Two of the biggest boogeymen in the Church of God movement have been Satan and Germany. Many times those both are uttered in the same sentence.
Who can forget Rod Meredith standing in the pulpit with his red face, veins popping out on his forehead as he yelled in the most butch manner possible about children being taken as slaves to Germany or sent to concentration camps to be hung on meathooks if members did not mend their ways?
All of this was the by-product of Herbert Armstrong's obsession with Adolf Hitler, Germany, and his erroneous biblical interpretations. The entire belief system of the church has revolved around Germany rising from the ashes of World War II to rule the world as they destroy the United States, England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and other so-called "Israelitish" nations.
Thanks to Rod Meredith's endless obsession with Germany, the Living Church of God today still carries on that apocalyptic fetish.
A reader sent the following to me yesterday:
Germany! Germany! Germany!
Everything gets focused around Germany.
Apparently, from the reports of “massive” crowds showing up at LCG presentations, prophecy is just not giving them the pull of the old WCG days.
Or maybe, it is because they lack a charismatic spokesman like GTA in his heyday.
This was in response to the following article up on the mailing the other day:
What an orgasmic prophetic fantasy! Drought, wildfires, heat waves, water scarcity, the beast of Revelation, and GERMANY! All that is missing is the Catholic Church.
The reference above to LCG's recent Presentations shows how poorly this message is falling on the public's ears. Gone are the day of Herbert Armstrong pounding the pulpit or Garner Ted's charismatic preaching. LCG has no charismatic men able to present emotionally stirring presentations.
Recent LCG numbers for presentation demonstrate this fact:
Last week, we held six Tomorrow’s World Presentations—three initial presentations, in Trois- Rivières, Quebec, Canada; Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia; and Columbus, Ohio; and three follow-ups, in Little Rock, Arkansas; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Peoria, Illinois. These presentations had a combined total of 106 guests.
If LCG leaders actually started preaching about that dude they keep shoving into the background they might not be so scared of things they see looming on the horizon.
22 comments:
When I was 6 years old I remember reading 1975 in Prophecy…..it has affected my life to this very day.
Thanks for the flattery…….
Fortunately today the masses have the ready availability of the internet and it’s resources to delve a little deeper into the claims of Armstrongism.
A little bit of searching easily shines a spotlight on their ‘theology and doctrines’ like BI and ‘who’ are the modern descendants of the Assyrians.
And it’s not Germany. In fact it spotlights the lack of sound scholarship within Armstrongism that passes as ‘truth’.
The Armstrong cog movement is slowly dying. It’s doctrines have been exposed as superficial, untenable and intellectually sloppy.
That they have never fronted up and publicly addressed the criticism’s leveled at them is an indictment against them.
Unfortunately there will is still a ‘market’ for what they preach, through it is a rapidly dwindling one at that, which is the ‘Good News’.
Germany has no power in the NWO. COG stuck in yesteryear and not growing in understanding. The power is with the descendants of ancient Egypt - Northern Italians and Rothschilds, and with the Jews. Germany is a captive nation to these forces.
However ... who will be the first fool to cry "antisemitic"? You know what I mean?
In fact there are two Illuminati. One Jewish and one Chaldean.
Actually I'm still not totally clear about the Rothschilds.
Max @ 6:02:00 PM PDT
Thanks for the post.
I had a great laugh. 'In fact there are two Illuminati'. No there are three. You forgot Dr Rabbi Amos Elijah one of the Two Witnesses Bob Thiel,lol.
The descendents of ancient Egypt-northern Italians. I knew it. There was somethink funny about that pizza I brought last week.
My 'mummy' warned me against buying it.
As for the Rothschilds, don't worry they own (with Trump), the FBI and CNN so all is sweet.
And we all know who are behind Covid, don't we.
The Flat Earth Society. Enjoy your weekend folks.
I don't mind people speculating on the role that Germany might play in end time events. I don't even mind if people speculate that Assyria symbolizes modern day Germany. I do very much mind if someone says that the Germans are the descendants of the ancient Assyrians. That is malarkey. That is demonstrably false. Only the ineducable can persist in that belief.
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"Thanks to Rod Meredith's endless obsession with Germany, the Living Church of God today still carries on that apocalyptic fetish."
Oh, and let's not forget Meredith's endless obsession with gay sex.
LCG is just not the same without good old Spanky...
Let's put this into context, you are mocking a man, Herbert who's been dead near 40 years, for being wary of Germany both militarily, economically and prophetically because he, like millions of others, went through two World Wars and a great depression.
I'd like to see how you would get through two world wars and a great depression.
Don't you ever get fed up with mocking others ? or can you simply not stop?
Hjk,
My grandfather and grandmother lived through two world wars and a depression without claiming Germany was descended from Assyria. They raised a large loving exemplary family having a strong faith.
They never mentioned Frans Josef Strauss’s (anyone remember him) or Germany’s role with the beast of Revelation.
If you think this website is just for the purpose of bashing some guy, then I fully understand why you question it. But, instead it is here to help end some of the false teachings of hwa and the deleterious hold these false teachings have on people.
You Fools!
Hitler is still ALIVE and will be falsely claimed to be resurrected by the Pope very soon!
As true now as when it was first stated in the 1948 Plain Truth magazine!
