This story just gets stranger by the day. Winters, who was considered by a large number of PCG members and ex-members to be an abuse minister in the PCG because he held firm to the abusive and revolting rules and regulations that Gerald Flurry set forth. In spite of that, he ends up being disfellowshipped and marked and is now suffering the side effects of COVID requiring his leg to be amputated. Now he is begging people for help. Like many other men in Armstrongism that got screwed by the cult by it not paying social security on the ministers or contributing to retirement. Unless of course, you are the super-elite and then you are set for life. Flurry pretends he is like HWA and the Worldwide Church of God pre1986, well he got one thing right... screwing the ministry over is what the church was really good at. Though in Winters case, karma is a bitch.
From a reader here:
Craig acquired COVID and had one of his legs amputated. His wife now works for Wal-Mart. He set up a gofundme to help pay for the hospital costs he has incurred. The man in the picture is definitely Craig.
Here is the link to the gofundme and I've copied the text of it below:
Hi, my name is Craig. I got Covid-19, hospitalized 23 days, full covid pnemonia, then complications set in. My lungs could not heal unless they amputated my right leg due to an infection that set in from a blocked artery. Either take my leg, or die. I was going to have to go on the ventilator for the surgery, slim chance for survival. Last minute they were able to do a spinal tap, I was now breathing room air. The many prayers that went our were answered. I'm alive. What I need help with. It turns out I am not eligible for Disability or Social security. I worked for a Non-profit organization the last 19 years and did not contribute to SS. My wife works full time at WalMart. I have a small Ebay business, 5 acres, buy and sell a few cattle. Not much. I can't come home without a ramp to get into our home. I have surmounting hospital bills. It is going to take me 6 months to a year to recover from the damage done to my lungs from the covid. I plan to work hard on becoming independent and mobile but it will take time and a lot of doctor bills. Some guys form my wife's work have volunteered to build the ramp but the wood alone was just over $1000.00. My out of pocket pay from my wife's insurance plan is $11,000.00. It would be greatly appreciated if you could help in any small way! Craig
Keep in mind this is the same Craig Winters whose son needlessly died from Addison's disease because he was told god would heal him not medications.
I wonder why so many on here REJECT THE WONDERFUL GIFT (the WONDERFUL and MARVELOUS TRUTH) GOD gave to us using his TWO GREAT END-TIME SERVANTS (David C. Pack and Herbert W. Armstrong) through their AMAZING, POWERFUL, WONDERFUL, AND MARVELOUS LEADERSHIP!
ReplyDeleteAre you beside yourself?
Delete🤣
DeleteWhat have you been drinking?!😲🍸🍹🍷🍻
DeleteHis case is another example that in the WWCG and it's splinters, members are just viewed as assets to be heartlessly exploited. All their talk of love, community, give way, serve etc, is deceitful brainwashing that hides this truth from the victims.
ReplyDeleteChrist's warning of beware the Pharisee's and ravenous wolves equally applies to these cults.
How do these organizations get by without paying social security? That shows you that an organization is false if it absolves itself from paying something like social security. I guess Gerald needs another jet.
ReplyDeleteThat picture is Truth! The Plain Truth. How it came about and what it represents. I am silent on Covid deniers or Social Security skippers because I KNOW truth I don't discuss it. I don't care. I don't care about ministers with huge claims being handshakers or flipping burgers now.
ReplyDeleteNck
The funny people who take issue with my non christian comment should know that what I see on the picture is exactly what I wish for for those who deny other people and themselves proper available healthcare. They just forfeited my sympathy! I have no sympathy for those whose inside rot is made an example by the universe by their outside rot and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteNck
I'd be very interested in learning whether Craig had become a better human being as a result of his recent experiences. Is he compassionate? Humble? Does he respect others, and their rights? If so, he's now got an opportunity to serve as a positive example to the many PCG folk who knew him.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about Armstrongism is that sooner or later, because it is a very cruel and corrupt system, it comes to get you. You cannot base your life on it, and you must ask yourself some critical "what ifs" before surrendering your financial security to it. The thing is, since it's billed as "God's True Church", all the members and ministers place a bet that they will be treated fairly. When a member gets thrown under the bus, of course the other members believe that it was that member's own fault. I mean it couldn't be the fault of "God's True Church", could it?
In a way, I get Nick's point. However, often kindness shown to someone who treated you cruelly is more effective in changing them than is doing unto them what they had done to you.
