Prepping for Petra: Armstrongism's Frequent-Flyer Program for the Faithful

God's most highly favored Crackpot Prophet popped his ecclesiastical, self-righteous cork the other day about preppers who prepare for end-time events or natural disasters when the infrastructure breaks down after some calamity. Freeze-dried foods and other prepping foods in giant containers were a black market economy in Pasadena for many years in the 70's and early 80's. It was one of the typical COG pyramid schemes that enriched those above you in the chain of sales while you killed yourself selling products and never got anything but an empty wallet.

For decades, Armstrongism sold a very specific vacation package. Not Hawaii. Not the Feast site with the better buffet. Petra, Jordan: the rose-red city half as old as time, and, if the ministers were to be believed, the only zip code God would honor once the bombs started falling and the Germans invaded the United States. One minister in my church area said that we would be kicked out of the country and forced to fly on DC-10's and 727's which had a string of deadly crashes. They would force us on those planes, hoping they would crash before we got to Jordan. COG ministers could always be found to be such amazing agents of comfort and joy. 

Then, once we made it to Jordan, the Jordanians would welcome us with open arms because God had stopped all military action happening in countries around them from reaching Jordan because of his special people who were to arrive there. The Jordanians were to be spared because we were soooooooooooo special. Then God, with a snap of his godly fingers, would instantly turn every cave into a well-furnished home with proper flooring, electricity, air conditioning, furniture, fully stocked pantries, clothing for everyone, and individual libraries in each cave that had all of Herbert Armstrong's books and articles in it. After all, we needed to memorize that material in order to teach the remaining sinful scum left over after the worldwide annihilation had ended.

Anyway, as Crackpot Bob likes to say, in the 1960s and early 1970s, members were told to keep "Petra bags" by the door-passports, Bibles, cash, good walking shoes, clean underwear, maybe a change of clothes-because the flight to the Place of Safety might come with the suddenness of a fire drill and the logistics of an airline that had not published a schedule. The 1972 date came and went. The 1975 Wonderful World Tomorrow did not arrive on time. Herbert Armstrong himself eventually snapped at the flock to get their minds off Petra, which is the prophetic equivalent of a travel agent refunding your ticket after selling you the destination for twenty years. The bags, however, never quite left the hallway.

Enter Crackpot Bob, scolding American "preppers" for stuffing 50-pound bug-out bags with tuna, flashlights, and a hand-crank radio while Grandma and the kid with the inhaler are somehow expected to yomp into the wilderness like Navy SEALs. Fair point, as far as it goes. Most families are not a National Geographic expedition. Then, without breaking stride, he explains that real prepping is scriptural: watch, pray, qualify as a Philadelphian, and wait to be whisked to a wilderness hideout that is not Montana, not Canada, and-wouldn't you know it-may well be in the general neighborhood of Petra. 

Crackpot Bob's system is the same two-class ticket Armstrongism has punched since the Radio Church of God days. Revelation 12 is read as an airline seating chart. One group-the "Philadelphian remnant," which in practice means the people who accept his particular restoration of Armstrong's mantle-gets eagle wings and a wilderness meal plan for three and a half years. The other group, conveniently labeled Laodicean, gets Satan, persecution, and the privilege of learning the hard way. This is a remarkably useful doctrine if you happen to be the man who decides which congregation is Philadelphia this decade. It turns church loyalty into a survival strategy. Miss the right split, and your bug-out bag is just luggage for the Beast.

He is not even coy about the geography. No American state is the place. No Canadian province. The candidate list still tilts toward Jordanian rock, Sela, Moab, caves, and the same Isaiah 16 / Revelation 12 collage Herman Hoeh was assembling in The Good News while members were packing those bags. Crackpot Bob hedges-Petra may be it, it might be nearby, don't be dogmatic-which is the traditional Armstrongist weather report: 90 percent chance of Petra, 10 percent chance of "God knows," 100 percent chance you should keep listening to this work.

Mocking suburban preppers for unrealistic fitness standards while maintaining a theology in which ordinary families must one day flee, wander between countries, and hole up in a desert tourist site is not "prepping for reality." It is prepping for a sermon on fear.

A Christian under the New Covenant is not a member of a travel club whose safety depends on guessing the correct Nabataean ruin. Christ's promise is not "keep your passport current and join the right era of the church." It is that nothing-tribulation included-can separate the believer from the love of God in Him. The church's vocation in hard times is witness, endurance, and love of neighbor, not a three-and-a-half-year cave internship while the rest of the Body is written off as lukewarm.

The texts Armstrongism tapes together do not require a UNESCO World Heritage Site. "Wilderness" in Revelation is the Bible's old language for God sustaining a people who cannot sustain themselves-manna, not a packing list. Jesus' warnings about flight in Judea were spoken to people who could see armies around Jerusalem, not to families in Pasadena waiting for a prophet to announce the charter flight. Luke 21:36 is about wakefulness and prayer, not about qualifying for the only lifeboat in a sea of "Laodicean" Christians.

Fear is a cheap catechism. It keeps people scanning headlines, rating other churches, and treating tomorrow's newspaper as a boarding announcement. It also happens to be excellent for holding a small religious brand together after the original 1972 departure time was missed and the original apostle is long gone.

God's Apostle and Chief Overseer Has Died!

 

The Ambassador-Apostle Who Couldn't Outrun a Foot Burn: 

Kenneth D. Jackson Sr. and the Endless Armstrongite Assembly Line 

of False Prophets

There have been conversations about this guy for more than a decade. (We reported about him here on Banned in 2014.) Apostle, Chief Overseer, Grand Chief of State, Permanent Minister of Ecclesiastical, Indigenous & International Law & Justice, Special Attorney, International CEO, Traditional Medicine physician, Inventor, and-when the mood struck-His Excellency Ambassador Kenneth D. Jackson Sr. 

Jackson was a former Worldwide Church of God member. In the grand tradition of Armstrongism, yet another man who decided he had special insight from his "god," a wooden seal of authority, and a divine mandate to wear a crown while Africans supposedly paraded him like royalty. 

A young guy who grew up in the group said Jackson claimed he had been on Herbert W. Armstrong's security detail. People who actually spent time around Pasadena and HWA's home never saw him there. Later comments from people who attended the Macon congregation in the old days were even clearer: he was a regular member who led prayers and songs. The HWA bodyguard story was one more elaborate lie. He looked familiar the way a lot of mid-level WCG faces look familiar-because they all sat through the same sermons about church eras and the one true remnant. Then they went off and started their own. 

The group he built was called Sovereign Church of 'ELOHIYM International (SCEI-1BLOOD). They kept the Sabbath, the holy days, the British-Israel flavor, the tithe-until-your-kids-have-no-inheritance model, and the conviction that everyone else was in a false church. Classic splinter DNA. Jackson taught that before HWA died, he was entrusted with one of three official WCG "seals of authority." One stayed with Armstrong, one went to Joseph Tkach, and the third-conveniently-went to him as part of God's plan to raise up the seventh and final era after Tkach inevitably apostasized. During a two-day history sermon, he produced a wooden seal. A high-level member later found a second, half-finished, damaged seal of the same wood and design sitting in the office where the "official" one had been kept. It looked exactly like a first attempt at forging the thing. The finished seal vanished after it was handed to JoAnne Jackson with a strong hint that silence would be wise. By now it has almost certainly been destroyed or buried. That single prop told you everything you needed to know about the rest of his résumé. 

