An Example of Integrity and Humility that COG Ministers Do NOT Have

While this is non-COG related, in a unique way it is. Here is a courageous video of a mega church pastor in Georgia. This man has balls! Something far too many ministers in Armstrongism do NOT have.

If some of the COG ministers had real integrity and humility they too might be talking like this. God knows that some of the splinter group ministers/elders/deacons are just like Pastor Swilley!  Even HWA referred to one man running a medium size Armstrongite splinter cult as the "...most effeminate minister the church has ever had."  We had a traveling long-winded evangelist who was seen by many Ambassador students in gay bars.
There has been the Atlanta preacher Eddie Long in the news recently.  We all watched while Ted Haggard created his own debacle (and STILL does to the day).  In the COG we even had the story about GTA that has been around for decades:

from the 1996 Ambassador Report

A confidential source in the Chicago area, a former WCG member who is gay, recently explained to me what is believed to be the origin of Garner Ted's sexual escapades with women and girls. As reported to me, when Garner Ted was a young man, he apparently was living with another young man in a gay relationship. When his father, Herbert, found out about it he yanked GTA out of this gay relationship and commanded him never to participate in such a life-style ever again. So long as Garner Ted remained away from gay involvements, Herbert Armstrong looked the other way in regard to GTA's many heterosexual involvements. This long-established, family-based behavioral programming may account for the constant denial of sexual misconduct by GTA in spite of the extensive documentation of his lifelong problem.

 

"Those that bark out scriptures know the least about it!"

His wife speaks around the 48 minute mark.  The video is a little over an hour long and 

well worth watching in it's entirety

bishopjimswilley on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Swilley, who created the Church In The Now some 25 years ago, is a divorced father of four. But he's known he's gay since he was a boy, says the Rockdale County man of the cloth, and even his wife Debye — whom he divorced earlier this year — knew when they got married (!). The couple kept it a secret for more than two decades, but Jim says Debye recently pushed him to share his story.

The pastor made the announcement to his congregation two weeks ago (yes, it takes time for some stories to trickle), with his family in the audience and decided to come out now after witnessing the rash of gay youths killing themselves. One Internet forum poster says that unlike Atlanta's Long (whom Swilley won't speak about), Swilley has not used the pulpit to denigrate gays: "For those of you familiar with Church In the Now, while never discussing his own sexuality, you know that Swilley has always preached a message of inclusion, love and abundance for all God's children. Bishop Swilley has been asked to step down as Bishop, but will remain as Pastor."

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"Bishop Jim Swilley of Church In the Now of Conyers, announced to his congregation tonight that he is gay. He has been the pastor of Church In the Now since 1985, and has been married to his second wife for 21 years and is the father of four.

For those of you familiar with Church In the Now, while never discussing his own sexuality, you know that Swilley has always preached a message of inclusion, love and abundance for all God's children. Bishop Swilley has been asked to step down as Bishop, but will remain as Pastor.

Encouraged by the recent rash of G&L teen suicides, he decided to make his congregation aware of his sexual preference. I say sexual preference because he's made it clear that he does not intend to live a homosexual lifestyle (in that he has chosen to be celibate for the rest of his life). Knowing of his sexual preference, yet fully supporting him, his wife left him more than a year ago. However, she was in attendance at tonight's service, and spoke vigorously in support and love for her ex-husband, her childrens' father.

I absolutely support Bishop Swilley and his courage to speak his truth from the pulpit. As someone said recently said in the wake of the Eddie Long scandal, "it didn't take a scandal to bring me out of the closet." This is true of Bishop Swilley. While it is reasonable to consider whether or not the New Birth (which is a neighboring church) scandal influenced his decision, at the end of the day, Swilley made a decision to be completely honest with his congregation about who he is and invite them to continue to follow his message of God's love for every one.

Happy Hallow'en to Spanky, Six-Pack and The Two Witlesses

Soon after WCG sold the Pasadena property 

the new owners did a Halloween "House of Horror's" on the campus.  Little did they know that was the actual state of affairs given the legacy of the church by that time...

So in honor of Hallow'en and the continuing loony tunes in charge of three of the sillier splinter cults we decided to carve some pumpkins.

These pumpkins were carved for Six-Pack McFlurry 

in honor of his arrest for public drunkenness 

and for trying to bribe a Peace Officer with twenty Five dollars 
to let him go

I tried to find a scary picture of Six-Pack 

worshiping the Great Pumpkin, 

but this is just as scary...

These are seductively displayed for 

Spanky Merrydeath.  

Get that Spokesmen Club paddle out!  

Spank me daddy!

These pumpkins were carved after listening to 

The Two Witless Witnesses

preaching  yet another three hour sermon on prophecy 

that has 

FAILED!

Mrs. Weinerdude looks on in horror

(aka WeinerDude - Ronnie Weinland and his Second Witness Wife)

God knows the Horror you have brought to thousands of members lives with your failed prophecies, outright lies, sexual obsessions, and just plain WEIRD ideas make all three of you this years perfect Halloween pupmpkins!  :-)

HAPPY 

HALLOW'EN!!!!

United Crisis Ready For Explosion? Is It Really the 'Liberals' or the Uber-Conservatives Causing the Issue?

More information hit the Internet today concerning the current crisis in UCG.  There are posts about the Sabbath Papers, posts about those pesky liberals seeking to destroy the 'faith once delivered', and lot's of details on the Chilean family that precipitated this crisis because their day care center operating on the 'sabbath'.  The big headline though was this one:

UNITED CRISIS NEARS EXPLOSION!

These postings are all screaming about the liberals in UCG and how THEY are causing this crisis.  You have to wonder after reading this stuff as to who is actually causing the   problems.  Is it really the UCG brass or is it the legalistic Pharisees crowing about how much better they are at keeping the law.  There sure  is a LOT of boasting going on in their postings.

I am no fan of UCG or the crooks running it.  I saw most of them in action while in Pasadena. One can hope that maybe some of them finally are getting their heads out of HWA's holy rear-end and actually stepping back to take a look at what they teach.  I really am not going to hold my breathe on that one though. But one can wish.

Instead you quickly see how divisive those who are seeking to hold on to the old ways really are.  They are the legalistic Pharisees that want to take members with them as they try to form a new splinter group off of UCG.  They will soon be the new wounded martyrs.  "We stood up for God's word and look what happened to us!  UCG kicked us out and disfellowshipped us for preaching the truth. blah, blah, blah."



Sabbath Issues

Analysis of Sabbath Papers

United Crisis Near Explosion

When reading the Shining Light Blog more and more it sounds like a bunch of gumpy Pharisees sitting around bitching about those disgusting people Jesus is having dinner with.  They dwell in the letter of the law instead of grace.  They live in a  world of black and white ignoring the fact that Scripture is NOT black and white.

A Pharisee is a sanctimonious, hypocritical, self-righteous heretic who practices and advocates strict observance of external forms and ceremonies of religion or conduct without regard to the spirit. He makes a hypocritical show of religious devotion, piety, and righteousness. He is confident of his own righteousness, and is smugly moralistic and intolerant of the opinion and behavior of others. He pretends to have moral, religious beliefs and principles which he does not possess.

In simple terms…A Pharisee falsely thinks he is a god himself as he pretends to do God’s bidding, enforces God’s laws, knows God’s mind, and has the imagined authority of God in his hands His power is gained by lording over the humble, fearful, sinners who dare not even consider walking toward God because of their dirty transgressions and lowly state.