Ambassador Big Sandy 1976 Reunion

This just in from the Big Sandy Class of 76 Reunion Planning Committee:

Hello Dear Friends!

Will you help us find fellow classmates of the Ambassador College Big Sandy Class of 1976? We entered as freshman in the Fall of 1972 and it seems impossible to believe its been 35 years since we graduated! Well then, - I'd say, it's time to party again!

We're in the beginning stage of organizing a college reunion!
We're including everyone who was part of the incoming class of 1972 or who joined our class in the years of 1972 through 1976. We are looking forward to reminincing with you who have shared many of the same memories of the wonderful years we had together in East Texas. (If we can still remember them!)

Many more details will follow in the next few weeks and months -- but in the meantime -

Save this date: 2nd weekend in August (Aug 12th - 14th).
Place: Dallas, Texas (Charles Melear is helping us locate a meeting place and we'll provide all the details in the next few weeks.)

AND, we need your help to locate our classmates. If you know of fellow classmates who were part of this class -- please direct them to: http://www.ACReunion.info for more information and updates that will be coming soon!

Can't wait to see you all again.

Much MORE to come...

Warm Regards,

Tony Hill, Jolinda Schreiber, Scott & Connie Ashley,
Jennifer Halprin, Angie Kelley & Paula Jo Frazee

Your AC Reunion Planning Committee

More information and pictures of AC students from all three campuses can be fond here:  AC Reunion Site

Armstrong and the Church of God Cult

Another Soul Touched By Armstrongism (And Not In A Good Way!)

The End Game February 2011

I have hesitated posting this because it has been getting so much press lately.  But heck, anything I can post here that gets Watchman in a dither I will do it!  :-)

Bobby Fischer: another sad legacy of Armstrongism.

Fischer was invited to Ambassador College do do a chess seminar. Once there he got caught up in the mire of Armstrongism.  He was already having lots of life issues and mental health issues. Fischer's problems only multiplied the longer he stayed in contact with Armstrongism.

Harry Sneider, former Ambassador College PE Department  trainer has his take on Fischer in this The Journal article.

Ambassador Reports had this information about him in it's first magazine issues

Chess Champion Bobby Fischer had quite a lot to say about
the Armstrongs. In an interview with the Ambassador Report
editor, Fischer said, "I was trying to buy God." From 1967
through 1974 he gave a total of $94,315 to the Worldwide Church
of God. In 1972, the year he won his championship by defeating
Soviet champion Boris Spassky, he donated $61,200 to the Church.
He said, "This idea of Herbert's that you can't trust your own
thoughts - that's the key doctrine that I think has to be blasted
out. I would say that if there's one thing that is the whole
essence of Armstrongism, that is it. That's how he screws up your
mind, that's how he hangs on to people." He said further
regarding Armstrong's prophetic failure, that the Church would be
taken to safety in 1972, "Like the Bible says, when a prophet
makes prophecies that don't come true, then that guy is not of
God and you don't have to be afraid of him. Yet Church members
are afraid of him (HWA), and he's failed umpteen times. This guy,
Armstrong, in terms of religion, is the world's biggest loser....
But I was really upset in 1972 when Herbert Armstrong refused to
apologize. He could have just apologized and said, 'I became
overly enthusiastic. I wanted Christ to return so badly.
Everything seemed to fit. Please excuse me. I won't do that
again.'"
Fischer had not become disillusioned with God, but as he
came to realize that his relationship with Christ was a spiritual
one and was not dependent on massive contributions to a
self-proclaimed apostle, he did become disillusioned with Herbert
Armstrong. He said, "Herbert Armstrong has a way with words. You
know, he seems so sincere. He has all the right principles:
dedication, hard work, perseverance, never giving up. He's
dogged: he's persistent. You know, from reading his stuff and
listening to his sermons, you'd think he was very interested in
God. But when you meet him personally, there is nothing there at
all. I find Armstrong to be an egomaniac. He sitteth in the
temple of God saying great things as if he were God. He
apparently wants to leave his permanent mark on all he comes in
contact with and can bring into submission. He is simply a madman
who would love to rule the world."

(Obviously with the fame Bobby Fisher had, as the world's "chess
champion," he had met HWA, and you've just heard what he said,
"...you'd think he was very interested in God, But when you meet him
personally, there is nothing there at all." --- That says it all.
If you ever meet me, and I do have a little fame of sorts from
this Website, I hope you'll never be able to say such words as
Fisher said about HWA - Keith Hunt)

He gave over ninety thousand of dollars to to the church.  This was a time that Armstrongism was using it's two celebrity "member's" as tools for better publicity.  They were also exploiting Dan Truitte from the Sound of Music.  GTA was trumpeting him out during the America Listen's Campaigns.

