Friday, September 21, 2018

UCG: Aaron Dean Suffers Stroke and Brain Bleeds

Church of God News is reporting that Aaron Dean has suffered a stroke and had two brain bleeds.

United Church of GodThe Church of God Big Sandy reports that, “This week, Aaron Dean of Cincinnati, Ohio, suffered a stroke and two brain bleeds. He initially became weak on his left side. The family reports that he was conscious and expressing that he was doing fine. The doctors discussed the possibility of doing a procedure to remove some “blood off the brain.” He and the family appreciate your prayers.” 
Aaron Dean was due to give the main message on Monday afternoon, the 1st day of the festival, at the Church of God International site at Kentucky Dam Village (Land Between the Lakes). Richard Crow will now give the sermon.

It has been interesting to read Pharisee James Malm's blog recently as Malm has spent quite a bit of effort calling Aaron Dean a liar.   Pharisee Malm has been getting his legalistic panties with fringes on then, all in a tight knot over the last couple weeks as he claims United Church of God is changing its belief that Jesus is the god of the Old Testament. The spittle from the self-righteous one has been flying fast and furious, even though Aaron Dean has repeatedly told Malm he was wrong.

The COG pharisee writes:
The Doctrinal Committee recommends that the statement “Jesus is the God of the Old Testament” be removed from UCG and no longer used.  They will have a formal Study Paper supporting the position that Jesus was not the God of the Old Covenant for CoE approval in December. The CoE can approve such doctrinal papers and make them official in a simplified process due to the new formula for changing doctrines passed in May.  
They use a lot of double talk saying without any evidence [all evidence being to the contrary] that because the Father was alluded to in the Old Testament they surmise that he must have been the God of the Mosaic Covenant.  
Without doubt this is a dramatic departure from both Armstrong and Holy Scripture and is a massive  change in UCG towards the evangelical idea that God the Father was the God of the Mosaic Covenant; while Jesus brought the New Covenant which they falsely claim exalts “love” above God’s law; when God’s love [including all of the statutes, precepts and judgments which God gave to Moses] is love and defines godly love.   
The groundwork was laid for this move to the evangelical by the recent new Trinity booklet and the Mark Mickelson paper.  Also see this article.
On top of that nonsense, Pharisee Malm is claiming that Aaron Dean forced HWA into appointing Joseph Tkach as his successor.

Pharisee Malm writers (in bold type):

  1. I never asked HWA to appoint Tkach.
    Herbert was senile and stoned on medicinal drugs, and Aaron told him to follow Hoeh’s advice knowing full well what Hoeh would recommend, but did not directly recommend Tkach, preferring to place the onus on Hoeh.!
    Nor did I support his lies or apostasy. If I did, I would not have been removed from all positions HWA gave me and that he made JWT promise to keep me in. My career path proves that I fought him at every turn. I am not sure what ‘history the above person “looked into.” The conclusions are false, but people are allowed to believe what they want.
    Aaron, I notice that you said my conclusions are false [I made no conclusions] but you carefully avoided saying my facts are wrong, choosing instead to engage in obfuscation and weaseling of the facts. Those not familiar with these words should Google: “Define and the word”.
    Aaron, you were Herbert’s adviser, confidant and chief flatterer for five years, you were the only one he really trusted in his particularly vulnerable state nearing his end. When you advised him to do what Herman wanted, you were giving the leadership to Tkach on a silver platter.
    Tkach did not even begin efforts at change until he set up his doctrinal project in 89, so your comment about being fired by HWA if you supported changes by Tkach is irrelevant obfuscation.
    As for you fighting changes, you have admitted that you stayed with Tkach after his open changes in Jan 95; and you admit that you only left in 97 because AC closed [i.e. you were being laid off], even UCG was formed in 95. Then you tried to deny involvement with UCG before 2010 when you were a member of their CoE from 1999.
    Aaron you started this thread with an obviously false denial that a change was being made in UCG, and look where it is now. This whole thread started by you, is more a desperate attempt at self-justification by espousing a dedicated idolatry of HWA than anything else.
    Aaron you are either lying and supporting the Tkach agenda of your associates, or you are deceiving yourself in order to justify yourself in your own eyes; having been duped into actually believing that the serious changes underway in UCG are not changes at all, with these same folks using you once again as a cloak for their activities!
    Meanwhile you miss the point that we are to be loyal to GOD, NOT HWA or anyone else!
    The scriptures say that “a thousand years is as a day.” This Feast when you stand up and say that you are celebrating the millennium; you are being loyal to HWA but you are in defiance of Holy Scripture! In this and many other things Herbert was wrong, because it was prophesied in Daniel 12 that much understanding would be sealed until the very end; yet you claim to be faithful to him in all his errors.
    You reject godliness for idolatry of men, and that idolatry of men has opened you up to be deceived by men!
    James
In Pharisee Malm's legalistic eyes everyone is wrong but him.  Next to the self-appointed, doubly-blessed Bob Thiel, the Church of God has never had such a blatant liar as Pharisee Malm.  No matter how much Aaron Dean tells Malm he is wrong, the great Pharisee spits and snarls that Dean is lying.

