The Kitchen clan has the above video on their web site. It sounds like Herman Hoeh, running off at the mouth, as usual. He makes the statement, which was said way before the current explosion of splinter groups, that the reason groups imitated the Worldwide Church of God and what it taught was because it "sells". It brings in money. Notice the focus is entirely on money.
Not Jesus, but money.
Every single one of the 400+ splinter groups would not be in existence today unless they were still trying to sell Herbert Armstrong's teachings. Even the apostates like Weinland, Pack and Thiel cannot stop talking about Herbert Armstrong. From the larger personality cults to the insignificant little groups ensconced in Utah and Arizona, they all still trying to sell HWA in 2019. Their business model is failing because they are still living in the 1960-1980s.
It is still about the money even in 2019. It is about ensuring a steady income for the ministers and for retirement programs for the upper elite. That is why every one of the larger splinter groups started, to ensure they still got paid. It was never about any gospel message, the Kingdom of God or even Jesus.
It was about money.
The true god of the Churches of God.
Not only the money - the power and the prestige.
ReplyDeleteWhy settle for fortune when you can have fame and fortune.
Plus you can have your own TV show - and if you want to keep more of the money, you can put it on the Internet instead at a fraction of the cost.
Get reverence and respect.
And you can't be busted for fraud like Bernie Madoff, because it is a religion.
Cut to the chase! The Radio/Worldwide Church of God was the "family business' Herbert stealthily crafted from the radical teachings of an abundance of churches/cults. There was a lot of Mormonism, seventh day Adventism, British Israelism, JWism, etc. Even toward the end, a whole lot of Catholicism, including the chosen name which is synonymous with "Catholic."
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ReplyDeleteThe false prophets like Flurry and Pack started off talking about HWA to attract his followers and their wallets. Now all they do is talk about themselves and how super fantastic they are and how everything ever written in the Bible led up to them.
The COGs are sort of like Amway. The vast majority of money is made by a few leaders at the top, and some 50% of all income is consumed by less than 100 ministers in a group like UCG.
ReplyDeleteWatch out for the old "bait and switch" with these groups. I went with LCG because, at the beginning, they seemed to be serious about spending a majority of tithes and donations on preaching the Gospel, and spending the minimum necessary on fat minister salaries and silly inward-looking vanity projects. In the last few years, however, just about at the time they stopped publishing their audit in their church magazine, they shifted priorities and now spend nearly two-thirds of their income on the self-serving HQ/ministerial/vanity expenses, and well under 40 percent on preaching the gospel. Rod Meredith used to tell people that they should be part of LCG because of its different emphasis, but they don't say that anymore, now that they are no different from UCG, COGWA, and the other ministerial-support programs run in the guise of churches.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Tonto. I got suckered into Amway and basically went nowhere with it. It takes a certain salesperson personality to make that go, and I'm just not cut out for that kind of sales effort. Herb looked for and mined those with that particular talent or vice, however one wants to view it.
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ReplyDeleteDon't forget that Rod Meredith was asking his members to send in their "excess wealth" just prior to his death. He was in on his church being a de facto pension fund for ministers.
I can understand the concern with financial security. I had none when my job ended with them, and very scant resources up to that time, with no real prospects toward any retirement. It took several years to finally begin to prosper a bit in my own business. Some providential moves on my part resulted in what little security we have today. When you have no credentials for a job outside the organization, the urgency of the situation soon sets in. That's no excuse for the obvious chicanery, but I can understand it. We humans tend to think of ourselves first and everyone else second, and if there's an "out," the temptation to take it can be overwhelming.
ReplyDeleteAll Dexter
ReplyDeleteI understand why people steal and commit adultery, but I have no sympathy for such behavior. Rod Meredith specifically asked his members hand over their beach houses to the church. I know several people who own beach homes, and in every case it represents a life time of sacrifice. It meant driving mostly second hand cars. Next to no travel during holidays. Basic entertainment and basic clothing. Such sacrifice is completely foreign to ministers. Can anyone imagine a minister driving an old car?
Yet they ask these people to hand over the fruits of their labor to a ministry who have lived high on the hog.
They are like the fat pigs in the movie Animal Farm. The hell with them.
