Living Church of God recently had a post by Doug Winnail on the gifts of the Holy Spirit and how LCG members should be striving for those gifts.
This has perturbed the COG's resident whiney little self-appointed prophet to the church. He is not happy at the continued rejection by ALL COG members to join his group. No matter how hard he tries he just can't get people to follow him, even when he falsely claims he has the gift of prophecy, through the Holy Spirit, because he dreams. For some reason, he believes that there is no other COG on the face of the earth who is as filled with the Holy Spirit as he and his little group are. He also believes that God is supernaturally intervening in his group exclusively.
The prophet without honor in his own country, Bob Thiel says:
To learn which COG group has that Spirit, check out the following:
Does the CCOG have the confirmed signs of Acts 2:17-18? Does any church have the confirmed dream and prophetic signs of Acts 2:17-18? Should one?
Remember that the Apostle Paul warned:
19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies. 21 Test all things; hold fast what is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:19-21)
If you are not part of CCOG and God is not supernaturally intervening via Acts 2:17-18 in your group, what makes you think He must do so later? Do NOT despise prophecies.
I love the irony of Bob's recent post warning that "widespread effeminacy" will lead to totalitarianism.
ReplyDeleteTalk about the pot calling the kettle black! Bob, you need to pray to your God that He give you the wisdom to see yourself as others see you! Or do you think that if you lash out against effeminacy, people won't dare notice it in you?
I have to laugh at Bob and his continuing antics. No matter how hard he tries to get us to believe him, he cannot. When you stop and think that from the entire population of the world he has only been able to gain 299 white members and the rest are from Africa where they are joined up with multiple church organizations so that they have money coming in from many angles.
ReplyDeleteNeed some seeds or computers? Find an American church and they will send them to you as long as you stroke their ego's a little. If they. come and visit fete them with as many accolades as you can, then when they leave hit up the next church and do the same. Bob is so gullible.
Flouncing and bouncing Bob is all I see when he starts preaching. No disco queen has ever had the hand moves as Bob does.
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone want to join the Woody Allen Church of God?
ReplyDeleteKudos to this blog and the Painful Truth for keeping tabs on Bob Thiel's lies. You guys are the reason he has been unable to draw in COG members to his little cult. LCG was wise to disfellowship and kick him out of the church for the lies he was spreading. That rebuke bu Mr. Meredith had to have been the greatest humiliation of all.
ReplyDeleteBob's problem is that he has nothing new to share with anyone. It is just a rehash of HWA and Meredith's junk. It's all useless garbage theology.
ReplyDeleteWeb pages like this do an invaluable job in exposing these charlatans and their poison. No doubt Bob is sincere in his beliefs but one can still be wrong in ‘sincerity’.The holes and flaws in British Israelism are so many they are embarrassing, and yet Thiel and others cling to this “theory” as a ‘key’ to biblical understanding. And because they do and ignore the’Gospel’ of Jesus Christ they cannot grow. The COG movement as we knew it,truely are the Churches of diminishing returns.And the frightening thing is, if they had the power they would deeply censor the internet to stop this exposure of themselves.That is the dark side of this movement.
ReplyDeleteBob is possessed by a spirit all right, but it is a malevolent spirit. COG people have every right to be concerned.
ReplyDelete"if they had the power they would deeply censor the internet to stop this exposure of themselves. That is the dark side of this movement."
ReplyDeleteWade Cox and Russell Hilburn tried that several years ago. Hilburn called the church I was doing contract work for and told them to tell me to take this blog down because it was supposedly anti-Christian. They laughed in his face and said no. They know all about Armstrongism because a lot of people have been through their church over the years recovering from the damages the church caused in the lives.
With nothing against Bob Thiel as a person, I've tried to follow Byker Bob's advice that our job is being "troubleshooters" of the COGs. But sometimes things get to the point of beyond repair.
ReplyDeleteBob seems to bounce from being like Tony the Tiger in an old Frosted Flakes commercial, yelling "Put the spotlight on me! Put the spotlight on me!" to a neglected soul evoking pity, as John Goodman described Johnny Galecki: "Like a teddy bear wearing a 'Luv me' T-shirt".
