Why is it that Armstrongism is filled with so many whack-a-doodle church leaders who imagine themselves as the real Indiana Jones who will make astounding discoveries right before the end of the age happens? God is apparently such an impotent and weak god that it needs all the help it can get.
We start with none other than the world's greatest theologian and God's most important man to ever grace the COG movement — Bob Thiel — the man who can’t remember half the dramatic pronouncements he’s made over the years — decided back in 2013 that his microscopic Continuing Church of God might be the chosen vessel to locate the actual Ark of the Covenant. Not metaphorically. Not spiritually.
The physical gold box with the cherubim and the stone tablets.
While taking photos at the tourist-infested Cenacle on Jerusalem’s Mt. Zion (you know, the one layered with Crusader, Muslim, and now selfie-stick history), a rabbi named Avraham Goldstein apparently spotted the perfect mark: an American cult leader with access to other people’s hard-earned tithes and an ego the size of the Temple Mount. “Psst… the Ark is right under here in some tunnels. Want to ‘consider involvement’?”
And Bob, in his infinite prophetic wisdom, did exactly that. He wrote it up. He floated the idea to his followers. He even tied in a convenient dream from someone in his group about “a secret in the mountain.” Then… nothing. Thirteen years of glorious radio silence. The Ark remains hidden. The tunnels remain undug. And Bob has apparently forgotten he ever said any of this, because that’s what happens when your entire brand is built on throwing out half-baked prophetic claims and hoping nobody keeps receipts.
But wait — it gets better. This isn’t even original stupidity. It’s derivative stupidity.
Enter Gerald Flurry and the Philadelphia Church of God, the self-declared “true remnant” that loves nothing more than cosplaying as Herbert W. Armstrong with better production values. Flurry’s outfit has been pushing their own sacred treasure hunt for years. They have an actual booklet called Jeremiah and the Ark of the Covenant. They love telling the old British-Israelite bedtime story that the prophet Jeremiah didn’t just take the throne to Ireland — he apparently took the Ark too, and buried it under Hill of Tara for safekeeping until the true Philadelphia Church of God could come along and dig it up like the world’s most pious Indiana Jones.
Yes. Tara. The same Hill of Tara where actual British Israelites already showed up with shovels in 1899–1902, tore up the ancient site in a “forlorn hope” of finding the Ark, and accomplished nothing except vandalism and disappointment. But why let a century of failure and basic archaeology get in the way of a good myth? Flurry’s group still references “British historians” claiming the Ark is down there with Tea Tephi or whoever the current lost-tribe princess is. They’ve hinted, suggested, and generally acted like they might be the ones to finally crack the case.
This pathetic obsession didn’t start with the splinters. It goes all the way back to the golden age of the old Worldwide Church of God.
In 1981, right after Raiders of the Lost Ark hit theaters and made everyone excited about the Ark again, two heavyweight WCG insiders — Stanley Rader (Herbert Armstrong’s powerful lawyer, treasurer, and right-hand man) and Robert Kuhn— filed a $210 million lawsuit against George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Paramount Pictures.
Their claim? Spielberg and Lucas had stolen the entire idea from an unpublished novel and screenplay called Ark written by Kuhn. Yes, really. They genuinely believed (or at least pretended to believe in court) that the biggest adventure movie of the decade had ripped off their Ark story.
Because, of course, the Ark belonged to the Worldwide Church of God. How dare Hollywood make a fun, exciting movie about it without first cutting the cult a check? The sheer audacity of Steven Spielberg making entertainment out of something the WCG had been using for decades to scare people into paying tithes was apparently too much to bear.
The lawsuit was filed with maximum WCG drama. It went nowhere meaningful (the outcome was quietly buried, as these things often are), but it perfectly captured the movement’s eternal mindset: We own the Ark. We own the story. We own the specialness.
Because in the great Armstrongite splinter Olympics, you can’t just collect tithes and argue about which splinter is the real continuation of the real work. You need drama. You need holy relics. You need to out-special the other cults. Jerusalem tunnels too mainstream for you now, Bob? Fine — Flurry will take the Irish version. Same fantasy, different postcode.
