AI has a hard time with words, but you get the gist...
From a reader:
I used to call it the Joe Tkach Blunder. Now the world calls it the Cracker Barrel Blunder. Here is a quote from the link below about the Cracker Barrel rebranding:They created an update that was somewhat ill-conceived, and it felt like a betrayal to their core customers," O'Keefe said, adding that the rebrand violated what he considers to be the most important rule of rebranding: to understand the internal culture driven by a brand's most loyal fans. O'Keefe added: "Not the ones you're trying to win that you don't have, but the ones that you already have that care about you, because you betray them at your own risk.I think CGI may understand the quandary they are in. I wonder if they comprehend that they are spiritually obligated to jettison erroneous doctrines such as British Israelism and headline theology, but can't because they know they will suffer the same fate as Cracker Barrel and WCG under Tkach. Both Cracker Barrel and WCG thought they could attract new fans with their changes while retaining their current base. Both failed miserably.
The Tyler leadership is indeed between a rock and a hard place. I think they might actually understand the predicament they are in and are cognizant of how Bill Watson is chomping at the bit to take advantage of it at every opportunity.
32 comments:
Let's not forget the "New" Coke. Consumers voted against that one, big time!
Leaders are always driven to expand. That's the measuring stick by which the shareholders hold them accountable. How to expand without losing the core is always a roll of the dice. NASCAR had some great success with this during the early 2,000's, but the core often resisted the governing body's efforts to gentrify. Non-Southerner Jeff Gordon received a lot of boos, even after he began his phenomenal run of wins and championships, and there was mass disgust as the Stars and Bars was banned from the track. But, expand it did, and then the success was followed by a serious contraction for an entire subset of reasons.
I don't know how I feel about the Cracker Barrel situation. I hardly ever dine out. The only time I get to enjoy Cracker Barrel is usually when my best bud, my ex-brother-in-law who was born and raised in Alabama comes to town. It's his favorite, and when we dine there, it's a comfortable place to visit and conversate. What I wonder about is the extent of influence the president's comments had on the way the changes were mass-rejected. Let's face it. He does resonate a lot of power through his spoken words. Last time I witnessed this type of influence was when I was regularly making the classic car auction circuit. Any Porsche owned by Jerry Seinfeld sold for way over assessed value, by thousands of dollars! Jay Leno also has that value-adding quality.
We'll see if the added publicity Cracker Barrel has now received gives them a bump. If worst comes to worst, next time Bro comes to town, there's always Chili's!
BB
Hey BB, down under we never heard of Cracker Barrel or Chili’s, only the stable KFC, Mac of course, and Burger King. My first BigMac was in Germany, in Munich. I was with two Canadian guys, we had just flown in from Israel where I was living to explore the Vaterland. Had a ball and also my first taste of MacDonalds. Loved it ever since. Shortly afterwards we visited Dachau concentration camp. Sobering indeed. We were quiet for the rest of the day. Maybe Cracker Jack with come down under one day. American culture dominates down here, at least we will never go hungry lol. Lessons to be learned in all this. The mother church changed its core values and look what occurred. And the rest is history. We Kiwis love motor racing and NASCAR too. Anyway keep well, cheers.
I wouldn't call hanging on to traditional values as looking back.
2 Thessalonians 2:15 "So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter."
Btw, the Dixie Chicks band never recovered from criticizing George W. Bush in 2003. There are times to keep one's mouth shut.
Bill Watson, Adrian Davis, and company play to that old time religion. They swallowed Herbert Armstrong's theology hook, line, and sinker; and they actively resist anyone who tries to correct mistakes or modify heretical doctrines. Even worse, they understand that their audience is very white, and very conservative both morally and politically.
The more enlightened folks in Tyler and their allies have always been at a disadvantage in trying to correct the ship and appeal to a wider audience. Moreover, Bill and his allies have always tried to present Tyler as being disconnected from the membership and their values and too susceptible to "liberal" ideas, and the influence of those pointy-headed intellectuals! Bill is the master of passive-aggressive. He relentlessly preaches his beliefs, while carefully presenting himself as loyal to the CGI organization.
Nevertheless, in the face of Vance Stinson's, Mike James, and Jeff Reed's efforts to get out from under the baggage of Armstrongism, Bill has quietly begun collecting the tithes of his supporters - diverting funds that should be going to Tyler to his own coffers to support the message of him and his allies. He has effectively carved out an organization for himself within CGI - members that are loyal only to him and his messaging. Like his favorite president (Trump), Watson is a cruel authoritarian who has embraced some bat-sh-t crazy ideas.
So he's got an undeclared splinter in progress. Historically, splintering has been the only way to institute change, starting with the mother ship, and working it's way through all of the ACOGs. The changes just can't be made to fundamental doctrines such as the sabbath, holy days, tithing, clean meats, BI, and the Armstrong prophecy model. If you disagree with doctrine or policy, you are not going to succeed in changing them, so in matters of conscience, the only alternative is to walk away.
