UCG has just pulled off a truly brilliant and dangerous move

UCG has just pulled off a truly brilliant and dangerous move:

Don’t Be a Spiritual Pack Rat! 

 

Is it just me, or do we all tend to accumulate things? Over time garages and closets fill up. There’s even a name for people like that—pack rats. 

 

Maybe you’ve cleaned out the garage before. You haul out piles of stuff and sort through it all, and when you’re done, somehow a few “selected items” end up right back inside. 

 

Spiritually, that can happen too. God calls us to recognize the junk that can accumulate in our lives—wrong attitudes, bad habits, lingering sins that quietly take up space where they don’t belong (1 Corinthians 5:7). 

 

Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread remind us that real spiritual growth requires real spiritual housecleaning. That kind of spiritual housecleaning begins with honest self-examination (1 Corinthians 11:28). Getting rid of the trash isn’t easy—but it’s necessary. 

 

So, let’s take the lesson seriously. Let’s be more determined than ever to clear out what is ungodly in our lives and replace it with what truly belongs—God’s truth, His character, and His way of life (2 Corinthians 7:1).
Steve Myers

By solemnly instructing members to purge the “spiritual junk” that’s been cluttering their lives, they’ve unwittingly handed every last one of them the perfect theological crowbar. As Passover season rolls around, members now have official headquarters-approved permission to conduct the mother of all spiritual spring cleanings. And oh boy, what a golden opportunity: 

• Toss every dusty UCG booklet 
• Chuck the entire Herbert W. Armstrong library 
• Bin the nostalgic relics from the “glory days” of the mother church

It’s basically a sanctioned ecclesiastical garage sale. 

“Honey, the ministry said we need to declutter—start with that stack of old Plain Truth magazines and the 1975 in Prophecy reprint, would you?”

This Passover, they can finally do a proper spiritual housecleaning: sweep out the legalism, the endless qualifying works, the endless qualifying “qualifications,” and—just maybe—turn toward the One they keep claiming to follow. Imagine the shocking simplicity of resting in grace that’s already been given, sanctification that’s already been accomplished, righteousness that’s already been imputed… and not having to sweat 613 new checklist items to try to earn what’s freely offered. Who knew “getting rid of the junk” could end up meaning getting rid of the very doctrinal junk drawer they’ve been guarding for decades?

Getting rid of the trash is painful.

It’s uncomfortable.

It might even feel like betrayal at first. But it’s also the only way out of spiritual hoarding disorder.

UCG just gave its people the biblical green light to do the one thing the organization fears most: actually start following Christ instead of following a 20th-century church manual. 

Careful what you preach, folks. 

Sometimes the members listen.