Is LCG's Gaylyn Bonjour The Cause of Thiel's New Found Prophet Status?

Prophet and potential witness of the two witnesses, Bob Thiel, talks some more about himself and how Gaylyn Bonjour from LCG HQ is the cause behind is new found "prophet" status.

• On the morning of December 15, 2011, upon arriving at the Charlotte HQ of LCG, Bob Thiel asked to meet with Gary Ehman as he wanted to get anointed for some non-debilitating matters as well as to ask him to pray that he be granted wisdom for his meetings with the HQ evangelists.  But he was not in.  So instead, Bob Thiel asked to meet with Gaylyn Bonjour (with whom he never had any discussions prior about him possibly being some type of prophet).  Bob Thiel asked Gaylyn Bonjour if he would do the anointing and pray that God would grant him wisdom for the meetings.  He agreed.  But while laying hands upon Bob Thiel, Gaylyn Bonjour also happened (it was not planned nor did Bob Thiel say anything to encourage this) to ask God to grant Bob Thiel a “double-portion” of His Holy Spirit and anointed him.  Bob Thiel then attended a meeting with the evangelists and he did not then have time to discuss what this might mean with Gaylyn Bonjour.
• On Sunday 12/18/11 night at a family wedding reception, without discussing the matter, Bob Thiel stared at Gaylyn Bonjour for a few moments, without saying anything and then asked, “Do you have any idea of what you may have accidently done?”  Gaylyn Bonjour said, “Yes, I think so.”
• The following Monday morning was Bob Thiel's first opportunity to speak with Gaylyn Bonjour privately for more details about the anointing.  Bob Thiel asked him if it was his practice to pray that God grant a double-portion of His Spirit to people that he anoints, he said, no he had never done that for an individual before.  Bob Thiel asked him if he had any idea of what he may have been inadvertently led by God to do, and he said yes.  Gaylyn Bonjour also said that the only “double-portion” he recalled from the Bible was when Elisha became the replacement prophet and ecclesiastical leader for Elijah (2 Kings 2:9)—Bob Thiel told him then that this was his recollection as well.  Notice it was Gaylyn Bonjour, and not Bob Thiel, who first stated this as a conclusion.
• In March 2012, it seemed time to mention the 12/15/11 anointing and what Bob Thiel had tried to tell him about his wife to Dr. Meredith and he was able to do so in telephone conversation.  Yet, first Bob Thiel called Gaylyn Bonjour to let him know that someone may end up talking with him about the anointing.  Gaylyn Bonjour was fine with that and also said that he felt that the “double-portion” was related to “the passing of the mantle.”  This gave Bob Thiel a lot of pause to consider since that time.
• On March 23, 2012, Dr. Meredith called Bob Thiel and Bob Thiel mentioned the anointing, some of Gaylyn Bonjour’s comments, and the prediction related to Dr. Meredith's wife.  The biggest concern Dr. Meredith seemed to raise was that the anointing was from someone below evangelist or regional pastor level.  But biblically, as he knows, only a member of the eldership is required to anoint one as a prophet (cf. 1 Timothy 4:14) or apostle (cf. Acts 9:10-17).
• In April 2012, during normal personal Bible study, Bob Thiel was reminded about the time when Jehu dismissed an anointing to become king by one of God’s servants because he thought the man was some kind of a nut (2 Kings 9:11).  There were apparently higher ranking ecclesiastical authorities at that time that God did not as directly use.  Yet, that did not change the fact of the ordination, and Jehu became king (and no, this document is not trying to say that Gaylyn Bonjour is some kind of a nut, only that when he performed the anointing he was a duly ordained minister of the Living Church of God and once hands are laid upon someone, this cannot be undone)—hence Bob Thiel concluded that it would be wrong and quite presumptuous of him to overlook or somehow discount what was done.  He personally had been cautious about whether or not he was possibly some type of an evangelizing prophet and getting an unexpected anointing suggesting that role from someone who had no idea that Bob Thiel was praying about that, or possibly in that role, indicated that this could not be ignored.  This seemed to be God’s timing and answer.  Especially because Bob Thiel had prayed about this so much in November and December 2011.
• On June 29, 2012, Bob Thiel conveyed to Gaylyn Bonjour, Dr. Winnail's written comment in that letter suggestion that the conclusion as to what happened when he was anointed by Gaylyn Bonjour on 12/15/12 was “presumptuous.”   Gaylyn Bonjour found it astounding that Dr. Winnail would have indicated that Bob Thiel may have been presumptuous about this.  Gaylyn Bonjour felt that Bob Thiel was exercising proper caution and that to ignore what happened would seem to be against the will, and possibly plan, of God.  Gaylyn Bonjour also stated to Bob Thiel that it is God, and not men, who “appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets“ (1 Corinthians 12:28).
• On August 26, 2012, shortly after agreeing that a variety of errors that Bob Thiel brought up needed to be corrected, Dr. Winnail told Bob Thiel, “We all think that you might be a prophet.”  In order in order to determine who “We all” was, on September 7, 2012, Bob Thiel asked if this was a reference to all three of the LCG Charlotte-based evangelists and Dr. Winnail concurred.

