Nothing describes the perverse teachings of the Philadelphia Church of God, or the COG movement as a whole, than some of the asinine teachings on child-rearing. It's no wonder the church is filled with such disgusting man/boys in leadership positions that are a result of that "child-rearing" training. They were robbed of their youth and still act like little whiney children when things don't go their way.
PCG's Ron Fraser writes:
“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). This verse is simply the starting point in understanding how to raise your children. We need to understand the nature of what we are dealing with!
What chance does a child have when this is what they are faced with on a daily basis? They grow up hearing that they are deceitful and desperately wicked. In their teen years, this is overemphasized and then as adults, this is beaten into them very year around Passover time. No one is are worthy in the sight of the god of the PCG or many of the other COG's.
God created the human mind, the intellect, the process by which we think, conceive our plans, imagine about the future, reason back and forth, and the process of taking given facts and deducing or predicting certain outcomes. The Eternal God created the mind of man for a brilliant purpose.
“So mark well this super-vital truism—that perfect, holy and righteous character is the supreme feat of accomplishment possible for Almighty God the Creator—it is also the means to His ultimate supreme purpose! His final objective! But how? I repeat, such perfect character must be developed. It requires the free choice and decision of the separate entity in whom it is to be created” (Mystery of the Ages).
God created law—law is good (1 Timothy 1:8). Submission to God’s law brings the excellent, profitable and blessed results that God intended for human beings, and which ultimately leads to eternal life.
Why is it that most of the abusive COG's out there claim the law is good when scripture itself says that the law is an instrument of death? "NIRV He has given us the power to serve under a new covenant. The covenant is not based on the written Law of Moses. It comes from the Holy Spirit. The written Law kills, but the Spirit gives life."
Yet there is an opposing law that impacts our minds to lead us to disobey God’s law. Paul called this “the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). He contrasted it to “the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus which sets us free from the law of sin and death.” The Apostle James elsewhere calls God’s law “the law of liberty” (James 1:25; 2:12).
Yes, Christians do believe in the fact that the spirit gives life. The problem with the COG, particularly the larger abusive sects, is that they deny Christ and everything he stood for and accomplished. These groups have no idea what the spirit is that they claim to be the sole possessors of.
Fraser then lets it be known that little babies are already in the gripes of Satan himself the second they are born.
So our starting point in understanding God’s method of child rearing is to deeply understand just what it is that we are dealing with. We are dealing with fresh, young human minds. Minds that are automatically tuned in to Satan’s wavelength from birth! “The human spirit within each human is automatically tuned to Satan’s wavelength. It seems as if Satan has surcharged the air over the entire Earth with his attitude of self-centeredness and vanity” (ibid). Here is the source of the law of sin—that great fallen Lucifer who was the first living entity to sin (Ezekiel 28:15-17).
Why does everything that to be a"law" in the PCG cult? It does keep the blinded under control though.
That nature of Satan is the law of sin. It opposes and seeks to exalt itself above all that God’s perfect law of liberty, the law of love, stands for. It is a law of corruption which leads to chaos in any human mind unable to resist it. It is full of pride, vanity, jealousy, lust and greed. It is selfish to the core. It is anti-love, anti-life, anti-God!
Never has there been a COG that has exalted itself above all others than the PCG. God's Liberty in love is totally missing from the PCG leadership. The pride, vanity, jealousy, lust, and greed that fill the current leadership have turned many of the leaders of the PCG into some of the nastiest people ever. Remember, this is the same group that told a family to take their mentally challenged daughter to the mall and leave her there so that the state could take care of her.
Fraser continues:
That’s the challenge you face as a parent! As the umbilical cord is cut and that little baby is laid upon its mother’s breast, already Satan is intent on tuning in to that mind. We may picture the drama of Revelation 12:4 applying to the children in God’s firstfruits Church. Satan literally stands before the expectant mother, seeking to devour that little one’s mind as soon as it is born.
He next blames the mother for allowing satan to enter the baby while still in her womb!
And it even starts before birth! This precious little life is drawn from the womb of its mother with a mind already impacted, even in its fetal stages, through the influence on the mother of the war between the law of sin and the law of life!
PCG members are encouraged to have "good breeding" skills:
Many studies have proved that the state of mind, body and general circumstances of the parents at the time of conception of the child have a bearing on the general well-being of the fetus developing within its mother’s womb. “Good breeding” in the physical sense starts with two healthy bodies, those of the mother and the father. Congenital defects and weaknesses in children simply can be sourced at the breaking of God’s laws at some point in the ancestry of the child.
Satan has so impacted the mind of man as to greatly corrupt the good Earth and its air, water, produce and livestock, designed by God for the sustenance of healthy life. Whatever we breathe, drink or consume as food has inevitably been weakened or warped by man’s interfering, law-breaking hand to the point that congenital problems related to heredity and environment are escalating dramatically. Those couples contemplating having children would do well to ensure that their physical fitness and health is at its peak when endeavoring to conceive.
The craziness continues:
Again, in this masterful exposé of human nature, Mr. Flurry states, “Our educational system looks upon man as being basically good and trustworthy. That philosophy destroys institutions and nations! We must see the evil in human nature, or we can never solve our problems. That is where man’s false hope lies—in an incredibly deceitful mind that is terminally ill! Here is where men generally place their trust. What deadly deceit!” (ibid).
That is why we reject the human ways of psychology, psychiatry and sociology in coming to understand human nature, human interaction between God and man and between human beings. Godly parenting is only possible with godly revelation. It takes converted minds, converted parents, tuned in to God’s wavelength, daily—and aggressively tuning out Satan’s wavelength—to comprehend the vision within which our child rearing must be conducted. We are accountable to God to understand how to apply the God-given method of training up those children in the way that they should go.
As parents, the key is to not “let a day pass without intense Bible study and repentant prayer to our God. Only He can save us from our incurably sick minds” (ibid).
This is bullshit. While the spiritual life of a Christian is important, one does NOT need INTENSE daily Bible study nor does one need to continually be obsessed with repentant prayer. Because the PCG and the COG have made themselves prostitutes to the law, there is no other avenue for salvation for them unless they keep it perfectly so that God might let Christ save them because nothing Jesus did was ever good enough to do that!
There is much, much more craziness in the article, which is in three different parts.
Understanding the Method (The Missing Dimension in Parenting, Part 3)