Miserere mei, Deus

 

David Hurd's Psalm 51

If someone had told me twenty years ago that I would be smearing ashes on the foreheads of people tonight, I would never have believed them. Tonight was Ash Wednesday at the church I attend. A night that signifies the start of forty days of self-examination. An examination of our fallibility, our mortality, our participation in oppression and injustice to others. At this time we are particularly drawn to Jesus' call for justice: freedom for the oppressed, release of the captives, good news to the poor and recovery of sight to the blind. It's about confronting the power of death in all its forms, terror and tyranny, corruption and greed, disregard for creation and all the forces that prevent people from living life in its fullest.

It's not about giving up chocolate, sweets, meat, dropping a dollar in the swear jar, or other things. It's about being authentic to yourself and to God, while you get off your rear end and make a difference in the world around you.

Growing up in Armstrongism I listened to endless sermons by ministers and evangelists mocking and deriding those that kept this day as insincere and a total waste of time. Meredith came up with some of the most absurd and inaccurate comments that anyone could dream up. Actually what he said was and still is, a blatant lie!

Seeing the wide eyes of little kids kneeling in front of you with tears in their eyes, or huge smiles as they experience something that only a child can through untarnished minds. They look into your eyes with a look of awe. And then they turn to their parents and look them in their eyes with a deep connection only a parent can ever see. Probably like the kind of look we should be having with God. Totally free with no baggage. Oh, to be a child again!

I saw a blind young man tonight who is wheelchair bound with a body that is wracked by cerebral palsy, rhythmically moving in slow motion due to the muscles in his body twisting and writhing about, sit there with tears streaming down his cheeks as he attempts to stop his body from moving when the ashes are placed on his forehead, clearly and distinctly saying 'amen' afterwords. He does the same thing when the Eucharist is brought to him. His body stops moving as he takes the wafer in his distorted hands and places it in his mouth and sips the wine. He understands something that I probably never will. Something deeper and more meaningful than any HWA sermon, booklet or book ever did. Something deeper about the mystery that surrounds us, the mystery of the unknown yet knowable, the grain of the universe that calls to us into something we cannot fathom, something so foreign to us that we let it slip past us the minute we walk out the doors of the church into the real world.

I saw people in attendance tonight that I know are agnostic and a couple of atheists who have no idea what or who God is. Yet, they admit something draws them back, week after week. Something they cannot understand but want to be a part of. They are involved in feeding the homeless, knitting prayer shawls for the sick and dying, caring for those with AIDS, working in hospice or visiting the sick and homebound. They too have the opportunity to delve into something deeper and more mysterious with new ways of looking and understanding that I can never have. It is a delight to be around them

I am grateful for my journey out of Armstrongism. I regret many opportunities lost because of its aberrant, absurd, and irrelevant teachings, yet there was a lot I treasure. How I came out halfway sane is a miracle! :-) I am grateful for Gavin's web sites and blogs over the years and for Dennis's unwavering self examination and willingness to question without apology. What a ride it has been and continues to be!

Gary, 2011

Addendum 2025

Who would have imagined I would still be serving at an Ash Wednesday service as I did at noon today so many years later. In fact, this is now year 25 doing this.

I was reminded of the original post that I did in 2011 (above) after reading Bob Thiel's sophomoric understanding of Ash Wednesday and Lent that he posted the other day. His thinking was inherented from equally sophomoric men from the Worldwide Church of God and Ambassador College.

This explanation that I saw on X today establishes the Christian thought behind the season of Lent.

Lent was never meant to be easy. It was meant to break you. 

 

For centuries, Lent has been seen as a time of mild sacrifice—giving up chocolate, social media, or coffee.

But the truth? The origins of Lent are far more brutal, far more raw. It wasn’t about self-improvement. It was about spiritual survival. 

 

In the earliest days of Christianity, when faith was a crime punishable by death, Lent was a preparation for war.

It was a time of fasting so intense that bodies weakened, a period of prayer so fervent that the line between heaven and earth seemed to blur.

Those who took part weren’t just giving up luxuries—they were stripping themselves down to nothing, purging everything but faith, because they knew what was coming.

Baptism on Easter was not a ceremony. It was an initiation into a life that could lead to the arena, the stake, or the sword. 

 

The forty days of Lent mirror Christ’s own forty days in the wilderness, where He faced the devil as a starving, vulnerable man.

And yet, He endured. That’s what Lent was always meant to be: a confrontation with the darkest parts of ourselves. A reckoning. A test. 

 

But over time, the world softened it. It became a season of small sacrifices rather than total surrender.

We made it comfortable.

Yet true Lent, real Lent, was always meant to cut deep. To leave scars. To change you. 

 

So, the question isn’t what will you give up?

A couple of todays readings:

A reading from Joel (2:1–2, 12–17)

Blow the shofar in Zion! Sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the people of the land tremble! For the Day of our God is coming — it is near — a day of bleakness and gloom, a day of fog and dense clouds. A vast and countless horde appears like soot spread over the hills; it is like something never known before, nor will be seen in ages to come. “But know this,” says our God: “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping and mourning. Tear open your heart, not your clothes!” Return to your God who is gracious and deeply loving as a mother quick to forgive, abundantly tenderhearted — and relents from inflicting disaster. Who knows? God may come back, relent, and leave a blessing behind — grain and drink offerings for your God. Sound the shofar in Zion! Order a fast! Proclaim a solemn assembly! Gather the people! Purify the community! Assemble the elders! Gather the children — even infants at the breast! Let the bridegroom leave his bedroom and the bride her canopied bed! Let the priests, the ministers of God, stand weeping between the portico and the altar and say, “Spare your people, O God! Do not let your heritage become an object of ridicule, a byword for the Nations! Do not let the peoples say, ‘Where is their god?’”

A reading from Isaiah (58:1–12)

“Shout for all you are worth, raise your voice like a trumpet! Proclaim to the people their faults; tell the house of Leah and Rachel and Jacob their sins! They seek me daily, they long to know my ways, like a nation that wants to act with integrity and not ignore the law of its God. They ask me for laws that are just, they long for God to draw near. Yet they say, ‘Why should we fast if you never see it? Why do penance if you never notice?’ Because when you fast it is business as usual, and you oppress all your workers! Because when you fast, you quarrel and fight and strike the poor with your fist! Fasting like yours today will never make your voice heard on high! Is that the sort of fast that pleases me — a day when people humiliate themselves, hanging their heads like a reed, lying down on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call fasting, a day acceptable to God? On the contrary! This is the sort of fast that pleases me: Remove the chains of injustice! Undo the ropes of the yoke! Let those who are oppressed go free, and break every yoke you encounter! Share your bread with those who are hungry, and shelter homeless poor people! Clothe those who are naked, and do not hide from the needs of your own flesh and blood! Do this, and your light will shine like the dawn — and your healing will break forth like lightening! Your integrity will go before you, and the glory of God will be your rearguard. Cry, and God will answer; call and God will say ‘I am here—provided you remove from your midst all oppression, finger-pointing, and malicious talk! If you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your shadows will become like noon. God will always guide you, giving relief in desert places. God will give you strength to your bones and you will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never run dry. You will rebuild the ancient ruins and build upon age-old foundations. You will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, and Restorer of Ruined Neighborhoods.’”