I know that many here are saying in their heart 'Serves him right' but I am reminded that Yahshua said to love our enemies. Give them food and drink, etc. I would not doubt that this experience changed him or will change him.
ReplyDeleteYahweh has shown in His Word that at times He brings unpleasant happenings upon people in order to 'wake' them up. May this be the case with this individual. May it bring forth repentance, love, and compassion for fellow human beings, especially for those that were mistreated by him.
May Yahweh be praised and His Son returned to this earth to destroy death, pain, and suffering.
11:27
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about ME having to show kindness to someone who treated ME untowardly. I AM.
I am speaking on behalf of those young people who died because of those who spoke filth fron the pulpit.
Nck
It's a hard way to learn just how mistaken one has been about many things in life. Especially when it comes to talking the mistaken paths of others instead of one's own. Or perhaps taking the mistaken path of others believing it should be their own too.
ReplyDeleteI feel for this man no matter his PCG past. I imagine his mind is racing, regrets, fear and guilt probably running amuck. I can only wish him well and not add any more weight to what he is probably already at the breaking point wondering how he is going to carry it.
Gerald Flurry would do well to step in and help and not disfellowship. I imagine it was the flippant PCG view on Covid that came to bit him and others in the ass at the FOT or in church.
Maybe Covid will find Gerald Flurry. Maybe he got vaccinated on the sly.
Dennis
DeleteIn my books, you are too kind. There are many legitimate victims in the ACOGs. They put their trust in righteous sounding, bible thumping
pastors, and that trust was betrayed. By contrast, the ministers who were abusive and lording, knew that such behavior was condemned by their bibles. I have no sympathy for these ministers. As the bible puts it, "God is far from the wicked."
I bet Gerald, just like his idol HWA gets medical treatment while forbidding it for the membership. There were children dying of appendicitis in Worldwide but HWA had his own in house physician. Hypocrisy as its utmost. Gerald probably takes Viagra on the down low.
ReplyDelete"Dennis
ReplyDeleteIn my books, you are too kind."
==============================
It's just the perspective I choose in such things. I ultimately blame many of the scriptures for the foolish perspectives they tell member and minister to take in many matters. Some take them more seriously and zealously and some less. Some apply it all or nothing and some a bit of this and a bit of that too. In my upbringing, this scripture was simply ignored.
I'd say in all of fundamentalist Christianity, James 5:14
"Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."
...has caused more misapplied misery and tragedy in many a person's life, beliefs and practice. It's a lie.
In the OT Malachi 3:10. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse,... and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it", is also a lie that the zealous apply to the harm of all concerned.
"John 14:13 NIV: And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."
"Matthew 17:20
And He *said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you."
Such scriptures mislead and put impossible to ignore, for the faithful, burdens on the sincere.
Many a life has been burdened or even ruined by believing and practicing such things. A snake handling neighbor in Kentucky got a rattlesnake bite in the jugular that killed him because he believe with all his heart, mind and soul that... Mark 16: 17 "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
Aside from the fact that this particular scripture was added to Mark, which actually ends in 16:8, some loon got it in and it is repeated nowhere else. It has killed many an ignorant pastor and parishioner.
IMHO
Nck and his kind should get down off their sanctimonious high horses.
ReplyDeleteTell him to get the fuck out of the hospital and pray to his god for healing.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the trash takes itself out.
ReplyDeleteAnger issues RSK?
DeleteNope. But I despise double-dippers.
DeleteAnonymous 11:27 PM said, "I'd be very interested in learning whether Craig had become a better human being as a result of his recent experiences. Is he compassionate?"
ReplyDeleteMY COMMENT - My thought exactly. People can change and mellow as they grow older. For example:
In the late 1960s, there was a WCG Preaching Elder who was responsible for the Richmond, Virginia WCG congregation. I attended the Washington, D.C. congregation with my family. Occasionally, when our Pastor, Ken Westby, went on Church travel (Westby was a district superintendent), the Preaching Elder from Richmond would travel up to D.C. to deliver the sermon to us. This preaching elder was young and made some vey cavalier fire and brimstone statements from the pulpit to us. As I have elaborated before here on Banned by HWA, I kept meticulous Sabbath Service notes in notebooks which I still have to this very day.
One statement made by this Preaching elder and recorded in my Sabbath Services notes was, "If you die in the hands of Doctors, you will go to the Lake of Fire!"
