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Former racist emerges from the dark Racism wasn't about hate, as one living on the inside of this story as a brainwashed kid.
MONTANA, USA — I was around four years old when my family joined the Worldwide Church of God. It coincided with the Nixon Presidency.
One of my earliest memories is watching a Nixon rally from my dad’s shoulders. The energy of the crowd was supercharged and left a series of posterized moments in my brain. My dad, Bill, was a traveling sales rep for Ralston Purina. He spent long hours on Oklahoma’s flats with a bombastic apocalyptic AM radio preacher as his company. Herbert W. Armstrong was a voice of White Male outrage and certainty, contrasting with uncertainty.
Dark as a child, when he went by another name.
Our identity was racial. This cult is one of several that might be called “British Israelism.” Only the (White) descendants of the British Empire are God’s chosen people and can earn salvation. All other races are not in that club. Everybody else is going to Hell to suffer unimaginable torment.
Read this fascinating story here: Former racist emerges from the dark....Racism wasn't about hate, as one living on the inside of this story as a brainwashed kid.
Author's comments:
When Dark was still in junior high, the family stopped going to church in Tulsa—an hour car trip each way—but it wasn’t until years later he discovered they had been ex-communicated. He later learned the rift coincided with David Robinson’s tell-all book, “Herbert Armstrong’s Tangled Web,” which caused a schism within the church. Robinson had been the pastor of Dark’s family’s church, and because his family was part of Robinson’s flock, they got lumped in among the unwashed.
Robinson’s book painted Armstrong as a charlatan and narcissist, lining his own pockets with donations and caring almost nothing for his acolytes. It didn’t help that Armstrong’s son and heir-apparent, Garner Ted Armstrong, was accused of not only bucking from his father’s orthodoxies but of sexual adventures outside his marriage. One of Robinson’s most shocking accusations in his book is that Armstrong had a longstanding sexual relationship with his daughter.
21 comments:
From Reddit
"There are a number of splinter groups still remaining that have their origins in Armstrong's "teachings." Most are run by councils made up of old white men who were appointed by Armstrong, and have zero marketable skills other than their "management experience" as cult evangelists. Most, if not all, of these splinter groups still cling to a cornerstone belief in British Israelism (aka Anglo-Israelism) which informs their adherence to a Saturday sabbath and many other Old Testament laws governing food, holy days, etc., which mirror Judaic law. They also continue to tear families apart and pit family members against each other. Armstrong claimed to be God's apostle on earth so of course, any other belief or religion was automatically moot. He made hundreds of prophetic predictions over the years, none of which actually occurred. Many people were so sure the world would end in the 70s, they sold their homes and all of their belongings.
Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God was also extremely racist. I remember quite a bit of pulpit-pounding espousing the notion that the world was made up of three races: white, yellow, and black, and that God's intention was that the races should never mix. I don't know where brown people fit into this peculiar view of the world; they were never mentioned. Armstrong banned interracial dancing, dating, and marriage. I saw biracial children being made to choose which race they would identify with. I attended youth dances where minority individuals were not allowed to participate, simply because there was "no one for them to dance with." This racism occurred not only during the early days of Armstrongism, but also well into the late 80s and early 90s, up until the time the church was dismantled.
These are just a few memories. The Worldwide Church of God was a fundamentalist cult, Herbert W. Armstrong was a false prophet, and all of the current offshoots that cling to a cornerstone belief in British Israelism, are cults as well."
The RCG is racist. My former ‘minister’ told me ‘not to mingle with the colored members’. According to him I should be friendly but keep my distance..
This was two years ago, shortly before I left. Also a young woman of mixed race in our congregation was told that she was not allowed to start a relationship with one of the white males, because she ‘looked to much as a person of colour’.
And a mixed race couple, that got married long before they came into the RCG was advised to ‘have a good look at their union’..
Racism is still very much alive today in the COG’s, although they will never flat out tell you!
