The letter below was on Exit and Support Network and while it pertains to the Philadelphia Church of God it could just as applicable to most of the other COG's. Members are constantly being berated for not sending in as much money as leaders expect. Members are expected to skimp, live frugally, and give tremendously so that the leadership can live opulent lives never worrying about where the next meal will come from.
Who can forget the member letters from Herbert Armstrong raking members over the coals for some crisis in the church and then immediately demand they give as much as they can for some ridiculous mighty push to get a fake gospel out about a "mighty hand from someplace"?
What is the “sin of ingratitude” to the Philadelphia Church of God?
What “church” could be more ungrateful than they?
As that false ministry preaches to its members about being thankful, it is never about being thankful to God but about being thankful to them and for their “prophet” and for being ‘blessed’ in receiving “the Truth” from their ministers in the form of “spiritual food.”
But what real food can the members ever afford who first lose at least 30 percent of their income through local, state and federal taxes, and then must pay another 30 percent on top of that into this false church, or else must perish in the lake of fire?
All that a member can do is dream about having real food to eat, but eat “spiritual food,” as they may call it, instead.
What kind of a day of rest is the Sabbath when a working member cannot afford to have a good meal on the eve of that day or on that day?
For years I had to deal with the quandary as to whether I should pay for gas to make it to “church services” or be able to enjoy a nutritious meal on Friday or Saturday after surviving on less than a 500 calorie per day diet while I did hard work all week. Of course, I always paid for gas instead of eating.
In all the fake sermons I heard, the members were never thanked for the wealth and opulence enjoyed by those privileged people at HQ. The members were instead craftily manipulated by well-fed ministers who were skilled at using the Bible as an instrument of spiritual torture to guilt members into paying ever more and more, even beyond what tithes and offerings that fake church could extort out of its members, biblically.
And then, we arrive at that “sin of ingratitude” as classically preached about by Herbert Armstrong in the old WCG. How much ingratitude, or lack of gratitude, must that fake church have, in order to always ask its members for more, more, more…? Man, for lack of such a critical element as gratitude, why could those ministers not instead be asking and praying to receive a spirit of gratitude themselves, instead of for more money?
If people be guilty of the “sin of ingratitude,” as most human beings are ungrateful for what become just basic things to them and which things they take for granted over time, and without regarding the God who made all things, then the fake Philadelphia Church of God is guilty for being ungrateful to and for its members for sacrificing all those basic things and more, even God-given freedom, in order to please and appease the heads of that greedy and corrupt religious organization. None compares to them when regarding the “sin of ingratitude.”
Once on some older Trumpet Daily show, Stephen Flurry (SF) commented about the company CEO of Amazon for not even acknowledging that what profit he was now using for some space project he could then participate in had come from all the people who paid in and whom he profited from. Few comments ever sounded so hypocritical as what was coming from SF’s own mouth then.
Anyways, it is one of my greatest regrets to have given anything at all to that fake church, not just because of personal losses, but because I now know what evil I have contributed to, and not any good. What evil I have financed unwittingly has also caused others to suffer loss and injury. God forgives me for that which I did not intend to do, but how could God ever forgive that fake church who purposefully uses the Bible to extort people to the point of injury and while misusing His name in doing so, with all ingratitude?
By Nate [name changed] (former PCG member)
January 22, 2023
12 comments:
The lying ministers were ALL much better off than I was. What a pile of hypocrites.
Well now that I'm out I can afford to eat meat. Pork was about all I could ever afford, but it was too expensive. I had to send my tithes in. Now I eat pork and my health has improved. Meat is loaded with nutrients. There is no scientific reason to avoid pork. They lied and made it sound like it was a health law!
True leaders eat the same food as the troops, and make the same sacrifices.
Find me the religious leader who is living in a "Double Wide" and driving a KIA , and getting their suits at the thrift store, and maybe you should give them a listen, but alas, where can that be seen in the money grubbing and money demanding churches??
If the CEO of a charity is making a huge salary, I will not donate it. I go to Charity Navigator to see what they make. Any CEO who makes $600K as year doesn't need my money and is probably doing the work for the salary, not from passion for the cause.
“Anyways, it is one of my greatest regrets to have given anything at all to that fake church, not just because of personal losses, but because I now know what evil I have contributed to, and not any good. What evil I have financed unwittingly has also caused others to suffer loss and injury.”
That is the sad truth about Satan's false prophets like Gerald Flurry and David Pack and their satanic imposter cults like the PCG and the RCG.
Some people actually wanted to do good but ended up getting tricked into supporting evil.
Tkach set you free in 1994 but you didn't believe him.
Rising "to the top" in a COG is really a race to the bottom
Stephen Flurry and others who complain about CEO’s like Bezos or Musk using profit from their companies to make themselves rich don’t understand that they didn’t get rich through the company’s profit, but rather because they own stock in the company and the stock price increased. It’s a nice sound bite, but it’s much more complicated than a CEO skimming. In the case of PCG though….
The major premise was always that salvation was only available through Armstrongism, God's one and only "true" church. So, therefore, members owed their eternal lives to "God's ministers", as they were falesly so-called. The problem becomes that since that eternal life will be presided over by these same self-appointed gate keepers, eternal life is a piece of shit. Much better to undergo merciful eternal death than have to to live for all eternity under these monsters.
Flurry should be in sackcloth & ashes for the grevious burdens he has caused his followers. Yet he nor his idol, HWA ever lost any sleep or cared one whit about their lay members. They caused members to lose faith and become atheistic and they downplayed the role of Christ as Savior while exalting themselves. They will have their reward.
Wouldn't recommend eating pork. That won't go well in the long run. Your baptisim was a covenant with God not the WCG.
They like to have one foot in both camps and diss and mock both sides. Neither one definition or the other.
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