Fast forward to about 40 years later and the advent of the internet, I found this Preaching Elder's email address on line. He was a Pastor (and still is to this very day) with the ACOG splinter United Church of God. I sent him an email about 15 years ago introducing myself and put in my email his above referenced statement which he made from the pulpit in the Washington D.C. WCG congregation in the 1960s.
To my surprise, I received a very nice reply. He apologized to me and to God for his 1960s statement. He added that there are things early on in his ministry that he is now embarrassed about - attributing it to his youth.
I haven't named this man in my comment because he ask me for forgiveness. My point is we ALL in our latter years are not always the person we were in our former years. Perhaps the same can be said of Craig Winters.
Richard
Also Ken?
DeleteOne has to wonder whether or not Flurry will monitor who is donating to the fund, and if they be PCG members , disfellowship them too for "having contact" with someone disfellowshipped and marked.
ReplyDeleteWas Winters disfellowshipped because he sought medical treatment?
I decided a long time ago that some of the ministers were simply additional victims of HWA, only perhaps on a more intense level. You need to use discernment when determining this because some ministers were in fact terminal incorrigible a$$holes. When I first ran across Painful Truth, I was happy to see that some of these ministers had come clean, and were sharing. It occurred to me that since the ministers got us into this, the perspectives of those who like ourselves had gotten a rude awakening could be of great help in our mutual healing process. Healing for us, of course, but if they had also seen the error of their former teaching, don't they deserve their healing as well?
ReplyDeleteI did find that being compulsive teachers, some of them had new agendas which they were pushing, as atheism, new age precepts, or some version of mainstream Christianity. There have even been some who attempted to guide the "prodigals" back into a supposedly changed form of Armstrongism. But, it's all good! Each of them in their own way have gotten the thinking amongst us into considering alternatives to which we might not have been exposed otherwise. Again, you have to use discernment and to know certain things about each individual former minister as you read and interpret their posts. The ones I like best are the ones who use a light touch.
Tonto, Flurry will monitor Go Fund Me. People have been disfellowshipped in the past because of things read by his lackeys on the dissident sites.
ReplyDeleteCan Flurry afford all this disfellowshipping? It's not easy minting fresh Armstrongite replacements these days as LCG's Tomorrow's World lectures campaign affirms. In fact it now costs more to mint an Armstrongite than the money you can later squeeze out of them.
ReplyDeleteNck should get of his high horses.
ReplyDeleteYou FREAKING ASS HOLE.
a) My lovely family member died of their teachings on healing.
b) I love to see the teachers of that teaching ROT in THIS life.
c) I give no quarter to MELLOWED NAZI's even if they committed their atrocities in their 20's and they are now 90 years old. NO QUARTER. NO HIDING. No getting of my high horse dumbass.
nck
Fake name and fake account. Why spend so much time on here. The dumbass is yourself.
DeleteOf course, karma is the eternal bitch. We ALL have said stuff in our youth and have come to regret them. The difference is, there is no way in heaven or hell that ALL the COG ministers in every splinter don't know they are a pack of abusive liars. But they carry out the edicts so they can keep their only source of income with no thought to the future. What fool in this day and age would not demand payment to their Social Security? I am gob smacked that anyone can be THAT gullible, especially in the day of internet. So, the adage goes, you play, you pay. Beats karma.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is UCG'S retirement is 60% of there salary.so they would seem to be on the good end of that. There are run by committee (council of elders)so no one person is going to fire them and lose it all, that one person rule is fraught with peril look at the military, some of these church leaders look like Generals and Admirals, do what I say or walk the plank. It seems to me to be so crazy, when I was in the Navy back 55-59 if you were smart didn't ask questions, that'the way in some of the COG'S, The best of everything for themselves wouldn't lift a hand to busy counting the tithes, 1,2,3 building fund,fuel for their jet, and work parties, fund raises, and on and on it goes while as I said living in the lap of luxury, sheep must surly be sound asleep,ignorance can be contagious, But there will come a day, they will be crying woe is me.
ReplyDelete2.48 PM
DeleteHow many ministers fear retirement for no other reason than since their performance power will then drop to zero, God is then free to avenge their victims?
@ Nck: Muy inconsistente, Amigo!
ReplyDeleteOver the years, you have defended HWA for doing things that were just as bad as things done by Adolf Hitler or Donald Trump!
