Friday, August 31, 2018

Duplicity and Double Standards In The Church



article submitted by SHT

The Duplicity and Double Standard of Herbert Armstrong was prevalent in the life of Herbert Armstrong and his subjects in the Church. To illustrate the example of Herbert's "It's OK for me, but not for you" standards, allow me to illustrate two examples.

The first example I wish to bring forth is Herbert's divorce from Ramona back in the early 1980s. Herbert went through quite the ordeal with his short marriage with Ramona. But it was not unlike the many divorces that were not permitted in the church by others who had much of the same common situations as Herbert. 

Let's look at the culmination of the marital struggles with Herbert's acknowledgement of the situation to the brethren from a Co-Worker letter that was sent to the church. 

EXAMPLE 1: Divorce. 

But with deepest regret I have to say to you now, Mrs. Ramona Armstrong has refused to be at my side here in Pasadena headquarters or in further travel, but has insisted on living separately in Tucson. It has been determined by events, facts and fruits that I am not spiritually bound by God and only by man's law of this world.  Circumstances now render it ill-advised that I condone the continuation of the legal marriage, both from the Church point of view and of my own. It was my hope and effort to resolve the matter, and with the least publicity possible, for the benefit of the Church, for her and for myself. All attempts to do so have failed. It has therefore become necessary that I accede to the advice of Church legal counsel and file the necessary legal proceedings. I assure you every effort has been made, at cost of heavy stress on me personally, to avoid this.

   God HATES divorce. So do I. I have gone to every effort to prevent this. It would be inappropriate at this time that I state all the facts, but if necessary and proper later, I will reveal more.

   This matter of marriage and divorce has been of very serious concern to the Church, and to me personally. I had never known of a divorce in my own family as far back as I have record or knowledge. I lived 50 years with the wife of my youth — happily. I have made every effort to avoid this action that I hate. You may be sure, of course, that it is not taken except after every effort, continuous heartrending prayer, and completely in accordance with God's Word and teaching, and the teaching of God's Church, especially I Corinthians 7:12-lS.

   This determination SHOULD NOT BE USED AS A PRECEDENT TO ENCOURAGE OR JUSTIFY OTHER DIVORCES IN THE CHURCH.

With this example, Herbert's marriage to Ramona was deemed as "not spiritually bound by God". However. It is clear that if the exact same situations were to occur in marriages within the Church, then this decision "should not be used as a precedent...to justify other divorces". That's the definition of a double standard right there. It's ok for "me", but if you end up in the same situation, to you, it's sin.

I used the word "sin" because if someone goes against the minister and does it anyway, then it's rebellion against Government, rebellion against Church doctrine, and could get you in "trouble" for divorcing anyway if you were "advised" not to. 

Thirdly, if it is completely in accordance with God's Words and teaching, then why is it not precedent? 

Let's now look at the second example on baptism. 

Herbert Armstrong was baptized in a Baptist Church. Herbert says that through that baptism, he received God's Holy Spirit. 

Let's keep in mind that Herbert Armstrong regarded Baptist Churches as deceived, satanic, and cut-off from God. This, and of course, all other protestant, catholic - even Seventh-Day and Jehovah's Witnesses included in this mass judgement. Yet he, Herbert's baptism was deemed valid. But the official teachings of the Church taught differently:

EXAMPLE 2: Baptism

 However, notice that the one performing the baptism ceremony was a representative (though not necessarily an ordained minister) of the true Church of God in every New Testament case. This was the Church Jesus founded (Matthew 16:18).(All About Water Baptism)

If this was true, then Herbert was the very first exception to the rule, wasn't he? No Baptist minister was a representative of what Herbert considered an ordained minister of the true Church of God. 

