Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
This time, there's some truth in what Dave said. Christ will eventually return, so the opportunity to be the Bride of Christ has a time limit. Dave is probably motivated by the desire to have more tithe cows, but it doesn't invalidate his point.
That's outrageous, and "I want to just say in a loving way" doesn't make it less outrageous.
In marketing, they call this "false scarcity" — creating a perception that you have to hurry to buy it now or else you'll miss out. In retail marketing, it's a cynical ploy. In a Christian church, it's outrageous.
It's false representation at its worst. Dave is implying that as a gatekeeper, he actually has something to do with the return of Christ, members of his borg getting into the kingdom, and what happens thereafter. Nothing could be further from the truth! He is part of a false system, an heretical sect called Armstrongism. Further, he's a rebel outlier of that sect, someone who never could be governed by the leaders of the mothership, so drew members away from that to start his own little group. He is an opportunist who has managed to live quite well by ruthlessly exploiting those whom he fear-mongered into following him.
Real conversion can't even happen if man-made duress is created to force or compel the process. How a person is led is God's prerogative. If God were using Pack as part of that process, Jesus would have returned on the first date Dave proclaimed. Dave Pack is nothing.
Anything "in a loving way" is outside David C. Pack's capabilities. When he often says this in sermons, it is followed by content that is far from loving. Or accurate.
If the youth don't have a chance for eternal life unless they're baptized, what about the billions who will be resurrected (so he says) for the "short kingdom"?
Are they coming up simply for seven more years of existence, so RCG members can preach to them about what they missed?
He makes it sound like they have no hope for conversion to a spiritual body at all. And that doesn't sound really like 2 Peter 3:9.
The part where he tells people they have no chance whatsoever for eternal life unless they get baptized before a certain date is not true. God can give eternal life as He pleases. I’m not saying God hasn’t stated in His word what He will and will not do, I’m just saying that God is so far above this preacher, and any other preacher too.
I re-watched the video. He first states that to be one of the 144,000 (bride of Christ), one must be baptized before Christ's return. Then he states incorrectly that young people must be baptized before Christ's return or no eternal life for them. The latter is a lie and coercion on Dave's part. The Armstrong teaching was that potential members can turn their backs on the opportunity to be the bride of Christ and instead have the chance for an ordinary salvation at the end of Christ's one thousand year rule. Dave is muddying the waters on this point since he wants numbers and their money. Herb's church did this for decades. They baptized thousands, only to have them go off on a moral tangent almost from the very beginning. They did this by hiding from these people the real requirements of baptism, and not demanding fruits of their repentance. The net effect has been to rob thousands of members of a second human life on Christ's return. These ministers are murderous thieves.
If Dave, being Dave and operating as he does, were having even moderate success with what Armstrongites call their "Great Commission", and if his prophecies (or as Armstrongites refer to them "Bible-based interpretations of the news) were accurate, we probably would not be critiquing RCG as we do.
The ACOG scale ranges in size from microscopic splinters, to splinters whose total membership approaches the size of just one of your typical big city mega-churches. They all have one thing in common (and I don't mean Dave's "common"). They are not able to plant the seeds with the same % rate of membership tithing as HWA had available to him, and to obtain anywhere near the harvest rate which produced 30% growth per year. None of them! They've had over 30 years to ramp their organizations up. I am sure that when the first splinters were started by HWA's original and then fully tenured Evangelists this 30% increase was their initial expectation! The splinter experiment has been an abysmal failure. They are all frozen in that failed condition, and have been for some time! They are waiting for some kind of miracle in which major attention would be supernaturally drawn to them, kicking in the recognition, ensuing persecution, and the long hoped for tribulation and return of Jesus Christ.
HWA, a man of his times, generated world wide recognition using the tools available to him. He didn't wait around for a miracle to produce that recognition. He created it. The only part he awaited was the fulfillment of his prophecy model. Time ran out on him, the prophecy model stalled or failed, and nobody has been able to recapture his momentum. Hence, zero credibility for the entire movement!
12 comments:
I would just love to have one of these guys stuck on an elevator with me the day after a big Mexican dinner!
~Mickey D
This time, there's some truth in what Dave said. Christ will eventually return, so the opportunity to be the Bride of Christ has a time limit.
