There has been a lot of weird things said by Church of God leaders, ministers, and self-appointed prophets over the last eight decades. From Germany using the Pasadena campus as the HQ of their invasion of America to the egret sculpture coming alive with the egrets picking up the four corners of the auditorium, lifting it up, and flying it to Petra while being led by the 5th egret. From sacred rocks, all things common, to double blessings, the craziness has no end to how weird it gets.
One famous mentally disturbed crackpot in the church was Gerald Waterhouse. This man spent decades telling one huge whopper after another, all with headquarters ' approval. In fact, they sent him out to deliberately torture members with his nonsense. Who can forget those 3 to 4-hour sermons, sitting on hard metal chairs, listening to the most idiotic stuff imaginable?
One thing I totally forgot about was Waterhouse claiming that when we became "god" in the millennium and had our own planets to rule over, that we would also be crucified for the sins of our inhabitants.
Thanks to Exit and Support Network for that reminder:
September 13, 2020
HWA taught so many lies about the Millennium and New Heavens and New Earth. He wanted us to focus on being “big shots” and lording it over others. Then after the Millennium, he said we would “fly throughout the universe” and make the planets over into something new. I even heard it taught–and I don’t know if it was Gerald Waterhouse or which minister–that we would “die for others” on our very own planet. This is blasphemous! I never could wrap my head around that. Yes, there has got to be something better and I’ll trust God to bring it to pass. –Former WCG member
Almost everything about Armstrongism has ended up being blasphemous and as the days go by the crazy self-appointed and dream certified leaders of the church continue that blasphemy.
Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what God has ready for those who love him but HWA's speculations are treated like revealed truth...
ReplyDeleteCraziest thing I ever heard Waterhouse say department...
ReplyDeleteAfter becoming the next "Apostle" in regards to Joe Tkach Sr. , Waterhouse goes on to tell us that back in "Chicago Days" in WCG, that "Joe hit 29 homers for the church softball team in one season". He then blusters , "And if that aint proof that he's God's Apostle, I dont know what is!".
Yep, I was there, and heard it personally!
Waterhouse was pretty hopeless, all right. But he did at least one good thing: refused to baptize my father.
ReplyDeleteMy father studied his Bible intensely, especially the prophetic parts, wrote out his opinions at great length, and sent them to Armstrong. He took credit for a lot of things the Armstrongs said on the World Tomorrow broadcast. He said that a week or so after he sent in his interpretations, the ideas he expressed would be repeated on air by Herbert or Garner Ted. Since letters from headquarters referred to him as a "co-worker," he figured he had earned a slot among the leaders of the church. He was sort of like Bob Thiel--was even a health food nut, like Bob. But he was a better orator. No matter how small the audience, he delivered his prophesies and other proclamations to friends and family with grand words arranged in ringing senteces, delivered with rotund oratory. You can imagine how such a pretender would threaten one of the "in" group like Gerald Waterhouse.
Oh well, whatever Gerald W's motives, he did the right thing to keep my father out of the church. If only the same thing had happened to the whole gaggle of would-be prophets that found niches there.
I found Gerald Waterhouse's prophesy speculations entertaining, but the overall intellectual level was low. He should have spent more time reading his bible and other non church sources, and less time in gay bars.
ReplyDeleteWhy did they keep certain people on the payroll at AC? I can see Waterhouse kept because he was like a propaganda minister. Perhaps David Jon Hill, because, as I understand it, was a room mate of GTA and a close friend. But he had issues that would have gotten lesser known men fired. I suspect that some were kept to keep them quiet. Some were exiled to Bricket Wood if they ticked off HWA. The old timers are dying off. I thought that some would have written more about the inside operations of the WCG.
ReplyDeleteThe Mormons believe something similar. The Mormon god of our world had to come up with some way to offer salvation to his human offspring and he came up with the system we see in the Bible and in Mormon writings.
