Apostle Malm has a guest piece on today by Richard Trevor about church government and how Armstrongism perverted it.
One interesting little blurb is that Armstrongism's God was prohibited from giving WCG members the fruits of the spirit because of the organizational structure that HWA eventually settled upon. That god sure is a weak impotent little wuss if he could not freely give his gifts to his own supposedly "called out" ones.
Atop the list of deficiencies created by our later-adopted organizational model, is the obstruction of direct inspiration of any individual, minister or otherwise. God effectively was hamstrung in His ability to give spiritual gifts (‘Talents’) to anyone without the approval of the ruling class operating within the Church. For Him to have done so, and for the authority structure NOT to have approved such ‘gift’ first, an obvious ‘problem’ would have existed.
One where the ministry would have seen it their obligation to squelch such a gift, and if not squelchable, to excommunicate the individual. This caused a response where anyone so ‘gifted’ or who came to an understanding of a point of truth not first sanctioned by the chief seat(s) suffered repression.
Richard is right that Meredith and other Church leaders did freely kick out anyone that claimed to posses fruits of the spirit. Meredith and crew thought, and still do to this day, all godly inspiration came from the top down and that the sheeple could not exhibit fruits greater than their overseers. We have all seen that happen, but to say that God was "hamstrung" in doing it is absurd.