United Church of God on David Barrett's Book About WCG/COG Implosion

UCG has some interesting comments about David Barrett's new book.  Mike Snyder has made a great observation about the break up of the Worldwide Church of God and how it was horribly mishandled.

Book Review - The Fragmentation of a Sect: Schism in the Worldwide Church of God

Michael Snyder notes that the book is a sweeping and generally balanced secular review of the history and behavioral record of the Worldwide Church of God and its related organizations, particularly the disastrous and ill-conceived WCG breakup. For many, reading the book will likely be a painful experience, as while the book is not an “expose,” it does chronicle shortcomings of WCG and other offshoot leaders.

Book Information

Author
David V. Barrett

Publisher
Oxford University Press, USA

Publication Date
2013-01-02

ISBN
019986151X

Recommendation

Michael Snyder recommends this book.

Hardcover, 302 pages

Centered on a secular analysis of what has to be one of the world's most spectacular failures in change management, sociologist and British journalist David Barrett chronicles in this new work how successors to Herbert W. Armstrong deliberately deployed a non-biblical logic of "the end justifies the means" to essentially reverse the theological course of the Worldwide Church of God (WCG).  As Barrett painfully drills deep, the reader sees that instead of bringing the majority of WCG members to a new understanding of Jesus Christ, the incomprehensible act shattered the lives of multiple thousands, leaving in its turbulent wake freshly minted angry skeptics and agnostics, now hostile to God. Perhaps worst of all, as Barrett eloquently outlines, the wholesale betrayal of trust set in motion predictable human patterns where former leaders and ministers skip from church group to church group, finally claiming the "authoritative mantle" of Herbert Armstrong (HWA) for themselves and setting up a "new" one-man rule over an all-new religious group or splinter (page 209).

How quick we forget that Mike was also part of this break up and was the public face for the changes for quit some time. He, along with David Hulme were active participants in the turbulence that left lives shattered.

Mike continues with:

The book has already been reviewed by a number of prominent religious figures, including James Tabor, a liberal American theologian who once served on the Ambassador College faculty. The fact that Oxford University Press has published the book virtually guarantees that it will receive serious attention as an authoritative work on WCG, UCG and other WCG-related organizations.  However, Barrett recognizes that many American evangelical figures regarded the shattering of the Worldwide Church of God  as a politically positive event, noting: "It is a truism that history is written by the victors, and in the case of books about the changes in Worldwide (Tkach 1997, Feazell 2003, etc.) this is at least partially valid" (page 245). Perhaps the true “ironic dynamic” of this phenomenon appears as the catastrophic failure of post-HWA WCG leaders to achieve the religious goals for the majority of members, all of whom had contributed more than $1 billion in tithe contributions in the post-HWA years, but for most now had little to show for it.

"Most have little to show for it."  How true that comment is! There is nothing left but framed pictures on office walls and trophy cases filled with memento's gathering dust, unseen by all.

Bob Thiel: Don't Believe Everything Rod Meredith Says

It seems that Rod Meredith has sent a letter out to the ministry denouncing Bob Thiel and his recent self appointed prophet status.  Meredith denies making some of the comments that Thiel is attributing to him.

Meredith says he might have made some of these statements while in a "sufficiently incapacitated" state of mind after his stroke.  While I discount Bob's self appointed "prophet" status, I am quite sure that Bob's recollection of Meredith's comments are accurate.  This is not the first time Meredith has run off at the mouth and then denied he said something.  The Leona McNair court case is a sterling example of his big mouth. He has a long history of doing this.

From what I have learned, it seems that Charlotte sent an email related to the "Bob Thiel prophetic chronology" (shown in the 12/28/12 p.m. update on this page) to its ministry. This was sent along with a letter from Dr. Meredith in which he flatly denied making certain statements (that he did make) and having certain views that people including himself and Dr. D. Winnail told me that he had. He also suggested that at times he may have been sufficiently incapacitated that I should not have relied on certain of his statements to me. Instead of getting in a "he said she said" battle about this, this tells me that some in Charlotte strongly hope that people will not believe all of the facts that are in the chronology.

The following, which I received in an email today, offers a certain insight that all people who are interested in the truth should consider:

I took the keys and sermon discs etc back this morning to our assistant pastor (Our Pastor is in Australia at the moment). I was expecting to get questioned but wasn’t at that time. Later he rang me back to inform me that he had rung our pastor who told him to contact Charlotte. He was sent the letter that you were expecting to be sent to pastors and they made a big deal about the fact that you were declaring yourself a prophet and one of the two witnesses. I’m happy to say that God answered my prayers and gave me the words to reply to him (I’m not normally good at that). I said to him that it was LCG elders who suggested you might be a prophet and he responded that we shouldn’t rely on what Dr Meredith said after having his stroke. Of course if we can’t rely on that then we can’t rely on what he said in his sermons at that time either. I also told him that Dr Winnail had suggested that he also was one of the two witnesses and he didn’t have an answer to that.