Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
Yep. When they were #1 on radio, TV, and fund raising in the pioneer days of televangelism, their example infected the mainstream. There just weren’t many churches back in those days that were perpetuating the elements of the Old Covenant rituals, one of which was tithing.
1) None of the churches in our community taught tithing in the 1950s and ‘60s.
2) Rockefeller, Carnegie, and other early industrialists had daily body counts in their industrial operations due to lack of adequate safety precautions. Those deaths supported their profits. The guilt and angst associated with this was the cause of much of their philanthropy.
People have always donated to churches because they found value in what they taught and did. None of those people were coerced or forced to do it like were were in Armstrongism. Using tithing as a salvation issue was disgusting. While we suffered to send in money, Herbie, Meredith and others were using it to decorate their homes and remodel.
Ah that may well be that guilt and angst played a part with those puritan protestants.
I was talking about Germany where the tax system INCLUDES a "freewill" gift to the Catholic Church. Nowadays one can choose other good causes.
Of course the catholic church has tithing as one of its central doctrines. Not that anyone adheres to it and I must look up the teaching of protestantism. The same I guess in its official papers.
THE ROOT OF THE MATTER IS THAT EVERY RELIGIOUS ACT OR BELIEF OR FEELING IS BASED ON ANGST. As the astute teacher Karl Marx observed about the opium for the masses.
Although recent science has proven that man may have altruistic drivers as well. As 4 year olds seem to respond to a crying baby with startled movements and an intrinsic willingness to share some of their possessions with the other crying baby over which they have no control to stop the crying.
Even though Armstrongism berated Catholicism as the worst Satan could produce, it's remarkable how much the two enterprises have in common. In addition to teaching salavation only via works, both fleeced the people by insisting tithing is mandatory.
Jal Nal, I thought the church taught salivation through the day of atonement. :-)
Tonto The church owned quite a bit of real estate that Tkach did not account for in the end.
Part of what armstrongism set apart from sda culture was the "sojourner (on earth) culture". So no local churches, no pension fund for employees, folding chairs, and temporary dwellings for FOT.
After all....... the end was nigh, within this generation...... and certainly before the year 2000.
Nck
BTW Catholicism was not the worst. A counterfeit must contain truth to be believable. The worst in the 1960's was communism, 1970's hippie culture, 1980's punk music.
When my (very much turned worldly) cousin got children his wife was stunned to the core he knew most of the lyrics of 1950's musicals. We never told her about YA's.
Nck, have you recently added mushrooms to your diet? Your comments of late seem to have a certain paychedellic quality to them! It seems to have altered the Zeitgeist of the blog, curiously impoving it to the point where we can now discuss such topics as Bruce Lee and Jimi Hendrix. The “young” Caucasian Ambassadors are probably turning over in their graves.
I could discuss any Zeitgeist being a greek unto the greek. "YA's" would translate in "New World Singers" for you my friend.
nck
Mushrooms. Well it is Fall for my space relative to the international dateline. Jimi Hendrix: During my stint in Morocco (Essouira) I noticed Jimi was still revered there long after his magic wailing had waned. My uncles used to play Taped Jimi concerts with tape on spools longer than the FOT messages that used to get stuck during playing like the old cinema movies. Regarding tithing: Indeed a Paycheckdellic topic.
"BTW Catholicism was not the worst. A counterfeit must contain truth to be believable. The worst in the 1960's was communism, 1970's hippie culture, 1980's punk music."
On Lonnies blog I expounded on the cultural difference between HWA and GTA.
In addition to my postings there and futher expounding on the prevailing culture after GTA left. HWA/Pasadena culture versus GTA/Tyler Big Sandy culture.
The ancients patterned their gods after common cultural experiences known to all men. The Greek Gods representing mans vices and whiles.
The HWA pattern was also recongnized by the Egyptians in their stories about the Gods. As supreme ruler of the people, the pharaoh was considered a god on earth, the intermediary between the gods and the people. When the pharaoh came to the throne he was instantly associated with Horus - the god who had defeated the forces of chaos and restored order....
