Saturday, February 17, 2018

Would you lie to protect your particular Church of God?


A comment was made on another thread about Rod McNair's recent take on "lying."

LCG is rich with irony. While Doug Winnail is in Africa, Rod McNair is taking over his weekly comments, and he used this platform this week to share some statistics:

61% of Elders agreed lying is morally wrong
54% of Baby Boomers agreed that lying is morally wrong
50% of Generation Xers agreed that lying is morally wrong
42% of Millennials agreed that lying is morally wrong
But only 34% of Generation Z (born between 1999 and 2015) could agree that lying is morally wrong


Rod presents this as a problem, but those close to him know that he believes in the "Rahab principle" that if you lie for the Church you are not morally culpable. If you are married and Rod convinces your spouse to lie about you, that is lying for the Church and is justified. If you, however, dare to tell the truth about Rod's lies, you are going against the Church and must be eliminated. If you lie to donors about how your tithes are being used, that's morally OK, but if a critic points out the truth that many of LCG's media statistics represent purchased views and do not represent real viewer interest, your truth is considered morally wrong.

Gerald Weston has inherited a big problem. The Emperor is wearing no clothes, and those outside of LCG can see this clearly. It's only the frightened or ambitious LCG members who keep trying to pretend that their home office is something other than a nest of vipers. This is why LCG is not growing. If you are using the Holy Spirit to discern Godly character, you won't want to expose yourself or your loved ones to LCG's moral decrepitude.
We have all seen over the years the lies of Dave Pack and Gerald FLurry go down in flaming glory.  We also witness it today in the lies of Bob Thiel as he attempts to constantly justify the existence of his personality cult. But not only is lying an issue with the leadership of the various COG's, it involves the members too.  On a Facebook page, people have been talking about how their families lied to school administrators, church hall rental people and others.

I remember being told to say all kinds of things to school teachers that were not exactly true when it came the church belief idiosyncrasies.
Most of my experience of this was in childhood, filling out school forms. We had to list our doctor in the event of an emergency, and of course we had none – so sometimes my parents would write in the name of Dr. Clint C. Zimmerman (an evangelist who had earned a living as a chiropractor before entering the ministry), even though they knew they were being asked for a medical doctor, and we had never ever ever consulted Zimmerman professionally (if contacted by school officials, he would have had no idea who we were, though he might have remembered my grandparents).
Even though Clint Zimmerman was no physician, I kind of see my parents' reasoning – he had, indeed, at one time worked in a related field; still, that's one heck of a stretch.
But my first year or two of grade school they actually filled in the name of Dr. Hermann Hoeh as our family doctor – yes, a professor of twisted history who earned his degree from an unaccredited Bible college based on a dissertation unspoiled by facts or logic! No doubt if I'd had an accident on campus he could have mailed a prayer cloth to the school nurse ...
Many times parents in Pasadena would use the campus chiropractor or registered nurses names as "official" doctors for the family.  Not only were these men/women not real doctors, they were questionable chiropractors considering the quacky things they practiced and encouraged their patients to do. All of the engaged in peddling quack homoeopathic medicines, just as Bob Thiel does.

Then, if something did go wrong with a child due to the church stance on doctors and medicine, the church conveniently weaseled its way out of any responsibility whatsoever.  They blamed the parents for not doing what should have thought to be right.  Then when the child died from appendicitis are some other illness, the ministers would uphold the child or family as pillars of faith for not using medical treatment.

Lying to the "gentile" unconverted public was like casting "pearls before swine" in the eyes of the church.  Never share church doctrines or its darker secrets with the "gentiles."  We were warned that if we did that then persecution could come upon the church.

Lying also extended to hall rentals for church services or other evenings.
Sometimes the church would rent a local school field and/or multi-purpose room for a church social, which involved signing a statement acknowledging alcohol was prohibited (often my dad was the responsible party who reserved the facility and signed those papers – ministers didn't like to go on record and sign official documents). Even at my young age, I can recall two of our ministers in the sixties, ...while instructing the deacons and servers to keep the wine they served with the potluck on the down-low .... never occurred to school officials a church group would intentionally violate the law.
I remember going to "night to be Much Observed" dinners in restaurants that did not serve alcohol or in meeting halls.  We were to keep the booze hidden and poured into paper cups so that the "gentiles" would think it was grape soda.