Richard Ames: Keeping Halloween Makes You Think About Evil for the Rest of the Year

It is close to Halloween and the COG's are churning or should I say, regurgitating, out their annual paganism articles.  In their eyes Christan are one step away from sacrificing the children on the altar of Satan.  Oh wait, according to LCG some parents are already doing that!

Pithy sayings of Richard Ames of the Living Church of God:

Should we follow our neighbors, like proverbial lemmings, off the dangerous cliff of pagan practices?

By observing Halloween, we teach our children to make light of Satan the Devil—or even to think like him! Should we then be surprised when our children remain curious about evil—or even invite it—for the rest of the year?

Do we teach our children to attract and cultivate evil spirits at Halloween? Certainly, dressing up like a demon or a witch invites evil rather than opposes it!

Some parents encourage their children to participate in the world of demons. Are some of you parents sacrificing your children to Satan and to wicked spirits

It’s time for such so-called Christians to repent of supporting the Devil and rebelling against Christ!

False prophet Bwana Bob Mzungu Thiel, an apostate LCG member, loved to say this:

Jesus and Paul did not observe Halloween.

Perhaps Richard Ames should ask himself why the LCG has followed the teachings of Herbert Armstrong like proverbial lemmings?  With it's hundreds of failed prophecies, proven false doctrines, and extra non-biblical laws, why does he continue to keep it all and force it upon others?

It's that time of year again! Time for Nimrod's testicles, Satan's snake and Christmas

NOTE: It's that time of year again in Church of God land and the anti-Christmas crowd is spewing its hilarious venom.  Bob Thiel has had his yearly childish melt-down.

So, it's time for a rerun:

It's getting close to Christmas and the anti-Christmas crowd in Armstrongism is starting to spit and slobber on how demonic Christmas is.

Typical Armstrongite comments on Facebook are aimed to demean those who keep Christmas:

Christmas Trees symbolize Nimrod sprouting from the grave:

Nimrod the mighty hunter against God!!! Nimrod married his Mother. Nimrod was killed. The evergrowing tree sprouted from his grave. The first Christmas tree.

Have some angels on your tree?  If you do, you are hanging dead babies on your tree in honor of Nimrod

Nimrod was shown as a baby. With the pine tree representing Nimrod. Babies were burnt alive as gifts to Nimrod. Angels on trees represent dead babies -  MURDERED Babies.

Have some tinsel on that tree?  You are decorating it with Satan's snake.  I won't even venture to think what they mean by "snake".  :-)  Knowing the preoccupation of so many Armstrongites with sex, it could mean a couple of things.

The strings of tensile on the tree symbolize the snake/satan.

Did you know that hanging ball ornaments on trees symbolizes testicles?

The balls on the tree are Nimrods Testicles.

I do not recall how the founder of all of this worlds religions died. I remember that he was cut up and they could not find his balls which is why they put balls on the trees, An evergreen tree was supposed to have sprouted from his grave which is why an evergreen tree is used.

 Nimrod certainly had some big balls!

Did you have a picture of your child on Santa's lap?

 To celebrate Nimrods birthday they used to feed babies to the fire. All those angels on the tree represent dead babies that were murdered for Nimrod. Why he wears a red suit- it represents fire so any one putting a baby on a fat mans lap wearing a red suit is making their baby pass threw the fire!!!!

And of course, how can we forget Santa!

Santa is an anagram for Satan

The ironic thing is when these Armstrongites start spitting this stupidity it brings no one to the god they claim to follow.  It turns people off.  They are not performing a witness, they are not drawing anyone to Jesus Christ.  They are doing nothing other than making themselves look stupid.  But, maybe that is normal.....?

UPDATED: Bill Gothard, Institute of Basic Life Principles, The Duggars, Alert Academy, Big Sandy TX, And Armstrongism

 

On June 2, 2023, Amazon released a four-part documentary on the Duggar family, Bill Gothard, Insitute in Basic Life Principles located on the former Ambassador College Campus in Big Sandy, Texas. It is a fascinating expose of how religious fundamentalism rips apart people's lives who are involved in it.

On several Facebook pages dealing with Armstrongism and its damaging effects on the lives of former members, many are discussing how this show eerily parallels many of the things we were taught in Armstrongism, particularly when it comes to obedience, patriarchy, and power structure in the church. 

If you ever watched the Duggars show or even just saw a few clips you quickly saw how subservient the mother was to her husband, how she spoke in a soft voice, and how she dressed in prairie style colting with Puritan collars. The children were always happy with smiling faces and obedient to their parents.

Michelle Duggar dressed like many women in the Worldwide Church of God did, and how some still do in the extreme legalistic groups of Armstrongism today. I remember one Pasadena deacon's wife who always walked behind her husband when they entered the church and stood one step behind him whenever they stood together. She was never exactly beside him or in front of him. Make-up-free and no hair coloring all because of Herbert at one point in the 1980s's forbade makeup for the third or fourth time just to spite his wife he was divorcing. Her dress was always long dresses like what Michelle Dugger wears. This deacon's wife was not the only one like that in the church, there were many others and still are today in the church.

The Gothard empire had several campuses around the country that trained young people and adults in its far-right, fundamentalist, reconstructionist teachings. Many of its extreme teachings centered around sex and the proper place of a woman in the hierarchy. Victims of rape and abuse in this empire were accused of causing the problem because women tend to be harlots that lead men astray. It is always the woman's fault, much like how Armstrongism treated its women at times. Whenever problems of child abuse, rape, and sexual assault came up in Armstrongimsm it was always quickly hushed and the church never talked about it. Most of the time the woman was made out to be the problem for causing it.