The entire narrative & theory of "Church Government" is a satanic false doctrine that unfortunately most of the ACOGs have participated in. Christ admonished the disciples not to be dictators like the rulers of this world, but that is conveniently ignored. Much like you see where communist governments have tolerated no dissent & worshiped themselves, so to have many of the ACOGs. Today, you still see false apostles such as Flurry and Pack proclaim themselves as God's chosen vessel and claim that only their group as the "Philadelphia Church" while causing great harm and personal destruction to the families that attend.
eh, same old story....kid not called, resents having to attend Church services, rebels and goes his own way as soon as possible.....later in life feels a need to hit back, so writes a piece to make himself feel better about his choices.
I wasn't happy with the authors claim that the church taught that only the white descendants of the British empire can earn salvation. That was never a church teaching. And it's plainly contradicted in the book of Acts.
There's enough wrong with Armstrongism without having to misrepresent it.
I feel so sorry for the children of church members. It takes a lifetime to undo the mental damage caused by the churchs' toxic culture.
There's enough wrong with Armstrongism without having to misrepresent it.
Yes, there's plenty! When a COG leader exposes the false statements, he discredits the source; then even true statements are ignored.
It looks like Anon 513 stereotypes non-conforming church kids as seething with animosity looking for a way to avenge unwilling exposure. Feel better about his choices? Like being happy that he didn't join a repressive cult? What was he thinking!
It appears that in all human activity, that it evolves into "tribalism". It can even be things as simple as the local softball team, or any sort of social club.
In the WCG, there were many tribes. Examples-- AC Grad vs Non AC Grad. Women vs Men. Ordained vs Not Ordained, White vs Non White, Israelite vs Assyrian , Monied vs Poor, Attractive vs Unattractive, Married vs Single, Young vs Old, and many , many, more.
Within each tribe there was a pecking order too. Everyone jostling for their "status" within their tribe. With time, nearly everyone at every level of these tribes gets tired of the game. Or... the game changes, and the participants and competitors are not even to be found anymore. You wake up one day and you realize that you wasted a hell of a lot of your life trying to earn respect from people who never gave a darn about you in the first place, and that all of us were playing a bizarre form of musical chairs! All is vanity!
So, like the gentleman in the story, you go thru your own Solomon like reflection of the meaning of life, (as found in the book of Ecclesiastes). For me, it is self evident that there is a God and I am not it. The 10 commandments are immutable standard bearer posts of the mind of God. Love and serve him, and love your neighbor and serve them too. Jesus' sacrifice redeems me from my sins.
Ecclesiastes also says to love the woman of your youth, and to enjoy the work of your hands, as both being about as "good as it gets" in this life of entropy and futileness. In some round about away, it appears that the subject of the post found some type of similar realizations.
Splinterists would argue that they are not racist but Biblical. But when Christ returns and he is 5'1", weights 110 pounds and looks like Carlos Santana, they are going to freak. It will probably put some of them in the hospital. And they will reconsider if they really want to be Christians. Especially some of the people that hang out around Big Sandy.
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I understand that the acceptance for taking the vaccine for black americans is extremely low, taking into account the medical experiments the govermment did on black people. For instance tuskogee.
And I am EXACTLY on topic.
Nck
Tonto's observations about tribalism and their inherent hierarchical nature, are full of insight. The hierarchy is a way to distribute scarce resources; Alphas get first pick, and others take their turn. The arrangement works all right when times are good. In times of scarcity the lowest-ranked members starve.
Some anthropologists have pointed out that the maximum size for a stable village or a cohesive nomadic group is about 150 individuals. More than that, and the internal struggles for command of resources via dominance cause the group to split up. Any larger group--a city or other sort of association made up of such groups will develop a hierarchy among the leaders of those groups that mimics the structure of a "village." The alphas command even more resources and the taus and omegas get even more deprived. When the nested hierarchies get to the size of a nation or a major corporation, the structure destabilizes and breaks into smaller units. Apparently, no government system can maintain stability indefinitely. Like living organisms, social and political systems are born to collapse and die.