Herbert Armstrong was well qualified to lie to the members since advertising is mostly one big lie after another.  Just look at the scores of letters he sent out begging the membership for money all the while he would be on spending sprees at Harrod's and Sotheby's.

And who can forget the "let's flee to Petra" lie we all endure in the late 60's and early 70's.  Could there have been a more monstrous lie forced on the membership?  Oh wait, there were other lies just as bad, or worse: HWA was an apostle.  Church members would become God as God is now. That we need to "qualify" for salvation. Hitler was still alive and ready to slaughter Americans...on and on it went.

The church always defensively claimed it never lied to anyone, but "sins of omission" seemed to be OK.  The less you told the gentiles of the world the better.  Half-truths were the doctrine of the day, and sadly still are in the COG's.







Dear Church of God Teens. Since it is too late for your parents....

Learn more of what actually is true in 28 minutes than your pastor's 1 hour and 20 minute sermon or 16 ill informed and mistaken programs  about how everything came to be.   Listen in hilarious delight to Dave Pack misinform you with his Koala Bear tales and back himself into a "But what about the Two Koalas on the Ark?" dilemma.  

C'mon...28 minutes to save you from making lifelong career choices should you decide to attend your local church college or totally skip your education waiting for Jesus to return and flee to some unscriptural disaster you will never recover from. 

No church leader in the history of the Churches of God , as Dave Pack, has so badly failed to tell you the truth about the origin of everything.  




Friday, February 16, 2018

Agape Love in the Living Church of God



Whew! Doug Winnail is back after a long absence, once again holding the feet of LCG in the fire.  Most of his weekly paragraphs are on topics of current issues in the Living Church of God.  This week it is on love or the lack of love in the Living Church of God.  Is that lack of love what is driving the membership rolls of the LCG down?  Is that lack of love the result of the heavy-handedness of Gerald Weston, Rod McNair, and Johnathan McNair and others?  Is the leadership of the Living Church of God filled with "unselfish outgoing concern for others?"

The Most Important Quality: Most of God’s people understand the importance of keeping the commandments, the Sabbath, the Holy Days and the health laws, as well as the importance of government, tithing, faith and watching for the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Yet, sometimes, in our zeal to obey the laws of God, we can overlook something that is even more important—and that is the need to develop and exercise Godly Love. In 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, we learn that without Godly Love, all other things will amount to nothing. The biblical word used here for love is agape, which refers to an unselfish outgoing concern for others. In 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul states that Godly Love is patient and kind; it does not envy and is not proud or rude. Godly Love does not seek its own way; it is calm and not easily provoked, nor does it jump to conclusions or assign motives or sit in judgment of others. Instead, Godly Love is gracious and forgiving. It is positive and focuses on what is right and true. It never fails or falters. Godly Love is an important fruit of God’s spirit (Galatians 5:22) that we must cultivate if we hope to become like our Father and our Elder Brother Jesus Christ—because God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), and we have been created to become like Him (1 John 3:1-3). Let’s make this our goal. Let’s ask God to help us learn to love Him and learn to love others as He does—so we can develop this most important quality—of Godly Love.
Have a profitable Sabbath,
Douglas S. Winnail

LCG: Everything I know about the Bible I learned in 15 minutes!



It is always fun to watch COG leaders spin numbers and surveys to fit the desired outcome they were seeking.  Johnathan McNair is starting off in his new HQ leadership roles by being the best spin doctor since Bob Thiel invented his dreamy improperly named "continuing" Church of God.

LCG recently sent out a survey to members to see how much time they spend in Bible study. The first question was how much time they "wanted" to spend studying the Bible and then how much time they actually did.  Herbert Armstrong will NOT be pleased with the results! God's ironclad golden rule for Bible Study, prayer and mediation is 1 hour each! LCG must be doing something right though.  With claims of 7,000 members, an outstanding amount of 300 responded to the survey.  Good job LCG!