He got arrested by the Pasadena Police Department and shares his tale of woe here: I Was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse

He renounced his US citizenship, and was delighted when the World Trade Center was attacked. He despised Israel and the Jews.

Instead of playing tournaments, Fischer retreated to the protective cocoon of the Worldwide Church of God, an apocalyptic cult that predicted the end of the world every four to seven years and whose members tithed up to 30 percent of their income. Such protection came at a steep price. It was reported that out of his $200,000 income that year he donated $61,200 to the WCG. "They cleaned out my pockets," he later said. "Now my only income is a few royalty checks from my books. I was really very foolish." To show its appreciation for such a generous contribution, the WCG treated Fischer almost as if he were the very deity the Church's members had been waiting for. He lived in WCG-owned apartments, was entertained at fancy restaurants, and flew to exotic spots in the Church's private jet. And Fischer was set up on the first dates of his life, with attractive WCG members. A fellow WCG member, Harry Sneider, says that this hedonistic lifestyle had a detrimental effect on Fischer: "He got pampered and got a lot of attention. It made him soft."

Fischer's relationship with the WCG, like all the others in his life, didn't last. In 1977, after a bitter falling-out that led Fischer to claim that the WCG was taking its orders from a "satanical secret world government," he cut all ties with the Church. Then he crawled even further into his own netherworld. He began dressing like a hobo. He took up residence in seedy hotels. He began worrying about the purity of his bodily fluids. He bought great quantities of exotic herbal potions, which he carried in a suitcase, to stave off the toxins he feared might be secretly put in his food and water by Soviet agents. According to a 1985 article in Sports Illustrated, Fischer medicated himself with such esoteric remedies as Mexican rattlesnake pills ("good for general health") and Chinese healthy-brain pills ("good for headaches"). His suitcase also contained a large orange-juice squeezer and lots and lots of vitamins. He always kept the suitcase locked, even when he was staying with friends. "If the Commies come to poison me, I don't want to make it easy for them," he explained to a friend. Perhaps the most telling sign of his rapid mental deterioration was that he insisted on having all his dental fillings removed. "If somebody took a filling out and put in an electronic device, he could influence your thinking," Fischer confided to a friend. "I don't want anything artificial in my head."

The low point of Fischer's California sojourn came on May 26, 1981, when two Pasadena police officers stopped him for an ID check. By then he had unkempt hair, a scraggly beard, and tattered clothes, and looked like an aging hippie down on his luck. He also generally fit the description of a man who had recently committed two bank robberies in the neighborhood. He refused to answer questions and was taken to jail, where he spent forty-eight hours. "All he had to do was tell the police he was Bobby Fischer, the chess player, and the whole thing would have been over," a friend says. "But he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Submitting to authority is a foreign concept to Bobby." A year later Fischer privately published a fourteen-page pamphlet titled "I Was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse!" The pamphlet, which became a surprise best seller in chess shops across the country, is a melodramatic account of Fischer's confinement. The subheadings say it all: "Brutally Handcuffed." "Choked." "Isolation & Torture." "Sick Cop." The Atlantic

Relationships

Relationships

This is a toughy.  I loved the relationships I had in WCG.  In all the churches I ever pastored, I found my best friends.  Of course, what joined us was the common hope that lay within us.

WCG provided me friends and relationships I never would had in any other context.  The people I met at AC were very sincere and just good folks.  They came from everywhere in the country and in fact, the world.  I never would have known them were it not for the church.

I did date some of the same girls Garner Ted did.  ( :(  )  Naive and very fine human beings with a desire to do and believe the right things.  They were not insincere.  They were not looking for power or recognition.  They simply wanted to be a part of the right thing.  They wanted to do the right thing and see the Bible in the correct way.  The best friends I ever had were members of the WCG.

One of my best friends was a guy I met in Ohio when I was transferred there.  He always spoke his mind and while , at first, it made me nuts and distrustful, I now realize he simply knew how to express what he was observing and it made me, as a young minister,   uncomfy.   The problem was with me, not him.  We moved to Ohio and rented a house next to the railroad tracks , which to us was a palace.  Ok, we had to put up with the train going past, but it was steady and predicatable and I loved the sound of it.  It relaxed me at night.  We lived so close to the tracks that any accident would have taken us immediately into the Kingdom of God.  

