Gerald Flurry: "Herbert W. Armstrong’s Gift to the Olympic Games"

Gerald Flurry and his splinter cult, the Philadelphia Church of God, have been running a series of articles using HWA's world travels as supposedly significant earth shattering events.  HWA's meetings decades ago are being trotted out as if God himself was speaking directly to these world leaders.  With numerous speeches talking about “a strong hand from someplace” what exactly does Flurry think HWA accomplished?  Did the leaders convert?  Did hundreds of thousands of citizens convert?  HWA claimed that through his speaking with the leaders he was presenting the gospel message to the leader and it was his/her responsibility to give it to the people.  That was a great way of wringing you hands from the mess of nothing ever happening.  “It’s the leaders fault no one converted to the Truth, not HWA’s.”  I don’t know how many times I heard that asinine comment from evangelists and ministers.

Gerald Flurry and his minions continues to pimp out HWA day in and day out.  His latest pimping episode is the most appalling.  Flurry claims HWA has a message for the Olympians gathered in London.

Right now the world has its mind focused on the Olympic Games,” wrote the internationally recognized unofficial ambassador for world peace to worldwide readers in the Plain Truth, July-August 1984. 

The same is true today for the 2012 Games. All eyes are focused on the host city of London. Perhaps Trumpet readers are unaware or have forgotten about former Ambassador College faculty member and renowned athletic coach Harry Sneider. As recently as last year, Mr. Sneider acknowledged Mr. Armstrong’s direct contribution to Olympic success, writing, “Back in 1967 I came to Ambassador College to study a way of life that had a major impact on my life, my marriage, my home and family as well as my work. 

“My mentor was Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong. He told me that I had a gift of working with top-notch performers in sports. In 1984 I was nominated head coach for the United States Olympic Team in Track and Field. 

“Mr. Armstrong wrote a wonderful booklet called The Seven Laws of Success. I used these laws in my coaching and training. They are very simple. They can be found in the Scriptures ….” 

Coach Sneider went on to encourage readers to study those seven laws of success.

Besides pimping HWA, Flurry is also pimping out Harry Sneider who was a former employee in the PE Department in Pasadena.  Sneider is known around the world for his training techniques that he used for Dwight Stones, 1984's track and field team and an Olympic swimmer.  Sneider is still active locally with sports training.

One reader here comments about Sneider: 

 “Fine, so Harry felt there was validity to the 7 Laws. That's fine, they're common sense. But he made the contacts with athletes, not HWA. He also had fabulous facilities at his disposal, and free reign to use them. Being in Southern California put him in touch with connected people, and the ideal weather made training in SoCal a perfect situation. Nobody really begrudged Harry his projects, but he pretty much did his own thing for years.”

After discussing Sneider, the Flurry cult jumps the high bar with this:

Yet how many athletes, spectators or viewers around the world ask the question: What does God think of these Games? You need to take the time to request The Seven Laws of Success and find out that simple formula that Harry Sneider spoke of. 

In the same Plain Truth article, Mr. Armstrong continued, “The law of God is the way of righteousness. Sin is the transgression of the law. The law of God is given us in the broadest principle and also magnified into the Ten Commandments, and even into many further specific points that are magnifications of the principles of the Ten Commandments. God expects us to apply these principles of His law to specific actions. 

“The basic law is love, outflowing toward God above all else, and secondarily, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

 

Does Flurry and his minions actually think any Olympian is going to be asking such a question let alone writing in for a book that is so out of date that it is laughable?  I guess what Flurry and his minions are trying to say here is that when Olympians compete they are NOT loving their neighbor.  If they truly loved their neighbor they would let the other person cross the line first.

Then the craziness continues:

Twenty eight years later, Stones will serve as a commentator for nbc during this year’s London 2012 Olympic Games, and one wonders whether he recalls those seven-laws-of-success-based training sessions at Ambassador College and the indelible principles of God’s law of love expounded by the book’s author and college’s founder.

Um, what “indelible principles of God’s law and love did HWA expound?  Broken marriages?  Suicides? Untimely deaths of members because doctors were prohibited? Rampant alcoholism in the Church?  Wife swapping by ministers and employees?  I am assuming this is what Flurry and crew are really talking about.

Then the Flurry camp continues:

Trumpet founder Gerald Flurry, supported by co-workers and members of the Philadelphia Church of God, went so far as to fight a six-year court battle to preserve these seven laws, keep them in print and promote them worldwide through television and distribution over the Internet. 

