Brian Orchard, you remember him, right? Most today will say, who? Many thought he was no longer alive. He has the distinction of leading three different insurrections in the church, WCG to UCG, UCG to David Hulme, and David Hulme to Father's Call.
Never has a COG splinter group faded into nothingness quicker than the Father's Call group did. No one hears anything from them anymore and they are just one more pin on the bulletin board of splinter churches.
Like so many other men before him. he thought he knew better how to do things and led an insurrection against David Hulme starting in late 2013. A large group of Hulme's ministers walked out.
Brian Orchard, Peter Nathan, Matt King, Bill Hutchison, Bob Rodzaj, Cliff Veal, Marshall Stiver, Stephen Elliott, Steve Andrews, and Ted Budge, are just a few of the ministers who rebelled against Hulme.
A member from Australia had this to say about Orchard:
Brian Orchard may get an invitation to become the goalie for the Australian national ice hockey team. He has mastered the splits! First, years ago, with a behind-the-scenes campaign that led to WCG Australian Regional Director Dean Wilson being ousted and then Brian and his co-conspirators disciplined, with a split ministry in Australia that took years to heal. Then Brian participated, albeit as part of a larger movement, in the UCG split from WCG. Then Brian honed his skills developed in the Wilson ouster by helping to foment the 1998 Hulme split from UCG , and now Brian is involved in yet another split! He has truly mastered “the splits” and would likely make a great ice hockey goalie!
Orchard plotted along with Vic Kubik and others while they were employed by the WCG in Pasadena. They met often in the SOG 360 Apartments plotting and scheming their exit from the mother church, but not before they stole member lists and had set up a bank account that funded their ministerial lifestyles when they jumped ship into the United Church of God.
Then, dissatisfied with the United Church of God, he along with David Hulme and others split off to set David up in the Church of God and International Community. Which turned out to be another meaningless blip on the Church of God splinter group map.
It wasn't long till he was fed up with Hulme's stance on marriage and divorce and British Israelism, so he rebelled again and started the Father's Call splinter.
Once fully ensconced in the Father's Call splinter group, Orchard then preached a sermon about Jesus. No, no that kind of a sermon but one in which he declared that the church talks TOO MUCH about Jesus!
Mr. Orchard said something that surprised me. He said that in the past the Church of God has focused too much on Christ and not enough on the Father, and that COGFC is trying to put the focus on the Father. It surprised me because I do not think that Mr. Armstrong taught the Church too much emphasis on Christ, rather, when he was alive I thought we were properly focused on the Father. Perhaps Mr. Orchard was speaking of only the past 16 or so years since COGaic formed under Mr. David Hulme. I have not attended that organization enough to know if they were negligent in focusing on the Father. But Mr. Armstrong was not negligent. He focused on the Father, and so did the Church of God when he was alive. I think many or most converted members of the Church of God today in various fellowships put primary focus on the Father, addressing our prayers to the Father for example. Avoiding a Spirit of Hostile Competition / Church of God, a Family Community at Six Months
All of these self-appointed saviors of the church, each with their own special message that the rest of the church is supposed to be in need of, have turned out to be one great big fat...
14 comments:
Well, I can imagine Bob Thiel reading this, and wondering in horror if he's seeing his own future biography. A fade into nothingness.
Funny how birds of similar feather are often lumped together. Two healthfood retailers going into prophecy. David Pack. Bob Thiel. I'm thinking that Bob probably cringes every time Dave's anal retentive Bible Study leads him into yet another false proclamation.
But, alas, the two are different. Bob had the good sense not to quit his day job, and he couches his guesses with choices in words so that nobody could actually classify anything he ever says as a prophecy.
The way I hear it, things got calmer and more peaceful when Orchard and his followers left. A number of the ministers that went with him bailed soon after.
Brian Orchard was my minister in the 1970s. He's a choleric psychopath. And no, I'm not name calling. His "counseling" were often attempts to shift interpersonal boundaries. The most famous contemporary choleric is accurately depicted by Star
Trek's James T. Kirk. They love to play the game of brinkmanship. In Kirk's case, he always won, but as Picard said in one episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, it's a dangerous game.