I remember well this fellow, who helped us move in, saying..."I just wanted to see what my tithe money was doing."  Ugh....give me a break.  I have to live somewhere.  But he was honest and it was that honesty that bound us rather closely over the years.  He eventually got booted as a deacon from the church for being too honest and observant.  I returned for a reunion of ministers in this Ohio congregation.  The present minister was "honoring" the deacons for their work in the church and, of course, he was left out.  He was sitting in front of me and while listening to the minister tell of the other men's service, I took out a piece of paper and wrote:

" In honor of Gary________, For years of dedicated service and care in the Worldwide Church of God."

I reached around him and put it in his hands.  He looked back at me with a look time can never erase.  "Thank you," he said somewhat stunned.  We have been closer friends ever since.  

I made and lost some of the best friends I ever had in the bonds made in the WCG.

This past weekend I went to celebrate the 3rd birthday of my grandson.  He is the only boy of three other goddesses I call my grandchildren.  Sheridan, Maggie, Lily and Nicholas.  My ex wife was there and it was difficult.

Nothing that has transpired is her "fault."  Everything just fell apart.  When you life church, church, church 24/7 and it goes as WCG went, it just all falls apart.  She came from a long time WCG family.  We had our good years raising two great boys.  We went to the Toledo Zoo after church services on the holy Sabbath and took some heat but mostly made people think perhaps life was not to be such a church burden.  This was in the 70's.  Every Friday night in the winter we went to the YMCA to swim with the kids and have "family time."  No one gave us a hard time for that and I told them that's what we did.  We ended the Friday night swim with a trip to Dunkin Donuts with the boys in their "jammies" and life was good.  

Once my youngest climbed into a locker at the YMCA and locked himself in.  I told him to keep talking and Dad would find him.  It was hilarious.  I finally found the appropriate locker and liberated this small, naked and goofy kid from his prison.  We laughed our butts off.

Another time, I took my oldest, then 5 , to a funeral in Kentucky.  On the coffin there was a spay of flowers and a red toy telephone with a sign that said, "Jesus called."  He asked me what the toy phone was all about and I explained the concept to him. Then I got called to give the sermon.  He grabbed me almost in a panic and I said, "Let go, I have to speak."  He said in a panic not since heard,  "Dad...if that phone rings, please don't answer it!"   Another great memory.  All through the service the coffin between me and him sitting on the front row, he glared at me as if to say  "Dad...don't answer it."  Now he'd probably say, "Dad, go ahead and answer it."  But that is another story  :)

Anyway, driving home from the weekend alone and having seen everyone in my past life was a bit difficult.  I can't unring the bell.  I can't fix all that is broken.  I never would have predicted the route my marriage and life would have taken, and yes, I did make my decisions along the way that have cost much.

I have had a couple relationships since then.  Mistakes were made and the price has been paid.  It's me, the Shih Tzu and the Lionhead Goldfish at the moment and it's not been easy.  I have endeavored to meet new people through the various web based sites, but somehow I am the most comfortable with those that know my past and understand.  Loneliness is a concept I never knew until the last couple years.  I am sure somewhere along the line there were singles who expressed this concept to me and I said some really dumb shit stuff as how they needed to solve it.  Boy, has the Karma Fairy flown over and taught me a lot about shallow advice not based in reality.

I don't find people all that honest about what makes them tick.  As I have written in the past, everyone wears masks. Masks tend to grow into the skin and are ever so hard to take off.  However, dropping them is liberating.  I imagine the cost of  being oneself, by most, is considered too high and so they fake it. 

Everyone Wears Masks - Your Pastor and Priest, Your Mom, Dad, Family, and YOU!

 

At any rate, the best friends I ever had were the members who drove me nuts when I was their pastor.  They were right.  They had nothing to lose being right, well except their membership in the group think.  

I find that lost relationships is a very big issue in the demise of the WCG.  We all had absolutely nothing in common and at the same time, everything in common.

I miss those relationships and am sorry they ended as they did.  

I do not miss my relationship with "Headquarters."  What a mess that always was.  Were you telling me the truth or were you shitting me?  In hindsite, you were shitting me.  You were my friends but then you became my worse enemy.  You lied and made excuses for the obvious and proved to be shallow friends at best.  "We will take care of you," came to mean, "by screwing you."  We "wish you well and will pray for  you," meant "We dont give a rats ass about you and probably won't pray for you either."  Those in high places were relationships that taught me well what "be warmed and be filled" really meant.

