Those fun boys learned how to live the high life when they were part of the United Church of God. Even after their apostasy from UCG, they continue to enjoy the finer things in life.
“Last weekend, for instance, the elite of cogwa gathered at the swanky, expensive and exclusive Cowboys Club (owned by Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys) for a secret meeting.”
52 comments:
Not a problem if all that they ordered was either a Diet Coke or a Coffee.
Otherwise, indeed, eyebrows should be raised if this was paid thru a church account, and not by someone personally picking up the tab.
Curious to know what is the source of this info, and was this an officially sanctioned meeting with minutes , agenda , etc.
Well you wouldn’t expect them to wine and dine at Maca’s would ya?
Their bank balance must be looking smart for them to meet here. Go the sheepie.
I remember at the Feast the ministry always were at the very best accommodation, mind you they could afford it, thanks to us sheep.
So nothing has really changed in cogdom has it. For what it is worth, (very little) , take out the g out of cogdom and replace it with an n and you have ……….
Enjoy your week folks.
Not sure about COGWA members "scramble" description. As COGWA members tend to be very affluent as compared to UCG. I have no idea why but that is my observation. Perhaps because they have huge amounts of younger members.
It's not a council meeting Tonto.
No, it's not a council meeting. It's the good ole boys fun and games club. Of course it always has been. Franks has done this before, usually with Chuck, a rich "layman", setting it all up and picking up the tab. Jim's rich "church" in north Houston in UCG always was a stuck up group of wealthy people who thought they were better than the east and west "churches".
This was a financial sacrifice that the elites of COGWA needed to make in order to do the work.
Just like their many other fine examples of putting their hearts and money into the work.
Well, I guess they think that sinking almost every penny of tithe money into salary and benefits for the ministry is actually doing the work.
But, they have nothing to show of this "work".
They are just keeping in practice for their Wonderful World Tomorrow. God wants them to have good things
Ah, the abundant life!š
A lot of accusation here with little or no factual information, like why and who etc. Just making up a story with no factual information carries little merit.
Again, I will say this...those that post to this forum will try ANYTHING to make COGs look bad, even if those groups have done nothing wrong. Posting lies is what they do best. Please if there is evidence...post it, I want to see concrete evidence of this, including "meeting minutes".
I don't begrudge people being paid well, including perks, if they earn it by enriching other's lives. But that was not my experience when I was a attending member. The ministers fed the sheep spiritual milk while behaving like tyrants. They rightly belong in prison rather than some fancy resort.
Btw, the tones in ministers voices when giving sermons was that of giving profound new knowledge or spiritual meat, yet is was always baby food.
Years ago at AC I would hear people use the term "Ambassador Quality." If something were not top-drawer it was not of Ambassador Quality. I recall some kid telling me a doormat was not of Ambassador Quality. Someone mentioned a piece of art work was not of Ambassador Quality. I heard the term fairly frequently. Not as often as "balanced" and "unbalanced" but its usage was significant. Like many things that hang around a cult, it is not always what it appears to be. The "Ambassador Quality" meme somehow seemed a little unfitting at first.
After some experience I came to recognize that the principle of Ambassador Quality cloaked the simple attitude of materialistic self-indulgence. It prepared the mind to accept the fact that God wanted his ministers to have the highest quality. This converted self-indulgence into a godly value system. When ministers went first-class, they were representing to the congregants the importance of high quality to God. They were revealing overtly the great blessings that great righteousness would bring. The cream of the crud could see and marvel. Not. The cream of the crud knew where the money came from. But some in a spirit of advocacy liked to pretend it was all about righteousness.
I recall being at the feast of tabernacles in Tucson last century. My family and I rode up
on the elevator to the hotel restaurant. On board was a minister and his wife. The wife knew both me and my wife but she did not speak to us or acknowledge our presence. When we arrived at the restuarant I noticed that the ministry ate in a separate location on a mezzanine above where we were sitting. We could see them from our segregated and lower location but there was a great gulf fixed between us and them provided by the Hilton. That was the real message of the feast. Its not in the foreground, its in the background. Its not what you think it is - it is what insinuates itself.
