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
When my natural curiosity eventually compelled me to purchase a Catholic Bible, and to read the Apocrypha, and later the Nag Hamadi documents, I realized that HWA and some of the top ministers in Pasadena had lifted a few theories and ideas from these materials. Honestly, they are just good literature, nothing damnable about them. The Catholics refer to the intertestamental books as the Deutercanonicals. There is nothing in them which would would alarm someone who fears the "crown stealers".
I agree with Byker. I purchased a Jerusalem Bible (with some of the Apocrypha included) once upon a time; and the Worldwide Church local elder "borrowed" it as soon as he spotted it, and I never saw it again! Actually, after reading I and II Maccabees along with Josephus, the situation in Judeae at the time of Christ became much clearer and understandable.
Lonnie, I remember very vividly, the one sermon that I ever heard at WCG sabbath services from the Maccabees. The quintessential outlier! Al Portune Sr's sermons were often legendary. He used those passages from II Maccabees about the woman and her family who refused to break the dietary laws, choosing torture and death over such a seemingly simple thing as eating pork. We all drew the intended parallels.
Mr. Portune was a very special person to our family. As a young child, a fifth grader, at the Feast of Tabernacles in the big Tabernacle, without prior knowledge from my parents, I had approached him and asked for his autograph. He asked my name, smiled, and graciously gave it to me. Kept it simple. "Hi Bob, Al Portune". It was the first time I had ever asked anyone for an autograph. Fast forwarding the tape of life, years later my parents had developed a deep friendship with him. One time when they were in Pasadena for a ministerial conference, or some other occasion, they were staying with the Portunes, and I visited them in the Portune's home there on ministerial row. I remember very vividly, a picture on one of the walls of Al and his wife as a young couple when he was in the military, and in uniform.
I will never understand how Mr. Portune would later see the light and leave, and somehow my parents never did. They were close to the Coles, Raymond and Wayne, who also left. I mean in each others houses close. Though they never heard Mr. Portune's sermon, my parents must have envisioned themselves as being in a similar predicament to the woman resisting Helenism during the times of Judas Maccabeus. Biblical. They died, as splinter members, never seeing the validation which they anticipated for lives spent in Armstrongism, which would have been the fulfillment of HWA's prophecy mold. The end of the age. Christ returning.
It was always a strong propensity of Armstrongites to write themselves into scripture, often misapplying. That was part of our miseducation. Ironically, I suppose it is even possible to write oneself into the Apocrypha, or to draw parallels with any work of good literature. It's one of the things we humans do in the quest for something bigger than life. Sometimes to our detriment.
3 comments:
When my natural curiosity eventually compelled me to purchase a Catholic Bible, and to read the Apocrypha, and later the Nag Hamadi documents, I realized that HWA and some of the top ministers in Pasadena had lifted a few theories and ideas from these materials. Honestly, they are just good literature, nothing damnable about them. The Catholics refer to the intertestamental books as the Deutercanonicals. There is nothing in them which would would alarm someone who fears the "crown stealers".
BB
I agree with Byker. I purchased a Jerusalem Bible (with some of the Apocrypha included) once upon a time; and the Worldwide Church local elder "borrowed" it as soon as he spotted it, and I never saw it again! Actually, after reading I and II Maccabees along with Josephus, the situation in Judeae at the time of Christ became much clearer and understandable.
Lonnie, I remember very vividly, the one sermon that I ever heard at WCG sabbath services from the Maccabees. The quintessential outlier! Al Portune Sr's sermons were often legendary. He used those passages from II Maccabees about the woman and her family who refused to break the dietary laws, choosing torture and death over such a seemingly simple thing as eating pork. We all drew the intended parallels.
Mr. Portune was a very special person to our family. As a young child, a fifth grader, at the Feast of Tabernacles in the big Tabernacle, without prior knowledge from my parents, I had approached him and asked for his autograph. He asked my name, smiled, and graciously gave it to me. Kept it simple. "Hi Bob, Al Portune". It was the first time I had ever asked anyone for an autograph. Fast forwarding the tape of life, years later my parents had developed a deep friendship with him. One time when they were in Pasadena for a ministerial conference, or some other occasion, they were staying with the Portunes, and I visited them in the Portune's home there on ministerial row. I remember very vividly, a picture on one of the walls of Al and his wife as a young couple when he was in the military, and in uniform.
I will never understand how Mr. Portune would later see the light and leave, and somehow my parents never did. They were close to the Coles, Raymond and Wayne, who also left. I mean in each others houses close. Though they never heard Mr. Portune's sermon, my parents must have envisioned themselves as being in a similar predicament to the woman resisting Helenism during the times of Judas Maccabeus. Biblical. They died, as splinter members, never seeing the validation which they anticipated for lives spent in Armstrongism, which would have been the fulfillment of HWA's prophecy mold. The end of the age. Christ returning.
It was always a strong propensity of Armstrongites to write themselves into scripture, often misapplying. That was part of our miseducation. Ironically, I suppose it is even possible to write oneself into the Apocrypha, or to draw parallels with any work of good literature. It's one of the things we humans do in the quest for something bigger than life. Sometimes to our detriment.
BB
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