Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
Worldwide: The Unchosen Church Podcast - The Closet, the Cult and the College: An Interview With DJ Grothe
DJ Grothe is the former host of the podcasts Point of Inquiry and For Good Reason and the past president of the James Randi Educational Foundation. While he has interviewed hundreds of skeptic and scientific leaders, he rarely tells his own story of how he attended a little Bible college in the piney woods of East Texas, called Ambassador University. In this episode, I sit down to ask DJ why he joined the homophobic Worldwide Church of God when he was 14 years old - the same year that he came out as gay and the same year he started getting into magic. We also talk about how his background in magic and a magazine housed in Ambassador University's library helped to lead him out of the doomsday apocalyptic cult he had once joined, and why today, he says he's grateful for the entire experience.
5 comments:
Incredible podcast! This is the best one so far that portrays why so many of us stayed in the church and found community, at least as long as we were in the church.
Yes, very good. I thought this would be a diatribe against the wcg for it’s denunciation of homosexuality which I think many affiliated or interested in Armstrongism would simply dismiss. But, focusing on the community created simply because you were one of the falsely believed “chosen” is helpful in understanding the experience. The same community is felt in mormonism, Jehovah’s Witness, and other cults.
From time to time this site gets comments suggesting that there are significant gay subcultures in the splinters, even among those employed by the splinters. From Dennis Leap's tight shorts, to Rod Meredith's strange The Plain Truth About Queer Men, there seems to be a lot of homoerotic preoccupation among top splinter leaders. It is easy to believe that Gerald Waterhouse and Raymond McNair and some others may have had small circles of gay contacts even in WCG, but it seems even more prominent in some of the splinter groups.
So what led DJ out of the church? Again, like Glynn Washington, no major abuses cited, but the philosophy of secular humanism of all things? Good for him. What an upgrade! This blog likes to shoot itself in the foot!
Also, condemning HWA for reading Romans 1 and trying to get a lot of mileage out of the WCG being homophobic? Most churches including BIG CATHOLIC would agree with Herbie on this one because they get the belief from Scripture instead of modern and ever changing social engineering "science"!
Nothing to see here people. Just another run of mill attack against the Word of God!
I am the second anon above.
What i took from the podcast is that the power of the community in maintaining the wcg. We were discouraged to do things socially with those outside wcg. We were largely restricted from playing sports in school due to the sabbath, so it creates a shared history among the brethren even if you had never met which builds a camaraderie.
DJ was kinda recognized as gay, but because he was part of the wcg, and apparently engaging, he was accepted into the community. There were homosexuals at headquarters that were accepted because they were part of the wcg.
To me it shows the power of membership in the wcg. I agree that reading from Rom. 1 or any part of scripture should not be a point of contention.
A diverse group reads this blog. That should be expected as there was a diverse group in the wcg. And there will be a diverse set of experiences; I fully disagree with some posts or opinions. I hold scripture in high regard as well; some don’t that respond here. The wcg helped in creating many atheists and agnostics; Which is sad, but is part of the experience for many indoctrinated and then disillusioned by wcg.
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