The popular quote is "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." Likewise, the battle for "Ambassador Quality" was won in the hallways and dormitories of Ambassador College. When we see it on garish display, its just another fraternal victory celebration.
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Cult experts such as the late Margaret Singer have written that just about every time there were accusations of cult abuse in an organization, researchers found the claims true. The body of evidence doesn't lie.
Your concrete evidence is constantly being given out on dissident blogs such as this one.
The WCG and its splinter groups always seemed to believe in going to expensive restaurants. That is nothing new.
What really looks new and suspicious in the splinter groups is things like their Winter X-mass Weekend customs.
All:
Years ago, in the old WWCG Days, a couple from Pasadena visited our humble church area that met in a rented school gym...
They looked down their nose at us local yokels meeting in this plain area while they were still in the ornate and rich Ambassador Auditorium...
It was an interesting lesson in church members, seeing those who could only see physical surroundings, compared to Biblical Examples of what Real Christianity, humility, service and other attributes would be.
Expensive Surroundings, Fancy Clothes, Status, Money don't make Real Christianity
Those people reading their Bibles and taking Christ seriously don't fall for the hollow outward appearance.
Neither does God.
I am amazed to see these people have never learned to be good stewards of what money they steal from people that can barely afford to eat in many cases. they are criminals of the worst kind. While these film flam culprits are worse than snake oil salesmen .Cogwa does nothing with the tithes and offerings but live the the good life. How many of these greaseballs have ever worked a day in their lives. If this was a business The IRS would be snooping around. They are nothing more than a so called religious Ponzi scheme they take in all kinds of money and don't do what they are supposed to do with it preach the Gospel. They use 5% of it to do what they tell the members they are reaching the world, shame on them.
Almost all the leadership of UCG when it started thought their shit did not stink. They were the elite of the church and they made sure you knew it. Then the elite got all pissy with each other and pitched a fit and split into two different elitist camps. The COGWA leadership to this day think they are better than the members. Its dusgusting.
"The COGWA leadership to this day think they are better than the members."
I know nothing about COGWA directly. I have a former friend who was a COGWA minister but I have not had contact with him for decades. But considering Armstrongism in general, the elitism of the ministry is a spiritual debacle. There is no precedent for this in the NT. It is entirely a product of custom manufacture within Armstrongism. This elitism probably originated with HWA who never evinced, in my experience, pastoral qualities from the pulpit. He was not a pastor. He was an advertising salemen, a small businessman, and he tended to choose people like himself for important roles. This is the social/cultural part of it.
The theological part I can relate but it is sketchy. I got this from a Pasadena graduate with whom I was acqainted in the early Seventies. He told me that in one of his classes or in a sermon in Pasadena, I don't remember which, they were taught that the hierarchical relationships in the WCG would be transferred into the Kingdom of God. Remember HWA's words, "The church is the Kingdom of God in embroyo." That very exciting until you think about what it really means. In other words, HWA would always be in the top tier. Ministers would also be in the upper tiers. And church members would occupy the lower tiers. For this reason, your Armstrongist minister, if his training is true to past beliefs, conidently believes you are going to be his suboordinate for eternity. Hence, treating you like a subordinate now is rational.
You might have a growing intuition, a still small voice, that this is non-Christian. You're right.
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And when UCG Council of Elders go on their annual retreat they are roughing it I suppose.
"Sinking" what a unique expression. I must remember that. SINKING. SINKING.
True evidence ?
Anonymous 10:26 wrote: "Their bank balance must be looking smart for them to meet here."
Right about that. COGWA just paid off the mortgage on its HQ building in McKinney - in two years, instead of the scheduled seven.
On InAccord last week, President Franks said quarterly income is at record levels. So perhaps they were celebrating?
You require a lot of evidence it appears. This is in contrast to the COGWA leaders who said UCG was changing doctrine.
