The winds of change just demolished a former Worldwide Church of God Feast Site... Literally.
Many Church of God Members who used to attend the Dayton Ohio Festival Site will remember the Hara Arena, recently closed due to economic hardship. The Hara Arena took a direct hit by an EF-3+ Tornado. The roof was shorn off, and entire conference centers adjacent to the main Arena were completely torn apart.
The EF-3 tornado blasted a damage path across Trotwood towards Wagner Ford and Siebenthaler Avenue, continuing southeastwards towards the Wright Patterson Air Force Base Museum, a popular tourism location for Worldwide Church of God members. No word as of yet on damages at the Air Force Base.
Several other buildings familiar to Church of God Dayton Feastgoers were also demolished. The Rite-Aid Pharmacy adjacent to the former Best Western has been demolished, being exposed to looters in the economically deprived city of Dayton.
Since the Worldwide Church of God left Dayton Ohio as a convention site, Dayton has suffered extreme economic downfall and blight. As one of the most impoverished Ohio cities, recently suffering from an extensive opioid crisis, the last thing Dayton needed was a major tornado to rip through the city. Dayton residents vowed, however, to recover, stating that they "would come back".
For Worldwide Church of God members familiar with the Hara Arena, for good and for bad, the only thing likely to remain at the corner of Shiloh Springs and Basore Road are memories.
Submitted by SHT
I doubt that there will be lots of sobs of nostalgia for the Dayton FOT site.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, not likely the worst location ever, (Fresno is my nominee for worst FOT site ever), it certainly is in the bottom quintile for sure.
Thankfully I was never subjected to Hara Arean as a Feast site. That came about after I came to Pasadena in 1975. The only advantage to Hara was its closeness to Wright Patterson AFB where people could do interesting tours, Kings Island amusement park and some historical sites in the area.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was God's wrath for its association with Armstrongism? NOT really - that's Armstrong/Waterhouse/Flurry/Pack thinking. God doesn't work that way!
ReplyDeleteI attended there one year, and I can report not even a twinge of nostalgic longing. Having lived through a tornado, I am sorry to hear about the damage and loss of life for the Dayton area. I pray that God will comfort them and help them to rebuild their lives there.
When the church stopped using Dayton as a Feast site, God removed his protection and blessing from the city.
ReplyDeleteBwahahaha
DeleteThere might be some validity to disaster associated with Armstrongism! Blyth Arena in Squaw Valley collapsed in the early ‘80s and was demolished. The Mount Pocono site has decayed and is slowly returning to nature, as is the Lake of the Ozarks site. Hurricane Irma devastated Jekyll Island in 2017. Rumor has it that the Russian Mob is in control of Wisconsin Dells, although one of the splinters has used the Dells for a feast site. The great granddaddy of them all, Big Sandy, is in the hands of another toxic cult. In fact, all three campuses of Embarrassing College have been divvied up and are unrecognizable as compared to their brief day in the sun. Am I forgetting any other examples?
ReplyDeleteSo, heck yeah. Armstrongism is for sure associated with disaster, which is kind of symbolic of “the rot” that was done to all of our lives. “Ooh ooh that Smell! The smell of death surrounds you!” (Bitchin’ Guitars)
BB
Anonymous 6:27
ReplyDeleteBalderdash!!! There never was a special blessing or protection on that city, or any other city the fot was held at. God never put His name there. Only Herbie's name was there. Pshaw!!!
I “observed” a dozen Feasts at this site in my 13 long, arduous years as a “member” of WCG. I taught high school in northern Ohio; could get to this site in about 3 and a half hours.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and family were not members. They stayed (fruitfully) in the Presbyterian Church that I had left, to keep from being tossed into the Lake of Fire (by the broadcast arguments of Garner Ted Armstrong and then finally by HWA himself). Every autumn my attendance at the Dayton feast site was stressful for my entire family; especially me.
As with every other experience in WCG, going to and keeping the feast evoked only fear and dread. Not a moment of joy, enlightenment, nor hope. I was a middle-aged man, married to a “non-believer,” “unequally-yoked.” My degree of “commitment” was at every turn in question. For eight days each year I was there in that cavernous arena, taking the most inconspicuous seat each day near the top, left rear corner, sitting there by myself. Sermons were the same as those at my home church; but even longer.
On the Last Great Day I quickly exited the arena, got in my car, and promptly headed north on I-75. At the first rest area, I got out and pealed off the green parking sticker. Didn’t want to answer questions about it from anyone, especially my wife.
I continue to wonder how much better my marriage would have been had I avoided the WCG. Those were 13 ominous years of fears and tears, for me and my family.
