While I don't agree with some of the things written below, much of it is spot on. What say ye? Who has the right to claim the exclusive "truth?"
From a reader here:
Biblical truth is a very dangerous thing. The Devil hates it, and sends his false prophets and other rebels to pervert it.
Vernon Howell changed his name to David Koresh and set himself up as a prophet leading his cult called the Branch Davidians. He wanted everyone else's wives and daughters for himself. He never had anything to do with the WCG. He was just another immoral disaster, and fire hazard, out in the world of false religions.
Gerald Flurry started his PCG cult supposedly to hold on to what HWA had taught in the WCG that the apostate Tkaches were destroying, but then claimed that he, rather than Jesus, was “That Prophet” of Deuteronomy 18:18-19 that everyone had to listen to or else God would be mad at them. Flurry “flooded” his followers with much “new revelation” about how great he was. He caused great division among the COG people and wrecked their families while having his local goons promote sexual immorality.
David Pack started his RCG cult supposedly to restore HWA's teachings from January 1986, but then later started to change things in dramatic ways, such as by stealing everything in sight. Pack's changes were even more cruel and thorough than the changes made by the apostate Tkaches in their Great Apostasy of January 1995. Pack left everyone so totally betrayed and destitute this time that they might be unable to carry on any longer.
Bob Thiel started his Nigerian CCG cult because he wanted to be a prophet and make up his own stuff. It was not enough for RCM to gently humor Thiel that he might be considered a prophet by someone. Thiel had to be a real false prophet. So, right away he looked to the demon-inspired prophecies of pagan Mayans, Kenyans, and Catholics. Thinking that demons would helpfully share little tidbits about the future with anyone was so pathetic, but a mentally-challenged, self-appointed Seer could not see that.
James Malm rebelliously left the WCG in 1985 while HWA was still alive to try to think for himself. Malm and those associated with him got into things that proved they cannot think anything but rebellion and nonsense, such as sacred names nonsense, divorce, calendar confusion, a garbled gospel, and flat earth errors. Some other rebels think they can learn the “odd” thing from him. In a sense, they are right. It certainly will be “odd.”
David Ben Ariel, as someone renamed himself, wanted to be a prophet. He once proposed dividing up the world with Gerald Flurry. One could be the prophet of the east and the other the prophet of the west. Flurry rejected the idea, and David ben Ariel ended up being just another homosexual who died of AIDS.
Norman Edwards left the GCG with a stolen mailing list to try to start his own newsletter. He pretended to be very open-minded and reasonable by saying that he was willing to consider just about anything and everything under the sun about church government, and encouraged people to make up stuff to send to him. He said that the only thing that he would not publish in his newsletter, and would not even consider, and did not even want to receive, was anything in support of what HWA had taught about hierarchical government. Edwards sort of became the leader of the leaderless independents. Of course, the sheep ignored his voice, and his stray cats also left him to go off in all sorts of different directions.
David Koresh is the only name I recognize from the list, only because of the Wako from Waco.
ReplyDeleteI say that the true humor is that the opener calls on "Biblical truth", and yet the measuring stick applied in the entire post is clearly "HWA had taught".
ReplyDeleteYou keep elevating James Malm influence. He has a website end of. You cut lose others and elevate Malms influence to ridiculous proportions.
ReplyDeleteI see James Malm got his prophetic panties all in a knot this morning. It’s good to see he is a regular reader of this blog though. Perhaps he will repent of his perverted heresies.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this while drinking my green tea this morning, I found myself asking “Was it written by Mr. Evilution for ‘The Onion’?” The writing style more or less provides the clues.
ReplyDeleteWhoever is the actual author complains of alleged demonic influences of the Mayans and Catholics while holding up incest-inspired HWA as some sort of gold standard.
BB
Who determines the truth? I can say with certainty: "None of the guys on your list."
ReplyDeleteOddly, back in Big Sandy, my then girlfriend and I double dated with one of the guys on the list and his girlfriend. Ancient history of a small world.
This has been a question throughout the history of Christianity. Who determines what the Bible says and means? Through the priesthood or ministry does truth come to us? Or
is there a priesthood of all believers. People have died over this question.