Flurry fails to report that he LOST the court case and had to pay the Worldwide Church of God for the rights to all the materials that he had previously plagiarized.  Flurry wasted millions of dollars in legal fees on top of the 3 million he was forced to pay the WCG for publication rights.

In addition, he founded Herbert W. Armstrong College in Edmond, Oklahoma, featuring liberal arts education and including a balanced sports program founded on the scriptural principles of the seven laws of success as established by its namesake. 

 Add to this his continuance in the example and legacy of Mr. Armstrong by ensuring you could receive that foundational knowledge freely, as a gift without request for money, obligation or follow-up. 

I would add to this the continual worship and pimping of Herbert Armstrong by Flurry  makes him come out looking like a complete fool.  All Flurry is accomplishing is letting the world know that he has absolutely no creative ideas in the alcohol damaged brain of his.  Flurry and his minions cannot come up with anything without pimping HWA into the mix.  There is no originality anywhere  in the organization.  Flurry dresses like HWA, poses for photo’s like HWA, builds similar buildings like HWA did, uses the same names for buildings, schools and literature as HWA did.  Buys personal items of HWA and places them in prominent places for idolatrous worship. Then, to cap it all off, he names his pretend unacredited college after HWA and starts a concert series and “foundation” named after HWA.  The list could go on and on.

During these Olympic Games, request your free copy of The Seven Laws of Success to understand the keys to the eternal joy of lasting physical, spiritual, emotional and mental success. When sincerely applied, those laws truly do work to produce real and lasting success in your life! •

Any Olympian or other person that would dare to order the Seven Laws of Success would be subjecting their selves to a life of eternal unhappiness and fear, broken relationships and spiritual bankruptcy.  Emotional and mental scars would prevent any Olympian from ever competing again. 

YOU can read the crazines here: Herbert W. Armstrong’s Gift to the Olympic Games

Thought it all Flurry and his crew want us to believe that Herbert Armstrong contributed significantly to the Olympics.  When pigs fly.

Arthur Ferdig (HWA Assistant) and His Angel Metatron Rip Off Investors

Armstrongism has always been rife with people who were out to make a quick buck off of members and others.  Numerous Pasadena employees and members were involved in every imaginable get rich scheme possible.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars were lost by members over the years to these liars and crooks. Many of the people who did this are now are part of LCG, UCG and PCG.

One woman in Pasadena years ago conned widows and other others out of hundreds of thousands of dollars with her lies.  Doris W. bankrupted numerous people with her lies. People complained to the ministry about her and they did nothing. She was using the money to help her son instead.  He always thought he was God's greatest gift to the church and now regularly preaches in a couple Church of God's.

Pyramid schemes involving Amway, Shaklee, knives, pots and pans, gold bullion and silver investing were the favorite modes of taking members money.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars were lost by members with the gold and silver investing promoted by kitchen, maintenance and accounting employees.

Most of these crooks got away with it because members were brainwashed to never prosecute or sue another member.  Most were afraid to ever report these people to the authorities for fear of being disfellowshipped.

Because of that way of thinking, several men and women got bolder and bolder in their schemes.

One former Church of  God member that did not get away with it though is Arthur Ferdig. Ferdig was a personal assistant to Herbert Armstrong and an editor for the church magazine,  The Plain Truth.

Ferdig was sentenced to 18 months in prison for the  failed Tradex ponzi scheme that ripped off over 100 million dollars from investors.

A tax-evasion charge may not be glamorous, but it's how they caught Al Capone. Ferdig's defence - that this money was a salary - would be blown apart by Kenney, who could clearly show Tradex had been a Ponzi.

To date, Martin Kenney & Co has frozen or liquidated nine Ferdig gang-controlled assets and seized accounts worth over $10 million. A $35 million default judgment has been awarded against Rachel Riotte and Jeff and Alisa Lockhart. A $500,000 judgment was obtained against Elaine Ferdig and her son-in-law David Riotte. And the con man himself is facing a $20 million judgment.

Members of the Ferdig gang are attempting to cut deals, but much of the money is gone, and some had never been there at all. The liquidator has found that 45 per cent of the $80 million (by Kenney's estimate) taken in by Ferdig was paid out in "scam interest". A third went to the Ferdig gang and "to parties of questionable relation to the stated business activities of Tradex". Only 1.5 per cent went on Susan Lok's (loss-making) currency trades. The rest funded operating expenses or was paid to various "bird dogs". Follow the Money

Like Ron Weinland, another Church of God minister recently convicted of tax evasion, Fredig was nailed for the same thing.

