From a reader and one of his members:
As for the Continuing Church Of god and its leaders' credibility and counseling abilities, as a longtime COG member and a believer (in general terms), I did attend with them. I saw their people and their increasingly fixated and marginal work such as it really is. What of one of their foremost leaders, Richard Close? Years ago Richard was ordered to divorce his wife because his church minister--forcing some church policy--said he had to divorce her if he wanted to be a baptized church member. So, snap like that, he divorced his wife. Richard Close, now a leader in CCOG, chose to put his corporate minister's orders above the Bible's command in Matthew 19:6 which says: "So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must never separate." He put a minister's word above God's holy Word. some years later when the church's policy on d&r changed, Richard Close's minister gave him his permission to remarry his ex-wife. So, he did. This is not simplistically just a case of love having won out. It is an avoidable, tragic example of a man caving into ministerial hegemony--spiritual bullying-- as the so-called "government of God" having been placed above God himself and God's holy Words. If Richard Close had not been given ministerial permission to remarry his ex-wife, he would not have remarried her. what kind of a COG leader is this? ( Like the plodding, dutiful, and obedient Boxer from Animal Farm.) this is not railing and nastily throwing someone's mistakes at them in a mean-spirited way. For, nothing, in essence, has changed. Consider the implications of such men in church "over" God's laypeople. LCG and other churches are really no different.
I could write of more ... for instance of the CCOG leader I know well who petulantly hacked another COG member's e-mail account and put a trace on it, and taunted him, because he was sore at the member.
Aside from their
superficial, fizzling claim to continue the teachings shown by god
through Mr. Armstrong and doing "the Philadelphia work", how do these
CCOG leaders show Jesus to others? If some read this, perhaps they can
explain and help us to understand.
What's on that animal's head?
ReplyDeleteIs it a horn and ears or a dick and balls?
Speaking of dick, I've known Richard Close for decades and he has always gone by the name Dick.
I bet the doubly b-blessed Bobus insists that Dick use the name Richard, so that the members don't get them confused.
Actually, Dick Close has always been a decent man. However, it was quite the scandal when Dennis Deihl ordained Dick and his wife to the order of deacon and deconess because of the behind the scenes behavior.
Dick was a country mechanic who liked racing. As earnest as Dick was, in no way was he qualified to be a counselor.
Richard Close was ordained in the 60s in the WCG.
DeleteTake everything you hear here with a grain of salt. Please.
DeleteDick Close's wife situation was much more complicated then what the post described - it had to be one of the most convoluted messses in the COG history of interfering with peoples' marriages.
ReplyDeleteA ccog leader put a trace on a cog members email account ????
ReplyDeleteHow pathetic.
Sounds like what is going on in the RCG.. I could (sadly enough) give a bunch of similar examples.
ReplyDeleteAll the COG’s are the same. A nice, friendly slick facade, but underneath it is lies, bullying and destroying people’s relationships. For the COG ministers it is a power game.
True 11:07.
DeleteIt never ceases to amaze me, that so many people still think the COGs have anything to do with religion or Christianity. All the COG leaders (not only Pack, Flurry or Thiel) and their ministers are in it for the power and the money. That is their God.
ReplyDeleteAny good ones, the ministers that were genuine about their beliefs, found that out the hard way and left. The same goes for COG members that leave.
God can’t be found in tithing or listening to ministers ranting for hours during sabbath services. And God most certainly can’t be found by allowing ministers to break up families and marriages. If you allow a minister to do something horrific like that, you are weak and bowing your head for evil.
In religious terms: you are not walking with God, but instead you are in bed with the devil.
ReplyDeleteNo problem:
I see a Safari-hat in the distance -- it's chief CCOG troubleshooter Bwana-Bob
Typical cog. They are like a bunch of socialists sheeple that allow others to control and dictate their lives for them because they don't have the balls to do so themselves.
ReplyDeleteWeak, double minded men and women that are followers of men instead of God.
in it for the power and the money
ReplyDeleteI'd say "power and/or money". Some only want money, some only want power (control).
With Bob, I'd say he's in it for recognition.
"Dick Close's wife situation was much more complicated then what the post described - it had to be one of the most convoluted messses in the COG history of interfering with peoples' marriages."
ReplyDeleteYes, agreed, sadly so. Tragically, Dick (who in a neighborly sense is a salt of the earth type guy) is by far not the only one who was both victim and participant in terible things done to them in the name of "church government". the point here is that nothing has been learned by these latter end leaders and the men before them. Nothing has changed. The things done to those like Dick close by others are now being done By them To others.