Backwards on President Trump and Cracker Barrel. Customers rejected it, then he supported them, then CB repented.
Tkach and company weren’t trying to draw new people. Remember, they were forced to come out early by Earl Williams.
When it comes to re-branding, imagine if Tkach and company had carved out a “Hebrews 4 Exception” and retained the weekly Sabbath. Everything else the same in the 1995 sermon, just that little “remains.” Then retain some permutation of. “Church of God” in the name change. Then maybe throw in lip service to the Decalogue as a law code (why not?).
Could they have retained more people while at the same time getting mainstream acceptance?
Finally, a Church name that has not been taken. "The Worldwide Cracker Barrel Church of God"!
The nature of the Church, the Body of Christ, is more nuanced than just membership numbers would convey. The Body of Christ consists of people who were chosen before the foundation of the Cosmos and are predestined to salvation (Ephesians 1). They are referred to as the Elect. They will be in the First Resurrection. I disagree with Barth on this doctrine. Barth sees everyone as being Elect in Christ. Whoever appropriates salvation becomes Elect. While I believe that Election is in Christ for those who belong to that category, there is nevertheless a pre-determined set of people who comprise the Elect. The Non-elect will be in the Second Resurrection and experience afterlife evangelism.
We have a tendency to overlay this Election scenario with earthly economics. We analyze church membership dynamics with principles from marketing taught in business schools. It doesn’t work that way. It may seem that way on the surface but it is not the underlying causation. God determines who is in the Body of Christ and gives these people to Jesus (John 6:39).
But I acknowledge that this process is not Calvinistic determinism. It is not an issue of Irresistible Grace. The New Testament is full of admonitions to Christians about not falling away. Peter in 2 Peter 1:10, treats election as something than needs to be maintained by our diligence. After all, the generation of Jews that Christ came to were elect but the great majority rejected him and will be in the Second Resurrection. So, effective marketing may be of some value to denominational growth but it does not affect salvation in the long run.
So, when the theological transformation took place in the WCG under the Joe and Joe, Jr., nobody fell to the wayside and lost salvation because of mishandled marketing. The view that such a disaster could happen is to neglect the overarching influence of God himself on the Ekklesia. God deals with people in their circumstances. I would not have done the transition in the same way as the Tkaches. I would have placed more emphasis on the actual, personal wounding that people experienced rather than the simple dissemination of a new theology and a mass, published apology. I know the absence of this affected me for years. But who am I to say.
This is a bigger topic than I have time to write about. But my two cents …
Scout
That is funny...
The simple answer is to "Preach the Word... in season, and out of season" (2 Timothy 4:2).
That should work. It did about 2,000 years ago.
How you "dress it up" might bring an even bigger response. But therein lies the rub.
"Barrel" in English is basically another way of saying ekklesia (as in "a barrel of monkeys" -- a group or congregation of them). So "Barrel Church" is redundant. So if it's a church for white "Israelites" it could properly be called the "Cracker Barrel of God."
I've known that Kiwis were cool for some time now! I've really enjoyed you guys' TV Program "My Life is Murder" starring Lucy Lawless. Awesome scenery and way of life come shining through.
BB
This article gives away the neo-commie attitudes in the splinters. Economic imbalances are not due purely to "injustice in judgment, " though this certainly exists and exacerbates the condition. And the bibles "It is more blessed to give than to receive” in Acts 20:35 is not an endorsement of wealth redistribution.
Ownership is determined by production rather than need as pointed out in I Timothy 5:18 "The worker is worthy of his wages.”
Spiritual and accompanying economic imbalances are pointed out in Matthew 13. Notice how one quarter of the people grab just about everything.
Matthew 13:8 "But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold."
Doing the maths in the parable of the talents, one person gets 66% of the cities mentioned. There is no equal distribution.
Imbalances will always be with us, and the "give way" is not God's solution.
Burger King is known as Hungry Jacks in Oz. Not a clue why they didn’t keep the original name. And American culture has definitely dominated here for decades—I for one only wish we had your bill of rights instead of the illusion of such while being slowly emasculated as a nation like the Fabian socialists planned since last century.
Statistically, about 15% of the people in the general population (some estimate this figure as being higher) are absolutely incapable of taking care of themselves. This can be due to low IQ and other mental challenges and illnesses, crippling disease, generational poverty, lack of education, or inability to absorb education, advanced age, orphanhood, and other factors. This means that many of those affected will end up "in the system". This is the reason why in order to function, capitalism requires a dose of socialism.
Societies are judged by how they treat the lesser amongst us, the helpless, the infirm, the afflicted, the stranger, the geriatric.. America has been considered great, a city with bright lights, partially because of the humane way in which these lesser folk are treated.
