A comment from another thread:
"I understand, everybody has a double-life to some degree."
What Weston seems not to understand is that LCG (and Armstrongism in general) encourages people to maintain a double-life, and to be more and more two-faced as they continue in the church, unlike many other churches that allow people to feel that they don't need to put up a false front of near-perfection.
There are of course a few brethren who for a while try not to live a double-life, and who try to admit their weaknesses honestly and sincerely as they repent and strive to be better Christians. Before too long, these people either run away from the falseness of ACOG spirituality or learn the two-faced ACOG standard and become twice the sons of hell they were before they joined their ACOG (Matthew 23:15).
In his sermon today, Weston made it clear that he is going to set a standard, and if you can't fake it you won't be allowed to make it in LCG. Does he not realize that this won't actually make the brethren holier? It will just make them more fake. Weston would rather have a church filled with people who know how to fake a certain level of Godliness, rather than a church filled with imperfect people striving honestly to reach a greater level of Godliness.
Perhaps the saddest part of the sermon came when Weston attacked innocent children and their mothers. He mentioned that when he was pastoring one large WCG congregation, there were perhaps 14 young women who had children out of wedlock and brought their babies to services. To Weston, this was a sign of scandal and liberalism. Other pastors might rejoice that a woman had learned a hard lesson, and that instead of aborting the baby or abandoning her responsibility she had repented of her damaging sin and was now seeking to live a better life. But that's not what Weston said today. Instead of praising the women for their repentance and desire to grow in difficult circumstances, he described them as if they were a terrible embarrassment to the congregation.
How will repentant sinners thrive in LCG, if they know deep down that Weston and their pastor see them as embarrassments and failures because of prior sin, instead of seeing them as God's children striving to atone for their earlier mistakes?
All in all, it was a sickening sermon that I would have expected from a man like Pack. I was one of the many who thought LCG would become more balanced after Meredith's death. I was wrong.
32 comments:
Shocked at Jerry! How do you get your redemption, and what role do your church and your spiritual guides play in this? This is beyond bad theology!
What about Psalm 103:12? Jerry Weston has just set up a very hostile environment in the Church of Rod in which single or unwed mothers will be looked down upon by most of the church members. As Jerry’s competitor Dave Pack has shared, most of the people in Armstrongism will gullibly believe whatever misinformation they hear from the pulpit (Of course, Dave wants that to only be applied in his own favor).
Jerry has made it so that some of his vulnerable little ones will be hurt, punished for their own sins by their “brethren” long after God has forgiven them.
This devalues LCG, as opposed to adding value. Shame shame.
BB
What is the name of the sermon? Is it available online? Was it given today in Charlotte?
Let's see....just who was Mary married to when Jesus was born? Whose wife was she? Who was Jesus real father? Aside from the drama and mythology of a virgin birth and the Eternal having impregnated Mary , (was that fornication since I don't believe they were married either?), Jesus was commonly accused of being a bastard and "born of fornication"
As noted previously, Matthew slipped four women of suspect reputation, Tamar (played the prostitute), Rahab,(Was a prostitute), Bathsheba, (seduced David and adultress,) and Ruth the Moabite through whom no descendent could be Messiah, into his genealogy before getting to Mary. His point was mostly likely "God can work through anyone, even these questionable women" to bring about the Messiah etc. Matthew certainly did not choose Sarah, Leah, Rachel, Deborah or any other exemplary woman for his point.
Jesus response to being charged with being born of fornication was to forgive the woman taken in adultery within the same context of John 8, as if to say, "Leave my mom alone and out of this," and then went on to say the father of his accusers was the devil. Great story.
Perhaps the whole story started when Jesus , and a teen or young man, kept badgering mom over "who is my father?" Fed up, perhaps Mary said "God is your father..." and he went with that.
At any rate, Gerald would evidently been embarrassed by Mary and Jesus showing up for Church. I can imagine what he'd say to her if she pulled a "But Mr. Weston, I was a virgin, impregnated by the Holy Spirit and my baby is God." He'd probably wish her no ill will , pray that she would come to repentance and dis-membered on the spot I suspect.
Remember too that the Weston's have never had children so he is not the expert on real life childrearing or parenting through tough times in unconditional parental love and compassion.
