Pentecost Sunday is observed by both mainstream Christianity and many of the scattered Churches of God, unless you are still one of the hard-core Monday Pentecost COG groups. In Christianity, it commemorates the dramatic outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the apostles in Jerusalem (Acts 2)—wind, fire, tongues, and power that launched the New Testament Church fifty days after the resurrection.
In the Churches of God, Pentecost remains one of the commanded Holy Days, counted fifty days from the wave-sheaf offering. It is meant to picture the very Spirit that unites God’s people.
Yet this year, the “one true church” will have several groups meeting for a two-day weekend (Sabbath and Pentecost) and will look like this:
- Growing in Torah at Safe Haven Farms in central California.
- United Church of God in the wooded hills of Nashville, Indiana, for worship, hymn singing, and fellowship.
- Church of God Ministries International in Syracuse, Indiana.
- Intercontinental Church of God is holding two-day weekends across Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia.
- Seventh Day Church of God in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Some of these groups are meeting in the same general regions—sometimes within an easy drive—yet not one extended an invitation to the others. No joint services. No shared hall. No communal breaking bread together in a meal. No humble attempt to let the Holy Spirit actually dwell among unified brethren. They will celebrate the feast of the Spirit while keeping that Spirit boxed up in their separate little camps.
And the real tragedy? This is only the beginning.
Come the Feast of Tabernacles—the week-long celebration they all claim pictures the coming Kingdom of God, a time of unity and peace—the same farce will repeat on a grander scale. Different COG groups will book separate feast sites, often in the same states or even the same general areas, then pat themselves on the back for their “purity” while refusing to fellowship with anyone outside their shrinking circle. Same story for the Feast of Trumpets, Atonement, Passover, and every other one of their self-commanded Holy Days. Year after year, they will scatter like proud, stubborn sheep, each little flock convinced it alone is “Philadelphian” while everyone else is Laodicean.
How delightfully special they all must feel. How Holy Spirit led.
This is the enduring, bitter legacy of Armstrongism: a system that preached unity within, but engineered endless division. Keep the members isolated, convince them their tiny group is the only safe place on earth, and they will gladly pay three separate tithes to support the illusion. Nothing says “We are the true church” quite like refusing to break bread with your own spiritual cousins while the world watches the spectacle.
Pentecost is supposed to be about power and one Body. Instead, these groups have turned every Holy Day into a monument to their own disunity—proving, with exquisite irony, that the Spirit they claim to follow has never truly had a home among them.
Truly, a masterpiece of self-righteous fragmentation. Well done, gentlemen. The Kingdom must be so impressed.
And the real tragedy? This is only the beginning.
Come the Feast of Tabernacles—the week-long celebration they all claim pictures the coming Kingdom of God, a time of unity and peace—the same farce will repeat on a grander scale. Different COG groups will book separate feast sites, often in the same states or even the same general areas, then pat themselves on the back for their “purity” while refusing to fellowship with anyone outside their shrinking circle. Same story for the Feast of Trumpets, Atonement, Passover, and every other one of their self-commanded Holy Days. Year after year, they will scatter like proud, stubborn sheep, each little flock convinced it alone is “Philadelphian” while everyone else is Laodicean.
How delightfully special they all must feel. How Holy Spirit led.
This is the enduring, bitter legacy of Armstrongism: a system that preached unity within, but engineered endless division. Keep the members isolated, convince them their tiny group is the only safe place on earth, and they will gladly pay three separate tithes to support the illusion. Nothing says “We are the true church” quite like refusing to break bread with your own spiritual cousins while the world watches the spectacle.
Pentecost is supposed to be about power and one Body. Instead, these groups have turned every Holy Day into a monument to their own disunity—proving, with exquisite irony, that the Spirit they claim to follow has never truly had a home among them.
Truly, a masterpiece of self-righteous fragmentation. Well done, gentlemen. The Kingdom must be so impressed.