A prophet is not a prophet because he claims "I am a prophet", it is by doing a thing a prophet does. Has anyone ever told Bob, like the Samaritan woman told Jesus, "I can see, sir, that you are a prophet"?
Byker Bob's advice ? He's not using that name on here anymore.
Delete"Our job is being troubleshooters of the COG's"
Don't give too much away now 'Hoss'. Wouldn't want the watchers to know the is a real secret agenda from rebels within the ministry being played out on this blog.
Byker Bob stopped posting after the riots began. It implies that something ugly happened.
DeleteByker Bob is fine and dandy 1:41.
DeleteByker Bob's advice ?
ReplyDeleteYep, I've been reading BB's critiques for over ten years now. Don't be concerned with Bob Thiel and his splinter buddies "catching on" - he's too distracted by the criticism to notice any "good advice" that blogs contain. After all, he still waves his hands and decorates his "studio" with wobbly bookcases and kitschy kitchen curtains!
Before Thiel chose Continuing Church of God for the legal name of his secondary income stream, he seriously considered calling it "Fabulous Church of God", but thought.... " Nah... That would be too obvious."
ReplyDelete"Fabulous Church of God"
ReplyDelete...or "Fable-ous Church of God". Either way, FCOG doesn't look good. No, I wasn't thinking of F*COG, but F as in F-Troop!
It would be very easy for Thiel to demonstrate him being a "prophet". Stop with the self proclamations, or experiential testimonies, or "dreams".
ReplyDeleteSimply make a hard core , without question prediction, that cannot be questioned a few weeks in advance. . Example, what the stock market closing number will be on June 27th, and do it to the third decimal. Or there will be an earthquake of exactly 8.3 magnitude in Timbuktu Mongolia, on July 9th at 10:11 AM. etc.
Then , perhaps you can get some notice, and some examination, and deserve some attention. Otherwise, you sound like a desperate, needy, and delusional individual with some serious mental issues.
In concern for Bob as a human being... please do some deep self examination and explain why such a challenge as proposed here is not acceptable. The True Prophet Elijah was up for the test , and performed in a challenge with the priests of Baal.
Either way, FCOG doesn't look good. No, I wasn't thinking of F*COG, but F as in F-Troop!
ReplyDeleteFabulous Universal Church (Kosher) of God ?
Thiel to demonstrate him being a "prophet"
ReplyDeleteAnd everyone knows he makes a lot of generalized predictions that are non-specific and have loads of wiggle room. He makes forecast that can't "fail" just "failed to happen yet".
He claimed to have "predicted" the Pandemic, because he wrote something two years or so ago that said something related to certain viruses could possibly happen some time in the future. This is as useful as the COGs that predicted 9/11 on 9/12.
A comment on Byker Bob.
ReplyDeleteI know Byker Bob. I went to AC with him. I talked with him a few days after he stopped posting. I was worried about him. He assured me he was fine,
He said he wanted to take a break from posting. He wanted to get on with his life. I take him at his word, I have not communicated with him for a few months but feel he is fine. We have each other’s email and I am always open to chat with him.
I enjoyed reading his posts.
A comment on Byker Bob.
ReplyDeleteI know Byker Bob. I went to AC with him. I talked with him a few days after he stopped posting. I was worried about him. He assured me he was fine,
He said he wanted to take a break from posting. He wanted to get on with his life. I take him at his word, I have not communicated with him for a few months but feel he is fine. We have each other’s email and I am always open to chat with him.
I enjoyed reading his posts.
Like many others, after being deceived by HWA and his minions, I prefer to look at the evidence rather than peoples reassurances. I always thought that Byker Bobs posts, as a whole, bordered on being toxic. God is a God of truth, so I don't see Him being offended by the many posts on Banned that point out the many lies and criminality of the ministry. But Bob in my view crossed the line. And he became extra negative just prior to his "break." Again, it implies that something negative happened.
