The lunacy that comes out of the Philadelphia Church of God has no end. Brad Mcdonald gave a Bible Study recently and part of his discussion was about the Place of Safety and how due to the aging and usually sick PCG members, they would have great difficulty in climbing up to their assigned caves once they arrive there.
He has a solution for that. PCG singles must now start training to be servants in the Place of Safety so they can assist those infirm members. They will also be there to prepare food, clean the bathrooms, plan showers and provide counseling for the distraught members.
So where exactly are the showers, restrooms, and cooking facilities going to come into play?
Oh, wait, due to Herbert Armstrong's work in Jordan over the years they will be so impressed by HWA and the church that the Jordanian government will bring in mess tents, portable showers, water, food, port-a-potties and a LOT of ladders.
PCG singles will be wiping the butts of the infirm PCG members, climbing ladders to bring them food, and other duties expected of personal slaves of the church.
Isn't it great being a single COG member!!!!!!!!! Such opportunities!
Just think how amazing it will be to be able to clean King Gerald and Lil'Stevie's caves! We all know neither of them nor their privileged wives would ever dare lift a finger to do any work in their own caves. Imagine the fun deleavening their caves for them too! Such humbling opportunities!
Brad then said he was thinking lately about the Place of Safety and the logistical needs. He talked about the thousands of caves in Petra but only about five are on ground level. (The rest were several stories high.) “Not a great place,” he said, “for the Philadelphia Church of God, which has 50% elderly people, and a good portion of us has some kind of deficiency (overweight, broken hip, etc). How are we even going to enter these caves?” (What happened to Adullam where the Place of Safety was supposedly changed to?)
So, he said, if you think about 10,000 people (the number PCG thinks are going to the Place of Safety), entering the Place of Safety in that 30 day period (the time they have to get there), and “within a few hours those individuals have to eat, go to the bathroom, going to have to shower; they are going to need counseling; and that’s just a massive logistic issue.” In that moment. he said, there is going to be a desperate need for servants. … In that moment, I think there will be a particular need for healthy servant-minded converted singles in particular. Those who are “locked in to God’s government” to help God’s people. (How many singles are going to stop right here and begin to really think about this scenario? Not necessarily about the “need for servants” at this time, but how in the world any of them are going to be able to maneuver across a desert area and get to these caves and then live in them?
But before they could even ponder this, he went on to say, “The need is only going to get stronger. You singles have your own tests, trials, and struggles.” (That’s it, move their focus to themselves now.) “But God wants us to still develop this mindset.” (I.e., mind controlled mind.) It’s easy to get “self-focused” and not think a lot about other people’s problems. He said even if you injure yourself, you are being selfish because you think about your injured toe, or whatever.He said, “Don’t just serve on your terms.” He told them that if they struggle with unhappiness, loneliness or discouragement, to think, “Whose feet can I wash?” “Who needs my help right now” “Who can I serve?” “That will bring happiness and blessings.” “Make service and sacrifice a way of life. (Sounds similar to the buzzwords “God’s way of life.”) This is how to put themselves in a position to move toward finding a mate. “It’s service constantly. Marriage is service. To serve that person every day for the rest of your life. You are preparing for marriage because you will be asked to serve even more after you are married.” (Who will serve even more? The man or the woman?)
He states: “The more of the mind of Christ we have, the more we will serve because the mind of Christ is the mind of service.” (Read: How Can I Have the Mind of Christ? from Got Questions, which shows exactly what this means and it is not what Brad is saying. In fact, you can’t even have the mind of Christ if you don’t have the Spirit of God!)
To think of others and serve them is well and good, but this study covered not only the lunacy of entering a so-called Place of Safety but encouraged them to sacrifice themselves to the point of forfeiting their own basic needs. –Bible study critiqued by AJW Exit and Support Network
28 comments:
Imagine the throngs of PCG singles fighting each other for the privilege of wiping That Incontinent's ass!
At Auschwitz, the Nazis convinced the captives that they would just be "Getting A Shower", and the sign above the gate said "Work Shall Make You Free".
Sounds a lot like this PCG message.
I remember GTA saying the HWA pretty much decided that Petra would be the place of safety after Loma saw an article in National Geographic about it. GTA said that after visiting Jordan & touring Petra he pretty much decided the whole going to Petra was nonsense. I wonder if Flurry is reminding PCOG members how he got kicked out of Jordan several years ago and told not to come back.
What I don't understand is why people who are counted worthy to escape to a place of safety have to live in caves for 3 1/2 years. Wouldn't they be rewarded with something better? Couldn't God created a city with heat and plumbing and rooms to stay in?
PCG elites going to their own Place of Safety leaving behind tithe-giving suckers to fend for themselves. If they don't see that yet, the spirit of God was never with them.
We have lots of places of safety in my state. They somewhat resemble Petra, but were constructed by the Anasazi, and are preserved and protected against people like the ACOGs by state and tribal law.
