Are the Churches of God Saucer Cults?

"God is giving us more time!"

When Prophecy Fails

 http://isitso.org/guide/fails.html

From the time that Jesus Christ returned to heaven after His resurrection, there have been people yearning so badly for his return to earth that they have poured over the prophecies of the Bible to try to "discern the times" in which they lived. Every generation of Christians has hoped they were living in the time when the clouds would be rolled back as a scroll and the Lord would descend to put an end to Man's miserable rule over Man.

And in many of those generations, Bible students have been convinced that they have been able to determine, through the prophetic hints in the Bible, that Jesus was, indeed, coming soon, in the lifetime of most living in their own generation. Not content with just the general hope, many have also worked out elaborate mathematical schemes whereby they could pinpoint not just the generation, but the decade, the year, the month, perhaps even the day that their "blessed hope" would be fulfilled.

This phenomenon has increased greatly in the past two centuries, and even more in the past two decades. Teacher after teacher, group after group has arisen to publish magazines, books, pamphlets, study guides and more to convince others of the certainty of their predictions of chronological details of "the Return." Thousands of lectures and sermons have been given and thousands of TV and radio programs have been recorded all with the primary aim of persuading the public to get on the bandwagon of the latest prediction of the year of the start of the Great Tribulation, or the "rapture," or even the Advent of the Lord Himself.

The pace of this speculation grew even more frantic in some religious circles as the year 2000 approached. Even those who didn't normally focus on dates seemed to be mesmerized by the number of zeros after the 2! Surely, thought many, the Lord will tarry no longer than the end of the millenium. Thus dogmatic pronouncements on specific dates were plastered on websites, trumpeted on radio talk shows, circulated in newsletters. Many ministries have arisen with the primary goal of bringing together in fellowship under one teacher or group those who were convinced of the prophetic scenario of that teacher or group. Each of these may have also taught elements of the Gospel and truths from the scriptures, but in many settings these almost seemed to be an afterthought. The biggest publicity, the most printed material, the most "bandwidth" on radio and on the Internet was devoted to endless feeding of the desires of followers for more and more details about the prophetic scenario.

To date, ALL of these many, many, many prophetic pronouncements of the past 2000 years have failed.

"When prophecy fails," what happens to all those faithful supporters whose generous tithes and offerings made the programs and publications and personal appearances to promote the prophecies possible? Common sense would suggest that they would abandon the ministries which had misled them. Common sense would indicate they would accept the reality of the failure and get on with their life, adjusting their priorities to give more attention to Bible basics and daily Christian living.

Common sense would be incorrect.

There is a famous book from the 1950s that is a classic in Social Psychology courses called When Prophecy Fails. The researchers preparing the book stumbled on a "flying saucer cult," which was predicting "the End," just then forming. In studying apocalyptic groups of the past which set dates for the Return of Christ or the End of the World, the researchers had come to some theories about what happens to members of such groups "when prophecy fails." They outline those in the beginning of the book, and then embark on a case study of the new cult to see if their theories applied. They did, perfectly.

This theory has since been applied to other modern cults, and found to be accurate. Below is an excerpt from a website which uses it to evaluate what happened in the Jehovah's Witnesses group when their date of 1975 for the beginning of the visible Kingdom on earth (and many earlier dates they set for the same event) came and passed with no fulfillment. This is introductory material which explains the basis of the theory. (Italics and bolding have been added in a few places to call attention to words or indicate a title.) 

Leon Festinger's Theory 

https://www.amazon.com/When-Prophecy-Fails-Leon-Festinger/dp/1578988527/ref=asc_df_1578988527/?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid={creative}&hvpos={adposition}&hvnetw=o&hvrand={random}&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl={devicemodel}&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583932699407356&psc=1

In studying this phenomena, credit must be given to Leon Festinger for his cognitive dissonance theory, as developed in his book When Prophecy Fails, originally published in 1956 and co-authored by Festinger, Henry W. Riecken and Stanley Schachter. The authors comprised a research team who conducted a study of a small cult-following of a Mrs. Marian Keech, a housewife who claimed to receive messages from aliens via automatic writing. The message of the aliens was one of a coming world cataclysm, but with the hope of surviving for the elect who listened to them through Keech and selected other mediums. What Festinger and his associates demonstrated in the end was that the failure of prophecy often has the opposite effect of what the average person might expect; the cult following often gets stronger and the members even more convinced of the truth of their actions and beliefs! This unique paradox is the focus of attention in this article, and will be later applied specifically to the Jehovah's Witness movement.

Festinger observes:

"A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point. "We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks. "But man's resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view. "

When Prophecy Fails focuses on the failure of prophecies to come true, termed disconfirmation by Festinger, and the accompanied renewal of energy and faith in their source of divine guidance. His theory presupposes the cult having certain identifying features, such as: (a) belief held with deep conviction along with respective actions taken, (b) the belief or prediction must be specific enough to be disconfirmed (i.e., it didn't happen), (c) the believer is a member of a group of like-minded believers who support one another and even proselytize. All of these characteristics were present in the saucer cult.

Of particular interest in Festinger's book is how the followers of Mrs. Keech reacted to each disconfirmation (failed date). Little attempt was made to deny the failure. The strength to continue in the movement was derived, not largely from the rationalizations , but from the very energy of the group itself and its dedication to the cause. This explains why proselytizing wasso successful later in reinforcing the group's sagging belief system. Festinger relates:

"But whatever explanation is made it is still by itself not sufficient. The dissonance is too important and though they may try to hide it, even from themselves, the believers still know that the prediction was false and all their preparations were in vain. The dissonance cannot be eliminated completely by denying or rationalizing the disconfirmation. But there is a way in which the remaining dissonance can be reduced. If more and more people can be persuaded that the system of belief is correct, then clearly it must, after all, be correct. Consider the extreme case: if everyone in the whole world believed something there would be no question at all as to the validity of this belief. It is for this reason that we observe the increase in proselytizing following disconfirmation. If the proselytizing proves successful, then by gathering more adherents and effectively surrounding himself with supporters, the believer reduces dissonance to the point where he can live with it."

In the end, the members of the flying saucer cult did not give up their faith in the Guardians from outer space with their promises of a new world. Despite numerous prophecies and the resultant disappointment accentuated by many personal sacrifices, the group remained strong