DeleteAgree 5:56 PM
DeleteI'm in no way a big fan of Dr. Bob, but I have to admit that at least some of his prophetic timelines of when the Great Tribulation would start, and when Christ would return are more accurate than most COG's. Almost all of them thought that Christ would be reigning from Jerusalem by now.
ReplyDeleteHope 2021 is a good one for you Byker!
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe Byker Bob was becoming “extra negative” at all before he stopped posting comments on this blog. I actually found his constructive criticism and a lot of what he shared both insightful and valuable in my own walk of faith. I think if he was coming across as “extra negative” it was reserved for the likes of anonymous trolls and that Kevin McMillen who rattled him and a few others to no end.
ReplyDeleteOh yes he did. Other had to step in and pull him back from his vile nastiness.
DeleteIs 3:40 Byker Bob ?
DeleteI agree with May 21 at 3:40 AM. Byker Bob's comments were insightful and instructive right up until he dropped out. I miss him.
ReplyDeleteHaven't heard lately from Byker Bob, but here's another gripe against Banned (and others) from Piker Bob!
ReplyDeleteReading Bob Thiel's stuff damages your brain because it is written so poorly and presented in an abysmal fashion. Thiel not only needs to take training in public speaking but also in proper writing skills. Also, a good course in web design would benefit him immensely. No one even looks at the hundreds of links he provides with every article linking back to heretical junk he has written. For someone who believes he has the greatest and faster-growing ministry in the COG, he has the worst public sites imaginable. Even his African members don't read all of the stuff he has posted.
ReplyDeleteAnon 1023 - Totally agree, Bob definitely fails to perform to the image he tries to project.
ReplyDeleteYes! Those seemingly endless tomes he posts, one after the other, with a plethora of links to more tomes with links. It reminds me of the old days of writing to the WCG for a booklet, article or reprint and find references to even more and more booklets to request.
I wonder how he wrote his theses for his Masters and PhD degrees...
Amazing what happens when you Google your name from time to time as one of your security checks! Had no idea people would still be remembering my name and commenting.
ReplyDeleteThis is going to be just a brief "Hi and Bye". Seriously, nothing sinister happened or is happening. I work every day with our exciting new technologies, which help my customers to be strong and competitive. And, I'm involved in the rejuvenation of a charity that a friend of mine recently took over.
Regarding my departure, over the last several years, I became convinced that my experiences in the old Radio and then Worldwide Church of God from back in the 1960s and 1970s had become somewhat dated, and therefore didn't resonate with the many posters who are currently part of, or in the process of leaving a splinter group. Back in 2,000 when I began commenting on the blogs and forums, the splinters were a relatively new phenomenon, perhaps 5 years old at that time, Most of the folks on the blogs and forums twenty one years ago were from the old WCG, and the discussions had a markedly different tone to them, and there were many more forums and blogs. That's one of the dynamics of life, though. Anything that is truly alive is constantly changing.
I was part of the Armstrongism experience for 19 years. When I walked away after the Disappointment of 1975, it was a clean break which lasted for 25 years, and that 25 years acted as an excellent cleaning of the slate. When I first signed on to the internet, as so many people do, I attempted to learn what had happened in the lives some of my old WCG acquaintances. Amazingly, several were processing their experiences at the Painful Truth website, writing insigntful articles, and it was at that time that I realized that I too had some remaining unfinished processing to do, and a few insights that might be worth sharing.
The further education I've received from the discussions and my own research has helped me put the WCG experience to bed. I've had everything dialed in for years now, but continued to contribute. Recently, I just became bored and exhausted with all the repetition. Maybe that's a little selfish on my part, as I realize that what is repetitious for me is new for those who are just awakening. But, there are now new people emerging from the splinter groups who have more contemporary experience, and have greater potential to help.
I guess that takes us full circle, as Hoss's original comment had to do with our roles as troubleshooters. My advice to everyone is keep holding your leaders accountable, and you'll be just fine. Don't ever check your brain at the door. That can cause a lifetime of pain!
BB