   Yes, SATAN HAS SUBSTITUTED A FALSE CHRIST AND DIABOLICAL CUSTOMS. THOSE WHO OBSERVE THESE PAGAN CUSTOMS AND REJECT THE TEACHING OF CHRIST SHOW BY THEIR ACTION THAT THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT SALVATION REALLY IS! Satan has substituted a false baptism — a mechanical act which does not signify the burying of the old self. He has perverted the teaching of God that man must repent. - C Paul Meredith, Counterfeit Baptism Today

Here, the argument is made that Satan has substituted a "false Christ" by those who "Observe these pagan customs". 

There can be no argument made that the Baptist Church is most certainly classified as one of the churches that Herbert would regard himself as a church that "observes pagan customs". Therefore, by the Church's standard, Herbert was baptized in what the church taught, and what he considered a pagan church with a false baptism - especially since the Baptizer was not representative of "the true church of God". 

       After baptism in a worldly church, such people don't immediately begin to study and UNDERSTAND the Bible. They just continue to go along with the customs, the ways and the traditions of their friends and of this world. Their lives are not actually CHANGED. They don't come to personally KNOW GOD! Such people have NOT TRULY REPENTED, and their baptism was probably not valid! Their's was only a ritualistic "dunking" in the water. If you are wondering about your baptism, ask yourself WHY you were baptized in the first place. Were you baptized simply because many of the members of your family were baptized, and you felt looked down upon, or had that "left out" feeling? Did you stand in the water and go through the ordinance of baptism simply to "join" the group with whom you had been fellowshipping? Were you baptized because you temporarily thought it was the "right thing to do?"    If you were baptized for ANY of these reasons — YOUR BAPTISM WAS PROBABLY NOT A VALID BAPTISM,

The only reason in this missive why they had to add the word "probably" was because they were well aware of the fact Herbert was baptized in just such a church. Yet, because the belief was Herbert was the only one who understood, changed, and repented, his was deemed valid. However. I can find no example of any other person who was baptized in a "worldly church" who's baptism was deemed valid - except Herbert Armstrong. 

Yet, what was said to those with questions from the staff of the Plain Truth (ministry) who had been baptized into a worldly church?

You need to really repent and be baptized into Christ by a true servant of God in order to receive the Holy Spirit and be added to the body of Christ — the true Church (I Cor. 12:13).- Plain Truth Staff (The Bible Answers Short Questions From Our Readers)

Which goes back to what was quoted earlier - they according to the Church, there has never been an example where the baptism ceremony was not conducted by a representative of "the true church". 

Except Herbert Armstrong, the first one to do so by being baptized in a Baptist Church by a Baptist Minister. 

By the Church's own doctrine, then, Herbert should have been judged to have been baptized by what he considered and taught as a false, satanic, pagan church, breaking the entire baptismal succession of true ministers in the true church baptism according to the New Testament, and received a "false christ" in a "false baptism". 

Of course, since it's Herbert's Church, he was the exception to the rule, just like with the divorce from Ramona. 

This didn't stop just with these two examples. There have been many documented examples of the same duplicity in many other examples. So what was a person to do if they caught Herbert doing something that he told everyone else not to do? 

Say nothing, turn around, support Herbert Armstrong, and above all - tread carefully. 

Could this be why the current crop of Splinter Leaders think they can get away with so much? Because Herbert did it, and since Herbert did it, it must be okay? Following Herbert Armstrong as an example is a sure way to go down the road of wickedness and corruption. An idolatrous and hellish way to go - a rotten way and an attitude that Jesus himself warned repeatedly against.

29 comments:

"1-EX- sheeple" said...

There's that old saying....don't do as I do...DO as I SAY..."nuff said"?

Anonymous said...

So Ramona turned out to be a Gold-digger?
Who saw that coming?...everyone but Herb!

Anonymous said...

If these other churches are of the devil, then why did Herb copy many of the 'ways, customs and traditions of the world.' Church culture is very similar to Protestant churches. Look at the similarity to the JWs for instance.

Anonymous said...

Herberts duplicity is history the is far worst and much more duplicity going on within the splinter groups in 2018.
Masters of duplicity.

