Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
One might naively assume that after the great apostasy of the Worldwide Church of God, thirty-some years later, the splinter scene would have fizzled out into blessed silence. But nooo—every day (lately, practically every hour) some fresh nugget of asshattery emerges from the Churches of God. And yet, amid this glorious parade of nonsense, every single one of these groups smugly insists they're the sole practitioners of pure 1st-century Christianity. How utterly COG precious.
As these outfits splinter into hundreds upon hundreds of micro-cults—each screeching louder than the last that they're the most authentic—the weirdness has ascended to dazzling new heights of complete and utter stupidity.
Take Gerald Flurry, for starters. He kicked off his little Philadelphia Church of God empire by, ahem, "borrowing" heavily from Jules Dervaes' Letter to Laodicea. Then he swiftly pivoted to treasure-hunting the Ark of the Covenant under Ireland's Hill of Tara (because why not?), snapped up a mansion in England to cosplay the old Bricket Wood campus, and somehow "discovered" that King David actually danced the Irish jig. Naturally, his gospel morphed into a traveling Celtic dance roadshow starring his own grandchildren. But wait, there's more! He dispatched minions to Oregon to excavate Herbert Armstrong's supposed prayer rock, hauled it back to Oklahoma like sacred luggage, draped it in royal purple velvet for pilgrims to bow before... until, of course, a dream revealed it was the new Stone of Destiny destined to replace the Stone of Scone. Cue the custom throne, more roadshow antics, and the solemn promise that Jesus would return to perch atop this holy lawn ornament to be crowned King of Kings—flanked, naturally, by Gerald on His right and little Stevie on His left—before unleashing divine wrath on the sinful Laodicean world. Classic.
Then there's Dave Pack, who stormed off to Wadsworth, Ohio, after a messy divorce from the Global Church of God (sparked by questioning Raymond McNair and Rod Meredith). Dave heroically "restored all truth" to the Laodiceans, tried (and failed) to build his own college, botched his TV studio broadcasts, and—surprise!—ran into money troubles. Solution? The satanic "Common" doctrine: Sell your house! Sell your business! Cash out your retirement! Hand it all over to Dave. Not long after, he declared Jesus would return to his campus before Dave's third "retirement" to rain holy hellfire on the world and those pesky Laodiceans. Priorities, people.
Around the same era, Ron Weinland launched his prophetic warning tour, gracing TED-like stages with tales of impending doom. Turns out he and his charming wife were deceiving the government on taxes; he landed a biblical 3½ years in prison. He is now joins the ranks with other ordained Church of God felons (the others arrested and in prison for pedophilia). Now he's a footnote on the COG radar, and even Jesus seems uninterested in swinging by for a chat before torching everything.
And don't forget bitter Bob Thiel, who threw a royal hissy fit in 2012 when Rod Meredith wouldn't rewrite doctrine to match Bob's revelations. Rejected in the U.S. and Europe (ministers in UCG and LCG literally laughed him out), he found a receptive audience among church-hopping Sabbatarians in Africa—folks who bounce between Adventists and COG groups chasing whichever one doles out more cash and goodies.
The insanity just rolls on, day after day, week after week, year after interminable year. Nothing surprises us anymore...at least we thought...until some nobody with limited income in Iowa declares he's buying the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena to restore it as The House of God, breathlessly awaiting a $45+ million windfall to make it happen. (Never mind the tens of millions more needed to actually run and maintain the place.) Yet here we are, sternly warned that if we don't cough up the cash, we're blocking the "wife" from marrying Christ.
Note: For some reason there has been a strong interest in this article from 2013 in the last few days, one year after Bob Thiel started his little group. He wasn't even the Big Bwana at that point and was desperately trying to get members from LCG and other groups to join him. Everyone refused. You can quickly discern from below that Bob remains exactly in the same state of mind he was in back then and today you can see there has been no growth in the man himself.
The Grain of Sand
Speaks...
Reflect on this Dr. Thiel
"Maybe those in LCG should realize that God may not be giving that group as much favor anymore? LCG no longer truly leads God's work. Hopefully, possibly because of its fast today, some will be better able to reflect on that."
Dr. Robert Thiel,
Non Prophet Continuing Church Of God
Perspective is not something most human beings are really good at. The Churches of God certainly aren't into perspective about themselves as far as I can tell. We give lip service to "Dear Lord, please bless us in your infinite wisdom for you are so very very large and we so very very small," but we usually end up forgetting that and the big head sets in again.
ex·ag·ger·ate
(g-zj-rt)
v.
ex·ag·ger·at·ed, ex·ag·ger·at·ing, ex·ag·ger·ates
1.
To represent as greater than is actually the case; overstate: exaggerate the size of the enemy force; exaggerated his own role in the
episode.
2.
To enlarge or increase to an abnormal degree: thick lenses that exaggerated the size of her eyes. To
make overstatements.
It is understandable that many leaders in the COG exaggerate just about everything they come in contact with is but is not unique to them. The Bible actually has played its part in teaching many to exaggerate with its own exaggerations.
I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, Genesis 22:17
Our mere 6 billion are already too many and straining the system. A mere smudge of humanity is actually descended from Abraham, if he ever existed. Israelites and Palestinians are virtually indistinguishable from each other genetically. Hebrews were merely the outcast Canaanite clan. Modern Israelis have very little actually DNA connection to original Hebrews in "the Holy Land."
