The COG's Use of "...inappropriate, psychologically depressive and emotionally destructive" Psalms for Worship, Instead of Joy in Christ

For many years now in the distance by learning class I facilitate for a major university in the Southeast, on Hebrew and Christan scripture and church history, the reaction of people when they start reading many of the Palms is one of shock and revulsion at the blood lust and revenge so much of it is about.

When I tell them that my former church sang these songs as "inspirational" they all look aghast.

The average COG member thinks nothing about opening the day of worship with singing about marching off to war and bashing the heads of the persecutors in.

Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked.

...deliver me from all who pursue me,  or they will tear me apart like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.

...let my enemy pursue and overtake me; let him trample my life to the ground and make me sleep in the dust.

Lord, in your anger; rise up against the rage of my enemies.

...a God who displays his wrath every day. ¹² If he does not relent, he^[e] will sharpen his sword; he will bend and string his bow. ¹³ He has prepared his deadly weapons; he makes ready his flaming arrows.

You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked; you have blotted out their name for ever and ever. ⁶ Endless ruin has overtaken my enemies, you have uprooted their cities; even the memory of them has perished. 

The Lord examines the righteous, but the wicked, those who love violence, he hates with a passion.
⁶ On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur; a scorching wind will be their lot.

Rise up, Lord, confront them, bring them down; with your sword rescue me from the wicked.

May what you have stored up for the wicked fill their bellies; may their children gorge themselves on it, and may there be leftovers for their little ones.

 ³⁷ I pursued my enemies and overtook them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed. ³⁸ I crushed them so that they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet. ³⁹ You armed me with strength for battle; you humbled my adversaries before me. ⁴⁰ You made my enemies turn their backs in flight, 
and I destroyed my foes. ⁴¹ They cried for help, but there was no one to save them—to the Lord, but he did not answer. ⁴² I beat them as fine as windblown dust; I trampled them^[f] like mud in the streets. ⁴³ You have delivered me from the attacks of the people; you have made me the head of nations. People I did not know now serve me, ⁴⁴ foreigners cower before me; as soon as they hear of me, they obey me. ⁴⁵ They all lose heart; they come trembling from their strongholds.

 ⁹ When you appear for battle, you will burn them up as in a blazing furnace. The Lord will swallow them up in his wrath, and his fire will consume them. ¹⁰ You will destroy their descendants from the earth, their posterity from mankind.

We sang songs week after week of blood lust and war.  Imagine what this does to the mind of a child growing up!  Look what it did to the mind of David C Pack and Gerald Flurry!

Granted, I do know that many of the Psalms are uplifting and that many find them beneficial.  That's not the problem. It was/is our extreme focus upon the world BEFORE Jesus and not upon what was brought into fruition on the day of his incarnation.

I was glad to see the other day that the All About Armstrongism blog has a great article up about this very subject.  

Armstrongism has always looked backwards and never forward into new life in Christ.  The Kingdom of God broke forth into the world and the COG still can't find it.

From THE DEPRESSIVE WORDS OF THE PSALMS IN THE TIME BEFORE CHRIST: WHAT IMPACT?   Checkout the article for lots more in this subject!

 

For week after week, after week, every seven days and sometimes more, the members, AND THE CHILDREN, of the Worldwide Church of God, sang the Psalms of the Old Covenant, in the time before the revealing of the Christ, who is Jesus, as worship songs. Though not every song was as negative as the selected verses below, singing these hymns was for many untruth, was very negative, and did not reflect the life of a Christian who is in Christ.

These songs were composed and sang before the revealing of Christ, before Jesus ever came to Earth. We sang them as if He never came. We sang them as if they applied to each of us. Has it ever occurred to anyone the intense and subliminal depressive negativity and effect on the emotions of those who sang these hymns every single week?

Some of these songs were not appropriate to sing as worship songs. They reflected the opinion of a person who thought of God, at least in part,  as a defense commander – a warrior – an aide in fight and battle.

Worst of all, they shaped the imagery of God not in the manner of understanding the close relationship Christians can share in Jesus to children, but in the imagery of warfare for the young minds unfortunate enough to be molded and raised in Armstrongism. I have absolutely no doubt the psychological impact, in my opinion, of the words of these hymns, shaped and molded the perceptions of God into perceptions that were absolutely scary and harmful to children. The children, who had no Childrens Church of their own, but were forced to sit through adult services with strictly inappropriate and sometimes violent imagery content, had no choice but to sing the depressive words that are to follow. Though some COG leaders today somehow believe it is appropriate to sing these “psalms” as worship, I maintain it was not only innapropriate, but over periods of months, years, and decades, psychologically depressive and even emotionally destructive.