Not only Steve Dupuie reaching emotionalistically for inner security CCOG-based and validation. We see Sasha Beljic posturing for CCOG recognition by mechanically posting article after article so that everyone can just agree and feel good, but not be permitted to think, discuss and learn.
Hey, if submitting your life to some distant self appointed megalomaniac, being a yellow pencil, and having faith in some fallible human, with a degree from the University of Mongolia (or even Ambassadroid College) is what you need to fill some hole in your life, then have it. If you feel that you have to pay indulgences, "protection money", franchise fees, and monetary penances, then Booby is a perfect fit for you, and if not , there is a whole catalog of pretenders for you to choose from.
ReplyDeleteThankfully, the "Real Jesus" is none of those things.
6.39 AM
ReplyDeleteSo true. A high percentage of members fail to make the jump to mental independence. And like crabs in a bucket, they drag down those trying to make the transition.
This is often the motivation of those who snitch on members, hoping that the minister will put them under his thumb. It's a symbiotic relationship between envious members and their power crazed minister.
It’s almost heartbreaking to see how COG members will snitch on friends, and at the same time defend their ministers for attacking and bullying these friends (and sometimes family members).
DeleteWhat are they thinking when they do that?? Does it make them feel good? Do they think they earn brownie points with God? Or is maybe fear based?
As Dennis is on the road right now he asked for this response be made in regards to the 7:17 am at the beginning of this thread:
ReplyDelete(Publish this as my on the road response)
"By the time I met Dick and Collene they had been remarried a long time already. Very helpful folk. There was no counseling of others in being deacon and deaconess. Just helping out. Dick was good with helping widow types and willing with mechanical and wood cutting type projects to just help. He also was self employed snd could. I knew of nothing "behind the scenes behavior". Collene was the classic helpful to all when i knew them both. There was nothing "political" or personal in ordaining them. I don't and didn't think like that.
PS I never once told a couple to separate no matter past marriages. I did not see WCGs or the scriptures on it, which were there, as anything but opinion,ambiguous and subject to interpretation. I could not ask such a thing from anyone no matter the teaching
I never knew them as anything but a married couple or previous circumstances
PS. If it was a "scandal" to ordain them, i would have been unaware of that and of course no one mentioned it to me ever until this post.
ReplyDeleteI was in this church area when Close and his wife was made deacon and deaconess. They deserved it. They were always more than helpful with the brethren. No one that I knew was "aghast" by it.
ReplyDeleteWhat the previous minister and the WCG HQ did to this man was disgusting in breaking up his first marriage.
...lo these 35 years on. And too, understand the NT promotes the concept of adultery being the result if one remarries etc. Huge controversial topic NT topic. "Divorce and Remarriage" by Guy L Duty cleared it up in the '80s nicely for me. Churches don't make this up to harm people. It us a function of their zealous or overzealous need to "obey God" (whose fault this all really is:) as they read scriptures most "Churchianity" types gave up on understanding long ago due to the implications and heartache implied
ReplyDeletezealous or overzealous need to "obey God" (whose fault this all really is
ReplyDeleteDennis,
To whom was God married when He got Mary pregnant?
Either God sinned and the rest of Christianity falls apart, or most of Christianity is trying to uphold a sexual ethic that bears no resemblance to God's actual standard.
I have known Steve Dupuie for years, He is a theological and intellectual lightweight. If he can bully and bluff his way out of any discussion he will, especially if it is one he has been exposed as being ignorant on, like the Bible. He has turned into Thiel's lap poodle and promotes Thiel's fake intellectualism as fact.
ReplyDeleteTake everything you hear here with a grain of salt. Please.
ReplyDeleteTHIS. This site is ALMOST as unreliable as Cogwriter.com or CCOG.org.
"Take everything you hear here with a grain of salt. Please."
ReplyDeleteSure thing Bobus! You are God's doubly blessed head of the one true church in the end times and incapable of doing anything wrong.
It's not our fault you hired questionable people to be your ministers and that you continue to get scammed by your African followers. You are the BEST!
1108. I agree. Bible God fornicated with an underage teen as goes the stir. y. She was actually pregnant "by the holy spirit" so if the HS is also a person well you know. Good news! Never literally happened 😁
ReplyDeleteQuestion: I've wondered if Deacons had access to the (controversial)'Member Files'?