The parable of the talents is directed at those in the norm, those who are actually able to produce. In the agriculture-based society of the O.T., farmers rounded the corners of their fields so that the gleaners would have a source of food. Nothing "commie" about that, and even if there were, every philosophy known to man has its good and bad elements!
BB
Oops, my above 2.42 AM comment was meant for the "LCG: Apparently, giving away literature for free is fulfilling "loving thy neighbor" command" article.
Hi, TradingGuy!
Anon, aka Scout, Monday, September 8, 2025 at 7:22:14 AM PDT, wrote:
“…The Body of Christ consists of people who were chosen before the foundation of the Cosmos and are predestined to salvation (Ephesians 1). They are referred to as the Elect. They will be in the First Resurrection…
...there is nevertheless a pre-determined set of people who comprise the Elect. The Non-elect will be in the Second Resurrection…
...God determines who is in the Body of Christ and gives these people to Jesus (John 6:39)…
...So, effective marketing may be of some value to denominational growth but it does not affect salvation in the long run.
So, when the theological transformation took place in the WCG under the Joe and Joe, Jr., nobody fell to the wayside and lost salvation because of mishandled marketing. The view that such a disaster could happen is to neglect the overarching influence of God himself on the Ekklesia…But my two cents…”
******
Scout, Jesus Christ was inspired by His Father, His God, to say the following:
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."
And it appears that you, using different words, are expressing very similar thoughts.
But, time will tell...
John
"I would not have done the transition in the same way as the Tkaches. I would have placed more emphasis on the actual personal wounding that people experienced...."
Well that's a lie if ever i read one. Who are you fooling? Are you lying to yourself? Personal wounding is the real deal you are so proud to dish out on people. You love to wound others yourself. You follow everything Joe Snr did to people and then more so.
The one nice thing about the CGI is that you don't have a bunch of those stupid privileged "Karens" running around making a spectacle of themselves. Can't believe they even get on TV messing up baseball!
Dont forget the sad stalker Terry's.
https://godcannotbecontained.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-stab-of-pain-and-grief.html
“These folks take it personally. They see our commentary as an attack on THEIR faith - THEIR beliefs.”
Which is why I have said the best way to go after Armstrongists is less going after theological doctrines (that just plays into their John 6:44 angle), than it is to going after objective history. I speak, of course, of the ordinational succession claim. Force them to confront the failure of the claim, and those theological consequences. Let them, believe what they believe, even if you don’t like it. Just make sure they believe without the undue influence of that cult.
“In a very real sense, I personally do not care what days you rest for worship. I do not care what you believe about the state of the dead. I do not care whether or not you doctrinally allow or prohibit makeup or interracial marriage. I can even sadly tolerate the denial of civic duty among many Armstrongists and Armstrongist fellowships (it is a free country, after all). What I do care about is that people are feeling held to a faith tradition – that is, Armstrongism – which bases its doctrinal authority over adherents on a fundamentally flawed and false premise [fraud, perhaps?]. And thus, I will confront its adherents with the historical reality and the scriptural precedent laid out here.”
— https://catsgunsandnationalsecurity.blogspot.com/2025/03/reference-to-followers-of-armstrongism.html?m=1
Lee 858
I think you nailed it and I share your perspective.
Christ's main beef with the Pharisees was not the Mosaic administration. He acknowledged "Moses seat" as legitimate, but condemned them for their hypocrisy regarding it. He further condemned their exclusion, perversion, subversion, inversion, extortion, prevention, and deception. Simply put, they were hypocrites lacking true authority, integrity, sympathy, humility, and spirituality. Sounds familiar doesn't it?
The core doctrines of the 7th day tradition and movement were not invented by HWA. He usurped them, added his own spin, then repackaged them as his own unique revelation, which in the world of Christianity and its 41,000 denominations is not a totally uncommon practice.
What HWA did, Dennis and his atheist friends would apply to all of Christiandom, claiming they borrowed from paganism and ancient myths.
But neither disprove the existence of God or the validity of the scriptures.
The validity of the Bible is a different matter from the (in)validity of Armstrongism. I try to avoid all of that and doctrinal matters (with the exception of Civic Duty to a very limited extent). You Christians can argue most of that stuff. Let the individual Armstrongist believe what he believes — save for being liberated from the false authority claim of the Armstrongist ministerial succession. Then they can look at those doctrinal issues.
BP8, Saturday, September 13, 2025 at 11:15:32 AM PDT, wrote:
[[Lee 858
I think you nailed it and I share your perspective.
Christ's main beef with the Pharisees was not the Mosaic administration. He acknowledged "Moses seat" as legitimate, but condemned them for their hypocrisy regarding it. He further condemned their exclusion, perversion, subversion, inversion, extortion, prevention, and deception. Simply put, they were hypocrites lacking true authority, integrity, sympathy, humility, and spirituality. Sounds familiar doesn't it?...]]
