UCG: God Only Hears Prayers of Those Wearing Jacket and Tie?

UCG is ready to start a week of video conferences in order to save money because of their huge income drop after COGWA walked off with a large percentage of their ministers, members and tithes.  Though it is fun to mock it, it is a rather wise choice to do since the economy has been in such a mess around the world.  Coming up with new ways to accomplish old things is always a good idea.  However, UCG still seems to be stuck in a couple of areas.  70+ years down the line and Armstrongism still cannot figure out what kind of gospel they need to be proclaiming!  Seriously??.  Even worse, in 2012, they are still arguing over clothing standards.  These two topics are on their list of discussions:

On the agenda for this session is a lengthy discussion on a proposed “Public Proclamation Identity” that seeks to fulfill the Media Strategy #9 from the 2012-13 Strategic and Operation Plan. We will also be discussing the future of the Strategic Planning and Finance Committee and the viability of the church fulfilling its mission statement.

I am assuming "Public Proclamation Identity" is an innocuous way of saying, "How do we make our message and church looks like a Christian organization instead of a whacked out cult?"

A ruling has been requested for Sabbath attire – what is appropriate Sabbath wear at church services for men who speak, lead songs and give opening and closing prayer. The Council will discuss this issue before ruling on it.

Does God honestly care if a person speaking, giving a prayer or leading a song is wearing a tie or not?  Is a prayer delivered in a jacket and tie more meaningful and worshipful than in a polo shirt?

Dennis On: "This Has Been a Test You Can't Fail"

HIPPA, HIPPA Hooray!

This Has Been a Test You Can't Fail

 

Having started a new job at a new business I found myself having to take the HIPPA  (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ) new employee course.   It took about an hour online and had a mere 15 question test at the end.  Of course, if you don't pass the test with 80% or take it again, you don't work until you do.

 

I have always been the kind of person that cannot stand being "wrong."  Not that I haven't been wrong plenty of times.  I just hate being so.  Tests are not something you just pass.  Tests and exams are something you slaughter and get as near perfect as possible.  High School was straight A and College was 3.98.  Perhaps my insecurities require this of myself, but I also love learning and believing one has learned all there is, as in the "truth" of the Church of the Bible, in hindsight, just never worked for me.  The one thing I appreciated about the Apostle Paul was his use of the term "Present Truth" and not simply "Plain Truth" as if it was all sewed up and complete.

 

When I took my National Therapeutic Massage Exam they only tell you if you passed or failed and you either get a license or you don't this time around.  The seconds it takes for the computer to correct it are agonizing but I waited knowing....."Well Mr. Diehl,  you passed.  Wow....you really passed."   LOL  That's just the way I am. 

 

As an EMT, I was told to take an Advance Life Support class for three days.  Didn't take long to see I was out of my league.  Most were ER nurses and I was a EMT.  I read the book which I had not seen until then like crazy during the entire three day seminar.  Then the test.....The teacher took me aside and said,  "I have good news and bad news.  You passed and I'd love to have you teach the class.  However, you are only an EMT, so can't do that."   I smiled....   It felt good as usual.

 

Now lest you think I'm being a know it all,  (I simply enjoy learning well what I am supposed to know) I'll share another experience that gave me pause for thought.  A little bit of self disclosure is good for the soul.  For lots of reasons not hard to figure out, I ended up with a boat load of clinical depression in the 1990's. Ministering had turned into a nightmare.  I kept so many things inside and close to my chest.  I simply did not understand what was happening or what to do, if anything, about it.  I ended up having to get some personal help due to the classic symptoms of depression.  In my own view now after all these years, depression is repressed anger that one feels they either have no right to express (be a good minister and have faith) or the price of expressing the anger is to high (you're fired).    So I went for counseling.

 

In the course of this experience I was "tested,"  which if  you have never had that done, can be a bit disconcerting as testing usually comes up with answers right or wrong.  Psychological testing is a bit tense in thinking what it might show.  I can fully understand why some blow it off because it hits pretty close to home. 

 

At any rate, I was given the test.  Here is how it went.

 

1.  1,2,3____

2.  a,b,c_____

3.  2,4,6_____

4.  1a,3b,6c______

 

I think you get the point.  I was mortified.  Do they think I'm stupid?   But in short order the combos got more and more complicated until by question 18  I could see the relationship in my mind but could not physically put it down on paper.  I have never had such a feeling.  I knew the answer but could not physically write it down.

So I got that one wrong.

