Elton John lit up Dodger Stadium for three nights this past weekend. It is hard to believe he played in this stadium 47 years ago in 1975, the year I came to Pasadena to attend the West Point of God's Church, Ambassador College.
I remember in 1973 and 1974 in the Dayton Ohio church area I grew up in listening to his songs at dances and on 8-track tapes in cars as we drove about. Most of us knew the words to his songs by heart. In 1973 and 74 we were all wondering if we were going to be able to graduate from high school because Herbert Armstrong had idiotically proclaimed that 1971 was the start of the tribulation and that in 3 1/2 the kingdom would be here. Yet, here we were in 1973/74 dancing away, and in 1975 attending his concert in Los Angeles
Recently on one of the church-related Facebook pages students from Big Sandy were reminiscing about a college dance they had where Elton's Crocodile Rock started to play over the speakers and how a self-righteous minister shut the dance down because of it. The stupidity of ministers in this church never ceases to amaze me.
"1975 in Prophecy" came and went and nothing happened. God's House was holding its first season of church-funded concerts and money flowed freely as the church was bringing close to $1,000,000.00 a day in tithes and offerings. HWA frequently hopped on his jet flying around the world so he could preach about a "strong hand from someplace".
Garner Ted and others in the upper ranks were busy bed-hopping. Gerald Waterhouse was cruising West Hollywood and evangelists' children were peddling drugs at Imperial Schools and at Ambassador. So much for armageddon and the miraculous conversion of church members to kings and priests so they could rule over planets!
The church, being the church it is, never learned from its mistakes as ministers, evangelists, and church leaders never learned to keep their mouths shut about prophecy.
Today in 2022 the church is infected with malignant tumors like Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry, Ron Weinland, John Rittenbaugh, and Bob Thiel who spread one prophetic lie after another. Nothing these fools has ever said has ever come to pass and never will.
Listening to Elton John I could not help but look back on the absolute craziness the church taught and certain splinter cults still do. At 75 years of age, he is still going strong while the Churches of God are becoming irrelevant and insignificant in anyone's life. More and more people are waking up realizing they do NOT need a Church of God as a source of salvation in their lives. 80 years of heretical teachings have driven hundreds of thousands of people out of the church over the decades. The church has damaged more lives than the Armstrongite era of the COG ever made a positive impact upon. It has certainly damaged more lives than Crocodile Rock!
I have loved Elton's music since he first hit the charts in the United States. I've also had the privilege of seeing him in concert a couple of times through the years. As you suggested, the Worldwide Church of God is dead, and its splinters are dying; but Elton John is still standing! Moreover, Elton has saved and improved the lives of thousands upon thousands of people around the world through his contributions to the fight against HIV/AIDS - Not to mention the spectacular catalog of music that he has gifted to the world. Yeah, when we compare the legacies of Herbie and Elton, it is very clear who has made the more significant contribution to humanity (hint: it wasn't Herbie).
ReplyDeleteHow fascinating this blog's declared love of Elton John. A man who repeatedly has mentioned in interviews over the years how he loves to shred Bibles in an electronic shredder.
ReplyDeleteBannedbyhwa = Athiest's deceiving in the DARKNESS.
Give us a link to one of these interviews. A quick google search turned up nothing when I tried it.
DeleteHa! How little one really knows outside of anti cog bloggerland. Common knowledge Elton John's been saying how he shreds Bibles for decades.
DeleteSo you cant actually show us anything to back your claim. Mmhmm. OK. You would think such a thing from public buffoon Elton, said so supposedly publicly, would be easy to verify...
DeleteWe left the church many years ago when we finally woke up that our leaders were lying to us about prophecy and waking up to the fact that the church is not Christ-centric and totally is ignorant of the New Covenant.
ReplyDeleteIn the early 70s I attended church in Indianapolis at the Sherwood Country club, which also happened to be a weekend venue for rock bands. It wasn't unusual to have the minister railing against rock and roll music while Ozzy Osborne was walking around the hall waiting to set up his equipment! As a side note, the young ministerial assistant at that time was a young Dave Pack!
ReplyDelete1:13 said “ How fascinating this blog's declared love of Elton John. A man who repeatedly has mentioned in interviews over the years how he loves to shred Bibles in an electronic shredder. Bannedbyhwa = Athiest's deceiving in the DARKNESS.”
ReplyDeleteThere has a been a lot of stupid comments on here over the years but this one hits the top of the list. This is why no one takes Armstrongism seriously any more.
The fact that the so-called COGs are full of godless old sex perverts and are often led by false prophets does NOT mean that people have to go listen to the noise of freaks like elton john.
ReplyDeleteElton, for me, is like many other artists, in that he's put out a large volume of work, and I find myself intensely liking a select few of his songs. I think, for example, that he really hit the mark on "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting", and "All the Young Girls Love Alice". Other faves include "The Bitch is Back", "Tiny Dancer", and "Jamaica Jerkoff". I think you guys catch my drift. Elton provided part of the sound track for my leaving Armstrongism back in the day.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, Armstrongite parents of the mid 1970s really didn't mind so much if their kids listened to the piano-based rock n roll of Elton John, or Billy Joel, because somehow that music was seen as being less bad, less rebellious than guitar-based hard rock or heavy metal of the day. The minister dude who shut down a youth dance because someone dared to play "Crocodile Rock" gave me a chuckle. It was just as funny as GTA critiquing Petula Clark's "Down Town", or that old classic tale of a WCG minister proclaiming, "Brethren, Jeremiah was not a bullfrog!"