ReplyDeleteWho did have access(besides mimisters, key HQ personnel?)
Dennis, you wrote "Good news! Never literally happened"
ReplyDeleteAh, I think maybe everyone who reads this thinks the same thing: How do you know?
Your quirky observation about fornication makes me think you're already on a "novel" wavelength.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteQuestion: I've wondered if Deacons had access to the (controversial)'Member Files'?
Who did have access(besides ministers, key HQ personnel?)
-----------------
No, not in my world at least. I got on the outs with the deacons of the previous minister I replaced for NOT taking them on personal visits where they'd hear their church friends personal issues they may have wanted to talk to myself about. The previous minister, now a head of a splinter told them everything and they resented my not including them in private stuff. Member visit cards were simply to keep track of number of monthly visits and maybe a map drawn to find them.
NEO, There is nothing quirky about the simple observation that if the birth stories are taken literally, the genealogies are moot , neither Luke nor Matthew read the other's tale, both stories were inserted to fight the belief that Jesus was "born of fornication" and a bastard if the Caesars can be born as gods, so can Jesus who is King of Kings. The story is cobbled together from OT scriptures which is why it seems the OT predicted Jesus birth. They didn't and had nothing to do with any Jesus 700 years later. I have explained all this any number of times. By any view, the definition of "fornication" is an unmarried woman having sex with an unmarried man, or god, much less pregnant by him or it.
Higher theological criticism doesn't tolerate the faith restrictions literalists have but that raise serious questions about the story.
Dennis wrote:
ReplyDelete"I got on the outs with the deacons of the previous minister I replaced for NOT taking them on personal visits where they'd hear their church friends personal issues they may have wanted to talk to myself about. The previous minister, now a head of a splinter told them everything and they resented my not including them in private stuff."
That previous minister - now a big shot in COGWA had several loyal followers who reported back to him all the things that Dennis did. Ordaining Mr. & Mrs. Close was a huge scandal for that crew. I won't give the details because I'm not sure that it is fair to the Close family - despite what Dick is now involved with.
I wonder if Bobus made Dick get re-ordained - since Dennis did the original ceremony?
The sad marriage meddling story for Dick of Bobus was before Dennis.
ReplyDeleteIt hurt at least six kids - two wifes involved and three husbands.
That count includes the current Mr. & Mrs. Close - who I think are still together despite taking separate COG paths.
Not sure how well Anonymous of November 30, 2020 at 10:41 AM knew the Closes; he wrote:
ReplyDelete"What the previous minister and the WCG HQ did to this man was disgusting in breaking up his first marriage."
The evil WCG minister that broke up the marriage actually broke up Dick's second marriage in the early 70's or late 60's - and that was not the minister previous to Dennis. That break up resulted in at least one other divorce (maybe two) before the "church" decided Dick and wife number 2 could re-marry - which they did.
Not sure how well Anonymous of November 30, 2020 at 11:29 AM; he wrote:
"Richard Close was ordained in the 60s in the WCG."
Dennis ordained the Closes in the early 90's or late 80's.
Dennis, you wrote: "There is nothing quirky about the simple observation . . ."
ReplyDeleteThe Incarnation was a miracle. To empty it of its miraculous nature and resort to materialistic explanations is what one would expect of a materialist. No surprise there. But to posit is not to validate, for either materialist or theist. But this dissension is embedded in the larger, more encompassing debate between materialist and theist. In that debate materialists clearly lose. No explanation for metaphysical issues, for ontology can be more inadequate than materialism. It is deficient not only in its centrality but in its derivations, implications and ramifications. The idea that materialism begins with material provides some notion of its truncated philosophical scope. So why would anyone apply a "materialist exegesis" to the Bible? Does finitude dance with infinitude?
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"That previous minister - now a big shot in COGWA had several loyal followers who reported back to him all the things that Dennis did. Ordaining Mr. & Mrs. Close was a huge scandal for that crew. I won't give the details because I'm not sure that it is fair to the Close family - despite what Dick is now involved with."