(I'd gladly bet a small fortune that Nck will deny this!)
4:30
DeleteYou broke a golden rule of internet discussions. So without me even replying you already lost the debate according to standard internet debate practice.
I'm sorry.
Nck
I have to agree with Nck on this one. This point was brought out in the recent Martin Scorsese movie "The Irishman." In the movie, the Irishman was treated with veneration by reporters in his old age, purely because he was old. So old age was portrayed as a get-out-of-jail-free card. This despite the innocent people that he murdered. This view is immoral.
ReplyDeleteThe bible instructs to "prove all things." This is a life long process, and in the meanwhile, people are forced to go on what they have been taught by others. Which means that people have many irrationally beliefs in their youth. But this is very distinct from ministers who knew that tyranny and abuse were wrong, but persisted because church culture allowed it. Ministers must have had serious doubts about the healing doctrine since it clashed with what people experienced.
HWA ministers knowingly acted immortally. Their victims were given life long sentences, so they deserve the same. No forgiveness for these crooks. forgiveness.
Yes, Nov 14 at 10:40, I remember some of those ministers. John Ouvrier was a WCG pastor from Hawaii, and Jim Baldwin was an elder from New York. John encouraged people to email him and was a prolific writer. Jim wrote mostly about atheism.
ReplyDeleteBack then the Painful Truth was an all-inclusive come as you are social center for people of the Armstrong experience. Unfortunately they have now introduced right wing politics into their mix, almost like Mark Armstrong. At least in the regular blog entries. The old articles are still there though.
Ick,
ReplyDeleteHope you are doing alright. Maybe it’s just the topic, but I’ve not heard you sound this way before. I suppose we all have topics that strike us more adversely.
nck, there are no standard internet debate practices. Quit making things up and address the issue.
ReplyDeleteDennis 6:47, you wrote "Such scriptures mislead and put impossible to ignore, for the faithful, burdens on the sincere."
ReplyDeleteIn this context, you cited James 5:14. Here is my personal midrash. It does not address the major and varied issues of healing (done elsewhere in denominational dogma) but it cross-examines your reasoning.
James 5:14-16 is a Deuteronomic statement. It comes out of the Judaic Christianity as practiced by the Jerusalem Church. By Deuteronomic, I mean that it is focused on cause and effect. If you do A, then B will happen. If you do this ritual in faith, then you will be healed. This is the theme of Deuteronomy: If you obey, then you will be blessed. And the Deuteronomic model, without consideration of nuance, is the source of all kinds of judgmentalism. Armstrongists, always immersed in their rendition of the Law of Moses, mostly follow the Deuteronomic model.
In opposition to the approach of Deuteronomy is the Book of Job. Job did everything right and all hell broke loose. And, at the denouement, Job's Deuteronomic advisors were reprimanded by God. You know the story. Job did have issues but his obedience was not one of them. Deuteronomy and Job are clearly in tension over the cause and effect principle yet they stand in the same canon. We have this tension replicated in the NT: James gives us a formula for healing and Paul is not healed all within the same canon.
This does not mean the Bible contradicts itself? It means that the issue is more complicated than simple cause and effect. Earlier in this same passage James states: "You have heard of the endurance of Job..." The differing perspectives within the NT and within the Epistle of James itself signal an expanded meaning. There is more to the story than what James is stating in 5:14-16.
I wish a good life could be reduced to simple principles to which I could comfortably conform. When I fell under the influence of Armstrongism as a naive teenager, that's what I thought it was all about. But the Bible and life are both more complicated than that. End midrash.
******** Click on my icon for Disclaimer
Anonymous 4:30 PM said to Nck, "Over the years, you have defended HWA for doing things that were just as bad as things done by Adolf Hitler or Donald Trump!"
ReplyDeleteMY COMMENT - 4:30 suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome. To lump Herbert W. Armstrong and Donald Trump in the same category as Adolph Hitler - a maniac who exterminated 6 Million Jews and went on a world conquest starting World War War II - clearly displays anonymous 4:30 PM's mental illness.
Richard
Didn't Paul persecute early Christians before his conversion? Is there no way Craig could have a change of heart? No room for forgiveness?
ReplyDelete9.29 AM
DeleteNo, Paul did not have a "change of heart." Paul persecuted early Christians because he was deceived. He believed he was acting morally
As soon as God corrected him, he changed his behavior. HWA ministers by contrast knew that their behavior was condemned by the bible. A big difference.