They just didn't understand what was going on, and how cathartic and liberating some good old rock n roll could be. Bo Diddley said it best during an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine when he said, "When my first record came out in 1955, all the young white teenagers went home and threw Beethoven into the garbage!"
Here are some Elton lyrics that are particularly appropriate for former Armstrongites:
ReplyDeleteHoly Moses I have been deceived
Now the wind has changed direction and I'll have to leave
Won't you please excuse my frankness but it's not my cup of tea
Holy Moses I have been deceived
I'm going back to the border
Where my affairs, my affairs ain't abused
I can't take any more bad water
I've been poisoned from my head down to my shoes
Holy Moses I have been deceived
Holy Moses let us live in peace
Let us strive to find a way to make all hatred cease...
from Border Song by Elton John and Bernie Taupin
Is it true that Gerald Flurry plays Elton John "COVER" songs in his house??
ReplyDeleteLike PHILADELPHIA FREEDOM or
JERRY AND THE JETS ?
ACOG mnisters complaining about certain songs is representative of HWAs church. The ministers must invade every nook and cranny of members lives. So instead of members being taught biblical principles, and left to live their own lives, the ministers do the opposite by giving mumbo-jumbo Kenneth Copeland sermons, and live members lives for them. It's a moral inversion.
ReplyDeleteThe whole time I attended services, I felt like I was in a concentration camp.
Anon @6:19. What so-called COGs are led by false prophets? EVERY cog is lead by a PROVEN false prophet, starting with HWA himself!
ReplyDeleteAnd, what are you afraid of with respect to Elton John? Beautiful music, so what's your issue with him? I am a born again believer and would never condone shredding the Bible, but I have Jesus, so I fear nothing and no one on God's green earth. Maybe you should try Him.
Perhaps you prefer the Ambassador singers in their powder blue, ruffled tuxedo/leisure suits.
Well, 6:19, I prefer a little Led Zep myself. But, hey, with the last part of your sentence, it started to smell as if maybe you need to go do a little something in the bathroom?
ReplyDeleteDW at 12:28 PM said...“Perhaps you prefer the Ambassador singers in their powder blue, ruffled tuxedo/leisure suits.”
ReplyDeleteThe Ambassador singers certainly appeared to have better fashion sense than Elton John. Hopefully the Ambassador singers also had better morals than Elton John. Of course, I would not bet a large amount of money on that. Maybe Elton John delivered Satan's master knockout blow to some AC students.
Herbert W. Armstrong thought that the Beatles had delivered Satan's master knockout blow to the United Kingdom.
What HWA thought about some modern “music” is covered in his last book called Mystery of the Ages at the bottom of page 83:
“Now that he [Satan] has become perverted in all thinking, acting and being, he is the real author of modern perverted music and the modern rock beat – of discordant moans, squawks, shrieks, wails – physically and emotionally excitable beats – unhappy, discouraged moods.”
The very fact Elton is a homosexual and married to a man is all we need not to listen to his music!!!!
ReplyDelete7.17 pm
ReplyDeleteHave you read up on the sex lives of Hollywood movie stars, going back decades.
It's a moral cesspool. Using your criterion, few movies, even from the 'Father knows best,' and 'Leave it to Beaver's days could be watched.
Music plays such an influential role in many people's lives. Heavy Metal got me through my teen years. Then grunge hit just before I came into the Global Church of God. After being baptized, I didn't partake in the common ritual of burning, trashing, or selling off my CD's (back then) but I did put many of them away and just kept a few around.
ReplyDeleteWhen 9/11 happened, I largely shifted away from music and into conservative talk radio. Working to pay three tithes and support a family of (more than 4) kept me from questioning much. But I remember after 8 years of Obama and we were not a Communist nation like the Tea Baggers said we would be and we just elected the biggest ass in U. S. history thanks to Christians, I really started to unravel the bullshit of Armstrongism.
Then in 2017, I learned on the same day, that Rod Meredith and Chris Cornell was dead. After 24 years of RCM as my "spiritual father" I had no tears. It was the silencing of a beautiful voice that was there with me nearly 3 decades as I poured out the best years of my life serving a cult, that brought me to tears. I remember those tears were like a rebirth of that metal head teen who got buried in a watery sham of a grave so many years ago.
As I reflect back on lyrics of so many songs sung for so many hours, I realize musicians, like great comedians and artists of all types, are often the world's harbingers of life's truths. The song below was written by Chris Cornell. He was taking shots at the woe-is-me, grandiose rock star images of the 80's. Maybe it's just me but this song also seems to fit the COG ministry quite well.