Perhaps do a little fact checking before you make such claims. The COGWA organization didn't drop a penny for this...it was secured by a local member for a gathering of people involved in the Foundation Outreach International program. That is COGWA's humanitarian outreach arm that supports various service projects. Those who went to this gathering were a mixture of ministers and lay members who are involved in that program. Sure, I'd assume the member is well off to be able to afford this, but the thing that matters is that no tithe money was spent on this gathering.
COGWA is rolling in the dough. It’s obvious they are being rewarded for their rightness. A plethora of free time activities and dining while a bit of time is given to publishing an online magazine. Why change a thing? The abundance they have proves this is all they should do.
The high-living COGWA leaders have a pathetic following - maybe just 1500 tithe-slaves chained in the galley of the ship - points to the failure of Armstrong religion:
The Seventh-day Adventists have 18 million, the Mormons have 16 million,
Shows you the dismal failure of the Armstrong/British-Israelism neo-fundamentalist/restorationist cult. vis-a-vis its comparable competition!
7:47
UCG HAVE changed UCG from what it WAS. They simply threaten any members to their face to NOT TELL about the CHANGES.
Anonymous 8:06 AM said - "UCG HAVE changed UCG from what it WAS. They simply threaten any members to their face to NOT TELL about the CHANGES."
Please, do tell! And don't just tell, offer something besides just your opinion. Share a sermon link, an article link, video, anything, that shows what is believed and taught today by UCG is different than what was believed and taught by UCG prior to the COGWA split.
The COGWA split had nothing to do with doctrine, it was all about power.
So let me get this straight. A bunch of church members get to get together for a voluntary humanitarian meeting to help their fellow man at no cost to the COGWA organization, and this blog wants to rip them to shreds with the title: "COGWA Big Wigs Living The High Life While Members Scramble To Send In Money".
Calling it a "secret" meeting. Laughable.
Kind of disingenuous don't you think?
HWA set the example by blowing $$$ on gold candlelabras of Roman/ Greek nymphs, Rolls Royce etc. If the state of California had focused on HWA's personal misuse of funds, he would have went to jail. Unfortunately most of the ministry have focused on their own well being rather than the of the lay membership
“COGWA Big Wigs Living The High Life While Members Scramble To Send In Money”
Everyone has to eat and drink. There is nothing wrong with eating and drinking, as long as one does not eat some biblically unclean creature (Leviticus 11:1-47), or the fat of cattle, sheep, or goats (Leviticus 7:22-27), or eat too much and get fat, or drink blood (Leviticus 17:10-12), or drink too much alcoholic stuff and get drunk. One of the many benefits of being a Big Wig in COGWA is that they get to eat well.
According to Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes, eating and drinking and being happy with one's work and with one's wife is about as good as it gets in this life. One cannot do any better than that.
The Seventh-day Adventists (18 million members), Mormons (16 million members) are blessed with growth because they recycle tithes (church buildings, freedom from Armstrongist slavery..)
By comparison, cruel Armstrongite cults have only a pitiful few members, only a couple of thousand and shrinking!
“COGWA Big Wigs Living The High Life While Members Scramble To Send In Money”
The real scandal is NOT the “Big Wigs” in COGWA wining and dining at a “swanky, expensive and exclusive” restaurant, while their poor critics whine and make a din in the background from outside of the restaurant.
The REAL SCANDAL is all the overpaid Big Fakes in the Roman Catholic Church and its numerous Protestant daughter churches all teaching everyone to eat the very things that God said not to eat, such as pigs and lobsters. What is highly esteemed in their sight is detestable in God's sight. Regardless of how fancy and expensive the restaurant, these overpaid Big Fakes would want to order something unclean like a pig or a lobster.
COGWA members financially supporting COGWA leaders who overpay for their food and drink at an expensive restaurant is what some people would call a “nothing-burger.”