This is the entire business model of Armstrongism in a nutshell. When the original Worldwide Church of God collapsed, the splinters didn’t evolve into normal churches. They doubled down on the props. HWA funded big digs and played geopolitical archaeologist? Then every splinter has to have its own version. Flurry sends students to actual excavations in Jerusalem to look important. Bob Thiel has to settle for a single 2013 conversation with a rabbi and 13 years of “we’re considering it.” And when that fizzles, there’s always Tara waiting like a backup delusion.
And let’s not forget the theological speed bumps these geniuses have to swerve around. The Bible is very clear that only Levites were allowed to carry or touch the Ark. Touch it without authorization and you die — ask Uzzah, who found out the hard way when the oxen stumbled. Bob himself quoted this inconvenient fact… then immediately added the classic cult escape hatch: “But there was a change in the priesthood in the New Testament, so maybe ministers that God accepts can handle it now.”
How convenient. The rules are deadly serious and non-negotiable until the exact moment they would apply to a self-appointed apostle or pastor general with a shovel and a messiah complex. Then, suddenly, the New Testament makes everything flexible. Uzzah gets vaporized for steadying the box, but Bob Thiel or Gerald Flurry touching it? Probably gets a participation trophy and a new sermon series.
If either of these outfits actually found the Ark tomorrow, the first non-Levite hand that reached for it would be playing the most expensive game of “who wants to get smote” in history. But I’m sure they’d have a fresh “new understanding” ready by Monday explaining why the rules don’t apply to them.
At the end of the day, none of this is about the Ark. It’s about selling the fantasy that you are part of the tiny, chosen, cosmically important group that might uncover the ultimate proof while everyone else is just living normal lives. Thirteen years after Bob’s big announcement, the only thing that’s been consistently excavated is more hot air and more tithe money. Flurry’s Irish version is still sitting there like a backup plan nobody actually expects to work.
Keep digging, gentlemen. Keep telling your members they’re funding the most important archaeological work on the planet. Just remember: in this game, the Ark is never found.
The only thing that keeps getting unearthed is the same desperate need to feel special while the rest of the world moves on.
We start with none other than the world's greatest theologian and God's most important man to ever grace the COG movement — Bob Thiel — the man who can’t remember half the dramatic pronouncements he’s made over the years — decided back in 2013 that his microscopic Continuing Church of God might be the chosen vessel to locate the actual Ark of the Covenant. Not metaphorically. Not spiritually.
The physical gold box with the cherubim and the stone tablets.
While taking photos at the tourist-infested Cenacle on Jerusalem’s Mt. Zion (you know, the one layered with Crusader, Muslim, and now selfie-stick history), a rabbi named Avraham Goldstein apparently spotted the perfect mark: an American cult leader with access to other people’s hard-earned tithes and an ego the size of the Temple Mount. “Psst… the Ark is right under here in some tunnels. Want to ‘consider involvement’?”
And Bob, in his infinite prophetic wisdom, did exactly that. He wrote it up. He floated the idea to his followers. He even tied in a convenient dream from someone in his group about “a secret in the mountain.” Then… nothing. Thirteen years of glorious radio silence. The Ark remains hidden. The tunnels remain undug. And Bob has apparently forgotten he ever said any of this, because that’s what happens when your entire brand is built on throwing out half-baked prophetic claims and hoping nobody keeps receipts.
But wait — it gets better. This isn’t even original stupidity. It’s derivative stupidity.
Enter Gerald Flurry and the Philadelphia Church of God, the self-declared “true remnant” that loves nothing more than cosplaying as Herbert W. Armstrong with better production values. Flurry’s outfit has been pushing their own sacred treasure hunt for years. They have an actual booklet called Jeremiah and the Ark of the Covenant. They love telling the old British-Israelite bedtime story that the prophet Jeremiah didn’t just take the throne to Ireland — he apparently took the Ark too, and buried it under Hill of Tara for safekeeping until the true Philadelphia Church of God could come along and dig it up like the world’s most pious Indiana Jones.