This reminds of Jim Reyer, Dave Pack's idol when he told a young woman who had a baby before she was married that her child was destined to the lake of fire because of her sin. No chance of redemption or mercy for a little baby. This is the crap that the church taught and still does today.
Somebody has to call people on their sins. Isn't that a minister's job?
Thank goodness Jesus was never embarrassed to be around those the Pharisees labels as lost sinners. Like many others sitting there today I found his sermon disgusting. Weston is no pillar of morality or of love.
Byker Bob, I don't know what planet you have been living on, but those of us who wear or wore the moniker 'unwed mother' have been treated as the bane of society for God only knows how long. This is not a new attitude in the cog's either.
I don't know if it is still there, but go check out an article PCG published titled, 'The Shame of Single Motherhood' by Ron Fraiser.
NO2HWA, I'd like to know if that wrong thinking by Jim Reyer would also include our grandchildren and later descendants as well. If so, maybe he needs to be concerned. How does he, or anyone, know that every ancestor was married before the next generation was born? Some food for thought. What the heck determines what marriage is anyway? A piece of paper? A ring? Parents permission? A promise? Love?
Yes, 10:21, leading to repentance.
I’ve heard real (non-ACOG) theologians exhort people that in order to live the abundant life, they need to let go and to forgive themselves for the sins that God has already forgiven years ago. That is part of the freedom in Jesus Christ.
Jerry has pretty much branded these young women, and their children as well. I hope the gals don’t somehow arrive at the conclusion that Jerry’s and Jesus’ opinions are one and the same. That would be spiritually crushing.
This is what we mean when we write about Phariseeism, and legalism. That type of extreme viewpoint causes people to look down upon and to judge one another (remember the Pharisee’s prayer?) And, here we have a prime example speaking right from the catbird’s seat of LCG. Rod was even worse! He had some especially awful things to say about biracial children.
BB
"Mary and Jesus showing up for Church"
Dennis, how do you propose Mary and Jesus would be able to enter the United States as Middle Eastern refugees from the dictator Herod's whims? What status would they obtain, what visa would be granted? Under what program would Joseph be abe to join them on a later date? Would little Jesus have to be vaccinated at customs? So many questions.
nck
btw: I would have called out if a large contingent of my congregation turned out to be promiscuous. A pastor is duty bound to call that sin.
At SEP at times, we would have young mothers without spouse and we cared very much for them as they had been our friends when they were still children and had grown up so much more faster, which was about the only rift between us kids.
The other thing I find funny is how the COG's are moving their HQ's to a city named after a queen of mixed race. I love it.
Anon 10:21 said--"Someone has to call people on their sins. Isn't that a ministers job?" No, the job of a minister should be, as I see it at least, is to help and encourage not to judge. That is Gods job. After all didn't Jesus say, the man with "no" sin should cast the first stone.
I've got news for the OP, this holier than thou, fake it til you make it era is not new just because Weston took over. Meredith encouraged this just as much. Single mothers have always been treated like pariahs. Even divorced mothers would be looked at with disdain. Double lives are nothing new in ACOGS and aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Anon 10:21, How about the ministers sins??? Let me guess, you are the type of Armstrong worshipping idiot that thinks the minister is without sin!
Luke 14.29 if you lay the foundation of a tower and don't finish it, people will ridicule you.
There are negative social consequences to sin. This is pro life since it discourages immoral behavior.
Moral egalitarianism is not a biblical concept.
Unfortunately, some people who went to the so-called COGs fornicated. Some did it before going to the COGs, and some did it while going to the COGs, and some did it after going to the COGs, and some even did it all along.
Of course, much of the sinning was kept quiet, but with so much fornicating going on the women often got pregnant. This exposed what they were really like. Everybody hates getting caught and having their sins exposed.
The women who had fornicated without getting pregnant were sneaky and deceitful about it, while the ones who got pregnant would sometimes put on a fake nice appearance that would be interrupted by outbursts of bitchiness whenever they did not get what they wanted. They were not exactly repentant.
Do not get too carried away expecting sluts to be good people. That is a fiction being pushed heavily by modern television shows that promote all sorts of immorality. They glorify being a “single mom” as if it is a badge of honor. They have some foolish actress act all happy when her pervert boyfriend finally asks her to move in with him. Of course, the bum is too irresponsible to marry her first.
