Gray Pinstripe suits. Tie clasps. Badges. Long dresses, and musky cologne. Of course, briefcases. These are the crisp and clear memories of what I call “The Worldwide Church Culture”. It's been a long time, but it could be just yesterday. The memories of a distant life remain not-so-distant, a world long gone yet still so close.
A Hymnal on every other seat. “Reserved” signs on certain end-chairs. Speaking of chairs, who can forget those gray metal folding chairs – some with the local Church area stenciled on the back? And those Bulletins – filled with Telecast information, prayer requests, local church activities, and of course, the agenda of the service – pianist, song leader, sermonette, announcements, special music, and the sermon (or split sermon).
The Church experience was a vinyl record with its needle stuck on a groove. It was rinse and repeat, do and do over, week after week, festival after festival, occasion after occasion. Everything became so predictable – right down to the tone and pitch variances of the speaker, the special (or not so special) music, the fellowship hours, potlucks, Bible studies – always the same.
During the song service, you'd know the voices that carried over the most, for the good, or for the bad. You wouldn't even need the Hymnal – you knew every word be heart. You'd even look around slyly to see who else was cool enough to not need the Hymnal. The prayers were always close to the same – opening, and closing. You could almost say them with the speaker giving them. You'd know what pianist was the best and which one you dreaded the most. And you knew where to sit, and where not to sit – everyone had their spot – and don't sit in someone else's spot.
Cliques of four or five of the same people every week, in the same place, in the same hall, talking about the same things. The same handshakes. Some strong and hearty, some weak and flimsy. The same greetings. The same smells – of people and the building alike.
Life in the Church was a constant not subject to change in a world where everything always changes. Cities change year after year. The school you grew up in, the hangout you bought Bazooka gum at, the neighborhood constantly changing. In fact, the only constant thing about life is change. Most neighborhoods now are completely different than they were in 1980. Yet we were trained to live in an environment that never changed. No matter what happened, no matter how the world shifted, moved, we were the one rock that we knew would never, ever, ever change. Until that day when the rug was pulled out from everyone's feet, and we were forced to accept the winds of change in one form or another.
In many ways, it was like pulling off the helmet of your spacesuit whilst being pushed off the space station. Everything was moving so fast, you felt breathless, and you had no idea what was going to happen next. The unchangeable changed, The unmovable moved – and every person and family scattered to the four corners of the Earth as if a large water balloon had suddenly popped.
Many “held fast”, as the saying goes. Many others “ran fast”, others DID fast, and others had pork sausage for Break-fast. But whatever people did, the income fell faster. We all were confronted with a hard fact – we had to make a choice. We had to think, choose, and act. Our culture was about to change. Could we? Would we?
It has been 25 years, just about, since that fateful day in 1994. In December, it will be exactly 25 years since our culture has changed. It's been 33 years since the Armstrong era ended. And if there's one thing we have learned to do as a people – no matter which way we ended up going – is adapt to change. We all have had to evaluate our priorities, our lives, and our choices. And we all have had to adjust to a completely different world where the phone we hold in our hand is more powerful than the largest computer in a large room in the 1980s. It's a different world, and we are different people. Yet 25 years later, if you close your eyes, and you remember – you could be right back there. In an old, musty, smelly, bingo hall, wearing a pinstripe suit and wingtip shoes holding a large King James Bible, talking about what's about to go down in just 2 or 3 years, afraid to make a long distance call because it was 35 cents a minute state to state, 10 cents local toll, with Climbing through the Windows Leap running through our heads driving home from the 4 hours at Church that Sabbath day – completely unaware and completely sure what was about to happen was never going to happen until it DID happen, and we all would look back in 2019 to 1980 in utter disbelief – many thankful, many grateful, many sad, many wistful – all of us having learnt a lesson or two, all of us victims to the winds of change.
submitted by SHT
submitted by SHT
18 comments:
AND... everyone had some degree of rank, with the lowest being a divorced woman with kids, who was on third tithe assistance.
However, higher up on the "rank" scale was being on the "chair setter upper crew". Yes, setting up folding metal chairs with the stencil on them that said "Ambassador College".
If you were an elite "chair setter upper" crew, you actually had a yard stick or measuring tape, complete with a held tight line to make sure that each seat was EXACTLY straight, and exactly down to the 1/8th of an inch distance from one another!
Great article (to a certain extent).
I can relate to it.
On another topic BB commented that he was flabbergasted to have the church alive and kicking after 1975. I however relate to this article where it was entirely possible to completely bypass the sixties, miss the hippie culture and only learn about the revolutionary songbook decades after the sixties.
As a matter of fact this was the raison d' etre for wcg. A refuge for a generation not willing to participate in the sixties revolution.