ReplyDeleteI think our world got one of the stupider Mormon gods.
From my Sabbath Services Notebook:
ReplyDelete"By the end of the Work, all the people who stayed loyal will be taken to a place of safety" - Gerald Waterhouse, December 7, 1968 2:30 PM Services Baltimore, Maryland WCG
MY COOMENT - Looking back almost 52 years later, the place of safety for Mr. Waterhouse and many others is the grave six feet under. The "Work" died when Mr. Herbert Armstrong died.
Richard
The one and only time I ever heard the idea that we would be god and have to, like Christ, die for our created subjects was on a taped sermon by Ron Dart. The lecture was from a class on Doctrines that Dart taught, as I remember, and was with a set of tapes kept at the Ambassador College Big Sandy Library. I seem also to recall that he stated that we would go out in pairs with one person being "The Father" and the other being "The Son" and have out own planet. This latter is less clear in memory.
ReplyDeleteI was alarmed at this and hoped that it could not be true. On later reflection it seemed to me that Christ's sacrifice would be effectual for all time. But this re-enactment of Christ's work is a logical conclusion that is derived from the principle that we will be "god as god is god." I do think that Dart couched it in language that indicated that it was speculative. This was a long time ago and details are vague. But the main principle I recall clearly.
There is much to be said here about how the Armstrongist idea of theosis is radically different from the Christian concept of theosis and at its root differentiates the Armstrongist god from the Christian god. But that would be a lengthy sidebar.
I think the sacrificed savior of your own planet is a Mormon concept that Waterhouse stole.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, Britton Taylor (now a COGWA pastor) had his mother take care of his daughter and household after his wife split. Once, Waterhouse came to visit our church area - I don't know if he stayed with the Taylors or not, but I remember Vee Taylor (Britt's mother) complaining to a bunch of elite members that she had to wash Waterhouse's clothes - including his underwear - which she described in great detail as being incredibly shit-stained. She actually said "shit" which was really shocking for me to hear from a female church elite. For me, that ingrained image of Waterhouse's filthy undies forever put the man in the proper perspective for me - he's just full of shit.
ReplyDeleteFrom my Sabbath Services Notebook:
ReplyDeleteGerald Waterhouse, November 3, 1974 Special Bible Study Combined Washington, D.C. & Baltimore, Maryland WCG congregations:
Zechariah 4:9 -"The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you. Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong started the Work and is prophesied for him to finish it"
MY COMMENT - The WCG always taught when he was alive that Mr. Armstrong would finish the work. Don't tell the Splinters that there is no need for their corporate work. No need for Thiel, no need for Meredith/Weston; no need for Kubik; no need for Pack; no need for Flurry; no need for Tax cheat Ron Weinland; no need to be tithe slaves any longer!
The Work ended in January, 1986. Armstrong himself proclaimed Matt. 24:14 to have been fulfilled shortly before his death. All these low wattage Splinter Works and HWA wannabees are pissing in the wind only creating an income stream for themselves and their hirelings....because they can't do real work and make a real living in the real world!
Richard
From my Sabbath Services Notebooks - a typical Waterhouse sermon:
ReplyDelete"There will be one standard in the World Tomorrow. Job will re-build the cities. Imperial Schools hope for young people to get a right education. Mr. Norman Smith will be in charge of radio and television. Every thing will be in control.
God names things for what they are. Why is this Church called Philadelphia? Because that is what we need to be.
Why Herbert W. Armstrong? Herbert - Brightness; Armstrong - strong arm in obeying God.
Why Garner Ted Armstrong? Garner - to guard; to gather; guardian; noble in guarding; Ted means 'God's gift'
Why Eugene, Oregon? Eugene means 'good birth'.
Why 12 years before Ambassador College? Because Christ started educating when he was 12.
Why Pasadena? Indian name meaning 'crown city'. Jerusalem will become the crown city of the world.
Why Big Sandy? Means 'helper of men'.
