This is a test.
Time is short.
He is angry.
He is yelling...or at least tries to.
Samuel W. Kitchen, a third-generation Worldwide Church of God remnant from Iowa, has posted another urgent Sabbath-day video from a park in Manitoba and boy is he mad!!!!!!!!!
In it he explains that every other Church of God group, the Catholics, Grace Communion International, Philadelphia Church of God, and basically anyone who did not immediately recognize him as the authorized collector of God's money is now "daughters of Babylon." The original WCG mother church has been "raped" by Satan and infiltrators. Fortunately, Christ has appointed Sam as His representative. Therefore the tithe that used to go to Pasadena now belongs in his PO Box.
This is not new theology. It is the standard Armstrongist splinter playbook, now reduced to one guy with a YouTube channel, an AI music library, a letter of "authorization" from an elder who later took a job elsewhere, and a website insisting the unincorporated spiritual organism known as the Worldwide Church of God still exists and that Sam is its current cash register.
The claims collapse under their own weight. Herbert Armstrong died in 1986. The church apostatized, rejected all of his teachings and is now known as Grace Communion International. Dozens of competing "true remnants" have appeared since, each declaring the others Laodicean, Jezebel's daughters, or worse. Sam simply picked the most convenient version: everyone else is compromised, therefore send the money here. The "letter of authorization" is not apostolic succession. It is one unemployed elder in the Phillipines stroking the ego of Sam by writing a note so he can "legitimately" solicit funds. That is not how the New Testament describes support for ministry.
The "Satan is raping the mother church" language is theatrical even by Church of God standards. It turns a 40-year-old organizational breakup into a cosmic sexual assault that only Sam's PayPal can halt. The same tradition that once predicted the Great Tribulation for the 1970s, then the 1980s, then "this generation," now needs another emergency to keep the tithes flowing. Urgency plus exclusivity plus "God's representative" is the oldest fundraising formula in Armstronmgism. It works until people notice the representative lives in Iowa, films himself shouting at trees, and has no congregation larger than a comment section.
Tithing itself is treated as an unchanging law that happens to terminate at whichever man currently holds the PO Box. The New Testament never commands Christians to send 10 percent to a self-appointed restorer of a 20th-century American denomination. Paul collected offerings for poor saints in Jerusalem, not for a man insisting he alone preserved Herbert Armstrong's copyrights. When every other group is declared apostate the moment they stop mailing checks to you, the doctrine has become a loyalty test, not stewardship.
The video is wild; mouth open, hands clawing the air, face flushed with the particular fury of a man who believes the universe is ending and also that people owe him money. That combination has launched over 400 tiny irrelevant splinter groups. Most of them stay tiny as they implode into even smaller groups. The mother church will have to survive the alleged rape without the tithe from those particular audience.
If the test is whether people will keep sending money to whoever shouts the loudest about being the last faithful remnant, history already graded that exam. The answer is usually "until the next guy with a better camera and a new PO Box shows up."
If you actually follow Jesus under the New Covenant, you should not send Sam Kitchen a dime. The New Testament never told you to mail 10 percent to the last man still waving the old Worldwide Church of God letterhead while shouting that everyone else is Babylon. Tithing funded a Levitical priesthood that no longer exists. Jesus did not collect it that way. Paul told churches to give what they had decided in their hearts, cheerfully, not under compulsion, and not because some guy in a park declared himself Christ's official cashier.
Sam's pitch is the opposite of that: urgency, exclusive remnant status, "the test begins now," Satan is raping the mother church, and the only approved storehouse happens to be his PO Box. That is not New Covenant generosity. That is a fundraising emergency dressed up as prophecy. A follower of Jesus is not required to subsidize one more self-appointed and self-absorbed restorer who has decided that disagreement equals apostasy and that disagreement can be cured with a check. Give to people who are actually poor, to work that is actually accountable, or to a local body you can see. Do not fund the guy whose entire argument is "everyone else is compromised, therefore pay me." That is how tiny Armstrongist personality cults stay alive. It is not how the New Covenant works.