Until around 2003, the sermons were still recognizable Bible studies. Coats and ties. Actual scripture. Then Jackson took a trip to Sierra Leone. The rice farms in the Bo District produced enough of a spectacle that locals staged parades and brought gifts. Adoration has a way of going to a certain kind of man's head. He came back wearing royal clothing, gold, diamonds, and a crown he had constructed for himself. Sabbath services turned into rambling recitals of his exploits, visions, prophetic powers, and ecclesiastical titles. He rarely opened the Bible anymore. Why bother when Elohiym was downloading new testimony directly into the Apostle? The church name changed from International Church of God's Elect to Sovereign Church of 'ELOHIYM International. 1BLOOD International was registered as the outreach NGO that would save West Africa with seed rice and micro-socialism under the single living Apostle who had succeeded Herbert Armstrong. 

The claims grew as fast as the titles. Millions of followers. Vast orphanages. Hospitals where the unlicensed "traditional medicine physician" performed hernia surgeries and then lectured patients about demons. Ambassador-at-Large for The Gambia. Knight of Malta. Bloodline nobility. Venture capitalists from three states and five countries lining up at the Ramada Plaza in Macon-except the raw footage shows him walking into an empty room, greeting an imaginary audience, and filming a scripted interview with Iyel Bey, a longtime member posing as an independent journalist. The entire shoot lasted about ten minutes. 

Former members were less impressed. One young man who grew up in it said the millions were actually thousands, and that more than half of them were abandoned by the church. The orphanages and outreaches were not legitimate. Families tithed until the biological children had nothing left and the "church family" came first. A mother in her sixties had nothing to show for decades of giving; when the father died, the kids paid for the funeral. Jackson's son Smoke ran the Macon operation. People who still liked the family would not speak ill of them even while watching the damage. That is how these groups keep going. 

There were darker notes. In 2013, a member, Andres Rivera-Fuentes, was arrested in Twiggs County, Georgia, after allegations involving a minor in the church; he reportedly admitted the acts. Children were described as being padlocked into trailers at night at one compound. Armed guards. Jackson told congregations that checking his words against the Bible was what only a fool would do, because Paul had no more authority than he did and Elohiym had already confirmed him through healings and interventions. He compared himself to Moses. The charisma was real. So was the demand that members stop thinking. 

This is the Armstrongite production line. Herbert Armstrong claimed unique restoration of truth and apostolic authority. After he died, the church fractured into scores of self-righteous and self-appointed men who each decided they were the next one: Flurry, Pack, Weinland, Thiel, Meredith, and the rest. Jackson simply added a crown, an African rice narrative, and the word Elohiym spelled with an apostrophe. Same playbook. Same one-true-church claim. Same financial extraction. Same allergy to verification. Same habit of declaring critics agents of Satan. He even managed to sound like Buffalo Bill "Ysrael" Hawkins of the House of Yahweh-another man who took Armstrong's framework and ran it into even stranger territory.

Jackson spent his later years in West Africa. In September 2026, family sources confirmed he had died from health complications after a chemical burn to his foot. The man who received direct visions from the Most High, who wore a crown on the Sabbath, who told people not to check the Bible because he was the authority, was taken out by a burn on his foot. Leadership passed to his son, Bishop Kenneth D. "Smoke" Jackson Jr. His wife, JoAnne, had already predeceased him. The compound on Sgoda Road in the Macon area was described by a nearby observer as run-down while the organization continued collecting thousands a month. He was never HWA's security. He was never given a seal of authority. He was never an ambassador appointed by any government that would admit it. He was one more product of a movement that teaches ambitious men they can declare themselves apostles, collect the tithe, and wait for the world to notice. The world mostly didn't. A chemical burn did. The rest of the Armstrongite remnant will keep producing the next one. They always do.

Hat tip to SCEI-1 Blood Cult Watch

Also see: 

The COG's Biggest Chief Overseer; Apostle; Grand Chief of State; Permanent Minister of Ecclesiastical, Indigenous & International Law & Justice; Special Attorney; International CEO; Traditional Medicine physician; Inventor

Dave Pack News Flash: The Kingdom Will NOT Come on Atonement

News Flash: The Kingdom Will NOT Come on Atonement

David C. Pack of The Restored Church of God dissolved nine weeks of preaching by announcing that it is impossible for the Kingdom of God to arrive on the Day of Atonement. The long, slow crawl that began on July 11, 2026, with “The Greatest Untold Story! (Part 640),” just got longer and slower.

It is time once again for everyone in RCG who still bothers to take notes to tear out all their pages from Parts 640, 641, 642, 643, 644, 645, 646, 647, and 648. You may now file them into the usual pile.

The Kingdom of God Will NOT Arrive on Atonement.
Not This Year. Not Any Year.

During "The Greatest Untold Story! (Part 649)" given on September 12, 2026, the Pastor General admitted that "no man knows the day and the hour" (again) but still tried to persuade members that his new theory can hold water: The Kingdom of God will arrive a few days before or after the Day of Atonement...or maybe a few days before or after the Feast of Tabernacles.

Considering that Atonement begins tonight at sunset, does anyone want to take bets on whether this will pan out for him?

Part 649 – September 12, 2026
@ 04:20 How is a Day of Atonement start possible in light of these things? I could have listed more. It’s difficult, I dare say, impossible to see how.

@ 07:15 But it could tarry a little bit. Well, Atonement can’t do that. Neither can the Feast of Tabernacles. So, we got a problem with either one of those dates.

@ 1:09:15 I thought I knew the Day of Atonement. And I did. I but I never saw it in the context that you're forced to when you're coming up to it and trying to figure out how in the world would you start the Kingdom on the Day of Atonement? …Does the Kingdom come one or maybe two days before the Day of Atonement?

@ 1:39:55 So I'm just telling you, brethren, I I my hands are off of the date.

@ 1:42:47 So I I I'm willing to believe I don't know the day or the hour. I just know it cannot be Atonement.And I don't see how it's Tabernacles.

David C. Pack insisted on clinging to his legitimacy by spending 110 minutes dragging the brethren of The Restored Church of God through a series of vague possibilities. None of which will prove to be correct.

The Pastor General is painfully unaware of how embarrassing he is when he makes ridiculous comments in front of the entire church. He was very proud of himself for not setting a date even though he admitted he did not know.

If he knew, he would have said it.

At the very end of Part 649, Dave admitted to something that he should have been ashamed of.

@ 1:51:29 We don't know. I didn't give you a date. And you know what gives me great joy? Oh, is that gonna frustrate our enemies.

David C. Pack has already set 145 failed dates since 2013, including Atonement 2026.

He is the only one who is frustrated.

Marc Cebrian

News Flash: The Kingdom Will NOT Come on Atonement

Once for All: How Hebrews Ends the Day of Atonement

The Day of Atonement is here and various COG groups fast this day beleiving it is still required, but it is not a New Covenant command. The New Covenant does not demand fasting on this specific day or treat it as a binding annual ritual. Armstrongist groups continue the practice because it is central to their identity as keepers of "God's festivals," and in high-control settings it functions as one element of a larger legalistic system of required observances, financial demands, and loyalty tests.