Life is relationships.  Some people come into our lives forever, for a time, for a season and then either stay or leave.  There is much to learn from each, but it can be very painful.   

My thanks to those who have hung with me through the years.  For those who have come and gone, I thank you as well and wish it may have been better or different.  

I never came into the WCG for anything less than doing and believing the right thing.  I have learned much from the experience but the price has been high.

They say that experience is the BEST teacher, BUT the tuition is high.  I have learned that experience is the ONLY teacher and all else is mere hearsay.  

That doesn't mean it's easy or how one wish it had gone...

DenniscDiehl@aol.com 

All Else Aside...I had to Be There

All Else Aside...I had to Be There

I'll make this short but straightforward.  I speak ONLY for myself and yes, I have many regrets.  

However....

...in my heart of hearts, I know that I had to be there. 

 I was 14 years old when I heard my first sermon.  It was in Idaho and it was about the universe and "God."  I had been reading the booklets all week having just been introduced to the Church my older sister and brother-in-law had become convinced was close to whatever the Bible was trying to tell us.  I was hooked.  No one EVER gave a sermon on the Universe in our Presbyterian background.  I can't remember one sermon from my youth in the Presbyterian Church.  But this one I never forgot.  

I devoured the Plain Truth Magazine and all the booklets I could get my hands on.  It was the 60's.  Hell, the whole world was going to hell in a handbasket.  JFK had just been killed.  MLK and Bobby were next.  There were about to be Two major Middle Eastern wars endeavoring to wipe Israel off the map.  (Update 2011...Go ahead, be my guest now.  Wipe it off the face of the earth).  I simply had to be where this church was. 

For the next four years through High School, I read all I could.  I talked to my girl friend who I was sure I'd marry someday.  Hmmm, not going over so well there.  Oh well, perhaps God was not calling her.  (Update 2011...Lucky girl)   I applied to two seminaries after High School.  One was Roberts Weslyan which was Methodist and the other was Ambassador College.  (Update 2011...I honestly thought it was a seminary according to what I saw in the perspectus).   I chose...well you know.

Loved AC.  Too stupid to know I was not getting the whole story.  I used to go down to Fuller Seminary in Pasadena to study.  They had a much better library.  Never crossed my mind to transfer there because, well...they just weren't called like I was.   Made lots of friends at AC.  Most are now players in "Days of our Lives...The Wildworld Church of God and It's Many Faces."  (Update 2011...Thank you God for not letting me keep following your true Church all over creation the last 20 years.)   

But...I had to be there right up until the moment I realized I no longer could. 

I made my choices over the years of turmoil and scandal.  Ok, people are weak but so was David and of course....DAVID WAS A MAN AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART, so see, it all works out.  While embarrassing and that niggly little voice was telling me get out during the receivership era, well...Satan really hated God's Church so of course stuff like this is going to happen.  Besides, it is cleansing and we will be better than ever.  I called once a week to hear recordings by "God's leading evangelist updates on the situation, and we were winning!!!  (Update 2011...you know, like Charlie Sheen is "winning...duh! )

So I had to be there and NOTHING you could have done would have talked me out of it, until I talked myself out of it and even then, had to be pushed.  I hated letting the local church down but when push came to shove, they all disappeared like I had the plague anyway.  Big wake up there!

Somewhere along the way, I'd say around '94 or '95, I started to crack.  I read outside the WCG box and devoured John Shelby Spong's book, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism.  

 

Hmmmm....this guy just answered almost every question I had about what never made sense about the Gospels.  I loved his books and his honesty.  I wrote JSS and told him how much I appreciate his perspectives and how helpful they were to me and in answering questions I had wondered about over the years that my Church never addressed.  Actually they didn't know there were questions to ask.  JSS wrote back personally...

 

"Thank you very much Dennis for your kind words and I am pleased I have been able to help.  I'm glad you appreciate my work...however...

...you won't survive.

Warm regards

John Shelby Spong"

Wow...the man was not only a Bishop, but also a Prophet.   I continued on reading JSS's works on the Birth and Death stories of Jesus.  Craaaacccck.....I wove wonderful things in to my sermons for a time. I read all of Raymond Brown's books on the Birth and Death of the Messiah.  Big books, long books, deeply thought out books....and I wove them into my sermons for a time.  I was asked to teach at the local Catholic Church Bible studies on the topic of Jesus Birth Narratives.  Raymond Brown was a great RCC scholar and well respected.  The Priest and I had become friends having met at the Annual AIDS something or other and it was there I actually was able to make a contact for my local WCG to meet that was much nicer.  It was an actual church building and very nice.  Of course, I was teaching in the RCC study what I dare not ever teach to my own congregation.  They even paid me!!!  