While I hesitate to send you to the Pharisaical blasphemer's site, you can check it out here to see how vicious he is towards Aaron.



20 comments:

SHT said...

Strokes are nothing to mess with. I hope any afflicted with such an affliction recover without permanent harm.

Concerning Aaron and James' conversation, in context to:

I feel bad for Aaron that he is subjected with James Malm's arrogance and pompous attitude.

I feel worse for James Malm being James Malm.

I feel the worst for the people who actually listen to James Malm.

And, I feel slightly nauseous that a link to his disgusting site was warranted. :P

R.L. said...

James Malm must be warming up for Canadian national elections, which are due by next year. This whole thing reminds me of 2018 U.S. campaign ads.

Malm actually "started the thread" by posting a link to a UCG Council of Elders video in which the "God of the Old Testament" issue was discussed. Anyone who watched the entire video could see Mr. Malm's areas of nit-picking were addressed in it.

Then when Aaron Dean responded by posting his first comment, Malm declared Dean went outside the Bible by doing that - apparently by not "going to his brother" first, although that was not specified.

Whether Malm practiced what he preached, and approached the Council of Elders about his original objections, is not clear to me.

Praying for healing....

Anonymous said...

It's funny that for a movement that has always dealt in "alternative facts," there are so many COG conspiracy theorists who deal in alternative alternative facts. The lies that the WCG and the many splinter groups deal in every day aren't good enough, there has to be another set of lies told about those lies.

But setting all of the lying aside for a moment, for all of Pharisee Malm's supposed superiority in every way, there is at least one thing that blatantly gives away the whole charade: Malm is a really mean-spirited jackass.

One might think, all else being equal, that if christianity were true, if the christian god were worthy of worship, and if the bible were that god's guidebook to living in the most optimal, productive, and efficient way possible—yaknow, like the child-molester HWA always claimed—one might be tempted to assume that those who strived the hardest to live by every jot and tittle of it would be the most magnanimous, generous, beneficent, kind, altruistic, benevolent, compassionate, and self-sacrificing people on earth.

Of course, you could say, and rightly so, that Pharisee Malm is a big fat liar, and so he's a big fat hypocrite, and that his problem is that he doesn't actually strive to live by every jot and tittle of it. And you would have a valid point. But still, I think that Pharisee Malm is sincere, and means well. He's just a very flawed and miserable human being who suffers from depression, and he worships and preaches a depressed and miserable god who he created in his own image.

Moreover, PHarisee Malm is far from being alone. There are lots of sincere and well-meaning people out there who make the same mistake that Pharisee Malm makes, who attempt to get better and better at living in a biblical way, assuming it's going to lead to them becoming better people, but instead, it always seems to make them more and more judgmental, finger-pointing, hate-spewing, intolerant assholes.

If christianity and the christian bible were true, however, living according to any of it, even in small ways, wouldn't that start to improve you, even if just a little bit, and begin in small ways to create the room in your life to be more charitable? But it seems to have either the opposite effect, or else, possibly, no effect at all. And Pharisee Malm is just one textbook case out of many textbook case studies one could look at.

Finally, if Pharisee Malm had anything going for him whatsoever, he wouldn't need to lie. He wouldn't need to traffick in gossip and conspiracy theories. But he doesn't have anything going for him. And maybe his biblical way of life isn't to blame for all of that. Perhaps we're just looking at the same ol' James Malm that James Malm has always been. But if so, isn't the fact that his christianity hasn't done squat for him already evidence enough of the complete and utter failure and impotence of his christianity, his christian bible, and his christian god? It doesn't need to make him a worse person. If it's a way of life that is impotent, then is there a reason why anyone should necessarily live that way? And that's just it, it's not just Malm who lies, but it's the fact he needs to lie, and not just him, but apologists the world over for close to 2,000 years who have needed to lie, that shows that the bible itself is lies. Otherwise, all this lying would have been unnecessary and all these pharisees could have have told the truth instead. That their christianity puts them in the position that they have to lie for Jesus is a strong indictment of christianity.

Yes and No to HWA said...

The God of the Old Testament is not an “either/or” answer but an “and/both” answer; with qualifications.

The “either/or” position, I would suggest, reveals a lack of understanding of the revelation of the Bible.

Heb 1:1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
Heb 1:2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son...