Yes. Tara. The same Hill of Tara where actual British Israelites already showed up with shovels in 1899–1902, tore up the ancient site in a “forlorn hope” of finding the Ark, and accomplished nothing except vandalism and disappointment. But why let a century of failure and basic archaeology get in the way of a good myth? Flurry’s group still references “British historians” claiming the Ark is down there with Tea Tephi or whoever the current lost-tribe princess is. They’ve hinted, suggested, and generally acted like they might be the ones to finally crack the case.
This pathetic obsession didn’t start with the splinters. It goes all the way back to the golden age of the old Worldwide Church of God.
In 1981, right after Raiders of the Lost Ark hit theaters and made everyone excited about the Ark again, two heavyweight WCG insiders — Stanley Rader (Herbert Armstrong’s powerful lawyer, treasurer, and right-hand man) and Robert Kuhn— filed a $210 million lawsuit against George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Paramount Pictures.
Their claim? Spielberg and Lucas had stolen the entire idea from an unpublished novel and screenplay called Ark written by Kuhn. Yes, really. They genuinely believed (or at least pretended to believe in court) that the biggest adventure movie of the decade had ripped off their Ark story.
Because, of course, the Ark belonged to the Worldwide Church of God. How dare Hollywood make a fun, exciting movie about it without first cutting the cult a check? The sheer audacity of Steven Spielberg making entertainment out of something the WCG had been using for decades to scare people into paying tithes was apparently too much to bear.
The lawsuit was filed with maximum WCG drama. It went nowhere meaningful (the outcome was quietly buried, as these things often are), but it perfectly captured the movement’s eternal mindset: We own the Ark. We own the story. We own the specialness.
Because in the great Armstrongite splinter Olympics, you can’t just collect tithes and argue about which splinter is the real continuation of the real work. You need drama. You need holy relics. You need to out-special the other cults. Jerusalem tunnels too mainstream for you now, Bob? Fine — Flurry will take the Irish version. Same fantasy, different postcode.
This is the entire business model of Armstrongism in a nutshell. When the original Worldwide Church of God collapsed, the splinters didn’t evolve into normal churches. They doubled down on the props. HWA funded big digs and played geopolitical archaeologist? Then every splinter has to have its own version. Flurry sends students to actual excavations in Jerusalem to look important. Bob Thiel has to settle for a single 2013 conversation with a rabbi and 13 years of “we’re considering it.” And when that fizzles, there’s always Tara waiting like a backup delusion.
And let’s not forget the theological speed bumps these geniuses have to swerve around. The Bible is very clear that only Levites were allowed to carry or touch the Ark. Touch it without authorization and you die — ask Uzzah, who found out the hard way when the oxen stumbled. Bob himself quoted this inconvenient fact… then immediately added the classic cult escape hatch: “But there was a change in the priesthood in the New Testament, so maybe ministers that God accepts can handle it now.”
How convenient. The rules are deadly serious and non-negotiable until the exact moment they would apply to a self-appointed apostle or pastor general with a shovel and a messiah complex. Then, suddenly, the New Testament makes everything flexible. Uzzah gets vaporized for steadying the box, but Bob Thiel or Gerald Flurry touching it? Probably gets a participation trophy and a new sermon series.
If either of these outfits actually found the Ark tomorrow, the first non-Levite hand that reached for it would be playing the most expensive game of “who wants to get smote” in history. But I’m sure they’d have a fresh “new understanding” ready by Monday explaining why the rules don’t apply to them.
At the end of the day, none of this is about the Ark. It’s about selling the fantasy that you are part of the tiny, chosen, cosmically important group that might uncover the ultimate proof while everyone else is just living normal lives. Thirteen years after Bob’s big announcement, the only thing that’s been consistently excavated is more hot air and more tithe money. Flurry’s Irish version is still sitting there like a backup plan nobody actually expects to work.
Keep digging, gentlemen. Keep telling your members they’re funding the most important archaeological work on the planet. Just remember: in this game, the Ark is never found.
The only thing that keeps getting unearthed is the same desperate need to feel special while the rest of the world moves on.
