Our favorite self-appointed prophet to the Church of God is back today all bent out of shape over some of the vestments that Catholics wear and titles that they give themselves. Like any good COG prophet, he scrambles like crazy to defend his point by quoting so-called authorities on Catholicism and its supposed links to paganism. Thanks to his ties to the splinterest Church of God movement created by Herbert Armstrong and it is poor standards on exegesis and hermeneutics from whom he claims to get his wisdom and authority, our self-appointed prophet has set himself as the ultimate word in biblical authority and interpretation. Given the track record most of us have with the endless supply of self-appointed prophets, apostles, pastor generals, church overseers, and chairman most of us know these guys as arrogant, pompously boastful, and opinionated blowhards who have no authority or spiritual integrity.
That does not stop our dubious doubly-blessed self-appointed prophet and great Bwana to Africa and 299 Caucasians from letting loose another of his anti-catholic diarrhea episodes in order to make his little group seem superior and godly. One of the problems in the apostolic bullshitters' latest episode is his reliance upon Alexander Hislop's Two Babylons, the third authoritative book of the COG after Mystery of the Ages, as a source of fact.
Hislop's Two Babylons has been trotted out for decades by anti-Catholic groups and many Protestants as a way of delegitimizing Catholicism and elevating Protestantism and Sectarianism as the true path. This gives the Great Bwana and other COG leaders the right, they feel, to cast the word paganism against anything they think devalues their idea of what "true" Christianity is. If a tradition or practice of a church is not found in the bible then it is an automatic leap to it coming from paganism.
First, this term does not come from the Bible (I also did a search of the Douay Rheims, and it is not in there either).
Second, it comes from paganism.
The Great Bwana and far too many COG leaders today like to spout off the word pagan if something is not found in the bible that they are harping on. This is a great trigger word to throw out to the sheeple and scare them into believing everything thing the prophet or apostle says is true because he is speaking against the pagans.
Cardinals, and their garb, were adapted from paganism. This is one of the many reasons to consider that the final Antichrist will claim ties to the Church of Rome. I would like to emphasize that this leader will CLAIM ties to Rome, but ultimately will betray the Church on Seven Hills as that seems to be laid out in Revelation 13, 17, and 19.
The office of Cardinal does not come from the Bible. It comes from paganism. Cardinals also dress in ways that pagan leaders did, and not as the early apostles did.
Bwana Bob and so many of the current COG leadership today have so many extrabiblical beliefs and traditions that they no more compare to first-century Christians and apostles than the Catholics that they love to smear as pagans.
Hislop's Two Babylons have been exposed many times as a book filled with many erroneous teachings and great stretches of the imagination. That has never stopped men from trying to use it as an authority on church history and which led the COG to place it on a pedestal. Many years ago Ralph Woodrow wrote a book called Babylon Mystery Religion which quickly became the 4th standard work of authority in the COG. The problem with his book, which he later admits was that he got his information from Hilop's book and Worldwide Church of God literature. Talk about a downward slippery slope! Woodrow later wrote a book refuting his first book called The Baylon Connection?.
Woodrow writes:
In my earlier Christian experience, certain literature fell into my hands that claimed a considerable amount of Babylonian paganism had been mixed into Christianity. While the Roman Catholic Church was the primary target of this criticism, it seemed the customs and beliefs with which pagan parallels could be found had also contaminated other churches. Much of what I encountered was based on a book called The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop (1807–1862).
Over the years The Two Babylons has impacted the thinking of many people, ranging all the way from those in radical cults (e.g., the Jehovah’s Witnesses) to very dedicated Christians who hunger for a move by God but are concerned about anything that might quench His Spirit. Its basic premise is that the pagan religion of ancient Babylon has continued to our day disguised as the Roman Catholic Church, prophesied in the Book of Revelation as “Mystery Babylon the Great” (thus, the idea of two Babylons — one ancient and one modern). Because this book is detailed and has a multitude of notes and references, I assumed, as did many others, it was factual. We quoted “Hislop” as an authority on paganism just as “Webster” might be quoted on word definitions.
As a young evangelist, I began to preach on the mixture of paganism with Christianity, and eventually I wrote a book based on Hislop, titled Babylon Mystery Religion (Ralph Woodrow Evangelistic Assn., 1966). In time, my book became quite popular, went through many printings, and was translated into Korean, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and several other languages. Hundreds quoted from it. Some regarded me as an authority on the subject of “pagan mixture.” Even the noted Roman Catholic writer Karl Keating said, “Its best-known proponent is Ralph Woodrow, author of Babylon Mystery Religion.”1
Many preferred my book over The Two Babylons because it was easier to read and understand. Sometimes the two books were confused with each other, and once I even had the experience of being greeted as “Reverend Hislop”! As time went on, however, I began to hear rumblings that Hislop was not a reliable historian. I heard this from a history teacher and in letters from people who heard this perspective expressed on the Bible Answer Man radio program. Even the Worldwide Church of God began to take a second look at the subject. As a result, I realized I needed to go back through Hislop’s work, my basic source, and prayerfully check it out.
As I did this, it became clear: Hislop’s “history” was often only an arbitrary piecing together of ancient myths. He claimed Nimrod was a big, ugly, deformed black man. His wife, Semiramis, was a beautiful white woman with blond hair and blue eyes. But she was a backslider known for her immoral lifestyle, the inventor of soprano singing and the originator of priestly celibacy. He said that the Babylonians baptized in water, believing it had virtue because Nimrod and Semiramis suffered for them in water; that Noah’s son Shem killed Nimrod; that Semiramis was killed when one of her sons cut off her head, and so on. I realized that no recognized history book substantiated these and many other claims. The Two Babyons
COG leaders had a fit when Woodrow refuted his own book and Hislop's book. He was knocking out another of their foundational understanding and they were having none of it. It was important to them that they continue to have a way to scare their members when they casually toss around the word pagan. When everything around them is pagan then everything coming out of the mouth of the chosen leader and his minions would reveal them as the enlightened ones, the un-pagan's, if you will. In COGdom and fundamentalist religious groups, this black and white world has created the biggest mess of unhappy miserable people who see themselves as surrounded by paganism in every direction they turn. It keeps them scared and fearful. Scared and fearful people are easy to manipulate and COG leaders have had a field day ever since.
Anytime your COG group tosses out Hislop's Two Babylons as an authoritative source, you should realize how little your leader really knows.
There are many webs sites and books that debunk Hislop's Two Babylons. Don't take anything your leader says with blind obedience, the chances are extremely high he has no idea what's is talking about.
COG leaders, like Bwana Bob, have literally set themselves up as little Nimrods in the church as they fill the church with extra-biblical beliefs and traditions and mind-boggling batshiterey.
Here is a great video by a man who easily debunks the book and the Nimord myths that Bwana Bob and the COG love to trot out.
The Two Babylons: Ralph Woodrow explains why he refuted his own book.Alexander Hislop's "The Two Babylons" is Not Reliable