My own view: I read theologians and apologists and science. I am loosely associated with a denomination. I would never capitulate my responsibility to read and understand the Bible to someone else. I learned my lesson when I was an Armstrongite. I bought the equivalent of the Golden Gate Bridge. No good ever came of it.
I am definitely NOT a Malm follower but I do know he does not believe in flat earth or sacred names. If your goal in this blog is to save those stuck in the ACOG cults, posting lies will hurt your chances at doing that.
ReplyDeleteWhat, not even a honorable mention for Dr. Roderick C. Meredith? You guys are slacking.
ReplyDeleteHerbert Armstrong , apostate from the Church of God, Seventh Day, and baptized by a Baptist Minister of Hinson Memorial Baptist Church, started his splinter church, the Radio Church of God, because the church would not go along with his doctrinal "revelations". He started his own brand of ministry, founded on the debunked theory of British Israel-ism, a plethora of failed and false predictions, and a promise of a utopian world government ruled by God, Christ, and himself. Employing tools learned studying under millionaires and successful people, as well as utilizing advertising tactics, Herbert set out to become an important person under the pretense of being called by Jesus Christ to lead the end-time witness. In a post-war, fear-ridden environment, his ministry flourished. Using constant crisis-moment bully tactics, which included name-calling and threats of the impending lake of fire for slackers and lukewarm givers, his legalistic ministry grew rapidly in various arms, such as the church, a college, summer camps, a massive media conglomerate, and various properties such as the Ambassador Auditorium and several church-owned festival sites. At the end, his biggest "mistake" was handing over his church to Joseph Tkach, who, like Herbert did at the beginning of his religion, became an apostate from Herbert's religion himself, collapsing the entire movement into hundreds of insignificant splinters, now led by equally unqualified individuals claiming, but denying, an equally invalid calling. All of these ministries have a large number of verified accounts of spiritual, emotional, and even physical abuse.
ReplyDeleteThere, now the list is complete.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous on March 30, 2018 at 9:16 AM said...“I am definitely NOT a Malm follower but I do know he does not believe in flat earth or sacred names. If your goal in this blog is to save those stuck in the ACOG cults, posting lies will hurt your chances at doing that.”
James David Malm himself wrote on his Shining Light Blog that he left the WCG in 1985 to try to think for himself. Malm left the WCG in rebellion against HWA, who died on January 16, 1986.
James Malm wrote on his Blog that his wife got into sacred names beliefs and divorced him for not going along with it too. Maybe she was just trying to think for herself.
James Malm wrote on his Blog against the use of the calculated Hebrew calendar that HWA believed in. Malm looks to someone in Jerusalem to report about such things as the visibility of the new moon and the ripeness of the barley crop over there to determine when to hold the annual festivals. (Other rebels, such as Norman S. Edwards, also liked calendar confusion, and reported running into the problem of having 150 papers on his desk each pushing a different theory about it. Edwards thought that the Independents could have Feast sites where each person attending could observe the annual Holy Days on different dates depending on their different calendar beliefs, as long as they all “disagreed without being disagreeable.” Maybe they were all just trying to think for themselves.)
James Malm wrote on his Blog that the purpose of his site was “to preach the gospel of warning and repentance as commanded by God.” In contrast, HWA had taught that the very purpose of the church, the true purpose of the church, was to carry out the great commission given by Jesus to his apostles to preach the gospel (meaning good news) of the kingdom of God as a witness to all nations. Being too eager to try to think for himself, Malm did not pay attention in the WCG and mixed up the Ezekiel warning message to the modern nations descended from ancient Israel with the great commission to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God to the whole world.
James Malm wrote on his Blog that his friend Constance Lynn Belanger had become a flat earth believer and had chosen to disassociate herself from Malm because he did not agree. Maybe she was just trying to think for herself.
James Malm would like everyone to join him in his rebellion against what HWA had taught and have them imagine that they are now thinking for themselves by going along with whatever Malm makes up. Being the incurably rebellious types, like Malm taught them to be, they often go wild and crazy trying to think for themselves, just like Malm has done.
