Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
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.
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.
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.
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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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
David C. Pack of The Restored Church of God has been exceptionally boring over the last five months. After his 144th attempt at legitimacy failed on Pentecost (May 24, 2026), the Pastor General retreated back into the biblical dismal swamp to reconvene with his prophetic acolytes in the Third Floor Executive Imaginarium.
With the handholding of Coffee Kid and Pepper Boy, the trio recycled a successful strategy that has been useful in the past: Teach a date for coming Kingdom of God (kinda) that is way out there (probably) and spend months leading up to it belaboring every point possible while sprinkling pauses in the speaking schedule.
The last five months in The Restored Church of God have been all about how the Kingdom of God will arrive maybe here, or maybe there, but settled on the Day of Atonement (possibly in 2027, at first). A few weeks ago, Dave introduced the idea that the Kingdom to Israel would occur "about" one year before that. You know, in 2026-ish.
Dave giveth a third Kingdom, and Dave taketh away. The Kingdom to Israel IS the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God Will Arrive on the Day of Atonement Tishrei 10 – September 21, 2026 (But if not this year, then next year. Or the year after that.)
The more interesting developments for exrcg.org have been behind-the-scenes. There was notable blowback from the NPR/PBS broadcast in July, mainly due to Kevin Denee publicly stating he is writing a book about his experiences.
·I had a five-hour lunch with Randall Pack (Dave’s oldest son) and numerous conversations with him and his brother, Robert. There were a lot of concerns about what and how I report on RCG. I received plenty of notes for improvement.
·I wrote a letter for David C. Pack and gave it to Randall. His dad read it.
·The Director of Church Administration called me on my cell phone to caution me about the "facts" I publish and warned me that there are "dangers" in continuing such actions.
·The Director of Church Administration urged five staff members to write to me personally to “set the record straight” “if they wanted to.” Two ministers and three lay members sent unsolicited, sternly worded emails in which they demanded that I not share their information with anyone.
That information will be shared soon.
But in the meantime, it has been a long, slow crawl to Atonement. Tishrei 10 will begin next Sunday night on September 20, 2026.
There has not been much content worth posting on exrcg.org. David C. Pack's new hesitation and prophetic timidity created a lack of compelling video content. Based on my discussions with Randall and Robert, their dad has expressed a desire to pull back on "the date setting" and has privately regretted going down that road.
Too little, too late on the whole false prophet issue, however. Regardless of how much Dave wants to reinvent himself as “just preachin’ what the Bible says,” he is permanently disqualified from ever being a true minister of Jesus Christ or someone you can believe, even if he just tries to tell you the time.
The last sermon I analyzed was “The Greatest Untold Story! (Part 629)," given on March 28, 2026, in the article Certain Uncertainty, when the most gullible in The Restored Church of God were still hoping for a theological Hail Mary to happen in mid-2026.
What wonderful prophetic material have the members of The Restored Church of God been force-fed on their Sabbaths since? Here is a summary of the last five months. If you invest the time to read each one, the patterns of hilarity reveal themselves.
Part 630 – April 8, 2026 The Passover should be a festive, joyful occasion and will no longer be somber in RCG. They will eat real unleavened bread instead of small bits of matzo and drink more than just a thimble of wine. Children may be allowed to attend.
Part 631 – April 11, 2026 RCG dissolves ministerial “ranks.” The Worldwide Church of God did not understand the true Government of God. All men are ordained as “elders” and only once. Being an evangelist or prophet is a “gift” but not a rank. Local elders and preaching elders have been dissolved, and Dave admits Herbert W. Armstrong invented those positions so more men could avoid the Vietnam draft. Dave knows the "exact date" the Kingdom is coming, but would not say.
Part 632 – April 18, 2026 The Kingdom of God will come on the Second Passover this year, or there will be a one-year wait.
Part 633 – April 25, 2026 Nothing will happen on the Second Passover. Zero chance, in fact. But what about Pentecost?