Living Education Update 
A big thank you to those who took a moment to respond to our survey last week! Almost 300 people answered the brief questions about their Bible study time.  
The first question asked about people’s target amount of time to spend in study, while the second asked how much time, on average, they actually did spend.  
Half of those who responded set a goal of studying an hour a day. Of the remainder, about 50 planned to study 30 minutes a day, and about 20 aimed for 15 minutes. Two hours is the goal for approximately 60 members.  
With those goals in mind, the vast majority of those who responded, about 110 people, reported that they actually spend about 30 minutes a day on Bible study. Roughly 70 people spend an hour, and the remainder around 15 minutes, though about 20 of those surveyed said they spend two hours a day in study.  
The results showed that God’s people do want to dig into their Bibles! Whether we have a lot of time in our day or a little, consistent rehearsal of the principles of life found in the Bible will pay off by establishing and maintaining a solid foundation in the way of God.—Jonathan McNair
It is still quite obvious that most LCG members prefer to let their overlords tell them what scripture means instead of actually dissecting it themselves.  After all, most of these men were trained at the once holy Ambassador College, at the feet of Herbert Armstrong, with his 6-month Bible education that happened in a public library.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Crackpot Wade Cox: You have less than 7 years to repent or Jesus and the Mohammads of the Middle East will slaughter you.


It is always fascinating to watch the various leaders of the COG's as they mentally break down from delusional beliefs and teachings. For some reason, their god is the nastiest vengeful god one could ever imagine.  It is like they look with glee with the hope to see the people of the world slaughtered by their god during the end times for being such grievous sinners. Only they and their crazy band of followers are the true believers.

Wade Cox says:
So there is no doubt to the people seeking the First Resurrection this is the bottom line.
  1. Repent and be baptised
  1. Have hands laid on for receipt of the Holy Spirit
  1. Keep the weekly Sabbath and daily prayer.
  1. Keep the Sabbath of the New Moon and do not trade (Amos 8:5)
  1. Keep the Lord’s Supper on the night of 14 Abib according to the Temple Calendar, participating in the bread and wine and footwashing.
  1. Keep the Passover on the night beginning 15 Abib and keep the full seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. (Penalty for failure is to be cut off (Ex 12:15, 19) and all the Armstrong systems have failed to do this since 1965 and before then kept it only by accident due to Hillel).
  1. Keep the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost on the 50th day which is the First day of the week following the 49th day Sabbath which commences the Feast.
  1. Keep Trumpets on 1 Tishri, 
  1. Atonement on (10 Tishri),
  1. Keep the Feast of Tabernacles from 15 to 21 Tishri with Holy Days on 15 and 22 of the Seventh Month.
  1. Tithe as per God’s Laws as a sign of Repentance and return to God.
  1. Give three feast offerings a year at Passover, the Feast of Weeks and at Tabernacles.
Do these things and you shall be saved. Keep Hillel and fail to obey God and follow the Hadith and you will die. Teach men to disobey the Laws of God and you will be killed at the return of the Messiah. 
Those alive at the return of the Messiah will repent, or the elect under Messiah, Qasim and the Muhammads of the Middle East will remove all of you.
There is no negotiation. You have less than seven years to repent.  The ministry of the Churches of God have only half that time because they are already under judgment. Prepare for the Passover and turn and be saved.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Dictated by God to men?



One of the participants in my class on the Bible brought the following article from a blog to the class the other day.
Why is the Bible So Badly Written?
Millions of Evangelicals and other Christian fundamentalists believe that the Bible was dictated by God to men who acted essentially as human channelers. Each phrase is considered so perfect that it merits careful linguistic analysis to determine His precise meaning.
If that were the case, one would have to conclude that God is a terrible writer. Although some passages in the Bible are lyrical and gripping, many would get kicked back by any competent editor or writing professor kicked back with a lot of red ink.
Mixed messages, repetition, bad fact checking, awkward constructions, inconsistent voice, weak character development, boring tangents, contradictions, passages where nobody can tell what the heck the writer meant to convey. . . .  This doesn’t sound like a book that was dictated by a deity.
In the COG we were taught, just like the Mormons were taught, that God literally breathed the words into the minds of the scribes.  They essentially channelled the words of god onto paper.  It may make for a good simplistic story to feed people who have never critically studied the Bible, it is it really true or more precisely accurate?