The Priest and I got along so well with our biblical interests that he asked me to do the marriages the RCC would not do.  I was kinda like a bastard well hidden priest doing for the congregation what the real Priest could not do for them.  Ccccrrrrraaaackkkk.  I was learning there was so much more in the world of theology than what I had been told.  Of course, I prayed my own congregation did not ask me much about it although a few did come and loved the studies on the Birth Narratives of Jesus.  

I still had to be there.  I think WCG was falling apart out in Pasadena, but my denial was keeping me in and hoping the church would just grow up. Maybe I could help it do so.

But it got bad.  In 1996 I did win that's years essay contest in Biblical Archaeology Magazine on "we have the money to send you to any dig in Israel...why should we send you?"  Long story short, out of all the people in the world that year, I won.  I spent over three weeks at BAR's expense digging in Har Megiddo  (The Valley of Megiddo)  I was in ho..., cow heaven.   I came home and shortly after that I was terminated.  

I wonder at what point I would have made my own decision to leave.  Everything was coming unglued.  Transitions are messy and I was no exception to that truth.  Everything suffers.  New perspectives replace old ones and those who used to inspire no longer can or do.  

But up to that point.  I had to be there until I didn't.  No one made me stay and once the damn broke in my mind, then and only then could I leave.  

My last Festival Sermon was on "The Politics of the New Testament."  You know, the who was the Apostle Paul really?  Why does he call Peter James and John "reputed pillars" and then add, "I learned nothing from them..." etc.  What was going on?  Who was on whose side and did they all really speak the same thing?  I loved giving that sermon. I had a ball. We laughed (passive aggressive humor is my style and yes I was serious even if it was funny) and when it was all said and done, 8000 kind folk applauded on and on when it was FORBIDDEN  :)   It was worse than running with scissors.

That Spring, it was over.  Lots of things were over.  

But I had to be there, until I no longer could be.  I made my choices. No one made me stay too long.  I had a wonderful mix of denial and hope for a time and denial bit me in the ass finally.  Denial still does that to me at times even now.  

But for all that time, I had to be there until I no longer could be.  I accept responsibility for my choices, staying longer than some or even most and not wanting to "take our local church Dennis and let's just be our own selves."  Uh..no.  I told those guys that they'd have me for lunch within six months and I had a life to get back in order.  Still working on that...

But I had to be there until I no longer could and I accept responsibility for all my choices that have brought me to where I am today.  

Where am I?  :)  I have no idea, but I am NOT stuck in the never ending story of WCG/UCG/PCG/RCG/ and all the other COG's and men who have never yet read Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism and to this day, have no idea they do not yet understand the Book well enough to teach the truth about it. 

DenniscDiehl@aol.com   

Al Portune's Story

Someone sent me a great link to Al Portune's story of his life.  It is fascinating reading and brings back many memories of life in Pasadena.  Names and places that have meaning to so many people. 

Al's story begins with meeting his wife, heading off to War serving in the Coast Guard and then finding Ambassador College.  He tells about his rise up in the organization with HWA and GTA's encouragement.  Then he tells about his time as manager of the finance department.  Being exposed to the use of money and having to sign the checks started opening his eyes.  Confrontations with HWA over his begging for money started to seal his fate.

He tells of his leaving the the employ of the church and has quest for expanding his knowledge.  Too few in Armstrongism have ever dared to question religion, life, where we come from, etc.  Far too many prefer to have someone else tell them the answers.  It alleviates any responsibility for accountability on their part.

Al has obviously advance far beyond COG thought into something far more meaningful to him.

Astounding as it may be, on honest investigation, the basis of religion has little changed from the religion of primitive man. It is still belief in gods who control everything, even life and eternal life itself. Most of mankind still feels it cannot be safe and have any kind of secure present or future without serving, worshipping, placating one or more of those gods. Religion has become more sophisticated as MAN “tweaked” it, added to it, embellished it and tailored it to the benefit of power centers, profitable institutions and self aggrandizement. However, sacrifice of one kind or another is still a requisite, predominantly sacrifice of money for those who have found that religion is a lucrative business. Promoting their religion as the “salvation for man” requires money and is perhaps the most prominent sacrifice to enable the “preaching of the gospel or “good news” to the world . One could list thousands of sacrifices and offerings threaded through manifold religions, but it is still that same primitive motivation – that sacrifice, offerings, sacraments and worship bring existential advantage.