It's going to be fun to watch what happens to PCG when they try to start a game of "Cowboys and Arabs" with the Jordanians.
The young'uns will get practice next week during Passover footwashing.
Why will a Place of Safety even be needed? The time of tribulation already happened 70AD. I don't think anybody in Splinterdom has the chutzpah to deny that something terrible happened in Jerusalem in 70 AD. And this is what Christ prophesied about the tribulation that happened back then:
"For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." (Matthew 24:21)
It is clear that it was to happen once and there would be no anti-typical, latter-day, second fulfillment. That's what "nor ever shall be" means. Eusebius and Epiphanius recorded the belief in the Fourth Century that the Jerusalem Church fled to Pella before the 70AD events ensued. It sounds reasonable that this event in church history would accommodate Rev 12:14. In any event, Revelation is highly symbolic, and I would not bet on most interpretations.
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From Herbert W. Armstrong's February 25, 1982 letter to Brethren and Co-Workers:
“THANKS for your prayers, and you have mine. I hope to arrange for the use of Petra as a possible refuge or place of safety during the Great Tribulation, when I see King Hussein. Pray about this, please. God is leading, opening doors and blessing His Work now beyond all expectation. Praise Him and thank Him!”
From Herbert W. Armstrong's July 16, 1982 letter to Brethren and Co-Workers:
“Incidentally, I know many of you seem to have your hearts set on going very soon to Petra as 'the place of safety' during the soon-coming Great Tribulation. Well, GET YOUR MINDS OFF PETRA. Brethren, I HAVE NEVER said that Petra definitely is the place of protection where God will take us. I HOPE IT IS NOT! One reason it could be the place is that it is a place NOBODY ELSE WOULD WANT TO GO. It would be the most UNpleasant, UNcomfortable, miserable place you could go! There is nothing to be desired there. But, just in case, God HAS miraculously given me very gracious favor in the eyes of King Hussein and also his brother, the Crown Prince. They are very friendly to me personally. And through the Ambassador Foundation, I am keeping up a very close assistance and cooperation with a Jordan school for retarded children, a project carried on by Princess Sarvath, wife of the Crown Prince — even to the extent of planning to send some trained Ambassador College personnel to be stationed there to help train teachers for this school, and otherwise help expand its operations. It is a very worthy cause, and the King and the people of Jordan do appreciate what we are doing to cooperate with them in this.”
Sounds like another Waco in the making
When I attended services, the single men were treated as low caste slaves. The elders would talk down to them as if they were dogs.
Brad's comments make so much sense. They make me want to go.
Even if I was still in my forties and a tower of strength, Petra would be no choice for a camping trip. The whole thing is totally preposterous.
Allen C Dexter
You are so correct. The whole thing is preposterous.
Yes there is a ‘place of safety’ as scripture describes, but their understanding of it is simply farting in the wind.
You can’t grasp it in your hands but something about it smells.
As is so much of their theology.
HWA: "..God HAS miraculously given me very gracious favor in the eyes of King Hussein [as I throw around millions of tithe-bucks]..They are very friendly to me..I am keeping up..assistance..
Gone are the days when the Portly-Portland-Plagiarist could carpet the world with tithe-bucks and palm it off as miraculous world evangelism.
Anonymous 7:17 wrote, "Sounds like another Waco in the making."
I would not say that but there is a point of relevancy. David Koresh proclaimed the Waco Compound to be the Place of Safety - and maybe it was, for them, for a while. And Koresh is the only apocalyptic Millerite prophet I know of that has had a significant prophecy actually fulfilled - he predicted that the Feds was smash them and they did. Of course, if you play with hand grenades and assault weaponry you might expect that.
People who want to believe in the POS will do so, against all reason, and categorize it as an act of faith. That is why we can write and write about it on this blog, and I would bet that it has not made a dent in anyone's belief in Splinterdom about the POS. The same is true of BI and the Tribulation. You go step by step through the Biblical exegesis and the reasoning and someone looks at you glassy-eyed and says, "I'm going to trust in God."
"I'm going to trust in God" is a statement of self-apotheosis. What they are saying is really "My way or the highway." They are going to hang onto the irrationality because it belongs to them, and you can't touch it. It has little to do with God - maybe a skosh. These little splinter groups continue to splinter because of this attitude. This is not just theory but pragmatics. Anyone can reflect on the recent history of Splinterdom and see this dynamic.
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Place of Safety?
Maybe the singles in the PCG can try to hide out in the higher caves so that all the old sex maniacs, sex perverts, and predators in the PCG cannot get up to them so easily.
Herbert W. Armstrong's July 16, 1982 letter to Brethren and Co-Workers
Unless HWA changed his opinion again, that should nail it. But, like quoting part of a verse, guys like Bob Thiel will also quote things HWA said or wrote that support their own view.
And I remember a similar denial by HWA regarding Jan 7, 1972.
I remember a similar denial by HWA regarding Jan 7, 1972.