A lot of the focus on the show is the arrest and imprisonment of one of the Duggar boys for child pornography and how the Duggar family covered up his abuse. Like the Gothard empire, Armstrongism had a huge problem with sexual predators in the church, from the abuse of children to sexual assaults, stalkings, rapes, and other things the women had to deal with, many times from ordained ministry! All of these things were swept under the rug and hidden from members. Incidentally, that deacon who lorded over his wife was also found out to be sexually abusing Imperial High School boys on trips to Camp River Glenn where he was to be a chaperone. This is the same guy who went on to help start the Global Church of God and Living Church of God where the leadership was all aware of his proclivities.

The Duggars, like all followers of Gothard, homeschool their children with lessons that are so far out there that it borders on absurdity. Sadly, I remember several Pasadena families that used those same lessons to homeschool their kids because Pasadena's schools were too worldly and god forbid, they taught evolution!

Gothard was sued by several women for sexual abuse and they tell of their ordeal in the show. It is also interesting to watch as they kick him out of the Big Sandy Hall of Ad building soon after all of these allegations emerged. The Big Sandy buildings are pictured frequently when it discusses the IBLP and Alert Academy - it's a pseudo-militaristic training ground for teenagers and men in the church with the goal of making them leaders in the world to change society.

It is also interesting to watch the video of the conventions this group had and still does. It looked like a Feast of Tabernacles gathering of Armstrongism with the same slick-talking preachers hoodwinking members with heretical teachings.

Like with Armstrongism, there are thousands who have left the church and they too are not afraid to tell their stories.  The daughter of the Duggars and her husband, relatives, and former members tell chilling and shocking stories about what they believed and how it was to be a member of this fundamentalist cult.

The parallels at times with Armstrongism are eerie. You will not be disappointed in viewing this program.

Church of God Network Podcast On Former Restored Church of God Member

I have mixed emotions about this podcast, but it does illustrate how the old boy's network that runs so many of the Churches of God is irrelevant in their actions and completely out of touch with the younger members of the church. It takes the younger members of the church to start making a difference.

The podcast starts off by making a point that the Restored Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, and Church of God Preaching the Kingdom are NOT representative of the broader Church of God community and they do not include them in the COG Network links and materials.

Her take on Dave Pack's new sermon series and failed prophecies is interesting in how he confuses everyone. This is also what started her down the path of leaving the cult.

Carisa's story is fascinating to hear.

I am interested in what your take is on this.

Worldwide The Unchosen Church: New Podcast Coming In June With People Telling Stories About Life In Armstrongism

 

Worldwide

the Unchosen Church

I am launching the social media account for my new podcast about growing up in the WCG on Instagram. @worldwidepod will debut in June. Please give us a follow if the podcast interests you for news and updates and to help us spread the word! Appreciate your support. This project means a lot to me! TJ Jenks

Once the podcasts are finished they will be on most podcast platforms. Click on the above Instagram link for further updates

Prophet Roach Kicks Bob Thiel's Wimpy Butt To The Curb

Who knew that in 2022 we could add a Roach to our end times bingo card?

I received notice today from the one true prophet that replaced Herbert Armstrong at his death. No, it was not from Ron Weinland or Bob Thiel, it was from Tony Roach. A fitting name for the many self-appointed pests that plague the Churches of God with stupidity.

Tony Roach writes:

I am the prophet that took over after Armstrong's death... If you want to see the truth about Herbert W Armstrong and the WWCOG checkout my facebook page facebook.com/TonyRoach101.... or my website... revelationsofthebible.org... I'll tell you your future... The tribulations and the war of Armageddon starts Sept. 16, 2023... The "Secret Rapture (Spring Harvest of Souls)" has past 5/24/2020 - 4/16/2021... Cloaked in a veil of the corona virus like a thief in the night... Other dates in your immediate future can be seen on my facebook page and website... So kiss your ass goodbye my friend...Because it is now "Just as the days of Noah" 

 

On Roach's website he says:

I AM NOT A PREACHER... I am a Seer... Sometimes a Prophet... If I were to preach to you I would overload your mind and you would have a meltdown... But I can tell you what your future holds.... Don't believe anything I say or anyone else... Prove ALL things as recorded...

Just like Bob Thiel, Roach whines that no one listens to him, not even President Bush or Ancient Aliens!  Bob Thiel needs to up his game to match this!

I am only ONE man.. I am NO One... So when you hear NO One listened... They are talking about me... :) I am the only one that listened... And by doing so God revealed 9/11 to me among many other things... I wrote Fox News, CNN, ABC, NBC, all the news networks numerous times and gave them the exact date... Of course NO One listened... I even wrote President Bush... Of course he didn't listen... I'm No One... Although the day it happened my phone started blowing up... Everyone I had told was calling... Did it change them?... NO... Do they BELIEVE?... NO... God has allowed me to always show His people things NO One can show them... I showed you the Mark of the Beast, by God's definition.. and the Mark of God... and the 10 nations joining them mentioned in the Bible... Who else could do that?... NO ONE... I showed you who the two witnesses will be.... Who else could do that?... NO ONE... I showed you the abomination that maketh desolate... Who else could do that?... NO ONE... I've shown you the secrets of Lucifer... Who else could do that?... NO ONE... In 2010 I told you Trump would be president.... Who else could do that?... NO ONE... I told you who the UFOs are and were... Who else could do that?... NO ONE... Not even the most brilliant educated minds of Ancient Aliens... I could actually answer all their questions... I've written Giorgio Tsoukalos a few times and I'm pretty sure he never read them... Because I am NO ONE... I've shown you many things NO ONE could show you... And now I'm showing you and warning you once again and have been for 20 years of the soon to be war between the USA and Russia, China, Iran, and others as God gathers the nations as recorded.... and again NO ONE is listening...

I am NOT a preacher... I am a Seer and sometimes a Prophet but NEVER a preacher... If I were to preach to you I would just overload your mind and you would just have a meltdown...

Here is our new prophet in all of his glory, yet no one listens to him:

So you can see by my picture why No One believes me... I am NO One... I don't try to be someone I'm not... I don't try to impress anyone... I can't wear the Roman tie or get the Roman haircut that most men have today... And for a footnote I don't color nor curl my hair it just happened... And for those that don't know... Long hair is not a sin... Samson gave his hair credit for his powers not God... That was the sin... If you want to judge me... Go for it ... I could not care any less what any man thinks of me... I'm not here to please man... I'm here to please God...

Roach even sets specific dates, something wishy-washy Bob is too cowardly will not do:

Poor Bob, always a dollar short and a day late.