Old Covenant ritual vs. New Covenant fulfillment

The Day of Atonement is detailed in Leviticus 16 and 23:26-32. It involved the high priest entering the Holy of Holies once a year with blood, two goats (one sacrificed, one sent away as the scapegoat), and the command to "afflict your souls," which later Jewish practice understood as a complete fast. It was the most solemn day of the Mosaic calendar. 

The New Testament treats this as a shadow fulfilled in Christ. Hebrews 9-10 is explicit: the annual ritual could never take away sins; Christ entered the true heavenly sanctuary once for all with His own blood and sat down, ending the need for repeated offerings. "Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin" (Hebrews 10:18). The tearing of the temple veil at Jesus' death further signals the end of restricted access that the Day of Atonement ritual represented. 

Colossians 2:16-17 groups festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths together as "a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ." The consistent mainstream Christian reading is that these calendar observances are no longer binding. Romans 14 and Galatians 4:8-11 likewise warn against making days a matter of obligation or judgment. 

Acts 27:9 mentions "the Fast" only as a seasonal time marker for dangerous sailing weather. Luke uses a well-known Jewish term for dating; it does not constitute a command that Gentile or Jewish Christians must keep the day. The early church fasted for specific purposes (commissioning workers, appointing elders), not as an annual atonement ritual.

 

Fasting under the New Covenant

Fasting appears in the New Testament as a voluntary discipline, not a mandated calendar event. Jesus assumes His followers will fast ("when you fast," Matthew 6:16-18) and predicts they will after He is taken away (Matthew 9:15), but He gives no required days, durations, or connection to the Day of Atonement. The only Torah-commanded fast was the Day of Atonement. Once that system is fulfilled, fasting is a matter of personal or congregational liberty for prayer and seeking God, not a requirement for atonement or covenant standing. 

Armstrongist groups (United Church of God, Living Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, and others that retain Herbert W. Armstrong's teachings) disagree. They argue Leviticus 23 remains binding, the rituals of Leviticus 16 are fulfilled but the day itself is not, and Acts 27:9 proves the early church kept it. They treat the 24-hour complete fast as an enduring command that pictures both Christ's work and the future binding of Satan. 

How the practice functions in Armstrongism

Herbert W. Armstrong taught that true Christians must observe the seventh-day Sabbath and the annual holy days of Leviticus 23, including a full fast on Atonement as a precurser to the Feast of Tabernacles. These days were presented as pictures of God's plan of salvation and as tests of obedience. Failure to keep them marked someone as outside "God's church." This was paired with British Israelism, a hierarchical "government of God" through the ministry, rejection of the Trinity, and a multi-tithe system (first tithe to the church, second tithe for holy-day expenses and travel, third tithe every third year, plus extra offerings). The original Worldwide Church of God after Armstrong's 1986 death rejected these requirements and moved toward evangelical Protestantism (now Grace Communion International). Numerous splinter groups did not. In those groups the holy days, including Atonement, serve several practical functions:

They create a distinct identity separate from "apostate" mainstream Christianity.

They require time off work, travel to designated sites (especially the Feast of Tabernacles), and extra expense-reinforcing dependence on the organization.

The complete fast on Atonement is framed as humility and "afflicting the soul," which can be used to measure submission.

Combined with disfellowshipment threats, warnings about the unpardonable sin for questioning leadership, and the claim that only this remnant has the full truth, the observances become loyalty markers. 

Former members and critics have documented authoritarian structures, financial pressure, isolation from family who do not keep the days, and fear-based control. Not every congregation or individual minister operates the same way, and some members experience the days as meaningful worship. The pattern across many Armstrongist groups, however, is that required calendar observance plus exclusive claims plus top-down government produces high-demand religion rather than the liberty described in the New Testament. The New Covenant centers on Christ's finished work, the law written on the heart, and freedom from the ceremonial shadows. Treating an Old Covenant fast day as a continuing command for Christians reverses that order.

New Covenant Christians do not need to observe the Day of Atonement as a required practice. 

The annual ritual, including its commanded fast, belonged to the Old Covenant system that pointed forward to Christ. Once the reality arrived, the shadow no longer binds the people of God.

1. The New Covenant replaces the old sacrificial system. Jeremiah 31:31-34 promised a new covenant in which God would write His law on hearts and remember sins no more. Hebrews 8 quotes that promise and declares the first covenant obsolete. The Day of Atonement was the high point of the old system: one day each year the high priest entered the Most Holy Place with animal blood to cover the nation's sins. That covering was temporary and repeated. The New Covenant is built on a better priesthood, a better sacrifice, and a better promise. Christians live under the new arrangement, not the old one. 

2. Christ's single sacrifice ended the need for annual atonement. Hebrews 9-10 is the clearest New Testament commentary on the Day of Atonement. The high priest entered the earthly sanctuary every year "not without blood." Christ entered the true heavenly sanctuary once for all with His own blood and obtained eternal redemption. "He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Because forgiveness has been secured, "there is no longer any offering for sin." Repeating an atonement ritual would imply that Christ's work was incomplete. New Covenant Christians rest in a finished work, not an annual reenactment. 

3. The holy days were shadows; Christ is the substance. Colossians 2:16-17 groups festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths together and calls them "a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ." The Day of Atonement pictured two things: the removal of guilt and the removal of the source of sin. Both are fulfilled in Jesus-the sacrifice and the scapegoat. Once the substance has come, insisting on the shadow as a requirement reverses the order of revelation. Believers are not to be judged regarding these days because the days themselves no longer function as covenant obligations. 

4. The New Testament never commands the church to keep the dayJesus observed the Mosaic calendar during His earthly ministry because He was born under the law. After His death and resurrection, the apostolic letters contain no instruction that Gentile or Jewish Christians must fast on the tenth day of the seventh month. Acts 27:9 mentions "the Fast" only as a calendar reference for the season. The early church fasted for specific ministry decisions, not as an annual atonement rite. The absence of any command is decisive: what God requires under the New Covenant He states plainly. He does not. 

5. Atonement is something Christ did, not something Christians repeat. Under the old covenant, the people "did" atonement by fasting, resting, and participating in the priestly ritual. Under the New Covenant, atonement is an accomplished fact. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. Believers receive that reconciliation by faith; they do not re-perform it each autumn. To treat the Day of Atonement as a continuing duty is to treat Christ's once-for-all offering as insufficient. The proper New Covenant response is gratitude, repentance as a way of life, and confidence of access to God at any time-not a 24-hour fast on a particular calendar date.

6. Fasting remains a liberty, not a law. Jesus assumed His disciples would fast, and the early church did so on occasion. That practice is voluntary and situational. It is never tied in the New Testament to the Day of Atonement or presented as a requirement for remaining in covenant standing. New Covenant Christians may choose to fast on any day, including the traditional date of Yom Kippur, as a personal act of devotion. They are not required to do so, and they are not more spiritual for doing so. Compelling the fast turns a gift of grace into a work of law.

