Why Do Laodiceans Refuse To Submit To Church Government i.e. Bob Thiel?

It has always fascinated me how all these splinter groups remain utterly obsessed with getting their followers to “freely submit” to whatever hierarchical power structure they’ve cobbled together this month. When the Mother Church imploded into an endless parade of splinters that then splintered again (and again, and again), you’d think someone might have noticed that the entire model was rotten. But no—HWA once declared it, so it must be bound in heaven as it is on earth. Some of these groups even privately admit their church government is unbiblical, yet they cling to it anyway. Admitting it’s wrong would force them to tell their members, “Hey, if we were dead wrong on this, we might also be wrong about a few other things we’ve been yelling about for decades.”
Our favorite self-appointed crackpot prophet is back at it, once again lecturing the rest of us on the sacred duty of submitting to “proper church government”—especially those of us rebellious Laodicean heretics who have the audacity to laugh and snicker at the whole circus.
Crackpot Bob has dropped yet another brain dump of epic banality, this time wringing his hands over Laodiceans who refuse to bow to the one true (his) form of church government. The only question worth asking is: Which version? Every splinter has its own sacred flowchart of authority, and none of them agree with each other. It doesn’t even hold together inside their own groups—people keep walking out the back door to start yet another “restored” version. The insanity is truly without end.
One detail I’d almost forgotten is that Herbert Armstrong himself once declared that church government wasn’t just important—it was the central issue of the entire age. Not leading people to Christ. Not resting in His finished work and grace. Just making sure everyone submits to the self-appointed jackasses who know better than you.
Crackpot Bob, naturally, trots out the sacred quote to prove it:

“KEY ISSUE IS GOVERNMENT … THE WHOLE THING WAS GOVERNMENT! THE THING THAT SATAN TOOK AWAY WAS GOVERNMENT. THE THING THAT CHRIST IS COMING TO RESTORE IS GOVERNMENT. AND WHAT HE RAISED ME UP FOR WAS TO RESTORE GOVERNMENT IN HIS CHURCH. And the whole test, the challenge in the first place …, was a point of government.”

(Armstrong HW. Rely (sic) God. Sermon, April 6, 1985)

There it is, in all its glory. According to HWA (and therefore, by sacred inheritance, according to Bob), the entire cosmic drama—Satan’s rebellion, Christ’s return, and the reason God supposedly hand-picked Herbert Armstrong—was never really about sin, redemption, or the New Covenant. It was about restoring the right chain of command so that a man at the top could tell everyone else what to do.
How delightfully Old Covenant of them.
In the New Covenant, the whole “government” obsession collapses under its own weight. Jesus didn’t come to reinstall a top-down hierarchy with Himself as CEO and a string of vice-presidents beneath Him. He came as the one Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), the one High Priest who doesn’t need a human replacement, and the Head of a body where every member has direct access to the Father. The New Covenant promise wasn’t “I will give you better rulers”; it was “I will put My laws in their minds and write them on their hearts” (Hebrews 8:10). No middle management required.
The early church had elders and deacons, sure—but they were local, plural, and accountable, not a global pyramid with one man at the apex claiming he alone was raised up to restore “government.” Jesus was quite clear about what He thought of Gentile-style lording it over people (Mark 10:42-45). He told His disciples the greatest among them would be the servant of all. HWA’s version flipped that on its head: the greatest would be the one everyone else had to submit to, or else they were Laodicean rebels.
So when Bob and his fellow government enthusiasts keep screaming that the real test of the age is whether you submit to their particular flavor of hierarchy, they’re not defending the New Covenant. They’re desperately trying to drag everyone back under the Old one—complete with human mediators, external rules enforced by fear of disfellowshipment, and a man at the top who gets to decide what “government” looks like this week.
The tragic comedy, of course, is that the very system they insist is divinely mandated has produced nothing but endless division, power struggles, and new splinters every time the current “government” gets too heavy-handed. If this was truly the government Christ died to restore, you’d think it might have lasted longer than a few decades before everyone started running for the exits.
But hey—what do I know? I’m just another rebellious Laodicean who prefers resting in Christ’s finished work over submitting to whichever self-appointed apostle is currently claiming the keys to the kingdom.