Remember that the Bible does not say that there were any extra rooms on board Noah's ark to accommodate all the supposedly godly, noble, worthy “single moms.” The women back then, just like the women today, were as bad as the men, if not even worse.
The church is supposed to teach the ways of God, but so many people in the so-called COGs are so into lifelong sinning of all sorts that they do not want ministers or anyone else preaching the laws and ways of God. These hypocrites want to go to church and play church while doing as they please. And it pleases them greatly to sin greatly. This leads to what one fellow described as “an epidemic of single moms” in the church.
One has a better chance entering into the kingdom if they bribe God to get in. Is that what this old coot is saying?
Anon 6:46AM wrote:
The church is supposed to teach the ways of God, but so many people in the so-called COGs are so into lifelong sinning of all sorts that they do not want ministers or anyone else preaching the laws and ways of God. These hypocrites want to go to church and play church while doing as they please. And it pleases them greatly to sin greatly.
You meant this as a description of unwed mothers in church, but it is equally a description of the ministers who use their position as a way to enable their sin while hiding their love of sin. Yes, it's the ministers and the members, both. Armstrongism is a religion of lying liars.
So sluts are considered an embarrassment in the LCG? Actually, sluts are an embarrassment everywhere. Sin is a disgrace to any people.
Where are the men who got these sluts pregnant.....Hmmmmm I guess they are sometimes the leading men.. The deacons, local elders, pastors etc. But of course it was the sluts fault. Can’t blame the men. They were led astray. Remember it is always the woman’s fault.
Jim-AZ
What does the bible say?
"If a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins."
So, if the parents refuse to let the two marry then what? Forever condemn the mother and child? Show no mercy? Even when, "mercy triumphs over judgment".
I truly do not understand the burning hatred that so many have for unwed mothers. Other sins or weaknesses are shown more compassion and forgiveness, or a chance to repent. Unwed mothers, seems not so much.
Gerald Weston likes Elvis Presley so much, I wonder if he has ever heard 'Clean up Your Own Back Yard'? It would be very appropriate to play in services (if somebody had the nerve) as it gets to the point of "get the log out of your own eye, before you go messing around trying to get the speck out of others eyes".
So much for treating others like you want to be treated.
I'm surprised that God didn't have Solomon cut the baby AND the mothers(whores) to ribbons for their "worst of all sin". It seems to me that the "wisdom of God to do judgment" gave the baby back to his real mother and that was the end of it.
It is revealing that these men always focus on the "unwed mothers" in the congregation, but little or nothing is ever said of the equally unwed fathers that have abandoned their responsibilities after their sin and left these women holding the bag so to speak. Where are they, and why is their sin not equally chastised if the true goal is to "call out" sin? It seems that a review of John 8 is in order. This is the passage concerning the Pharisees and the woman "caught in the act of adultery." He who is without sin can "cast the first stone." While it may be the job of a minister to correct and exhort on matters of sin, most of the time these matters are not handled in an even handed manner, and the "sins" of some are focused on and shamed while the "sins" of others go unnoticed and unmentioned. They are hypocrites just as the Pharisees were!
In LCG it is always the young women who are to blame for pregnancies, not the young men of the congregation. Like certain Meredith boys, who could never keep their pants zipped and had sex with whomever they wanted, male and female. The same for other top leaders boys. They could fornicate all the wanted and their Daddies never seem to care. We never hear sermons about them breeding like rabbits, but it is always about the harlot girls. The boys just show wild oats and the girls are harlots. Weston needs to shut up as do many other HQ ministers. They all certainly have two faces to their lives. They get to do what they want and we as members are treated like dirt.
A question I've had for many years is about the "dalliances" Of GTA. He had hundreds, so they say, were there any bastards created from these acts of fornication?
fact of the matter is: God is a spirit, and those what worship Him must do so in spirit and in truth...if one decides to be a part of Gods Church, they must become actually converted, and part of that conversion means controlling ones animals lusts, literally converting from animal tendencies to spiritual ones...