Anonymous said...

HWA was nearing the end of his life when he married Ramona. He certainly could have toughed it out for those short years and remained married. If nothing else as an example to the brethren. Since he could not rule over his own household (Ramona) he would be disqualified from running the church.

David Rickman said...

I saw double standards galore in the WCG congregation in Tupelo, Mississippi and if you were not a baptized member you were "pissed on" by the baptized members.

Anonymous said...

I guess like Sherlock Holmes so aptly put it: “The exception (HWA’s Baptist baptism) disproves the rule (HWA’s assertion the Holy Spirit can only be given to those who are baptized and then had hands laid on ‘em and an accompanying prayer)!” So I’m sure many Christians who were baptized in other groups not following HWA’s “magic” formula were given God’s Holy Spirit! :-)
Re HWA’s foolish marriage to a divorcee and then divorcing her I agree with Marie Casale’s assessment i.e. according to the NT instructions of Christ and Paul divorce and remarriage is sin for Christians since the original ideal is a man and woman marrying for life (e.g. Adam and Eve).

Anonymous said...

Don’t forget another double standard, she was not 100% white.

Anonymous said...

SHT?

How appropriate.
With my astigmatism, I always have to look twice at that name. At first glance it looks like SH*T, but then, that seems to be the material he offers.

Unknown said...

I have determined that I am no longer "spiritually bound" to Herbert W. Armstrong !

Sweetblood777 said...

I notice that it was a church lawyer that handled the case. Why was his divorce paid for by tithe payers? His divorce is his private business, not ours.

HWA was a creep in many ways. He was a money grubber from the start and selfish to the core. He is surely going to be in for a big surprise come judgement day.

nck said...

Sweetblood

His wealth was estimated to be a meagre 5 million dollars of which he lost about 2 to Ramona if she returned stolen art.

Nothing compared to the average televangelist. HWA left all his remaining assets to the church.

Nck

Anonymous said...

I am always encouraged when I see those who insult the material presented without critical evidence to support the criticism, when the post is always accompanied by supporting material from our commentators. Always a good thing!

-SHT

Anonymous said...

You’re forgetting, nck. HWA’s miserable high profile example, descending into mammon and opulence, is what lowered the bar for ministry, producing the crop we see today of millionaire celebrity evangelists. That sort of behavior and lifestyle was extremely rare for ministers prior to HWA. It had been widely thought that the ministry was a calling, a life of sacrifice, often involving self-denial and sparseness in living conditions, based upon the life and teachings of Jesus who commented about the achievability of spirituality in the presence of riches (camel and eye of the needle mean anything to you?).

No, HWA was always of the devil. He claimed to be restoring, but tore down and besmirched the tried and true, so that he could live the lifestyle to which he had aspired as a young man. Christianity today would be much healthier and attractive if we didn’t have all of the HWA-inspired millionaire televangelists. They make a mockery of the Christian way.

Anonymous said...

$5 Mil in 1986 is comparable to $11,277,401.65 today.

That, compared to the average WCG member, is not meager. HWA believed that it is not what you own, it is what you control. And the truth is, he had control of everything in his empire - totally.

There were people in the Worldwide Church of God who barely had enough to get groceries in the house, or new clothes on their backs - because they were giving so much to Armstrong for his empire. To those people, $200 DOLLARS - yes, two one hundred dollar bills was a lot of money. And they gladly gave a tenth of their earnings to HWA because of the false promises that were made. It is not a matter of how "meager" his wealth was. It was a matter of how he obtained it, and what he did to the lives of those he extorted from.

You're not judged on your wealth, if it is earned with integrity. However, if your wealth is obtained unethically, immorally, scandalously, by extortion, by threat, by greed, by lust, by envy- without care, compassion, or feeling to those who are being ROBBED - then you have a Real. Big. Problem.