The guy has land, cattle, a wife with a job. He is rich compared to the state that the PCG left many of its members in.
ReplyDeleteDidn't David say that the righteous never have to beg for bread?
ReplyDeleteConspiracy deniers are the world's biggest problem. Nobody can prove that ANYONE ever had "covid" since all the tests are fake.
ReplyDeleteLook, I said some terrible things I know.
ReplyDeleteThe point I'm making:
A)
PCG must not have an opportunity to use Winters as an example of "curses when you leave."
B)
The words spoken from ivory towers have consequences and "you" ministers must not expect mercy from me when "you" are too late in mending your ways.
Nck
Nck 10:47
DeleteRegarding your point A)
This is exactly what the PCG did. They gave an announcement to Mark them both. Then proceeded to tell it’s worldwide membership (less than 4000) not to help them, not to interfere with gods punishment for them, he is doing it to bring them back and that they shouldn’t try to be more loving than God. No matter how severe their trials may be, they must not help them!
This is disturbing, think of the people sitting there, especially the younger people. They are being threatened! They are instilling fear in them that if the leave bad things will happen and NO one is going to help you!
The winters have been out of the ministry since 2013 and out of the PCG for almost 2 years. I can only hope they have changed and see Armstrongism for what it is. But it’s sick that the PCG will use someone’s hard times as a means to further control and manipulate.
9:49
ReplyDeleteDidn't David also begged to be given bread from the temple so he could eat?
Dennis said:
ReplyDeleteIt's just the perspective I choose in such things. I ultimately blame many of the scriptures for the foolish perspectives they tell member and minister to take in many matters. Some take them more seriously and zealously and some less… In my upbringing, this scripture was simply ignored.
I'd say in all of fundamentalist Christianity, James 5:14
"Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed."
...has caused more misapplied misery and tragedy in many a person's life, beliefs and practice. It's a lie.
=========================
You blame the scriptures? First off, who made you the judge and jury? Ego is a great thing, right?
And, in your younger years you ignored James? And that is your authority today? Wow, ego is great, right?
And, because you, and others, don’t get results the scriptures are a lie? Maybe you are missing something not of the scriptures, more like what is in the mirror. You know, scripture says certain types of people cannot understand them. For instance, remember your kind of work, today? Why do you do it? For the money? To help people get better? Or, both?
If you knew the scripture better, and what the underlying meaning is, you might at least figure out there is more here than meets the eye, which is hard for an atheist to do.
As an example or more: One of my students had a terrible headache right before class. I showed her something to do based on James 5:14. It literally went away instantly.
Another lady called me and asked if I could help her friend. She could not turn her neck without great pain, due to an auto accident. She said 4-5 others professionals had tried to help but nothing worked. So, I did what I learned from 5:15, 20 minutes later, free turning, no pain. I could go on, but who here would listen?
By the way, the splinter groups have the same problem you do, don’t deeply study and understand many things the scriptures actually say.
Now, remember your profession? Well, here is how to up your game, and do 5:14 properly.
“Is anyone among you ill? Let him call at once the elders… and let them pray over him having MASSAGED him [with olive oil] in the Name of the Lord.”
Knowing the proper things to do, cuts can be healed in minutes, with no scars left. Scalded fingers can be healed, and in 40 minutes or less, no blisters or pain, etc. etc.
Another scripture factors are involved which atheists and skeptics and critics don’t want to hear.
Are there failures in applying 5:14? Yes, of course. But not because an atheist believes the verse is a lie.
The whole story is never told here, only the exaggerated bad parts.
I can’t believe you were a minister for 25 years and never had any answers to prayers, for yourself or others….UNLESS ……/??
And, if everyone else here has had bad results, or none in reference to 5:14, then something else is really wrong..
And it’s not because the verse is a lie. Fess up friends. :)
Yes the ministry of the PCG and WCG is “really wrong”
Delete"Blocked artery." Did he exercise? I'm not trying to be nasty, but did he put out effort to remain fit?
ReplyDeleteAfter exercising hours per week, I have no sympathy for people who think that exercise is only for the little people. I recall a segment on the Today program where a exercise guru said that most people in nursing homes who were in wheelchairs or were using walking aids, should not have the need for these had they moderately exercised. People needlessly age and die due to lack of exercise.
I've said my bit.