The tabernacle building Mt Pocono was actually damaged by too much snow one year. Part of it collapsed. The Pocono's site had lots of issues including almost being destroyed the first year by a tornado. It brought back nightmares of Jekyll Island when the idiot ministry scheduled services when a hurricane was approaching the island and thousands of gullible sheep trudged through driving rain to go to services. The tent was flapping so bad that groups of men had to hold down the tent poles in order for the tent not to fly away.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that the Ozarks facility is now a boat storage warehouse.
ReplyDeleteThe Hara had a particular smell to it - a smell that I've never been able to replicate or duplicate. Where motels had a particular "clean" smell, the Hara smell was more "earthy" or whatever. Perhaps they had an ozone generator or something running, though I doubt that. The cavernous arena definitely had an echo, however, that was extreme. I still remember whenever a speaker stood too close to the microphone, and said a "p" word, it would literally boom all around the entire arena. Would wake up any snoozers, that's for sure.
Footwashing was an absolute joke in the church. People jockeying to wash the ministers, elders or deacons feet. Members moving places in line so they did not have to wash other members feet. Ministers getting hot water and provided warmed fluffy towels while peed upon members got cold water and had to bring their own towels. I stopped washing feet a least 6 years before I left UCG.
ReplyDeleteI've mentioned it before, but I'll never forget the sign welcoming Armstrongites to Biloxi one year: "Welcome Worldwide Church of God - We sell liquor here" No hurricane, but several folks were drowning in booze! At least they had a happy feast :)
ReplyDelete7:27
ReplyDeleteYou didn't happen to get a picture of the marquee that said this, did you? Truth, that was!
There was always a sense of pride at all the "WELCOME WCG" or "Welcome WCOG" signs all around the cities. Of course, it was all about the money - they knew we were loaded.
Byker Bob, I sadly thought of another one.
ReplyDeletePensacola, Florida got smacked by Hurricane Opal on the eve of Atonement in 1995. I don't think any COG has used it as a Feast site since.
Sounds brave to vow to come back, but my hometown of Dawson, ND was torn apart by a tornado in 1943 and it never came back to the town it had been, It was too easy to use the facilities at Steele, 7 miles to the west and the county seat, or Napoleon to the south. There has to be some basis to a recovery, and it doesn't sound like there's much to promote one there.
ReplyDeleteWhy would God place His name in most U.S. cities then, and now? Dayton had to be one of the worst feast site choices ever!!!
ReplyDeleteMy last day in WCG was at that building. FOT 1995. I just turned 20 a few days before FOT. Grew up in WCG and had no desire to follow UCG during the split earlier that year. Didn't even know why I stayed in the WCG after high school though I'd only go to church here and there through 1995 depending how hard I partied the Friday night before. During the FOT in Dayton I broke down when my sister detected my depression due to realizing I wasted my growing up in that cult. Leaving WCG was the best thing I ever did
ReplyDeleteYou are fortunate, Stevo, that all you got was some depression, and that it was over wasting a patch of your life. A worse level of depression resulted for many of us from HWA/ WCG destroying in concept everything that is good and enjoyable about life, and attempting to substitute his church and culture as being the only remaining thing that any of us could trust. Also, PTSD from fear of “the Germans”, and “the end”, keeping us in limbo and perpetual jeopardy over the thought that if we offended in little inconsequential ways we might not make it to the place of safety or Kingdom, and PTSD especially from irrational levels of legalism and punishments growing up under the child beating booklet.
DeleteWe also must be reverent over one aspect of this, because as survivors we realize that not everyone made it. There were young people who joined the military to get away from oppressive homes and died at war, shattered people who sunk into alcoholism and addiction, people who never realized their potential because false prophecy made them blow off their education or take chances on marriages they thought they would only have to be in for 3-5 years. Armstrongism destroyed so many lives, and caused so many people to lose faith and hope. Terminally miserable. What a horrible litany one man’s false religion can leave behind! This is why God hates false teachers!
BB
During a Feast of Thunderstorms, Dennis Luker had to stop his sermon because the sound of the rain hitting the roof became too loud. The hoot was that the rain started after he mentioned Noah...
ReplyDeleteNo2HWA 5/28
ReplyDeleteSo you were there at Jekyl in 68 too? in that huge circus tent... they had the wrong program
going should've had Emmet Kelly & the rest of Ringling Bros. would've been more beneficial to all than that why are we here BS they fed us.
I must add - for the record and the integrity of this article - that the Tornado that hit the Hara Arena, and Trotwood Ohio, has been upgraded to "violent", category EF-4.
ReplyDeletemy mothers sister had a black and white photo that a church photographer snapped of my late uncle back in the day in the which my lil cousin, who was around 3 or 4 years at the time, was leaning on him while he listened intently to a sermon...
ReplyDeletec f ben yochanan