Joel Hilliker has a funny little tidbit up on PCG's The Trumpet website about a new book he has written, Biblical Manhood: God-Given Roles For Men.
Joel writes:
What does it mean to be a man? In a society of same-sex “marriages” and transgender bathrooms, the answer to this question has never been more confusing. This generation has challenged, castigated and changed virtually everything that has defined manhood throughout human history. Biblical Manhood gets back to the basics.
Why would any man in the Church of God look towards their leadership for instructions on how to be a man, especially given how pathetic the leadership of the COG has been as examples of Biblical manhood? From adultery, wife swapping, pedophilia, stalking, sexual harassment, gay orgies, and much much more, WHY would anyone, particularly men look at the COG leadership and ministry as virtuous examples of masculine standards? Oh wait! those are examples of Biblical men!
Since most of these guys cannot practice Biblical Christianity why should we expect them to be standard-bearers of Biblical manhood?
Hilliker also says,
In a world of ambiguity, this book gives clarity. In a society overflowing with questions, this book supplies answers. It relies on the ultimate Source in pursuit of an enduring, reliable, rock-solid definition of what it means to be a man.
Why is it that self-appointed COG prophets and apostles and know-it-all always have to have the answer to everything? No one ever has a more perfect answer to societal "questions" than COG leaders. Considering how most of them reject a lot of what scripture says and redefine it to suit their mind-wanderings, why should we look to them for a "rock-solid" definition of what a man is?
Looking at certain COG leaders over the decades, particularly those in PCG and LCG, those that tooted the "true masculinity" horn were usually men with self-confidence and sexual identity issues. The more hyper-masculine they tried to appear, the sillier the character they created looked to everyone.
You too can recover your manhood by reading Hilliker's book here.
What??????? This is from Joel Hilliker? Yep, there is a TRUE man if there ever was one. LMAO
ReplyDeleteImagine Joel growing a real beard and looking like the man in the illustration.
Beards in PCG serve many purposes and no necessarily the kind that grows on a man's face.
Does this mean I have to cut my man bun off now?
ReplyDeleteJoel is lecturing me on how to be a real man? Seriously dude? You are the LAST person that needs to be telling me that. THE LAST!
ReplyDeleteTalk about long-winded! Fortunately, one doesn't have to wade through all of Hilliker's dribble to emerge on the other side feeling like you've wasted your time. Hilliker sticks to the Armstrong formula that everything can be summarized in seven principles. He lists the God given roles for men as: "Man of God • Leader • Provider • Protector • Husband • Father • Builder." Really?
ReplyDeleteWhat about a man as a creator, explorer, teacher, nurturer, healer or caregiver? What about a man as a son, brother or grandfather? Isn't a man capable of fulfilling many different roles? Are men capable of performing roles normally associated with the female gender? OR Is it never appropriate for men to slip into those other roles? For instance, is a man capable of cooking or cleaning?
And, if Jesus Christ is to truly be our ideal model of manhood, then aren't some of Hilliker's paternalistic notions outdated and made irrelevant by Christ's example? Based on the example of Jesus Christ, is it appropriate for men to lord it over their households? Is it OK for men to be affectionate, kind, compassionate and merciful? Is it always inappropriate for men to learn from women? And, if it is, why did Paul instruct Timothy to remember what his mother and grandmother had taught him?
Finally, why must we accept 2,000 year old cultural standards relative to dress and hair length? Would First Century attire and hygiene be acceptable in Philadelphia Church of God services in 2021? Hmmmmm, maybe Mr. Hilliker should give this subject just a little more thought?
I am going to order this book for Bob Thiel.
ReplyDeletePicture on the cover of the booklet looks like a guy having "ROID RAGE".
ReplyDeleteSPOILER: "Biblical Manhood" includes the very strange concept of becoming completely feminized and submissive in dealings with your ACOG minister.
ReplyDeleteYES!!! 100% correct.
DeleteThis is exactly what they do to men. It’s sickening. The ones who master this, and become sycophants are the ones who then get some of those coveted duties thrown at them and if they are real good, then they get to be deacons and ministers. Woohoo!
But for the unfortunate few who hang on to a bit of their own thinking and are a little tougher to manipulate (latest example: Jim Cocomise) then they immediately get fired and or suspended. (Brian Davis can not bare to to in the presence of someone whom he can’t mesmerise and control.)
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DeleteWhat a sick joke. Manhood is banned in the ACOGs. Ministers expect their members to be docile Borg drones. This is like the common experience of a minister signaling to a member to switch off their mind and blindly believe what they are told, when it suits them. Switch-on/switch-off masculinity is a mental perversion.
ReplyDeleteMembers are expected to turn themselves into pretzels to accommodate all the short cuts and perks that the ministers give themselves. The ministers are bastards.
I Samuel 18:27 Bible Man!
ReplyDeleteNew International Version
David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king's son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage.
Genesis 19:4-8 Bible Man!
4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. 5 And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” 6 Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8 Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please
John 2:4 Bible Man!
3And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. 4Jesus saith unto her, Woman, (Umm excuse me? I'm your mom!) what have I to do with thee?
