Jim Franks of COGWA has once again dusted off the classic Armstrongist playbook.
In his July member letter, he opened with Matthew 24:7, listed every war, famine, disease, and earthquake currently in the news, declared that “never have we seen so many of these events, back-to-back,” and then solemnly reminded everyone that only the return of Christ can save the world. The unspoken subtext? Stay scared. Stay loyal. And while you’re at it, keep those tithe checks coming—because the end is always nearer when the offering needs a boost.
Let’s be clear. New Covenant believers do not deny that the world is broken. Wars rage. People starve. Diseases spread. The ground shakes. Jesus Himself said these things would happen. What He did not say is that every generation of self-appointed watchmen should turn the evening news into a fundraising telethon.
Armstrongism has been running this exact script for decades. In the 1960s and 1970s it was “1975 in Prophecy.” Then it was the next failed date, and the next, and the next. David Pack has made an entire career out of announcing Christ’s return to Wadsworth on a schedule that keeps getting revised. Bob Thiel regularly discovers that this year’s conflicts are the final ones. Jim Franks continues in the endless COG chorus, cataloguing conflicts from Ukraine to Sudan to Venezuela’s earthquakes as proof that “we are living in the time that Christ referred to as the end of this age.”
The pattern is transparent. Fear keeps people watching the horizon instead of examining the organization. Fear makes members feel they dare not leave “the one true church” because the Great Tribulation is just around the corner. And fear, historically, has been excellent for the budget.
New Covenant reality is different. Christ already came. He already finished the work. The Kingdom is not a distant event we must anxiously finance into existence; it is already breaking forth wherever the Spirit of the risen Lord is. We are not under a system that requires constant end-time adrenaline to stay faithful. We are free to live, love, work, raise families, and serve without the background music of perpetual panic.
Yes, we watch. Yes, we pray. “Your kingdom come” is still the right prayer. But we do not pray it while clutching our wallets in terror that the next earthquake proves our particular corporate charter is the only safe place. We pray it as people who already belong to the One who has overcome the world.
So when the next COGWA or XCOG letter arrives listing the latest wars and pestilences and urging us not to “pretend all is normal,” New Covenant believers can answer calmly: We already know it isn’t normal. We also know that the remedy is not another round of fear-driven loyalty tests. The remedy is Christ Himself—already given, already sufficient, already enough.
The world is messy. The gospel is not. Stop selling fear. Start living freedom.
Let’s be clear. New Covenant believers do not deny that the world is broken. Wars rage. People starve. Diseases spread. The ground shakes. Jesus Himself said these things would happen. What He did not say is that every generation of self-appointed watchmen should turn the evening news into a fundraising telethon.
Armstrongism has been running this exact script for decades. In the 1960s and 1970s it was “1975 in Prophecy.” Then it was the next failed date, and the next, and the next. David Pack has made an entire career out of announcing Christ’s return to Wadsworth on a schedule that keeps getting revised. Bob Thiel regularly discovers that this year’s conflicts are the final ones. Jim Franks continues in the endless COG chorus, cataloguing conflicts from Ukraine to Sudan to Venezuela’s earthquakes as proof that “we are living in the time that Christ referred to as the end of this age.”
The pattern is transparent. Fear keeps people watching the horizon instead of examining the organization. Fear makes members feel they dare not leave “the one true church” because the Great Tribulation is just around the corner. And fear, historically, has been excellent for the budget.
New Covenant reality is different. Christ already came. He already finished the work. The Kingdom is not a distant event we must anxiously finance into existence; it is already breaking forth wherever the Spirit of the risen Lord is. We are not under a system that requires constant end-time adrenaline to stay faithful. We are free to live, love, work, raise families, and serve without the background music of perpetual panic.
Yes, we watch. Yes, we pray. “Your kingdom come” is still the right prayer. But we do not pray it while clutching our wallets in terror that the next earthquake proves our particular corporate charter is the only safe place. We pray it as people who already belong to the One who has overcome the world.
So when the next COGWA or XCOG letter arrives listing the latest wars and pestilences and urging us not to “pretend all is normal,” New Covenant believers can answer calmly: We already know it isn’t normal. We also know that the remedy is not another round of fear-driven loyalty tests. The remedy is Christ Himself—already given, already sufficient, already enough.
The world is messy. The gospel is not. Stop selling fear. Start living freedom.