ReplyDelete=================
Wow....really? I had the loyalists in Greenville reporting to Gerald Weston who I replaced and then a couple of deacons reporting to my RD when I was not interested attending Promise Keepers and not promoting the Tkach edition of WCG. Learning new things about the churches I pastored all these years later! lol. It was the Tkach Regional Director who was told to point out to me that "We think you know a lot about Jesus..", meaning the origins and problems with the Gospels as well as Paul's roll in it all, "...but we don't think you know Jesus." They were right. I wasn't interested in the new and improved Jesus of the Tkach era. I grew up with that one. A reinvented wheel was not in my belief future. Neither was I going to a splinter. One round of WCG was quite enough for me. In hindsight, I also was "not converted" in any classic sense being in WCG, even as a pastor. I never fit the role well in hindsight. At the time, you could not have talked me out of it until I came to my own conclusions and then talked myself out of it.
Anon 633. See, I didn't even know those details. I knew most of the kids and liked them all no matter the drama.
How many more ordained are the same as Dennis C Dhiel, but they did go to a splinter?
ReplyDeleteWhoever wrote that about Dr. Thiel, Richard, Steve, and Warren, I hope you don't fall into God's hands when He is angry. Pastor Bob Thiel preaches what the Bible says and doesn't hold anything back. God is definitely working through him and make no mistake about it, GOD IS BOSS IN ALL OF THIS...I hope y'all keep that in mind.
ReplyDelete"The previous minister, now a head of a splinter told them [Deacons] everything"
ReplyDeleteWell, anyway, Ministers' wives have access to the (controversial)Member Files, and, do they not talk, over coffee, to Deacons' wives?
With wimpy Bob in charge it's probably easy for COGunterleaders to run amok. What kind of disciplinary action could Bob take without the fear of creating another subsplinter and losing his non-African members?
ReplyDeleteWell, anyway, Ministers' wives have access to the (controversial)Member Files, and, do they not talk, over coffee, to Deacons' wives?
ReplyDeleteSheryl Meredith was known for this, and even worked in Global's office for a while where she would look up member records "for her husband" because "he's not good with computers." Unfortunately, Sheryl had a mouth like a computer virus and would spread vile gossip to all of her favorite friends.
Nothing new there.. Still going on in most of the COGs
Delete"[minister's wife].. would spread ..[Member File] gossip to all of her favorite friends."
ReplyDeleteWow. I suffered under similar situation - but not as much as the perps eventualy suffered!
To the person who started this untrue and scathing blog above: First and foremost, it is evident that you are not christian. Secondly,I am quite sure I know who you are. Because I think I know who you are, I know that you are a deeply bitter and troubled person, and have been all of your life. You have always come across as needing to inflict emotional harm on others, due to life long emotional and other problems of your own. You want to "lead" others and have your own "following". You want your 15 minutes of fame, yet you are to much of a coward to use your name. Why? If what you are saying and accusing others of is true, why not use your name? Why are you even posting this stuff? Because you want to inflict harm? You couldn't have any other reason than that. I see that you have some followers. You are like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. You try to get everyone to follow "you", and we know how that story ended. Get yourself some professional help please. Try God.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost if you had any brains in our head you would see that the people who run this blog are known by their names. Even your little man-boy limp wristed hands waving leader knows that. Your leader, Bob the magnificent, has self appointed himself as a splinter cult leader of Armstrongism. Rod Meredith rejected him and so Bob in one of his many well know fits of anger set off on his own to draw in LCG members to his group. Luckily, NO ONE from LCG joined up with him. Bob is a failure and a liar. His dreams are fake, his ordinations are fake, his double blessing is a lie that was never meant to set him apart to lead a COG. He is not a trained theologian and just plagiarizes his teachings from Herbie Armstrong and Rod Meredith. Bob does not have an original thought in his enormous head.
Get yourself some professional help and leave this stinking turd behind and return to the true Jesus instead of the whiney petulant pissed off god Bob wants you to follow.
If "I" had any brains?? You seem to be the low I.Q. person on this page. There is NO name for the person who started the above blog on this page. Do you know what that means? It means that there is no name for the person who started the above blog on this page. Do you need it explained again?
DeleteBeyond that, you appear to be another attention seeker on this site. This entire website is full of people just like you - which could truthfully be described as a legion of very lost and bitter people.
12:13 am
ReplyDeleteApparently, you do not have any brains since it has taken you four years to respond to this. The blog owner and other contributors are well-known here. Do you need someone to hold our little hands and show you where the names are?
Who are people like me? No one heer is bitter. How can we be bitter when the Church of God is filled with such foolish leaders who say and do absolutely stupid things? Every day a new idiot is making a fool of himself...just like you