Is the COG Pulpit a Place for Ministers to Air Their Pet Theories, Conjectures, Political Opinions or Restored Insights?

A review of Nathan Albright's paper on: The Importance of Teaching What the Bible Says from the Pulpit and Avoiding Personal Speculation as an Abuse of the Power of the Pulpit

The white paper argues that the pulpit is a stewardship of already-given revelation, not a license for the minister’s theories, conjectures, political opinions, or “restored” insights presented as if they carry the same weight as Scripture. Authority is derivative and contingent on fidelity to the text. When that line is crossed, the office becomes self-promotion, personality cult, and spiritual coercion. That framework sits in sharp tension with classic Armstrongism on both church government and the New Covenant. 

Armstrongism’s view of the minister and the hierarchy

Herbert W. Armstrong taught that God restored “the government of God” in the church through him. That government is pyramidal and top-down: Father → Christ → apostle (Armstrong himself) → evangelists → pastors → elders. All authority flows downward; members do not vote doctrine or choose leaders. The apostle (and, by extension, the ministry under him) received the keys to bind and loose. Doctrine came through the apostle; lower ranks taught what headquarters authorized. Questioning official teaching was frequently treated as rebellion against Christ, not merely disagreement with a man. Armstrong presented himself as the end-time apostle through whom lost truths were restored after centuries of apostasy. His writings and verbal judgments functioned as the authorized interpretation. Local ministers were expected to preach the approved package. The congregation’s role was largely to “pay, pray, stay, and obey.” This is the opposite of the paper’s insistence that the preacher is a steward, not a proprietor, and that hearers must be trained to distinguish what the text actually says from what a minister imagines. The paper’s warnings map almost one-to-one onto documented patterns:

• Personality displacing the text (“cult of personality”).
• Opinion sanctified as revelation (“binding and loosing” used to settle extra-biblical or speculative matters).
• Coercive spiritual control (members’ decisions on marriage, health, employment, and even private Bible study were sometimes subordinated to ministerial judgment).
• Lack of real downward or peer accountability at the top.

Armstrong did say “don’t believe me—believe the Bible.” In practice, the institutional structure made an independent conclusion that contradicted headquarters costly. That is precisely the abuse the paper describes.

The New Covenant tension

Armstrongism taught that the Old Covenant is ended, but the New Covenant has not yet been fully ratified (it is completed at the marriage supper / Christ’s return). In the meantime, Christians live under its terms: the law written on the heart by the Spirit, yet the Sabbath, annual holy days, tithing, clean-and-unclean meats, and other “spiritual” statutes remain binding. Salvation is by grace, but God “will not save anyone He cannot govern.” The ministry exists to teach and enforce that government. 

Jeremiah 31 / Hebrews 8, however, describe a covenant in which “they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” and “no longer shall each one teach his neighbor.” The paper’s call for congregational biblical literacy, transparency about uncertain interpretations, and the congregation as a safeguard against pulpit abuse sits far closer to that New Covenant description than Armstrongism’s mediating hierarchy does. In the paper the Spirit and the public text are sufficient; the minister’s job is to read, give the sense, and apply—not to stand as the indispensable decoder of “restored truth.”

Armstrongism effectively keeps a strong teaching-and-governing priesthood in place while claiming the New Covenant is already operative in part. The paper treats that arrangement as an Old-Covenant-style mediation that the New Covenant was meant to relativize.

Where the paper and Armstrongism overlap—and where they cannot

Both sides can quote 2 Timothy 4:2, Nehemiah 8:8, and “it is written.” Both claim to reject speculation. The disagreement is over who decides what the text actually says and how much extra-biblical material (British-Israel identifications, successive church-era schemes, detailed prophetic timetables, binding administrative rulings) may be presented from the pulpit as if it were the plain teaching of Scripture.

The paper’s principles—textual control of the sermon, admission of uncertainty, doctrinal consistency checked against the whole canon, and accountability structures that include the congregation—would have constrained the very mechanism Armstrongism used to establish and maintain its distinctive doctrines. A minister who treated Armstrong’s unique restorations as non-negotiable revelation would, by the paper’s standard, be guilty of the malpractice it condemns.