On another note I have stated many times that I believe we are in the World Tomorrow already. Monsanto feeding the world. Clean energy initiatives. Diseases on the brink of extinction through genetic engineering and dna research.
We are at the brink of technological singularity. Moores Law usheres in the 4th industrial revolution.
AI gets ALL the marks commonly attributed to Gods. All knowing, knowing us better than we do. Knowing our desires and actions before and better than ourselves. Elon Musk populating planets with human dna.
HWA was right.
The World Tomorrow is here, or nigh at least. And it is ushered in from California. The golden land on the end of the rainbow. (silicon valley)
Did I tell you about social ranking points in china. Undesirables cannot buy or trade without this technological mark.
Nck
Tonto clearly missed out on the top jobs, like "taper of the sermons", worker at the soundsystem or translator, usher, tithe basket handler, or catheder remover for choir purpose.
Nck
If you were an elite "chair setter upper" crew, you actually had a yard stick or measuring tape, complete with a held tight line to make sure that each seat was EXACTLY straight, and exactly down to the 1/8th of an inch distance from one another!
Was there ever an official explanation for the practice of jamming chairs together at the Passover? In every congregation I attended that had folding chairs, the chairs were packed side-by-side as tightly as possible for the Passover service, even if they were kept several inches apart at Sabbath services. Maybe someone thought this added to the solemnity of the service, but I found that being elbowed by the fatties on either side of me didn't increase my appreciation of Christ's suffering. All it did was detract from my solemn focus on Christ's sacrifice.
It is ironic that the only major thing the Joeys did not change was Jethro's top down government that Moses adopted.
Lets give Jethro, the Midianite priest credit - the COG government structure was his idea.
I was quite amazed after participating in one of the post-feast day cleanups of the tables and chairs from the tennis courts at AC ‘dena that Dr. Hoeh had donned some old clothes and was one of our fellow volunteers on the take down crew. He kept his mouth shut, his head down, and humbly folded the chairs with the rest of us.
Later,, I shared this with one of the upper classmen in our dorm, and he explained to me that this was a regular habit of Dr. Hoeh’s. Most of the ministers, if they were ever out of their suits and ties, would be seen in some sort of stylish color-coordinated leisure or athletic clothing, but as part of the work crew, Dr. Hoeh was in old slacks and a dark sweatshirt. I respected that aspect of his personality. It was no surprise to me that he stuck with GCI rather than going with or starting an Armstrongist splinter.
BB
"or catheder remover for choir purpose."
Very rarely does a post cause me to laugh out loud. Never has a post from NCK caused any form of laughter from me. This one did. Congratulations. That's a well deserved "Sheldon Cooper Snicker".
May 23rd, 2019
Greetings from Charlotte,
Last Sabbath I spoke to and fellowshipped with an enthusiastic and friendly Dallas, Texas congregation. Violent storms passed through the area that day, with lots of lightning, flooding downpours, high winds, and tornado watches and warnings, and the pattern of violent and wet weather that has marked much of the last few months continued into this week. Mr. Millich reports that the brethren in Missouri are safe and sustained no damage to property from the tornadoes and severe weather in that state yesterday. [We are all right - that is all that matters.]] Dozens of tornados and torrential downpours have soaked the South and Midwestern United States, and corn crops nationwide will be down significantly, with farmers unable to plant due to exceptionally wet conditions. The effect will no doubt be seen in grocery stores later this year. It is a total loss for many farmers.
Regional Director Dan Hall and I held a conference in Big Sandy on Sunday. (See report below.) Mr. Mark Sandor and his family are being transferred to the Minneapolis area and plan to move there this summer to pastor congregations in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Mr. Lenny Bower is finishing his training here in Charlotte and will be relocating in West Virginia.
Brethren, we are living in sobering times, as seen from the moral decay in our Western world. The speed with which the rot is spreading is truly mind-bending. Now is not the time to spiritually fall asleep or get caught up in silly disputes or personal doctrinal “idea-babies.” [you dumb sheep] —Gerald Weston
"Mr. Hall talked about the importance of widows and women’s roles in the congregations, and stressed the importance of developing meaningful relationships and encouraging the brethren. It was a very profitable weekend" [You forgot the part where Mister Hall left his elderly widowed mother to rot in a special care facility while Mister Hall went off to do more important things like managing a region.]
1:09
Nothing can make you more solemn than the body odor of a sweaty solemn soul hunched in your Personal Space at Passover. Except for stinky feet and sock toe jam in the water.
What can I say! 35 years of brainwashing is what I endured. That’s what brainwashing is, you know; pounding the same thing in your head week after week, year after year, decade after decade. I am so glad that I have sailed on the winds of change.