Gary you should read Arnold's article in www.thejournal.org/issues/issue202/jx013118.pdf (pp. 24-32). He has noted the similarity between two primary beliefs of Charles T. Russell (who founded the Jehovah's Witnesses) and HW Armstrong, i.e. the fair chance doctrine and the God family doctrine. He also shows evidence (circumstantial, but convincing evidence nonetheless) that Armstrong altered his belief from "saving souls" to the fair chance doctrine no earlier than 1943. Yet, Russell and his mentor George Storrs were teaching these doctrines over half a century prior to Armstrong. In any case, it's a good read and shows that although Armstrong denied he was taught by any other man and that his teachings didn't come from any other organization the truth is the opposite. For instance, he plagiarized JH Allen's "Judah’s Sceptre and Joseph’s Birthright" to produce his "US and Britain in Prophecy." So it wouldn't be unreasonable to deduce that he read others works (e.g. Church of God Seventh Day; Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholicism, etc.) to select his own beliefs and practices. It's unfortunate that the man-made organizations that have originated from his ministry continue to deny this truth and hold to Armsstrong's traditions as if they're Biblical and Divine Truth when they're in fact not (e.g. NTBMO fancy meal, Feast of Tabernacles must be kept as a holiday at a sponsored site, tithing money, etc.).
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ReplyDeleteAnonymous on March 30, 2018 at 12:46 PM said...“What, not even a honorable mention for Dr. Roderick C. Meredith? You guys are slacking.”
Space limitations. Tried to fit some of the wickeder ones all on one page.
147
ReplyDeleteThat's the best summary I have read
Anon 3:10
ReplyDeleteI'm confused about why you copied my comment if you weren't refuting it. I'm also sorry that you need the ACOGs to think for you. It is the gospel of Jesus that we are to be preaching. Do a word study on "gospel" and you will find that the KoG is just one part of the gospel. Also, what's more devisive: the 5 calendar variations or the 100 splinter groups?
I was in the WCG and then PCG many years ago. In PCG I Never saw or heard of the promotion of sexual immorality referred to here. I truly am interested in hearing if that is true. My dealings with the ministry did not reflect that. How real and large was/is that problem in the PCG?
ReplyDelete4.36 PM
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't surprise me that Herb acquired many of his doctrines by reading other sources. I have done the same. Most of what I believe comes from book reading. Many times the holy spirit affirmed what I just read by putting a special feeling into my mind. God honors this mode of knowledge acquisition - the same method used by Christ when growing up. He listened to the elders in the temple at age twelve, remember?
That God funnels knowledge into peoples brains, like pouring liquid into a bottle has never been the case. Herb lied in implying this. His 'my knowledge comes straight from God' was self exaltation on his part.
But it doesn't invalidate what Herb believed and taught.
3.10 PM
ReplyDeleteChrist on many occasions criticized his disciples for not thinking. He showed the greatest respect for reason, always using persuasion to teach and correct others. As secular writers express it, reason is mans tool of survival. Instead of honoring thinking, you show contempt for this with your complaining of people 'thinking for themselves.' This is the Herb church position of the ministers doing all the thinking, and telling members what to blindly believe. This is lording it over peoples faith, and strongly condemned in the bible.
The problem with dissidents isn't 'thinking for themselves,' but rather not following Christ. Christ said 'follow me' 23 times in the NT. You would do well to do the same rather than following Herbs church culture with its anti biblical tyranny and lording it over members faith.
A reader here wrote:
ReplyDeleteBiblical truth is a very dangerous thing. The Devil hates it, and sends his false prophets and other rebels to pervert it.
This statement just clicked with me and made me realize something very shocking about Armstrongism. In Armstrongism, you have a bunch of people who promote their particular sliver group by proclaiming, "We have the full truth!" or sometimes "We have the most truth!" These same Armstrongists, however, assume that the Devil has the truth.