Oh, ye of little faith! Remember not ye the pivotal Reader's Digest advertisement of January 1972? Reader's Digest was for HWA's generation the focal point of middle-class middle-brow culture. HWA advertising in Reader's Digest was the modern-day equivalent of the first-century Apostles preaching in Rome and Jerusalem! Only a scoffer or one with a closed and carnal mind will fail to see the importance of this world-shaking milestone in preaching the True Gospel!
Does Bob Thiel plan to teach or provide free naturopathic therapy for those whom he leads to his place of safety? Anybody know???
The ark had ramps to several levels. (At least at Ark Encounter it does.) Why not have the singles prepare those?
I recall RCM talking about servanthood while he was living on Waverly Drive and had students and employees clean his house, care for his yard and pool, etc. I think he had the attitude that he once did the work of a servant, years ago while a student and that entitled him to be taken care of by others for the rest of his life. He lived a life of privilege, not servanthood. I think he had the heart of someone who felt entitled. Like in the military, RHIP, "rank has its privileges." He seemed to have enjoyed them and sought more. When HWA used the expression, "vanity, jealousy, lust and greed" to describe the human heart, he was also describing himself and some of his underlings, including RCM. Lusting for power, greedy for position and status. What they condemned in the world they themselves were guilty of.
the pivotal Reader's Digest advertisement of January 1972
Although I never saw WCG ads in Readers Digest, I became aware of PCG years later from their ad. On the left page toward the middle of a Readers Digest was a string of quotations, with a small picture of HWA's head at the bottom. The caption to HWA's mugshot was something like, "Who is this man?". It was the first time I'd heard of PCG...
Sometime during the early 2,000s, I was walking into a supermarket and saw a rack filled with magazines with weird Plain Truth style headlines on the cover, and had an "Oh shit!!!" moment as bad memories began to flow. It aroused my curiosity, so I took one of the magazines since the rack had a sign which said they were free. The 'zine was called Philadelphia Trumpet, and had borders just like the old PT. I believe there were pictures of starving African children inside, and about the time I saw a picture of Gerald Flurry on the page with his editorial, it dawned on me that this was the guy who had apparently taken up the mantle and positioned himself as the successor to Herbert W. Armstrong. I vaguely recalled that Flurry was one of the elders who had been brought in for refresher courses at AC the year after I had arrived there. Basically he was an up and coming nobody at that time, certainly not of the stature of the original x number of AC students who had become the evangelists, and who would have been the natural choices as successors to HWA.
And, subsequently, through the wonders of the information super highway ('net) I learned about a new phenomenon called the splinters, which had formed following the attempts of Joseph Tkach Sr., and Jr. to bring the WCG into the New Covenant. That was pre-MOA litigation, and Flurry had not yet risen to the heights of ridiculousness for which he is known today. But then, neither had US politics, or the activities of tyrannical dictators on other parts of the globe. The funny thing about all of this is that just as the hands of the world clock seem to be approaching those of the broken WCG prophecy clock, the power of the splinters has become so diminished, that even if they are attempting to get out a message, it falls into the category of "statistically negligible" (essentially zero), and there just isn't any buzz like there was the last time the clock hands briefly came into sync. It's not unlike a horror movie in which the heroes have spread out and are paralyzed with fear and unable to yell or scream out a warning to others. Actually, it's worse, because in this hypothetical movie, some of the heroes have lined up with the villains and are proclaiming the wrong warning!
Most of the singles, especially the ones who have gone to HWA College I know are all snobs and opportunists. They will only help themselves climb the ladder to be seen by the minister and won’t help anyone else. They barely even speak to the elderly or others only amongst themselves at church and events lol.
Physical Israel, ie, America, will shortly follow the WWCG by fragmenting into blue and red states. It too will become "statistically negligible" on the world scene.
You may be right, 10:46. In order to have war, you have to have groups agreeing that there is a war, like the cultural war, or the war for the soul of America. Even if Donald Trump is senile by 2024, there are enough politicians with Trump Dystopia Syndrome who believe that the solution is for them to become authoritarians, seizing power and running over the vermin who constitute the rest of America. The solution to all of this is to get back to the time-honored tradition of compromise, so, that everyone gets part of what they are clamoring for. As it is now, red states and blue states hate one another so badly that citizens who can are actually moving to the states which are aligned with their own politics. You have family members literally wanting to kill one another because of their political positions. When you stop to think about it, that's as bad or worse than racism, only it's driven by opinion rather than skin color.
Jerusalem fell in '69 AD because three internal factions of the citizenry were fighting one another. All the Romans had to do was to kick back and watch that, making an occasional strike of their own. The Romans were our Putin. Putin is publicly stating that the Russians will need to participate in the 2424 elections once again to make sure his guy gets in!
But he responded, “Do you see all these buildings? I tell you the truth, they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”
Your Church Buildings, Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing! Poor Blind and Naked to the truth- God will not allow this church for too much longer.
Jeremiah 26:18
Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.
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