Norbert is really upset with people being prohibited from gathering together due to the coronavirus shutdowns around the country and the world.
The false prophet and false teacher is appalled that people cannot gather for birthdays and for church services and is perturbed that the idiot pastor in Florida was arrested this week because he gathered hundreds of people in defiance of the ruling.
This has been the typical reaction of narcissistic leaders of various Churches of God for the last few weeks. No one can tell them what to do! They speak for God!
This brings up a news story that appeared today about a community of Orthodox Jews in Israel this past week.
BNEI BRAK, Israel (AP) — Early this week, the streets of the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak were bustling with shoppers as ultra-Orthodox residents, obeying their religious leaders, ignored pleas to stay home in the face of the coronavirus threat.
By Friday, Bnei Brak had become the country's worst hot spot and now resembles a ghost town. The military will soon be sending troops in to assist local authorities. One expert estimated that nearly 40% of the city's population might already have been infected.
The city has become a lightning rod for anger and frustration by some secular Israelis who allege insular Haredi communities — with disproportionately high numbers of confirmed cases — are undermining national efforts to contain the virus.
The pandemic also has threatened to upend deep-seated customs in the religious world, including blind obedience to religious leaders and the belief that religious studies and traditions take precedence over the rules of a modern state. After ignoring warnings, Israeli ultra-Orthodox hit by virus
This is exactly the same thing Church of God leaders are doing. They run off at the mouth, like Norbert Link and Dave Pack are doing and people continue to come to church and congregate in social gatherings. Even milquetoast Bob Thiel is letting the leaders of his "house churches" determine whether they want to meet or not. He does not have the balls to say STOP meeting.
No Church of God member needs to feel that God is requiring them to sit there every week during this pandemic. To do so is putting their life and the lives of their children in danger. Likewise, no Church of God member needs to feel that they are required to send in tithe and offering money to their leaders during this time OR to even tithe on the stimulus check being mailed out. There is not one single Church of God leader out there that deserves their money.
Any Church of God leader that continues to demand their members meet on Saturday needs to be turned in to the police. Then, if a member does become sick after gathering, these men need to be prosecuted.
Stop listening to this bull crap that it is an infringement upon their rights. It's not.
Here is great wisdom to understand. Just because we are Christians, DOES NOT MEAN that we live charmed lives, and that the forces of the natural universe do not apply to us.
ReplyDeleteWhats with that fake accent? It grates on your ears!
ReplyDeleteWhile the "Map" background is better than Thiel's crooked curtains, it is something of a throwback to the likes of a 1940s Lowell Thomas Travelog newsreel, or Walter Cronkite/ Hundley and Brinkley 1960s back drop.
ReplyDeleteThe "suit and tie" and GTA type hair, are all passe for presenters in most arenas, and a real throwback to the "stuck in time" AC era of the late 1960s as well.
The false prophet and false teacher is appalled that people cannot gather for birthdays
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to listen to the whole thing, so can someone else confirm that NO2HWA's statement is correct? It's huge progress, and a huge change from old-school Armstrongism, if Norbie now approves of birthday gatherings.
While the "Map" background is better than Thiel's crooked curtains, it is something of a throwback to the likes of a 1940s Lowell Thomas Travelog newsreel, or Walter Cronkite/ Hundley and Brinkley 1960s back drop.
ReplyDeleteTo complete the old sponsored newscaster motif, he needs an "I'd walk a mile for a camel" slogan, but with a photo of Petra instead of cigarettes.
Norbie was upset that a birthday party was shut down by the police. It was one of several examples he used to justify his anger and churches being shut down. I doubt he approves of birthdays, being the died-in-the-wool Armstrongiste that he is...even though HWA and GTA celebrated birthdays.
ReplyDeleteWho is this asshat? Never heard of him. He sounds crazy as hell.
ReplyDeleteThis triggers so many thoughts. Armstrongism has always been an additional, voluntarily accepted level of authority in which members trust and to which they submit above all other levels of authority. The leaders are accustomed to having and wielding this authority. It's embedded deeply in the consciousness of the movement. Anyone who openly fails to accept it has customarily been considered expendable.
ReplyDeleteNow this authority is being tested and found to be wanting. The penalty for making a wrong decision is severe. It is the probability of severe illness, and on the extreme side of the spectrum, death. But, it goes deeper than that. It also involves survival decisions as to whether to spend money preparing one's self and family for survival and sequesterment, or sending that money to the very ministers who are providing disinformation, and arguably lethal advice.
