Children of the corn, the COG version
Concerned members have seen this show before. The verses are real. The application is not. The storehouse is not a PO Box in Iowa. And no amount of Malachi citations turns a self-appointed collector into the mouth of the god.
Samuel Kitchen claims to have found what the apostles somehow missed: that your salvation, your ability to endure, and your children's safety hinge on sending checks to a PO Box in Fairfield, Iowa, addressed to "Support Services of the Worldwide Church of God"-or to him personally. Stop "returning" the tithes, he warns, and Satan the Devourer will come for you and the kids. The Great Tribulation, apparently, has your invitation in hand. He says the Bible supports it, provided you squint and disregard the New Covenant.
Kitchen has turned a sizable collection of Bible verses into a weapon, using them to pressure COG members into handing over their money. Malachi 3:8-12 sits at the center of his case: "Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me... in tithes and offerings." The passage says to bring every tithe into the storehouse so that "my house" has meat; in return, the Lord will open heaven's windows and rebuke the devourer (Mal. 3:11). Kitchen's definition of that storehouse shifts as needed. At different times, it becomes his own checking account-authorized by a Philippine elder's letter-the spiritual temple represented by his reconstituted WCG, or Haggai's barn, where the seed, naturally, stands for the Holy Spirit. Faith in Christ's finished work does not rebuke the devourer here; giving money to Kitchen's operation does. If you refuse, the devourer remains unrebuked and is unleashed on you and your children.
He wraps himself in Jeremiah 15:19-21: "If thou return, then will I bring thee again... thou shalt be as my mouth... I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall... I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked." Kitchen treats the passage as both a ticket to safety and a demand for payment. Return to the WCG-meaning, send money to Sam-separate the precious from the vile-meaning, stop backing those other COG groups-and you may stand before the Lord while Satan is rebuked. Refuse, and the warning turns brutal: "YOU WILL NOT ENDURE! You will be delivered to Satan the Devil, and HE WILL DEVOUR YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN!" The expensive house is dismissed as worthless. Earlier donations to other groups supposedly enriched Babylon, and the talent will be taken away. Life and death are presented as a choice: pick the PO Box.
Genealogy settles the argument, Kitchen claims. He traces his line through Joseph of Arimathea, the house of Josiah-Hen, Zerubbabel, and even Herbert W. Armstrong by way of Siward Bjorn. Zechariah 6 instructs people to bring gold and silver to the house of Josiah, son of Zephaniah; Kitchen identifies himself with that house. From there, he concludes that the three tithes restore the temple through him. Christ builds His Church and appoints its officers, so, in Kitchen's view, He placed this man in the body. To challenge that appointment is therefore to challenge Jesus, insult the King of Kings, and reject the claim that the man washing windows-or holding whatever job he has that day-was personally installed by the Head of the Church. Before Kitchen was ordained, an elder in the Philippines once sent a letter authorizing him to receive tithes. That letter takes precedence over the New Testament's plain teaching that giving should be voluntary and cheerful, "not under compulsion" (2 Cor. 9:7). Even after the elder who issued it moved on, the authorization somehow endured-much like a marriage or ordination that never expires when money is at stake.
This is intimidation disguised as proof-texting, not gentle pastoral advice. The tiny following is told that refusing to join or finance the operation amounts to robbing God, rejecting the restored WCG, and exposing the entire family to the devourer. The actual New Covenant receives no such attention: Christ is the once-for-all High Priest, His body is the temple, and righteousness comes through faith rather than law-keeping or loyalty to an organization. Hebrews calls the first covenant obsolete. Kitchen, however, wants it revived-with himself cast as a modern Zerubbabel, gathering the gold and silver.
This pattern has been around for years: failed prophecies, claims of special authority, a mysterious letter, Bible verses stripped from their context, and threats that your children will suffer if the payments stop. Kitchen is hardly the first person to use it, and he will not be the last. What sets him apart is the tiny scale of the operation-and the enormous claim attached to it: your salvation supposedly depends on sending your money back to his storehouse.
If heaven opens only when money reaches Fairfield, and the devourer stays away only while the bank balance rises, then the gospel has become a subscription service. The brethren are not being fed. A man is shaking them down, turning "bring the tithe" into "bring it to me-or else."
Sam is unwell. He would do well to go back and read of Paul's maintaining gainful employment and not just begging for $$$ from the brethren.
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ReplyDeleteHundreds of tiny little splinter groups formed to try to feast off the wreckage of what Herbert W. Armstrong had built up from 1933 to 1986, and what the apostate Joseph W. Tkach, Sr. had destroyed in 1995. Each person wants to be in charge, collect the money, and make up his own pet heresies.
Satan's favorite false prophet Gerald R. Flurry has been stealing the tithes and offerings, and plundering people's estates, for over 35 years already.
Samuel Kitchen is a little bit late to the party. Only the scraps are left now. Maybe Sam can lighten the purse of some horny old widow.