7. The result is freedom, not neglect of holiness. Refusing to keep the Day of Atonement as a command is not antinomianism. It is fidelity to the New Covenant. Holiness now flows from the Spirit writing God's moral will on the heart, from ongoing confession of sin, and from looking to the finished work of the cross. Christians remember Christ's atonement every time they take the Lord's Supper, preach the gospel, or live in the good of forgiveness. They do not need an annual ritual to make that atonement effective again.

The old covenant Day of Atonement was a gracious provision for its time. The New Covenant has something better: a High Priest who sat down because the work was done. New Covenant Christians therefore do not need to "do atonement." They receive it.

Silent Pilgrim

King David Would Be Proud: How Armstrongist Leaders Turned Biblical Scandal into a Leadership Perk

For among my people are found wicked men... their houses are full of deceit; 

therefore they have become great and rich; they have grown fat and sleek. 

Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not seek justice. 

They do not promote the case of the fatherless; 

they do not defend the just cause of the poor. 

 Jeremiah 5:26-28 [1, 2]

Armstrongism has always had a remarkable talent for finding Bible verses that apply strictly to the little people and generously to the men at the top. Few tools have been more useful than the "David Defense." When a high-ranking minister or evangelist gets caught in adultery, financial sleaze, or other heart-eating corruption, the response is almost liturgical: King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and arranged Uriah's death, yet God still called him a man after His own heart and used him mightily. Therefore, who are you, the dumb sheeple, to criticize God's anointed servant? Only God can judge. Criticism is rebellion. Satan is using you. Sit down, pay your tithes, and stop touching the Lord's anointed.

It is a beautiful system if you happen to be the one standing in the pulpit.

Herbert W. Armstrong himself laid the groundwork. In lengthy articles, he explained that even a "true minister of Jesus Christ" could "slip" into an "incident of adultery" under temptation. If the man later "repented," God would forgive him and the ministry could continue. The flock, of course, received no such elastic interpretation when their own marriages were declared invalid because of a previous union. Hundreds of families were torn apart by the church's rigid "bound for life" doctrine while the men enforcing it enjoyed a rather more flexible standard. 

The star pupil of this theology was Garner Ted Armstrong. For years the handsome, silver-tongued voice of The World Tomorrow carried on extensive extra-marital conquests-dozens, by some accounts hundreds-of women, including Ambassador College coeds, ministers' wives, and a long-term COG stewardess. Oh, and don't forget the casino workers in Lake Tahoe on the Nevada side, which he patronized when he stayed in the church owned chalet at Tahoe. When finally confronted in 1972, he admitted the pattern. Herbert temporarily disfellowshipped him, then brought him back because the broadcasts were too valuable. Later, after another ouster, Ted founded his own groups and kept going. In the 1990s a masseuse secretly videotaped him and sued, alleging assault. Ted's reported response during the encounters? He compared himself to King David. His work on earth was so important that God would overlook the transgressions. Classic David Defense, delivered while asking for "relief." 

The same pattern appeared among other evangelists. Ministers who knew about the hypocrisy were told to keep quiet. Members who asked questions were marked, disfellowshipped, or warned they were in danger of the unpardonable sin for judging God's government. "Causing people to lose confidence in their leaders is one of the most terrible things anyone could do," Garner Ted once wrote, "especially if those leaders happen to be God's very ordained servants." Convenient. 

After Herbert's death the Worldwide Church of God changed course and the empire shattered into dozens of competing "true churches." The David Defense traveled with the furniture. In the Philadelphia Church of God, Gerald Flurry declared himself "That Prophet." Loyalty to him became the test of faithfulness. Members were ordered to cut off family who stayed in other groups. Questioning the Pastor General is framed as rebellion against God's government. In the Restored Church of God, David Pack has claimed titles ranging from Elijah to apostle while setting date after failed date. Ex-members describe an environment of fear, information control, and the same old warning: do not judge God's man. Similar dynamics appear, to varying degrees, in the Living Church of God, with Bob Thiel, Gerald Flurry and other remnants. The one-man (or small-council) model Herbert perfected remains the operating system. Prestige shields the leader. Scandals become "Satan's attacks." Accountability is for the sheep. 

The theological sleight of hand is obvious once you stop being afraid. David was a unique covenant king in a theocratic monarchy, not the senior pastor of whatever Church of God that is currenlty lead by corrupt leaders. His sin produced catastrophic consequences for his family and kingdom. Forgiveness did not erase those consequences or automatically restore him to the same unqualified leadership. New Testament qualifications for overseers are explicit: above reproach, faithful to one wife, respectable, able to manage his own household. Armstrongism treated those verses as suggestions for the membership and optional extras for headquarters. 

The result was a culture in which ordinary members lived under microscopic scrutiny while the upper echelon enjoyed a gentlemen's agreement. Adultery, pedophila and emnbezelment, "ate at some of their hearts," yet the institution protected the eaters. Members were taught that judging the leaders was the real sin. The system still works the same way in 2026 wherever the old Armstrongist DNA remains strongest: hierarchical government, fear of "Laodicean" criticism, and the comforting knowledge that King David got away with it, so maybe the current apostle will too.

It is not complicated. It is simply the oldest trick in the authoritarian religious playbook, wrapped in extra Sabbath-keeping and British-Israelism. The Bible is full of warnings about shepherds who feed themselves instead of the flock. Armstrongism found a way to quote those warnings at the congregation while the shepherds quoted David at anyone who noticed the difference.

Dave Pack - David - Bathsheba - Cell Phones - Temptation - I might accidently take a peek, but so what, David did

 

exRestoredCOG

Crackpot Bob Special Edition: How to Predict the Exact Opposite of What Happens and Still Call It Fulfillment

I try not to get into politics on here because it is as batshit crazy as Armstrongism is, but this was just too delightful not to mess with. God's greatest gift to the Churches of God and humanity never saw this one coming!

Yesterday's announcement directly undercuts the framing in Crackpot Bob's August 1, 2026 COGwriter article. On September 18, 2026, President Trump announced an agreement with Denmark and Greenland that expands the U.S. military presence on the island, grants permanent access, basing, and overflight rights, allows additional bases as needed, and bars non-NATO adversaries (explicitly including China and Russia) from establishing bases, stationing troops, or making sensitive investments without U.S. approval. The arrangement is described as having no expiration, applying even if Greenland later becomes independent, and costing the United States nothing. Denmark and Greenland emphasize that it recognizes their sovereignty and the Greenlanders' right to self-determination; no territory is transferred. Formal signing is expected next week at the UN General Assembly. 

This is an update and tightening of the existing 1951 Defense of Greenland agreement, not annexation. Trump called it an "Infinite Life" deal giving the United States "permanent control over security and all other needs." Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic leaders described it as strengthening Arctic security while preserving the Kingdom's territorial integrity. Crackpot Bob's August article quoted Trump's prediction that Greenland would be "under U.S. control" by January 2029, highlighted Danish insistence that Greenland is not for sale, cited analysis that Washington's real goal was blocking EU/PESCO access, and pointed to polls showing European hostility after the threats. Crackpot Bob then interpreted the episode through Lamentations 1:1-2 and Revelation 17:12-13: Trump's "bully" rhetoric was turning NATO "friends" into future enemies, prompting Europe to take a new military interest in Greenland (troops already present, possible future bases) that could later be used against the United States. The piece treated annexation as both unlikely and strategically counterproductive for the prophetic scenario he favors.

