Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Did Church of God International Give Up In Defeat Over Bill Watson?


 

Bill Watson’s Corrupt Leadership

By

Lonnie Hendrix

Apparently, the leadership of the Church of God International has thrown up their hands in defeat and surrendered in the battle that has been raging over that organization’s messaging. As regular readers here know, CGI headquarters has been trying to rein in the overt and highly partisan political messaging of rogue Pastor Bill Watson and his allies for some time. Indeed, the Executive Committee of that church even voted to remove some of Bill Watson’s and Adrian Davis’ controversial messaging on Covid-19 from their platforms! Last month, the church held a ministerial meeting to confront and address the problem, but Bill and his allies were having none of it. Watson insisted that his remarks were completely appropriate – that he was only talking about “policy.”

What makes this writer think that CGI leadership has surrendered to Bill and company? The appearance of Pastor Watson’s latest sermon on their website! In his latest political diatribe, The Leaven of Corrupt Leadership, Watson talks about how the Democrats have caused the soaring inflation currently being experienced by most Americans (no mention of the former Republican Administration’s handling of the pandemic and the current war in Ukraine in this connection). Did you notice that very ACOG theology sounding title for his sermon? I bet some of you are wondering what in the world that has to do with politics. You should never underestimate Bill’s capacity to weave politics into his message!

He begins by stating that Christ’s work isn’t just about salvation and that the first chapter of Acts proves that he was busily telling his disciples about the Kingdom of God before his ascension to heaven! And, yes, in case some of you were wondering, for Bill, the Kingdom of God suggests a political entity or “polity.” Indeed, Bill went on to mock the notion that Christ was dwelling on what he had done for his disciples – making salvation possible for them and the rest of the world. For Bill, the Christian message is inherently political – it’s all about overthrowing this world’s governments and resurrecting the defunct Kingdom of Israel under Christ and his disciples.

From there, Watson launched into another diatribe about how Christ handled the religious leaders of his day – the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and lawyers. He talked about the contempt that Christ had for them, and how boldly he challenged their teachings and authority (there is no mention of the fact that he told the people that they occupied Moses’ seat and that they should follow their teachings, not their hypocritical behavior). For Bill, both secular and religious leadership in 2022 are full of corruption and incompetence, and it all tends toward authoritarianism.

Need examples? Bill has got plenty of them. He went on to talk about the Durham investigation of the Clinton campaign in 2016, and the indictment of one of her campaign’s lawyers. Next, he mentioned the controversy surrounding Hunter Biden’s laptop. Watson went on to assert that the content of Hunter’s laptop is demonic. He talked about politicians and members of Hollywood’s elite taking advantage of Epstein’s pleasure island. Once again, no mention of the fact that Trump was an associate of Jeffrey Epstein or any of the current investigations surrounding Republican politicians. Are we beginning to discern a pattern in Bill’s remarks?

How on earth does all of this relate to the Days of Unleavened Bread? He says that it’s time for all of us to wake up and not tolerate “the leaven of corrupt leadership” in our society! Bill says that this is all “very appropriate” for him to be talking about because this is “some of the sin we’re swimming in” and “we’re being effected [sic] by it!” Never mind, that these are the very kinds of issues that Bill’s Kingdom of God is supposed to address! For Bill, we (Christians) need to be confronting and addressing this behavior NOW. And, according to Bill, those of us who think it’s inappropriate for Christians to engage in this world’s polity, we are busily burying our heads in the sand. He went on to say that pastors should be condemning abortion, gay marriage, and gender confusion – implying that this should be the focus of Christian pastors, not Christ’s message of salvation!

He said that ignoring all of these reprehensible behaviors is leading to the “reprobate of judgement” – that the ability to discern the difference between “right and wrong is lost in the confusion.” He claimed that ignoring this “leaven” is tantamount to discarding the Bible – the foundation of morality! Of course, Bill means HIS interpretation of what that book defines as right and wrong; and if your understanding differs from his, you’re just plain wrong!

Next, Bill turned his attention to religious leadership, and I must say that I found myself to be in complete agreement with his criticism of the wealth of folks like Kenneth Copeland, Pat Robertson, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, and Creflo Dollar. In fairness, unless it has changed, we should also note that Bill Watson is one of the few ministers of CGI who is actually on that organization’s payroll (said to be a modest stipend). He also decried the homosexuality and pedophilia extant within the Catholic priesthood.