One of his primary roles was also to maintain Ma'at, or harmony........
One can probably remember HWA's railing against types of music that according to him were not melodious or not in harmony with gods will. The Pasadena culture represented the Ma'at or harmony, whereas the Big Sandy culture represented the Wild, the Wild untamed nature of man.
The tithe doctrine is nothing but a scam. Ministers who put people on guilt trips to milk them of large amounts of money are despicable! There is no evidence that you will be financially blessed if you tithe. Tithing just makes you more poor. Tithes where only given to the Levites in old covenant times by Isrealites only, (gentiles where not required to tithe). The tithe was given in the form of food items not cash. There is no new covenant requirement to tithe.
I no longer believe that Catholicism is a counterfeit, nck. It is simply a progression which grew from Paul’s Gentile churches as Christianity progressed from a subset of the Hebrew religion and the overriding principles became applicable to all cultures, a world-class religion.
Yeah agreed. I was using "cults peak." What type of progression is still under scrutiny. But yes a progression in time at least we should be able to agree on.
Great art it produced in combination with the soaring human spirit as symbolized by the egrets.
8:51pm So the fact that some Catholic priests are child molesters is your proof against Catholics being Christian? So where does that leave Kevin Dean and the church of God in the equation?
It's a good thing God doesn't need us to tell him who are his!
Notice in that same scripture the Messiah also said to the Pharisees that they tithe mint and various spice he didn't say they were tithing money...the cogs twisted that scripture to mean what it never meant.
19 comments:
Yep. When they were #1 on radio, TV, and fund raising in the pioneer days of televangelism, their example infected the mainstream. There just weren’t many churches back in those days that were perpetuating the elements of the Old Covenant rituals, one of which was tithing.
BB
BB
How uninformed!
Rockefeller, Carnegie, the IBM people and millions of others tithed.
In some nations it is obligatory to the Catholic Church through the State Tax system.
Nck
1) None of the churches in our community taught tithing in the 1950s and ‘60s.
2) Rockefeller, Carnegie, and other early industrialists had daily body counts in their industrial operations due to lack of adequate safety precautions. Those deaths supported their profits. The guilt and angst associated with this was the cause of much of their philanthropy.
BB
People have always donated to churches because they found value in what they taught and did. None of those people were coerced or forced to do it like were were in Armstrongism. Using tithing as a salvation issue was disgusting. While we suffered to send in money, Herbie, Meredith and others were using it to decorate their homes and remodel.
Ah that may well be that guilt and angst played a part with those puritan protestants.
I was talking about Germany where the tax system INCLUDES a "freewill" gift to the Catholic Church. Nowadays one can choose other good causes.
Of course the catholic church has tithing as one of its central doctrines. Not that anyone adheres to it and I must look up the teaching of protestantism. The same I guess in its official papers.
THE ROOT OF THE MATTER IS THAT EVERY RELIGIOUS ACT OR BELIEF OR FEELING IS BASED ON ANGST. As the astute teacher Karl Marx observed about the opium for the masses.
Although recent science has proven that man may have altruistic drivers as well. As 4 year olds seem to respond to a crying baby with startled movements and an intrinsic willingness to share some of their possessions with the other crying baby over which they have no control to stop the crying.
Nck
It is interesting to see that churches that have "tithing" like the SDAs and Mormons, have beautiful buildings, hospitals, universities and the like.
After 85 years the COGS have virtually none of those things available on a local basis, with just "de minimis" facilities even at their headquarters.
Even though Armstrongism berated Catholicism as the worst Satan could produce, it's remarkable how much the two enterprises have in common. In addition to teaching salavation only via works, both fleeced the people by insisting tithing is mandatory.
Jal Nal,
I thought the church taught salivation through the day of atonement. :-)
Tonto
The church owned quite a bit of real estate that Tkach did not account for in the end.
Part of what armstrongism set apart from sda culture was the "sojourner (on earth) culture". So no local churches, no pension fund for employees, folding chairs, and temporary dwellings for FOT.