 

When it was "Let's talk about this," time, the counselor said,  "You did well. In fact, you did amazingly well.  You like me saying that don't you Dennis don't you?"   I said, "Well sure, with how I have been feeling, it feels good to do something well."

He said,  "Dennis, it doesn't help much to be the smartest man in depression counseling..."    I just looked at him and teared up.  I was exhausted with World Wide Church of God drama, loses and confusion.  All I could say was,  "I know....can something help me get out of the hopeless experience."

 

I got some help. Learned some things about myself and then went on to see the whole WCG world fall apart and every congregation I ever pastored tank and disappear. 

 

Anyway, back to the HIPPA test.  You had to get 80% and I am not into the kind of material this test required, but I did have to pass it.  I missed three!!!  I felt my stomach churn.  I'd have to listen to all those videos over again.  Spend another hour taking the test again.  Plus....I had failed something!!!  That is just not acceptable. 

 

Then I noticed I could save but not submit finish.  I didn't want to "finish" because I did not think I'd pass.  So I saved it and the test popped back up.  I could see the pink lines saying  "Incorrect!"   Ugh....   And then I noticed what I had not seen before.  "Select another answer."   Really?   Another chance?  Could it be this easy after all self talk about failing it?    I picked another answer, you know the one you just knew was right to begin with but didn't pick, and the pink line changed to Green!   Whoa.....  I corrected the others and pressed submit.   It popped up with getting 10/10 and 15/15 and showed me a nice certificate of completion.

 

Wow....wouldn't it be amazing and evidence of the World Tomorrow if whenever one made a mistake and knew it, gave a wrong answer and wanted to correct it or screwed up and wanted another chance, you simply had to go back to the question and try again?   No criticism.  No scoffing.  No recrimination.  No embarrassment.  No demerits.  No penalties.  No being made fun of.  No criticism of oneself.  No nuttin...   You just get to correct it and the first wrong answers were as if they had never happened.   Dreaming I know.  Frankly, this is the kind of real Deity I can conceive of as opposed to the one who says he is "jealous" or has a need to throw one into either an ever burning hell or one that crisps you up quickly.  

 

"Select another answer...."   Wow....It truly would be the Kingdom of God and Heaven on Earth. 

 

I don' know if the Apostle Paul really wrote the following.  It doesn't sound like him when you read his other rants and raves against others who disagree with him, but let's say he grew up too and got to "select another answer." 

 

I Corinthians 13

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts,

always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails

Love is a do over without all the baggage and humiliation.  The only human I find in the Bible who ever actually did this was the father in the story of the prodigal son.  He seems to have simply said to the son he loved   "select another answer." 

Nice....really nice.......

Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com

Lawsuit Dismissed Against Blogger Critical of Minister

A great victory occurred in Beaverton Oregon last Thursday when a judge dismissed a $500,000.00 lawsuit filed by a minister of a legalistic cult like church against a former member who posted a negative comment about the church online.


The story started when a young woman who was very active in the church experienced a crisis in faith when challenged to look deeper into what she was being brought up in.


She writes:

Skip forward a couple of years, I had never formally joined BGBC as a member. I was taking classes at the local community college where I met a guy. He challenged me to re-think everything I knew and believed in. He didn’t want me to leave Christianity (he actually still considers me a Christian even though I no longer profess a belief). But through discussions with him, I started to look at my life and realized that I was living in a bubble. That bubble was basically white, middle-class, Christian, homeschooling families. It was a small segment of a much bigger world. I wanted to explore life and see what it meant to me without feeling pressure from anything or anyone else.

So here I was almost 21, working 4 part-time nanny jobs so I could put myself through a full-time school load to finish my degree (and I didn’t have a car due to my finances and wanting to complete school as fast as I could, so I biked or bused my commutes). When I added up the time I was at BGBC, which alone was about 20 hours a week including Friday night evangelizing on the street or at malls. Christianity was such an ingrained part of my family’s life that there was no way that I’d be allowed to live at home and not go to church. Plus I’d still have my family responsibilities and chores. I was honestly suffering burn-out with all the activities I had to do. I loved my family, adored my siblings, and respected my parents, but I knew and they knew that I couldn’t do what I wanted and live with them at the same time.

This woman's father brought her in front of the church pastor and this is what transpired:

My father, in utter disbelief that I could denounce my faith (he was a Calvinist so this was unthinkable and practically an impossibility in his mind) and Chuck arranged a “meeting” with me that truthfully was really coerced.  I did not want to be there. They sat me down in his office and read verse after verse and got me to feel sorry and repentant by pointing out that I respected my elders and so should do what they said.  