I could care less if HWA left all his remaining assets to the church. HWA should have at LEAST given his remaining assets, in my opinion, to his remaining family members. My understanding is that that didn't even happen.

Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also.

-SHT

Anonymous said...

Looks like you have a "catch 22" thing going on here. The one dude who comments in defense of Armstrongism must be a retard by the way he misspells so much.

Unknown said...

NCK-

It is not necessarily what you personally possess, or have "title" to, but whether you have access and control. HWA had access to private jet travel, private chef, private medical, rare art works and the silverware of Kings. It may have "technically" been titled to the church, but they were virtual HWA private domain use assets.

Anonymous said...

10.19 AM
Many Herb ministers are going to get a big surprise come judgment day. It's common for people to come up with substitute standards for salvation. For example, they think that bullying others to be righteous, or pressuring others to support the work, will somehow qualify them for the kingdom. Hence the endless 'one last push' by ministers who hope that it will gain them a ticket to eternal life.

RSK said...

"A woman truly led by God's Spirit", he had called her.

RSK said...

Of course, I didnt find out about her until I was maybe 11 or 12. I flipped thru "Against the Gates of Hell", saw Ramonas photo with a caption listing her as "current wife", asked my mother and was told "Its something not talked about in the Church." I forget what followed, but I think it was "She was working with the people who tried to take over."

Renehan claimed that Tkach supposedly exposed a plot he overheard between Rader and Ramona, which got him his position as head of Admin, but I dont know that to be true. Was before my time anyway.

What About The Truth said...

I would say the charge of duplicity concerning the Baptist baptism is a hard one to hold to HWA. As a young man starting a religious search he chose what he thought was the best at that time. He also stated in his autobiography Vol. I page 360 that "Jesus promised that when we receive the Holy Spirit, His Spirit shall guide us into all truth-not merely part of it (John 16:13). But no person can receive all truth instantaneously. The human mind receives knowledge gradually". He also had no fellowship with and didn't participate in the Baptist doctrines. He also stated that he knew of some few who were converted outside of the church, but that in due time God would lead them to where He was working. There also was in Appalachia in the 1960's a good many COG 7th Day members who came into the WCG. Some have said all were not required to be baptized again upon entering. Remember this was a man who led a very small church for a lot of years as he searched for and proclaimed a defined truth. He would have to preach about 1 Cor. 12:13 and hold as a church doctrine what it says. He did believe he was a special unique case with his baptism and receiving of the Holy Spirit for he stated: "I had been baptized by the Holy Spirit into the true body of Christ, the Church of God-but I did not realize that fact literally. I was still to search earnestly to find the one true Church which Jesus founded, before recognizing fully He had already placed me in it!" (Page 321).

Do we group HWA in with John the Baptist or the disciples and Christ who had going at the same time a baptism of repentance from both of their movements prior to a baptism with the Holy Spirit. Were the persons of John the Baptist, the disciples, and Jesus Christ invalid and guilty of duplicity because after AD 31 all were now baptized into the church - the body of Christ?

Now as for divorce from Ramona, that was a shameful example of a man superseding what he taught and held his members to, period!

Anonymous said...

Just a reminder that it's God who grants the holy spirit to a person, not a Baptist church or similar.

When Herbs engagement to Ramona was announced, I remember members saying that he needed a nurse rather than a wife. The gossip was that his ministers had tried to persuade him to not marry her.
I've noticed the tendency for people to see themselves younger than they really are. A time delay thingy. It's not just the very old either.

nck said...

My source about hwas "wealth" are the divorce papers and the settlement.

The true insult is the twisting of the facts. Like Connie ascribing Raders mantra to HWA.

HWA s assets were left to the church and most valuables people whine about had increased substantially in value.

Very much unlike anything the Tkaches did to depreciate all assets.

HWA had already given his family members "free education" and international travel as students (for what it is worth). Dorothy of course a nice job and free housing accompanying him in meetings with dignataries. ( Not the behavior of someone wronged as alleged by those without any legal critical evidence and relying on hearsay.....among those the recipients of free education at AC.)