Most stories in the Bible, particularly the early books of the Bible were never written down till long periods later.  The stories were just that, oral stories passed down through leaders, rabbi's, teachers and storytellers.  COG leaders expected you to believe that each time the story was orally told, not one single thing was ever changed in the storyline.  No storyteller ever changed things to fit the people he was talking to.  No storyteller ever blanked out while telling the story and substituted another word or phrase to make the story sound more logical.  Nope, the magical god of the church entered the mind of every prophet, sage, rabbi, and storyteller and caused them to say the exact same words for hundreds and hundreds of years without one single deviation from the original plot line being forgotten.

The article continues with this:
No question, the Bible contains beautiful and timeless bits. But why, overall, does it so fail to meet this mark? One obvious answer, of course, is that neither the Bible—nor any derivative work like the Quran or Book of Mormon—was actually dictated by the Christian god or other celestial messengers. We humans may yearn for advice that is “god-breathed” but in reality, our sacred texts were written by fallible human beings who, try as they might, fell short of perfection in the ways that we all do.
In the church many ministers proclaimed that they knew exactly who wrote every single book in the Bible.  They all said that because one man said so and that man could never be questioned.
Far from being a single unified whole, the Bible is actually a collection of texts or text fragments from many authors. We don’t know the number of writers precisely, and—despite the ancient traditions that assigned authorship to famous people such as Moses, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—we don’t know who most of them were. We do know that the men who inscribed the biblical texts had widely different language skills, cultural and technological surroundings, worldviews and supernatural beliefs—along with varying objectives. 
How many church members knew about two different creation stories or three different 10 Commandment sets?
Bible writers adapted earlier stories and laws to their own cultural and religious context, but they couldn’t always reconcile differences among handed-down texts, and often may not have known that alternative versions existed. Later, variants got bundled together. This is why the Bible contains two different  creation mythsthree sets of Ten Commandments, and four contradictory versions of the Easter story.
The Gospel According to Matthew (not actually authored by Matthew) was written for an audience of Jews. The author was a recruiter for the ancient equivalent of Jews for Jesus. That is why, in the Matthew account, the Last Supper is timed as a Passover meal. By contrast, the Gospel According to John was written to persuade pagan Roman prospects, so the author timed the events differently. This is just one of many explicit contradictions between the four Gospel accounts of Jesus’s death and resurrection.
The contradictions in the Gospel stories—and many other parts of the Bible, are not there because the writers were confused. Quite the opposite. Each writer knew his own goals and audience, and adapted hand-me-down stories or texts to fit, sometimes changing the meaning in the process. The folks who are confused are those who treat the book as if theywere the audience, as if each verse was a timeless and perfect message sent to them by God.  Their yearning for a set of clean answers to life’s messy questions has created a mess. 
The Bible is a messy book about messy people living messy lives.  Is it all wrong?  No.   Myths, legends and societal stories all contain truths, whether or not the events actually happened.  Do all of the parables that Jesus told have to have been actual events or were they stories told to tell a truth more plainly for the people he was speaking to at the time?  Can the word of God contain non-factual stories in order to tell a truth?




Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Ron Weinland Says He Never Went To Prison...He just went on a....

Ron Weinland meets his "camp" mate


...campout!

Ron apparently believes he was on a 3 1/2 year campout!

Even though it is well documented in court proceedings, by the Ron Weinland Blog, this blog and other sites that he is a convicted felon, he apparently believes his followers are dumb enough to he was on a campout.




Excogger says:
February 9, 2018 at 17:21
Ron did NOT go to prison!
In his last published sermon he admits he had been, for a period of three years, on a “campout”.
Yes, Ron was another happy camper on an extended vacation, it would appear.