Christopher Wright captures the intent:

“... the most remarkable thing that happened in the faith of the earliest followers of Jesus is that they came to identify him - Jesus - with Yahweh, in calling him Lord, and in many other ways. So, yes it is certainly true, from a whole-Bible perspective, that the God Yahweh of the Old Testament ‘embodies’ (if that is not too human a word) the Son... But on the whole it is probably more appropriate in most cases that, when we read about Yahweh, we should have God the Father in mind” (Knowing God the Father through the Old Testament, p.17).

Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever.

Jesus Christ was the ‘dynamic’ God being - who interacted with the material realm - and God was the ‘absolute’ God being. Jesus Christ was doing the Father’s work in the OT as he is doing in the NT.

To distinguish between the YHWHs Jesus Christ was also known as the Angel of the Lord, among other titles/roles.

Ge 48:15 And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day,
Ge 48:16 The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads;...

The God who Jacob addressed in 15 is identified in 16 as The Angel.

Isa 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence [“face”] saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

Jesus Christ was also the Angel of His [God’s] face and was the Saviour and Redeemer of ancient Israel.

Christ will play this role in the future for modern Israel:

Isa 49:3 And said unto me [Jesus Christ, Thou art my servant, O Israel [Christ], in whom I [the Father] will be glorified. (Cp. Jn 17:4).
Isa 49:4 Then I [Jesus Christ] said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God.
Isa 49:5 And now, saith the LORD [the Father] that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength.
Isa 49:6 And he [the Father] said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee [Jesus Christ] for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.

Dt 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
1Co 8:6 But to us there is but one God, the Father... and one Lord Jesus Christ...

Rev 11:15b The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

“[Paul] has kept the “one” intact, but has divided the Shema into two parts, with theos (God) now referring to the Father, and kurios (Lord) referring to Jesus Christ... [Paul] is reasserting for the Corinthians that ... there is indeed only one God... but at the same time, he insists that the identity of the one God also includes the one Lord...” (Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology, pp.90-91).

Those who argue, with so many holes, that God the Father was the ‘dynamic’ being that interacted in the material realm reveal that they also do not understand God’s holiness - hence why God needed a “help-meet” to do the job.

Anonymous said...

9:09 wrote:

"Malm is a really mean-spirited jackass."

I think you hit the nail on the head as to why I cannot stand the guy. He is mean-spirited and nasty! That is a perfect description. You are also right in that he has created a god who is as depressed and just as miserable as Malm. I can not imagine spending a Feast with the guy. Can you imagine how depressing his conversations would be! Is he ever happy about anything?

Anonymous said...

I red the link. Aaron Deans claim that COGWA was the result of it wanting to depart from Herbs teachings is a untruth. Rather, it's the UCG that has apostatised. It looks horrible for the former personal assistant of Herb to be a member of UCG.

nck said...

From this blog I gather that James Malm is an Australian 1985 defector leading a church with one member remaining from 19.

Why would Aaron Dean answer such person or would for that matter this blog pay any attention to such a person?

Is my inforation on Malm wrong, is he somehow influential beyond the perimeter of his garden?

nck

Gordon Feil said...

Aaron, it seems to me, has been a voice of reason and moderation, much needed in the COG culture. James Malm, having just observed the Day of Atonement, may have visited Isaiah 58:9b yesterday and repented of pointing his finger at Aaron. Let's hope so.

Unknown said...

Malm likes to pretend to be an "inside source" to the politics and workings of the various COGS, but he is nothing more than a "fake news" nothing, taking his best guesses or speculations from his modest Toronto apartment.

Much of his conjectures and information actually comes from here on BANNED , which he then twists and colors to make it look like he "sourced" it!

SHT said...

If he was an inside source, he'd be on the inside. He's not.

He does not take part in any council of elders meeting of any large(r) COG, he does not have a fast track to anything except from what he gets elsewhere. He makes an opinion, and refuses to concede even when the accused denies. By trying hard to prove what he thinks, without source material, he ends up looking like an (insert adjective here. your choice.)

His entire basis is faulty - a misinterpretation of the application of ancient law in an ancient land. His attempt to malignantly spread this faulty virus thankfully seems to be tempered by 99% of those who hear what he has to say, thereby recognizing its lack of substance by detecting the stench of it's complete composition of many truckloads of county fair byproduct from the Cow Barn.

His theology is udderly ridiculous. I hope most moooove on from such bull. Before he milks people for all they have. I think most thiel the same way about someone else as well.

Anonymous said...

Nck
According to the link, Malm and Dean have been corresponding for many years, and Dean posted several times on that one post. Please read before commenting.
I don't agree with everything Malm writes, but I have found some of his technical articles worthwhile.

A reminder that he is a blogger and not a church. He and his followers do not physically meet. Some of his readers have suggested that they do, but Malm has rejected this.

Lake of Fire Church of God said...

I clicked on the link here on Banned and was taken to Malm's website - Whoa, what a waste!