This doesn't surprise me as I read the following years ago:
ReplyDeleteGene Scarbrough, who was an elder in YEHOVAH's Church for over forty years, was ordained in 1967, and came out to Pasadena, California, in that year to serve full-time in the ministry. He told me that years ago his daughter Peggy, spent some time visiting with Mrs. Loma D. Armstrong, who took a liking to her. While they were together one time, Mrs. Armstrong reminisced about how the Work and Church began. While reflecting on how the ministry of her husband Herbert and his eldest son, Richard David Armstrong, originally got started, Mrs. Armstrong told Peggy, "They got into it for the money!"
This type of candid statement would not be surprising if heard from the lips of an enemy of the Church. But, coming straight from the lips of Mrs. Loma D. Armstrong, it packs a wallop!
Another friend corroborates the above story in part. According to his information, Garner Ted Armstrong once told a teacher in the church at Big Sandy and a personal friend that when his father was in the aluminum siding business back in Oregon, he got a call from far away to make a bid on a job. Herbert jacked up the price because he didn't want the job, the location was so distant. To his surprise, the customer said, "When can you get started?" It turns out the customer was the minister of a Seventh Day Adventist Church, and had plenty of money from tithes and offerings. According to Ted Armstrong, upon returning home that evening, Herbert -- who all his life wanted to be considered successful in business and make lots of money -- told his wife, "Honey, I now know how we're going to get rich!" (https://www.hope-of-israel.org/mityfall.htm)
True religion isn't about money but about showing love and compassion to your fellow human beings. Yes sometimes donating money to help someone is showing them love but that is not the main focus of Christian love. Although some of the money given to a church org. goes to help others most does not. The vast majority goes to pay the clergy or other expenses of the org.. Little goes to help those in need.
ReplyDeleteThey are all money grubbing parasites that self aggrandize their feeble attempts to preach the gospel. Christ said I will build my church. It is the members who are the body not the heretics in the pulpit, Even the great wizard of Oz ( HWA ) became just like the blood-sucking scoundrels that make up all the splinter groups. He preached the gospel to a degree but living a lifestyle that was very opulent on tithes and offerings of people were poorer than dirt. There are the main groups today COGWA is the worst from the standpoint they take in all kinds of money and do nothing with it except feather their own nest. NOT having a presence anywhere in broadcast media the media oh wait they are on the internet, UCG, and living atleast have broadcast on tv. COGWA never gives any real breakdown of what they really do with the money. Oh, let's say such as salaries for all the top parasites and whats really spent on travel. They don't preach the gospel to the world and feed the flock with regurgitated baptist speak especialy in Roanoke Va.
ReplyDeleteAll it takes is non-biased genuine research to confirm that it has always been all about the money.
ReplyDelete1. Read the Co-worker letters without bias. Juxtapose these letters with the actual timeline of the Church. You will find that prophecies and fear mongering rise and fall with physical projects and finances. There was NEVER any truth to the prophecies.
2. Read Mystery of the Ages. Again. If you can bear it. Notice what is the focus of mystery of the ages. You will find it is power, success, and how Herb got rich and successful.
3. Notice that the peak of the College Building project and it's financial needs co-exist perfectly with the fear-mongering of the 1960s. Also notice that as soon as the Auditorium was completed, and the building project was over, the "Lake of Fire" threats suddenly took a large decline.
4. Learn what Herb actually did on his overseas trips. They were pleasure trips (around the world, etc.) masked in religiosity. Even his "World Leader Tours" were hobnobbing trips with important people with a touch of religious behavior to make it legitimate. Herb's trick was to make his funders believe what he was doing was divinely ordained.
5. The proof of all of this is in the Ambassador College Auditorium, it's story, the timeline, it's funding, and everything that led up to it. The truth is, the Auditorium was a gigantic idol - in the same idolatrous manner as the other shrines of Armstrongism. Some time ago I published a whole story about this, it might be a good time to re-run it.
This is a valid point - I haven't heard it expressed so clearly before. What we were taught and learned masked this truth and made it so difficult to recognize motives.
DeleteAll we practiced seemed right out of the Bible. For example, The sabbath and holy days and how they picture God's plan of salvation, seemed to blind us from the financial realities.
I always wondered why members often lived in poverty without help from the church, and the elite ministry had all they needed and so much more. Where was the brotherly love that was supposed to be the hallmark for our church era?
4:59,
ReplyDeleteSorry about your experiences. I got out years ago and I'm very happy in my non-COG church in Roanoke, VA.