In fairness, Brian is a very gifted motivational speaker.
At least three or four of the original Father's Call rebels ended up on the LCG payroll very soon after splitting from Hulme. What was up with that?
maybe those 3 or 4 helped establish the bullying bulletin board @ LCG mailroom to jeer & make fun of co-worker's mailed in prayer requests
There's money in them thar Armstrongites!
Some more wasters of people's time, energy, and money:
David Hulme is a spiritually blind guy who lacks a clear Vision.
Brian Orchard is one orchard that will never produce any good fruits.
Brian orchard made sure there were enough fruit available before bailing so as to ensure his own income. Hard to imagine how Armstrong was referring too much to Christ as Armstrong’s gospel emphatically rules out Christ. It was all about the millennium.
Orchard and his father in law Colin Sutcliffe were amongst those fanatics keen to destroy Wilson SS he was too moderate.
To his credit he is only offshoot having a better understanding of the gospel as taught in scriptures.
"...ended up on the LCG payroll"
A number of clever ministers were like this -- artful dodgers -- always landing in clover as one Armstrongist splinter after another folds.
Maybe Orchard can form his own church with himself as Pastor General or Czar with unlimited power, sort of like Flurry or Pack
Okay but isn't it a way of looking at teaching about the millenium/kingdom that Jesus Himself spoke about often, as teaching a message Jesus felt dear to His own heart?
''Okay but isn't it a way of looking at teaching about the millenium/kingdom that Jesus Himself spoke about often, as teaching a message Jesus felt dear to His own heart?''
Jesus did speak of the Kingdom of God , and Heaven. It 's clear however this term has several meanings whereas Armstrong limited it to one.
In the scriptures the kingdom is much more than the millennial period as taught by Armstrong and the offshoots
Jesus spoke often of the ‘’gospel of the kingdom’’.
Two sayings make clear the kingdom is already present in their midst, one in Matthew and the other in Luke:
Matthew 12 28: exorcism of demons is a proof of the presence of the kingdom there and then - and Jesus spoke of His kingdom in contrast to Satan’s kingdom.
Luke 17 20: Jesus answered the question of the Pharisees about the time of the coming of the apocalyptic kingdom by asserting that it was already present in their very midst.
Other statements refer in a few places to reign or rule. This is implied in Luke 19 verses 12 and 15; 23 verse 42; and by "kingship" in John 18 36. Reading various versions is useful.
Some sayings refer to the kingdom as a future apocalyptic order into which the righteous will enter at the end of the age , and a new order. For example kingdom of God is quite interchangeable with the age to come in Mark 10: 23-30 - where in context of kingdom Jesus talked about this “present age” as well as the “age to come”.
A fourth group of sayings represent the kingdom as a present realm into which men are now entering. Unlike the first three groups of sayings which are in the Gospels, this last group is in Colossians 1: “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:”
Matthew 12 verse 28, as noted, clearly shows kingdom of God is not merely an end time event. Jesus said Satan has a kingdom - Satan’s kingdom is the rule by Satan, present then. Christ’s kingdom was present then with Him, being His rule as demonstrated by Jesus command over Satan and his demons.
Thus, ‘kingdom of God’ is not only the future millennial rule as expressed in the Armstrong theology.
It would be odd, indeed , for Satan’s kingdom to have existed back then but Jesus’ kingdom becomes confined to a thousand years. It simply isn’t taught that way in the bible.
The kingdom is present with Him, and will last forever.” This is self-evident given Jesus’s majesty - but let’s read what the angel said to Mary , concerning His kingdom :
“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end”. (Luke 1:32–33)
- the Messiah’s kingdom began with His presence on earth, it was there at that time when he cast out demons, and it’s promised that His kingdom will have “no end”.
We see clearly that it’s incorrect to reason that ‘the kingdom of God’, and the gospel concerning it, is only a thousand year time on earth.