Click above for web site

Trouble At A Texas College

 

Screengrab from Collin College Youtube video

From a reader:

I don’t know if you have seen this, but a former COG member and Ambassador University faculty member, Neil Matkin, is in the news. My niece is at this college and this isn’t the first time Matkin has been in the news at this college.

 

At a Texas Community College, the Attack on Free Speech Is Coming From the Right
BY BRANKO MARCETIC 

Community college professor Michael Phillips spent the past year speaking out against a right-wing “purge” of progressive faculty at his college. Then he was fired.

For the past year, history professor Michael Phillips has been warning about a right-wing “purge” taking place at Collin College, led by administrators angling to remove progressive voices from the Texas school. Then he himself was purged.

 

Further down the article, there is this about Matkin:

Phillips had been clashing with administrators for some time before he was fired. Phillips immediately butted heads with now president H. Neil Matkin when he was a finalist for the position in 2015. Concerned that Matkin had received degrees from an unaccredited college run by the Worldwide Church of God (now known as Grace Communion International) — described by one former adherent as a “white supremacist doomsday cult” that taught that God approved of slavery and wanted white people to rule the world — he recalls confronting Matkin privately, asking him about his attitudes to matters like interracial dating and evolution. 

 

According to Phillips, Matkin got upset. For Matkin’s part, he’d later complain that Phillips had “come to the conclusion the church was racist and that therefore I was racist.” 

 

In 2021, Kera News of North Texas said this concerning issues at Collins College over students begin sent back to class for face to face class in the midst of the pandemic: 

Amid controversies over COVID-19 and fired professors, some blame Collin College's president
Over the past year, several controversies have been swirling around the college system in Collin County, north of Dallas.

Some faculty say morale is low because of continued concerns regarding COVID-19 safety protocols. For a long time, the college didn’t post COVID case counts online. Matkin once wrote that the pandemic’s effects “have been blown utterly out of proportion.” Meanwhile, over the summer, the college’s dean of nursing died from COVID-19 complications.

National organizations have berated the school, blaming Matkin for speech and academic freedom violations. Professors who’ve been fired have sued the college.

Further down this article: 

Tensions began to bubble more than a year ago, after some faculty, like longtime professor Audra Heaslip, wanted the college to consider online-only classes during COVID-19.

“The board of trustees made the decision for the college to go back face-to-face during the pandemic. I did not merely accept that but I questioned it,” Heaslip said. “They told me that I put outside pressure on the college to go completely online, which is not accurate.”

Heaslip was fired. She wasn’t the only one. 

 

There’s history professor Lora Burnett, whose contract wasn’t renewed after she sent a negative tweet about then-Vice President Mike Pence. 

 

Burnett's Twitter post led to complaints from State Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican, who tweeted that Burnett should go. He also sent a text message to Matkin asking if Burnett was paid with taxpayer dollars. Matkin responded, saying he would "deal with it."

Burnett said her free speech rights were violated. The school denied the accusation and said it doesn’t talk about personnel issues. 

 

In October, Burnett sued the college. 

 

The school fired another professor, Suzanne Jones, who taught at Collin College for 20 years. She told KERA it was because she questioned the college’s COVID health protocols. Jones, too, has sued the college. 

Matkin then got into trouble for mocking a Jewish member of the faculty by putting a bowl on his own head when talking about the faculty member mocking the yamalka he wore: 

The high-profile firings grabbed the attention of investigative reporter Michael Vasquez. In preparing a story for the Chronicle of Higher Education, he sought out former Collin College employees, and ran into problems. He learned many had signed nondisclosure agreements or NDAs. They’re rare for universities, but not Collin College, Vasquez said. 

 

“There were a number of former employees who I talked to who mentioned, 'You know, sorry, I wish I could talk to you, wish I could dish dirt or whatever, but I signed an NDA and I can’t,'” Vasquez said. “So I don’t have a firm grasp of how many, but I can tell you it’s not three, it’s not five, not seven. It seems like it’s considerably more.” 

 

Vasquez confirmed a story about the time Matkin put a bowl on his head, as if he were wearing a yarmulke. He was impersonating the college’s previous president, who’s Jewish. 

 

Matkin told Vasquez he was "going for a couple of laughs." 

Collin College history professor and writer Michael Phillips was shocked.
“I wonder how comfortable Jewish people feel at this institution where they think a symbol of their faith is a punchline?” Phillips said. 

 

Matkin, who’s not Jewish, told Vasquez he made a mistake, and would never do that again.

 

D - Lets Make Even Better had this to say about Matkin in March of 2021:

At Collin College, a Collision Over Free Speech

Matkin says he was caught off guard by the opposition to aspects of the reopening. “What I underestimated was that there are people who are scared beyond anything that I could imagine,” he says. “And they weren’t wanting to hear somebody talk to them about operating in the new normal. What they wanted to hear was the college is closing. And I didn’t say that. If I had to go back and do it over again, I wouldn’t try to bring logic to an emotional argument as I did.”

At the time, Matkin told faculty members in an email that the effects of the pandemic were “overblown,” and that Texans were “one hundred times more likely” to die in a car crash than from COVID-19. His math was wrong, Matkin now admits, but he stands behind his point that it was possible to mitigate the risks of the virus.

“I think early on it was hard to get good information. I do not believe [the effects of the pandemic] were overblown. In fact, it’s proven to be a worldwide tragedy,” he says now. “There were things that I did say early on that—would I say them today knowing where this thing was headed and what was going on? No. What I was trying to do was calm fears and trying to help, but I wasn’t terribly helpful at that point.”

News reports citing members of her family say that Iris Meda, the Collin College nursing instructor who died in November after contracting COVID-19, first thought she would be teaching online. Matkin disputes this.

“Iris Meda was planning to teach face-to-face nursing classes from the day that she was hired, and she knew that and had been excited about it, according to folks that knew her,” he says.

Matkin says that Meda and others in her classroom were wearing masks, and administrators do not know for certain whether she contracted the virus at Collin College. One of her students did test positive for the virus shortly before she began experiencing symptoms.

“Her death is tragic,” Matkin says. “It’s unfortunately become a symbol for some [faculty members]. My response to them just recently was, ‘Friends, we have a lot of faculty members that pass away for a lot of reasons.’” (In response to calls that the college memorialize Meda, Matkin has suggestedhonoring “all of our fallen colleagues.”)

Matkin attributes his seemingly callous announcement of Meda’s death—deep in an email about other college updates and news around Thanksgiving—to something of a clerical snafu. He intended that another email with more information on Meda, including details on funeral services, would be sent out first. But it was held up while he waited for word from her family, he says. (The Thanksgiving email did not include Meda’s name.)