Tonto,
"Tribalism" is often stirred up, encouraged and inflamed by the ministry who simply want certain people out.
No better way than to have "group bullying" going on.
Same old, same old, woke whities married to whities, with all non interracial families, outraged that other whities aren't in interracial marriages.
NEO
Christ can choose his height and body type, so why would He choose to be 5'1" and weigh 100 pounds. That's one of the stupidest things I've heard in my life.
So Christ sits on a magnificent throne today, but will return as a midget.
Are you vertically challenged yourself?
5:00 Yeah christ looked like the blue eyed viking from my wasp biblical literature. Not someone who would get away in a crowd. Its in the bible, where Jude says to the Roman soldiers, its the tall blue eyed guy with the long blonde flowing soft hair..... Look it up.
Nck
Nck
He, ha, ha.
No. We are discussing Christs appearance future tense, not past tense.
Oh, I'm sorry.
In the Kingdom I might alternate between great wariors like Chris Hemsworth and Moshe Dayan. As long as I get to court Queen Amidala.
Nck
Anonymous (5:10)
Physical anthropologists tell us that the average Jew in first century Palestine was 5'1" and weighed 110 pounds. Jesus seems to have been unremarkable in his physical appearance. He had to be pointed out in the Garden of Gethsemane. So it is highly likely that he was around average of his peer group.
Why would he not want to appear as he did in the flesh on this earth? Jesus was bodily resurrected. What body was it? He chided people for judging based on appearance. How he looks in the spirit realm may differ. Who knows? He is not a human being where his power corelates with is musculature. This is a Paleolithic hominid viewpoint.
I am over six feet tall and weigh about 190 pounds. Before I adopted a more rigorous exercise plan, I weighed 235 pounds.
I am getting the distinct impression that you are bigoted against small people. I think that you are one of the people who will freak when you see Christ for the first time. My guess is that if we asked you what you wanted Christ to look like, it would be a tall British-looking guy with fine features and sandy colored hair and watery blue eyes. What you decidedly don't want to see is a first century Middle Eastern Jew. But Jesus can look like he wants to look. He doesn't have to play to you biases.
Back to your word "stupid". . .
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Jesus can appear however He likes. After His resurrection Mary thought He was a gardener and so didn’t recognize Him until He said her name. Later He appeared in another form to the 2 disciples traveling to Emmaus who didn’t recognize Him until He blessed and broke bread with them and then instantly disappeared. For me this interdimensional quality to His resurrected state highlights how He can change His appearance to conform to whatever He imagines. It also supports my personal belief that aliens, UFOs, cryptids, ghosts, and other supernatural phenomena are of an interdimensional nature too.
Anonymous (4:20)
I hope for all the White bigots he will appear permanently as a short, over weight, middle aged Black woman. After all, nobody has any trouble with him appearing as a White man permanently to all the Black bigots.
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Feb. 21 at 4:20 AM declares Jesus "can change His appearance to conform to whatever He imagines."
That is to say he is a shape-shifter god, with the same talent as the norse Loki, who transformed himself into a mare on one occasion and a salmon on another, or Nanabozho from indigenous culture of the Great Lakes region, who changed, for example, into a stump to escape detection, or Zeus, who became a swan to seduce Leda and a Bull to make it with Europa, to name only a few. And of course there's his father, the god of Israel, who shape-shifted to a cloud in the daytime and a pillar of fire by night to lead Israel around in the desert for forty years.
Probably this feature attributed to Jesus is not specifically a borrowing from Paganism so much as merely the manifestation of one pattern human beings fall into when we make up stories to explain the mysteries of life. Folklorists call such a story element a *motif*.
NEO
In all honesty a question to people of "native" and or black descent................Who of you did imagine God to be a white bearded man?
nck
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