Living Church of God, ever true to Roderick Meredith's hyperventilating past, has started hyperventilating again. Germany is "rising." Members need to dust off Germany in Prophecy. The AfD just scored a major win in Saxony-Anhalt. Get ready for jackboot Germans taking over the world. Arroyo Grande and Charlotte, here they come. Oh noes!!!!!!!!!
Then they instantly pivot to a plane that ran off the runway at Heathrow, airports shutting down because Anak Krakatau is coughing ash. Satan, we are told, is so furious that COG members are heading to the Feast that he is personally disrupting air travel. All because of them.
Gerald Weston writes:
Greetings from Charlotte,There is a lot happening of late. The AfD party in Germany scored a major win, causing much concern over a far-right party eventually gaining power over the whole country and taking Germany down a dangerous path once again. Messrs. Rod McNair and Douglas Winnail authored the booklet Germany in Prophecy, which points out that the country is given to sudden dramatic changes. Please review this resource as you see changes taking place in Europe. The wars in Iran and Ukraine continue to escalate along dangerous lines. Meanwhile, London's Heathrow Airport, Miami International Airport, and some Indonesian airports were shut down due to technical issues, a plane going off the runway, and the Anak Krakatau volcanic eruption-stranding and disrupting the plans of literally hundreds of thousands of travelers worldwide. We must never forget who the god of this age is and how he hates the Feast days that are now upon us. Let us pray for the safety of all our members and Festival sites and do our part in traveling safely. And let us never forget the reason we observe these important days. -Gerald E. Weston
There it is. The whole operating system on one index card: Europe is becoming the Beast, your passport is a spiritual target, and Lucifer runs air traffic control.
Armstrongism exists because fear works. Not because the forecasts aged well. Herbert's dates slid. 1972 and 1975 came and went without the nuclear fireworks package. The "final revival of the Holy Roman Empire" has been imminent for longer than most members have been alive. What never went out of print is the feeling: you are special, you are hunted, and the only people who can read the map are the men in Charlotte holding the booklet.
The racial machinery is still the engine. British-Israelism says the United States, Britain, and the white Commonwealth are Ephraim and Manasseh - the lost tribes with the birthright. Germany is recast as Assyria, the rod of God's anger, the coming king of the North who will punish those same "Israelite" nations for Sunday-keeping, Christmas trees, and insufficient third tithe. That is why a state election in Magdeburg is not allowed to remain a state election. It has to become Genesis-plus-Isaiah-plus-Revelation with a 2026 dateline. If the chosen nations are not in danger, the chosen church loses its plot.
Notice the second move. After the German alarm comes the travel snarl - and Satan is credited as the author. In this universe the Accuser is not a defeated rebel. He is the most competent character on the stage. Christ, the one they claim to follow, is oddly underemployed until the sequel in which He returns to slaughter the portion of humanity that refused to follow Gerald Weston, Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry, or Bob Thiel. Until then, the devil gets the airport, the volcano, and the headlines. The Lamb gets the footnote and the offering envelope.
Why keep members in a fearful frenzy? Because calm people start reading Galatians. Calm people notice that "neither Jew nor Greek" is a wrecking ball aimed at a racial prophecy chart. Calm people notice that Colossians 2 does not say, "Let no one judge you except headquarters, and also please consult Germany in Prophecy before you book the Feast." Calm people notice that the New Covenant does not require a German election to prove God is still interested.
The New Covenant offered an alternative and Armstrongism treated it like a competing product. Grace does not need you anxious about Saxony-Anhalt. Union with Christ does not need your ancestry to be Manasseh. The Spirit is not a frequent-flyer program Satan can cancel with volcanic ash. Perfect love casts out fear. That is precisely why fear has to be restocked every week before the Feast.
Weston's note is not analysis. It is maintenance. Review the booklet. Remember the god of this age. Pray for Festival sites. Travel safely - and never forget why you keep these days. Translation: stay inside the story in which Charlotte holds the decoder ring and the rest of the church holds its breath.
The satire writes itself, but the theology is older than Meredith's eye surgery. A system that must turn every runway excursion into spiritual warfare is a system that cannot afford a Savior who already said "it is finished." If Jesus is sufficient, you do not need jackboots in the middle distance to keep the lights on. If identity is in Christ, you do not need gold countries on a map and gray countries as extras. If the devil is not the most powerful god in the room, you can fly to the Feast without narrating yourself as the reason Krakatau woke up.
Armstrongism lives on fear because fear is the only fuel that still burns after a century of revised dates. The New Covenant lives on a cross and an empty tomb, which is why it does not need AfD's 43.8 percent to remain true.
If the gospel requires a German statehouse, a Heathrow runway, and a volcano to stay interesting, it is not the gospel. It is a subscription. Weston can keep ringing the Assyria bell. Meredith's heirs can keep discovering that Europe is "given to sudden dramatic changes," a sentence that would also describe weather, teenagers, and the church's own prophetic calendar. Meanwhile the New Covenant sits there, unpaid and un-hyperventilated, insisting that the dividing wall is already down, that days do not commend you to God, and that the one they claim to follow is not waiting in the wings until He can out-perform Satan at travel disruption. Charlotte will call that Laodicean. Scripture calls it news. The jackboots can wait. The booklet can wait. The frenzy can wait. The alternative already arrived, and it did not need Magdeburg to close the sale.
