Bob Thiel and Aaron Dean's Masterclass in Armstrongist Bureaucratic Fraud: When Two Tiny Personality Cults (UCG/CCOG) Team Up to Hoodwink an Entire Country

In a breathtaking display of theological flexibility, Bob Thiel has decided that the best way to get his microscopic Continuing Church of God registered in Burundi is to hold hands with the very group he spent years telling his followers was spiritually compromised. Because nothing screams “end-time remnant” quite like begging your former rivals for help meeting basic government paperwork requirements.

Burundi recently raised the bar for foreign-connected churches: they now need at least 500 members, land, and an actual building. Thiel’s operation apparently falls short on its own, so he’s turned to the United Church of God — the same organization many in his circle have long dismissed as “Laodicean.” UCG already owns land in the country and has some form of temporary approval. The two sides have been discussing pooling money to build a shared church building that both groups could use. Thiel was very careful to stress that this is not a merger. It’s just two completely separate churches conspiring to meet legal minimums together. How refreshingly honest.

This kind of opportunistic “cooperation” is textbook Armstrongism. For decades, groups in this movement have perfected the art of using manipulation and selective truth-telling to get what they want. When it suits the leadership, rival factions suddenly discover they’re “brethren” who should work together. When it doesn’t, they go right back to publicly branding each other as spiritually blind or even demonic. The goal is never genuine unity — it’s always institutional survival and the appearance of legitimacy. Members are kept in the dark or fed spiritual-sounding language while the men at the top quietly make deals that would make a corporate lawyer blush.

The same playbook is on full display here. Thiel and Aaron Dean can posture about “not merging” all they want, but the practical reality is two tiny American-led splinter groups desperately trying to combine their limited resources to trick a foreign government into giving them legal status. It’s the religious equivalent of two broke guys renting one tuxedo and showing up to a wedding pretending to be one respectable person. The only difference is that in Armstrongism, this kind of deception gets wrapped in layers of “God’s work” and “prophetic understanding” so the members feel spiritually obligated to support it.

Thiel even suggests people should “pray about this.” One assumes the prayer is that Burundian officials don’t look too closely at the actual numbers or ask awkward questions about why two groups that can barely stand each other suddenly need to share a building. In the grand tradition of Armstrongism, when manipulation and bureaucratic sleight-of-hand fail, there’s always prayer — preferably the kind that keeps the members docile while the leadership handles the real business of staying relevant.

It’s almost impressive how consistently these groups manage to turn even basic government registration into an exercise in creative deception. Two organizations that normally compete for the same small pool of followers are now discussing joint real estate investments in Africa, all while loudly insisting nothing has changed. Classic Armstrongism: the rules only apply until they become inconvenient, at which point “cooperation” magically appears — right up until the paperwork is approved.

Stay tuned. In the thrilling world of Church of God politics, today’s bitter rivals are tomorrow’s business partners, provided there’s a government form that needs filling out.

As mentioned last year, the government of Burundi changed their laws requirements for churches to be legally function and be registered there. Augustin Mpawenimana began the process for us.

Augustin Mpawenimana and Evans Ochieng

The laws now basically state that a church with a foreign connection must have at least 500 persons, land, and a building (and maybe multiple ones), in order to register so it can legally operate. This is something I started to speak with Aaron Dean of UCG about a couple of years ago. And we talked again about this on Monday after Augustin Mpawenimana sent me an updated email on the situation (Aaron Dean and I also discussed church history and some prophetic matters).

Like us, the United Church of God (UCG) has applied for official registration in Burundi, but still has not been approved (we have some type of temporary approval). If UCG gets some approval, then they are looking at how to meet whatever other requirements there may be. Aaron Dean told me that he would inform me when, and if, UCG gets its request for registration approved and I would tell him what is going on with the registration of the Continuing Church of God. He continues to believe that UCG should be able to cooperate with us in Burundi. As it turns out, UCG purchased land in Burundi a while back to assist its registration. He and I discussed the possibility of both groups providing some funding for building materials so the brethren from both COGs can construct a church building which both could use for services, etc.

We are NOT discussing any type of church merger, only how we may be able to cooperate so both churches will be able to legally function in Burundi. You may wish to pray about this.