One of the most damaging articles about Matkin came from The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

‘That Man Makes Me Crazy’ How one president shattered norms, played down Covid-19, and sent his critics packing.

There is a lot more out there about Matkin, almost none of it flattering.

Academic Association Opens Investigation into Collin College over Fired Professors

After four months of stonewalling, Collin College reveals the ‘contacts from legislators’ over Pence critic

Collin College doesn’t renew contract of noted historian, author who was critical of school

Collin College Settles With History Professor Fired Over Tweets

COGWA Wants You To Know They Don't Water Things Down

Remember, THIS is a Church of God stating this! A splinter group of a splinter group. A splinter group who thought they were more evolved than their mother church, the United Church of God. So, in normal COG fashion, they had a sanctimonious hissy fit and left to form their own church, taking with them hundreds of ministers and members, only after they had enough money to keep the ministry in their privileged lifestyle. The best example of 1st-century Christianity ever!

Our job—the mission Christ gave to us—is to share God’s message of life, hope and truth with the world. We don’t believe that message needs to be updated or polished or reinvented for the modern age. The words of God are as timeless and powerful today as the day they were first recorded.

Throughout the centuries the church has ALWAYS  updated itself, polished and refined itself, and reinvented itself to adapt to the rapidly changing world they were in. While the basic principles might remain the same the overall mission and action of the church has always made itself relevant to the age it was in. Unless of course, you are a Church of God and think you are better than everyone else and you remain stuck in the unreachable "glory years" of the Worldwide Church of God under Herbert Armstrong. The current COG movement is stuck in the past, always trying to recapture some lost value or pipe dream that remains stuck in their heads.

The Bible contains the reason you were created. It contains God’s plan for you and what He expects from you. It explains where the world is heading and why—and how God is going to rescue it. It contains the blueprint for living a successful, meaningful life in the present, and inheriting eternity in the future. 

 

As the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, our job is to share that message with the world and then care for those who respond to it—to give them a place to grow and flourish. We are a community, a brotherhood of believers, marching together toward a common goal—the future promised to us by God.

COGWA, while larger than the improperly named "continuing" Church of God is almost in the same league. No one knows who they are. Other than continuing to poach COG members from other groups, little is known about them. 

Our Values 

 

Our values are developed from those of the New Testament Church. We teach the living Word of God from both the Old and New Testaments, which transforms peoples’ lives. 

 

The Church of God, a Worldwide Association, teaches and practices the same way of life Jesus Christ and the first-century Church of God followed. We observe the seventh-day Sabbath and the annual Sabbaths or Holy Days, as did Jesus and the early Church.

There is no Church of God today with any ties to Herbert Armstrong that teaches and practices what Jesus taught and what the 1st-century church did. No matter how much they claim this, they do not. 

The Great White Man in the Sky

 

Left, an Ashkenazi Rabbi and, right, a Mizrahi Jew. 

Which one does the Armstrongist God look like? 

Which face would you worship?

The Great White Man in the Sky

By NeoTherm

 “Adam was made by God. The God who made Adam was Jesus Christ. "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3). This is speaking of Jesus Christ, the Word, or active Spokesman of the Father. Now notice how Christ made Adam: "And God said: Let us make man {Adam} in our image, after our likeness" (Gen. 1:26). What is the meaning of "likeness?" The facial expression! So Adam looked like Jesus Christ. Adam also looked like God the Father. God said, "Let US make man after OUR image." Both Jesus Christ and God the Father look alike.

   “When Jesus was on earth 4000 years later, He looked exactly like the Father. Jesus was "the express image of His {the Father's} person" (Heb. 1:3). But Jesus also looked like the average Jew! Judas had to kiss Jesus in order to point Him out among His disciples who were also Jews (Luke 22:48).

   “Since Adam looked like Christ and Christ looked like the average Jew, then Adam — the first man — must have resembled the Jew. Adam therefore was a white man as are the Jews! Jews are not Negroes, as a few colored people contend. The Jews are Whites.” Herman Hoeh, “The Race Question”, 195

 “The Great White Man in the Sky” is a fanciful phrase that is rooted in serious Armstrongist theology.  Armstrongists decidedly believe God is a White man – not a biological being but a spiritual paradigm or archetype.  More aptly, God is a White superman.  And, though it is difficult to find clear statements, God very probably abides somewhere in the Cosmos, if not in published Armstrongist theology then in demotic characterization.   This opinion piece is focused on the views on this topic from Classical Armstrongism and uses early information resources.   Denominations derived from the now-defunct Worldwide Church of God may have updated or modified some of these views.  For instance, I recently and unexpectedly collided with the fact that the United Church of God now asserts that God is not bound by space and time.  I have no access to the post-classical theologies of these denominations.  It is expected that most will maintain an appreciable belief in Classical Armstrongism and this writing will be a midrashic response to them. 

The Armstrongist Anthropology 

The deductive path in Hoeh’s statement above is easy to follow.  Jesus looks like God the Father.  Adam looks like Jesus.  Jesus was a White man.  God the Father, Jesus, and Adam all then looked like White men.  Further, Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA) states in his book “Mystery of the Ages” (MOA), page 94, that God in creating Adam “purposed to reproduce himself.”  While Adam was biologically a White man, God is the spiritual and archetypical White man on which Adam is based.  Underpinning this argument is the assumption that God has a body and I have challenged that idea elsewhere.  

Genesis speaks of both an image of God and a likeness.  Hoeh identifies the likeness as God’s “facial expression” or his appearance in the quotation above.   What the image of god actually is varies in Armstrongist publications.  At one point it seems to equate to the bodily form of God (MOA, p. 46).   At another place, HWA states that the image of God consists of two components: “…man, made to become in the character image of God and also in the likeness or form and shape of God (MOA, p. 102).”  Similar variations can be found in archival sources, but nobody seems to have ever retracted the concept of God as a White man.  So this means that, in classical Armstrongism, God is the White man archetype both in persona and soma.  

But a separate question is, “Whom does Hoeh regard to be a White man?”  The two photos at the top of this article are both pictures of Jews.  The man on the left is an Ashkenazi Jew and the man on the right is a Mizrahi Jew.   The Ashkenazi left the Middle East long ago and settled in various places in Europe.  This is the Jewish type Americans are most familiar with.  They are in fact of 30 to 70 percent European ancestry in contravention to the common but mistaken belief that Jews have preserved their racial purity in Diaspora.   The Mizrahi are Jews that never left the Middle East, never went into Diaspora.  They were there in the time of Jesus and they are there now.  Jesus was a Mizrahi in today’s terminology.  There is no reason to believe that Jesus did not look like the Jew on the right. I would expect that Hoeh did not have the Mizrahi in mind when he made his categorical statements about the appearance of God, Jesus, and Adam being like that of a “White” man.  