The grandeur of religion’s leaders, their robes, their churches and cathedrals, the pomp and “sanctity” displayed, the rituals so “elegantly” displayed and on an on create the illusion of a sanctity and relationship to “god” that even those in those exalted positions are looked to as actual vicars or representatives of god himself. The desire to be recognized and acclaimed as the leader or founder of a church or religious movement is great. It even was thousands and thousands of years ago in the preeminence of being “the Medicine Man.” But it all goes back to the first primitive placation of existential apprehensions and those who devised methods of placation.

For me it has come down to an elementary acceptance of what this earth and its long, long history has brought forth naturally and spontaneously based on the “forces” at work upon it going back to a “beginning” beyond the comprehension of mankind. What those forces or “a force” has brought forth on this earth has followed a pattern. Not a religiously defined pattern but a natural pattern, verified by the “natural evidence” that has progressed from the very first elements of life down to the present highest form of life extant on earth – man. Religion ignores or seeks to refute that natural process and replace it with various creation stories that establish a power basis that is nowhere evident in the natural evidence on this earth. Creation by fiat establishes a god concept and therefore a power that controls all things and must therefore be served, placated, obeyed and worshipped according to a methodology devised by “religion” that was created by man.  

Check out his story here:  Religion and WCG  or the Index here: Index of Memoirs

New Book Based on Armstrongism: The Last Great Day

From Benjamin Grant Mitchell's site:

 THE LAST GREAT DAY

A novel based on a TRUE STORY

The author of THE LAST GREAT DAY, Benjamin Grant Mitchell, was born into a cult who believed the world was going to end sometime in the nineteen-seventies. Throughout his childhood his father was a minister in The Worldwide Church of God, an American based religion started by Herbert W. Armstrong, a former Oregon advertising man. The cult followed a mixture of religious beliefs including viewing medical assistance as unholy. As a result Benjamin’s Aunty and baby twin brothers died in otherwise preventable circumstances.

When prophecies for the End Time repeatedly failed, the Mitchell family moved to church headquarters in Pasadena, California, discovering rumours of sexual and financial corruption were well founded. Despite having no savings or home to return to (the cult paid rent and minimal wages), and knowing his family would be isolated from friends and extended family, Minister Mitchell resigned. On the way back to Australia, Benjamin turned ten in Hawaii, and although the cult banned celebrating birthdays, it was a notable milestone for the Mitchell’s, who began life for the first time free of the influence of a deluded megalomaniac.

THE LAST GREAT DAY is based on actual events including ex-members and friends of church leaders reporting child abuse at the highest ranks. It is set during the most tumultuous period of the cult’s existence, culminating when hundreds of thousands of members from around the world learned (via a 60 Minutes USA exposé), the Californian government was investigating the church for fraud. This turned out to be the beginning of the end —  not of the world, as Armstrong had falsely predicted for years —  but for his cult.

More information here:   Benjamin Grant Mitchell

A Lesson for the Churches of God

A Lesson for the Churches of God

(and all humans)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10084L3Pqsc

Was there ever a time in your past when you wondered what would be going on in the year 2011?  If you speculating as someone then immersed in the 50's or 60's or 70's it would have seemed like a million years away.  If you were a member of the Worldwide Church of God, and could know, the following truths now revealed by then would be as follows.

Surely by then...Jesus will have returned

The Kingdom will be here

I'd be ruling over others  (this one never appealed to me. I wanted to go fishing and be left alone for a few thousand years)

The deaf would hear, the blind would see and the lame man leap as a hart

The Lion and the Lamb would be best buddies

Everyone would going to the Feast and I mean everybody....or else.

Sermons would be given by the real Apostles when God and Jesus were away on business

We would be proven to have been right about everything

Well, maybe not Mr. Waterhouse.....

However and Actually...................................

Jesus did not return

The world grinds on

Herbert Armstrong would be dead for 25 years

Garner Ted Armstrong would be dead

Hermann Hoeh would be dead

Dean Blackwell would be dead

Dibar Apartian would be dead

Stan Radar would be dead

Gerald Waterhouse would be dead

All the youthful Evangelists and ministers would be very old

Your local church will be gone

Ambassador would be gone

Ambassador would be sold to Evangelical Sunday keeping, Christmas Keeping, Easter Celebrating Pagans

The Worldwide Church of God would be keeping Sunday, Christmas, Easter and wallowing in the mysteries of the Trinity

The Worldwide Church of God would have broken up into 700 splinter and sliver churches each being the true one. 

