The Church of God and its "alpha males". Why You Cannot Trust Them To This Day

 

The Painful Truth website has up a fascinating and relevant article that focuses upon a serious issue that many in the Church of God movement deal with and have dealt with over the decades.

The Painful Truth writes:

alpha male

Nothing is as it seems.

This is a complex topic which has taken years to compile the research in order to resolve serious issues for certain people so they can live the kind of life they should be able to enjoy. For this reason, this is a very long posting which has as much as 5 hours of material. It is structured in a particular way for maximum benefit. This is more of a seminar or course of study. It is also a mature topic which may be disturbing to some. Unfortunately, some of the material contains graphic language which may be offensive to some.

alpha male is a response to a request from a former member of the Worldwide Church of God who grew up in the church.

Here is the email:

Well hello friends,

Three generations of my family have been stuck in the Armstrong cult and as a young person in 2020 I want to assure all of you that the church is alive and well and still destroying lives. I don’t fully understand the effect of the church’s doctrine on my life and my mindset but I continue to unearth new evidence of the damage done every day.

My grandparents began listening to radio church of god back in the old days and the rest is history. My parents were both raised in the church and while my dad is no longer in it and hasn’t been for many years my mom and grandma are still deeply involved with different splinter groups. I have attended many different splinters throughout my time in the church such as United, Living, the fathers call, which is led by Brian Orchard, and faithful flock, which is led by Don Billingsly. I can safely say that these last two people are some of the few people in the world that I truly hate.

I put my foot down and refused to attend church anymore in 2016 and it caused a big rift between me and my mom. My Parents divorced in 2009 and I lived as a “spiritual orphan” for most of my life. I’m sure most of you know that divorced women are the lowest lifeform possible in the church and it wasn’t much better for me. Having been out of the church for four years now I’m only starting to begin to understand just how badly it has infected my way of thinking.

To give an example I was unable to acknowledge the fact that I am gay until 2019 and it still amazes me to this very day. It always felt like my worst nightmare growing up and I secretly hoped I would not turn out gay but here I am. I also find it extremely hard to go see a doctor. I have been vaccinated once in my life and while I would like to get more I can’t bring myself to do it. I received a tetanus last year when I was in the hospital for a work related injury.

If you don’t decide to post this I understand I know I don’t have much of story here but I do need to get all this out of my system. As I said before I don’t understand the extent of the damage done but it helps to say something to someone. Your website has helped me understand things that I didn’t even know I needed to understand. Reading stories from old worldwide survivors makes me grateful that I was only subject to the underfunded and petty splinter groups.

Thanks for listening,

B

The article on alpha males in the Church of God continues with lots of great information. Just a few highlights will be noted here, The rest can be read at the link at the end of this posting.

Reality #1: The Ministers of Armstrongism are liars

Herbert Armstrong was a liar. He lived a lie. He said he was The End Time Apostle. He was not only not an apostle, he wasn’t even ‘converted’. For a decade after he started his ‘ministry’, he committed incest with his daughter. It only ended when his son-in-law found out and came into the office with a loaded gun. His ‘ministry’ was a lie. He told us to follow him into The Kingdom. He did not know where The Kingdom was or how to get there. Part of his lie was his greed for acceptance and adoration. In his abject narcissism, he stole money from his followers, calling it a tithe — which he was never qualified to collect under any circumstances. He claimed to be bringing the gospel to the world. He didn’t. We’ve documented that here. He claimed that British Israelism was the key to prophecy. It wasn’t. It was thoroughly debunked.

Garner Ted Armstrong lived a lie. He was second in command at one time. He was a boozing alcoholic gambling adulterer. He married his pregnant wife and continued on to have affairs with his estimation of 200 Ambassador College Coeds.

Richard David Armstrong went to his father, Herbert Armstrong, to sternly warn him that he needed to repent! What happened shortly afterward should be of prime interest here, as Alton Don Billingsley described:

On June 7, 1958, I was ordained a local elder by Mr. Armstrong. Mr. Richard D. Armstrong, the eldest son of Mr. Armstrong, then chose me to serve on the visiting program under him. Shortly after this, he chose me to team up with him to go on a baptizing tour in central California. Though I do not want to go into detail, we had a terrible automobile accident, which was my fault; seven days later, he died from the injuries he received in that accident.

Yes, this is the very same Don Billingsley of the so-called Faithful Flock as quoted above from B. Billingsley committed vehicular homicide! He had been up late and had little sleep. The road he and Richard David Armstrong were traveling on was under construction. They were supposed to stay on the pavement on one side of the road, but Alton drove in the other lane and at the top of the hill, he hit a car traveling toward them head on. With the lies Billingsley lived with, it’s no wonder he didn’t want to go into detail. B has absolutely every right to hold contempt for Billingsley. So much for selecting a minister of good report from those who are without… not that it was a practice in the Radio Church of God or the Worldwide Church of God.

Armstrongism was and still is filled with fraudulent men who say one thing while standing on the stage or writing in a magazine while in their private lives do something else.

This quote describes the COG ministry very accurately:

So when it comes to Armstrongism and the ministry of the Armstrongist Churches of God, don’t expect anything but lies and hypocrisy. They are hardly in any position to judge anyone. As Jordan Peterson says, “If you want to change the world, clean your room”. The ACoGs have never even begun the house cleaning, except, of course, for the morsels of dried bread crusts during the Days of Unleavened Bread. It is for this and for many other reasons that no one who has grown up in or attended the Worldwide Church of God or its many spit offs should give one shred of credence nor participate in any way with them. They are toxic liars who know nothing and are more likely than not to give you devastatingly bad advice. None of them have one shred of authority over you. 

The long article, well worth the read, ends with this:

No one should be ashamed simply because the words of Armstrong were intended to convict behavior of the which he disapproved. If he were caught in his incest by the State of Texas up until the mid 1950s, he would have been executed. In any event, if he had been convicted and punished with a prison term, the inmates would have tortured and executed him because no matter how vile they may have been, he far exceeded even their tolerance of evil. That really says something when hardened felons take umbrage at the sort of behavior that apostle had toward his daughter. It’s too bad The Plain Truth never had an article, The Shocking TRUTH about Evil Armstronists.

So when it comes to any sort of guilt projected on you personally by some erstwhile religious figure, there can be no acceptance or even accommodation. The chief Armstrongists were completely evil; totally compromised without any redeeming qualities. They hid a lot of their guilt over their evil deeds. They were so corrupt their conscience didn’t bother them because it was completely dead. They never ‘repented’ from the dead (and deadly — a lot of people died unnecessarily because of them) works. If you have committed no crimes and only engaged in mutually agreed activities, the cult leaders can have no power over you. You are likely to be far more moral in the scheme of things. 

See the complete article here:   alpha male