Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Today's Proper Church Government is a Quagmire of Spiritual Debauchery

One of the biggest con games the church has fostered off on people is Herbert Armstrong's demands on proper governance in the church. His teachings were designed to give him ultimate authority in all matters, both spiritual and temporal. He really cracked down on governance when ministers would leave the church and take people with them. It was vitally important for HWA to discredit and devalue those men. To not do so was to undermine his power and authority.

That same quagmire of spiritual debauchery is what gave the present-day Churches of God so many self-appointed leaders who demand obedience to their every whim.  It gives Dave Pack the "authority" to demand his followers give him all their money, and they do.  It gives Gerald Flurry the "authority" to demand that church members turn their backs on spouses, family members and friends if they do not adhere to Flurry's illogical demands, which they do.

Concerned Sister made this comment the other day about authority in the church:
If the person has not risen through the ranks of one the groups and is not "ordained" to speak or given permission to express themselves, then their thoughts and their voice is silenced within whatever corporate group they happen to be a part of, even if what they have to say would be of benefit to the rest of the body. The only way to get around this sometimes is to find ways around the system, which is what people who remain anonymous seek to do. 

Ordination within the corporate cog groups has in many cases simply become a way for those who seek a certain amount of perceived power to climb the ladder, or a way to reward someone for sticking to the party line and parroting the "official" doctrine of the organization, rather than a way to simply recognize those who are already serving as servants within the body of Christ. It then becomes a way to reinforce the club mentality and perceived authority within the corporate group. It has also become a way to limit the function of the gifts of the body to being exercised only by those officially recognized as having "authority" or given "permission" to do so. God did not intend the body to function with only a few at the top of a man made hierarchy having a voice or using a gift. He has given all a voice and various gifts, and it is the job of those gifted as leaders to facilitate and equip everyone to use their voice and their gifts, rather than silencing everyone. Sometimes it is the voice that comes out of nowhere and has no recognized position that God chooses to use in the mightiest way, because it is those people who don't get as hung up on themselves, their egos, or their own authority. They are simply sharing what they feel God wants them to share, with the understanding that it isn't about them, it's about Him.

Concerned Sister
There are three things that the Church of God hated more than anything and that was when members stepped up to the plate and held leaders accountable, understood scripture better than their leaders, and were outstanding examples of good works in their church and local community than the church was. 

Right on cue this morning, Bob Thiel popped his homeopathic cork about "authority" in the church and how those who refused to follow Herbert's teaching on governance led to the downfall of the church and that those remaining 1/3 "faithful" now refuse to follow him, the rightful heir to that proper church governance. Hands were flailing and fingers flying as he typed out his words of warning.
 ...the fact is that two-thirds of those in the old WCG accepted total apostasy after the death of Herbert W. Amrstrong, and about one-third did not, makes the possible application of the Tkach apostasy seem to fit. 
Nowadays, most remaining Christians do not accept proper church governance–even though Herbert W. Armstrong emphasized that a lot in his final years on Earth for Philadephian Christians.
According to the self-appointed illegitimate leader of the so-called "continuing" Church of God, every person who does not follow him are all Laodiceans. 
Notice that Herbert Armstrong believed that God mainly worked through the leadership of one man at a time to lead various phases of the work. Scripture, shows for example, that the mantle passed from Elijah to Elisha (2 Kings 2:9-15). The ‘mantle’ would currently be with the person/group that truly functioned as the ‘pillar and ground of truth’ (1 Timothy 3:15). 
For fifty years in the second century, according to Herbert W. Armstrong, that man was Polycarp:
It is significant that after his release John trained Polycarp elder of Smyrna, a city near Ephesus in the province of Asia. … At neighboring Smyrna, Polycarp presided over the Church of God for half a century after John’s death. Polycarp stood up boldly for the truth while many fell away and began having fellowship with the Catholic bishops of Rome. History relates that following the example of Peter, Paul and John, Polycarp wrote many letters to congregations and individuals, though all these have perished, save one in an edited version. (Armstrong HW. The Church They Couldn’t Destroy. Good News, December 1981) 
For over 50 years in the 20th century, it was Herbert W. Armstrong.
And in the 21st century, that one man is not in any of the independent or more structures Laodicean groups.
Support the remnant of the Philadephian era and God’s work today. 
Do not delay (cf. Zephaniah 2:1-3).


There you have it!  He is the ONE TRUE Church of God leader today.  Apparently, no one in the church has the ability to discern what is right except for him. By now we all know Thiel to be one of the biggest piles of horseshit the church has ever seen. Many members are more theologically grounded in the scripture than Thiel or any of the present-day COG leaders are.  

The so-called "proper church governance" in the Church of God has created a cabal of spiritually and physically dangerous men who are consumed by narcissism, greed, avarice and the continual need to be affirmed as important.

These men have wreaked havoc on the spiritual lives of sincere people who want to follow God as they understand him. These putrid boils on the church have spent decades placing the focus upon themselves and their "revelations" while spitting in the face of Jesus and everything he said and accomplished.