The Inadvertent Dehumanization of People of Color

God as archetypical White man is a problem.  I would conjecture that this problem was unforeseen at the time that this combination of racial theory and the doctrine of God was developed by whomever and wherever in the Armstrongist movement.   Adam was created in God’s image and Adam was a White man.  This means that the White man is God-like – he possesses both the character and form of God by creation.  What then of people of color?  In line with the Armstrongist view, people of color are a departure in persona and soma from the White ideal and, therefore, from God’s nature.  They are then neither in the image or likeness of God.  And what of people with mixed ancestry?  Might some be only partially in the image and likeness of God?

As a matter of praxis, are the various Armstrongist denominations now on the scene willing to tell people of color in their congregations that they are not in the image or likeness of God while the White congregants are God-like by creation?  

Does this departure from God’s nature mean people of color are somehow inferior to the White race?  The answer, in spite of some earnest advocacy of humanistic values in some of Hoeh’s articles, seems to be ‘Yes.’   This is apparent from Chapter 7 in the MOA.  Here we find that the Gentiles, both White and people of color, will be ruled over in the wonderful world tomorrow by the greatest White people of all: the “Israelites” (as defined by the ideology of Anglo-Israelism).  As HWA states (MOA, p. 341), “And, again, no gentile nation will be as great as one of the Israelite nations.”  For eternity. 

Some Biblical Issues and Christian Views in Brief

The idea that God is a racial type is, of course, wrong. God is Spirit.  The idea that God even has a body as a part of his eternal essence is illogical.  Belief in a corporeal God is just a failure to recognize figures of speech in the Old Testament for what they are.  The image of god and the likeness of God are not a matter of personal proclivities of character and bodily form, respectively, but have to do with intellection, creativity, and the capacity for spiritual understanding. (Admittedly, precisely what Imago Dei is, is controversial among Christian theologians and preachers but what it is not is clear – it is not about bodily shape.  It is about persona but not a particular racial persona.  God would not be limited in such a way that he only knew what it was like to be White in persona and soma.   Such limitation would place the valuable personal attributes of sub-Saharan Africans, for instance, outside God’s cognizance and creative purview.)  And as for the Israelite nations (as defined in Anglo-Israelism) ruling over the Gentile nations, we have this statement in Isaiah:

“And the LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the LORD in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering … they will return to the LORD, and he will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them … Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:19-25)”

This shows Gentile nations (including a dark-skinned Hamitic nation) interacting directly with God without the priestly intervention of national Israel and occupying a status equivalent to Israel in the sight of God, in spite of what Dean Blackwell may have said decades ago. 

Further, the separation of “image” and “likeness” into two different concepts, here reconstituted by HWA (MOA, p. 102), was abandoned by Christian churches in the Middle Ages.  Neither term was thought to refer to God’s bodily shape.  In Genesis 1:27 we find “image” used alone and in Genesis 5:1 we find “likeness” used alone yet both usages in similar contexts.  They seem to be used as synonyms with Genesis 1:26 being a repetition of synonyms for emphasis. 

And A Genetic Constraint

If one insists that the first man was a fleshly replica of God, it is important to establish who the first man was.  The first modern men were haplogroup A and were sub-Saharan Africans of the Negroid racial type.  Other racial types developed as mutations from this original type.  I believe this proliferation of races was guided by God.   This genetic history is imprinted on all human DNA.  And using the logic of HWA’s exegesis, this would make God racially a sub-Saharan African.  I believe that Adam was, rather, a haplogroup J Middle Easterner but that is a larger treatise. 

Conclusion

This is not a diatribe against White people.  I see no reason to believe that White people are in any way more or less important from a Christian perspective than any other race of people.  But for those who accord White people a superior position in the plans of God, this essay may seem like an audacious act of lèse-majesté.  Nobody should accord White people, or any other people, a role in the world as Übermenschen and certainly not based on a misconceived and underdeveloped version of the Doctrine of God.  God is not a man with cellular biology, a genotype, and a phenotype.  He is Spirit.  He does not possess race as an attribute.  There is neither Jew nor Greek in Christ.  And God is not the great White man who lives in the sky.  

Note:  Armstrongist dogma is notoriously difficult to research because each topic is scattered in many publications.  I would appreciate knowing about any published and official dogma that contravenes what I have written.  Please provide the source.  I would especially like to know if the idea that God is a White man archetype has ever been directly retracted. 

 

Breaking in the new year, The Two Witnesses podcast presents: Episode #3 "Walk This Way"

 

Breaking in the new year, The Two Witnesses podcast presents: Episode #3 "Walk This Way"

Two Witnesses Podcast: Walk This Way

If there was anything the Worldwide Church of God was really good at (besides collecting member tithes), it was telling members that they'd better Walk and Talk as the leader Herbert Armstrong and the ministry taught (but notably did not necessarily do themselves). In the specific case of the WCG, and in many of the splinters, members knew and know that they'd better toe the party line or they are to be expunged from the organization and most likely disfellowshipped, which means being estranged from their friends and acquaintances in the church.

This is one of the identifying features of any cult, and in this episode, the Two Witness hosts go through several characteristics that define a "cult", discussing how their own experiences demonstrate these characteristics being manifested in the WCG and its daughter churches. Certainly, many readers here will be able to relate to it.

In this episode, you'll also hear:

HWA railing against any sinful Jezebel-like women who would dare to put on makeup!

Rod Meredith screaming like a madman against what was apparently his favorite subject, sex and the "homosexual queers"!

HWA's obsession with his own importance, and his lackeys and worshippers who even now still lap it up.

Members being put in fear of not being able to escape to the "place of safety" in Petra when HWA gave the word.

Garner Ted Armstrong scaring baptized members by explaining that leaving the church is... the Unpardonable Sin!

At one point Witness Ralph tries to declare himself the new Apostle, but we're having none of that! :)

There's also a shout-out to John Trechak (RIP) that some may know from the once-published Ambassador Report, and another to this very blog, BannedByHWA.

With one more episode being planned after this one, this is the penultimate.  We hope interested listeners will find it worth their time, or at least fodder for further recollection or discussion.

