Saturday, February 1, 2020

Abusive Power In The Church


Check out The Keys of Power over on the Painful Truth blog.  It is an excellent overview of the abuse of power in the Church of God.

The one most important item for any ‘top on down dictator’ is money, for it is the source of their power.
Without resources, the power structure collapses.
To keep the coalition loyal, they are the ones who must be payed first. Only then can the leader in power take his share. Within any top on down dictatorship, the ruler controls the money and pays off those who can coerce and control the populous. These administrators in return pay the enforcers. 
Dictators unleash costly actions against others in order to secure their regime. They have a distorted view of themselves, and think the enemy as weaker than they.
Gerald Flurry saw himself as virtuous, and pure as he went against his diabolical enemy, Joseph Tkach. After all, he had God on his side. Or so he thought. What Flurry sought to accomplish was legitimacy as the self proclaimed inheritor of Herbert Armstrong’s legacy.
In the end, Flurry declared himself the winner of the lawsuit against the WCG, even though he lost. If he wanted to keep on printing MOA, he would have to pay.
With his legitimacy established, in his followers eyes, Gerald Flurry would go on to declare himself a messianic figure (that prophet) that was bringing a warning message to those who were in the other splits, and to those who wandered off onto other paths. Gerald was seeking to expand his cult membership, and a consistent source of money would secure his position as ruling dictator long into the future.
What Gerald failed to do was to control his sheriffsministers who’s narcissism or deviance has led to PCG’s long and painful decline.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The 2020 abuse of power going on, no doubt across many COG groups, is the membership being told to stay off social media.

Tonto said...

In life, politics, business, and other arenas, it is all about "who" is controlling the narrative!

Anonymous said...

and there is that term again..."the church"

the most meaningless term in religion.

Byker Bob said...

We live in times when a couple can be kicked off a commercial plane flight for excessive body odor, it makes the news, and now when you Google the words "body odor", their names and the story come up! It just amazes me that the same phenomenon does not occur with the egregious activities of ACOG leaders. I just Googled "spiritual abuse of power". I thought that perhaps names like Flurry or Pack would come up, but they didn't. Apparently body odor is more important or outrageous, and is pinpointed, while spiritual abuse is not.

BB

nck said...

Hahah BB,

"We" are still top ten in search result "armstrongism is the best ever".

But Bubbah Thiel beats us at "herbert w Armstrong is swell"

Nck

Anonymous said...

Abusive power results in a house built on sand. But as long as it doesn't collapse before they die from old age, the ministers don't care. The ones who will have to deal with the collapsed mess can go eat cake.
This approach worked for Herb, so why not for them? Yes, the members and the work can go eat cake.