The September deal is the opposite of that near-term picture. Denmark and Greenland chose to formalize and enlarge the American presence rather than pursue an independent European military footprint aimed at reducing U.S. influence. The United States obtained the security outcomes Crackpot Bob said Trump wanted-expanded bases and exclusion of China and Russia-through negotiated alliance terms at zero cost, without the sovereignty transfer Denmark had ruled out. European backlash exists and may continue on other issues, but this specific Greenland file closed with cooperation, not the rupture Crackpot Bob presented as already underway.

That gap between the August interpretation and the September outcome is typical of the pattern. Crackpot Bob regularly treats current events as confirmations of a fixed Armstrong-derived schema (the United States as a latter-day Israelite power whose "friends" become the European Beast that destroys it). When events do not unfold on the expected timetable or in the expected manner, the same texts are reapplied to the next headline. Deuteronomy 18:22 supplies the basic test: if a prophet speaks in the Lord's name and the thing does not happen, the word was spoken presumptuously. Vague or elastic "alignments" after the fact do not meet that standard.

The New Testament itself undercuts the premise that the church needs ongoing geopolitical prophets. Hebrews 1:1-2 states that God spoke in many ways through the prophets in former times, but "in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son." The apostolic writings treat the completed Scripture as sufficient (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Believers are told to test every spirit (1 John 4:1), weigh prophecy (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21; 1 Corinthians 14:29), and hold fast to the faith once delivered (Jude 3). None of that requires a 21st-century interpreter who maps presidential statements onto Lamentations in real time or claims special dreams and a unique remnant status.

Christians who treat the Bible as the final authority therefore have no obligation to follow self-identified prophets whose predictions are repeatedly adjusted to fit the news cycle. The church's task remains proclaiming the gospel, obeying the commands already given, and exercising discernment-not tracking every Arctic basing agreement as proof that one man's reading of prophecy is being fulfilled. The September 18 deal is simply another data point showing why that particular reading does not deserve the attention Crackpot Bob demands for it.

Help Stop Satan From Violating The Mother Church: Christ's Official Cashier Has Spoken: Everyone Else Is Babylon, Send Checks to Iowa Immediately

 

This is a test. 

Time is short. 

He is angry. 

He is yelling...or at least tries to.

Samuel W. Kitchen, a third-generation Worldwide Church of God remnant from Iowa, has posted another urgent Sabbath-day video from a park in Manitoba and boy is he mad!!!!!!!!! 

In it he explains that every other Church of God group, the Catholics, Grace Communion International, Philadelphia Church of God, and basically anyone who did not immediately recognize him as the authorized collector of God's money is now "daughters of Babylon." The original WCG mother church has been "raped" by Satan and infiltrators. Fortunately, Christ has appointed Sam as His representative. Therefore the tithe that used to go to Pasadena now belongs in his PO Box. 

This is not new theology. It is the standard Armstrongist splinter playbook, now reduced to one guy with a YouTube channel, an AI music library, a letter of "authorization" from an elder who later took a job elsewhere, and a website insisting the unincorporated spiritual organism known as the Worldwide Church of God still exists and that Sam is its current cash register. 

The claims collapse under their own weight. Herbert Armstrong died in 1986. The church apostatized, rejected all of his teachings and is now known as Grace Communion International. Dozens of competing "true remnants" have appeared since, each declaring the others Laodicean, Jezebel's daughters, or worse. Sam simply picked the most convenient version: everyone else is compromised, therefore send the money here. The "letter of authorization" is not apostolic succession. It is one unemployed elder in the Phillipines stroking the ego of Sam by  writing a note so he can "legitimately" solicit funds. That is not how the New Testament describes support for ministry.

The "Satan is raping the mother church" language is theatrical even by Church of God standards. It turns a 40-year-old organizational breakup into a cosmic sexual assault that only Sam's PayPal can halt. The same tradition that once predicted the Great Tribulation for the 1970s, then the 1980s, then "this generation," now needs another emergency to keep the tithes flowing. Urgency plus exclusivity plus "God's representative" is the oldest fundraising formula in Armstronmgism. It works until people notice the representative lives in Iowa, films himself shouting at trees, and has no congregation larger than a comment section.

Tithing itself is treated as an unchanging law that happens to terminate at whichever man currently holds the PO Box. The New Testament never commands Christians to send 10 percent to a self-appointed restorer of a 20th-century American denomination. Paul collected offerings for poor saints in Jerusalem, not for a man insisting he alone preserved Herbert Armstrong's copyrights. When every other group is declared apostate the moment they stop mailing checks to you, the doctrine has become a loyalty test, not stewardship.

The video is wild; mouth open, hands clawing the air, face flushed with the particular fury of a man who believes the universe is ending and also that people owe him money. That combination has launched over 400 tiny irrelevant splinter groups. Most of them stay tiny as they implode into even smaller groups. The mother church will have to survive the alleged rape without the tithe from those particular audience.

If the test is whether people will keep sending money to whoever shouts the loudest about being the last faithful remnant, history already graded that exam. The answer is usually "until the next guy with a better camera and a new PO Box shows up."

If you actually follow Jesus under the New Covenant, you should not send Sam Kitchen a dime. The New Testament never told you to mail 10 percent to the last man still waving the old Worldwide Church of God letterhead while shouting that everyone else is Babylon. Tithing funded a Levitical priesthood that no longer exists. Jesus did not collect it that way. Paul told churches to give what they had decided in their hearts, cheerfully, not under compulsion, and not because some guy in a park declared himself Christ's official cashier. 

Sam's pitch is the opposite of that: urgency, exclusive remnant status, "the test begins now," Satan is raping the mother church, and the only approved storehouse happens to be his PO Box. That is not New Covenant generosity. That is a fundraising emergency dressed up as prophecy. A follower of Jesus is not required to subsidize one more self-appointed and self-absorbed restorer who has decided that disagreement equals apostasy and that disagreement can be cured with a check. Give to people who are actually poor, to work that is actually accountable, or to a local body you can see. Do not fund the guy whose entire argument is "everyone else is compromised, therefore pay me." That is how tiny Armstrongist personality cults stay alive. It is not how the New Covenant works.

=====================

I know this will give him views, but bloody hell, it is soooooooo worth watching!  It is only about 15 minutes and the longer the video goes the madder he gets. Yet, all of his bloviating blusters comes off as a comedy routine that you cannot take seriously. Nice people (and Samuel actually come across as a nice man) just cannot carry the weight of visible anger very well. You will see what I mean. He is NO Rod Meredith!

The Gospel of Perpetual Doom: Why Armstrongism Treats 'Fear Not' Like a Suggestion

Crackpot Bob has a new article that is so dripping with fear your computer monitor will get wet just reading it. AI biological viruses, disease, famines, earthquakes, biological weapons, chemical warfare, doomsday bug, the Black Death, botulinus, rice fungus, wheat rust and the pale horse of Revelation. All of that packed into one fear laden article.