JESUS CHRIST POSE
And you stare at me in your Jesus Christ pose
Arms held out like you've been carrying a load
And you swear to me you don't want to be my slave
But you're staring at me like I need to be saved
Arms held out in your Jesus Christ pose
Thorns and shroud like it's the coming of the Lord
And I swear to you I would never feed you pain
But you're staring at me like I'm driving the nails
Arms held out in your Jesus Christ pose
Thorns and shroud like it's the coming of the Lord
Would it pay you more to walk on water
than to wear a crown of thorns?
It wouldn't pain me more to bury you rich
Than to bury you poor
In your Jesus Christ pose
Poor
Do you really think behind closed curtains that anyone actually believes your fictional writing ??
DeleteThe hypocrit at 7:17 said: "The very fact Elton is a homosexual and married to a man is all we need not to listen to his music!!!!"
ReplyDeleteThe very fact that Herbie screwed his daughter and Garner Ted was caught having gay sex, then berated by his father to the point Garner Ted started screwing anything that was around him is all we need to know that Armstrongism is corrupt at its soul.
Waterhouse was a closet case. One of the Blackwells was into wife-swapping. HWA said Meredith was the most effeminate man on campus.
Stalkers, rapists, and pedophiles were in the ministry which is a proven fact by all the ones that have been arrested and sent to prison.
Pack, Flurry, and Thiel all lie about doctrine and prophecy.
You need to shut up about people in the world when your own church leaders are bigger hypocrites and perverts than most in the world.
Elton John has done more to help people than Herbie and the rest of the COG minister has ever done.
10:31 said "Do you really think behind closed curtains that anyone actually believes your fictional writing ??"
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you took the time to read it all and then make a dumbass comment proves that you really DO CARE! What a tool.
Nope. The only tool is you. Professional help is easy obtainable. But you'd rarther play out PTSD with a anti Christian blog.
Delete@7:17, I choose to let God judge. Elton John is an amazing, incredible talent, and God loves each and EVERY soul. Free up your angst and move on.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous at 8:11 PM said...“7.17 pm Have you read up on the sex lives of Hollywood movie stars, going back decades. It's a moral cesspool. Using your criterion, few movies, even from the 'Father knows best,' and 'Leave it to Beaver's days could be watched.”
ReplyDeleteIn the past, Hollywood “stars” were perverts in private while playing the parts of good, decent people in TV shows and movies. They really were ACTORS (or HYPOCRITES in Greek). They appeared outwardly good while they were inwardly evil.
Nowadays, the Hollywood “stars” are perverts in private while also playing the parts of perverts in TV shows and movies. They do not have to act quite so much anymore. They are no longer quite so hypocritical. They now appear outwardly evil while they are inwardly evil. They are openly evil in private and in public. They are now being their true selves.
Frankly, I believe that the Puritans were absolutely right to be suspicious of the theater.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I believe that Herbert Armstrong used various concoctions to trash, repudiate, invalidate, and cancel any types of art or music which did not conform to his own preferences. Some of us realized that at Ambassador College, where the sexual orientations, addictions, and bad behaviors of the artists were constantly used to invalidate most contemporary music appreciated by the working class person, but such personal factors of the artists were hypocritically ignored or repressed in order to encourage appreciation of classical music, opera, show tunes, and the high brow types of music which HWA enjoyed. Interestingly, there were some intellectually honest students at AC who loved classical music and had studied the musicians lives in their educational experiences prior to attending AC, yet freely admitted that classical artists also participated in homosexuality, drug addiction, and mental instability, just as did their rock counterparts.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very instructive example as to how HWA taught the usage of willful ignorance to make his own personal preferences a part of his members' personalities. The very visible optics screaming out in his disingenuous treatment of music are also present in his treatment of every other field and topic which he ever discussed, whether it be history, politics, science, race relations, fashion choices, dietary matters, and most importantly the Bible itself. We all had to practice willful ignorance in order to maintain the expected beliefs and behavioral patterns as members of HWA's church. To the extreme!
Back in the day, people either liked or disliked Elton John's music. I would imagine that if HWA had heard "Funeral For A Friend", he might have even assumed that it was a classical piece with which he was as yet unfamiliar. But, I never heard any teenagers saying "I want to be gay like Elton!"
Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix at 10:35 PM said...“I have loved Elton's music since he first hit the charts in the United States.”
ReplyDeleteWell, as Dr. Phil might or might not say, “And how is that working out for you, funny boy?”
7:18 snarlingly said “ Well, as Dr. Phil might or might not say, “And how is that working out for you, funny boy?”
ReplyDeleteWell, if Lonnie is like the rest of us that like Elton, and always have, he is doing really well, like all the rest of us. Are you jealous that someone is happier than you, grumpy boy.
Anonymous Grumpster at 9:02 AM snarled...“Are you jealous that someone is happier than you, grumpy boy.”
ReplyDeleteNo, I am happy that you are grumpier than me. Your snarly nature confirms my spiritual superiority and makes me even happier yet.
Hap hap happy!!!
:-)
Loving life - had a fantastic Thanksgiving with our children and grandchildren gathered around us! God is GOOD! Hope everyone else had a fantastic holiday!
ReplyDelete