Conversely, remaining Armstrongist groups would likely reply that the paper itself is a Protestant-leaning document that underestimates the New Testament offices and the need for unified government to prevent “every man doing what is right in his own eyes.” They would argue that their hierarchy is the biblical pattern and that dropping it produced the doctrinal collapse they saw after 1986.

The paper does not leave much room for that reply. It locates authority in the public, inspectable text rather than in a living office that claims to restore or bind what the text left implicit. That is a New Covenant move: the Word is no longer locked behind a specialized caste. Whether one accepts Armstrong’s restorations or not, the paper’s logic treats the elevation of any minister’s interpretive system into binding revelation as the very distortion it exists to prevent.

Conclusion: When “New Revelation” Becomes the Oldest Abuse

The principles set forth in this paper are not abstract. They are a measuring line. Apply them to the pulpits of Bob Thiel, David Pack, and Gerald Flurry, and the verdict is unambiguous.

Each of these men has taken the sacred trust of the pulpit and converted it into a private franchise for ongoing revelation. They do not merely explain Scripture; they present themselves as the indispensable conduit through which God is now speaking things previously hidden or insufficiently understood. That is precisely the substitution of personal theory for biblical exposition that this paper condemns. It is opinion masquerading as revelation. It is the preacher becoming proprietor rather than steward.

Gerald Flurry has declared himself “That Prophet,” the last voice before Messiah, the conduit for revelation drawn from the major and minor prophets, Lamentations, Daniel, and Revelation. He has described hearing a voice that delivered new understanding about a “new throne of David.” The congregation is expected to receive these claims as the unfolding of God’s government, not as one man’s reading. That is the cult of personality this paper warned against, dressed in prophetic titles. 

David Pack has claimed the offices of apostle and Elijah, then walked some of the claims back only to rebuild them under new language. For more than a decade his “Greatest Untold Story” series has reset dates for the Kingdom, the 1335 days, and Christ’s return—dates that have failed again and again. When the words do not come to pass, the explanation is always that the brethren misunderstood the timing or that “inspired preaching” is not the same as prophecy. Deuteronomy 18:22 does not grant that loophole. A man who repeatedly speaks in God’s name about events that do not occur is not a misunderstood steward. He is a false prophet. The pulpit becomes a mechanism of perpetual crisis and dependence. That is spiritual coercion. 

Bob Thiel has constructed a prophetic résumé out of dreams, a “double-portion” anointing he interprets as the passing of the mantle, and the assertion that the Continuing Church of God uniquely displays the signs of Acts 2:17–18. Those who do not recognize his office risk missing protection in the hour of trial. The paper’s call for transparency of interpretation—admitting uncertainty rather than disguising it as revelation—is ignored. The minister’s private experiences become the new canon that the flock must accept. 

All three men operate inside the Armstrongist assumption that God still funnels binding truth through a single hierarchical office. They have simply placed themselves at the apex. In doing so they invert the New Covenant itself. Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8 describe a covenant in which the law is written on hearts and “they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” These leaders insist the opposite: the brethren cannot fully know until the man at the top decodes the next installment. That is not government of God. It is the older priesthood of mediators standing between the people and the finished Word.

The paper stated that to speculate beyond revelation is not creative theology—it is spiritual malpractice. These three have gone further. They have made the malpractice official doctrine. They have trained congregations to treat their evolving interpretations, failed predictions, and self-referential titles as the voice of God. That is deception of the brethren. It is an abuse of the very hierarchy they claim to represent. It is the pulpit used as a power structure rather than a sacred trust.

The remedy remains what this paper first declared: return the pulpit to what Scripture actually says. No new apostle, no end-time Elijah, no “That Prophet,” no dream-validated office is required for the church to hear God. The Word is already given. The Spirit already writes it on hearts. Any man who stands in the pulpit and says otherwise—who makes himself the necessary conduit—has ceased to be a steward and has become a liar. The call is not to a different personality at the top. The call is back to the text, to humility, and to the freedom the New Covenant already purchased.

Silent Pilgrim