God will take his people to a place of safety for further training. Ambassador College is the College for the future. Ambassador College will control everything - athletics, television, radio, books, etc."
- Gerald Waterhouse July 17, 1971 Baltimore, Maryland WCG Sabbath Services
Richard
ReplyDeleteSo the self aggrandizing HWA taught that he would finish the work. And everyone after him can go eat cake. So forget about warning the world of the coming WW3 cause Herb said so. No Richard, Herbs words are not God's words, and it's only your comment that's pissing in the wind.
BTW, what the ACOGs believe is that HWA finished one phase of the work.
Anonymous 9:12 said, "So the self aggrandizing HWA taught that he would finish the work. And everyone after him can go eat cake. So forget about warning the world of the coming WW3 cause Herb said so. No Richard, Herbs words are not God's words, and it's only your comment that's pissing in the wind.
ReplyDeleteBTW, what the ACOGs believe is that HWA finished one phase of the work."
MY COMMENT - Ouch! Did I touch a nerve or did my piss hit a target? Perhaps you are one of the HWA wannabees who can't do real work and make a real living in the real world?
You must be ignorant to what Herbert Armstrong & the WCG actually taught while he was alive. You call the Father of all the ACOGs "self aggrandizing". There wasn't suppose to be any ACOGs if you were knowledgeable of Armstrongism. The Germans were to attack America in January, 1972, and Christ was to return in 1975. Then, the dates for the Great Tribulation started changing. As Waterhouse said, the Church was to go to a place of safety protected from the Great Tribulation with Armstrong having finished the work. The remaining 50% of the Church not taken to the place of safety were the Laodiceans - no ACOGs during a non Great Tribulation period of decades. There was to be no one after Herbert so there was no cake to be eaten by anyone.
Herb's words are not God's words? If you are an HWA wannabe or ACOG member, then your cult has no validity if you are renouncing Herbert's words. Everyone in WCG believed Herbert was speaking for God because we believed at the time that we were God's very elect - God's Church. The rank line organization was 1) God) 2) Jesus Christ 3) Herbert Armstrong 4) Garner Ted Armstrong and then 5) all the other leading evangelists.
Of course the ACOGs changed what Herbert taught and believe is that HWA finished one phase of the work. How else do they justify their existence and collected money from the tithe slaves?
Armstrong taught that Matt. 24:14 has been fulfilled. My piss was right on target and hit you! Now go get a real job, and stop sponging off the brethren.
Richard
Anonymous 6:32 said, "When I was a kid, Britton Taylor (now a COGWA pastor) had his mother take care of his daughter and household after his wife split."
ReplyDeleteMY COMMENT - I remember Britt and Bonnie Taylor. Mr. Taylor was assigned to Washington D.C. Church and later was given responsibility of the new Hagerstown, Maryland WCG when that local congregation was created. I don't know if it was a coincidence, but the change in the Church's Divorce and Remarriage doctrine occurred around the time Britt and Bonnie divorced.
Richard
Richard: After the divorce, Britt hooked up with a young woman from Hagerstown. I may be a bit off in my memory but I believe she was about thirteen years old when Britt was assigned to Hagerstown. She was still fairly young when they married - I believe they are still married. I was just a kid back then (and knew his new wife from YOU); however, I clearly remember Britt explaining why Bonnie split. He blamed the abuse the young couple suffered while he was a ministerial trainee in DC. Yet, Taylor remains firmly committed to that abusive system.
Delete"There is much to be said here about how the Armstrongist idea of theosis is radically different from the Christian concept of theosis and at its root differentiates the Armstrongist god from the Christian god. But that would be a lengthy sidebar."
ReplyDeleteREALLY?
“God became man that man might become God,” is from the church father Athanasius (ca 298–373),
An interesting site:
https://biblethumpingliberal.com/2011/10/28/god-became-man-that-man-might-become-god/
I had a discussion years ago with a minister about us eventually getting our own planet and doing Adam&Eve 2.0....
