 100 million 1980 dollars. Tkach about 200 million 1988 dollar.
nck
5:30
My numbers are not to prove that tkach was such a business success as compared to hwa.
1987 was the epitomisation of the Televangelist years (swaggart and all), the expansion of cable and satellite television, the height of the Cold War, the doomsday clock one minute to 12, The Reagan years, the Malta Talks , the collapse of the Eastern block satelite states. This was the epitomization of the WCG message with an immediate collapse of the edifice after its mission ended when the Cold War diffused in the collapse of the Soviet empire. The message of mutual assured destruction to the worlds elites had become mute and obsolete.
nck
I noticed that 'assistance to the needy' takes almost 10% of their revenue. During 19th century America, just about all charities were privately run. It was common for people to devote one day a week doing charity work. So if a church back then spent 10% or more on assisting the needy, it would have been appropriate.
But times have changed. Government has taken over the role of private charity with it's 50% plus tax rates in the developed countries. So why are churches still spending so much on charity? Surely governmental tax more than covers the third tithe.
The churches are double dipping.
I noticed that 'assistance to the needy' takes almost 10% of their revenue.
Did you read the old Ambassador Reports? WCG had a biblical rationalization where the "needy" included the "Levites" and this pool of money covered not just sending widows to the Feast, but also sending ministers to the Feast. There's no way to know from this vague document whether LCG continues in WCG's old practice.
Third tithe was also used to furnish ministers homes and pay expenses for the jets. Rod Meredith used $10,000 from 3T to buy himself some gold coins.
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