Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The Churches of God: Truth In Advertising?




There is a great post on another blog that has an entry today about "Truth in Advertising for Churches.

We all know it.
It’s a fact we all live with.
The food that we see on all of the fast food advertisements never look like what’s lurking inside that cardboard box.
The following images present them side-by-side, thus showing the contrast between advertising and reality.
Let’s make sure our Church websites and media doesn’t do the same thing.

The posting ends with the comment below which describes most of the Churches of God.  The outward appearance in many cases is sharp and impressive, but once you are inculcated into the experience it's another story.  Appearances are deceiving.

There’s a fine-line between putting your best foot forward, and bearing false witness.

How many of  the COG's are bearing false witness?


Mormons Excited About UCG's Drift Towards LDS Teachings



World News Daily (red flags should go up immediately) has an article up about Jerold Aust interviewing Joe Kovacs for UCG's their Good News magazine on humans becoming god's.

Mormon Dialogue
Christian Author: God Is Having Offspring (For entire article click on link)
The author of the No. 1 inspirational book in America, “The Divine Secret,” claims God is having literal offspring, and the phrase “children of God” that fills the New Testament means exactly what it says.

Joe Kovacs, a Bible-believing Christian, was just interviewed by the Good News magazine, and was asked by reporter Jerold Aust, “Who are the children of God? What makes them so, or is this simply in-house religious talk?”

Kovacs responded, “If you just look at the natural world around us, you realize that everything reproduces. They have children or offspring after their own kind. I mean, the children of giraffes are giraffes. The children of cats are cats. And what are the children of God? You know people have to come to that conclusion: we’re not here for no good reason. The Bible calls us ‘the OFFSPRING of God.’ (Acts 17:29) It uses the word offspring.

“God is having offspring. And countless times, you will see the phrase ‘children of God’ or ‘sons of God’ in the Bible. In fact, in the famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.’ Paul says in Romans 8:14, ‘For as many are as led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.’ I show you many more verses in ‘The Divine Secret’ but over and over again, the Bible calls us ‘sons of God,’ ‘children of God.’ He (God) says ‘I will be your Father and you will be my sons and daughters,’ (2 Corinthians 6:18), so Jesus is not the only son of God. He’s the only begotten Son of God from the way He came into the Earth, but God wants all of us to be sons of God and children of God.”
Aust noted, “The thing that struck me when I read that again, this could seem a rather bold statement for your readers to consider: How can infallible, puny human beings who need nourishment, who need sleep, how can they even be considered to be equal with angels eventually, or be angels, let alone to be born into the divinity of God, to be divine?”

Where the Worldwide Church of God abandoned this teaching years ago, UCG seems to be moving closer and closer to LDS doctrine. Mormons are happy that UCG is moving towards "the truth."  Ah, there it is, that favorite catch word that disenfranchises most of humanity.  Only certain people  have the "truth" and the rest of the dumb schmucks in the world are lost.

LDS responses to the article include:

Sounds almost straight from an LDS manual.  

A lot of Evangelicals are coming around to understanding the TRUTH. 


I increasingly find evangelicals behavior towards the LDS like the French do towards Americans.  They continue to ask "How can we be more like them without being them?"  

One wise person noted:

It appears that the author, Joe Kovac has been influenced by Herbert W. Armstrong or the teachings of the Church of God, which would make since given his statements. Not an evangelical.
Then another person obliviously chimes in

It's always good to hear of other Christians making progress on Biblical interpretation whatever their faults may be. 

Flurry Cult Archeology Dig


Gerald Flurry has sent several of his "college" student over to Israel to work in an archeological dig.  Flurry is doing this because HWA did this and because he cannot come up with an original idea on how to run a chruch. college or foundation.  Imitating and plagerizing others is his only method of operation.

A popular blog about the Holy Land arcehology digs has brought to the public's attention the cult atributes of Flurry's group and it's ties to Armstrognism.



Herbert W. Armstrong’s Influence Stretched Deep in Israel (1967-1986)



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A little-known fact about Benjamin Mazar’s Ophel excavations is that they were partially funded by cult leader* Herbert W. Armstrong. A less known fact is how deep Armstrong’s influence, financial and otherwise, extended in Israel, or how deep it even into Israel today, over two decades after Armstrong’s death.
*The group he founded fits at least twelve of this list’s fifteen characteristics of a cult.