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered why, after going through so much to eradicate sin, God would open the door for it's return...
I can't say for certain that I changed his mind, but he gave it considerable thought... and never mentioned it again.
Anonymous (4:45)
ReplyDeleteIn brief: Yes, really.
The Christian doctrine of theosis does not assert that man will become "god as god is god."
The following statement elucidates this:
"Theosis does not mean that they become Gods or merge with God but that they are deified. They participate in the "energies" of God with which he reveals himself to us in creation. But, these Christians are said to not participate in God's essence." (https://carm.org/what-is-theosis)
Similar language can be found widely. So the clear distinction in these two theotic views is this one:
1. Christianity asserts that Christians will participate in God's energies.
2. Armstrongism asserts that Armstrongites will participate in God's essence and energies, hence, "god as god is god."
Or as HWA was fond of saying "God is reproducing himself." (And as John Wayne might say in response: "not hardly.") The Armstrongist belief that they will become god, if you pull the thread, leads to the alarming insight that the Armstrongist god is not the infinite creator god that Christians believe in. Armstrongists believe in what is called a Demiurge in ancient philosophy. If you were to propose to a Christian that he would become "god as god is god," he would find that utterly crazed and nonsensical, if not blasphemous. If you propose the same idea to an Armstrongist, he would find it credible and plausible. This is because Armstrongists worship a much smaller, more limited god than Christians worship.
One famous mentally disturbed crackpot in the church was Gerald Waterhouse.
ReplyDeleteGerald Waterhouse wasn't "mentally disturbed" in the usual sense of that phrase. He was part of a generation of gays and lesbians who grew up with the understanding that they had to hide their perversion from the general public, only exposing themselves in private among their own kind. From that experience, Waterhouse learned how to very naturally keep up a false front, an identity that hid who he really was.
Unlike Herman Hoeh and Raymond McNair, who married to keep their homosexuality hidden and unsuspected, and who may even have been fighting their inner tendencies, Waterhouse came up with the fiction of a previous marriage to which he was bound, which left him free to cruise the gay bars and bathhouses and to participate freely in the gay subculture. He had to be a little more careful around Pasadena, but the role of "traveling evangelist" suited him perfectly for fulfilling his sexual appetites. It is no surprise that, when he retired to Florida, he settled near one of the state's larger gay communities.
Richard
ReplyDeleteBelieve it or not, some Christian folk follow Christ rather than Herb. Like the Bereans, they look to their Bibles rather than Herb. So they agree with some of what Herb taught, but not all. Yes, you did touch a nerve by thinking nothing of warning the world of WW3. It's a grievous sin of omission to not do so. Where's your common sense? Where's your humanity?
PS, I have never been a minister or elder.
NEO, let's see. If you have a son, you are human, your son is human. Is he human as you (human) are human?
ReplyDeleteDoes that make him on the same level as you? You are still the father. No?
You read more into the teaching than what's there, but that's no surprise. For some reason 60 years ago you started attending the WCG. Herbert Armstrong was no one to you. The WCG was nothing to you. You proved something out of the bible.
Then in the early 90's teachings changed. You "knew" that the WCG was "God's church". You "knew" that Tkach was "God's man on earth". You knew that "the ministry" was "God's ministry". So the teachings couldn't be wrong. So even though it was troubling to you, with enough reasoning you made yourself "understand". Most call that "cognitive dissonance".
I've always found it hilarious that people in the WCG from the 60's fell for that.
2Th 2:10 - And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
2Th 2:11 - And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
2Ti 4:4 - And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
Of course you'll deny all of this.
Britton Taylor, is Church Treasurer & Financial Operation Manager for COGWA down in Texas currently.