But what good has the truth done for the Devil? If having the full truth, or the most truth, is only going to get the Devil into the Lake of Fire, then isn't this a pretty strong hint that Armstrongists should be pursuing something other than "the most truth"? How about, "follow Jesus Christ's example"? Jesus Christ didn't discuss the identities of end-time Israelite tribes. He didn't discuss the location of Jeremiah's pillow stone. He didn't clarify the sacred calendar with his words, nor did He reassure non-Israelites that they need not observe Hanukkah.
Rather, He loved, and He served, and He taught His followers to do the same. He held His followers to such a high standard of personal conduct (even a wrong thought may be as sinful as a murder) that they could not become proud of their high spiritual standing; they would always need to rely on Him and on the Holy Spirit to carry what they lacked. Yet he did not want a bunch of whitened sepulchers going around in His name, proclaiming that they keep the Sabbath "better" or "more fully" than some other groups of His followers.
The Devil has the truth, but he does not have love. Maybe we should evaluate ACOGs not by their truth-claims, but by their evident practice of love. Yes, that may mean "tough love" (which isn't the same as dumping an unwanted child at a shopping mall or ridiculing it as a "blob"). It may mean holding your loved ones to high standards. But it also means that if you hold someone else to such a standard, you first hold yourself to that standard, and that you respond with mercy and forgiveness when the standard isn't met, and that you are willing to sacrifice yourself to help the loved one meet that standard.
James Malm and Wade Cox and Bob Thiel are trying so, so hard to become more and more like the Devil. If only they would spend the same amount of energy developing Christ-like love.
Anon 12:46 wrote:
ReplyDeleteWhat, not even a honorable mention for Dr. Roderick C. Meredith? You guys are slacking.
Rod Meredith, who expected to live to see Christ's return, and who taught others to expect the same (in five to fifteen years), wrote his own epitaph. He justified his abusive behavior by telling his victims, "God approves of my behavior. If God didn't approve of my behavior, He would remove me."
God has removed him. We must therefore conclude, by Rod's own testimony, that God was not backing the Lying Church of Rod.
To determine if biblical truth is indeed in the wrong hands, there has to be determination of what actually is biblical truth. The leaders and writers of the New testament, steeped in an education of the Torah combined with eye witnesses' and the guidance of the Holy Spirit laid out biblical truth as salvation by faith only and the restoration of all the Kingdom of Israel via resurrection. Now, how do the men on the list stack up? It is easy to summarize that there is no salvation by a prophet. There certainly is no salvation by holding fast to false teaching. It is obvious there is no salvation by theft. There will be no salvation by a self appointed seer. There is no salvation by a calendar or sacred name. Homosexuality will not bring salvation and a man with a open mind will not bring salvation.
ReplyDeletePaul's fight was against a mentality of linage (Abraham), geography (Jerusalem) and law. The possessors of these thought that is all that was needed in God's sight. These men had what they thought was the ultimate biblical truth and yet it wasn't long before they were a forsaken-ed people with a city laid waste and a destroyed priesthood resulting in a un-administrable law.
The men on this list as well as others along with with the religious establishment in the New Testament never learned the record of the Torah about the Kingdom of Israel (God). A lost kingdom, a forsaken people scattered and split having forgotten God is that record.
Do these men on the list posses biblical truth? Hardly, but sometimes it is not whether you have the truth or error - sometimes it is what Dave Pack likes to say; just taking candy from babies.
Bob Thiel started his Nigerian CCG cult...
ReplyDeleteIf I understood Bob's Offertory message correctly, most of the money CCOG receives goes to Africa. That's probably not a surprise to anyone...
ReplyDeleteRSK on March 30, 2018 at 6:38 AM said...“I say that the true humor is that the opener calls on 'Biblical truth', and yet the measuring stick applied in the entire post is clearly 'HWA had taught'.”
Interesting point. Nobody who seriously believes what HWA had taught could go along with what any of the perverts on that list ended up teaching.
ReplyDeleteHoss on March 31, 2018 at 12:59 PM said...“If I understood Bob's Offertory message correctly, most of the money CCOG receives goes to Africa. That's probably not a surprise to anyone...”
