Screenshot of PCG articleStudents at Herbert W Armstrong College, on the cult compound of the Philadelphia Church of God, have been given a foretaste of what the PCG imagines the Kingdom of God will be like with a new mural recently painted in the old John Amos Field House. That building was the center of college and church life for many years till Flurry built his mini-me auditorium patterned after the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, CA.
The JA Field House is still used for basketball, dining, and as a student lounge on the old stage. Sadly the students were subjected to a boring old white wall. But in good COG fashion, someone stepped up to the plate and designed a painting envisioning PCG's imagined world to come.
Evangelist Wayne Turgeon, who oversaw the buildings and grounds department for a number of years before transferring to the United Kingdom-Europe-Africa regional office, said the inspiration for the project came years ago because, with the curtains now open most of the time the stage’s empty white wall seemed to be “crying out for something to fill it up.”
The original concept for the wall was to be a painting of the "New Jerusalem" that the PCG expects soon to descend from on high and plop down at the exact center of the earth. But unfortunately, Gerald Flurry thought that that would involve too much speculation as to what it looked like.
The original subject of the painting was New Jerusalem, but Pastor General Gerald Flurry said he felt that depicting it would rely too much on speculation.
Imagine that, Gerald Flurry worried about too much speculation! Who would have ever thought that considering the bizarre speculations that come out of his aging mind right now?
King Flurry then approved a painting of their imagined kingdom to come.
He then approved a scene from the Millennium, the prophesied 1,000-year period of world peace under the government of God.
Gotta get government in there somehow.
After many discarded ideas had made it into the Kingly dumpster, a design was envisioned and approved.
Artists created several drafts but had a hard time deciding on one. For this and other reasons, the project sat untouched for years. But in early April, Dorning sketched the draft that would become the final version, and the project was underway.
I do appreciate the Temple to Zeus with its Greek phallic columns rising in the background and the father walking the tiger on a leash in the supposedly peaceful kingdom. As one person pointed out on Facebook, "this is a COG where sex and control are always in the background".
Mr. Turgeon expressed his hopes that the mural will “inspire the students, and any other members who see it, to think immediately of the incredible future that lies ahead for all of mankind.”
I also can't help but compare it to the Jehovah's Witness's Kingdom of God paintings that adorn their literature:
18 comments:
The PCG kids got the male facial hair wrong. Watch for repainting.
Ok I admit it, I love the paintings.
If this is what the reality will be after Jesus returns, great I want to be there.
But these pictures hide a stark truth.
The reality of a life lived within the confines of an all controlling cult.
Which is so far removed from what is shown in the paintings.
Looks quite boring. Is there an animal poop patrol? I would hope so!
At least the JW artwork plainly shows non-Caucasian folks enjoying paradise along with the Caucasian folks. Flurry's utopia appears to be Whites-Only.
When I was at Ambassador College, one year at the Ministerial Ball, someone decided it would be a good idea to have photo ops for the ministers and their wives, photo ops that portrayed the Millennium. An animal trainer was contracted to bring in a tamed lion and a lamb. The minister sat in between the lion and his wife, and the wife held the lamb on her lap. Which was all well and good until everyone suddenly became aware that the lamb was not potty trained.
Where are all the dinosaurs? I mean the earth had millions of years with them in it and only 6000 with us (lol). Kind of seems like an oversight not to at least include a velociraptor or brontosaurus.
The similariy with JW art? We all shouldn't be surprised. Flurry, after all, have always been a copycat, just like his idol, HWA.
When will they have a mural showing Flurry walking a "member" who has a chain around his neck, and who is walking on all fours , while Flurry is carrying a riding crop?
At least the JW's are racially inclusive in their salvation message. Armstrongite churches are still stuck in the white British Israelite people having the first access to salvation. The other people will begrudgingly be let in but will be ruled over by their white BI overlords.
When will they have a mural showing Flurry walking a "member" who has a chain around his neck, and who is walking on all fours , while Flurry is carrying a riding crop?
Actually, if you play your cards right, life as a member in PCG can be a whole lot better than life as a member in RCG. Gerald Flurry has a weird love/hate relationship with his ministers. Remember, when he started his church, it was a long time before he and John Amos recruited anyone with a rank higher than local church elder, and he didn't even get many of those. Malachi's Message was directed at unfaithful ministers, and Flurry has kept this theme, abusing his ministers far more than he abuses the brethren. If you pay your tithes and show Mr. Flurry that you appreciate him, you'll get by fine in PCG, while a PCG minister is continually under Flurry's scrutiny as to whether he is disloyal or creating his own following or is preparing to leave. Flurry seems to run his ministry by the theme, "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer" and just when a minister thinks he has an "in" with Mr. Flurry, that's when he gets transferred to Nunavut or gets removed from the ministry.
By comparison, to this day, Flurry knows that his most loyal supporters are the wealthy oil men who have been the core of his financial base from almost the very beginning of PCG. And he knows that the church is full of widows who adore him (and who are secretly jealous of the wench who became his second wife; some are already speculating that Flurry is going to re-enact a "Ramona" scenario with her and kick her to the curb). Flurry loves his adoring and docile members, and even protects them at times from his asshole ministers. Compare that to Pack, who has no love at all and sees his ministers as his helpers in treating members like sponges, squeezing them until they are dry and then discarding them.
Flurry may infantilize his loyal members, but that's better than Pack who slaughters them. Flurry sees his members as his pets, while Pack sees them as meat.
Picture #3 reminds me of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie.
Anonymous at 10:12:00 AM PDT said...“Flurry loves his adoring and docile members, and even protects them at times from his asshole ministers.”
Wow! That is something that I have never seen or heard about ever before in the PCG.
Is Gerald Flurry finally starting to be concerned that the PCG's income could totally dwindle away if his butthole “ministers” continue to kick out too many people just for the thrill of thinking that they are sending them to the lake of fire?
Imagine if all the thousands of people who wasted so many years of their lives and so many tens of thousands of dollars of their money supporting satanic frauds like Gerald Flurry and David Pack had put all that time and money into something better.
I probably would have inserted a small cow that you had to strain your eyes to find, grazing and belching in the background for some comic relief, but that's just me.
What has always struck me as hilarious is the idea that the nature of carnivorous beasts such as lions and tigers will be changed in the Millennium, but humans will continue to be carnivorous, and all the clean animals will continue to be their prey! Clearly, HWA had no awareness of the connections and interactions and balance of all the elements of an ecological system.
Those pictures are politically correct, not biblical. In the world tomorrow blacks and whites will be on separate continents. The artist has been watching too much TV.
When will that old geezer just die and make the world a better place? Herbie lived way too long and now Flurry is doing the same thing.
What has always struck me as hilarious is the idea that the nature of carnivorous beasts such as lions and tigers will be changed in the Millennium ... HWA had no ....
Blame the bible because that's where he got it from.
9:06, where will "colored" people be in the millennium? By that, I mean people who are neither black, nor white, but are clearly mixed race with multiple self-identities. I don't know about you, but I see fellow human beings of that description every time I leave the house. Lots of them! Heck, when my son lived at home, I'd see it without leaving the house! Everybody is marrying everyone these days. If "Israel" is the US, we have been becoming Samaritanized for the past thirty to forty years. But, the founders of the tribes of Israel of ancient times were doing it, too. Manasseh and Ephraim's mommy "walked like an Egyptian"!
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