The Enterprise Report has learned that Arthur A. Ferdig, a self proclaimed religious leader and financial head of a now defunct offshore wordwide currency trading operation known as 'Tradex' that failed over three years ago, leaving hundreds of investors and over a 100-million dollars in investor funds missing, has been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in Los Angeles.  He was arrested by federal agents last month.

The charges are detailed in a recently unsealed Federal grand jury indictment obtained by TER.  Ferdig is charged with allegedly failing to pay millions of dollars in U.S. taxes on income obtained via 'Tradex'. He also did not file a tax return for 15 years the government claims. Ferdig was arrested last month and remains in federal custody.  Ferdig and others involved with 'Tradex' have been under investigation since at least 2006 by the FBI and other federal and state agencies.   EXCLUSIVE: THE GURU OF PONZI: INDICTED AND ARRESTED BY THE FEDS: HE TALKED TO GOD AND ANGELS, BUT NOT THE I.R.S.

Ferdig was also known for talking to "angels".  One angel in particular spoke to him regularly, "Angel Metatron."  Fredig even wrote books about this angel:

Ferdig fancied himself “The Bridge” between angels and earthlings. His non-Forex product lineup included “Angel Tears,” defined on his website as “an all-natural, bio-trace  mineral tincture developed to enhance  human health and vitality.”

Ferdig claimed to have met his first angel, Metatron, on Sept. 22, 2002, while Ferdig was peering over rocky sea cliffs in Negril, Jamaica. He later met Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, Ezrael, Ariel, Raphael, Muriel, Bethany “and other wonderful and loving angels and spirits of light,” according to his website. Feds Make Major Arrest In Tax Case Linked To Offshore Forex Fraud Scheme Known As Tradex; Arthur A. Ferdig, Who Claimed To Be ‘Taught By Angels,’ Detained On Felony Warrant

Ferdig's criminal activity also led to drug overdoses and the suicide of a woman who was distraught over losing money and for encouraging others to join the scheme:

The first sign of trouble was the 911 call from Susan Lok's Glendora home. It was March 2003, and the currency trader had just taken an overdose. The ambulance crew was greeted by a suburban Los Angeles house where Lok had been living with her Cambodian father - and secretly passing millions of dollars from a sophisticated Ponzi fraud through the family bank account. Follow the Money

Most Tradex investors had met Ferdig, a self-proclaimed "man of God", through his extensive Christian networks - just as Jewish investors would meet Bernie Madoff. What most of his flock would not have known was that Ferdig had been involved for many years with a controversy-dogged Californian evangelical group, the Worldwide Church of God. Ferdig had worked as "personal assistant" to its founder during the 70s, a period when the church had been rocked by numerous sexual and financial scandals.

McGunn also tracked down a West Indian woman in Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic, whom Ferdig had married in late 2001 when she was 18 and he was 61. She was living in a condo that Ferdig held under a corporate name and had purchased with money stolen from Tradex. "God told me to sire a son, so I needed a young woman," Ferdig claimed after obtaining a Dominican divorce from Elaine Ferdig, his wife of 36 years.

In between, Ferdig arranged to "marry" a middle-aged Texan woman, who discovered after a year with him that their union was a sham - their Las Vegas wedding had been performed by a fake religious minister (and one of Ferdig's long-time associates). She later went on to train as a private detective and sent her own investigators to shadow the fraudster.

The Kenney investigation also learned that an investor in Bath, Maine, had taken her own life after losing everything to the fraud. She had been one of the earliest followers of Ferdig and subsequently brought others into the programme. After her suicide, her friends said she was not only "wiped out" financially, but also burdened with guilt after watching so many others lose their savings.

Beware of COG Ministers Who Donate To Charitable Institutions!

Apostle Malm is not too happy with Church of God ministers/elders who donate or work for charitable organizations.  According to the apostle these guys are all secret Masons and are out to destroy the faith of real Christians.  Apostle Malm is apparently kicking sand in Vic Kubik's face!

One of apostle Malm's acolytes asked if he knew how many Masons were in COG leadership positions.

I am not ready to deal with this until after the Feast. Just look for people who make a big deal out of their cheritable activities, don’t do what they say, have a double standard about what they do and what they expect from others and who split hairs and twist the truth to deceive. Those are classic indications outside of actual physical documents. Although not everyone who does these things is a mason, they are of the same spirit as their father who is NOT God. Also consider that there are masonic run organizations outside of the lodge itself; for example the Rotary Club. James