Michael

Gerald Flurry Plans On Educating Israel About Their Archeology With His New Armstrong-Mazar Institute of Biblical Archaeology

Let’s see… the archaeology is being undertaken by Zionist extremists, the City of David Foundation and Christian Zionist students at an unaccredited college of the Church of God, under the leadership of Eilat Mazar, who holds a Bible in one hand while she digs with the other.

Is it any wonder that the excavation comes up with the oddball proclamations they do, when they involve such one-eyed zealots? Unfortunately, their utterly unfounded proclamations are then uncritically accepted by an ignorant and profit-driven mainstream media, a gullible Christian public, and an equally gullible and also nationalistic Israeli public. 

Given such a widespread dissemination of misinformation, it is well worth pointing out the highly suspect groups behind the dig, the routine failure to apply accepted archaeological method, and the completely fanciful and wishful nature of their identifications of archaeological sites with biblical stories. 

Eilat Mazar Uses Fundamentalist Christian Cult to Link Archaeological Finds to ‘King David’

 

Why is it that Armstrongism has so many bloviating fools who think they are authorities on everything and that they need to "educate" the world? The world is too dumb to understand things and certain COG leaders feel the need to run off at the mouth about how they think things should be.

Gerald Flurry in his attempt to imitate Herbert Armstrong, searched for years to establish a connection in Israel in order for his HWA College students could participate in an archeological dig like the Ambassador College students participated in in the 1970s. He soon found that person to work with, Dr. Eilat Mazar, in various digs in Jerusalem.

There is a huge archeological park in Jerusalem called the City of David and has been the site of archeological digs since the 1800s. Flurry was anxious to get this college and church involved in the digs there:

Before she died this past May 25, we had worked for years with archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar in and around the City of David and had developed a very close relationship with her. (If you don’t have one, we would be happy to send you a free copy of our latest Watch Jerusalem magazine, which we devoted entirely to Dr. Mazar and her findings.) There are some very talented archaeologists in the world, especially in Jerusalem, but I believe Dr. Mazar will be remembered as one of the greatest archaeologists of all time. 

 

A few years ago, we reached out to Dr. Mazar to see if she could arrange a meeting for us with David Be’eri. Mr. Be’eri established the City of David Foundation and is renovating the City of David archaeological park. His foundation also purchases properties and owns a lot of real estate in the City of David. He is quite an authority over that area, and we wanted to see if we could talk with him to understand his plans for future archaeological excavations, when those would occur and who would be involved. We have always felt that excavation of the palace of David is incomplete. We wanted to help finish it, and we wanted to see if Mr. Be’eri and others were thinking the same way.

Flurry makes it sound like the folks doing the archeological digs there were too stupid to understand what was under their feet. However, as you can see in this video they are well aware of what is there.

Flurry continues:

We really wanted Dr. Mazar’s support, but she wasn’t totally comfortable with helping us arrange a meeting and did not want to accompany us. We prayed about it and tried hard to persuade her, but she remained unmoved.

But then, in February 2019, I visited Jerusalem. We met with Dr. Mazar and talked with her for probably an hour—and we saw her totally change her mind. She was now pleased for us to meet with Mr. Be’eri and arranged the meeting for us! 

 

We met Mr. Be’eri at his office the following day. We quickly saw that he is a mover and a shaker in Jerusalem, even more than we were expecting. He trained with the Israeli commandos in the famous 1976 raid in Entebbe, Uganda, where 100 Jewish hostages were freed. One of the other commandos, the only one who was killed, was Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother. Mr. Be’eri is still close with Benjamin Netanyahu. 

 

Mr. Be’eri has accomplished some wonderful things in the City of David archaeological park. As part of his job, he goes to wealthy people and asks them to support his work in the City of David. When they ask, What’s in it for us? he tells them, I want to give you something that will give more meaning to your life. What a beautiful and noble answer! This man sincerely seeks to bring Christians and Jews and everybody else together. He even has a working relationship with archaeologist Israel Finkelstein, who disagrees quite a bit with Dr. Mazar’s findings and has serious doubts about David and Solomon’s presence in the City of David and on the Ophel. But Mr. Be’eri is a strong man, like Zadok, who was a warrior before he became a priest. He tells it like it is, and it’s refreshing to meet somebody like that. 

 

We showed him pictures of Herbert W. Armstrong’s involvement with Prof. Benjamin Mazar and his meetings with Israeli prime ministers and presidents. He told us he expected excavations at David’s palace to resume in two years (this was before COVID-19 brought everything to a standstill in Israel). At that time, he told us Dr. Mazar would be the one doing the digging. And since Dr. Mazar said previously that she would not dig without Herbert W. Armstrong College participation, we hoped that we would be involved in this dig at the City of David. 

 

But things have been in a holding pattern for some time because of coronavirus lockdowns. Then when Dr. Mazar died this past spring, we wondered how that would further affect things.

On the surface having an opportunity for his college students to participate in a dig is a worthwhile project, but being that Flurry is a megalomaniac COG leader, he has a deeper motive and that is to insert his biblical interpretations into what he thinks should be said about the archeological excavations. He also sees this as a prime opportunity to gain a footing in Jerusalem so that they are center stage when the battle of Armageddon happens and the two witless witnesses (always COG members - most likely Bob Thiel and Laura Weinland) will be preaching the message of Herbert Armstrong in the streets of Jerusalem. This will be the message that Herbert supposedly restored and not too much about Christ.

Flurry sees this as his mission now to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars in tithe money into establishing his presence in Jerusalem, because once again, he deems the Israelies too stupid to understand their own archeology. They need the COG version of archeology.

Of course, we want to be involved in this next phase of ongoing excavations in the City of David and would like to get there as soon as possible! We are working even now to visit Israel so we can meet and discuss how we can assist. But when great doors like this open, there is always great opposition. I’d like to ask that you be praying and fasting about this potential opportunity. 

 

I believe that we are going to be moving more and more into Jerusalem to get involved in a dig very soon. 

 

Israel is experiencing a lot of bad news these days. Many Israelis are in despair about their nation’s future. But there is a message of great hope in their own archaeology— and we want to do all we can to share this great hope! 

 

I believe we can and must use ARCHAEOLOGY as a means of reaching the cities of Judah. Because we understand and believe the Bible, we can add incredible meaning to the archaeology of Jerusalem and Israel!

Flurry claims he will not be proselytizing with any of Herbert's theology and just wants to let the stones speak for themselves. We all know that is a lot of deceptive crap. Or maybe not, considering how Herbert Armstrong himself was too embarrassed to discuss Jesus Christ and could only talk about " a strong hand from someplace". Flurry is the same way. He can talk about Irish dance, Herbert's coronation stone, British Israelism, and loads of other non-essential crap, but rarely is Jesus ever mentioned.