Even so, Pastor Watson does not seem to comprehend that God will ultimately address these flagrant departures from the teachings of Jesus Christ – not us. Sure, we should all be spiritually alert and astute enough to not be patronizing these folks, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with pointing out their abuse. However, as in all of the other examples which Bill mentions, God is their ultimate judge – NOT me, you, or Bill!

From there, Bill returned to his theme that pastors have a responsibility to root out all of this leaven and confront it. You see, for Bill, the Church has been commissioned to warn Israel (America) away from their sins. Like the leaders of many of the other ACOGs, he sees himself as the spiritual successor of Herbert and Garner Ted Armstrong. He even concluded his message with a reference to that passage from Isaiah that is very familiar to all Armstrongites – you remember the vision of the “wonderful world tomorrow” with the wolf dwelling with the lamb, the leopard lying down with the kid, the calf and the lion together, and a little child leading them. In other words, the establishment of the physical Kingdom and restoration of Israel is the end game for Bill – not the salvation of humankind.

Finally, although Pastor Watson did reference Christ’s remarks about servant leadership found in the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, one can’t help but suspect that Tyler’s recent attempts to rein in his messaging were uppermost in his mind. In that passage, we read that Christ told his disciples: “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Verses 25-28) For Bill, the clear implication is that the leavened leadership of the CGI shouldn’t be trying to shape his message or use their leverage to prevent him from talking about political topics!

And by publishing his sermon on their platform, we have to conclude that CGI’s leadership has ceded this ground to Mr. Watson. Bill should be allowed to preach his political message and warn Israel, and everybody in CGI should get on his boat! Never mind that CGI’s has clearly stated on their website that “Our mission is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world (Matthew 28:19).” – [See their Mission Statement] Never mind that their “Statement of Beliefs” contains this bullet point: “The gospel is the message preached by Christ and by His church about God’s coming Kingdom, the restoration of His government on earth, and how mankind can enter that Kingdom and government. It includes the message of what Jesus has done, is doing, and shall do—and ultimately is the message of the entire Old and New Testaments. The primary purpose and commission of the church is to ‘Go ye therefore, and teach [make disciples of] all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’” I guess they’ve decided that since Bill is preaching part of the gospel (as they define it) that that is good enough!

33 comments:

jim said...

He should recognize the flaws in the entire political system, but the Dems take the cake. The Who’s who of the Dems are corrupted it appears to me…the Bidens with Hunter and “the Big Guy”, the Clintons, Epstein, Pelosi’s hypocrisy, etc. Even when looking for dirt on Trump it generally is based on his associating with corrupted Dems.
This is not the topic that brings me to this site, but the most liberal 33% in this country have corrupted reasoning that is not sustainable.

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix said...

Jim,

It is a topic that we shouldn't have to address here. Unfortunately, we have ministers like Bill Watson who insist on discoursing about politics from the pulpit. We all have political opinions, but the pulpits of God's ekklesia aren't the appropriate forums for expressing them.

Anonymous said...

Even when looking for dirt on Trump it generally is based on his associating with corrupted Dems.

Not so. Like most New York City real estate moguls, much of Donald Trump's success has been made possible by his tolerance of, and occasional participation in, Mafia-related corruption. That's not an R/D thing; there are corrupt real estate Democrats and corrupt real estate Republicans. He's also a sleazy businessman, as revealed by his shoddy "Trump University" that cheated some and defrauded others.

However, if you took a snapshot of Washington corruption, Donald Trump would rank as a minor leaguer compared to the Biden crime family, Senators Feinstein and McConnell, Representatives Pelosi and Waters, and former officeholders from the Clinton and Cuomo families.

As people with ACOG backgrounds, we should be able to relate. How many of us have watched as a sincere friend or loved one has been ordained and/or hired by Pasadena, Charlotte, Wadsworth, Edmond, etc., only to become twice as much a son of hell as he takes on the qualities of his new environment?

Anonymous said...

The real shocker for me is that every single member of an ACOG, and every single ACOG minister does not hold the same views as Watson, and forcefully express them. I mean, that line of thought is pretty much mandated by the Armstrongian doctrinal approach, and model of church government. The Republican party has finally come around to behaving very much like an ACOG. One thing is certain. When Trump, or those who pattern their lives and philosophies after his come back into power, they sure won't be rounding up the church members as being subversive and anti-government! They'll be inviting them to the rallies and asking the ACOG ministers to speak out on British Israelism. Mike Lindell will be giving them all free pillows!

Tonto said...