Is it mocking? Or is it trying to hold leadership accountable. Was Jesus mocking when he flipped the money changing tables? Was he mocking when he did not throw the first stone? When he answered the religious leaders of his day with a question or story, was he mocking? Walmart has to give account to the shareholders. Our COG's are organized like a business and as such the business model should be evaluated by the shareholders (members). At Passover we are told David's example - try me O Lord. Why can't our church groups use that example too?
Now lets all sing, " Springtime for Living and Roderick, winter for all other COG's!"
As inspired by the Police Gazette, Tonto!
Yes, your precious HWA expended way too much thought and ink on that subject, causing his underlings to do the same. It's not exactly commentary out of left field.
Didn't one of their ministers say, "I'm of German descent" or German ancestry.
WCG people believed almost anything the ministers told them back in the 1960s. Hitler alive? If "Mr." Armstrong said it was so, that's all the proof members needed. You just didn't disagree or dissent back then, or you were on the way out.
Nowhere was this more evident to young people in the church than at original SEP in Tejas. Make no mistake, there was fun, and there was not so fun. The Imperial students, particularly those from Pasadena, were used in leadership roles amongst the campers. I remember one of the older Imperial students asking one of my dorm mates where he was from. He answered "Nwahlins."
Boy, did that ever set off a discussion! The response was "Hey! It's New Orleans, Man!"
Nonplussed, the kid responded, "In my state, we all say Nwahlins!"
The older, allegedly more mature Imperial student responded with, "But don't you know where your accent came from??? It came from the African Americans, man!" (Revision alert: Back in the 1960s, societal evolution had not reached the point to where there was any such thing as an African American. The Imperial student used a very hurtful and offensive term that was at that time very much part of the parlance of those times).
A camper from Memphis chimed in with, "Yeah! It was hard for me to acknowledge that, but I've come to realize that that's where my accent came from! I've been trying to reeducate myself so as to speak proper English."
Another Imperial student nudged me, and said, "Ah, you should have heard that guy when he first came to Imperial! He was a delinquent from Detroit, and you almost couldn't understand him. Someone would ask him how much his shoes had cost, and he'd say "Twenty skins, man!" The teachers and ministers were always correcting him and reminding him where his slang had come from!"
To a COGlodyte back then, using slang was considered to be just about as bad as taking the Lord's name in vain (Not that we were even allowed to use the name "The Lord"! that was considered to be too Protestant!
And so it has been in Armstrongism from its very beginning! Arcane jargon, along with an abundance of conspiracy theories, was always part of the internal gnosticism members were programmed to embrace.
Before HWA zeroed in on Hitler and Germany as the "beast" his first guess was Mussolini. If you read the PT editions from the late thirties, Mussolini was his focus, to the point of him proclaiming Mussolini as the beast power, and stating that Mussolini would fight Christ. This of course, didn't happen, nor did his predictions concerning Hitler and Germany, which he shifted to, after the predictions about Mussolini didn't work out. You can follow that shift in the early forties editions of the PT. He did not preface his statements with any caveat of speculation, but instead made them authoritatively, and when they didn't pan out, simply shifted his focus to the next plausible figurehead. None of the predictions he made during the course of WW2 panned out. Britain was supposed to lose, and Jesus was already supposed to be here. As someone pointed out, it was later promoted that Hitler was alive, etc. That wasn't true either.
All of these predictions and speculations were promoted by a man who claimed to be telling people the "plain truth" but his predictions turned out not to be true at all. And here we are, nearly forty years after this man's death and instead of learning the lessons of the history that has gone before us, The COGs are taking up where he left off, and making the very same mistakes! It doesn't pay to fall into the trap of prediction addiction. LCG isn't the only one to jump on the band wagon with a focus on Germany, others are doing it too. Every time a COG makes some prophetic prediction, and it turns out to be false, it undermines any legitimacy they would claim to have as servants of God. We want to apply Deuteronomy 18:21-22 to others, but we become hypocrites when we fail to apply it to ourselves or our own religious leaders.
Concerned Sister
Germany is a key of monumental importance.
The topic of Germany alone convicts Armstrongism as a false, extra-biblical religion.
As others have noted HWA's core message, from his early days, up to 1975 and beyond involved authoritative statements, claiming his message was from God and prophesying that specific events would happen around Hitler and German aggression.
History has recorded that HWA was wrong.
LCG and the other COGs will try to whitewash HWA's being wrong by saying his timing was just off, or he never said these predictions were from God.
Thereby, the leaders of the COGs purposefully attempt to deceive the people on the content of HWA's message and the manner in which he delivered it.
At best, guessing that Germany is Assyria of the Bible, is conjecture - not fact, not biblical doctrine.
LCG is a leader in promoting the Germany thing as doctrine while giving Jesus very little play.
Don’t forget about Weston! He contributes vapid political perspectives thinly disguised as prophecy. If there’s a hollow right wing reactionary buzz word, he will be sure to work it into his latest screed.
Interesting that the writer says, "scripture indicates..." instead of "I believe scripture indicates..." / "our interpretations of scripture indicates..."
He must have gone back to Mussolini later then, because I remember reading that nonsense in the 80s.
HWA was one crazy dude. At one point in the '70s he was telling the church to watch Tito. And then, there was that whole thing of inviting the Beast (Strauss) to AC for coffee and a tour of the campus! What a joke Armstrong "prophecy" has always been!
Kind of puts Herbert W. Armstrong Jr. ((Dave Pack) into perspective when he sings "If I should get stoned and prophesy all night long, it's just a family tradition!"
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