No matter how many dreams or visitations by the so-called "god/spirit" these men have, they remain spiritually bankrupt. No sincere Christian would EVER follow these men.

14 comments:

  1. well for starters, there is not any one single man that is head of the entire Church.....that's not how God has done it in the past, and not how He does it now.

    Jesus is the Head, and He has a number of men working under Him to further the work, just as He did in the days of the Apostles...He had 12 men (Paul makes 13) out doing the work spreading the gospel, and none of them was "boss" over the others....they all reported to Christ Who guided them through the Holy Spirit. ...

    they had to put their heads together at times to make sure they were on the right track, but that's how it should be.

    this whole "one man at the top" nonsense is what makes it possible for the hucksters out there to gain a following.....

    ReplyDelete
  2. I knew Bob Thiel. He is no Polycarp.

    He's more of a Polycrap.

    ReplyDelete

  3. “He really cracked down on governance when ministers would leave the church and take people with them. It was vitally important for HWA to discredit and devalue those men. To not do so was to undermine his power and authority.”


    It now appears that HWA was RIGHT! He was right all along. He was absolutely right, and ALL these other guys are WRONG!

    Look at all the liars and thieves and destroyers who came out of the WCG and are now trying to set themselves up as spiritual leaders. They all want former WCG members to follow them. They all want to access the bank accounts of former WCG members. They all have heretical ideas. They are all rebels and frauds and false prophets and demoniacs. It was very important indeed for HWA to warn about them.

    All the (rotten) fruits (and nuts) have now shown that HWA was RIGHT! He was right all along. He was absolutely right, and ALL these other guys are WRONG!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thiel is certainly no Polycarp. He is more in line with POLY-CRAP!

    ReplyDelete
  5. If HWA was believed truly in the concept of "church government", then he should have went back to the COG 7th Day, and submitted to AN Dugger, like he was suppose to.

    Even HWAs own 1939 Good News article spoke against hierarchal and centralized church government. Talk about blowing in the wind whenever it suits you!

    Article here:
    https://hwarmstrong.com/history/wcghistory/coworker-letters/390200.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yes Tonto, Herbert Armstrong sang the song that bought in the money. He was unprincipled in nearly everything he did. Money was his god.

    Herbert redefined humanity as beasts and then tried convincing the church that they were never human to begin with. To behave like this, he had to abandon every ethical principle that governs responsible human activity. Perhaps such ruthlessness came easily to him given that he made it sound like he could convince criminals to fill out an application form before committing a crime. He did that with all of us when we applied for membership within his cult.

    If you believe you have another explanation for his crazed behavior, then please write and tell me about it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hmm, Polycarp was Bishop of Smyrna, just like Bob is Overseer (Bishop) of Arroyo Grande.

    After the fall of Jerusalem, the "Christian center" appeared to be Antioch, where Ignatius was Bishop. In Ignatius' letter to Polycarp, Ignatius seems to be giving Polycarp instructions. Can I write a letter to Bob giving him instructions?

    After the Apostles died, it appears the churches were a loose confederation, like the US was under the Articles of Confederation. Although the Articles specified a short-term President, the early churches did not appear to have an identified overall "leader".

    When COG leaders spout "church government" it reminds me of the King Arthur and the Peasants scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Christ directly leads each and every Christian. This, not minister power, is the core of church government. Power crazed ministers deny and twist this, claiming that by blindly following them, one is following Christ. This is a blatant lie. It amounts to Moses's sin of exalting himself rather than pointing to God. We all know how that ended.

    ReplyDelete

  9. Herbert W. Armstrong was the advertising man who built up the Worldwide Church of God under himself. Now, all sorts of people want to feast off of the remains of what HWA had built up and what the apostate Tkaches destroyed. They do not want to go out into the world to find and attract their own followers. They want to prey on HWA's former followers. Every demon-inspired kook now wants to become their teacher, and their prophet, and teach them heresies, and get paid really well for it.

    Why should anyone who was taught by HWA follow any of the rebels, false prophets, or other bad actors who have popped up like noxious weeds all over the Church of God landscape? That would be really stupid!

    ReplyDelete
  10. More like banditos preying on the followers of the original bandito, 4:33. Or as some of our local boys once sang, "Everybody knows the world is full of stupid people. But, I've got the pistol, so I'll keep the pesos. Yeah, that seems fair!"

    BB

    ReplyDelete
  11. As I probably wrote before, Ron Dart was doing a Bible study on Matthew. When he read Matt 23:11 "The greatest among you will be your servant" he commented that is the only verse he knows that describes church government.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Based on Dr. Thiel's logic, shouldn't the line of succession in "the church" now have Greg Williams in charge? Somewhere in North Carolina?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yes I agree Hoss I heard Ron say that too.

    The question remains what's Concerned Sister going to DO about the spiritual debauchery ?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Though I liked Ron Dart, and thought he was probably the best teacher in the cog, he was still too caught up in the ministerial clergy class mentality. I probably attended at least 16 feasts with CEM and our small group was the first to sponsor his Born to Win program, so I do know of what I speak.

    km

    ReplyDelete