Hat tip to a CGI source:
If one thought the current issues going on in the Church of God International were getting absurd, with Bill Watson turning church services and his writings into a religious NewsMax, wait till you read about the Feast of Tabernacles! Ghastly days, Loma!
Bill Watson and his Medina Ohio CGI are holding their own Feast of Tabernacles just 24 minutes from the St Pete/Tampa Feast site of the CGI.
This year the CGI will be sponsoring for its second year, the Feast of Tabernacles in Clearwater, Florida. The Feast site will be at the "ocean front” Duval Ballroom, located at the Holiday Inn & Suites, Clearwater Beach. The address is, 521 Gulfview Blvd, Clearwater Beach––right on the ocean!!
Bill Watson
Feast Co-ordinator
Imagine spending a Feast where you thought you were going to hear sermons about a wonderful world to come where humanity and nature are in communion with God and instead are subjected to 8 days of endless political rants masquerading as sermons. What a nightmare!
I wonder how many will then take the trip down the road to the other CGI Feast site in St Pete/Tampa?
Clearwater Florida has a large Scientology centre I understand.
ReplyDeleteI would say that Scientology is more unified than the cog movement is by a long way.
When one looks at the huge divisions within Armstrongism, it’s a sure sign of an illness of heart and mind and body, all three, a trinity if you will.
Jesus said He would draw all men to Himself when He was raised up, crucified.
The cog movement has done the very opposite.
They have nothing to offer humanity and their works witness against them.
Good one! This epitomizes the current situation in CGI. Two feast sites within the same organization!
ReplyDeletePart of the problem is the CGI mixing and mingling with other groups. As someone said earlier there are many varied beliefs in CGI and that is in part due their mixing with other organizations. It sounds like there is about to be another split.
ReplyDeleteThe CGI is a very small organization and most of the membership getting up in years.I would be very surprised if there were a split. In fact, they have been looking to merge with another entity for a long time! The tolerance you describe is probably necessary in order to keep the payroll and retirement benefits coming in. Personally, if there were a split, I would go with Bill Watson. Listening to Vance and his cronies is like watching paint dry!
ReplyDeleteObviously, Watson believes he will be a bigger draw for CGI members than his sheep will be drawn toward them. An opportunity for "massive" church growth for Bonkers Bill. All the COG's grow by multiplication by division and addition by subtraction.
ReplyDeleteHow appropriate! Clearwater FLA is HQ for Scientology. Birds of a feather...
ReplyDeleteDueling feast sites! Cue Dueling banjos!
ReplyDeleteI don't get the Watson mentality amongst the ACOGlodytes. The Armstrong "hook" was that English-speaking nations around the world who had been blessed with the promises to Abraham, in spite of having forgotten their national identity as Israelites, were soon to be held accountable for turning their backs on their God-given culture. Punishment was on the horizon, followed by the return of Jesus Christ. This "truth" was revealed exclusively to Armstrongites, who were supposed to have their entire lives tied up in rejoicing for the unfolding events. Their specialness as a group was based upon being part of the gatekeeper team which would come into prominence ushering in the new era.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, Bill Watson, Mark Armstrong, and others got caught up in Donald Trump and "MAGA", a movement which would seem to fly in the face of 70 years of Armstrongism, as the very idea of the USA returning to greatness is so diametrically opposed to the hook and message HWA preached. I can see where, while some if us are able to laugh about this, because nothing in Armstrongism matters anyway, there would be traditional Armstrongites who would find it patently offensive, that some of the ministers were actually rooting for the other side (Satan?).
Oh well. I guess this is just another example of a slightly different approach of people attempting to process the failures and letdowns which we all experienced as part of a bogus religious movement. And in our cases, that old joke about how you create a religious movement (Eat a Bible and some Exlax) certainly applies.
Maybe Donald Trump himself will make an appearance from Mira Lago to the assembled 32 people at Watson's FOT!
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ReplyDeleteThe illustration reminds me that after seeing the AC Seal all those years with the lion and the lamb, that recently someone told me that, technically, there is no lion and lamb together in Isaiah 11:6.
And the wolf will dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard will lie down with the young goat,
And the calf and the young lion and the fattened steer will be together;
And a little boy will lead them.
Garner Ted Armstrong's Playboy Rebel Cults
ReplyDeleteChurch of Ted, International: This was Garner Ted Armstrong's first, tiny, little, playboy, rebel cult that he started after he got put out of the Worldwide Church of God by his own father Herbert W. Armstrong in 1978. GTA thought that 50% of the WCG people might go with him, but not even 5% actually did. HWA had hired his own son GTA, quickly promoted GTA to a high position, paid GTA very well, repeatedly tried to cover up GTA's sins over the years, and continually tried to set up GTA as his successor in the WCG, but in the end HWA was forced to put a stop to GTA's ongoing bad behavior.
This seemed like a great opportunity for various other rebels who were also “Born to Lose” (like Ron Dart) to break away from the WCG and oppose HWA by going with GTA before trying to start their own money streams.
Intercontinental Church of Ted: This was GTA's second and even tinier, littler, playboy, rebel cult that he started after he was asked to resign by his own CGI cult in 1997 due to such things as a masseuse's secret video of the naked and tattooed Ted behaving in a manner unbecoming a minister. The playboy lifestyle of Teddy the Dink had to be supported somehow, until he died in 2003.
It is now led by GTA's son Mark to keep dead Ted's old babbling head on the Internet. Great for noise addicted trivia buffs. Pretty gross for anyone else.
I stopped listening to Watson preach and reading anything he writes a few years ago. As has been pointed out before here, he is like Mark Armstrong in that they both get their facts straight off NewsMax and other ultra-right news organizations. Like most people in the country, I am sick of the political rhetoric in the news every day and especially do not want to hear it in church! Just shut the hell up about politics! Shame on Vance Stinson and the Board of Directors for not stopping this!
ReplyDeleteHa Ha Ha Ha Ha! Unity in the Church of God, What a novel concept.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteIs Christ divided? - 1 Cor 1:13
Back in the '70s, when HWA had just suffered his own Dave Pack style prophecy failure, we used to joke about how the real AC seal should look: The lion has killed and is eating the lamb, and the little child is running off screaming in terror! We felt that that image presented a more truthful vision of HWA's millennium.
ReplyDeleteExposing your lying self here NO2HWA. The attitude of competing feast sites is for Tkatch ones who look at everything with their depressed, horrible, miserable attitude towards the Feast of Tabernacles. You and your blog lying cronies have never done a CGI Feast of Tabernacles. You lie and pretend.
ReplyDeleteBless your heart!
ReplyDeleteNever denied it.
DeleteI'm not following the purpose of having two...?
ReplyDeleteTed's groups did purge the cultic Armstrongism elements out of the church, which was a positive going forward. He removed church era doctrine, place of safety, 19 year time cycles, one true church, Primacy of Peter, end time Apostles and prophets.
ReplyDeleteSo only the core doctrines remained.
Mark Wolfe at 8:30 AM said...“Ted's groups did purge the cultic Armstrongism elements out of the church, which was a positive going forward. He removed church era doctrine, place of safety, 19 year time cycles, one true church, Primacy of Peter, end time Apostles and prophets.”
ReplyDelete“So only the core doctrines remained.”
Ah yes, GTA was always watering things down until only his own, all-important, (hard-)core, Playboy Doctrine remained.