Part 634 – May 2, 2026 There are three kingdoms once again. God is helping Dave explain that the day that “cannot tarry” is Pentecost. He reiterates that he is not Elijah the Prophet (yet) and excuses himself from the consequences of being wrong in the past.
Part 635 – May 16, 2026 There are two kingdoms once again. The Kingdom of God coming on Pentecost is perfect. But we will not really know if a date is correct until it passes and the Kingdom's arrival reveals it.
New Moon Special Comments – May 17, 2026 The Kingdom of God will not come on Pentecost. God acts in His own timing, and things will happen when He decides it. Dave became "most uncomfortable" with Pentecost.
Part 636 – May 30, 2026 Being on the path to the Kingdom of God is an incredible privilege, and Dave has great respect for those in RCG who have remained faithful.
Part 637 – June 13, 2026 Dave is the victim of many false stories and big lies. You cannot imagine. One member quit because his daughter died, and Dave blamed the man's bitterness for his departure. RCG will eventually know the day that "cannot tarry," but not yet.
Dave does not carry a cell phone, but he has a cell phone. He does not believe he will ever be tempted by pornography, but his denial did not sound all that convincing.
@ 1:11:08 I don’t carry a cell phone. “Mr. Pack, what? You don’t carry a cell phone?” No, and I never will. I have one,that, I guess, if I in an emergency, I could use it. But it's a complete waste of time. There's too much in there that I I don't ever want to be tempted with. I don’t think I’d be tempted to go to a porn site. I haven’t. I don’t. I’ve never felt the temptation.I guess if it was in the palm of my hand, maybe it'd be a little different.
Part 638 – June 20, 2026 A period of watching for the Kingdom of God is a range of days. Dave teases a list of 159 truths RCG has learned, whether restored or discovered. Thankfully, he does not read it all, and he will not post it in Member Services because “evil men” would post it publicly.
Part 639 – June 27, 2026 Figuring out prophecy is a long and complex process that produces a picture with alternatives. Dave believes the Kingdom will no longer end on a weekly Sabbath, but an annual one. Dave grew suspicious of a fascinating date. Maybe it could be Av 10, but maybe not.
@ 46:24 We are watching. Not with absolute certainty, but uncertainty. Not with absoluteness, but with possibility. We’re supposing. Or wishing that it’s the right date.
Part 640 – July 11, 2026 Dave agonized, but there was a sudden "bang," and it was so easy to see. The Kingdom of God is coming on the Day of Atonement, and Dave is so certain, he stakes God's name on it. But is it this year?
@ 1:00:07 He [Jesus Christ] was sent to preach the Kingdom of God. I'm gonna say, on the authority of Almighty God, His Kingdom comes on the Day of Atonement.
Part 641 – July 18, 2026 The Kingdom of God can only come on Atonement and potentially only this year. There is an avalanche of proof. Dave’s goal is to lock the day. If it is not this year, then “don’t bother looking for any other day.” He admits that RCG does not understand the 1335 correctly.
@ 1:14:23 But I’m trying to show you that it is absolutely Atonement. It’s a lock.
Part 642 – July 25, 2026 Does the Kingdom of God arrive on the Day of Atonement this year?
@ 48:53 And the main purpose being to show the Day of Atonement is immutable. It's impossible that that's not the date.A different year? We'll we'll get into that.
@ 1:26:34It's impossible that the Kingdom of God does not come on a Day of Atonement. It's impossible. Not improbable or highly unlikely. It's impossible.
Part 643 – August 1, 2026 There are three kingdoms once again. The Kingdom to Israel comes before the Day of Atonement and before the Kingdom of God. Dave baits RCG members at the beginning of the sermon.
@ 00:47 The Day of Atonement for the Kingdom of God, lasting seven and a half years to a Passover and the and the Millennium, and then the second iteration of the Kingdom of God are set and established. They cannot move. They’re immutable. And it’s just helpful to state that that that can’t change.