I would submit that the most vocal of the ACOG leaders are aware of, and fear the shift in the thinking of their members, many of whom are being prompted by the undeniable evidence which is amassing through the pandemic to emerge from denial, and to realize that the leaders whom they have trusted implicitly are clueless and unequipped to deal with the current emergency. These leaders continue to rely on decades old cliches originally coined by HWA and the first wave of graduates of Ambassador College.
This is a time which requires real leadership. Rank and file people can distinguish between a leader who reluctantly caves to the secular authorities in government and the healthcare industries, and the secure one who would enthusiastically embrace the reality and seriousness of the current emergency, be concerned as a real shepherd for the sheep, and preach that what the authorities were recommending was sound, and should be rigorously practiced.
Right now, the most important question splinter members should be asking themselves is whether their leaders are really looking out for their best interests.
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Who is this asshat? Never heard of him. He sounds crazy as hell.
ReplyDeleteHe's the guy who thought he was such a brilliant lawyer that he thought he had figured out how the Global Church of God could fire Rod Meredith and continue on with other men in charge. Turns out he was spectacularly wrong, and the de-Meredithed GGCG quickly shattered, first losing Dave Pack, then losing congregations in Washington and Oregon, then losing Raymond McNair, then the remainder battling over whether or not to merge with UCG. Norbert was one of those who liked the Meredith-style conservatism and harshness, but he just didn't like Meredith. Norbert refused to merge with UCG and stayed in his own little cult with a few other very junior ministers.
He's also an example of how standards have fallen in the years since WCG collapsed. By WCG standards Norbert is strictly Local Church Elder material, or maybe Preaching Elder if he were in Germany where his communication skills would be better received. Yet the guy has found someone to ordain him as an Evangelist. It's ridiculous!
Probably had someone doubly bless him like Bob Thiel claims. Neither are valid ordinations.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Scripture, TRUE ministers and Church "leaders" have many RESPONSIBILITIES and very few "rights." And chief among those responsibilities is the CARE and PROTECTION FROM HARM of the flock that they shepherd. The notion that they are entitled to lord it over people and supersede all other authorities is foreign to Scripture. Likewise, the notion that they are entitled to tithes and offerings when people are struggling to support themselves and their families is also not supported by Scripture. And these charlatans and cretins pretend to make the Bible their standard!
ReplyDeleteIn his weekly ain't it awful rant, Mark Armstrong is apparently in COVID-19 (as well as anthropogenic climate change> denial. He's claimed that prohibiting assembly during what he considers a hoax pandemic is unconstitutional in denying him his First Amendment rights.
ReplyDeleteAll Norbert does is regurgitate right-wing political propaganda. There is literally not one thing he says that I haven't already heard from GOP talking heads already.
ReplyDeleteIt would be one thing if Norbert came up with some original horse manure. Then he would simply be full of shit. As it is he's even worse.
What's the point of being in Norbert's church when, if this all you're gonna hear, if this is what you wanna hear, you could just turn on Faux News? It would be a LOT cheaper too!
This video is no "meltdown." He's downright tame, compared to some of President Trump's tweets and scolding of reporters.
ReplyDeleteBut Mr. Link doesn't mention the revival meeting in Kentucky a couple of weeks ago, which is being blamed for a couple of COVID-19 deaths and several sicknesses.
And it's curious that he warns about evangelical voters, when COG members historically have been told that voting is wrong.
P.S. Rodney Howard-Browne now has suspended in-person services, albeit under protest.
Miller Jones April 4, 2020 at 1:29 PM
ReplyDeleteWell said my friend!
CARE and PROTECTION FROM HARM means they are 'shepherds."
Now someone email Dave Pack and see what his 'spin' is.
Colonel Klink has to be the most boring minister I have heard in a while. How did he ever make the rank of an evangelist?
ReplyDeleteWell, 10:58, these people all seem to think they have a calling from God, but it must be imaginary on their part because somehow God never seems to get around to giving them the abilities to make them effective in that calling.
ReplyDeleteMany disfellowship one another and ordain themselves to higher rank, so an evangelist isn't what an evangelist used to be. Just as a General in a militia bears no resemblance to a General in the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines.
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