Nathan has another great article up about the experience of the 20th and 21st century Church of God member and they way we think/thought. And how that thinking has made the COG so dysfunctional. He goes through some of the conditions that caused the church to form some of the rigid ideas it had and still has in various splinter groups.
It is encouraging to read Nathan's articles which give cause for celebration because he has some various honest insights from an insiders point of view into the Church of God than many refuse to even look at today. There are plenty of us now on the outside looking it, but rarely do you have present members questioning things so sincerely. It is more comfortable to go with the flow than to rock the critical thinking boat. Nathan does not shy away from it.
In his a article today he asked these questions:
The question is: what came first, dysfunctional people or a dysfunctional culture and system within the Church of God? Or, to put this another way, were people screwed up by the systems of the Church of God or did they come this way, attracted by some weirdness within the existing culture....given such evidence as is available we can at least find areas for future investigation that are likely to lead to more definitive solutions, and at least rough proportions of where the responsibility and blame for the dysfunctionality of the Church of God culture belongs.
It is customary for the Church of God to think itself separate from the world, but even a very basic understanding of the larger generational and political patterns that the Church of God has experienced will show that the Church of God has been greatly influenced by the greater society it has operated it, whatever its claims to the contrary.
Most COG members never stop and consider this reasoning at all. Nathan is right that Armstrongism has always considered it's self separate from the world. Yet, it was deeply entrenched in it. The world invaded every aspect of the church. From our literature and television programs. Our ministerial training tactics. Our architecture in our buildings which was meant to awe and astound people. Our worship of money reigned supreme. Our scandals mirrored the scandals going on in most televangelist organizations but many times to an even darker level. Our addictions to alcohol, sex, drugs, food, money, possessions mirror the world around us.
Nathan continues with these brilliant observations:
"There are really two fundamental outside influences here. First, early experiences (and dissatisfaction) with loose organization, along with the influence of isolationist and pro-fascist 1930′s culture, seems to have encouraged the early Radio Church of God to take a much more authoritarian stance, as right-wing thought was moving in a more authoritarian direction during the 1930′s. The period of greatest growth for the Church of God was during the beginning of the Culture Wars of the West, where a large group of conservative, traditional-minded people came into the Radio/Worldwide Church of God, seemingly looking to escape the doctrinal and especially cultural liberalism of the age. As right-wing political culture moved more in a libertarian direction and as authoritarianism was discredited in the post-Cold War period, it is little surprise that the Church of God as a whole has been in a permanent state of crisis at this time, given its tension between the influence of right-wing political worldviews and expectations from outside society and its generally traditionalist mindset, which fiercely defends traditions that are only a few generations old."
"It is the hallmark of co-dependent institutions that they show immense rigidity. And that has been the experience of anyone who has spent a great deal of time within a vast majority of the Church of God culture (including Worldwide). If we are to assume that the Church of God is supposed to be a model of a godly family, we would recognize that a godly family is to nourish and support the well-being and gifts and abilities of its members. In addition, it would recognize that growing maturity and capability would change an initially very unequal parent and child relationship into a relationship of mutual respect. Dysfunctional institutions and families show no such flexibility. Instead there are rigid roles that have to be followed, with little or no tolerance of deviation or even the slightest bit of independent-mindedness. Even if leaders are given great latitude for their own laziness or health issues, everyone else must work without rest or release, as meaning is only found in doing and not in being or relationships (which may be actively discouraged except among elites). In addition, a dysfunctional family does not show any change in its views. There is never any way to lower the gap between leaders and followers, no flexibility in recognizing changes in what roles or places a person would be best served, and often no interest in helping people find a best fit between their own talents and abilities and the places they serve, unless that person has reached sufficiently elite status to merit such (rare) personal attention and consideration."
There is a cornucopia of other great observations in his article, so please check out Nathan's article here: On The Bi-Directional Feedback of Culture And Membership In The 20th and 21st Century Experience Of The Church Of God