And he pulls a switcheroo at the end of the sermon.
@ 1:32:16 It says it closes with one bad month. So you can figure out the Kingdom of God is not coming this Atonement. On the other hand, we may learn this Kingdom starts before we ever get to Atonement.
@ 1:32:44 So on the one hand, I'm gonna just tell you the Kingdom of God is pushed off. But the Kingdom to Israel could start well before what would have been Atonement.
Part 644 – August 1, 2026 God conceals His truths through grievous mistranslations. The Kingdom of God will not arrive on the Day of Atonement until 2027. The Kingdom to Israel will probably come this year, but when is up for discussion. Dave gives himself another pass for teaching false prophetic dates.
@ 18:35 So I'm not predicting anything. I'm explaining verses in the Bible.
Part 645 – August 8, 2026 Dave hoped this would be his final message. If the Kingdom was just one year long, then it would start August 21. RCG is on a short clock. Potentially.
@ 17:51 Nobody knows about this Kingdom. It took me 11 years to be clear about it. But we not only know about it, we know how long it is. And basically almost exactly when it starts. I think.
Part 646 – August 15, 2026 Dave continues to "lock down" that there is a First Kingdom, which is the Kingdom to Israel. It will arrive on an undetermined Sunday at dawn “sometime ahead.”
@ 1:39:21 For now, every Sunday dawn, every one is a candidate.There's some evidence that Elul is in play.
@ 1:40:24 We'll just have to see when God has planned.And I'm waiting to be able to show an unbreakable date that cannot be exceeded. I sincerely do not know. I'm suspicious of some things,but know that a Sunday dawn away from a Sabbath, holy day, or new moon would completely disguise God coming as a thief on the fast Day of Atonement over a year later. Whenever that would be.
Part 647 – August 29, 2026 Dave rejoices at the “simplicity in Christ” finally arriving, but fails to see the irony of his convoluted theories. He provides a list of 95 proofs why there are three kingdoms, but reveals another list of 65 points that prove that wrong. He explains why there are other fascinating possibilities for when the Kingdom to Israel may start and how long it could be, because it could be three years instead of one.
@ 1:37:18 Now, you know, if it's a Sabbath, okay [chuckles], I guess we could sit and say there are six possibilitiesthat exist for the for the other Kingdom. Maybe it's not Atonement.We could we could say. Even Tishrei 3 is a moed. It's wonderful. But you've got five Sabbaths plus Atonement. There's six Sabbaths in Tishrei, so I don't know. Could it be different? Could it be rounded in some way? Could the Second Kingdom start at Tabernacles, or the Last Great Day, or the last Sabbath of the month? I don't know. Is it technically the First Kingdom is days upon years? I don't know. That's that's a hard one to know. But there are six possibilities.So, you know, Trumpets is the first one.
Simplicity in Christ has indeed arrived at The Restored Church of God.
Part 648 – September 5, 2026 In The Restored Church of God, lying to brethren on the Sabbath while speaking in God’s name is acceptable when it has dramatic value.
Dave announces at the beginning that “nothing’s changed.” Until it does twenty-four minutes later, when he removes the shot glass Kingdom to Israel off the table because the Kingdom to Israel is also the Kingdom of God. There are only two kingdoms once again.
Dave drags RCG members through another laborious exercise to illustrate how hard Bible prophecy is to figure out and gives options for how maybe it is the Day of Atonement this year, after all. 1,500 days from Atonement 2026 to Atonement 2030 just makes a heck of a lot of sense. For now.
Consider yourself caught up.
Five months of doctrines in The Restored Church of God summarized in three pages. And for the spiritually depleted brethren, it has been a long, slow crawl to the Day of Atonement across nine sermons.
But remember: If it is not this year, then it could be next year. Or the year after that. Or the year after that. Or the year after that.
The RCG brethren have a longer, slower crawl to nowhere if they keep listening to David C. Pack.