Mr. and Mrs. Ron Weinland would be the Two Witnesses

Twenty one other men would also be the Two Witnesses

Dave Pack would be the only true Apostle heading the only true remnant of the only true church.

Gerald Flurry will have recreated a hologram of Ambassador College and continue to be the reincarnation of HWA, but Dave Pack would be upset about that wanting his own hologram of HWA, WCG and Ambassador College

You would still be sending it in to someone if still unconscious. 

The United Church of God would divide again and again.

The Brotherly Love Church of God will forbid you to talk to your brothers unless they belong to said church.  This is commonly known as Influrryating.

The Living Church of God is dying.

60 years later we'll still be waiting "3-5, no more than 10-15, 20 tops years to go brethren, and I mean it."  

The Big Sandy Egrets will have flown to Oklahoma along with HWA's prayer rock

Few will have ever heard of the Plain Truth

Few will have heard of The Philadelphia  Trumpet

Few will have heard about the Grace Whatever Church of God, formerly known as Prince

Whew, and there is a whole lot more where that all comes from.  

Life, in all it's constructs, hopes, dreams, speculations, mess ups and insanity is one big Mandala.  Crafted over time only to be brushed away to return to it's source as if it never existed.   Or rather, it takes on a different form, rejoins the universe and goes on to be part of the much bigger picture.

And now we know....

DenniscDiehl@aol.com  

Vital Tools For Modern Day Apostles (UPDATED)

Updated with final auction prices

More important tools 

that every modern day Apostle needs 

to 

preach the gospel 

about 

"A Strong Hand From Someplace."

Click on picture once to enlarge, then again for x-large closeup's

 Victorian Gilt Centerpiece  1888

Goddess Ceres in a field of wheat

$8,000-12,000

Sold for $23,300.00

 

Victorian Silver Four-light Candelabra  1857

$20,000-30,000

Sold for $57,500.00

 Victorian Silver-mounted Frosted-glass Claret Jug and Stand 1845

$4,000 - 6,000

George IV Silver Egg Cruet 1820

$2,500 - 3,500

(HWA had this on his breakfast table in the kitchen for his soft boiled eggs)
Sold for $27,600.00 

 Victorian Silver-gilt and Agate Desert Service 1854

$3,000 - 5,000
Sold for $4,370.00

 Victorian Silver Vase 1874

$2,000 - 3,000
Sold for $2,700.00
Edward VI Silver-gilt Warwick Vase
$5,000 - 8,000
Sold For $5,650.00

George IV Silver-gilt Wine Coolers 1826

$50,000 - 80,000
Sold for $74,000.00

Regency Silver Salver 1813

$7,000 - 10,000
Sold for $24,150.00

George IV Silver Tea and Coffee Service

$10,000 - 15,000
Sold for $16,100.00

Important Regency Silver-gold gilt Candelabra 1812

$80,000 - 120,000

Sold for $222,500.00

An Angry Reader Responds

From: juanwhoknows@_____.com
To: DenniscDiehl@aol.com
Sent: 2/10/2011 12:02:12 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
Subj: your hwa banned blog

I've been reading your 'anti-armstrong/no-god' blog for some weeks, following the UCG-COGaWa debacle, and since you're into highly original comments, here's one I bet you haven't heard (1000 times yet):

Psalms 14:1  ... The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

This pretty much sums up your blog....foolish, bitter, myopic, predictable, rambling, and often typographically-challenged (lots of misspellings)....

Even with all the mutual 'crap' you've compiled from myriad other myopic self-promoting vilifiers, your personal scope of the entire HWA-WCG experience can never be more than very minuscule, personal and hopelessly arbitrary.

Even if what little you say about HWA and the WCG and splinters is basically true, the remaining 99.999% of the unfathomable experience goes completely unconsidered....so much for minimal accuracy (less than 0.001%) and objectivity. You should reconsider such a colossal blunder of short-sightedness; its as if you are STILL operating like a WCG minister.

To live a life of no hope (atheism) is miserable compared to an active life of FAITH.  When a believer is in trouble he cries out "O 'God,' help me!"  And when he is eventually saved, he is thankful.  What do you cry out?  "Oh God" or "G. D. it," I'm sure....because you can't completely wipe out the pre-programmed knowledge of the Creator from your mental ROM, can you? Because HWA didn't put THAT there.