Christ was among us as a man, and by the Holy Spirit He proved that such control can be accomplished; there is no excuse for fornication, and frankly, as a practical matter, if you will, having a child out of wedlock is a burden on the mother, on her relatives, on society, and on the child, and any one in denial about this is of the same kind of delusion that a typical trump supporter is accused of...
it is a statistical fact, according to the us census, that women what have children out of wedlock have a much higher poverty rate than those women whom are married, and other studies have shown a higher juvenile delinquency and incarceration rates for such children...regardless our petty sentiments, having a child out of wedlock is not good, and to simply relegate fornication as something that is merely put on the back burner by simply repenting totally ignores the lifelong ramifications of raising a child out of wedlock...
c f ben yochanan
Weston is the only embarrassment I see.
That church is misogynistic. Always was.
Useless bunch of half assed weirdos.
c f ben, there is a whole lot of assumption in your comment. What part of "if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed he needs to make her his wife", don't you follow?
You seem to assume that no woman with a child born out of wedlock ever marries. Most I know of did marry and are still married to this day to the same man, decades later. The children were not raised in abject poverty. I know more married couples that had kids and wound up divorced with the children being raised by a single mother. So how about the men stop running and marry the women that they "fornicate with in animal lust" (oh no it's never, ever because they love them!)and start supporting the children (since you say a single mother cannot get herself out of poverty) that they help create.
So what do you recommend. Lifelong punishment and condemnation? A lot of us got that when we were forced to give up our child for adoption because we weren't married. Complete and total lack of support? That's how much of society likes to do it now and how is that helping improve situations or change wrong behaviors? Tell me. Lashings? Put us in the stocks?
And tell me just how the census knows that the children are out of wedlock? Or is it single mothers and single parent homes that are counted? Single from all sources, widowed, divorced, never married? What about all the adoptive homes that end up in divorce and the children end up raised by single mothers? That happens all too often.
You say there is "no excuse for fornication". Then there must be no excuse for ANY sin isn't that right? So how long should you be punished for your sin/s? Tell me. Don't tell me you are without sin for then I know you would be a liar.
And just where do you get the idea that anybody here called having a child outside of marriage good?
Kicking someone when they are down is your MO. Boy I bet the woman caught (minus the mysteriously absent man) in adultery surely was so thankful for Christ not KICKING her when she was down. According to you it seems he should have. Cause she could have been pregnant by the act. Right!?
As we judge we shall be judged.
has nothing to do with being judgemental, just raw facts:
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/families/2016/cps-2016/tabc8-all.xls
U.S. Census Bureau – Table C8.
Poverty Status, Food Stamp Receipt, and Public Assistance for Children Under 18 Years by Selected Characteristics: 2016.
Anonymous said...
Somebody has to call people on their sins. Isn't that a minister's job?
Let he who is without sin cast the 1st stone!
People like you scare me and exemplify exactly why ACOGs are not Philadelphian.
Jesus sat with tax collectors and harlots but LCG thinks they know better than Him.
Wow!!! To anyone here who is justifying Westin's sermon, just... Wow!!!
Could you please tell me how those 14 women got pregnant?
In that cog that Westin "pastored" do you think there might have been 14 men who had committed the same sin, but they didn't have the child as 24/7/365 evidence that they had sinned.
Westin has a porn problem anyway, count how many sermons he brings up men with porn issues. Reminds me of GTA.
Hmmmm,
Never peg big Gerry as having a pornography problem.......however, I always felt like Winston Gosse had that problem.
Jeremy
I feel so sorry for Weston and all the people in LCG.
I know them so well and they are well intended. They truly believe they are executing the will of God.
I pray that one day they will have their eyes opened and know the love and mercy of Jesus Christ and that they will repent for all the horrible, judgmental, cruel things they have done and said to God's people over the years.
With God, all things are possible.
I imagine sex with Gerald Weston would be less than satisfying. He's so cold, uptight and robotic. He probably either doesn't do it, or does it and then feels dirty and guilty.
What is up with LCG leaders and their obsessions with sex???
I thought once Spanky died that would be the end of the raging sex sermons. Guess I was wrong.
Anonymous 1:50_PM said...
About certain Meredith boys "They could fornicate all they wanted and their Daddies never seem to care"
Its worse than that...
At least one Meredith son ran around on his wife, and the LOCAL MINISTER covered it up so "Rod could visit and leave on a positive note" . . . .
You people out there that are for Real, and Fear God, remember:
Galatians 6:7
I Sam 3:13
Adultery, fornication, Wrong!
But also wrong are those in authority who excuse/cover up too
God is not mocked, You People of God, don't lose heart
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