UPDATE: Philadelphia Church of God: Take Your Disabled Child To The Mall And Abandon Him - Let Someone Else Take Care Of Him

Update:

George Witt, the Philadelphia Church of God "minister" that told a PCG family to leave its disabled child at the mall so someone else could take care of it, has died.  Good riddance to the man!

One of the reasons he wanted the kid dumped was so the family could send in the money they were spending on their child to the glorious work of Gerald Flurry instead.  The depths of depraviltiy in the Church of God has no boundaries.


This story was originally posted June 20, 2013

Just when I think the depth of depravity of Armstrongism can't sink any lower, along comes more horror stories from Gerald Flurry's cult.

PCG Told Me to Get Rid of My Mentally Handicapped Son With Cerebral Palsy:

June 17, 2013

I was told by a minister in PCG to "get rid of" my mentally handicapped son (who also had cerebral palsy) or don't return. He told me to put him in some facility, or if I couldn’t afford that, then take him somewhere that he would not know and abandon him in the mall or somewhere that people were. He said someone would find him and put him away, and that I was to turn and not look back, and just leave him there! I guess you can imagine just about what I told them!!

What helped me the most were people having the same objections and questions that I was having, wondering if these ministers in PCG really have the authority they say they did over us. The ministers try to make you feel you're isolated in your thinking, that you're the only one questioning anything. So you better get back under their submission, their rule--or suffer the consequences. (I decided to take the consequences). I am free and I am staying that way.

The ESN has been a Godsend. You have saved many people, including me and my family. We saw how others were questioning things, as we were, and realized things were just not right in there! Our feelings were right; we weren’t as crazy as others trying to pull us back in would have us think. They practice mind control there. All it takes is a few mentioning of buzz-words from them (i. e., "the Work," "the Church," "Mr. Flurry," etc.) and you start to question your own common sense and your sanity. Well, not anymore.

None are so blind as those who will not see. Well, now I see! Thanks for everything. God bless you. --Former PCG member

A comment from a reader here adds to this story:

Reading this story that is exactly what happened to William B. Hinsom. He became a WCG minister in the 1960s. However he had a mentally disabled son. He was advised by people within WCG to leave him in a facility for such people in Franklin, Tennessee. He strongly suspected that his son would die, but he trusted them, he thought the Great Tribulation would soon start in 1972, so reluctantly he agreed. His son died as feared.

Later he left WCG and wrote a book about WCG, Broadway to Armageddon (1977). You can request it from Exit and Support Network.

Naturally Hinsom focuses a lot on the terrible consequences of people following HWA's anti-medicine superstition that he plagiarized from the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Congratulations to that brave commenter. No doubt you did the right thing.

This useless PCG minister's advice reminds me of this terrible incident I heard about. There was this man who murdered his wife and then took their eight year old young daughter on a plane and he then abandoned her at an airport. Did not do him much good. The authorities learned what happened and arrested him. He is now deservedly rotting away in jail. I think the PCG minister could have been charged with something serious if his horrific advise was followed. 

Why is the Church of God In such a mess today?

The Worldwide Church of God regularly used to mock Christianity for its many different groups of believers.  How could any of them be true if they are so splintered? Garner Ted, Gerald Waterhouse, and Rod Meredith used to take particular delight in mocking Christians around them.

From it's very foundation the Church of God was a splinter group. The roots of the Church of God has direct ties to the ruptures in Adventism after the Great Disappointment with William Miller. One of the groups that formed from this split was the Oregon Conference Church of God Seventh Day.

Armstrong joined up with the Oregon Conference of the Church of God Seventh Day when his wife Loma got sucked in by the witnessing of a neighbor Emma Runcorn.  Then out of spite or stubbornness, Herbert refused to let the COG Seventh Day baptism him, so he headed down the street to the local Baptist Church where he was baptized.

After spending some time with the Church of God Seventh Day doing what HE wanted to do when He wanted to do it, he got wrapped with Andrew Dugger and Clarence Dodd.  These two men continued the splintering mess with the Church of God Stanberry proclaiming they had the insight and revealed knowledge of apostolic Christianity.  Dugger and Dodd soon started their own rebellion by proclaiming that the apocalypse would occur in 1936 and promised to make Armstrong an apostle in their church. Later Dugger headed off to Jerusalem with his own group and Clarence Dodd eventually left that fold to become the godfather of the Sacred Names Movement with itself has fractured into hundreds of Sacred Names groups that many xCOG members have joined.

Hardheadedness and rebellion was always a trait they controlled Armstrong's life, from his endless job hopping to his rebellion against the Church of God Seventh Day which he left to start his own splinter group.  So it's no wonder that in 2016 we have hundreds and hundreds of splinter groups, each proclaiming they have the restored truth that the others do not.

From apostate self-appointed Judaizer James Malm that bastardizes the gospel in order to make the law his savior to Dave Pack reigning in all of his narcissistic glory in Wadsworth uttering one failed prophecy after another. From the United Church of God that has already ruptured with various splinter groups to Rod Meredith who has made a profession out of running off at the mouth. Every single one of these groups claim they have the exclusive truth and are God's final witness.

Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry, and Ron Weinland are regularly visited by entities that supposedly give them new revelations.  Even the entities cant get their act together and are giving out conflicting messages to countless self appointed and double blessed leaders.

Rebellious, hard-headed, narcissistic men have been running amok for decades ripping the lives of thousands of members apart.  For what?   Building mini-me campuses and auditoriums, establishing useless "universities" that have accomplished absolutely nothing since their inceptions.  On and on the list can go.

Trying to recapture the "glory days" of years gone by has not worked for any of them. Getting back on track hasn't worked either.  The train is permanently derailed.

What have any of them accomplished? Where are the fruits of the spirit?How have they been a light for the Gospel?