******
Condemning human beings sounds familiar if you believe Christ was wrestling flesh and blood religious leaders in lieu of principalities, but wasn’t Christ’s main beef with principalities?
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places]." Eph 6:12
Condemning human beings sounds familiar if you believe God so loved the world that He sent Christ to condemn it, but Christ was sent not to condemn the world.
"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." John 3:17
To be condemned is a very strong accusation towards any human being. BP8, did you write what you meant, and meant what you wrote: condemning human beings?
So, was Christ's main beef to condemn those religious leaders He was speaking to?
Jesus always spoke in parables, so most would not really understand what He was actually saying/thinking.
I'm suggesting Jesus main beef was with the principalities that were guiding, and driving, and inspiring the thinking of the religious leaders, and that God truly does love this world: the human beings.
In Matthew 12:7 Jesus told a Pharisee, who lacked understanding of a portion of the Old Testament, that if he had known: "...ye would not have condemned the guiltless."
Do we, knowingly or unknowingly, ever condemn the guiltless?
Should we condemn religious leaders, who behaved like the Pharisees in Matthew 23? Jesus didn't.
Jesus didn't condemn a single one of them, and yet those religious leaders displayed a bunch of evil fruits/works via their behavior and what came out of their mouths. That evil may defile one: what comes out of the mouth.
To be continued…
John
Continuing…
Consider, for example, how Matthew 23 shows that Jesus Christ was not “chewing” out people: whether they be friends, Scribes or Pharisees, the multitude, His disciples. This example is similar to that time when Jesus, looking at Peter, said: “Get behind Me, Satan.” The main beef wasn't with Peter, and Christ knew it.
Jesus, who like His Father, loves all people, spoke using the words like “woe to you” preceding such following list of words/phrases to what appeared to be to religious people, ordinary people, like Himself:
Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, blind guides, fools and blind, serpents, [ye] generation of vipers, blind, whited sepulchers, etc.
Was Jesus pronouncing woe to human beings?
The following verses show us who He was speaking to:
Matthew 23:34 "Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and [some] of them ye shall kill and crucify; and [some] of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute [them] from city to city:
:35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
:36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation."
Jesus was speaking to a generation of evil spirit beings, because which of the human beings in Jesus’ presence had anything to do with the blood of Abel?
None!
Jesus was speaking to a generation of evil spirit beings, because which of the human beings in Jesus’ presence had anything to do with the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom was slain between the temple and the altar?
None of them!
Those evil spirits are the ones who commit the blasphemy within people’s minds (e.g. Eph 2:2; James 4:5; Luke 11:13, Romans 7:21, etc.) and lives, and they can be very merciless (Romans 1:30-31).
Jesus Christ's main beef is illustrated clearly as He spent lots of time dealing with the evil spirits, the principalities, of His day on earth, and those spirits continue walking this earth today...and still "bugging" its inhabitants.
Do we live in a world held hostage to the principalities, but we don't know it? Why all of the deaths and bondage (Hebrews 2:14-15) of human beings?
Perhaps we might want to consider whether our main beef should really be with the principalities, and not so much with flesh and blood, but...
Time will tell...
John
All this non-condemning stuff of people deserving to be condemned. Denial of warranted condemnation can be just as big as sin as wrongful condemnation (cf Ezek 13:19).
Sounds like a fulfillment of Isaiah 14:12 — “weakening the nations.”
And this concludes another episode of, “Why I stopped being a Christian.”
I will make it easy for you John. Christ condemned their actions and their actions condemned them. John 3:18-19 tells us,
"He that believes on Him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men (not spirits) loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil".
I understand where you are coming from but this is a very broad subject containing many layers of meaning.
BP8, Monday, September 15, 2025 at 5:59:24 AM PDT, wrote:
I will make it easy for you John. Christ condemned their actions and their actions condemned them. John 3:18-19 tells us,
"He that believes on Him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men (not spirits) loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil".
I understand where you are coming from but this is a very broad subject containing many layers of meaning.
******
BD8, broad subject, or not, Jesus Christ said:
"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world;..." John 3:17
Jesus also addressed a generation of vipers on several occasions: Matthew 3:7, 12:34; Luke 3:7.
In Matthew 23:33, Christ said: "[Ye] serpents, [ye] generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"
That particular generation is a generation of evil spirit beings: not human beings. Jesus wasn't sent to condemn human beings (John 3:16-17): that portion of the world, but there is a wicked generation of vipers.
Jesus referred to that generation when He was inspired to say the following:
"A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed." Matthew 16:4
That generation of evil-deed producers, that loves darkness and believes not is condemned already, and was given one sign, which has been fulfilled in their presence. They, that generation, will experience the second death, yet future, but...
Time will tell...
John
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