Someone claimed to have seen HWA at a restaurant in his earlier and poorer years and said that HWA was throwing money around like a drunken sailor. HWA always enjoyed eating a great steak. Later in life, HWA said that when foreign dignitaries were in town visiting him he did not take them to McDonald's. HWA said that he took them to Perino's.
A far worse disaster than paying COGWA leaders to eat well is paying false religious leaders to do Satan's work, such as when PCG members financially supported little Gerald Flurry for three decades as he came up with many new names, titles, offices, and positions for himself to try to exalt his short self while editing, changing, warping, mangling, and totally perverting everything that HWA had taught. Gerald Flurry spent three decades making up “much new revelation” of his own to flood his PCG cult with about how great he and his plagiarized “little book” supposedly were.
It is far better to feed leading COGWA eaters than to feed a chronic liar and truly “useless eater” like Gerald Flurry.
2:11 wrote "The REAL SCANDAL is all the overpaid Big Fakes in the Roman Catholic Church and its numerous Protestant daughter churches all teaching everyone to eat the very things that God said not to eat, such as pigs and lobsters. "
What a load of crap. There is nothing wrong with pork or lobster. Get your head out of COG crap and actually understand what the scriptures are about.
Plus, this blog is NOT about the Catholic church or protestant churches but about the COG cultish groups that are damaging people's lives with heresy. Stop trying to divert attention away from the COG cults and the deviant leaders like Pack, Thiel, Flurry, Weinland, Kubik, and others. That is the REAL SCANDAL!
I'm sure COGWA/UCG split was to do with power but it is a strawman argument to argue the obvious that apostates don't dwell amongst the ranks of UCG. They dwell in every Church on earth.
Your pleading for info is what I expected all along. Who would put all their pearls before the swine on here. Everyone knows this blog only appeared in 2011 when the UCG/COGWA split was raging. UCG ALWAYS gets off lightly on this blog. One rule for the others and another for UCG.
Anon July 22, 2021 at 5:58 PM,
"There is nothing wrong with pork or lobster. Get your head out of COG crap and actually understand what the scriptures are about."
I believe God is our Creator, so He knows what is good and fit for us to eat. Get your head out of this human reasoning crap and really understand what God's revealed scriptures are about.
I know exactly what God says about lobster and pork under the New Covenant. They are delicious! Nothing beats a lobster roll or a lobster and shrimp burrito! The New Covenant rocks!
And then 1:52 goes to Church and Lords it over the members.
If true, it is better that a private member took funds out of his excess than for the money to have come from tithes. There are reasons and attitudes that could be in play with the largesse that aren't ideal, but if someone wants to bestow his money on Cogwa ministers that's his prerogative. It still results in letting the good times roll for the bigwigs to a degree, but so be it.
For the amount of money that Cogwa pulls in, very little is used outside the organization and is primarily for the financial position of the ministry.
Many in the ministry of cogwa believe they are sacrificing; they probably are, but it's also probably a sacrifice that God does not want. But, God is fortunately more patient and understanding than they know.
It's basically just an organization that wants to keep doing the same comfortable things they have always done and have their easy social network of agreeing'ers. They are mostly sure about their doctrine and believe other purported Christians are deceived and not real Christians. They cannot consider alternatives, so they generally don't.
It's simply just another cult or cultish organization that seems larger than it is to those that are or have been associated with it. Such cultish organizations simply take over a person's life, but most involved in it just think it makes sense to socialize almost exclusively with those in the organization, to listen only to those in the organization, to accept every spiritual belief around the teaching of the organization.
These are simply small organizations that mean virtually nothing outside the organization and everything to those in them. It's good to remember how small they are.
Anonymous at 5:58 PM said...“Plus, this blog is NOT about the Catholic church or protestant churches but about the COG cultish groups that are damaging people's lives with heresy.”
The Roman Catholic Church and its Protestant daughter churches are Satan's biggest pushers of heresy to the entire world. They are the ones that have damaged people's lives with heresy, including martyring people in the past for obeying God.