Pastor Chuck’s best idea for getting me to “come back to the faith” was to take away my cell phones (I had two, the contract was in my name, that I entirely paid for), forbid me from going on the internet, told me to stop taking classes in a “worldly” school, as well as leave my various jobs, and that I was to stay home all day and basically only leave it to go to church.  

After thinking about that for a day or two, I decided that that was utterly ridiculous and sounded like brain-washing to me. I thought, “If Christianity is that great, shouldn’t it be obvious? Why can’t I go out on my own? If it’s so great, I’ll for sure come back to the faith anyways - following their logic”. I knew I could ask questions, but I had a feeling the answers would be skewed, and hammered down into me like I was treated at that meeting. I wanted to be treated like an adult, to be given the pros and cons, to have the other adults admit that I had valid concerns, and not act like I was stupid and under the influence of a male friend who they thought might be trying to steal me away from the faith, the church, and my family.

Disgusted by it all she moved out of the house and across town so as to not be able to bump into church members. The young woman's mother disgusted by the ministers actions and the actions of church members wrote a comment on the church web site.

Speed up to last December. My mother had said that she had written a review on BGBC’s website and it wasn’t there anymore. We had already noticed the church members’ tactics of burying the negative google reviews under their positive ones by slightly tweaking their reviews so they’d stay consistently on top. When she said that, I thought that I’d write a review, partly as a way to defend my mother, as well as a way to tell my own story. That church had hurt me. It had caused a rift between me and my parents. So I wrote my review, and it was buried, but it stayed there.

And now here we are today. I don’t think Chuck’s lawsuit was aimed at me, it’s aimed at my mother. I was fuel to add to the fire. Chuck never tried to contact me after I left the church. I never knew if I was shunned or excommunicated, as I didn’t talk or associate with anyone at that church unless they initiated the conversation. I lived a good 45 minutes away on the other side of town purposely so I wouldn’t accidentally run into people I knew from my “old” life. Honestly, I was busy just living my life, finishing up my Bachelor’s degree, building my career, finding new friends. But now I’m involved in a half-a-million dollar lawsuit. Life has a strange way of working. But I’m glad I’m in this . I will stand by my mother every step of the way. It’s her blog, but she, and I, and the other defendants, and EVERYONE has a right to their opinion, especially if they believe it’s the truth. The best defense against defamation is just that - the truth. And the truth is what my mother wrote, and truth is what I wrote.

Then all hell breaks loose.  The minister, against the counsel of other ministers in other churches that knew him, decided he was going to make an example of the mother and daughter and filed a half million dollar lawsuit against them for defamation.

KCTV out of Kansas City had this in a July 13 story:

BEAVERTON, OR (KPTV) - 

A woman who badmouthed her former church on her blog may have to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars after the church filed a defamation lawsuit.

A Washington County Judge heard arguments from both sides Friday afternoon and now must decide whether the case will move forward.


The Beaverton Grace Bible Church sued Julie Anne Smith, saying her blog could ruin their reputation. Smith's daughter and a third former church member are also targets of the lawsuit.


Smith said she stands by her blog posts. 

She said the church practices spiritual abuse. She also wrote the pastor knew there was a sex offender in the church and gave him access to children and the nursery. 

That's one of the accusations that the church lists in their lawsuit. Church leaders said it's false and that Smith only posted it to get back at Pastor Chuck O'Neal.

"It's an attempt o ruin us, and it's been highly successful," Pastor O'Neal told Fox 12 outside of court. "They have said the worst possible kind of things you can say about a pastor, about a church." Beaverton church sues blogging ex-member, seeks $500,000

Flash forward to July 26th.  Fox 12 states the following:

BEAVERTON, OR (KPTV) - 

The lawsuit against a blogger who badmouthed her former church has been dismissed.  
A judge threw out the defamation lawsuits filed against Julie Anne Smith and two others by the Beaverton Grace Bible Church.

Note what the judge said:

The report from Judge Jim Fun said the internet postings "were made in a public forum and concern an issue of public interest. The court further finds that the plaintiff has not met the burden of presenting substantial evidence the defendant's statements are defamatory."  Lawsuit dismissed against blogger critical of Beaverton church

 The mother and daughter started a blog for survivors of the cult..  BGBC Survivors

If this sounds familiar it is exactly like what one Church of God cult leader in the southern hemisphere has been doing for several years now.  Using threats and intimidation on Facebook and various COG blogs, he has threatened and filed suit against several who are critical of him and his asinine teachings.  This should serve as fair warning the next time he gets pissed at someone who doesn't like him and says so.