The millennium is in fact but one tiny part of the kingdom of God. Whether one reads kingdom of God, kingdom of Heaven, kingdom - its meaning is clearly set out in the bible.
(Matthew is the only Gospel writer to use ‘kingdom of heaven’. Mark, Luke, and John use the term ‘kingdom of God’. Matthew uses “Kingdom of Heaven” 33 times; and “Kingdom of God” four times (12:28; 19:24; 21:21, 31, 43). Many believe the phrase 'Kingdom of Heaven' used in this Gospel is typical of the Jewish practice of circumlocution - substituting another word for the divine name.
The two terms are completely interchangeable (cf. Matt. 19:23 with v. 24; Mark 10:23). Speaking to the rich young ruler, Christ uses “kingdom of heaven” and “kingdom of God” interchangeably).
Anon, Monday, June 24, 2024 at 9:04:00 AM PDT, said:
"...We see clearly that it’s incorrect to reason that ‘the kingdom of God’, and the gospel concerning it, is only a thousand year time on earth.
The millennium is in fact but one tiny part of the kingdom of God. Whether one reads kingdom of God, kingdom of Heaven, kingdom - its meaning is clearly set out in the bible..."
******
Many of the hirelings, who fled from the former WCG, are still believing and preaching that their Jesus (some say their God of the Old Testament:Jesus) is going to return "very soon" to reign on earth with the likes of them. Apparently, HWA, like all of these hirelings, were not given any more inspiration from God about the timing of God's Kingdom, and they are as blind and ignorant today as when HWA was alive...as blind as many of those who followed Jesus after His resurrection when He was in spirit form.
And yet, the establishment of God's kingdom of God/Jacob/Israel may not become reality until beyond the millennium, beyond the time Satan is loosed from the bottomless pit to demonstrate everlasting peace is not existence, and that wars and deception are yet ahead, and before God's Kingdom is established on earth.
Jesus Christ, after His murder and resurrection, spent 40 days doing something. What was it?
Acts 1:3 "To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:"
Those things spoken of were not of that present time, but for a future time, and the people knew it. How do we know? Read on.
:6 "When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?"
It was obvious that the kingdom had not yet been restored relative to Jacob/Israel, and what was Jesus' answer to their question? Let's read on.
:7 "And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons..."
Times? Seasons? Isn't Satan going to be released, after the millennium, for a short time, for a little season? And that's when deception and war worldwide, even with destruction (Zech 14) in Jerusalem, occurs, and still no kingdom of God, or of Jacob, or of Israel established on earth. And Jesus, at that time: where will He be?
Are all enemies put down yet, then? Does the Father have a right hand? The earth could have been like a human utopia during that millennium, just because and while Satan is in captivity in some "bottomless pit," but the entire earth will again be messed up.
It is Jesus' God, Jesus' Father, the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob (Acts 3:13) who controls the goings on regarding His Kingdom, and we may read more of verse 7.
:7 "And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power."
Will God the Father, Jesus' God, allow His Kingdom to be established after some short time, after some little season?
Time will tell...
John
10.54 am
''And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.''
Indeed this is so as we must patiently wait upon the Father's decision.
As for Armstrong he reckoned he had it all worked out. His last most dogmatic working out was to appear in the January 1984 issue of the Good News magazine.
Herein Armstrong wrote an article titled: ‘’What lies Ahead Now’’ - and Armstrong said that in late 1983;or early 1984; the war in heaven spoken of in Rev 12:7 was about to start.
Completion of the ‘’great commission’’ to warn nations was said in that article to be ‘’now very soon’’. And he and the faithful would then '',, be taken - symbolically flown on the two wings of a great eagle - which could mean by a friendly government made friendly to us by my contacts with heads of so many governments - we shall be taken to a place of protection from the Great Tribulation, which is the furious wrath of Satan (verse 14)”. While “we are in this place of safety” for three and a half years the two witnesses are preaching.
Thus, this fake apostle began his career and ended his career with dramatic lies about prophetical events and it was throughout that fifty years totally unrelated to any warning role from God.
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