11 comments:
When shame and guilt don't work as well, ramp up the fear. This way the "simplicity that is in christ" has no chance of infecting the people and income inproves.
DD
Exactly! The solution to all we see around us, whether it is the consequences of global climate change, the activities of truly evil and crazy politicians, or realizing that the piper will soon have to be paid for gross national fiscal malfeasance, is not to select the type of overbearing church which takes an additional figurative crap on your life, doubling the angst! That was never a good solution! False prophecies (but only WE have the solution, Brethren!) and an additional layer of strict government in your life enforced by fear of these prophecies is not the abundant life. Shunning normal social situations and only building relationships with people with whom you actually have nothing in common except being dominated by a cult does not make for a better life. Making yourself a pariah to the people you would normally fit in with (including your own relatives) is like going Goth, it is not building Kingom skills!
A general knowledge of cults and what they do has in more recent decades thwarted the type of message that Jim Franks and other ACOG leaders have continued to spread. That message only appeals to those who have been inside, people whose minds "they" already have. It was time and date stamped for the 1950s through the mid 1970s. Society has become more sophisticated (compare TV drama programs and police procedurals of that era to our own contemporary ones). The human species has gone much deeper in its thinking. There are so many more existential threats which have taken us beyond simple "thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening!" Even the unchurched find ways to deal with the unavoidable daily dosage of this which has been a constant in our lives for decades.
It's a shame to watch self-propelled leaders who have perhaps a slightly milder case of the David Koresh infection slowly germinating deep within. You just never know when the instabilities will suddenly take over. The problem is, those inside of their bubble are totally unsuspecting!
BB
I really appreciate this thank you. I was second generation, raised in the 50s 60s and 70s, and I am forever quoting the movie Green Mile, where John Coffey tells the Tom Hanks character Paul Edgecomb, “I’m tired boss. Tired of being on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. Mostly I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. “ I’m tired of the memories, the bs, being lied to, strung along. I guess we could call it PTSD from back in the day, the fear imprinting. These guys gotta stop, but it’s all they’ve got.
Many COG ministers will tell you the "doomscrolling" is NOT meant to increase your fears. (Even if a few talk about "hair standing on the back of your neck".)
Rather, the ministers want you to see your need to have more faith in Jesus.
Too little too late. Same old same old same old………There is no going back for Armstrongism. The glory days are over, no growth no future. As the scripture attests to us all…The Law was but a tutor to bring us to Christ and now He has come there is no need for a tutor. Acts 13, Through Him, everyone who believes, is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the Law…….all who believe are justified from which you could not be justified by the Law. Slam dunk folks. We are saved by grace and that through faith. These men have no legs to stand on, we answer to One alone. What liberty what grace we have. Freedom from the fear of mere men mere mortals who attempt to stand between us and our King.
Scout wrote: "...The remedy is Christ Himself—already given, already sufficient, already enough....", but how can that be true? The remedy can't be Christ Himself.
What happened to Jesus' God, His Father? Wouldn't He be the One responsible for working out that remedy?
Sure, Jesus gave His life, but His Father, His God, gave His Son.
So, why is Jesus given so much credit for that remedy?
What did Jesus tell us? Did Jesus provide the works, or was His Father involved big-time?
"Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." John 14:10
Even Isaiah knew the importance of The God, the Father:
"But now, O LORD, thou [art] our father; we [are] the clay, and thou our potter; and we all [are] the work of thy hand." Isaiah 64:8
This God, Jesus' Father, provided the revelation to Jesus:
"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass;..." Rev 1:1
Scout wrote: "...The Kingdom is not a distant event we must anxiously finance into existence; it is already breaking forth wherever the Spirit of the risen Lord is. ..."
Mammon or not, that Kingdom is a distant event. For those with God's Spirit on/in them: where is that Kingdom?
Have all enemies been put down? Are all nations/families being blessed (Gal 3:8; Gen 12:3) yet? Is war no longer being learned?
God's Kingdom, and salvation, are not solely dependent upon Jesus Christ, who understood His Father's hand in all of this:
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."
Aren't those words of Jesus true? Jesus knew the remedy for everlasting life rested with His Father, His God, who is faithful in all He does. It appears that Jesus' God has His Kingdom, and salvation, already taken care of by a process designed by Him.