During our meeting, Mr. Be’eri gave us approval to give tours of Dr. Eilat Mazar’s archaeological discoveries in the City of David and on the Ophel. We explained to him that we do not intend to proselytize or preach, that we simply want to take the history as it is recorded in the Hebrew Bible and put it alongside the archaeology. To use the words of Dr. Mazar, we simply want to “let the stones speak.” He agreed, and in essence supported us taking this message of Dr. Mazar to the cities of Judah.

Never fear though, the great Savior from Oklahoma, the anointed King of the Church of God and owner of the very throne that Christ will return to, is setting up a new foundation to educate Israel on how things should be:

For many years, I have talked with our Jerusalem department about the need for a new archaeological institute in Jerusalem. Based on feedback we have received from Dr. Mazar and others in the world of biblical archaeology, this field is presently in deep trouble. Biblical archaeology as a field of study is not growing—it is rapidly shrinking. Some of the great biblical archaeologists and professors, like Eilat Mazar and Hershel Shanks, the founder of Biblical Archaeology Review, have recently died. 

 

Worse than this, the spirit of secularism and intellectualism so prevalent in the world has crept into the field of biblical archaeology. There are still biblical archaeologists working today, and some are very good at what they do—but some simply don’t use the Bible enough. Many don’t give it enough credibility or view it as a true authority in their work. In addition, the number of young people getting into the field of biblical archaeology is diminishing. Many just don’t see a future in biblical archaeology. 

 

I believe we need to take action to help solve this problem: There is a desperate need now for some sort of institute or organization to come on the scene and revive biblical archaeology! We need an institution that promotes the Bible as a credible and essential historical source in the practice of archaeology in Israel. More importantly, this institution needs to make biblical archaeology available to the largest audience possible—especially the people of Israel! 

 

I am pleased to say, we are creating just such an institute! 

 

We plan to call it the Armstrong-Mazar Institute of Biblical Archaeology. Right now, our Jerusalem team is creating the website for this new institute. As you are probably familiar with, we already operate watchJerusalem.co.il. Soon we will have two websites for Israel: one that focuses on news and prophecy, and the institute website, which will focus on archaeology.

Church of God archeology and interpretations of that history through the lens of a COG cult leader. This is a train wreck ready to happen!

Flurry is changing the name of his current Watch Jerusalem to a new name to reflect this new education program:

In addition, we are planning some major changes to our print magazine Watch Jerusalem. Starting with the January-February issue, the magazine will be renamed Let the Stones Speak. This will be the magazine of the new institute, and it will focus solely on biblical archaeology.

He then adds this blatant lie:

Let me repeat this point because it’s important: The purpose of this new institute is not to proselytize or convert. The goal is to connect archaeology and the Bible and to show people how much hope there is in archaeology!

This is nothing more than a way to promote Armstrongism, though it will be the PCG version of Armstrongism which bears little resemblance to anything Herbert said or did now that Flurry has rewritten everything. 

The Church of God has sadly become a clown show with crazy leaders saying and doing crazy things. As the years go by and they get older, the craziness will intensify till they reach a snapping point and COG members will feel the brunt of that craziness.

Isaiah 40:9 says, “Get thee up into the high mountain” to proclaim this message. The City of David area is mountainous. One time we were in a vehicle trying to navigate through the cars in a parking lot. As Dr. Mazar was trying to turn, she pulled right up to a cliff where you could look down, and it was scary how far down the cliff went into the Valley of Jehoshaphat! I BELIEVE THE PLACE OF THE DIG—INCLUDING EVERYTHING HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG WAS INVOLVED IN AND EVERYTHING WE ARE DOING NOW—IS THIS “HIGH MOUNTAIN.”

Open your wallets and checkbooks, boys and girls! It's time to give Flurry some more money! New buildings need to be bought, display cases made, a room for a library needs to be built, and more. 

If we are going to create an institute in Jerusalem, then we really need a building or some sort of office space. We need a space to display our exhibits and to office our staff, who will be producing the magazine and website, as well as engaging in important research. We need a space where people can come and book tours of ancient Jerusalem. 

 

Here is another reason I believe we need some real estate in Jerusalem: This summer we purchased the combined library of Benjamin and Eilat Mazar! This is an incredible blessing for us and a huge sign from God! When a scholar dies, it’s not unusual for his or her research library to be consolidated and then sold at auction. Many institutions and wealthy collectors are prepared to pay good money to own the personal library of an esteemed scholar. 

 

Needless to say, we were thrilled when Dr. Mazar’s family agreed to sell us her library—without it ever going to auction! When we first purchased the library, we believed we were receiving around 3,000 books. As it turns out, the number was closer to 4,000.

Like Herbert Armstrong, Bob Thiel, and Dave Pack, the need to be seen as important weighs heavily on these cult leaders. 

That’s not all: In October, Mr. Nagtegaal was at the archaeology department at Hebrew University and noticed boxes upon boxes of books on archaeology and the Bible. We told him to inquire about these books and see if they were available for purchase. Hebrew University gave them all to us free! The number of books in this collection totaled around 4,000! 

 

Last spring, our office in Jerusalem had maybe a hundred books on archaeology and the Bible. By August, that number had grown to 3,000, by September it was 4,000, and by the end of October it had grown to 8,000! 

 

Do you think God wants us to start a biblical archaeology institute in Jerusalem? Owning the library of Prof. Benjamin Mazar and Dr. Eilat Mazar will provide a massive boost to our credibility! This library will be an important part of our institute. 

 

As part of the purchase, there is a stipulation that the libraries must be accessible to the public. This will again necessitate a larger office presence for God’s Work in Jerusalem. God will have to show us how to do this. But it does seem He is telling us to put more emphasis on the archaeology message! Because maybe that is going to be at the heart of what we do from now on, in the most efficient way we possibly can.

Flurry goes on to say:

We have to realize, as Mr. Armstrong said: God’s Church is a miracle! The PCG is a miracle! You are a miracle! Everything this Church is doing in Edmond and around the world and in Jerusalem is a miracle of God! How else could you and I be doing what we are doing? God must really be involved in this Church!

This has to be so humiliating to Bob Thiel, shuttered away in a dingey little brick building in Central CA and relegated to the sub-continent of Africa instead of in Isreal where they heed to hear his message. 

Things may not go too well with Flurry's newest escapade.

The foolishness of our current leaders in the COG is appalling.

You can read the entire Member/Co-worker Letter here on Exit and Support Network.