This has to rank up there in "The Dumb Things Church of God Leaders Say" category. Gerry sent this in a letter to supposedly 300,000 co-workers and members recently. What a shining example of logic this man displays!
It is still too early to have final figures, but our telecast “Why Does God Allow Pandemics?” looks as though it will bring in twice as many requests as normal. The offer for that program was a DVD titled, “God Answers His COVID-19 Critics.” Sadly, the program was censored in the United Kingdom because they did not like it. Perhaps it is because their “traditional English breakfast” includes two or three types of bacon, pork sausage, and black pudding (something that is made with blood, often pig blood, and looks like a thin hockey puck). If you were one of those who missed the program, just let us know and we will be very happy to send you the DVD that contains the program, or you can go online right now and see it at Why Does God Allow Pandemics. May 21, 2020
43 comments:
LCG keeps on beating the unclean foods drum as the sum issue of the pandemic. I’ve seen it in 3 or 4 tedious articles. Once again they miss many points!
British authorities rejected the program because it made unfounded claims and presented them as if they were settled science.
It's ironic that Weston has previously criticised scientists discussing climate change when those scientists did exactly the same kind of misrepresentation that Weston did throughout his program.
LCG, claiming to be inspired by God, got out early in the pandemic and proclaimed that it was caused by people eating bats.
Since then, we've found out that the virus probably escaped from a research laboratory, and that if people got it from the food chain it came from pangolins, not bats.
Not only is LCG proven to be uninspired, they aren't even good at following the news.
At least Mr. Weston didn't put before his coworkers that this censorship was a result of a grand plan by Satan the devil to thrawt LCG's effort to promote the gospel.
On the other hand, how in the world did we pay men for how many years to promote a message of what's wrong with everyone in the package with a pretty bow good news.
Then when Gerald Weston and the other COG leaders make a disciple, we and they continue to pay these men to really tell us what is wrong with us or that we can't do anything right.
Hopefully Gerald Weston isn't like one of those neighbors who looks out the window of his house and criticizes what color everyone else paints their house or how they park their cars or how let they stay up and do ..... and how they dress.
I actually have a good friend who sold his house and moved during the Great Recession taking $75,000 hit to move away from such an opinionated person.
This pandemic is another reason why Bart Ehrman is an agnostic.
I may be wrong, but I think in "connecting the dots" Weston missed the point. Once the virus infected the first human, it was too late: no amount of keeping a Kosher kitchen is going to prevent the virus from spreading.
I think the virus is analogous to sin: once one has "broken the Law" and sinned, no amount of Law-keeping is going to take that away, only repentance, forgiveness and grace. Once the virus has started, no amount of abstaining from unclean meat will stop it. Communities of Orthodox Jews now have the virus, and they undoubtedly kept the dietary laws as strictly as can be.
FWIW, eating blood pudding is also a prohibition repeated by the Apostles in Acts 15...
Oh my, I'm sensing some passive aggressive commentary and rancor on Gerald's part. As noted, I am sure the article contained questionable material that the Brits just might not have much patience for at the moment and the "Why does God allow..." part probably was about all they could take, as if Gerald knew why.
"Why does God allow..."
These guys should be skilled enough to rework their material to avoid censorship issues.
But I guess whining about it is easier and gives them another excuse for their flagging growth - and for demanding more funds from their followers.
Communities of Orthodox Jews now have the virus, and they undoubtedly kept the dietary laws as strictly as can be.
You'll find that in many cases they ignored the quarantine laws. Much like Armstrongites, modern Orthodox Jews do a surprising amount of picking and choosing in how they interpret and reason around laws they find inconvenient.
Dennis: the passive aggressive, snide attitude is why I couldn’t stand being at LCG anymore.
HWA liked pork apparently check out Herbert W Armstrong on the other side at The Painful Truth site
Blood sausage, though gross is good for you. Eating the testicles or penis of cattle is biblical, but even more gross.
Judaism is ALL about picking and choosing. It's probably the stupidest most arbitrary religion ever invented. The Talmud is 12 volumes of mind-numbing rules for everything.
The church is conservative. That's all it takes to get deplatformed. Welcome to the club, LCG.
8:06 PM is an LCG troll. He/she is spouting off LCG victim- hood talking points. The “ministers” that do the telecast are fully aware of regulations in other countries that they intentionally violate just so they can run to their fainting couch to claim persecution and seek more money from the flock.
It's not the proper role of government to be idea police. The American constitution has that right.
300,000 co-workers seems high for such a small church.
He can read all about you, has access to the dreaded MEMBER FILES, but you don't
9:31pm Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you keep trying to tell us that Tonto is Connie, is a UCG minister. Blah, blah, blah...
Interesting. When doc Thiel was analyzing the Torah laws, he took the dietary laws as "health" laws (which they weren't) and laws on washings (like after sex or a discharge) as unnecessary and quarantines ("stay outside the camp") as ritual.
Painful Truth references: yes, there are stories like HWA "chewing but not swallowing" what he thought may have been pork, but was really veal. For HWA, laws had to "make sense" and have some practical reason for him to "approve" them.
