Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
The church 'loaded the language' putting/mixing alternate meanings to bible words. 'Obedience'/'rebellion' came to mean primarily being the ministers puppet, with some Pharisaic law keeping thrown in. This was combined with hiding from members that God directly leads church members. This is the same sin as Moses, with some bible disguise thrown in. Moses metaphorically didn't enter the promised land of eternal life because of this sin. Ministers who play these games should consider this cost.
What is the definition of "obedience" or of "disobedience"? How "obedient" must one be to avert this "disaster" and avoid these "curses"? How do you know if you've "set your heart on things above" consciensciously enough? How do you know if you've tried with your entire being or not? The bible is so vague, how can anyone be sure if they've managed to figure out what constitutes all of god's laws? The diligent among the COGs like James Malm can always find new ones that no one has ever noticed before.
All of this is completely undefined. No matter how hard you "try," there will always be room for Job's comforters to define you as still "disobedient" or "rebellious" and therefore "cursed." Around and around you go, always trying harder to try harder. If you just keep trying, someday, maybe, you'll be superhuman enough to be acceptable. This is just so much irrational tail-chasing. Trying to be superhuman will never make you anything more than just human. Trying to be a giraffe will never make you into a giraffe, either.
There is no amount of "obedience" or "trying" that will ever be good enough. And that can always be pointed to as the reason why it's not working for you.
"But what about grace?" some bold person will venture. What about it? So what do you have to do to be counted worthy to recieve it? More of that undefined "obedience" which will never be enough. Either you go the liberal christianity route in which you're always worthy, or the fundamentalist route in which you'll never be worthy.
This is what keeps people enmeshed in fundamentalist christianity, at least. They're so busy chasing their tail, trying to make the religion work, or trying to make it produce the benefits that they were promised it would bring, either in this life, or in the next, that they never see the big picture of how it's just a game in which they've been tricked into chasing their tail. It's so undefined there's no possibility for it to work, just like there's no possibility for it to not work, for both of these outcomes are indistinguishable from one another. People decide it's working in the present or else will work down the road someday (it's not working) completely apart from evidence or outcomes.
Bottom line is that either confirmation bias (counting the hits and forgetting the misses) convinces you that christianity works when it doesn't, or else you recognize it isn't working, but because the religion is unfalsifiable, you blame yourself for it's failures.
At what point do you realize the pointlessness of chasing your tail and decide to quit doing it?
3.17 PM It's not my experience that putting out effort to live by the ten commandments is "chasing your tail," especially refraining from mistreating others.
Refraining from mistreating others isn't a religion, it's just being a decent human being.
It's a non sequitur to claim that there's a relationship between being a decent human being and chasing one's tail, and a total mischaracterization of what I said.
And if you need religion in order to refrain from mistreating others, that should be a clue you're not a decent human being.
6.21 PM Not mistreating others is a big part of Christianity. Typically it's only those who try to please God who respect others rights. That's my experience. This blog wouldn't exist otherwise.
Accusing someone who disagrees with you with "you're not a decent human being" is a terrible thing to say. My conscious would not allow me to say such a thing.
I quit caring why people do good. Just the fact that they do it is sufficient, and indicates there is the possibility of some sort of friendship, trust, or relationship.
Having said that, there is a right way and a wrong way to do good. The wrong way involves self-righteousness, ego, and elitism. Those quantities can invalidate the good. Best to leave an invisible footprint with your goodness.
The reason why people do good matters. The problem is that compartmentalization is rampant. People will do good to one person but mistreat another. Such people are not trustworthy and their so called friendship has many strings attached. People experience this when they leave a particular church and lose their 'friends.'
Isn't one purpose of the law was to lead you to the cross? No one can keep the law or be good enough to deserve salvation. When you figure this out, you turn to the Messiah (Galatians).