While Jim Franks like so many others, especially those hirelings of the former WCG who fled from Pasadena, and perhaps many world religious leaders are still out there striving to save the world and save themSELVES by their own works, opinions, ideas, etc., is it possible that Jesus' God has already provided that remedy?
Time will tell...
John
Yes, God seems to have divided and confused the tongue of Armstrongism, just as He did with the construction crew at the Tower of Babel!
I wonder what might have happened if they'd only accepted the New Covenant and transitioned into it in unity. They would not have been the gate keepers to the fulfillment of all of HWA's false prophecies, but there is a certain allure to finally being legitimate instead. Surely, even those who firmly believed that all of those prophecies were imminent at the time they lead the rebellion and started the splinters must have realized by now, with those prophecies 50 years overdue and everything unfolding completely differently from them, that HWA was bogus. They missed the opportunity to clean it up and be part of the solution, and now many of them are even dead and gone. This could all have progressed so differently. In a sense, these years of gradual purge have been just like Jonestown. The Flavor Aid has been psychological instead of liquid.
PROPHECY
It was actually about 52 years under Herbert W. Armstrong and his Radio/Worldwide Church of God from 1933 to 1986, plus another 40 years since his death on January 16, 1986, for a total of about 92 years so far of guessing and waiting.
World War II was not the end. Afterwards, nothing seemed to come of the theory that Adolf Hitler might have escaped to South America to plan his comeback. Next, HWA's 19-year time-cycles did not lead to the WCG fleeing to the Place of Safety in Petra, Jordan in early 1972, with Jesus returning 3.5 years later on the day of Trumpets in 1975. (In hindsight, the 19-year time-cycles apparently got fulfilled by the WCG getting some financing for the Ambassador Auditorium, and getting to put advertisements in Readers Digest.) HWA's final guess that the end would come before the year 2000 did not happen either.
Nevertheless, it does look like God greatly blessed the USA and Britain in many ways and gave them the Holy Bible to translate out of the original Hebrew language of the Old Testament and the original Greek language of the New Testament, and to spread around the world in all sorts of other languages.
It also looks like the USA and Britain are now getting into even worse sins than Sabbath-breaking and Sunday-keeping. They are going in a big way for the LGBTQP+ agenda, which is all about proudly doing all the bad sexual things that the God of the Holy Bible had said not to do. There seems to be a lot of witchcraft and sorcery in the land these days, especially in Britain with some wicked woman's Harry Potter novels. Of course, Hollywood continues to explore the deeper sections of the sewer with its television shows and movies, always trying to go boldly where no pervert has gone before, and then praising itself and giving awards to itself for doing so. Crazy noise passes for music on the radio. Plus, all the usual sins of people are multiplying.
It seems entirely reasonable that God could remove His protection and blessings from the USA and Britain, and have curses overtake them to punish them for their sins unless they repent.
As for the timing, I won't get into that. It could take a while, though sometimes individuals get punished and suffer immediately for their sins.
Well anon 9:01:45 AM PDT , Britain and the USA and their allies in Europe seem to be at the forefront of extreme antisemitism with their almost non stop condemnation of the only Hebrew state on earth, Israel. As was said to Abraham blessed is he who blesses you and cursed are whose who curse you. And so it seems. A new darkness is slowly enveloping the nations, and the 1930s and 1940s rise in antisemitism is being replicated in this modern era sadly. It is on campuses and in academia globally. And flooding social media. Jewish people are feeling more than a little concerned, and it is awakening sad memories of the past for them. Frightening parallels to be seen here. We have been warned, history does indeed repeat.
It was a widespread belief at one time that being born left handed was the mark of the devil. Al Hendrix actually used to punish his son Jimi for playing his guitar left handed, so,,as a child, Jimi flipped it over and played it right handed whenever his Dad was around. We have switch hitters in baseball, like Mickey Mantle, but to my knowledge only one guitarist who could ever play exceptionally either way.
Just as with being left handed or right handed, people are born attracted to the opposite sex, and people are born being attracted to the same sex. And, there are some who experiment, or are coerced. I am just glad it's above my paygrade to have to judge these people. They have to be able to live and survive in spite of the attitudes of others. As long as they keep their hands off my junk, what they do in bed is their business.
And the ministers want to see members pay more tithes and offerings to them, as an alleged test of faith. Demanding money with spiritual menaces.
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