Mark 3:21 Bible Man!
When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."
31 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?”
Ezekiel 23:20 BIBLE MEN! OOOOHRA! BIBLE MAN!
She lusted after lovers with genitals as large as a donkey’s and emissions like those of a horse.
I heard Flurry fired Cocomise. What’s the latest in that?
ReplyDeleteBrian Davis with flurry’s approval of course but Brian’s been trying to get rid of Jim Cocomise for years. He had to do it carefully thought because Jim has $$$ that flurry wants.
DeleteGareth Fraser another canned independent thinker. Hopefully those guys don’t remain prisoners for too long.
DeleteWas his departure in connection with the failed prophecy about Trump remaining president?
DeleteNo, he was to difficult to control
DeleteThe church of god has done nothing but emasculate men for decades. They start the process in spokesman club where they belittle men and then move on to make men castrated followers of pastor generals, chief overseers, apostles, prophets, and tyrants in charge of COG's.
ReplyDeleteHilliker can stick his book up his effeminate ass!
I have a fundamental problem with books of this type. If you get a Christian book catalog, it will be replete with self-help books. And they seem to emphasize working your way to a good outcome. Like Baron von Munchausen.
ReplyDeleteGrace seems not to have a place at the table. Instead there are all kinds of behaviors you are supposed to engage in, steps you are supposed to execute. None of this stuff will work without grace. In fact, in some cases all the behaviors and process steps can be dispensed with if there is grace. Being a good man is a matter of the grace of God, not just works. Having a good marriage is a matter of the grace of God, not just works.
Organizations that do not have a well defined Doctrine of Grace and are hung up on justification by works will go crazy with this stuff. It's like sending an alcoholic into a tavern.
Note: Dennis, I do not see David and Lot as examples in all things. The Biblical landscape is not populated with the exemplary in all dimensions. There are men with good points and bad points. Christians will look for the good points and atheists will look for the bad points. And this means that the Bible ideal of manhood will be a composite of many different men with their bad traits swept aside. And how they deal with their bad traits is probably the most interesting part. We can all find ourselves there. Hence, this composite will be an unobtainable ideal, a real stretch goal. And I find your references to Jesus without merit.
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LOL! The title and illustration reminded me of this scene from Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" film (0:54-1:13)! Ha ha ha! :-p
ReplyDeleteThat picture is wrong! There are NO alpha males in PCG. More like dancing carob boys.
ReplyDeleteNEO
ReplyDeleteI often heard cheap swipes at self help books while I attended services. In my experience, they were motivated by envy or a hostility towards the correction that books offered.
Would you like to give a practical example of how grace trumps or complements steps described in self help books?
This book has been in PSF only for years. And why is it getting a hard copy version? Flurry's appeasement gift to Joel who's still in lockstep with ThatFALSEProphet! Flurry has got to buy loyalty where he dan still get them.
ReplyDeleteDwindle, dwindle, dwindle.
During my time in Worldwide and most of the spinoffs, if you showed any independence or wasn't a pushover, you were looked at as a troublemaker and usually were marked and kicked out. I would discount any thing these hirelings write as being " a real man." Almost none of them have worked a real job.
ReplyDeleteGareth Fraser was canned? When and how did that happen. I dont remember reading that here in Banned or ESN. In his sermons he's always been a Flurry suckup. What couldve happened?
ReplyDeleteFraser clan kalltgestellt by the mcdonalds clan.......??? Scotish border skirmishes under Irish fuhrung. Need some Sassenachs to clear the mess?
DeleteNck
A little over a year ago. Brian Davis demoted him then finally got him fired. Had something to do with his son getting Marked also.
DeleteDisgusting considering Fraser was the worst, power tripping, strict, rod of iron minister in that church. And now he's gone. The lies, hypocrisy and deceit, I'd have to fight back the urge to punch him in the face if I ever saw him.
DeleteAnonymous (12:49)
ReplyDeleteThat would be a several page essay and I can't take the time nor does it fit into the blog format. Let me just just offer a counterpoint question. Is it possible to acquire salvation by your own efforts? If you can understand the implications of this question, you can understand what I said about self-help books. If you can't understand this, I would be wasting my time trying to convert you to Christianity. My guess is that the view I am expressing is based on a much different line of reasoning from what you heard at "services."
Self-help books do contain, sometimes, a humanistic wisdom. Most humans possess a recognition of a natural morality that can be the wellspring for positive change. Being a "good man" means something that has certain, generally recognized specifications. But the world is what it is today because of the humanistic self-help philosophy. Each person seeks The Good as he defines it and in his own way.
Being a good man as defined by the Bible starts with and is sustained with engagement with God and not with following someone's rendition of humanistic wisdom - even if the examples used come from the Bible. Grace brings about a different end product than humanism alone. My point was that organizations that believe in "performance religion" love this kind of self-help approach. It fits into their graceless do-it-yourself philosophy and expands their idiosyncratic torah. It doesn't help people, it just leads to more judgmentalism, more Phariseeism.
If this explanation does not connect with you at all, there are no doubt some fundamental differences between your viewpoint and the Christian viewpoint. For instance, in the realm of atheistic materialism, there is nothing but self-help. We may be at different poles.
