A Reader Responds: "Folks, settle down, (take) some deep breaths, have a 'cuppa' (and) let me disseminate some facts to you."

From a reader on the UCG Budget Cuts thread:

We are being told HOW it is.

What do you think?

Gideon said... 

Reading contributions herein reminds me of the ''good' old WCG days: gossip, backstabbing, slander, church politics, following men + hearing Armstrong over preached + Christ UNDERPREACHED! Wow! You blokes/girls really go at it! It's still as I remember it, paraphrased: "Are you for this minister or THAT minister, GTA or HA?" Law was taught, nothing wrong with that; WEIGHTIER MATTERS OF GOD'S law less preached. Folks, settle down, some deep breaths, have a 'cuppa'let me disseminate some facts to you.

Disclaimer: I'm NOT member of any church, was WCG + attended UCG about one year till 2002. History teaches us: ignoring history's lessons results in repeating errors. History of the sabbath keeping church[es] of God from Dugger down shows the same track record as WCG + others as described by you folk.  Politics, slander, divisions, schisms, enmities are mentioned in the Bible: IN GOD'S Church at that time. Nothing new under the sun. It seems to me that what outwardly appears simple, following two great commandments:[1] Love God with all our spirit, mind, brain + body. ]2]Love neighbour as ourself. Proves in reality very hard for humans to live. My observation/experience in WCG was that brotherly love generally, was lacking; there were some folk living true brotherly love there. Post WCG I learnt that this was an area I was sadly lacking in. UCG, my experience, was a far more 'balanced' church.....

H.Armstrong + Dugger= friction=breakaway..H.A + GTA =friction = splinter..Tkach WCG + Meridith along with several others=LCG PCG/UCG/etc, etc adinfinitum. It's the history of the churches of God. Still it continues! Surely, we may ask this isn't a history of TRUE CHRISTIANITY! Ergo,is this a history of non true Christianity? Or is this a history of GOD'S TRUE CHURCH being divided, weakened, confused + often defeated by Satan + false ministers?

Politics, slander, gossip, adulating men + putting mammon before God Mt. 6:19 -21 + 24. Aren't God's way. Most folk of mature age, who've 'lived' in the 'real' world. Know from experience, as do I. That in NON churches of God as mentioned herein: friction exists, along with all the other baggage + foibles of human nature. Sporting clubs, lodges + charity groups experience the same garbage! True Christians however war against Satan + therefore against our own human nature within ourselves. How Christian, righteous + spiritually sound [or not] any church is depends on its members...Over to you folks!

Craig Winters - Philadelphia Church of God, on What Kind of Shoes Are Proper for Men to Wear

The Philadelphia Church of God has always been know for the leglasitc burdens that it places upon members.  The PCG ministry and leaders regularly invade the personal lives of members to the point they tell them what to wear and what kind of sex is appropriate.

Craig Winters, a Six Pack Flurry lap-poodle has this to say about proper shoes for men.  If I had been sitting in the room that day when he said this I would have went out and bought a pair of these forbidden shoes.  That is what Ambassador students did in Pasadena when Spanky Meredith went apeshit over men wearing pink Izod shirts.  Of course he had to claim pink alligator shirts were a homosexual conspiracy.  Most of the guys in that class went out and bought pink shirts and wore them to class the next tie.

In a Spokesman Club meeting one time, Craig Winters instructed us, "You should not wear slip-on shoes, loafers or penny loafers, and don't wear shoes with tassels. Tie shoes are the shoes that you, as leading men in the church, should wear." We were discouraged from wearing "burgundy shoes" but "black and sometime brown shoes would be okay." Months after this lecture, the local minister and his three sons were all still wearing slip-on" shoes.

ht: SD

The Church of God and "We Are Special" Superiority Complex

All About Armstrongism has an excellent commentary up today about how "special" those in the Church of God considered themselves, while the world that existed all around them could have cared less.

This so true in Pasadena.  Years after the Auditorium opened and concerts had been going full blast, we regularly had Pasadena residents who just lived a few blocks down the street that had NEVER heard of the college OR Auditorium.  Most ignored the property and those that did pay attention thought it was all a quirky anomaly.

The same had to be true for the college and church headquarters. We believed it was God’s Headquarters on Earth and nearly worshipped it. Everyone else thought they were nice buildings with great looking gardens and grounds – and a strange religion for those who really wanted to dig into it. While internally we had universal implications of the property, externally, it was just buildings and it was just grounds. Members gasped at actually being on God’s property for the first time when they feasted in Pasadena. Others thought it beautiful property, but that was it. Most of what we felt and thought was in our heads, and our minds, as we turned it into the biggest Golden Calf since the days of Sinai.

Now, we face the reality that there really wasn’t anything special about any of it. Why? It’s demolished. Not just the campus, but the whole thing. Self-appointed leaders are desperately attempting with their whole minds and souls to resurrect what was destroyed, but instead their fighting and bickering and power plays are making a very mockery of the unity they are fighting to try to achieve. Some even take the worship of the campus to a whole different level in sickening idolatry of the buildings or materials themselves, using those materials to try to resurrect what once was.

But in reality, it was a small parcel of real estate that was said to be worth priceless money and needed at all costs – that was torn down and destroyed, and within just a few years, there will be nothing left of a hint of Armstrongism on that property as it turns into real estate and “regular people” take it over, finally. Our delusions were false. Our giving of our lives and money was pointless, and came to nothing. Some cannot and will not accept this, as I said, and try with their power to bring it all back. Their own delusions rule against reality, and it definately is beyond sad to see.

How I wish I could have been one of those neighbors across the street who didn’t care to know anything about the properties even though they were right there, then to be thousands of miles away and think God dwelled there like he dwelled in the Temple at Jerusalem in the Holy of Holies. I was deluded, I was delusioned. But it is better now to be where I am knowing the real truth. The truth that salvation is not dependant on how much you give to support a real estate program for a gospel imagined by a biblical illiterate high-school dropout and untrained theological huckster. The truth that in Pasadena, life went on as normal except between Orange Grove, West Green, Del Mar and St. John’s. The truth that the SEP Campuses of Orr, Big Sandy, as well as Pasadena were made with the same material as any other campuses. The truth that life in Armstrongism was, as big headed as we thought, not so special at all – and that we were so full of ego and pride and self righteousness – full of ourselves, thinking of ourselves as so big without realizing we were so small, and so empty, looking at life as a small box instead of looking out at the reality of the immensity of what we all missed. We put everything into the barrel of Armstrongism at that time and missed the world around us and our place in it.

The excellent observations can be read in its entirety here:  It's A Small, Small World