Truly, nothing screams “New Covenant freedom in Christ” quite like a 2,000-word manifesto demanding that every Christian on Earth must kneel at the spiritual altar of Herbert W. Armstrong, join the one-and-only reincarnated Worldwide Church of God (or else), and treat a mid-20th-century radio preacher as the guy who personally restored “apostolic rule” while everyone else is just “playing games with God.”
Jesus must be so relieved that you cleared this up for Him. After all, in Matthew 16:18 He only said He would build “His church”—not “churches,” you see. So obviously that means one single, visible, headquarters-based organization with a top-down government structure, tithe-collecting conferences, and a guy in Pasadena (or wherever the latest splinter landed) holding the divine copyright on truth. Because when the Son of God said “church,” He clearly meant “denominational franchise with membership cards and a loyalty oath to a dead apostle’s successor.” Anyone who thinks otherwise is calling Jesus a liar. Got it. Solid exegesis.
And that Elijah prophecy in Matthew 17:11? Kitchen’s got it locked: Jesus was totally foreshadowing Herbert W. Armstrong restoring “the government of God” exactly as it existed in the first century (you know, the one where Peter was the rock and nobody ever disagreed or started new works). Never mind that Jesus Himself already told us John the Baptist fulfilled the Elijah role for the first coming (Matthew 11:14; 17:12-13). Details, details. Armstrong gets the sequel because… fruits? Ordination by the Oregon Conference? A handful of guys laying hands on him in the 1930s while the other Church of God factions were declared spiritually dead by divine fiat?
Nothing says “law, not grace” like tying your eternal salvation to whether you stayed inside the right splinter after 1970s schisms. Ministers who left? Spiritually sealed for death. Members who remain? They alone get to ordain the Two Witnesses and hold the Philadelphia candlestick. Everyone else is either Laodicean lukewarm or headed for martyrdom-as-repentance. Because the New Covenant is totally about God running a cosmic game of musical chairs where the prize for leaving the “true church” is a ticket to be beheaded so you can maybe get grafted back in.
Kitchen even gives us the eschatological bonus round: the Worldwide Church of God (his version) goes to a “place of safety” (Revelation 12:14-17, of course), the Two Witnesses tag-team in Jerusalem as the first witness’s hype men, Herbert himself gets resurrected as a “sport God being” (I assume that’s “spirit God being”—autocorrect is brutal), and the whole thing reboots Ambassador College in the World Tomorrow. It’s all one program, you see. One spiritual Temple. One unbroken chain of government. Jesus isn’t a liar, the Word cannot be broken… and apparently neither can the organizational chart.
Here’s the actual New Covenant problem with all this:
The New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 8:6-13) is explicitly not like the old one. No more central physical temple, no more Levitical priesthood, no more “one visible headquarters on Earth” model. The church is the body of Christ—every believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:12-27; Ephesians 4:4-6). Authority flows from Christ the Head, not from an unbroken chain of ordinations that somehow survived from Peter through the Sardis-era Oregon Conference to HWA. The priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9) means you don’t need a special class of “government of God” ministers to mediate between you and Jesus.
The idea that salvation and truth are locked inside one human organization with a divine government structure is classic Old Covenant thinking dressed up in Revelation 2-3 proof-texts and historicist-era labels. It’s the same error the Pharisees ran with: “We have Abraham as our father” → “We have Herbert as our father and the Philadelphia candlestick.” It turns the gospel into geography, membership rolls, and loyalty to a man’s “fruits” instead of faith in Christ’s finished work.
So no, Samuel, people aren’t “playing games with God” by refusing to join your reincarnated WCG and bow at the Armstrong altar. They’re simply living in the New Covenant reality where Jesus built His church out of living stones—scattered, imperfect, arguing, and still loved—without needing a single organizational franchise to keep the franchise alive.
The real game-playing is pretending the New Covenant is just the Old Covenant with better branding and a radio program. Jesus isn’t a liar. But this theology sure treats the cross like it was optional.
Jesus must be so relieved that you cleared this up for Him. After all, in Matthew 16:18 He only said He would build “His church”—not “churches,” you see. So obviously that means one single, visible, headquarters-based organization with a top-down government structure, tithe-collecting conferences, and a guy in Pasadena (or wherever the latest splinter landed) holding the divine copyright on truth. Because when the Son of God said “church,” He clearly meant “denominational franchise with membership cards and a loyalty oath to a dead apostle’s successor.” Anyone who thinks otherwise is calling Jesus a liar. Got it. Solid exegesis.
And that Elijah prophecy in Matthew 17:11? Kitchen’s got it locked: Jesus was totally foreshadowing Herbert W. Armstrong restoring “the government of God” exactly as it existed in the first century (you know, the one where Peter was the rock and nobody ever disagreed or started new works). Never mind that Jesus Himself already told us John the Baptist fulfilled the Elijah role for the first coming (Matthew 11:14; 17:12-13). Details, details. Armstrong gets the sequel because… fruits? Ordination by the Oregon Conference? A handful of guys laying hands on him in the 1930s while the other Church of God factions were declared spiritually dead by divine fiat?
Nothing says “law, not grace” like tying your eternal salvation to whether you stayed inside the right splinter after 1970s schisms. Ministers who left? Spiritually sealed for death. Members who remain? They alone get to ordain the Two Witnesses and hold the Philadelphia candlestick. Everyone else is either Laodicean lukewarm or headed for martyrdom-as-repentance. Because the New Covenant is totally about God running a cosmic game of musical chairs where the prize for leaving the “true church” is a ticket to be beheaded so you can maybe get grafted back in.
Kitchen even gives us the eschatological bonus round: the Worldwide Church of God (his version) goes to a “place of safety” (Revelation 12:14-17, of course), the Two Witnesses tag-team in Jerusalem as the first witness’s hype men, Herbert himself gets resurrected as a “sport God being” (I assume that’s “spirit God being”—autocorrect is brutal), and the whole thing reboots Ambassador College in the World Tomorrow. It’s all one program, you see. One spiritual Temple. One unbroken chain of government. Jesus isn’t a liar, the Word cannot be broken… and apparently neither can the organizational chart.
Here’s the actual New Covenant problem with all this:
The New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 8:6-13) is explicitly not like the old one. No more central physical temple, no more Levitical priesthood, no more “one visible headquarters on Earth” model. The church is the body of Christ—every believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:12-27; Ephesians 4:4-6). Authority flows from Christ the Head, not from an unbroken chain of ordinations that somehow survived from Peter through the Sardis-era Oregon Conference to HWA. The priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9) means you don’t need a special class of “government of God” ministers to mediate between you and Jesus.
The idea that salvation and truth are locked inside one human organization with a divine government structure is classic Old Covenant thinking dressed up in Revelation 2-3 proof-texts and historicist-era labels. It’s the same error the Pharisees ran with: “We have Abraham as our father” → “We have Herbert as our father and the Philadelphia candlestick.” It turns the gospel into geography, membership rolls, and loyalty to a man’s “fruits” instead of faith in Christ’s finished work.
So no, Samuel, people aren’t “playing games with God” by refusing to join your reincarnated WCG and bow at the Armstrong altar. They’re simply living in the New Covenant reality where Jesus built His church out of living stones—scattered, imperfect, arguing, and still loved—without needing a single organizational franchise to keep the franchise alive.
The real game-playing is pretending the New Covenant is just the Old Covenant with better branding and a radio program. Jesus isn’t a liar. But this theology sure treats the cross like it was optional.
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