There really are no "GOOD GUYS" when it comes to ANY of this worlds institutions. The best Bill Watson can argue is the concept of the "Lesser of two evils" kind of thing, but nonetheless, it still is EVIL!

Being a GTA wannabe, or imitator is long past the "expiration date". People know that things are messed up, and want to find refuge, love , fellowship and encouragement. Perhaps there was a time when America was pollyanish and unaware of its own problems, but that era is long gone.

People need to hear hope, peace, and promise.

Anonymous said...

Someone sent me this today in an email. I am in Watson's congregation and I will state for a fact there are a lot of us that do NOT like listening to his politics. Our country is divided enough over politics right now for us to show up to church and hear the same garbage over and over. Not everyone sitting there each week have the same politics that he does. He needs to start a blog or get an account on Trump's "Truth" app and post his nonsense to a receptive crowd. We are not that place!

Anonymous said...

Miller, you wrote "In other words, the establishment of the physical Kingdom and restoration of Israel is the end game for Bill – not the salvation of humankind."

I have held a point of view similar to this for some time. I believe it is essentially correct, but I would like to add some nuance. This is based on my experience as a once dedicated Armstrongist.

Armstrongists do not recognize the Kingdom of God through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in present time. They only recognize the theocratic utopia that will be established at the return of Jesus. It is in fact a vaunted point of discrepancy with Christianity that they recognize only the future geopolitical hegemony of God. They do recognize the eternity of the Kingdom of God extending beyond the Millenium. HWA frequently spoke of terraforming planets using his "unfinished furniture" analogy. (I think he was using this analogy even before science had established there were planets outside our solar system. Now it is understood that there are more planets than stars in the universe.) I always understood this terraforming to be in time beyond the Millenium, which was to be earth-centric, and in deep space. Ron Dart added to this the idea that we would all go out and create an inhabited planet and have the opportunity to die for the sins of the inhabitants (based I would guess on the "God as God is God" presumption).

"God as God is God" led HWA to foresee great potential for humanity and he founded a magazine that he called "Human Potential." I think maybe there was only one issue of it under that title. This amounts to an unbounded though malformed view of the future of humanity. The idea of "God as God is God" is nonsensical except to people who do not have a well-formulated doctrine of God and don't really recognize his transcendence.

In this is a conundrum that I have never really been able to rationally parse. Against this backdrop, HWA seemed to have a very low view of salvation. He many times accused church members of wanting to "get" salvation. This placed salvation in the category of some kind of material largesse and wanting it just another selfish behavior. Typically, this was when the budget in Pasadena was down, or growth was not as good as expected. I also heard him once say that God could raise up stones to do the Work of God and that church members were not needed (an inappropriate application of Matt 3:9). I also heard him castigate the church and assert that very likely only the ministry and their families would receive salvation. This may have just been bullying in an attempt to squeeze more money out of an already ashen membership, but it is based on a consistent view of salvation as a distantly subordinate concern, at least for congregants.

I am led to the conclusion that though HWA's prophetic focus was on the coming of The Wonderful World Tomorrow, his pragmatic focus was on the Work. The Work seemed to eclipse both the millennium and salvation. You might say, on a quantitative scale, the Work was a ten, the millennium (equated with the KoG) was a 6 and salvation was less than 1. This kind of partitioning of what should be the unified work of the Holy Spirit seems to reflect a mundane corporate effort rather than the activity of the Body of Christ.

Just saying ...

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RSK said...

Out of one side of the mouth, they say "we are called out, this is satans world and we are not a part of it", on the other they read the latest facebook memes trying to whip people into a frenzy. Go figure.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but I can't take seriously any article written by a person who wants to cancel others for their "dangerous" opinions. Such people fear the truth-finding process, and must be presumed to have something to hide. Articles by Lonnie Hendrix are off of my reading list.

Anonymous said...

The idea of "God as God is God" is nonsensical except to people who do not have a well-formulated doctrine of God and don't really recognize his transcendence.

That statement is as ignorant as anything that ever came out of HWA's mouth. Several world religions successfully embrace a "You can become God as God is God" concept in some manner or another. The problem isn't with the concept; the problem is that HWA's theological ignorance prompted him to teach the concept without teaching the necessary theological underpinnings that could make that concept tenable. The theological world is a lot wider than Protestant Christians often recognize. But it is true that "God as God is God" becomes a self-cancelling absurdity to thoughtful participants within Armstrongism's brand of Gnostic fake Christianity.