Give me strength!!!!  From False Prophet Ron Weinland

Why is it that COG members will hear these men lie through their teeth daily, in and day out, and yet they sit there week after week believing the vomit that flows out of their mouths.  Do COG members still feel the need to be "special" and "called out" from the world and need this continued mental reinforcement?  The entire church knows that HWA uttered hundreds of failed prophecies.  They know Rod Meredith, Dean Blackwell, Herman Hoeh, Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack, Gerald Waterhouse, Bob Thiel, James Malm and many, many others did it and still do it.  And still, they sit.


Is Dave Pack Still Unable To Pay Most Of His Ministers



From Exit and Support:
February 12, 2018
This [Restored Church of God Destroyed My Marriage] is a sad story, repeated too often. Personally, I am grateful that my husband in RCG continues to support us. His understanding of "common" is less strict than what I have read on your site.
I know that most of the RCG ministry works without pay, just being compensated for expenses. So, it is not a mystery who gets the money [Pack]. They teach that the End is near, so why bother saving? I also know they believe that they are not looking for Jesus to return, rather they believe that Elijah is coming to "rule the world" for a time.
Also, a top minister in RCG works full time to "correct" Pack's false prophecies on their computers. That way, no one without a hard copy will know how wrong he is! --[name withheld]
It is well known that Dave imagines that "all things in common"include members money, which he believes belongs to his god, and therefore since he is God's only representative on earth today, all of their money belongs to him.

Apparently, Dave is so cheap he has a mostly volunteer ministry.  Other than paying some of their expenses, Dave is keeping all of the money for himself.

In May of 2016, Exit and Support reported that Dave could not afford to pay his ministers:

May 23, 2016
Dave Pack is pressed for money, as he still is not paying lower ministers for their full time work. At most, he is paying half pay. Many ministers are working for no pay. I do know that he has lost a big chunk of members by now claiming to be the "Elijah." Anyone, who takes time to check out HWA, especially if they followed him, just won't buy it. --Impacted by RCG
This should not be considered something new.  The Church of God has a great track record in doing this to its ministers over the decades.  As tens of millions of dollars were poured into the Pasadena campus for buildings, grounds and AICF, the ministery struggled to be paid at times.  HWA and the top echelon of the church never suffered during those financial crisis's, but everyone else sure did.


Also, notice the last paragraph in the top quote.  Dave has spent the last several years posting one sermon after another about his scenario for the end times and the return of his "jesus" for the second and third time.  Those sermons contained one outlandish teaching and prophecy after another.  When the mockery of these teachings reached a crescendo, he abruptly pulled all 130 some sermon transcripts offline.  Now he has to pay someone to come in and clean up his mess.


Monday, February 12, 2018

Herbert Armstrong With The Token African Americans


Here is Herbert, second from left, posing in front of African American children, when he was 21 years old, on a visit to a farm near Greenwood, South Carolina.  The white folk with the token blacks to show the folks at home how superior the whites were to the "darkies."



My Sure Word of Prophecy...






New International Version
After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
I Thessalonians 4:17

I spent my youth well into middle age, sorta, being told and somewhat believing that I would not die but actually luck out and live in the times when I'd merely twinkle into being "God as God is God."
I just suspected I'd rather twinkle in an eye than die in a nursing home or in some other less than twinkly way. Here is a short list of the big names who tried to convince themselves, me and you of that.

(I'd say Gospel Jesus, but you'd just get angry)
Peter
James
John
Paul 
2000 Years of Church Fathers

Herbert W Armstrong
Garner Ted Armstrong
Roderick C. Meredith
...and some other leading evangelists.....




Joseph W Tkach
Hermann Hoeh
Dean Blackwell
Ernest Martin
John Halford
Dibar Apartian
David John Hill 
Stanley R Rader
Gerald Waterhouse

........are dead and lived their entire lives as if they wouldn't die

Therefore and thus sayeth myself in what I would like to be remembered as the "No Brainer, I'm Pretty Sure I'm Right Prophecy"

Dave Pack
Gerald Flurry
Robert Thiel
Gerald Weston
Victor Kubic
Wade Cox
James Malm
Dennis Diehl
YOU
...to follow

Between being convinced we were chosen, special, set apart, protected, watched over and unique, we gave others permission to waste our time and  forgot...


My personal suggestion...