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It appears that Gareth Fraser is no longer employed by PCG. Here is his linked in site:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/gareth-fraser-26b097196/
Man talk about padding a resume, his is insane.
Delete
ReplyDeleteREAL BIBLICAL MANHOOD means REJECTING Satan's false prophets like Gerald Flurry and David Pack.
If you follow one of these satanic imposters, then you are not a Real Biblical Man. In fact, you are probably an Emasculated Mouse.
NEO
ReplyDeletePsalm 1:2 "Blessed is he that meditates on Gods law day and night.."
This is an example of self help. To program or reprogram the human mind, energy must be put into it. Church literature and sermons are constantly brainwashing their members, yet you seem to ignore this reality. What do you think education is other than self help? What do you think learning skills such as job skills, sporting skills, music skills etc is other than self help? Do you know that it takes 10 to 20 thousand hours of practise to master a musical instrument? People use to die in their 50s and 60s at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today with advancements in medicine, people commonly live into their seventies and eighties. All through self help.
Self help in inherent in the parable of the talents. The evidence is so in your face that only deliberate evasion can explain your point of view.
Btw, your computer, smartphone and internet are all the product of self help, They did not drop down like manna from heaven.
PS humanists are closer to the narrow gate than everyday religionists, which is why I heard our regional director attack them from the podium. When dictatorships come to power, humanists are the first who are killed or imprisoned.
It’s a strange system the COGS created. They claim to support masculinity, but do in fact undermine it in the most meaningful areas of a Christian man’s life: with God, with his wife, with his kids.
ReplyDeleteAll three are affected due to the heretical hierarchy taught by the Cogs. A man is told that his communion with the Lord can’t be trusted and expressed without being completely in-line with the Cog’s doctrine as taught by the minister. This man must then deal with the ignominy of his wife holding the opinions and beliefs of another man (minister) above his own. A man’s Spiritual leadership at home is undermined because his discussions, teachings, daily life must follow strictly the guidelines of whichever cog he is in.
Generally, the emasculating effect is felt much more by the adult man, particularly those over 35-40. A young man may see the minister as having more experience and thus the young man (and his wife) is often more accepting of the minister’s opinion. So, it does not affect his masculinity as much (yet) because it has an older/younger man dynamic. His wife may expect this comfortable dynamic to continue and the man’s growth will have to conform with the cog doctrine or his wife might get upset or feel uncomfortable. If the man’s growth does not conform with COG doctrine, the wife can then begin comparing her husband (and his conversion) to the minister and other seemingly “rock solid” men in the congregation. Of course, she is aware of her husband’s flaws but only sees the minister and other seemingly godly men for up to 3 hrs a week at their “best behavior”. She may point out the imagined conversion of these men/minister to her husband as evidence that he is wrong and the minister/doctrine is right. This same comparison may be going on in multiple families, each thinking the other thinks differently than they do. Such is the nature of rigid dogma.
Similar situation with kids. Trust minister over their father. Dad either just parrots what the minister says or is wrong because the minister said something different. I won’t beat this dead horse, but throw in friends and camps and sermons on spending most of your social time with other COG kids, and anything a father might believe that disrupts this short-term teen dynamic is seen as bad by most teens and again undermines the respect kids have for a father.
In my own life, I have looked at the older men in the congregation and thought I should draw from their life experience and spiritual wisdom. However, when doing so, there seems to not be a deepening in their spiritual wisdom, just parroting of what we’ve always heard in sermons and booklets. This was saddening because that is the ultimate emasculating of a man that at an advanced stage of life he is still told what to think and cannot offer insight through life experience or maybe still afraid to give his own perspective.
That has not been my experience outside the COGs where older men have grown and developed a deepening in their faith and understanding.
I’m not saying all the above is universally true, but it has been my experience and the experience of many others I've spoken with.
Wow! I could not agree with this summation more! I lived this EXACT situation in every way. And I can say it is destructive beyond words 😞. I’m thankful we saw it and got out, but it came at an unimaginable cost.
DeletePCG "men" are totally docile, having been castrated by their totalitarian ministry.
ReplyDeleteThe Rabbis had an unhealthy interest in foreskins and still do. You would not believe what they do today during circumcisions.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous (3:43) wrote "Psalm 1:2 "Blessed is he that meditates on Gods law day and night.."
ReplyDeleteThis is an example of self help."
No, this is an example of activity within the pale of God's grace. Utterly different. You don't get and we are wasting our time.
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NEO
ReplyDelete"..and we are wasting our time."
You have this habit of trying to shut down the other person after you have expressed your view. It's your right to not respond, but you are not the only person reading the comments.
Claiming that meditation (which takes effort) is 'activity within the pale of Gods grace' is intellectual gibberish.
Anon 1:36,
ReplyDeleteHope things are going well now.
A PCG minster writing a book on how to be a man. LMAO. PCG ministers can't even teach their own sons how to be men. Pull up YouTube videos of Jude Flurry dancing around like a Gay Queer bait. Or Micah Turgeon, a really strange withdrawn weirdo.
ReplyDelete