Crackpot Prophet On Memorial Day, "Just Wars", And American Football

Here we are on Memorial Day, 2024, a day set aside to honor fallen soldiers who have fought for the freedoms we have and against tyranny both domestic and foreign. It started out as Decoration Day in 1917 and officially became Memorial Day in 1971.

So this brings us to today when our crackpot prophet has to weigh in with more of his stupidity. It's kind of odd some of the things he says and does considering he comes from a military family. But, like many self-appointed COG preachers, they talk the big talk siding with conservative values while never lifting one of their delicate fingers to ever serve the country or their fellow citizens. Thankfully in the early days of the church, we had a lot of men and a few women who had served in the military and did it proudly.

Many like to say the church was pacifist because Herbert Armstrong had a Quaker background but it probably went deeper than that as he thought himself too good and important to join the military. Joining the military would have meant he had to give up his ego and learn to work as one cohesive unit with the other men in his platoon.  Working hard in manual labor was not part of Herbert's thinking. Look at how he boasted about losing one job after another and sitting there watching his family suffer because he felt he was too important to do manual labor.

We are so blessed today in 2024 to have in our midst the GREATEST prophet God has ever sent into this world to deliver such amazing articles and videos unlike any the world has ever seen, until now. God apparently foresaw that Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry, Gerald Weston, Vic Kubik, Jim Franks, Ron and Laura Weinland, David Hulme, and Alton Billingsley were going to be epic failures, so he preordained that the Great Bwana Bob Mzungu Thiel would rise up in the last dispensation to give a final warning to the church and the world. I guess with Bob we have never really understood that God was a great jokester and that he was pulling a fast one on us.

Here is some of the amazing stuff our Great Bwana thought was worth sharing with us on Memorial Day.

He starts by quoting a snippet from an article on the meaning of this day and how we should strive for peace and immediately has to get snarky mocking what was said. Are COG prophets ever happy about anything?

Today, many in the USA observe ‘Memorial Day.’ It was originally known as ‘Decoration Day.’ It started after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. By the 20th century, Memorial Day was extended to honor all Americans who have died while in the military service. 

 

A secular source posted the following:

May 29, 2023

On Memorial Day, we honor those who died in the service of our country. Let us do everything we can as a people and a nation to stop war and all its brutality.

A peaceful future without war and all its awfulness is the best way to honor our troops, even as we cherish the memory of the heroes who gave their all. The best way to honor sacrifice is to seek an end to war and militarism

The  Great Bwana then adds this:

While that would be great now, that type of peace will not happen until after Jesus, the Prince of Peace, returns. 

 

A reader sent me a link to the following article about it:

Memorial Day a time to question war…

It is proper to pay respect to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the rest of us. Memorial Day should also be a time of reflection on when it is moral for the United States to wage war and, if allowed, how this country should conduct war. 

 

War is awful. In these days of shallow, sanitized news coverage, the real horror of war rarely confronts us with the terrible death it levies against fellow humans, soldiers and civilians alike, and the maiming injuries, physical and psychological, it leaves behind in its wake… 

 

Over the centuries, religious leaders and moral philosophers have clarified moral principles for commencing a “just war.” Choices about war and peace involve not only military and political options, but also moral questions

The Great One then adds this about "just wars", something that was preached over and over in the pulpits of Armstrongism as a necessary evil at times. The Great Bwana blames the "just war" concept on Catholics.

The ‘just war’ concept, to a major degree, is based upon the writings of the Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas and was a term used by early followers of Martin Luther. In the 16th century, Martin Luther’s followers condemned those who did not believe that Christians were to be soldiers. Notice what the followers of Martin Luther declared in 1530:

Article XVI: Of Civil Affairs. Of Civil Affairs they teach that lawful civil ordinances are good works of God, and that it is right for Christians to bear civil office, to sit as judges, to judge matters by the Imperial and other existing laws, to award just punishments, to engage in just wars, to serve as soldiers...They condemn the Anabaptists who forbid these civil offices to Christians.

It should be noted that some of those called Anabaptists were in the Church of God. Martin Luther would have also condemned groups like the Continuing Church of God which hold to beliefs that he condemned on these matters. 

Martin Luther is in good company considering that even God condemns the improperly named "continuing" Church of "god", but that's another story.

Yet, from the beginning of the New Testament church true Christians (and even most of the heretical apostates) would not participate in carnal warfare.

Yet, Armstrongist ministers have been heard justifying "just wars" over the decades.

Then, being the Great Bwana that the Great Bwana is, this talk of  "just wars" and war itself deteriorates into Roman Colosseum gladiator battles and then into American football. WTH? Only in the mind of a warped COG prophet can "just war" be stretched to fit this mindless scenario.

Athenagoras, a professing Christian apologist, wrote around 170 A.D.:

What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers?…

Who does not reckon among the things of greatest interest the contests of gladiators and wild beasts, especially those which are given by you? But we, deeming that to see a man put to death is much the same as killing him, have abjured such spectacles (Athenagoras. A Plea for the Christians, Chapter XXXV). 

 

Even today, many Christians realize that watching brutal events intent on causing physical harm, such as real boxing and American football, is inappropriate.

Now, here is something from Theophilus of Antioch (who apparently was part of the Church of God) perhaps written about 180 A.D.:

Consider, therefore, whether those who teach such things can possibly live indifferently, and be commingled in unlawful intercourse, or, most impious of all, eat human flesh, especially when we are forbidden so much as to witness shows of gladiators, lest we become partakers and abettors of murders. But neither may we see the other spectacles, lest our eyes and ears be defiled, participating in the utterances there sung. Theophilus of Antioch. To Autolycus, Book III, Chapter XV.

 

So, true Christians did not believe that they were to fight nor even watch the violent sports that were popular in the second century.

The Great One ends with this:

So, as many remember the soldiers who died in warfare today, Christians can look forward to the time that there will be no more war nor pain of war.

Christians look forward to the day self-appointed lying false prophets leading the Church of God are eliminated and will no longer have any power to destroy followers' lives; physically, mentally, and spiritually. 

May that day speedily come!