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I know this will give him views, but bloody hell, it is soooooooo worth watching! It is only about 15 minutes and the longer the video goes the madder he gets. Yet, all of his bloviating blusters comes off as a comedy routine that you cannot take seriously. Nice people (and Samuel actually come across as a nice man) just cannot carry the weight of visible anger very well. You will see what I mean. He is NO Rod Meredith!
21 comments:
I almost can't talk right now, knowing that we have taunted such a person. Compassion would have been a better course.
As it happens, the minor league baseball team in Winnipeg is called the "Goldeyes."
Since most religious people seem to be stubborn beyond repair, the world must wait for them (mostly old folks anyway) to die off. Some people are hoping it happens before they can start a nuclear war.
He needs a shave, a hair cut, a weight loss program, and a slap in the head.
His claim that the former WCG is our mother is incorrect. Galatians 4:26: Paul writes, "But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother." His claim that Herb's church was the gold standard is also not correct. Thousands were verbally brutalized by the ministry since Herb rejected the very concept of rights. Like the rest of contemporary Christianity, the narrow gate was considered impractical, and replaced with Machiavellian morality.
"Machiavellian describes a person or approach that uses cunning, manipulation, and deceit to achieve goals, placing expediency and power above moral principles."
I'd say this guy is Looney Tunes with his Elmur Fudd oratory. He won't do a mighty work but he'll be able to hunt Wabbits.. Wascally wabbits..
The time has come and the hour is short! That hour of course is always amateur at the COG.
When baptized most of us were probably baptized into the Body of Christ. No corporate church name was mentioned during the ceremony.
Definitely, and do it out of love.
And we at banned will fix his wittle weg wagon by exposing his silliness.
It is sometimes amazing where and how the actual gospel is preached! https://www.facebook.com/share/v/188WBr2JC7/?mibextid=wwXIfr
If we are investigating cartoonish characters, the Q-anon Shaman, Jacob Chansley, who was arrested and served time following the treasonous January 6 insurrection, is of higher intellect, and much more articulate than Sam! They are equally deceived, but really deserving of pity more than anything else. At least, Jake now realizes that he was duped!
Using the original moniker "Radio Church of God" for metaphoric purposes, If we liken practicing Armstrongites to a radio wave receiver, they have been carefully and deliberately tuned to a band width which does not even pick up the signals from a Bob Thiel, a Sam Kitchen, or other similar transmitters. Heck, they don't even pick up our signals! They are stuck in a primitive era which predates electric or electronic media, the era in which percussion instruments were the loudest transmitters of a message in existence. They literally travel to the beat of a different drum!
BB
There is no need to treat this person with kid gloves he's out there on a mission part of which is to take tithes off people - which is not part of the NT way let alone all other falsehoods he peddles.
It wasn't unusual for members to be worshipping the WCG corporation in Herb's day. Sam is guilty of this same sin and invites others to join him in this idolatry.
In the field of education, there is a set of time-honored policies and traditions which are applied to "special" students, 3:32. Can you actually imagine anyone who is aware of the church-taught responsibilities regarding tithes sending them to Sam?
And on top of that, he’s advertising (inadvertently?) for Adidas! Perhaps the company pays him tithes and offerings?
(Back in the day, HWA claimed William Colgate did the same thing.)
Thanks for this hilarious account of lunacy.
People our age were raised on buggs bunny but this guy is to young to remember elmer. Maybe they still teach humpty dumpty, the egghead who had a great fall, all the kings horses and men couldn't put humpty together again and neither can these groups put wcg back together. Doesn't he know they've been trying for 40 years?!
What is so different about Sam that makes him persist in promoting a fake system that somehow never delivers? Many of us were all too happy to make our escapes and begin living life the moment we realized that Armstrongism was just plain bogus. He's probably got some good decades left if only he could detach his ball and chain!
Today, some people still worship the corporate organization that they are part of, and the work that they do. This is especially true if they have little or no contact with anyone outside their "special" group.
7:03 Is that legit or AI?🤔
If he isn't John Candy, my name is Outlaw Josey Wales.
Cowboy
A person would have to be a fool to give anything to this guy!
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