Malm does conform to my definition of wealth and poverty. Poverty is when a lot of efforts yields little results. Wealth is the opposite - little efforts yields huge results.

The Armstrong Churches of God is poverty - lots of wasted efforts yielding little to no results. Can a rational person really believe that God endorses the lack of fruit and results of the Armstrong Churches of God?

Richard

Anonymous said...

When you follow the link Aaron Dean started the argument first and kept replying. Seems out of character for Aaron. Even Malm comments that it would have disappeared if Aaron had ignored it.

Richard Burkard said...

Connie, James Malm actually is in Vancouver.

A UCG leader told me Aaron Dean hoped to get out of the hospital today (Sabbath) or Sunday. He still wants to a attend a Feast site somewhere. Health permitting, of course.

Anonymous said...

Dean was not an honest person. He faked HWA's final letter.

nck said...

12:11

So Malm has some influence worthy of attention and beyond this blog. Perhaps "Aaron response is a generational thing" on internet usage then? His mentor the ultimate religious marketeer must would have used the blog medium differently and remained far from petty discussion.

I'll see if I'll click on the link. I dont know 80 percent of the characters in todays cog soap opera.

Nck

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 1:17 AM said: ". . . Aaron Deans claim that COGWA was the result of it wanting to depart from Herbs teachings is a untruth. Rather, it's the UCG that has apostatised. It looks horrible for the former personal assistant of Herb to be a member of UCG."

It would be a step in the right direction if the COGs would "depart" from a lot of HWAs unscriptural teachings and their Armstrongolatry.
Even HWA "apostatized" from his own original teachings, which were at one time or other sound and Scriptural.
Now there's just a "Babylon" of splinters, schisms and sects competing with one another teaching a contradictory mishmash of his "before and after" teachings (eg Monday Pentecost vs Sunday Pentecost, Divorce & Remarriage prohibited vs D&R permitted, etc.)
And shy does it "look horrible" for Dean to be a part of UCG? To whom? You? He's free to be a part of whichever group or no group if he really wants. What's that to you?

Anonymous said...

9.26 PM
You sound like a minister. I did not claim that Dean doesn't have a right to be a member, or not a member of any splinter.
"Why does it look horrible for Dean to be part of UCG? To whom. To you?" Where is your respect for other peoples intellectual independence? I have a right and responsibility to evaluate those around me as in 'prove all things,' and 'beware of wolves in sheep's clothing.' Obviously you are of the traditional church belief that only the ministers have a right to think, with the members obligated to blindly believe the ministers conclusions. Which reminds me, another of Herbs lies was his claim that the only purpose of the feast of unleavened bread was to remind members to "put sin out of their lives." Nope, it also includes carefully evaluating our environment and those around us. Christ got his "beware of the Pharisees.." together with a detailed description, by spending a reasonable amount of time observing and evaluating them. The very thing you condemn me for.

Getting back to Dean, yes, Herb apostatised shortly after his wifes death, but for Dean to have been one of his ghost writers if he perceived this was immoral. He wrote one thing as a Herb ghost writer, then chose a splinter that rejects much of Herbs teachings. Where's faithfulness to ones beliefs, whatever they might be???? Yes, this does "look horrible."

Anonymous said...

PS, Aaron Dean is a public figure, so public scrutiny comes with the territory. You're ranting against reality with your "what's that to you?" You can't have champagne bubbles without the champagne.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 5:46 AM and 5:55 AM said:

"You sound like a minister"

—Why thank you! I'll take that as a compliment irrespective of your intent! ;-)

"Where is your respect for other peoples intellectual independence?…Obviously you are of the traditional church belief that only the ministers have a right to think…The very thing you condemn me for. Getting back to Dean…Where's faithfulness to ones beliefs, whatever they might be???? Yes, this does 'look horrible'…PS, Aaron Dean is a public figure, so public scrutiny comes with the territory. You're ranting against reality with your 'what's that to you?'"

—With all due respect I didn't say Dean was above criticism neither am I "condemning" you at all. All I did was simply point out a statement you made (ie "It looks horrible for the former personal assistant of Herb to be a member of UCG") which tbh imo came across as judgmental and uncharitable as if you're some diehard loyalist of Armstrong (and by extension the group you've freely chosen to join with—assuming you have, of course, since it's your choice like everyone's to join a group or no group at all) while Dean, however, has to be the worst kind of Armstrong apostate for freely choosing to join with the UCG (which according to your "rejects much of Herbs teachings"). I can only hope all who endured the ensuing turmoil upon the death of HWA and the demise of his cult have grown intellectually and spiritually in the decades since and I'm sure Dean feels he has, like you and me both, and is being "faithful" to his current beliefs "whatever they might be" as a member of the UCG since in reality no one's beliefs stay static forever.