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix said...

Anonymous 4/27 @ 4:48,

Thank you for expressing your displeasure with Bill's political messaging. I know that you are not alone in this - I wish more CGI members (particularly those in Bill's congregation) would disassociate themselves from his messaging on this subject!

Neo,

Thanks for the added nuance and for making clear that ALL Christians should value salvation (their own and that of the rest of humanity), and that the Kingdom both precedes the Millenium and extends out beyond it into eternity!

Anonymous 4/28 @ 8:08,

To be clear, I believe that EVERYONE is entitled to their own opinions/views. Moreover, I believe that "dangerous" views should be confronted and challenged, not ignored or dismissed. After all, I still read Bill's articles and listen to his sermons! I find that folks who fear the truth usually cut themselves off from views that differ from their own!

Anonymous said...

......"his (HWA) pragmatic focus was on the Work".
=======================================
Of course. That was where the money was.

RSK said...

Not following how you got "cancel" out of that post, but you do you...

Anonymous said...

7.48 AM
NEO, as Herb use to frequently state, "you still don't get it." Of course HWA railed against members wanting to "get" salvation. Of course he railed against the "imperial self." Of course the Work eclipsed members salvation. Of course the Work was 10 and salvation less than 1. The explanation for all this?? Marxism. HWA was a Marxist. In Marxism, people are the chattel of the state. They only exist to serve the state (the Work) hand and foot. Chattel has no rights, hence contempt for members desire, hopes and dreams. Which is why HWA demonized "get" and self love. Hence the Stalinist tyranny in this church. All while living in his mansion, using gold and silver dinner ware and staying in 5 star hotels. A shining example of practicing the opposite of what he preached.

RSK said...

I believe I've mentioned this before, but one of the effects of the Abrahamic faiths is the tendency for some adherents to put themselves on a self-raised pedestal and piously poo-poo everything and everyone they see as being not of their moral caliber or whatever, while emphasizing their own supposed righteousness in comparison. The tendency might be exaggerated within COGlodytes due to their claims of "watching world events" as well as their recurring need to believe themselves as being "God's chosen crud" or whatever.

Amid what Neo calls "Splinterdom", we see lots of examples of this. The various "magazine" publications are loaded with it, Bob Thiel devotes much of his writing to it, and the various members hoping to one day quit their day jobs and get a paycheck from their favorite "headquarters" pop up doing it from time to time.

The humor in it is that A) Armstrong himself spoke against that behavior, even while his sycophants did it, and B) it takes no talent or special understanding to make yourself into a cartoonish naysayer and pity partier about everything.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 10:04 wrote, "That statement is as ignorant as anything that ever came out of HWA's mouth. Several world religions successfully embrace a "You can become God as God is God" concept in some manner or another."

You bandy about the word "ignorant" rather freely. Your statement above might be self-incriminating. You will have to show me where other religions believe people may become an actual god in the Christian sense. You may start first with explaining how someone may become uncreated. The God Christians worship is uncreated. "In some manner or another" does not carry water.

As theologian Jacob Neusner said, "What you cannot show you do not know." In other words, if you cannot show it, that is the point of departure for you own personal ignorance.

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Anonymous said...

NeoDromos apparently doesn't understand that many Eastern religions already take for granted that the human soul is uncreated and divine. That's anathema to Armstrongists, so it's funny to see how he bashes Armstrongist thought on the one hand while remaining enslaved to it on the other.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 1:33

My original statement was "The idea of "God as God is God" is nonsensical except to people who do not have a well-formulated doctrine of God and don't really recognize his transcendence."

This was a reference to Theism within the Christian or putative Christian domain. Notice I said "become an actual god in the Christian sense." Can I assume you don't know what I am talking about? I am not inclined to argue with you about Jainism or other irrelevant nonsense. I stand by the statement above as it would be evaluated in Christian theology.

Your statement "while remaining enslaved to it on the other" seems to lack any rational basis. Just a sound bite. I think you are the troll who always shows up after I post something and calls me either ignorant or stupid. I am not inclined to respond to any more of your comments.

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Anonymous said...

I wonder what Bill thinks of the war in Ukraine--could it destroy the EU as some analysts suggest? Will it pare down the EU to the 10 prophesied nations? Dependence on Russian energy could be the trigger that sets it all off.

https://www.bitchute.com/video/HZ4G7ttsNp0/

Anonymous said...