Dave is probably motivated by the desire to have more tithe cows, but it doesn't invalidate his point.
That's outrageous, and "I want to just say in a loving way" doesn't make it less outrageous.
In marketing, they call this "false scarcity" — creating a perception that you have to hurry to buy it now or else you'll miss out. In retail marketing, it's a cynical ploy. In a Christian church, it's outrageous.
It's false representation at its worst. Dave is implying that as a gatekeeper, he actually has something to do with the return of Christ, members of his borg getting into the kingdom, and what happens thereafter. Nothing could be further from the truth! He is part of a false system, an heretical sect called Armstrongism. Further, he's a rebel outlier of that sect, someone who never could be governed by the leaders of the mothership, so drew members away from that to start his own little group. He is an opportunist who has managed to live quite well by ruthlessly exploiting those whom he fear-mongered into following him.
Real conversion can't even happen if man-made duress is created to force or compel the process. How a person is led is God's prerogative. If God were using Pack as part of that process, Jesus would have returned on the first date Dave proclaimed. Dave Pack is nothing.
Anything "in a loving way" is outside David C. Pack's capabilities. When he often says this in sermons, it is followed by content that is far from loving. Or accurate.
Amen and Amen to what 9/6/25 @ 7:41 said. And baptism is not required for salvation.
Is Satan's time that short?
If the youth don't have a chance for eternal life unless they're baptized, what about the billions who will be resurrected (so he says) for the "short kingdom"?
Are they coming up simply for seven more years of existence, so RCG members can preach to them about what they missed?
He makes it sound like they have no hope for conversion to a spiritual body at all. And that doesn't sound really like 2 Peter 3:9.
The part where he tells people they have no chance whatsoever for eternal life unless they get baptized before a certain date is not true. God can give eternal life as He pleases. I’m not saying God hasn’t stated in His word what He will and will not do, I’m just saying that God is so far above this preacher, and any other preacher too.
I re-watched the video. He first states that to be one of the 144,000 (bride of Christ), one must be baptized before Christ's return. Then he states incorrectly that young people must be baptized before Christ's return or no eternal life for them. The latter is a lie and coercion on Dave's part. The Armstrong teaching was that potential members can turn their backs on the opportunity to be the bride of Christ and instead have the chance for an ordinary salvation at the end of Christ's one thousand year rule. Dave is muddying the waters on this point since he wants numbers and their money.
Herb's church did this for decades. They baptized thousands, only to have them go off on a moral tangent almost from the very beginning. They did this by hiding from these people the real requirements of baptism, and not demanding fruits of their repentance. The net effect has been to rob thousands of members of a second human life on Christ's return. These ministers are murderous thieves.
Dave doesn't have much of a chance himself if he doesn't change his tunes and invest in a New Testament before the Feast.
If Dave, being Dave and operating as he does, were having even moderate success with what Armstrongites call their "Great Commission", and if his prophecies (or as Armstrongites refer to them "Bible-based interpretations of the news) were accurate, we probably would not be critiquing RCG as we do.
The ACOG scale ranges in size from microscopic splinters, to splinters whose total membership approaches the size of just one of your typical big city mega-churches. They all have one thing in common (and I don't mean Dave's "common"). They are not able to plant the seeds with the same % rate of membership tithing as HWA had available to him, and to obtain anywhere near the harvest rate which produced 30% growth per year. None of them! They've had over 30 years to ramp their organizations up. I am sure that when the first splinters were started by HWA's original and then fully tenured Evangelists this 30% increase was their initial expectation! The splinter experiment has been an abysmal failure. They are all frozen in that failed condition, and have been for some time! They are waiting for some kind of miracle in which major attention would be supernaturally drawn to them, kicking in the recognition, ensuing persecution, and the long hoped for tribulation and return of Jesus Christ.
HWA, a man of his times, generated world wide recognition using the tools available to him. He didn't wait around for a miracle to produce that recognition. He created it. The only part he awaited was the fulfillment of his prophecy model. Time ran out on him, the prophecy model stalled or failed, and nobody has been able to recapture his momentum. Hence, zero credibility for the entire movement!
BB
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