Pastor General Report 03/06/81
clipping by SHT
The 1980's was a time of extreme excess in the church. Money was being spent on extravagant concerts, receptions with cases and cases of Dom Perignon and Rothschild wines, travelling international exhibits, courting royalty from Queen Sirikit to Mrs. Sadat, helping restore the Globe Theatre in London, putting money down on Hollywood films (The Wild Geese), helping restore the Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia, helping fund the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, and much much more. Include in this Herbert Armstrong buying more silver, gold and fine art.
Add to this mess certain evangelists who remodelled their campus homes at church members expense, in some cases multiple times just because one evangelist's wife could not make up her mind. While all of this was going on, members were told to tighten their belts and send in more money so the work could accomplish its end time goals.
Its fraudulent Plain Truth Newsstand program dropped millions of dollars over the decades claiming it was the largest circulated religious magazine in the world. Hundreds of thousands of PT's were dumped in the trash every month by church members, PT distributors and Pasadena personnel, yet they all went towards that total that was spoon fed to the members as gospel truth.
Why would anyone in Pasadena lie to the members?
7 comments:
we paid for the Reagan library and a stupid organ? my family suffered because of the tithing lie while these assholes freely spent the money
HWA knew that it was the homestretch of his earthly life rather than the homestretch of the work. Otherwise why did he build the auditorium? Herb and Rod both pitched the 'one last push' wheel borrow in their final days in order to fatten their perceived reward in heaven.
Self interest reins supreme in these leaders, even though this trait is condemned in the members. They believe that they are entitled to a double standard.
NO2HWA said, "Why would anyone in Pasadena lie to the members?"
MY COMMENT - Because, as I've written before "if you want to dine with the classes, you must lie to the masses". HWA dined in class with world leaders of class.
HWA was rank and class-conscious. He didn't dine with his classless "weak and base thing" lowly dumb tithe slave sheeple.
Richard
"we paid for the Reagan library and a stupid organ? my family suffered because of the tithing lie while these assholes freely spent the money"
They were sucking up to the "Important People". Always remember HWA's entire focus on life since he was 16 years old was to be a success to the eyes of the world. Contributing to worldly interests became his prime motivation late in life. And sad to say, these two things weren't the only "worldly" interests - you'd have to make a new booklet to list them all.
Your family, my family - most families suffered under HWA's obsession with worldly and material wealth. The same obsession can be clearly seen with the hirelings that have gone out on their own to build their own little empires. Those are clear indicators as to the mindframe that Armstrong produced in those who idolized both his name and fortune.
Mark this: There was no- zero - zilch - "conversion" in Herbert Armstrong. If there was, the outcome would have been absolutely different on every level. What he was masterful at doing was making it APPEAR he was converted - a "ring" of sincerity. This is what the master advertising salesman does - convinces people using psychology of something hard enough they'll not only BUY it, they'll BELIEVE it. A technique the splinters still use to this day - rather flatulent and sputtering (like an old man heading toward the bathroom - you know what I mean), and more nauseating than effective, admittedly. HWA added the "lysol" to the flatulence, a "deodorizer" that the Splinters have not discovered how to use.
SHT, your metaphors bring up visuals in my mind that are hilarious. I remember my aged grandmother getting out of her chair and "putt-putting" all the way to the bathroom, which was off the kitchen.
Our family suffered mightily by all the "sacrificing for the work" that we did, even having to get on food assistance, going without a car and having to take the bus to work, etc. We could not allow ourselves to believe that hwa could be the shyster that he was. To do that would be unthinkable.
-FFS
There was most definitely an effort to cultivate or buy good will amongst "the right people". The difference between them and Jesus and the disciples is that Jesus knew persecution and death were imminent, yet Jesus kept telling it like it was. He even told "officials" that they wouldn't even have power were it not for the Father in heaven. With all the favor that Armstrong and Rader purchased, HWA wussed out and taught a philosophically wise sounding secular gospel to the important people with whom he dined at state dinners, etc. Why, Bob Dylan actually preached a more accurate form of the gospel during his Christian period, and he was booed by fans he deeply cared about. HWA was what the Bible calls "a pleaser of man rather than God".
9.15 AM
I don't agree. HWA did give a secular gospel to world leaders, but for the sake of diplomacy, that's all that was realistically permissible. He used code words that the audience understood. After all, they did know that he was a church leader.
One example, Christ didn't force himself on people. Rather people came to him.
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