The "God as God is God" idea is a HWA marketing invention. It's the carrot he dangles in front of his members and potential members in order to get his hands on their wallets, and bribe them to tolerate horrific mistreat by his goon ministers. The old adage of "there ain't no free lunch" equally applies to becoming equal in Gods' abilities. It's the mindset that results in billions of dollars being yearly scammed from victims. God has spent hundreds of billions of years, perhaps longer, developing His abilities, and the idea of Him handing it on a plate to others is laughable. It's only God who will have the ability to "create" new Earth's in the universe, and maybe new vegetation and animals. Resurrected saints will be priests and teachers. Nothing more.

Anonymous said...

Anon 4:17:00 PM PDT

You raise some interesting questions. We could always ask Dr Bob Thiel of course. I would rather talk to a stone to be quite honest.
I think the bigger question is, is Russia really who many say, Gog Magog or Rosh, or are Christians barking up a wrong tree again as the Armstrong cog movement with BI.
There is a vast amount of good scholarship available now that clearly debunks many common assumptions we had about Russia.
Professor Daniel Block, Dr Edwin Yamauchi, www.thecometsofgod.com are just a few for starters.
Plus from secular sources also and with archeology linguistics history and geography etc.
These writers say the popular identifications of Gog Magog are ludicrous and bizarre, and based on rather wild speculations and conjecture only.
Russia is a ‘superpower’ in name only, her nuclear weapons the tipping point only.
Her population is in decline and her economy is extremely fragile.
This Russian ‘adventure’ may well strengthen the EU and mark the dismemberment of the Russian Federation, and most certainly cripple Russia economically for decades to come.Perhaps even good bye Mr Putin.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 6:05 wrote, "God has spent hundreds of billions of years, perhaps longer, developing His abilities"

You will find that in Christian theology this statement is not true. God is the same today, yesterday and forever. He is absolute. He possesses sovereign absolute power over all. Ability is something that humans have and must improve. God is beyond that.

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Anonymous said...

You will find that in Christian theology this statement is not true. God is the same today, yesterday and forever. He is absolute. He possesses sovereign absolute power over all. Ability is something that humans have and must improve. God is beyond that.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are among those who would disagree with you. Eternal progression means what it says. An all-powerful God has the power to grow forever. Armstrong-god is just a divinized factory worker, constrained by space-time and by anthropomorphized false assumptions about the limits of a god with a human-like body.

Anonymous said...

9.29 PM
Neo, God is beyond that?? What do you think God has spent trillions of years doing? There is no waste in nature, so what do you think God has been doing the last 34 billion years since Satan's fall? He has spent all that time designing all the new vegetation and creatures since the prehistoric era. I know from my engineering experience that it takes much longer to create original designs than to modify designs, so God must have spent many times 34 billion years to design the original pre historic world. In Revelation 4:10 -11 "For Thou are worthy to receive glory, honor and power.." Glory, honor and power have to be earned, and God did this by straining hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions of years.
Btw, God doesn't use magic, He uses advanced technology that He has developed. Plus God Himself lives in a world of cause and effect, which is why Christ had to die for our sins. Contemporary Christianity, like the rest of humanity, secretly believes in whim worship, so they give Mickey Mouse explanations of why Christ had to die for our sins amounting to "Christ had to die for our sins because He had to die for our sins." Or "Christ died for our sins because of the law of sacrifice." Really? Which law is this? This is a deep down rejection of course and effect. The ACOGs teaching that everything is cause and effect is shallow, and basically a hedge. They are being deceitful.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 9:15 wrote, "I think the bigger question is, is Russia really who many say, Gog Magog or Rosh, or are Christians barking up a wrong tree again as the Armstrong cog movement with BI."

I am not sure of the use of you term Christian in this sentence, but I will set that aside. Most mainstream Christians are not big followers of prophecy. Some of the "Left Behind" evangelicals may fit the category.

Armstrongist prophecy is based on Herman Hoeh's identification of the modern descendants of ancient nations mentioned in the Bible. Herman Hoeh renounced the Compendia but one might argue that we do not know what specifically he renounced - maybe some parts of what he wrote about history are right. So let us move to genetics for clarification. Because the Armstrongist interpretation of prophecy is based on the racial identity of peoples, then the Armstrongist interpretation is necessarily and unavoidably based on genetics.

