Rod Meredith and the Manpower Papers

Here is something that was conveniently left out of Rod Meredith's recent film about himself.   Why didn't Rod Meredith discuss his participation in the Manpower group at Ambassador College where he maligned, disparaged and ridiculed students every week.  From sex to racist and homophobic comments, accusation of masturbation, students genetic make-up, sex, dating, sex, attitudes, sex, physique, and more sex. Why did the Living Church of God gloss over these qualities of Rod Meredith? Richard Ames knows better!

The Manpower Papers

In 1961 at the behest of the Armstrongs a "manpower committee" comprising 15 of the leading men of Ambassador College (AC) was formed. The noble purpose of this committee was to evaluate AC students-especially male students-and determine whether or not to employ them at AC or in the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) upon graduation. The Manpower Committee, however, quickly degenerated into a high-level gossip session in which a group of corporate misfits combined to destroy the reputation of numerous students whose only offense may have been intellectual resistance to the doctrinal intimidation and personal prejudices of AC/WCG officials while attending to their formal education.

Before any discussion of a student began, his picture was projected onto a screen. Then, as the members of this "spiritual jury" stared at the student's image, each one of them divulged information - often given to them confidentially in private counseling sessions - gathered on the student. This information often included a student's background, racial and genetic heritage, sex and dating problems, attitudes, and physique, in addition to biased personal assessments of a student's potential worth to the organization.

Below Ambassador Report is reprinting a number of statements made in these manpower meetings that aptly illustrate the mentality of the Ambassador College administration in the 1960s. Little if any concrete evidence for the allegations, innuendos, or rumors in the following quotations was ever formally submitted, probably because it never existed. All students were tried in absentia and never given a chance to reply to the biased information disseminated in these meetings that sullied their reputations. Yet the essence of what was said in these meetings was carefully typed and distributed to several leading men at AC in Pasadena, the vice-chancellor of AC's Texas campus, and AC's Personnel Office. (In order to protect the identity and reputation of the students mentioned in the following statements, we will refer to all male students as "X" and to all females students as "Y." We have gone to great lengths to delete anything that we felt could lead to the identification of a student.)

Read the comments Rod Meredith and others made here: Manpower Papers

Allegory and the Prophetic Failure of Harold Camping and Rod Meredith

Prophet Thiel is picking apart Harold Camping today concerning his latest prophetic failure.  Jesus was supposed to be returning on Friday, October 21st. That is after Jesus failed to show up last year on May 21st.

Prophet Thiel is indignant that Camping fails to understand what allegory is.  Prophet Thiel is the LAST person on this earth that needs to be reminding Camping on what allegory is!

The Prophet writes the following as the reason Camping's predictions failed.  Camping did not understand allegory.

The short answer is that Harold Camping allegorized away too many key scriptures. In other words, he relied on his own private interpretations and imaginations more than looking at the prophetic sequence that Jesus Himself gave in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. It is that simple. He ignored the fact that required physical events in the Great Tribulation had not happened, nor did the signs in the heavens preceding Jesus’ return occur. Notice that Harold Camping and His followers ignored Jesus’ words which could not pass away:

Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  If that's not the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is! Living Church of God's entire existence is based upon a failure to understand what parables, allegory, myths and legends have to do in scripture.

LCG/COG has used the private interpretations and the imaginations of Herbert Armstrong and Rod Meredith as a basis of doctrinal "truth" for decades.  Neither man has any seminary training and is ignorant of biblical hermeneutics, exegesis and eschatology.  Neither man has any understanding how Christian thought developed over the centuries from Plato, Aristotle, and other great thinkers.

Many of the Bible stories were never meant to be taken literally.  Armstrongism has never understood that fact.  While parables, allegories and legends may have great truths in them - just as Greek mythology does - it does not make them "true" in the sense that the event actually happened.