ReplyDeleteNot so sure about the McNair and Hoeh accusations made above. Hoeh was odd, for sure, and there have been rumors of his collection of nude photography of peoples from around the world and of all ages. (Not porn per se, but more in terms of nudist type stuff). But again, never heard of direct homosexuality about him.
McNair was married twice. He always seemed like a straight arrow, and although not the quickest mind of the bunch, I never have heard any rumor of any gay interests about him, and I have known several people who worked at Pasadena, and near the inner circle for many years.
McNair was married twice. He always seemed like a straight arrow, and although not the quickest mind of the bunch, I never have heard any rumor of any gay interests about him, and I have known several people who worked at Pasadena, and near the inner circle for many years.
ReplyDeleteDidn't the Ambassador Report (not 100% credible but in hindsight VERY good) make mention of McNair's unusual "academic" interest in, and extensive knowledge of, the Greek and Roman systems of pederasty, in which an older man took a growing boy under his wing to mentor him and initiate him into manhood?
I know AR mentioned Hoeh's collection of nude photos which included boys, but I believe the collection was reported also to include pregnant women, so that may be inconclusive.
My guess is that those two were sincerely trying not to be gay, unlike Waterhouse who according to ex-members and non-member friends of members was known to those who frequented bars and bathhouses in the gay communities of Atlanta and some other southeastern cities.
Waterhouse was given exclusive use of HWA’s garage apartment. It was furnished with fine art and expensive furniture. The second Waterhouse hit the campus there was a group of young buff guys surrounding him. It was long known in Pasadena that he was a frequent visitor to gay bars in the Hollywood/West Hollywood area.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, people saw Rod Meredith frequenting the Le Sexxe Shoppe in Old Town Pasadena. It was a place well known for its gay porn and video arcade in the back that was used for gay sex liaisons.
Pasadena also had a notorious gay porn palace that was on Fair Oaks in a huge old theatre. It used to sit on the site that is now Parsons Engineering. Ambassador students and ministers used to be frequently seen in the place.
https://losangelestheatres.blogspot.com/2019/12/oaks-theatre.html
ReplyDeletehttp://cinematreasures.org/theaters/3497
The gay porn theatre in Pasadena frequented by Church of God minister’s and students.
ReplyDeleteIt is disgusting that you people think Mr. Waterhouse and Mr. Meredith had gay tendency’s These were upright men of God used for a purpose. They helped bring many people into the truth. We are forever indebted to there faithfulness. Repent! Your time is short!
Being gay causes physiological changes in men. This includes words being stretched out and bulging eyes. Rod very much had bulging eyes.
ReplyDelete7:05pm for someone making accusations you sure are "in the know" about the California gay scene. Interesting!
ReplyDelete"Repent! Your time is short!"
ReplyDeleteRepent of what? I don't recall pointing out the sins of "the ministry" being the unpardonable sin.
Around 2 percent of men have only sexual attractions toward other men, and another 2 percent have strong same-sex attractions in conflict with their opposite-sex attractions. That's 1 man in 25, so you would expect to find some of this in any large group like the WCG ministry.
ReplyDeleteGay men also tend to favor other gay men, consciously or unconsciously. Herman Hoeh, Raymond McNair, and Rod Meredith were three of the earliest top Radio Church of God leaders. It should be no surprise that the WCG ministry became a haven for effeminate men and even outright homosexuals.
I learned about gays and the scene from commenter guy than decades in wcg.
ReplyDeleteThanks also for the protruding eyes info. Perhaps a hooked nose and more than average affluence also?
Nck
5.21 AM
ReplyDeleteI ask that you don't chase away our informants with your "interesting!" and such.
If you're in an area where the late Baptist preacher Lester Roloff is still on the radio, you can hear a preacher who sounds like he could have been Gerald Waterhouse's brother.
ReplyDeleteBoth from Texas. Both fast-talking and fiery at times.
Hmm, maybe I should open sex shops near these mini-me AC colleges. I'II make a financial killing.
ReplyDelete