Woulda, shoulda, coulda. Everybody seems to have a solution. There is a passage in the Bible that states that we will be judged in the same way that we judge others. Whether or not any of us were part of a toxic ministry, we all were taught to treat outsiders and people who left by a different (lesser) set of standards while we were part of original WCG or an ACOG splinter. I have often said that I didn't even know what ethical treatment of others was until I had left Armstrongism and began genuinely interacting with others as a real human being. We were taught to suppress so many of the good, wholesome qualities of human nature simply because the church said to. The lesson of the good Samaritan and the prodigal son were right there in the Bible all the time. Also the passage about God raining on the just and the unjust alike.
ReplyDeleteBut, go ahead. Make excuses.
Nck,
ReplyDeleteI understand the sentiment though I'm growing more generous towards others as the years go by. Not even sure if it is fully generosity as much as just letting it pan out as God sees fit.
And, along with Anon 11:23, I hate the thought of PCG scaring the young with the threat of Heavenly retribution for leaving the PCG or any COG when really it was just a complication from an old man getting COVID. Sometimes I pray that things go well in my life so the Coggers can't use me as a cautionary tale. So far so good.
Yes Jim.
DeleteI pray and thump my chest exclaiming, "I thank you God that I am not like other people, like them.......".... Oh wait, I mean......... nevermind.... wink wink..
Nck
I really want to feel empathy for Craig. But knowing how he worked so hard for so long to destroy so many lives.....I find empathy not only impossible, but also dangerous, as it would blunt the seriousness of his crimes.
ReplyDeleteThere are some things missing in this whole narrative. If CW has been out of the "ministry" since 2013, why hasn't he been working elsewhere prior to his illness? Didn't he work before being f/t with PCG? He should have some credits toward SSI.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that some of his wives coworkers have volunteered to build the ramp that he needs. It shows where some ex-PCG members need to go to for kindness and generosity. Current PCG members and/or Laodiceans (as they called them) sure won't come to their aide.
With regards to the comment on James (healing). Many commentators struggle with the exact meaning of this passage. Some say that anointing can mean a ritual or a medical treatment. This being the case then the passage could say seek treatment and pray. But the idea that came to my mind, with regards to promises is this. When God promised Israel blessing or curses based on their obedience, was this a promise to individuals or to the nation as a whole? Can a nation be blessed, yet not each individual benefit from it? When we bombed Berlin, evil Nazi's like the People Judge Roland Freisler, was killed but also innocent women and children. If the promise of blessings or curses is a national one, then rain can fall on the just as well as the unjust (collective responsibillity). So, I guess we shouldn't judge too quickly as when the disciples asked, "Who sinned, the man or his parents?" Sometimes karma get you, sometimes, SHIT HAPPENS.
ReplyDeletelol Nck!
ReplyDelete"Blocked artery." Did he take the clot shot?
ReplyDeleteThe bottom line is that we just don't know enough from the information presented to make any sort of judgment regarding Craig. Granted, he was no Job, but the human propensity to make jumps like Bildad, Zophar, and Eliphaz has well been manifested here.
ReplyDeleteIf he's done a complete turnaround, like Dickens' character Scrooge, then some of us have said more about ourselves than about Mr. Winters. Can the Walmart employees see something that we don't? I just don't know.
Anon 9:42 am
ReplyDelete9.29 AM
No, Paul did not have a "change of heart." Paul persecuted early Christians because he was deceived. He believed he was acting morally
As soon as God corrected him, he changed his behavior. HWA ministers by contrast knew that their behavior was condemned by the bible. A big difference.
Your ability to read mind and heart is incredible. Go ahead: do me now!
1.22 PM
DeleteGosh, many people have my ability to "read minds and hearts." For example psalm 37:21 "The wicked borrow and no not repay, but the righteous give generously."
There are millions like you (with cosmetic differences), so it's easy for me to "do me now."
It's such a strange trait that some people think themselves mentally invisible to others. No, you are not invisible.
Anon 6:19 pm
ReplyDeleteDespite the weird logic you tried to construct in your post, you have no idea what's in the mind and heart of Craig right now (unless per chance you have spoken with him, in which case you would mention that).
8.14 AM
DeleteI wasn't addressing Craig. I was addressing 1.22 PM. When someone challenges that there is a firm reality with accompanying characteristics, and the validity of the five senses and logic ("you shall know them by their fruits"), that tells me heaps about their heart.