Armstrongism also fails to recognize that Revelation was a hotly disputed book that only made it in the Canon  by the skin of it's teeth.  Yet, Armstrongism looks at it as one of the greatest books ever written.  Literalism literally destroys the mind!

Prophet Thiel follows with a quote from the International Business Times:

Doomsday prophet Harold Camping gives bad name to Christianity, denounced by …

International Business Times – ‎ Self-proclaimed Doomsday prophet Harold Camping is nothing more than a charlatan, a fraud who has given a bad name to Christianity, according to Christian leaders.

On that we all can agree!  Thiel however goes on to write:

The iniquity of false prophets such as Harold Camping, Ronald Weinland (who still claims that Jesus will come on May 27, 2012), and others will turn various people off about prophecy.

Prophet Thiel calls Wienland and Camping false prophets and  men who turn people off towards prophecy.  What the hell does he think Rod Meredith has done?  Rod has made hundreds of false prophecies over the decades.  Meredith follows directly in the footprints of Herbert Armstrong who has an even longer list of failures. What about the tens of thousands who have been turned off to the church and God over the decades because of the lies of Meredith and Armstrong?  Why do their failed prophecies continue to  get glossed over?

Thiel continues on:

Those who follow Ronald Weinland of CGPFK may wish to ask themselves how they will feel on May 28, 2012 when Jesus does not return the day before as well (Ronald Weinland, like Harold Camping, also seems to excessively allegorize away prophetic scriptures).

False prophets result in an increase in scoffers, yet despite them, Jesus will return, but not in 2011 or 2012. Please do not allow false prophets to turn you aside from the prophetic and other truths in the Bible.

I would say that those who continue to follow Rod Meredith after his promotion of January 1972 as the date we were supposed to flee to Petra and a few years later for the return of Jesus, may wish to ask themselves why they follow such a failure!  How many lives were destroyed over that one?  Meredith had his golden gloves right in the middle of the mix!  What about his continued "we only have 3-5 more years left" mantra that he has been spitting out for decades?  How can you believe a liar who has been saying the same thing for 50 some years?

Meredith's false prophecies have certainly brought out the scoffers (including this one). We see right through the blatant lies of the man and know him as just one more in a long line of religious despots that seek to control the lives of COG members. Meredith, Weinland, Pack, Flurry, Cox, Steven's, are sick little men who are in deep need of psychiatric help.  How many more men, women and children need to die because of these guys?

Coming Out of Hell: A Journey From Chaos to Redemption - Book By Former COG Cult Member

Another book to add to my collection by a former COG member.  Bonnet left a comment under the blog entry on Greg Sargent

I continue to be fascinated by the many different routes people have taken when they escape from Armstrongism.  I am particularly fascinated by people who's faith was not destroyed by the lies and filth that masqueraded as Christan.

So goes the never ending collapse of the Pope Herbert empire. As to Mr Sargent, I consider him to be a sincere man with integrity, but he must have blinders on to fail to understand the ramifications of Herbert's massive indiscretions. If you read this Greg, I got out in 1995 and got born again. You can read my expose of WCG and its offshoots in my book "Coming out of Hell - A Journey from Chaos to redemption

Coming Out of Hell A Journey from Chaos to Redemption

Can we be saved and broken at the same time? Can a Christian still need inner healing?

Every person on Earth experiences sin and brokenness. But even embracing a new life in Christ does not automatically resolve the pain and bitterness of past struggles and abuse. In this remarkably candid and uplifting book, psychologist David Bonnet bares his soul, using his long battle with depression and even longer involvement with a powerful cult to show how victory in Christ can transform a shattered life. 

Coming Out of Hell is a gripping story of deliverance from the deception, manipulation, and shame of cultic involvement. It takes an inside look at how individuals and families in the grips of spiritual, emotional, and financial chaos can find healing by submitting these wounds to Jesus Christ and finding peace by living in His presence.

Join David and discover that no life is too broken for Christ to heal---not even yours.

Milestone Books 
Amazon Books