Gerald Flurry's Philadelphia Cult and David Pack's Restored Cult are Satan's biggest pushers of heresies to the relatively small so-called COG scene.
4:10 "And then 1:52 goes to Church and Lords it over the members."
Not at all! Everyone I know eats it too! If you don't want to eat then do not eat it and stop bellowing that those who eat it are damned by your god. It's not true. the New Covenant rocks!
Hey Anonymous of July 23, 2021 at 12:00 AM - you are contradicting God.
Acts 11:9 “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."
It is an astonishing display of cult thinking that COG members are in lock stock obedience to Herbie's clean/unclean meats doctrine - even though the old glutton was known to knosh on all the delicacies of those he called pagans.
Yes, the passage in Acts 11 is about accepting Gentiles as equals.
However, when God instructed Peter to "kill and eat", God was not telling Peter to cannibalize a gentile. God was not tempting Peter to sin by eating lobster or by eating a neighbor.
God was instructing that the New Covenant is not like the Old Covenant and when the priesthood changes, there is also a change in the law.
Hebrews 7:12
For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also.
Oh 10:38 so are you admitting to entire Congregations eating lobster and pork whilst attending church kn the Sabbath. Figures.
UCG ALWAYS gets off lightly on this blog
It's true. And that's because their leadership isn't power-hungry, like Pack and Flurry (who get a lot of the ire of this blog). The UCG leadership has their share of problems, but they have learned how ugly striving for power is, dating back to when some of them were the abusers in WCG. Then they witnessed the arrogance of David Hulme, the ugliness of Rod Meredith spewing hatred toward them, and the COGWA crybabies. All of these sought after their own power, and the UCG leadership learned first-hand that this is not the way of Jesus Christ.
"UCG ALWAYS gets off lightly on this blog"
If you have stories about issues in UCG then share them here. I am sure the blog owners will post them.
Not at all surprising with NUT JOBS like Greg Sargent!! He was a complete nut job all the way back in Worldwide!! I would NOT even be alive today if I would have followed his SICK advice back then!! Funny how all of the LOSERS find each other!!
How fascinating that you eat unclean food. Won't help mental health in the long run.
9:16, UCG leaders may not be power hungry in your eyes but that doesn't mean that they haven't repeatedly taken the side of power in matters of judgment in the church, contrary to the law of both testaments.
I speak from experience here from BEFORE the UCG/COGWA split.
Three levels of UCG courts condemned me for bringing up a charge of blasphemy against a long time elder. The blasphemy was a satanic shot at the poor (since I too was poor at the time), yet in their hunger to side with the position of power they stamped me out. The problem? They were so offended at my urgent appeals for justice to the point where they saw me as the problem case and not the blasphemy. Since then two have died and one had a stroke.
No wonder Christ has deservedly emaciated their work since then.
When the WWCOG splintered, it lost its monopoly power. Members that were being badly mistreated could now go to another splinter. So it's not that the splinter leaders have seen the light and repented of their power hungry ways, but rather are forced to pull their punches in order to retain their tithe slaves.
They are being restrained by what they can get away with rather than by love of God and His laws.
Anonymous at 12:42 AM said...“When the WWCOG splintered, it lost its monopoly power. Members that were being badly mistreated could now go to another splinter.”
ALL of the splinter groups are relatively small compared to the size of the WCG at its maximum. NOT ONE of the splinter groups is currently even ONE-TENTH of the size that the WCG had achieved.
Not all of the splinter groups are good groups. Most of the splinter groups are bad groups and some splinter groups like the PCG and the RCG are downright satanic.
The problem, of course, is that many people go from one false and abusive splinter group to another false and abusive splinter group to another false and abusive splinter group....
Anon 9:19 wrote I'm sure the BLOG OWNERS would post.
More than one blog owner now? Does not surprise me at all. I'm sure too that they would fall over their eye lashes to post. After all causing trouble for the past 30 years within the church has always been the BLOG OWNERS ambition.
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