How many years have we been saying here that many of the groups that latch themselves on to various COG's are professional church shoppers looking for easy handouts from the gullible white saviors in America? They go from one Sabbatarian group to the next till they find some sucker willing to give the laptops, seeds, money, Bibles, and anything else they want. The self-appointed COG leaders lap this up because they think their god has sent them these new converts.
Our great white savior, Bwana Elijah Bob Thiel, prophet and Chief Overseer of the improperly named "continuing" Church of god, has insisted regularly that he is able to discern the integrity of his church leaders in Africa. Well, that has come crashing to an end when he had to admit recently that he had attracted men with no integrity and were using him.
Bwana Bob writes on August 29:
As most of you are aware, I left my last church because of repeated integrity issues with its leadership, as well as partially because of how it changed to define itself (for some details, see Why Bob Thiel Left the Living Church of God).It is amazing how Bwana Bob did not have the ability to discern that Rod Meredith had no integrity, to begin with. Most who have been in the church and worked with Meredith understood this for decades! Men of low integrity attract men of low integrity.
After comparing biblical teachings to their actions (and lack of keeping promises they repeatedly made), I concluded that the ‘Philadelphia mantle’ could not be with the top administrative leadership in that organization, and that the mantle had passed as one of its ministers had speculated to me it may have a couple of times.
In CCOG, we have since had to deal with other leaders with integrity issues of various types.
In 2013, we actually had two leaders in Kenya with the same first and last name (but from different towns). The first one turned out to be a complete fraud, while the other one was not. The first leader we started to work with in Malawi, while not a complete fraud, had severe integrity issues, so we stopped working with him. As it turned out, in time, we ended up with many more times the number of congregants in both Kenya and Malawi than those leaders with integrity problems claimed to have.
Recently, I am saddened to say, we became aware of an integrity problem with a leader in Mexico (Ismael Jimenez). So I investigated this by checking with multiple sources. Furthermore, I and a minister from another COG group gave him opportunities to repent and ‘come clean’ so to speak, but as of yet he has not truly done so. So, the CCOG has had to drop affiliation with him and we hope and pray that he repents. We also pray that those who had fellowship with him will one day see the truth about this and again wish to support the work of the Philadelphian remnant.
Working on this matter took up inordinate amounts of time, and more time looks to be required.
The Bible shows that dealing with people who have integrity issues is not new to the Church of God. Even Simon Magus believed and was baptized by the Apostle Philip (Acts 8:13). The Apostle Paul ended up having problems with many he worked with in Asia Minor (2 Timothy 1:15), as did the Apostle John (3 John 9-10).This is a perfect description of Bwana Bob Thiel who is too blinded by his awesomeness to even understand what he wrote.
Jesus had to deal with the false as well (John 6:70). Furthermore, Jesus specifically predicted that Philadelphians would have to deal with false ones (Revelation 3:7-9) and we in CCOG have ended up doing so.How can we fault Bwana Bob and the rest of the splinter group leaders as men of low integrity, considering their own original leader, Herbert W Armstrong, had low morals and integrity. Every single one of the current top leadership of the COG splinter groups are men of low integrity. They all set off on their own in order to ensure a steady flow of income. It had nothing to do with doctrinal purity. They knew they were all getting fired or laid off and had no marketable skills. Stealing tithe money from duped members was more important than doctrinal purity or integrity. All of these men cannot understand why the broad majority of the church never joined up with them. Integrity is the one important quality none of them had and still do not have.
Of course, saying someone has a lack of integrity is a pretty broad statement in the COGs. Were they stealing tithes or did they fail to properly kiss up to God's Anointed? Maybe they had doctrinal differences. That'll get you sent to the Lake of Fire in a New York minute.
ReplyDeleteBob's mantra: https://imgflip.com/i/1uw42n
ReplyDeleteBob in 2019 is telling us about a problem from 2013.
ReplyDeleteDoes it make sense that God would fail to warn His prophet about an unethical African elder?
No. But what does this mean? One possibility is that God warned Bob, but Bob ignored God's warning because he thought he could use the unethical elder to buttress his own credibility. Another possibility is that God didn't warn Bob, because God isn't communicating with Bob.
Either way, Bob waited five or six years to disclose this. What does that tell us about Bob's integrity?
One of the underlying problems will ALL of the COGs is their reliance and message to and on people afar off. They have media ministries and not local in their own town ones. How man people in any COG actually live in the town where they meet or their headquarters is? Few, very few. They have to appeal to and claim members in all 50 states, scattered and few though they be.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in the Memorial Orthodox Presbyterian Church, everyone was from the neighborhood. They all lived in that part of Rochester, for the most part. It was a short drive or even walk. I walked to and from church growing up.
Once in a great while we'd have some visiting "Missionary from the Foreign Field". They'd give a talk about some far off place and what it was like to be a Presbyterian Christian there and they would hope our church would sponsor them , usually a couple, for the next year, which we generally did.
But the point is the church was LOCAL. It was not smeared all over the planet via media and made up of people no one was ever going to know or meet.
Media Ministries changed much of that and sucked the humanity out of those who went that route. Of course, the COG believe that few are chosen and you have to ye therefore into all the world. Into your own neighborhood? Not so much. The limited parameters all the True Churches have for their members to qualify as true Christians plus the idea that they are everywhere BUT in the neighborhood with "a prophet is without honor in his own city" as an excuse, is a huge drawback.
When my parents (Local Elder/Deaconess) left WCG, they simply walked back to the Memorial Orthodox Presbyterian Church and enjoyed their last years in the faith in the same building they married in, carried us down the isle as babies to be baptized in and saw us grow up in. At my parents funerals I sat in the same wooden pews where I remember my feet not able yet to touch the floor and everything inside looking exactly the same. In the side room was the same table I sat at as a teen annoying the hell out of the minister with questions until he slammed his hand down on the table and sent me home from catechism! lol.
There is something to be said for that kind of stability. The churches of God offer nothing remotely like that and I think people are not in the mood these days for traveling all over creation either for church or sports for the the kiddies.
I was in a cog recently. At a feast of tabernacle within the last few years, I found most people there acted stuck up, self centered, and holier than thou.
DeleteCan someone Please do a photoshop of Bwana-Bob in a Safari hat!?
ReplyDeleteAnd then a montage of him standing with SuperDave!
Would like to print this for framing! TFF
Bwana-Bob in a Safari hat!? standing with SuperDave!
ReplyDeleteDave: Dr Thiel, I presume?
"Drop affiliation"?
ReplyDeleteThis sounds awfully watered down. Why doesn't Dr. Thiel learn from the LCG example, and disfellowship/mark some people?
disfellowship/mark
ReplyDeleteOr change their status to disContinuing.
5:16 how did you act? Were you friendly or judgemental?
ReplyDelete