Living in a constant state of fear is not scriptural. It is a control strategy with a body count measured in ruined sleep, strained marriages, and people who leave the group only after years of wondering whether questioning the latest pestilence update means they have the mark already. Bob Thiel and the broader Armstrong tradition have turned this into an art form. The latest exhibit is the familiar mash-up of AI-designed viruses, 1969 Plain Truth reprints about the "doomsday bug," Matthew 24, the fourth horseman, and a swift pivot to the mark of the beast because computers exist. The message is always the same: the world is one lab leak or language model away from fulfilling prophecy, and you should stay very, very alert (and loyal).

Fear works. It keeps members from asking why failed timelines never produce an apology, only a new chart. It makes leaving feel like walking into the tribulation without a raincoat. It is also what much of the wider culture does with climate, pandemics, elections, and now AI. The church version just baptizes it and schedules it around the Feast of Tabernacles.

This is not New Covenant Christianity. The New Testament does not run a 24-hour prophecy scare channel. "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7). "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18). Jesus told people not to be anxious about tomorrow and left them peace, not a subscription to weekly pale-horse updates. The apostolic letters spend far more ink on how to live with one another than on decoding every new pathogen as the fourth seal. Armstrongism's operating system is closer to an Old Covenant plus British-Israel plus "the end is unusually nigh this decade" firmware update. That combination produces high-control environments where dissent looks like rebellion against God rather than a reasonable question about yet another recycled 1969 article.

Chronic fear is not free. It dysregulates the stress response, trains the brain to scan for threat, and correlates with anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, and difficulty trusting anyone outside the approved sources. When the approved sources are also the ones collecting the offerings and defining who is "Philadelphian" enough, the arrangement is not accidental. People stay because leaving feels cosmically dangerous. That is the point. The same dynamic appears in secular form whenever institutions discover that a frightened public is a compliant public. The church version simply adds eternal stakes and a leather-bound proof text.

Fear is the real gospel of Armstrongism.

Malachi 3 Meets PayPal: Restoring Pasadena From Keosauqua - Send ME Your Money! NOW!

There seems to be no end to the depths of human turpitude on display in Samuel Kitchen's descent into COG madness. He has set himself up as the restorer of the one true Worldwide Church of God - a name he stole and appropriated. He has no more legal standing to use it than Ron Stephens does. Not only has he stolen a name; he has also lifted articles, books, and videos the original mother church produced. He pretends everything is in the public domain, or that "educational purposes" magically license wholesale copying. 

As usual in COGland, the Ten Commandments everyone claims to revere conveniently skip over theft. Copyrights on Armstrong-era works did not evaporate in 1986. Grace Communion International inherited them; the Philadelphia Church of God later bought a stack of them for millions of dollars. "Fair use" is not a Swiss Army knife for reprinting a denomination's catalog. 

The old Worldwide Church of God, as a legal and doctrinal institution, is gone. After Herbert Armstrong died in 1986, the organization repudiated his distinctive system, joined the National Association of Evangelicals, and in 2009 changed its name to Grace Communion International - while keeping the WCG trademark. What Kitchen is selling is not a resurrection. It is a publicity stunt: Armstrongist church government and legalism in a new wrapper, totally devoid of grace under the New Covenant. 

Now, in an effort to collect tithe money, he has set up what he calls Worldwide Church of God Support Services. He claims the old WCG had a "Support Services" department that allowed them to collect money. Then, like Bob Thiel claiming lineage to the apostolic church, he claims his "support services" go all the way back to the original church in 31 A.D. That is not history. That is branding with a halo.

He then quotes Herbert as his justification. Armstrong wrote the following during the California receivership fight, when the church was scrambling to keep the state from seizing funds and members were being steered toward a Corporation Sole:

The Church of God has always had support services since its creation in 31 A.D. 

 

"The two spiritual areas, which are the real purpose and mission of the Church, are, one, proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God for a witness to the nations of the world...

"...Now the second mission of the Church is to feed the flock, as Jesus said, on the spiritual food of the Word of God.

"Today we carry on God's Work in a world multiplied vastly larger in population, a mechanized, mechanical, complex world with instrumentalities to work with that were never dreamed of in the first century. So there is a great difference in the operation of the Church today from what it was in that day.

"The basic organizational pattern is the same today as it was then. But today we must utilize supporting services - and let's remember that - they are supporting services. The main function of the Church is spiritual. The supporting services are mostly physical. Get that into your minds and keep it there. However, supporting services are needful to get the Work done today.

"So the basic organizational pattern is the same. But today we utilize supporting services in scientific, technological and mechanical areas that were nonexistent in the first century."(Quote from "Congress of Leading Ministers", Herbert W Armstrong March 06,1981)

What it meant in 1981 is another matter. Armstrong was not discovering a first-century accounting department. He was defending a late-twentieth-century machinery of media, colleges, and cash flow while Sacramento circled the bank accounts. Under the New Covenant, the church is not a brand name, a candlestick franchise, or a PO Box in Iowa. It is people joined to Christ. The "supporting services" of the apostolic church were not tithe portals and AI hymn demos. They were meals, letters, shared goods, and itinerant preaching - and Paul would rather tent-make than let money become the gospel. "Get that into your minds and keep it there," indeed.

Then Herbert died, and the crap hit the fan. Rebellion and animus entered the church rather quickly. Refusing to follow HWA's own appointed successor was already treated as rebellion; the movement splintered into the rancor, bitterness, and self-appointed upstarts that define COGland today. Kitchen's version is simply the latest rerun: the old WCG as taxidermy, posed in a living room, still demanding first tithe.

Being PRIMARILY PHYSICAL IN NATURE, the support services are meant to ASSIST the spiritual body of Jesus Christ, known today as the Worldwide Church of God, to fulfill its missions.

Above is an organizational chart provided by Herbert W Armstrong, apostle of Jesus Christ.

After his death in 1986, the support services there listed in 1981, was eventually fully taken over and destroyed by disobedient, unfaithful, dissidents who had left Christ and decided to dirty the name of the Worldwide Church of God.

This blow, struck at the ministry causing them to vacate the Worldwide Church of God and seek refuge in NEW ORGANIZATIONS that were being formed and created.

Seeking refuge is not a sin.

But creating DIVISION (and by that I mean creating new organizations to redefine the Church of God) is SIN AGAINST GOD!

Kitchen writes that support services are "PRIMARILY PHYSICAL IN NATURE" and exist to assist "the spiritual body of Jesus Christ, known today as the Worldwide Church of God." After 1986, he says, those services were "taken over and destroyed by disobedient, unfaithful, dissidents." Seeking refuge is not a sin, he allows. Creating new organizations is "SIN AGAINST GOD."

The silliness is obvious. He is creating a new organization, slapping the dead name on it, and calling everyone else the outer court.

Today, also in direct rebellion against reality, Samuel Kitchen has set himself up as the new Bob Thiel: a self-appointed savior of the church, God's greatest gift to the dangerous end-time dispensation. He is in his mid-thirties, lives in Keosauqua, Iowa, and describes himself as a third-generation WCG member who fellowships online and plays HWA tapes because there is no local minister. Estimates of his "worldwide" flock run to a handful. So he relies on gullible people on the internet. 