11 comments:
The church 'loaded the language' putting/mixing alternate meanings to bible words. 'Obedience'/'rebellion' came to mean primarily being the ministers puppet, with some Pharisaic law keeping thrown in. This was combined with hiding from members that God directly leads church members. This is the same sin as Moses, with some bible disguise thrown in.
Moses metaphorically didn't enter the promised land of eternal life because of this sin.
Ministers who play these games should consider this cost.
What is the definition of "obedience" or of "disobedience"? How "obedient" must one be to avert this "disaster" and avoid these "curses"? How do you know if you've "set your heart on things above" consciensciously enough? How do you know if you've tried with your entire being or not? The bible is so vague, how can anyone be sure if they've managed to figure out what constitutes all of god's laws? The diligent among the COGs like James Malm can always find new ones that no one has ever noticed before.
All of this is completely undefined. No matter how hard you "try," there will always be room for Job's comforters to define you as still "disobedient" or "rebellious" and therefore "cursed." Around and around you go, always trying harder to try harder. If you just keep trying, someday, maybe, you'll be superhuman enough to be acceptable. This is just so much irrational tail-chasing. Trying to be superhuman will never make you anything more than just human. Trying to be a giraffe will never make you into a giraffe, either.
There is no amount of "obedience" or "trying" that will ever be good enough. And that can always be pointed to as the reason why it's not working for you.
"But what about grace?" some bold person will venture. What about it? So what do you have to do to be counted worthy to recieve it? More of that undefined "obedience" which will never be enough. Either you go the liberal christianity route in which you're always worthy, or the fundamentalist route in which you'll never be worthy.
This is what keeps people enmeshed in fundamentalist christianity, at least. They're so busy chasing their tail, trying to make the religion work, or trying to make it produce the benefits that they were promised it would bring, either in this life, or in the next, that they never see the big picture of how it's just a game in which they've been tricked into chasing their tail. It's so undefined there's no possibility for it to work, just like there's no possibility for it to not work, for both of these outcomes are indistinguishable from one another. People decide it's working in the present or else will work down the road someday (it's not working) completely apart from evidence or outcomes.
Bottom line is that either confirmation bias (counting the hits and forgetting the misses) convinces you that christianity works when it doesn't, or else you recognize it isn't working, but because the religion is unfalsifiable, you blame yourself for it's failures.
At what point do you realize the pointlessness of chasing your tail and decide to quit doing it?
God has never been the problem, the humans running churches in His name are the problem.
3.17 PM
It's not my experience that putting out effort to live by the ten commandments is "chasing your tail," especially refraining from mistreating others.
5:09 PM
Refraining from mistreating others isn't a religion, it's just being a decent human being.
It's a non sequitur to claim that there's a relationship between being a decent human being and chasing one's tail, and a total mischaracterization of what I said.
And if you need religion in order to refrain from mistreating others, that should be a clue you're not a decent human being.
6.21 PM
Not mistreating others is a big part of Christianity. Typically it's only those who try to please God who respect others rights. That's my experience. This blog wouldn't exist otherwise.
Accusing someone who disagrees with you with "you're not a decent human being" is a terrible thing to say. My conscious would not allow me to say such a thing.
I quit caring why people do good. Just the fact that they do it is sufficient, and indicates there is the possibility of some sort of friendship, trust, or relationship.
Having said that, there is a right way and a wrong way to do good. The wrong way involves self-righteousness, ego, and elitism. Those quantities can invalidate the good. Best to leave an invisible footprint with your goodness.
The reason why people do good matters. The problem is that compartmentalization is rampant. People will do good to one person but mistreat another. Such people are not trustworthy and their so called friendship has many strings attached. People experience this when they leave a particular church and lose their 'friends.'
I guess that if you set you heart on the things above, you won't be collecting gold flatware or Steuben crystal...
Isn't one purpose of the law was to lead you to the cross? No one can keep the law or be good enough to deserve salvation. When you figure this out, you turn to the Messiah (Galatians).
Anon 4:25 PM, you hit the nail on the head.
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