Hundreds of billions of stars in one galaxy with hundreds of billions of galaxies in what may prove to be one grape of a universe on one cluster, on one vine, in one row in one vineyard probably is not what the Creator meant. We now are pretty sure Abraham's descendants won't actually be as the stars of heaven or the sand in the sea, but we'll get to that sand thing in a moment.
Whether it is the awesome number of booklets one of the Churches produce, the amazing response they had to a TV program, or the dozens of people that sit before them in church, perspective eludes them. They can and have "gone them therefore into all the world" in such amazing ways and for many years now that 99+ percent of the planet has never so much as heard of them, much less agreed with them. Go to any beach, scoop up a bucket of sand from one of them and that's about the amount of influence they have had on this planet with the one truth that must be spread or no flesh would saved alive.
Now...either they are missing something in all this, or God is way too small for the job himself and not doing so well with it either. Personally I wish that The Deity has cut out all the middle men long ago. How much further ahead would we actually be if we didn't have to go through priests, be heckled by prophets or try and figure out who the true and who the false apostles were? I say the Deity should have, from the start, offered seminars, personally conducted by itself with open question and answer sessions as desired. A buffet of what the Deity actually approves of as food fit to eat would be awesome! I'd like to see Gospel Jesus get to know Revelation Jesus and actually hear what the disciples , now apostles, have to say about Paul, but that can be for another time.
Back to self absorbed and ego centric wanna be's.
Self consumed and self absorbed, their impression of their importance, understanding and place in the universe becomes laughable even when compared to other churches, denominations, sects and cults...much less splinters and slivers. In the above quote and view, Dr. Thiel is tsk-tsking the Living Church of God for perhaps not being able to be used by the God of the Universe to "do the work" as in the past. To Bob, this is no mere coincidence. Plainly, since his falling out with LCG and their apparent rejection of his awesome self and in sights has occurred, God is packing up too and going with Bob. Where Bob goes can God and Jesus be far behind? Ummmm....sure!
What Bob means is that God takes his cues from what Bob does or thinks. If Bob had stayed, and he may wish he had in time, then we'd know God would stay with them as well. But if Bob gets offended and leaves, well then, the God of the Universe also gets offended and begins to withdraw his blessing from those that rejected His chosen servant and prophet. Bob is not the first person I have encountered in my life who thinks this way, but I spare you some pretty pathetic stories of special people I have met through ministry.
Bob hopes their now past fast will help them to see this easily discernible truth. Actually, I'm just kidding. This arrogance wrapped in a fake and false humility is beyond offensive and insulting to those who have half the brain it would take to see this. Those with less than half may not be able to comprehend what they are seeing however and evidently won't or don't.
So, let's get back to that one grain of sand on the beach thing for true perspective.
If you were to take one grain of actual sand, stick it on the end of your index finger, extend your arm out and hold the grain of sand up to the heavens , this is what you will find in the space that one grain of sand covers up in the night sky.
The Hubble eXtreme Deep
Field (XDF) combines Hubble observations taken over the past decade of a small
patch of sky in the constellation of Fornax. With a total of over two million
seconds of exposure time, it is the deepest image of the Universe ever made.
Credit: credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch (University
of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team
EVERY speck of light and spiral in this photo is one of 5500 galaxies each containing hundreds of billions of stars. This is what you can hide behind one grain of sand at arms length. And there is much more behind this but our technology is not there yet. We're seeing here what these galaxies looked like 13.2 billion years ago. They could still be there or not by this time.
One of these...
x 5500 behind one grain of sand
on the end of your fingertip held up to the night sky.
Are we feeling important yet? Do we actually think the Universe knows about us or is impressed by the COG Self Appointed types or the Pope for that matter?
I going to go with no. All flesh is as grass is being generous. Very generous.
Need more to think about ?
I believe the Universe must be teeming with life and much of it way beyond what we are humans can conceive of. I'm also going to bet that none of it or they have ever heard of the awesome and amazing, over arching and incredible Churches of God or their ego centric and self absorb one man shows of leadership.
Personal humility and men getting out of their own heads long enough to keep themselves in perspective is not one of the COG leadership qualities that shine through the darkness. Probably because minds like Dr. Thiel's and others simply cannot imagine a world without their input and "understanding." It is quite a joke actually.
I think in time, for those with eyes to see and minds to think it through, one can come to see the Bible and it's cultic God that inhabited an obscure mountain in an obscure land barking obscure orders to an obscure people on an obscure planet in a rather average solar system and galaxy is simply too small a god, should it actually exist.
Instead of sermons and Bible studies, I suggest the COGs, and I mean all of them from Grace Community formerly known as WCG to the most obscure of men trying to be and think more highly than they ought give apologies instead. Apologies for the big head, ego centric and self absorbed fairly theologically uneducated selves they have inflicted on many other well meaning and sincere humans who simply wish to know what it's really all about. I doubt you guys have a clue. I don't, but if I thought I did, I doubt I'd be comfortable presenting myself to the world of sand grains in the arrogant and puffed up manner you guys have mastered
Last week I picked up my mom's cremains. Ten pounds of stardust. Ten pounds of sand. One grain of that sand can block out a billion worlds and none of them ever heard of you who think more highly of yourselves than you ought...