Nck

nck said...

SHT is producing the real insult.

HWA was not duplicitous AT ALL.

One of the reasons my family decided for armstrongism and defected from the the sda cult (at the time, now a respectable church) was that "poverty" was something to aspire at in the sda cult while armstrongism had always been very clear without any duplicity that the armstrong god was a bountiful god declaring feast sites at jekyll island where the elites invented the Fed.

Nck

Anonymous said...

What about the truth said: "Do we group HWA in with John the Baptist or the disciples and Christ who had going at the same time a baptism of repentance from both of their movements prior to a baptism with the Holy Spirit. Were the persons of John the Baptist, the disciples, and Jesus Christ invalid and guilty of duplicity because after AD 31 all were now baptized into the church - the body of Christ?"

Idk if I'd equate HWA with John the Baptist (and his disciples) or Christ (and His disciples) since both movements no doubt would've been baptizing in like fashion until the Holy Spirit was given on Pentecost. Further, neither group were contending that one group's baptism was valid while the other was unscriptural and therefore not valid. HWA was the one guilty of asserting that his method of baptism (along with "laying on of hands") was a guarantee of receiving the Holy Spirit while other forms were not. This is where the duplicity lies since his own baptism was not in accord with his own method. So how can he claim on one hand that mainstream Christian authors were "pagans" and couldn't be led by God's Holy Spirit while on the other hand he was baptized like these very same mainstream Christian authors?! And yet his works are supposedly inspired by the Holy Spirit and "truth," but mainstream Christian authors works can't be?! And why?! Because he says so?! Didn't even Christ say that those who are not against us are with us?! And yet HWA reversed this principle and made it all about him! Thus, all who were not with him (or in his group or acknowledged his spiritual authority) were obviously against him and pagans or satanic imposters! SMH

Anonymous said...

HWA gave us his version of events. I wonder what Ramona would have said if she had been given the chance to tell her side of the story. HWA's version might be as self-serving and false as his autobiography. As to the subject of baptism. Did John the Baptist waterboard people until they repented? Matt 3:11, "I baptize you with water for repentance." Did John the Baptist baptize in order to bring about repentance or because they had repented? Obviously, he wasn't torturing them to bring about repentance. In Acts 2:38 is says to be baptized for the forgiveness of sin. In both cases, the word "for" is to be understood to mean "because." So baptism wasn't the means of repentance or forgiveness, but a symbol of these events. As for the Holy Spirit being given at baptism, we see in Acts 10:45 that the Holy Spirit had already been poured out on the Gentiles then Peter baptized them. This may have been done this way to bring the two groups, Jews and Gentiles, together. So it didn't matter who baptized HWA or by what method, immersion, sprinkling or pouring. In fact, when I last taught in Tanzania, they said that there is also a "dry baptism" in those areas where there is no water. They simply toss or sprinkle a bit of sand or dirt on the person. I guess you could simply blow air onto someone and call is a "pneumatic baptism." What mattered in HWAs baptism was whether or not he had repented and thus had already received the Holy Spirit or was he just like the church leaders mentioned by Jesus in Matt 7:21-23.

Glenn said...

The daughter of HWA who traveled with him regularly was Beverly (Gott), not Dorothy.

Anonymous said...

Anon 5:55 said: “In fact, when I last taught in Tanzania, they said that there is also a ‘dry baptism’ in those areas where there is no water. They simply toss or sprinkle a bit of sand or dirt on the person.”

Seriously?! “Dry baptism?!” That’s totally ridiculous! Why even bother?! Either do it right i.e. water immersion or not at all! That’s like saying you can have a fake circumcision! Either you’re cut or uncut. So either you’re baptized via water or not! Don’t give me nonsense about dirt or dust as a means of baptism! LOL!

nck said...

Dry baptism? What's next, baptism by fire?

Nck