Oh, what a gloriously enchanted childhood we had growing up in Armstrongism!

Picture it: an infinitely loving God who spent every waking moment absolutely frothing at the mouth, just dying to annihilate one-third of humanity in the most creative ways possible. Then, for the next third, He’d roll out the red carpet of disease, famine, and slow-motion agony — because apparently eating bacon, sneaking into a Friday night football game, or sneaking a peek at your dad's Playboy magazine while under the gym bleachers, is the ultimate cosmic war crime. How thoughtful of Him.

And Jesus? Don’t even get me started on that walking embodiment of unconditional love. The guy was supposedly head-over-heels for us, yet He spent His days seething with white-hot rage, just itching to spank every last filthy human into eternal oblivion. Bedtime stories for the whole family!

Our divinely-appointed leaders were the absolute cherry on top. They graciously instructed parents to deliver at least twenty full-force swats to their children — toddlers included, naturally — because nothing says “God’s true church” like welts on a three-year-old’s backside (shout-out to Carn Catherwood for that inspired parenting hack). Playtime on Fridays or Saturdays? Absolutely verboten. Unless, of course, it was the soul-crushing Ten Commandments game, Bible Caravan, or the Noah’s Ark game — the more joyless and Old Covenant, the holier it became. Pure, unadulterated fun.

Teenagers really hit the jackpot. The path to adulthood was a delightful obstacle course: slim-to-none chance of finishing high school, zero possibility of college, and if you somehow pulled off that unholy miracle, marriage and children would spiritually doom you forever. Succeed at everything? Boom — instant Laodicean, Lake of Fire reserved, thanks to that cursed bacon again. What a merciful system!

But the real family bonding came from the sermons yelled at us at church services. Nothing quite like hearing how we’d all be rounded up and shipped to German concentration camps, where the torture would make the Holocaust look like a spa day. Rod Meredith, spittle flying like holy confetti, would paint vivid pictures of us dangling from meat hooks, shoved alive into ovens, or crammed naked into gas chambers so tightly that when you finally died you’d just stay upright, shitting on everyone around you as your last earthly act. Peak childhood entertainment. Five stars.

We also had the cheerful cattle-car future to look forward to — or those big livestock trucks on the freeway, same difference — followed by friendly camp doctors enthusiastically yanking out all your teeth without anesthesia. Just to make sure the experience was extra special.

And who could forget curling up with the 1975 in Prophecy booklet, soaking in those beautiful illustrations of locust-helicopters and goose-stepping Germans? Or the true masterpiece: Basil Wolverton’s Bible Story books, where drowning sinners claw desperately at Noah’s Ark, screaming for mercy, while wide-eyed children were told, “This will be you if you’re bad.” Bedtime reading at its finest.

Oh, and if your minister, elder, deacon, or that charming Kevin Dean decided to sexually molest you? Well, suck it up, buttercup! Grin and bear it like a good little Armstrong kid. Can’t possibly embarrass God’s hand-picked, infallible servant. Submit, stay silent, and thank Herbert W. Armstrong for the privilege of being under church government.

Yes, sirree, Herb! Life was just spectacularly magnificent as a child in Armstrongism. So. Much. To. Look. Forward. To. Indoctrinate them young, terrify them senseless for decades, then sit back and watch them wax nostalgic about the “good old days” once every single prophecy crashed and burned spectacularly. 

Truly, we were the luckiest kids on Earth. 

What a blessing. 

What. A. Blessing.