You might be holding in your hand a computer more powerful than what was available anywhere in the world in 1980, but I am still a user of a flip phone or a dumb phone as everyone likes to tell me. But the winds of change are about to be forced upon me and I can't do anything about it. The largest cell phone service company in North America just informed me that effective this December 2019, they will no longer provide service for the old reliable flip phones.
How ironic, December 2019 will be 25 years since a large religious entity informed me that they would no longer provide service for my "old" beliefs. Just as this cell phone company tells me now that I have to upgrade, almost 25 years ago I was told that I would have to upgrade my beliefs.
Being in the service industry my whole adult life has entailed trying to rein in chaos. Some days you can control it, some days you can only slow it. The end goal is to always bring chaos back to a constant. If I don't do that, I haven't done my job and I don't get paid.
What I have learned in the religious sphere of my life is that men in leading positions whether knowingly or not, create a lot of chaos. Thankfully a life of experience has enabled me to see the constants, which when adhered to are not affected by the winds of change or chaos for that matter.
I was as with many, completely unprepared for what happened in the 1990's. The ones that effected the winds of change were completely unprepared for what eventually transpired as well. What started with one man and one religious thought has now turned into a shameful example of religious maleficence. It is now the new constant as declared by the many self absorbed circus leaders who hope that their brand of change will be the one all will want to flock to.
For almost two thousand years now the Christian religion has been subject to men who create chaos for the purpose of establishing a new constant. How many have seen this? How many have experienced this? It is not too hard to go back and see what the original constant(s) was. It worked back then apart from all that has transpired these last some 2000 years. It can work now as well even in a world that has drastically changed.
This December I have a choice. Go back to the working communication device of a string and two tin cans of my 7 year old youth or seek a constant that will hopefully service me for the rest of my life. Twenty five years ago I made the wrong choice in the winds of change not seeing the constant(s). Twenty five years later, hopefully I am making the right choice.
TLA
No, top down government was NOT Jethro's idea. If you recall, Moses would spend all day listening to LEGAL disputes. Jethro recommended that Moses delegate this responsibility, with levels of seriousness. Only the most difficult cases were to be heard by Moses, similar to todays Supreme court. This parallels the legal system in most western countries. Note the number of levels in Jethro's advice. From memory it's about five, which is about the same in today's legal systems, from lower court upwards.
If you recall, God warned Israel about big government when they asked Samuel for a king. He would not have done this if He believed in a lording system.
Herbert's church has hijacked and twisted Jethro's advice to deceive its members into believing that tyranny is Gods way. It's not!
BB wrote about Herman Hoeh. I have some memories about him too.
I got to be in his Ambassador Club September to December 1974. One time he told us, "Those of you who have a degree from an accredited school get more respect from the educated of the world than I get with my unaccredited doctorate." I and one other club member had accredited degrees already, and we had a long discussion after the meeting. HLH thought it was important to reach the educated of the world.
In another club meeting he told us that it was written in the WCG articles of incorporation that, if the WCG ceases to exist, all of its assets were to go to the Church of God Seventh Day. I would not be surprised if Stan Rader changed that. Does anybody know?
Sometime about 1998 I heard a rumor that HLH was the only person allowed to speak at both WCG and UCG services Does anybody know about that one?
All this talk about Passover... Does anyone know where in the bible we are to perform a ritual for Passover like the COGs do? I can't seem to find it anywhere. It's similar to a Catholic mass but nothing I have yet found in the bible.
Without Dr. Hoeh, the Radio Church of God would have had crooked chair setups when students were graduating.
Also, am I remembering correctly that HH was the one to speak at Feasts (after HWA) to give numbers and such about how "the work" was progressing?
I'm quite sure, though, that it was HH who provided HWA with various dubious "truths" - including that we were in a 19-year "gun lap"
I distinctly remember a comic from Ambassador Report that had HWA and HH riding a tandem bicycle which had a screwy wheel, while the riders wondered if they'd make it to the "Gun Lap" !
It seems so appropriate that WCG would make an obsolete function like foot washing the center of their Passover observance.
Jesus actually washed feet that were dirty and dusty from walking on the roads of the day.
Strain on a gnat and swallow a camel!
Yeh! You’d think that at the very least they’d have thought of switching to polishing each others’ shoes as the modern equivalent, but what the heck do I know?
BB
Interesting to have a new partaker on the blog inserting on any topic his unrelated take on the passover.
That's ok.
Although the last time I looked, even the pope was washing feet of several people at Ishtar:-).
But I do like the idea of polishing shoes and perhaps my car too, if it is not too much to ask.
My uncles even painted the tires of their pet cars.
Nck
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