When you weed through the useless babble from Prophet Malm on law keeping and new moons, you come across little interesting tidbits of information. Today he added more fuel to the fire on a subject we have known all along.
You would think a church that claims to have all restored knowledge that had been lost for over 1,900 years would be talking about that disruptive Jesus that upset religion and societal norms on it's head.
That has never been the focus of Armstrongism, Instead it has always revolved around one topic in particular. It was talked about continually in all the years I was part of it. Feast sites competed with each other for it. Ministers pounded the pulpit about it. Herbert used it a lot.
It has always been about the money.
In approximately 1980 HWA said that the vast majority in the WCG were not converted and that he prayed thast at least one half would make it. When I queried an elder on this, he said that since the early 70s they had knowingly relaxed their baptism requirements and baptized people because of their opinion of “Mr Armstrong” instead of their actual understanding of doctrine. If people were willing to accept their authority that was all that mattered. I asked him why? The reply was that they needed the support [numbers and tithes] and also hoped that somehow some good would come of it. This is not just a matter of Satan sowing tares; it is a matter of HELPING Satan to sow more and more tares in the organizations in exchange for MONEY until the majority are tares.
It is this prostituting of the organizations for money which resulted in talented tares rising to the top and taking over the WCG; transforming it into the Grace Communion International. Then a few thousand left with Rod Meredith or Gerald Flurry and later others left to form UCG. The vast majority stayed in WCG and apostatized: WHY? Because they were never really converted to begin with!
The same thing has been repeated in these new groups! They maintain their lax standards not realizing that the true Church of God is the faithful Ekklesia and not corporate organizations. Desiring numbers which translates into MONETARY WEALTH, they lusted after those numbers and the wealth that WCG had had in its hay day; bringing in many who were only superficial in their zeal for God, because they were very zealous for the organization and or its leaders.
Today the COG Groups are all about personal and organizational pride and wealth in numbers and funds. They are about zeal for the organization, its numbers, money and leaders; instead of about zeal for our God and his law.
