Fear has to be the biggest and most universal unspoken doctrine of the Armstrongist Church of God movement.
Fear has kept church members living in constant fear of losing their salvation. Being labeled as a Laodicean was a great tool for that fear. Expressing your opinion or disagreeing with the church leader or ministers was grounds for disfellowshipment and as we had all been trained by the fearmonger leadership, anyone kicked out of the church would live lives of failure and disappointment. Not only that, the gates of salvation would be slammed in our faces. Not tithing 30%? Zap!, Eat some pork or shrimp? Zap! Skip church one week? Zap! Hold a Bible Study in your home with friends? The flames of the lake of fire will soon be licking at your feet.
Dave Pack has his few remaining diehard members anticipating the return of their creature called "christ" and those that dare to question that live in fear of getting kicked out of the church and losing their salvation. Dave makes that clear to all of his followers that is what will happen.
Gerald Flurry keeps his followers living in fear of Irish Dance and church government. Rebel against church government and the lake of fire with it's 24-hour-a-day Irish Dance will be your destination.
Then we have the Great Bwana Bob Mzungu Thiel, the greatest fearmonger the church has in the 21st century. Endless stories and sermons are made about fearful events happening around us today or shortly in the future. Most of his African members could not give a rat's ass about 99% of the stuff he posts on his blog. These are topics foreign and irrelevant to their society. Living safely, avoiding raging Muslims, feeding their families, and providing shelter is far more important than any of the useless crap the Great Bwana finds important.
Some of his latest fear topics:
European military leadership role for Germany’s Bundeswehr?
- WND: ‘Sleeper cells in almost every American urban area’
- Vatican excommunicates Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò who responds with a warning about Freemasonsry and the WEF’s influence on the Vatican
- Kamala Harris getting consideration and criticism as a potential replacement for Joe Biden
- Does the European Union actually use Babylonian symbols?
- Zechariah’s Plague: a brain-eating amoeba? Bird Flu vaccine push?
- French vote gives leftists most seats over right, but leaves hung parliament and deadlock
- The Great Tribulation cannot begin before 2028!
- AP: Scammers are swiping billions from Americans every year. Worse, most crooks are getting away with it
- White Buffalo: Hopeful sign or lying wonder?
- BibleNewsProphecy: Cyborg Abominations!
- RT: Are traditional international Institutions viable in the New World Order?
- Worldcoin setting up for the 666 Beast?
- CNN: Earth’s core has slowed so much it’s moving backward
- Sermon: Jesus and God’s Plan for Muslims
- ‘King Charles Appoints Sir Keir Starmer as His Third Prime Minister’
- An LCG ‘whiteboard’ helps demonstrate why it will not know when the Great Tribulation starts until basically after it does
- ‘The Houthis’ Hypersonic Missile Is a Game-Changer in Red Sea’
- Egypt Teeters On Brink Of Economic Ruin As Public Debt Mounts, Poverty Rate Soars and Overhauls Cabinet, but the Bible and Islam Point to Temporal Wealth
- The USA is not like its founders envisaged
- ‘Norway to stockpile 82,500 tons of grain to prepare for famine and war’ & ‘If The High Cost Of Groceries Makes You Feel Sick, You Are Not Alone’
- Democrats concerned as ‘Only Michelle Obama bests Trump as an alternative to Biden in 2024,’ and at least 25 Democratic Congressmen want Joe Biden out
- Herbert W. Armstrong and Laodicean ‘independence’
- Harbinger Daily: Gog of Magog: Who Is The Russian Leader At The Center Of The Ezekiel 38 Prophecy? COGwriter: They are wrong about that and other prophetic matters
Without fear, the Church of God would cease to exist. That's why you rarely find any COG leader ever talking about living in the peace of Christ. Living in grace is so upsetting to most of them that they constantly have to bad mouth grace at any chance they get. Their utter contempt at the possibility that their followers could be justified and sanctified and immune to their idiotic rants and fear-mongering pushes their buttons to no end. So they do everything in their power to keep members enslaved by fear.
Sadly, many of the people sitting in their groups need that fear. It is a scary concept to break free from fear and revel in grace and freedom and not have to worry about so much of the useless crap COG leaders spoonfeed their members with. Structure and control are safer than unfettered grace.
If some hardworking taxpayer already had daily stress caring for kids & mate, with their brain already squeezed by 5g towers, then the long list of hazards posted could spin someone into anxiety attack.
ReplyDeleteHe's also got some articles on reducing stress, but what a bungee rope between simplify your lives one day, then gear up for doom the next.
I had a pastor for decades who thrived on sharing scary headlines like these during "announcements" at services, and at Bible studies before that.
ReplyDeleteBut he said his point was NOT to make members fearful. It's all about "raising your level of awareness," he would say - to ultimately have faith in God to work it all out.
The big question that any Armstrongite, or possibly members of other similar groups should be asking themselves, is does God make an active effort on a daily basis to save His human children? Is He taking an active part in that? Or, does He catch them with a broadcast, and leave them with a book, and some obsessive-compulsive old guy with a bunch of weird theories to keep them on edge 24-7, who teaches them not to ask any of the difficult deep philosophical questions? Is it one of God's mysterious ways to set up church leaders to make lying false prophecies? Is it a mark of Godly character that would cause you to sit in a seat week after week, listening to a man, knowing that that man speaking to you is lying, and will reverse what he just told you, not just once, but over, and over, and over, and over again???
ReplyDeleteA church would be a mighty different place if the presumption were that if God called someone, He would take a very active role in making certain that none were lost. And, if everyone trusted that instinctively, the ministers (if they were indeed called themselves) would back off, and just let Him do His job.
Ahhh the assumption of corrupt ministry...that 'followers' are living in fear...that they wholesale take in every word spewed out...that critical thinking....wisdom from God Himself....courage.... Life experiences....ect...don't count... oh the arrogance of power...the curse of the untamed ego...
ReplyDeleteIs it a mark of Godly character that would cause you to sit in a seat week after week, listening to a man
ReplyDeleteweaknesses and fears drove people to so sit and the greedy and untrustworthy Armstrong played it for all it was worth using a ministry he taught to kowtow to him. Those who didnt were hunted down and dismissed on various trumped up charges
The comment I got from my (now ex husband) when I told him I was leaving the RCG, and I brought all these points about Dave’s cult that didn't add up to his attention: “Yes, I know all that and I agree with you that its all wrong. But I'm staying. If I leave I will end up in the lake of fire!”
ReplyDeleteThat is what fear does to a person. He’s like a rabbit, sitting in the middle of the road..
Sad to hear of this. It shows the sickening mind control power of the Armstrong cults and all others
DeleteWow. That ex husb. has been thorioughly Jim-Jonesed. By Dave Pack. Glad this lady got free! very good news
ReplyDelete