After all....... the end was nigh, within this generation...... and certainly before the year 2000.
Nck
BTW Catholicism was not the worst. A counterfeit must contain truth to be believable. The worst in the 1960's was communism, 1970's hippie culture, 1980's punk music.
When my (very much turned worldly) cousin got children his wife was stunned to the core he knew most of the lyrics of 1950's musicals. We never told her about YA's.
Nck
Nck, have you recently added mushrooms to your diet? Your comments of late seem to have a certain paychedellic quality to them! It seems to have altered the Zeitgeist of the blog, curiously impoving it to the point where we can now discuss such topics as Bruce Lee and Jimi Hendrix. The “young” Caucasian Ambassadors are probably turning over in their graves.
BB
BB
I could discuss any Zeitgeist being a greek unto the greek. "YA's" would translate in "New World Singers" for you my friend.
nck
Mushrooms. Well it is Fall for my space relative to the international dateline.
Jimi Hendrix: During my stint in Morocco (Essouira) I noticed Jimi was still revered there long after his magic wailing had waned. My uncles used to play Taped Jimi concerts with tape on spools longer than the FOT messages that used to get stuck during playing like the old cinema movies.
Regarding tithing: Indeed a Paycheckdellic topic.
BB
On a serious note if you responded to:
"BTW Catholicism was not the worst. A counterfeit must contain truth to be believable. The worst in the 1960's was communism, 1970's hippie culture, 1980's punk music."
On Lonnies blog I expounded on the cultural difference between HWA and GTA.
In addition to my postings there and futher expounding on the prevailing culture after GTA left. HWA/Pasadena culture versus GTA/Tyler Big Sandy culture.
The ancients patterned their gods after common cultural experiences known to all men.
The Greek Gods representing mans vices and whiles.
The HWA pattern was also recongnized by the Egyptians in their stories about the Gods.
As supreme ruler of the people, the pharaoh was considered a god on earth, the intermediary between the gods and the people. When the pharaoh came to the throne he was instantly associated with Horus - the god who had defeated the forces of chaos and restored order....
One of his primary roles was also to maintain Ma'at, or harmony........
One can probably remember HWA's railing against types of music that according to him were not melodious or not in harmony with gods will. The Pasadena culture represented the Ma'at or harmony, whereas the Big Sandy culture represented the Wild, the Wild untamed nature of man.
nck
The tithe doctrine is nothing but a scam. Ministers who put people on guilt trips to milk them of large amounts of money are despicable! There is no evidence that you will be financially blessed if you tithe. Tithing just makes you more poor. Tithes where only given to the Levites in old covenant times by Isrealites only, (gentiles where not required to tithe). The tithe was given in the form of food items not cash. There is no new covenant requirement to tithe.
3.20 AM
"There is no new covenant requirement to tithe."
Then how do you explain Christ saying to the Pharisee's that they should have tithed, but not ignored justice and mercy?
He had not yet done His work on the cross, and initiated the New Covenant at the time He admonished the Pharisees, 5:08.
Besides, tithing was always intended to be on agricultural products, and the items Jesus enumerated were all minor agricultural products.
BB
I no longer believe that Catholicism is a counterfeit, nck. It is simply a progression which grew from Paul’s
Gentile churches as Christianity progressed from a subset of the Hebrew religion and the overriding principles became applicable to all cultures, a world-class religion.
BB
Yeah agreed. I was using "cults peak." What type of progression is still under scrutiny. But yes a progression in time at least we should be able to agree on.
Great art it produced in combination with the soaring human spirit as symbolized by the egrets.
Nck
u cant be serious, mr bb...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/1-700-catholic-priests-accused-093738026.html
8:51pm So the fact that some Catholic priests are child molesters is your proof against Catholics being Christian? So where does that leave Kevin Dean and the church of God in the equation?
It's a good thing God doesn't need us to tell him who are his!
km
Notice in that same scripture the Messiah also said to the Pharisees that they tithe mint and various spice he didn't say they were tithing money...the cogs twisted that scripture to mean what it never meant.
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