Living Church of God had this up for Doug Winnail's weekly update for August 22, 2024
The Importance of Kindness: The Bible reveals that in the last days, people will be “unloving, unforgiving, slanderers… brutal” (2 Timothy 3:1–4). However, God wants Christians to develop godly qualities and become like He is, “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in kindness” (Nehemiah 9:17). David writes that God “has shown me His marvelous kindness” (Psalm 31:21). Solomon says of a virtuous woman: “on her tongue is the law of kindness” (Proverbs 31:26). Jesus said that God is even “kind to the unthankful” and we should be likewise (Luke 6:35). The Apostle Paul wrote that true Christian love “suffers long and is kind” (1 Corinthians 13:4) because kindness is one of the fruits of God’s Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). If we hope to become like God and be in the Kingdom of God, we will strive to develop and exercise this important quality of kindness.
Have a profitable Sabbath,
Douglas S. Winnail
While these questions include LCG in them they also apply as a whole to the Church of God movement.
Has the Church of God, as a whole, ever practiced kindness to its members?
Has the ministry been kind to its members?
Has their version of kindness been only restricted to church members or has it shown kindness to the world?
Has the church been "unloving, unforgiving, slanderers...brutal?" to its members?
Can church members learn godly qualities by how they have been treated by church leaders and ministers?
Does the love of members "suffer long and is kind?
Do you believe that you will be a good god considering how you treat people today in this lifetime?
28 comments:
Doug, has LCG grown or faltered in kindness since you first published that comment in March 2008? Is it kind of you to keep repeating yourself in these duplicative comments to LCG brethren? Is it a comment about the brethren's continued unkindness, or is it just a comment about your own laziness?
I became acquainted with a whole new level of kindness years after having left WCG. It actually goes towards improving attitudes across the board. You make the area around you a better place. You see someone in line at the store who's obviously needing to pinch pennies, and you pay for their groceries. Someone needs a jump start? Take a couple minutes of your time. Traffic? Let the driver who's trying to pull into line from a driveway or school in. Random acts of kindness.
I had a guy try to give me a tenner for jump starting him a couple weeks ago. I told him, "No, Bro! Didn't do it for that. Let's get a rally going. Pass kindness on to the next guy!"
I have no love for LCG, or for that matter Dougie boy, but come on dude. How many fruits of the spirit are there? Do you expect a pastor to only talk about them once and then never again? Repetition is how humans learn best. And there are only so many stories and lessons in the bible....if someone is tasked to give a sermon each week, or publish an article weekly, they are bound to repeat themselves if doing it long enough. If Doug's last article on the subject of kindness was 16 years ago then I'd say he isn't repeating that theme enough.
Plenty of COGs do "Good Works" (or whatever you want to call it) in communities. They get mentioned in the "local news" sections of their publications.
And if they're wise, they don't brag about it because Jesus said they're not supposed to do it.
If they liked being kind they would not be stealing tithes from the members causing undue hardship.
A friend of mine who graduated from Ambassador College Pasadena told me back in the Seventies that he was taught in one of his classes that the governmental structure in the WCG was going to be the same governmental structure in the Kingdom of God. That is, your minister would rule over you for eternity. And down at the family level, one can deduce that wives would forever be ruled over by their husbands. When leaders believe they have an eternal mandate, not subject to recall, it is difficult for them to prioritize kindness.
I do not know if the Armstrongist ministry still believes this or not. Someone might ask. HWA used to teach that the church (WCG) was the Kingdom of God “in embryo.” Someone should have asked him what he meant by this in detail. I know HWA viewed himself as one of the top leaders in the Kingdom of God. Right under Abraham or Noah or something like that. When the ministry speaks about the Wonderful World Tomorrow, it might surprise the lay members if they knew what the ministry was really talking about.
Scout
I remember at AC in the early 70's how the students, along with the evangelist ranked ministers would go to the local homeless shelters to serve meals and they even opened the Student Center to the needy for a meal. They also had a clothing distribution program in the Hall of Administration. The Home Economics Dept. taught single mothers and widowers how to cook affordable, healthy meals. The motor pool where company vehicles were serviced was used to help low-income people get their cars repaired. Cars would be donated to the church, repaired in the college shop, then distributed to the working poor. The landscaping department would give one day a month to care for the yards of those who needed help. This all happened, in my dreams.
Who needs kindness?
If the people in the so-called COGs could merely refrain from acting like Satan and lying like Satan continually, that would be enough.