Since no one will know that there is "god," until he sees him in the flesh or dies (no I didn't just contradict myself), a wise man chooses to believe in the Creator rather than not.  He reasons that the positive benefits of a life of FAITH greatly outweigh the crushing loneliness, purposelessness and bitterness that always accompany ATHEISM.  And if there turns out to be no 'god' in the end, it was still a greatly improved life. If there is 'god,' then the 'unprofitable servant' goes into an unimaginable bonus round.

Yet, so what if there's no reward after this life? If you're doing it for the reward, is that agape love? or, like all the self-seeking folks you describe in your blog, just for personal gain?  FAITH in the Creator is a worthwhile mindset even without the resurrection, pal.

The bottom-line question for me: is the m.o.of your blog really any better than that of the people whose actions you consistently paint as diabolical, stupid, and clueless?  Are you not doing the same thing that you did when you were a WCG minister? Then what a waste of time if you believe what you blog....

Because, like Job (another guy who thought he had this 'god thing' figured out), you might actually be WRONG about all this 'religion is big business' and 'the opium of the people' stuff.

For me, if a life of great joy, accomplishment, and worthwhile experiences, plus agony, long sadness, hard times and tragedy (most of which was my own fault) has not dimmed my faith in the Creator, how could your little toxic blip of a blog possibly hope to make a dent in anyone else's? 

If there is "god," you're still serving his purpose in another way without knowing it. If there is no "god," then you're still blogging about NOTHING after all these years and that every single day.

Again, what a waste of life....why not tell us about your stamp collection or how you felt when you first became a father?  Contributing something positive to the aggregate....

"A-dios!" whoops, sorry, "A-nihilos, amigo!"

_________________________________________________________________________________
FYI Juan:


I don't expect you or anyone else to agree with what is posted on this blog. One of the main problems with Armstrongism is that people checked their brains when they were baptized or whenever they read the latest booklet put out by one of the various "One and ONLY True Ministers of God left on earth today." 


The Armstrongite thought process only involves the 'revealed word of HWA, Meredith, Flurry, or some other leader who has interpreted the Bible according to THEIR viewpoint.  The members of these churches are expected to follow THEIR rulings and doctrines.  Reading other literature, theology books or writings done by non-COG members is frowned upon and blatantly forbidden by some.  Questioning is NOT an option in Armstrongism.  It wasn't under HWA at any point in time.  It still is not under Meredith, Flurry, Hulme, Pack, Cox, etc.


Real spiritual seekers continually ask questions, and have no problem in wrestling with scripture and doctrine   If you truly believe the Bible stories you read you would quickly see that many of  those men and women wrestled with, argued with and bargained with their God. You would see that more than 5 different writers contributed to Genesis.  That there were several authors to Isaiah, that many of the days and traditions kept by the Israelites were patterned after neighboring 'pagan' peoples, that James and Paul argued over who knew Jesus the best and how to interpret his word.  You would know that much of the Bible is myth and allegory. And, if you knew the meaning of myth and not today's meaning you would find value in these stories even though they aren't literal.  You would also know that the Bible tells the story of messy people, living messy lives who never quit got it right. It is not a story about people living lives of perfection or constantly having to DO the right thing.


I spent over 45 years in Armstrongism.  I was two when my mother joined and we drove 150 each way to church.  Grew up in the church, came to its Pasadena campus, worked for the church and even work in HWA's home for close to 15 years.  I can tell you stories that make anything posted here look like nursery rhymes.


I am not angry with the church.  There were some good times to be had.  I would never have traveled around the world like I have if it wasn't for the church.  However, there is regret for the lost and wasted years, the lost opportunities and a screwed up faith that was damaged by the cultish irrelvent nonsense of Herbert Armstrong and his minions.  I learned a long time ago to laugh and and have fun with the crap we all put up with.  That is the only way you can retain your sanity. Those of us that have recovered  from the filth now don't want to see others hurt by it.  So we post the silly happenings, the arrogant words, and  the lies of the various splinter cults and their leaders so it is all in black and white for the world to see.


Yet through it all, I never lost that spark that keeps me coming back to God.  That's why I am a lay minister in a local church, serve in numerous ways in the church and in the community.  I would much rather surround myself with agnostics, atheists and those that question their beliefs than those who are so mind numbingly close minded they refuse to use their brains.


I may not agree with everything Dennis writes, but the majority I do.  Those things that I don't agree with I look at as a new way of looking at things I had never thought about before.  I may not agree, but I do allow it to cause me to think.


Dennis is more than welcome to post there.  When he can jar the minds of those entrenched in the ethically and morally bankrupt churches of Armstrongism then he is welcome to post any damn time he wants.


This includes the other people that send me information too!


Gary