Gas shortages, Middle East turmoil, drought in the West, racial unrest, the dollar in upheaval, and idiots on both sides of the aisle in the U.S. political system, all make up the perfect scenario for latter-day doom and gloom preachers of the Church of God. These are all sure signs of validation of their prophetic utterances.
These doom and gloom preachers are kicking into high gear right now trying to warn lazy and lukewarm COG members and ex-members to wake up and rejoin the one true faith (their version, of course).
On Facebook on some of the exCOG groups every once in a while someone pops up and asks if anyone else is having PTSD over world events in light of what we had been taught.
From Gerald Weston to Dave Pack, to Gerald Flurry, and on to Bob Thiel, these preachers of end-time malarky are all claiming they are gaining new members because of recent world events. They claim people are waking up and returning to the true faith. But are they? Would you return to these hotbeds of doctrinal heresy and abusive ministers and think your salvation is secure through them?
According to LCG, these troubles are bringing into the church former members and younger people who grew up in the church but left it.
Living Church of God
Rod McNair reported to Gerald Weston last week on his visit to the congregation in Knoxville, Tennessee, where there was a service in the morning and a Tomorrow’s World presentation in the afternoon. He was struck by how many were there in the morning whom he did not recognize from last time, including a number of individuals who were young people in WCG days, and have come back in the last few months or weeks.
Gerald Weston commented that the same activity is being seen elsewhere, with people also coming from other Church of God groups. He added that people seem to be recognizing the fact that the LCG is where God’s work is mainly being done.
This churning is not limited to the LCG, and the return of disenchanted young people who left the WCG decades ago is more likely driven by what they perceive to be the ‘signs of the times’. Church of God News
9 comments:
Speaking of "signs of the times":
From "Old Neo's Book of Practical Millerites", 4th Edition, p. 962, footnote.
Loma's Dream: Unresolved Issues
For many Splinterists, the Autobiography of Herbert W. Armstrong is an essential companion piece to the Bible. In their view it is the word of God's chosen Apostle at the end of the age. But an unresolved issue is the dream of Loma Armstrong narrated by HWA in the pages of "The Autobiography."
HWA wrote in his narration of her dream, "These great white birds flew directly toward us. As they descended nearer, she perceived that they were angels . . . Then it seemed that, from among these angels in her dream, that, Christ descended from among them and stood directly in front of us . . . ‘Then it seemed He had changed into an angel. I (Loma) was terribly disappointed at first, until he told me Christ was really coming in a very short time.’”
In summary, a being appeared before her that she thought was Jesus Christ. But finally, after some communication with this being, the being she thought was Christ was revealed as some kind of angel. Her first reaction to this was to be "terribly disappointed." But her fears were allayed when she was given an apocalyptic message by this angel. The unresolved issue centers on whom Loma was actually interacting with and was this transmitted message divine and true. It is significant that both Herbert and Loma had an immediate negative reaction to the message.
HWA expressed embarrassment and skepticism concerning this dream but later in his career he apparently reconsidered. He wrote it into his autobiography as a kind of credential for his work. This dream may have been the "seed" of apocalyptic Armstrongism. And the apocalyptic theme that ran through Armstrongism and now runs through the offshoots of Armstrongism, if Loma’s dream has any merit, doesn’t seem to have come from Christ at all.
What goeth around, cometh around . . .
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Will these returning members be taught to follow Christ rather than their ministers or dead man Herb? Will their rights and freedoms be respected? Will they find that the church has grown in wisdom and understanding, or will they hear the same material from 40 years ago?
There is no law of the universe that demands that a person be a member of a physical church in order to be a Christian. There are many "independent Christians" who will qualify for the kingdom, and there are many church going members who will not.
When I was in LCG, I regularly saw a trickle of returnees from WCG.
There is a comfort factor.
The reason I left is I started critically thinking about what I was reading in the Bible.
I am guessing most people don't think that deeply on whether the doctrines match Biblical practice and when the Bible events do not agree with what is possible.
Plus the inconsistencies in the Bible for doctrines.
COGs like to explain away inconsistencies or ignore them.
Like what happens after death for example.
Are you at rest but alive like Samuel when he appeared to Saul (explained away).
Are you completely dead (COG belief).
Are you waiting under God's throne as per book of revelation (ignored).
Can you come back from the dead as in the parable where the rich man wanted to warn his family to repent. (ignored)
Will you be in paradise with Jesus - man on the cross. (explained away).
I can't imagine prissy Bob Thiel scaring people into his cult, especially non-Africans. He has been an epic failure in drawing in COG people (there than the church hoppers in Africa).
NEO patronizingly typed "For many splinterists Herbert W Armstrong's autobiography is an essential companion piece to the Bible..."
No it's not NEO. Do you really believe that? Garner Ted Armstrong knew the WCG audiences secretly loved hearing him mock his dad's tall tale of a biography.
Herb & Loma: "Christ descended..and stood directly in front of us"
And paraphrasing the Pauline confession in Galatians, charlatan Herbert claimed his theological system was a download from Christ - quite an extraordinary claim: Does it withstand scrutiny? Not for a second! A closer look at HWA's theological framework reveals it to be a patent eclectic composite of prevailing (back then) American frontier-fundamentalist-revivalist nonsense circulating at the fringes of orthodox Christianity.
Anonymous (3:45)
I don't know who you were hanging with in the WCG but all the people around me regarded all WCG church literature as sacrosanct. I heard GTA speak a lot and I never heard him once mock HWA's biography. While I regard the reverential attitude towards HWA's writing to be really odd, and I am not hesitant to be patronizing to Armstrongists if need be, I was not being patronizing on this occasion. I was relating something out my own experience.
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As I recall, after GTA was disfellowshipped and working in Tyler, Texas, he commented to a reporter that he believed that quite a bit of HWA's autobiography was fiction. If he was a narcissist, HWA could not have written an objective autobiography. It was probably more of a PR piece than biography.
If former WCG members, or adult children of WCG members, were really flocking to the COGs in any numbers greater than one or two people with poor memories, the COGs would be reporting those numbers.
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