6:48 said:
Communities of Orthodox Jews now have the virus, and they undoubtedly kept the dietary laws as strictly as can be.
You'll find that in many cases they ignored the quarantine laws. Much like Armstrongites, modern Orthodox Jews do a surprising amount of picking and choosing in how they interpret and reason around laws they find inconvenient.
*****
8:05 said:
Judaism is ALL about picking and choosing. It's probably the stupidest most arbitrary religion ever invented. The Talmud is 12 volumes of mind-numbing rules for everything.
*****
Judaics follow the Talmud ie the rabbinical misinterpretation of Biblical Law or Torah. They’re like modern American presidents, congressmen and judges who misinterpret the Constitution and Bill of Rights to enrich themselves and impoverish the people.
Anonymous said...
Blood sausage, though gross is good for you. Eating the testicles or penis of cattle is biblical, but even more gross.
Sounds like a good German! lol. The only time one should eat testicles is when testing for one being ticklish or not is in order. Then, and only then, should a test tickle be administered with scientific observation of the results accurately noted. :)
Anonymous June 6, 2020 at 8:02 PM said...
Blood sausage, though gross is good for you. Eating the testicles or penis of cattle is biblical, but even more gross.
I know the Bible forbids the blood of birds or land animals as a food (Leviticus 7:26). So where exactly does the Bible sanction the consumption of cattle penis and testes by humans?
if man would stay away from pigs as God instructed there would be far fewer diseases in the world...
in the orient they keep pigs and birds together, allowing the viruses to mix and mutate, coming out as infectious to humans...(pigs are susceptible to human viruses and bird viruses)
keeping a kosher kitchen will not protect anyone from that.
No one EVER said Tonto/Connie was a UCG MINISTER !! Previous comments say Tonto is Connie and is a female pastors wife. Connie herself in comments claimed she knew Victor Kubic. But thanks for the terrible slip up Blah blah Anon 4:19.
“Sadly, the program was censored in the United Kingdom because they did not like it. Perhaps it is because their 'traditional English breakfast' includes two or three types of bacon, pork sausage, and black pudding (something that is made with blood, often pig blood, and looks like a thin hockey puck).”
What is wrong with those stupid Brits? They need to get back to having traditional oatmeal porridge for breakfast!
One of their other stupid ideas -- feeding ground up dead cows to other cows -- resulted in mad cow disease.
This is another question of Theodicy. First the title "God Answers His COVID-19 Critics" is presumptuous beyond imagination. Who do these people think they are to claim that they speak for God? They must interpret the Bible under all kinds of influences just like any other organization.
Eating unusual animal products is not to my taste. I even get la ittle queasy sometimes at hamburger and chicken. I generally try to follow Leviticus as a guideline. But I do not believe the Bible leads us to an ironclad principle on diet. You can get diseases from "clean" animals also. Microorganisms can come from many different sources and once they get into the human population are indiscriminate in whom they attack.
The fact is that we live in what Paul called an evil world. It is under the rulership of Thrones, Principalities and Powers that are hostile to humankind. Stuff like this happens. The only refuge is in God's grace. The fact that Armstrongists have a very weak doctrine of grace and rely on Mosaic Law leads them to give the wrong message and puts them in a vulnerable position.
Well, it certainly is true that contact with unclean animals , or eating them (which requires slaughter and exposure to bodily fluids), such as bats or swine, can result in species to species transfer of deadly diseases.
Gerry said nothing about how to avoid catching the virus except by not eating certain animals. At least Dr Bob told us to eat zinc! Lots of zinc in baked beans, but too much green house gas is produced. I'll go for the beans!
7:48am Tonto has definitely been accused of being a UCG minister in the past, whether it was you claiming that or not, who knows, and who cares. Your ignorant accusations are pathetic!
No they are not. No one has accused Tonto of being a UCG Minister at all. Strawman argument.
But bacon tastes good Pork chops taste good
I bet that you can't define a strawman argument without looking it up!
What a sad sack of a man weston looks like.
1:55
Is that right ? Remarks like that Anon 1:55 say more about you.
11:18am Please elaborate! Do you need to look that word up too?
Perhaps Gerry could have introduced his spiel with the Garden of Eden. He could have pointed out that the first negative command given to humans was not to eat something and they did, and all of mankind suffered as a result.
Perhaps only one person in China passed the virus to humans - a person who probably never heard of clean/unclean meats, COGs or even Judaism or Christianity.
Hey, I remember the Three Amigos ate a bat cooked over a campfire...
4:16pm She who dealt it! In other words, pot meet kettle.
If you're not a woman you sure write like one.
4:16pm Emotional much?
for the record, I have been accused of being both Tonto and Connie!
So, wheres our resident COG ClicheSpewing Comedian to tell us how LCG is not following what HWA had taught and that its full of sex perverts playing church? Somehow they never mention LCG in their lists.
4:16pm by the way, you're the first one to mention hate, not I.
Because you have a cluster of names.
Yawn....keep it going and going...Yawn.....
Don't you just love it when people make comments to a specific post but don't specify which post they're referring to? Lack of intelligence perhaps?
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