He has launched Support Services of the Worldwide Church of God as the money pipe - checks to a Fairfield, Iowa PO Box, or electronic gifts - after an elder in the Philippines, Jonathan Dicen, wrote a letter authorizing him to collect tithes. Dicen then took a job with another COG group and cut the connection. Kitchen kept the letter anyway. Christ is Head, he says. The authorization survives like a coupon with no expiration date. No recognized charity status turns that arrangement into a church. Anyone sending him money might as well flush it and enjoy the sound. It always boils down to money

...the Worldwide Church of God was RAISED UP as the Philadelphia Candlestick(Rev.1:20), through the receiving of Herbert W Armstrong, apostle of Jesus Christ. The true Church ENGAGED IN THE WORK OF GOD, repenting and BELIEVING the gospel message.

The Supportive Services, assisted the Church physically in order to fulfill its DIVINE MISSIONS from God.

Today, there are a variety of support services provided, that are different from the early days of the Church. 

There is no divine mission of a so-called Worldwide Church of God today. That WCG exists in Samuel's mind and among a few followers who cannot open a Bible without an HWA booklet on the table. The New Covenant church does not need a 1981 org chart to be the body of Christ. It needs Christ.

Then, in typical holier-than-thou COG speak, he declares that those who do not follow him are outside the true church, given over to the ways of the Gentiles, parked in the outer court of the Temple. Pure Armstrongist bullshit

Those who step outside of the true Church, are actually OUTSIDE OF THE TRUE CHURCH. Christ is NEVER DIVIDED. Those who step away, have placed themselves in another category.

While still claiming to be part of the temple, they are stepping closer to the world, into the arena of the gentile world.

So we see many "Church of God" groups in the OUTER COURT OF THE TEMPLE.

These are NOT to be INCLUDED with the measuring of the Temple(aka Worldwide Church of God).

"And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.

"But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months."(Revelation 11:1-2)

IF YOU STEP AWAY FROM THE TRUE CHURCH, you are GIVEN TO THE GENTILES, to be ruled and governed by the civil governments of this world. Therefore you see many becoming 501(c)(3) organizations, placing Caesar as HEAD over operations.

Those works and projects are NOT SUPPORTING the Worldwide Church of God, but rather supporting themselves and will end up being liquidated into the coffers of the civil Gentiles authorities.

Revelation 11 is about measuring worshipers, not trademarking Pasadena. Under the New Covenant the dividing line is not "Did you stay with Herbert's corporate brand?" It is "Do you belong to Christ?" Paul did not tell Gentile churches they had wandered into the outer court for incorporating. He told them the law was a tutor that led to Christ, and that if righteousness comes by the law, Christ died for nothing. Kitchen's measuring reed is a fundraising brochure.

Then come the ministries designed to con a few contributors into thinking they are supporting something Christian:

In order to SUPPORT the MISSIONS of the Worldwide Church of God, several projects and resources have been established.

A VOICE CRIES OUT- Herbert W Armstrong is a YOUTUBE and FACEBOOK PROJECT, that has been used to share the World Tomorrow Programs that have already been funded and produced by the Worldwide Church of God under Herbert W Armstrong.

We are currently developing these programs for a new audience. We are developing a program that looks at current world events and news, and then going back to the message provided by Mr. Armstrong. This will springboard those programs to current day situations and society. We need your prayers most of all for the success of this project. 

Also a future PODCAST is in the works.

RECAPTURE TOMORROW is a YOUTUBE and FACEBOOK project and resource, provided by Sam Kitchen(Administrator of this website). He has undergone writing songs, and using A.I have developed "demos" to help in future music development In the Church. He also uses this channel and page to post his personal thoughts. 

WWCG-ARCHIVES and WWCG-LIBRARY.

This has been an ongoing project for many years. It's purpose is to preserve the productions and publications, of Herbert W Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God and its support services(Ambassador College, WCG INC etc etc).

How You Can Help- I need help with Audio Editing. I want to file all documents and all audio and video files with intros and outros, for conservation purposes. We are simply gathering a collection of previous publications, and productions funded and produced by the Worldwide Church of God, Herbert W Armstrong, and previous support services.

And then the hilarious absurdity: Ambassador College Online. How many reincarnations of that failed institution have been launched over the decades? The campuses closed. The degrees faded. The correspondence course now returns as an "updated" digital product, because nothing says 31 A.D. like converting Lesson 8 into a login password.

AMBASSADOR COLLEGE ONLINE.

This project is going to be amazing. We will be taking the old Correspondence Courses of Ambassador College, and turning them into online courses, that will have additional updated portions, to bring the old courses forward to new audiences and today's world. 

 

Letter Department.

This department will correspond with those who write in to the Church. 

 

Festival Department.

In finding facilities and locations for the FEAST OF TABERNACLES and HOLY DAYS. This can be funded directly. 

 

The Website "worldwidechurchofgod.org" will showcase the activities and purpose and mission of the Church and its work. As we develop this website, more opportunities for our people to be involved will be posted 

 

How quickly Ambassador Auditorium has faded out of the scene! Ambassador Auditorium went on the market for about $45 million, and Kitchen emailed the owners as a "representative of the Worldwide Church of God," asking how to start a purchase. The hall members once paid for is a concert venue on three acres in Pasadena. Kitchen's flock could not buy the reflecting pool. But the pledge math on his site is revealing: if 5,000 people give $100 a month, that is $6 million a year. He does not have 5,000 people. He has a calculator. 

That is the house the old Work built. Kitchen wants the keys and a monthly draft.The New Covenant does not forbid generosity. It forbids turning Malachi 3 into a shakedown after the Temple priesthood is gone. Hebrews does not install a new storehouse in Keosauqua. It installs a better priest. Giving becomes cheerful and voluntary, not a loyalty test that sorts the temple from the Gentiles. Church government in Armstrongism was a pyramid with an apostle at the peak. Grace is a cross with no room for a spare-bedroom papacy.

Samuel's reincarnation of the old WCG is not Philadelphia restored. It is a brand revival with a donation portal, a borrowed name, a letter from a man who left, AI hymns, and a shopping list that runs from copyrighted archives to a $45 million auditorium. The old church ceased to exist. What remains is the oldest COG miracle of all: when the doctrine runs out, pass the plate.

Are You a Peacemaker? Because Nothing Says ‘Peacemaker’ Like 30 Years of Splinter Groups Accusing Each Other of Being Laodicea

Doug Winnail's recycled "Are You a Peacemaker?" article (this version is basically the 1999/2007 Living Church News piece with a 2026 date slapped on it) is a masterclass in Armstrongist irony. 

Living Church of God members are told they will soon be spirit-born sons of God sitting on thrones in Jerusalem, reigning as kings and priests, enforcing God's law on the nations so that swords get beaten into plowshares. That's the "gospel of peace." Their job description in the Kingdom is to be the cosmic police force that finally makes everyone keep the Sabbath, the holy days, the clean meats, and the rest of the package Herbert W. Armstrong packaged as "the way of peace."

The problem? The people who claim they will be the enforcers of unity and peace cannot stay in the same room with each other now.