It is needless to parse through the Hoehist argument on the identity of Russia. This relies on ancient and dubious histories and similarities in names. This approach is soft and at high risk for misidentification. But the outcome is that Hoeh asserted that the Russians are Japhetic. And the Poles, for instance, right across the border from Russia, are Semitic. This model is false. Genetically the Russians and Poles are the same people. They are both dominated by haplogroup R1a and are descendants of Steppe Pastoralists who invaded much of Eastern Europe. They may differ somewhat at the subclade level. But they are essentially the same. The Shem/Japheth model used by Hoeh does not carry water. And, therefore, modern Russia has no connection to ancient nations identified in the Bible. The Bible is focused on the Jews with some mention of their Middle Eastern neighbors.

It's a long story, but haplogroup R has been around for a long time based on rates of mutation. But since that is controversial, more direct evidence was found in the remains of a young boy at Malta-Buret near Lake Baikal in Siberia. His haplogroup was basal R. His remainds were dated at 24,000 BP. So, if the descendants of Tubal and Meschech left the Middle East and moved to Russia, the already found that it was heavily populated with haplogroup R people. Which means that they may have left their name in Russian but they have been totally absorbed by the native population and no longer have any kind of separate identity. As you may deduce from what I have written, I believe the Flood had to be a local event. Genesis does not assert that the Flood was global neither does it assert that Noah was the progenitor of all people in the world. I believe there was a Noah and there was a Flood, it just is not the overstated epic envisioned by the KJV translators. They just engaged in a little eisegesis. Translators are always shaped by their political environment - like anyone else. That is another topic.

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RSK said...

Ramesses III was haplogroup E. Not R types like the guys in The Ten Commandments.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 5:58

You believe in the anthropomorphic God of HWA. This is a topic that has been beaten to death. I wrote an essay on this topic and it is somewhere on this blog. Let me just say that God did not spend "trillions of years." He created time and is himself timeless. This understanding has been around since the Patristics. God transcends all that we as humans know. HWA described an immanent god based on Old Testament anthropomorphisms that closely matches the descriptions of a Demiurge in Gnosticism. HwA's god functions like a created being who lives inside the universe and is subject to its constraints. Your comment is rife with this misconception.

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RSK said...

Yet we also have Js and Rs in some Egyptian finds. Crossroads of a civilization.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 5:58

This is one of several articles I wrote on this topic:

https://armstrongismlibrary.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-transcendence-of-god-and.html

Anonymous said...

8.06 AM
Of course God lives inside the universe and is subject to most of its restraints. Christ was tempted on this point by Satan when he was asked to worship him, and throw Himself down from a great hight. Christ's "do not tempt God" means that reality, the created universe, has the last say in everyday life.
There's such a thing as basic reality. Meaning, once you make something, it has certain inherent traits. Eg, the periodic table in chemistry. Things are made to have certain traits so they can be utilized to serve human needs. That's God's universe. And a magic wand cannot negate this.
This is an example of why people who have studied the hard sciences such as physics have a natural advantage over those who have only studied the humanities.

Anonymous said...

@10:22 AM, I sometimes wonder why it is so hard for some people to recognize that God's transcendence means that He can act BOTH within and without the universe? Yes, God exists beyond space and time. However, if God creates a universe within space and time, He has the choice either to act on it from BEYOND space and time (e.g. theoretically interacting with Moses "after" He interacts with you, and letting the changed space-time cascade forward from there), or from WITHIN space and time, working within the constraints of His own created parameters.

Or it is possible that the created universe is an 11-dimensional hologram, and that even within the universe the concepts of "before" and "after" don't mean what we in 3-dimensional space think they do.

NeoDromos expresses great pride in what he bills as his exegesis, but in fact he is mostly just vomiting out other people's viewpoints without truly understanding them. He would make a great ACOG minister.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 11:15

Mr. Troll:

OK, I'll bite.

It is the standard Christian Doctrine of God that recognizes that God is both immanent and transcendent. You have divided the immanent and the transcendent into two compartments. That is off-the-wall. I have never seen that before. I think you are confusing this with the understanding that God can act directly or through agency. Whatever.

What I speak on this topic is not my own. It is not "other people's viewpoints." It is the Christian Doctrine of God that you can find in most any Systematic Theology. And I did not mention "my exegesis." In fact, it is not my exegesis. I don't know what you are referring to. I have only constructed examples based on the doctrine.

For some reason I get under your skin, and you always come at me with a bunch of sloppy arguments. It is a mystery I am not interested in solving. For this thread, this is the last time I will bite.

Bye.

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Anonymous said...

11.15 AM
You have watched too many episodes of Doctor Who.