Not sure most of the ministry believed that thenm
Steve,
You had me going there until your last line. I was incredulous, but you never know if a temporary small-scale event might have occurred similar to the current COGs that cite their community outreach of donating to a food shelf at the Feast. After I eat my $300 dinner let me donate 4 cans of food to the food shelf. Better than nothing, but very small scale.
Some time ago I was thinking how we really did not learn love and kindness while in the cogs. I suppose some cog types will roll their eyes and maybe I once would have, but it occurred to me that we were given license to harden our hearts toward the sufferings of others when we would express "well, it isn't their time yet. God will fix everything at His return." We didn't have to consider how we could help those outside Armstrongism. It was not an area of our mind exercised. Our "new to Armstrongism" hearts were told that the troubles of those with great suffering will be fixed in the future and our money and efforts should go to the work. This required a furthered hardening of heart to some degree to do this time and time again. This realization was too impactful for me to consider it as attacking the old WCG; but rather, some programming I really need to remove.
"....money and efforts should go to the work"
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Ran across a note written long ago, in the last millenium as a matter of fact, from a deceased friend of mine, of a comment made by GTA the first day of the FOT in 1966: "Work is in a crisis".
"Work is in a crisis".
Yes these con artists were most adept at dragging out money from believers. There were repeated crises and son or father would call for more. A crisis caused by their bad governance and their luxurious lifestyles never diminished at these same times. Armstrong was a really bad man.
When the Internet became common place, I was amazed at the level of civility and kindness in the comments section of articles and videos. Such kindness was not common when I attended services, and was pearls before swine with the ministry. To them, it's school yard bully behavior that really works.
I've ran into some members who were kind to me in a splinter group I was connected with. However there were some that were not so kind. I never considered any of the ministers as kind. One of them was quite ruthless.
I heard Roy Holiday preach that idea during a Feast of Tabernacles.
I hate to say it, but for me, the image that comes up when I think of COG people is the American Gothic painting. Pretty much the sum-total of their existence. Yeah. That's their "abundant" life.
What they are, and who they have become; is shaped by an ideology that fits nicely and tightly within a box. Anything that pushes back against that, is an enemy. The very fact that Scripture says that we only see through a glass dearly, in part; infers that there is growth yet to be had. They are done growing.
Derision is not a fruit of the spirit.
Anonymous.2:21 PM. The issue isn't repetition. I read many blogs that have a narrow focus, but they also always add some new ideas, new examples and ways of looking at things so that the material doesn't become stale. I assume Doug and others are too fearful for their jobs to depart from their narrow mental groove.
Anon1103,
No, derision is generally not the fruit of the Spirit per se, but when it is expressed from a love/concern for those in or considering Armstrongism it can be.
Kindness comes from character. So no, LCG is not kind. The amount of backbiting, combined with fervent rule enforcement for rules sometimes made up on the spot do much to kill a culture of kindness.
Oh yea 8:27, if you don't fit into their box, you are an enemy. That's what they tried to do with me. I was done with that. Oh and yes they "don't need any room for growing" because they "got all the doctrines correct" and they aren't wrong on anything. You start to call them out on that stuff and other self righteousness, then they start to act "unkind."
In 1Kings 18 Elijah mocked the priests of Baal: "Cry aloud for he is a god," he shouted. "Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened!" And in Psalms 2:4 New King James Version (NKJV) "He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision."
So mocking and derision in context is appropriate.
You know, now that you mention it, thats a rather apt comparison.
I was not offended by 11:03's comment. You see, unlike the Armstrongites, I do not fake the gifts and fruits of the Spirit. They certainly do not come to you through practicing Armstrongism, and that's the point I was trying to make by the comparison of members to American Gothic.
Ironically, my class has decided they want to do a project on cult survivors. I havent revealed my background to them, but Ive gently warned them that this may be a more difficult project than they realize...
Doug lecturing about kindness is probably the most hypocritical thing he's ever spoken about. Was it kind the way he came into his job there at headquarters, blindsiding and backstabbing the previous CAD Administrator? Was it kind the way he treated his wife and divorced her? Has he been kind putting people out of the church simply for asking questions or disagreeing with him? No kindness is not a word I'd use to describe the way he's lived his life. You want to know why he keeps recycling old articles and past materials? Because you can't preach something you don't live anymore! If he ever lived it to begin with....
It is Jesus who knows people's hearts and if they are fake or not.
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