The Armstrongist Version of Peacemaking

In classic Armstrongism, "peace" is not primarily reconciliation through the cross. It is obedience to the law as administered by the Church of God government. Winnail quotes Psalm 119:165 ("Great peace have those who love Your law") and Leviticus 26 as if the Sinai covenant is still the operating system for the New Testament church. He then fast-forwards to Revelation 5:10 and Isaiah 2: the saints will rule and teach the nations the law. That's how peace arrives.

This is the same theology that produced the Worldwide Church of God under Herbert Armstrong: one man at the top, "government of God" flowing downward, and anyone who questioned the package was "disfellowshipped." After Armstrong died, the organization that claimed to be the only place God was working promptly exploded.

How Divided They Actually Are

The numbers are not subtle. After Joseph Tkach Sr. and Jr. moved the old WCG toward historic Christianity, hundreds of new splinter groups popped up adding to the long list of somewhere between 300 and 400 groups that have formed since the Radio Church of God appeared on the scene, all claiming to be the faithful remnant that "held fast." The big four that still try to look like the old WCG are LCG, United Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, and Restored Church of God. Then there are the second-generation splits: COGWA (which left UCG), Continuing Church of God (Bob Thiel left LCG in 2012 after concluding LCG no longer had "the Philadelphia mantle"), Enduring Church of God, Church of God 21st Century, and dozens of smaller "slivers." 

LCG itself was born in a staff revolt. Roderick Meredith was fired by the board of his own Global Church of God in 1998. He took most of the members and started Living Church of God. That is the organization now lecturing everyone else about "smoothing ruffled feathers" and "not pouring gasoline on smoldering embers."

They quote Matthew 18:15-20 about going to your brother privately. They quote Romans 12:18 about living peaceably "as much as depends on you." Then they spend decades marking, disfellowshipping, and publicly condemning the other groups that keep the same Sabbath, the same holy days, and the same British-Israelism. Each group is convinced the others are "Laodicean" or have "lost the truth." That's not peacemaking. That's a circular firing squad with extra holy days.

The New Covenant Contrast

The New Testament actually does talk about peace. Ephesians 2:14-16 says Christ himself is our peace. He broke down the dividing wall of hostility and created one new man. Colossians 2:16-17 says the Sabbaths and festivals were shadows; the substance is Christ. Galatians says the law was a tutor until Christ came. The fruit of the Spirit includes peace, but it is produced by the Spirit, not by perfect calendar-keeping or submitting to the correct evangelist in Charlotte.

Jesus' beatitude "Blessed are the peacemakers" is not a job description for future theocratic enforcers. It is a description of people who have been reconciled to God and therefore become agents of that same reconciliation. The New Covenant does not produce 400 competing "one true churches" all claiming they will run the Millennium. It produces one body.

Winnail is right about one thing: the world's peace plans keep failing. He just never applies the same standard to the movement that claims it alone knows "the way of peace." If the people who will supposedly enforce the law cannot even agree on who holds "the government of God" in 2026, the idea that they will suddenly become unified world rulers in a few years requires more faith than most of us can muster.

Dave Pack vs. Bob Thiel: Competing for the Title of "Most Accurate Date-Setter Since the Last Time They Were Both Wrong"

God's most perfect and only true Church of God leader in this horrendous end-times dispensation of the prophetic work of God has always tried to remind us daily that only through himself and his little itty-bitty group can salvation be found. People laugh and mock him, knowing for sure that it is all a lie. That doesn't deter him, as he is back today ridiculing Dave Pack over something he wrote for one of his booklets.

Another Work-a "Short Work" ...

God's commission to His Church continues until the end of the age-that God's kingdom will be preached "until the end come." It has also proven conclusively that the nations of Israel are to be warned by the "watchman" of Ezekiel 33-that these two components of the Great Commission in this age have not changed, nor will they until completed. It is against the second part of this backdrop that a special prophecy in Romans 9:27-29 comes into view. ...

Paul recorded, "Isaiah also cried concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant [take note] shall be saved: for He will finish the Work and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. And as Isaiah said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah." The Work of God Its Final Chapter!

It seems, according to our favorite Crackpot Prophet, Dave has no idea of who the "short work" will be in 2026. There can only be one prophet and one witnesses that shouts from the mountaintops that the law is to be kept, and that grace is selectively given only after right belief and strict adherence to Bob's teachings.

And there you have it: two aging men who both inherited the same Armstrongist playbook, both convinced they alone inherited the mantle, both spending an impressive amount of energy proving the other guy is the obvious heretic. Dave Pack of the Restored Church of God has turned failed date-setting into a performance art. By multiple independent tallies he has offered well over a hundred specific or strongly implied dates since 2013, many of them delivered with "impossible it's wrong" confidence in his never-ending "Greatest Untold Story" series (now hundreds of parts long). When the Kingdom fails to arrive on schedule he laughs it off, blames "enemies" for noticing, and immediately produces the next unicorn date. He has claimed the offices of Elijah, Joshua, "that Prophet," and the man who will gather all the other scattered COG groups under his Wadsworth campus. The "short work" of Romans 9:28 is, in his telling, something spectacular that his organization will finish just before Jesus shows up-again.

Bob Thiel of the Continuing Church of God watches this spectacle with the satisfied air of a man who has already been validated by dreams (his own and other people's), a 2011 "double-portion" anointing from a Living Church of God minister, and the fact that his group grew in Africa. He posts almost daily that CCOG is the group actually preparing for the short work by translating literature into an ever-growing list of languages. Dave, Bob informs us, simply doesn't understand who will cut the work short in 2026. Only one prophet can shout from the mountaintops that the law must still be kept and that grace is available only after you accept Bob's particular package of restored truths.

New Covenant Christians look at this food fight and politely decline the invitation. The reason is not complicated. Both men preach a gospel that adds the works of the Mosaic law-seventh-day Sabbath, annual holy days, clean and unclean meats, three tithes, British-Israel identity of the English-speaking nations-as necessary components of remaining in the "true church." Salvation, in their system, is not the finished work of Christ received by faith; it is faith plus correct organization plus correct calendar plus correct diet plus correct understanding of which man currently holds the prophetic office. Paul called that "another gospel." The letter to the Galatians exists precisely so that people would stop submitting again to a yoke of slavery after Christ has set them free.

A New Covenant Christian does not need Dave Pack's next date or Bob Thiel's latest language count to know that the work of redemption was cut short-once, at the cross. The remnant that is saved is not the handful of people who picked the correct Armstrongist splinter in 2026. It is everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. The watchman of Ezekiel is not a man in Ohio or a man with a globe and a vintage microphone. The short work is not a last-minute literature blitz by the one true remnant. It is the gospel of grace that has already gone out to the nations.

So why would anyone who actually believes the New Covenant follow either of these two? They wouldn't. They would recognize the familiar pattern: two competing little flocks, each insisting the other is Laodicean or worse, both requiring extra-biblical hurdles that Jesus never placed in front of the thief on the cross. They would notice that the energy spent mocking each other's prophetic charts could have been spent simply pointing people to the One who already finished the work. And they would walk past the table with the numbered plaques and the World Books, grateful that salvation was never that complicated.