It would be surprising if the Nigerians don't take Bob Thiel for some more money.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous on March 30, 2018 at 6:13 PM said...“I was in the WCG and then PCG many years ago. In PCG I Never saw or heard of the promotion of sexual immorality referred to here. I truly am interested in hearing if that is true. My dealings with the ministry did not reflect that. How real and large was/is that problem in the PCG?”
The problem is very real and all too large in the PCG, though it will never admit that there is any injustice in it. None of the numerous old sex maniacs, sex perverts, and predators in the PCG will ever say that they are there only to continually try to take advantage of and use and abuse others. They always say that they are trying to help their victims. They can put on a rather nice act sometimes, and only become frustrated and go into satanic fits when they don't immediately get what they want. The local leaders in the PCG like to pair up other people's children (but never their own children) with much older sex perverts and other weirdos. The big problem is that nobody is allowed even to simply, quietly shun all the sexually immoral old people in the PCG and their selfish plans for their intended victims. They are taught instead (actually ordered by GRF) to shun their own family members, relatives, friends, and other COG people who are not in the PCG. The local PCG leaders spend all their time gossiping, lying, slandering, scheming, and plotting against innocent, unsuspecting people in the congregation who never would have imagined that church people could be so totally satanic. The local fake PCG “ministers” will kick out their intended victims over the telephone and tell them indignantly with raised voice about how they have “done so much for them” and “tried so hard to help them” and now (happily!) have to “make an example out of them.” The PCG truly is a PREDATOR'S PARADISE.
You might have been able to meet some well-meaning people in the PCG early on who got suckered into the PCG briefly when the Tkaches were destroying the WCG, and the PCG was pretending to hold on to what HWA had taught. They will all be gone from the PCG by now, either by leaving, or by getting kicked out, or by turning evil. More people have gone through the PCG than currently attend with it. To fully understand the evil in the PCG you need to realise that the PCG is one of Satan's own imposter cults and that Satan is angry because he is running out of time.
I appreciate the response - you bring up some very interesting points.
DeleteEven though I haven't attended for many years, my conscience is still troubled, and I have been following this site as well as ESN, The Journal, and The Painful Truth. As many here, I believed at the core of my being what Mr. Armstrong taught was true, and it worries me that I may be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I appreciate the work many do here to help those of us still caught in a cloud of confusion.
What was taught made so much sense to me at the time. That, until finding myself in Cal Culpepper's crosshairs and targeted by him for zero reason with zero explanation - except that he was greedy for power and control and coveted The top seat in PCG no matter who he hurt.
I will keep looking here and hope to eventually get clarity on what really happened. I can see so many people over the many decades have given everything to the church and then thrown away for no apparent reason and offered no way to make things right with the church. This lack of brotherly love in an era that was supposed to be defined by brotherly love, is the part that troubles me the most.
Thank you for your efforts to bring to light what has happened, and continues to happen.
Bob, I'm an African. Please send me money. I believe in your church, honest. It's the true church. So send me much money.
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ReplyDeleteAnonymous on April 2, 2018 at 9:24 AM said... “Even though I haven't attended for many years, my conscience is still troubled, and I have been following this site as well as ESN, The Journal, and The Painful Truth. As many here, I believed at the core of my being what Mr. Armstrong taught was true, and it worries me that I may be throwing the baby out with the bath water.”
Understand that I certainly am not saying to reject God or the Bible or the laws of God. I am not even saying to reject what HWA had taught.
What I am saying is that Gerald Flurry is a false prophet who does need to be utterly rejected. Gerald Flurry came in partial fulfillment of the Holy Scriptures that quoted Jesus as warning that many false prophets would come and would deceive many people. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves--even some runt of the litter like little Gerald.
Look into all the truly monstrous doctrinal changes that Gerald Flurry has made to what HWA had actually taught. Gerald Flurry is so totally satanic that he makes even the apostate Tkaches seem downright reasonable and decent by comparison. And I certainly am not saying to go with the ham-eating, Sunday-keeping apostates either.
Understand that the Satan-sent, Satan-directed false prophets like Gerald Flurry and David Pack do all their own outrageous evil to other people in God's name, to try to make people think that they were burned by a cruel God rather than by malicious, lying, thieving, false prophets who are more cunning and deceitful than most could imagine.