Thin Skinned Bob Strikes Back (Video Back)

Poor Bob Thiel.  He cannot take criticism from anyone without having to publicly correct it.  Every time he does so he makes himself look nore foolish.

For several years now James Malm has been pointing out to his readers that Theil's enormous preoccupation with "pagan" and Catholic prophecies is taking priority over getting the "gospel" out.  Thiel's entire message is based upon his Mayan prophecies and those of the Catholics.  He has written several books on these topics.

With in the first 40 seconds of the following video Thiel has to whine about James Malm picking on him. 






Bob, I think you need to stop attending the Steven Gilbreath School of hand waving. It's really distracting from your message.

Church of God Powder Kegs

Silenced has a great post up about the current state of affirs in COGland and it is NOT pretty!

The State of the COG 2014  It lists the Dead COG's, the Dying COG's and the Powder Kegs. IN addition, there is a great picture of COG Bingo

Part of the post includes this:

Powder Kegs

Philadelphia Church of God: Cult leader Gerald R. Flurry has long suffered ill health and recently collapsed onstage. When he dies, PCG will likely limp onward revering the memory of two “Apostles” — Herbert W. Armstrong and Flurry. What happens after that should be interesting to watch.

Living Church of God: Roderick C. Meredith is not in good health and UCG has already measured LCG’s drapes. LCG only exists to gather around Meredith, the whole reason 80 percent of Global left with him. The loyalty is to him, not to his lieutenants. When he dies, LCG will likely break and scatter and there are already grumblings and defections. We can’t predict when that break will be, since tyranny and longevity seem to commonly be associated. But LCG as an organization is unlikely to have long.

Restored Church of God: David C. Pack experienced a major embarrassment over the false prophecy that the whole COG would rally around him by the end of August 2013. It was so damaging to his image — imagine that for a moment — that he felt the need to give his version of an apology and fall silent. But aside from a failed prophecy, RCG is suffering all of the same symptoms that COGIC did before its recent explosion: malcontent members, ministerial abuses, rumors of members leavings, pastors being fired for challenging Pack, tons of money being spent on ineffective media projects and boondoggles like the cult’s Wadsworth office. What’s more, Pack is actually crazier than Hulme. RCG is not a healthy organization. We’ll give it two years or less before it experiences a major crisis that shreds it.

House of Yahweh: Yisrayl “Buffalo Bill” Hawkins has weathered a lot of self-inflicted storms: a child labor conviction, one of his elders being sentenced for child molestation, bad press and a slew of failed apocalyptic prophecies. But he’s not in prison and continues to run his little Abilene bunker community. HOY continues to be extremely dangerous, and the mixture of crazy, dangerous and a lengthy lull in any news is a recipe for impending disaster. The cult has been increasing efforts in its front group, Peaceful Solution Character Education Incorporated, which is likely to be a recruitment tool. Watching HOY in the coming months might prove wise.

United Church of God: Bottom line: UCG is too big not to fail. It will split again. In fact, “it will split again” should be on UCG camp t-shirts. There are too many variables at play within the largest COG cult, and tensions are set to rise as their third president in five years also fails to spur growth within the church. Like COGIC, it’s pouring money into media projects and seeing nothing out of it, a problem exacerbated by its loss of members, money and congregations when COGWA split. UCG is throwing money into a black hole, even as it somehow attracts a million unique web views a month and no new members. This kind of failure won’t sit well for long before more internal strife breaks out.

Christian Churches of God: The lawsuit-happy Wade Cox hates being mentioned online, it seems. He gets to be in charge of CCG through 2019, and if he does not relinquish power by then, it could lead to major tensions. CCG is also making some disturbing gains in Africa, according to reports. This is a deceptive and vile cult that manages to do a lot of damage despite its meager size.

A Congregation of the Church of God: This tiny little bunker-dwelling cult hides in the deserts of Arizona. Almost nothing else is known about them. That’s kind of scary for anyone in their thrall. It also makes it very tough to gauge their status.

End Time Assembly: Everything we hear about David Nix’s tiny little cult — recently re-dubbed the Church of Covenant Blessings — makes our skin crawl. He micromanages his followers’ lives worse than any current COG leader we’ve heard of. He is spinning some pretty strange doctrines and keeps his handful of congregations extremely small and enclosed. This sect is set to have bad things happen.

Church of God, a Family Community: The newest COG cult was created by the vast chunk of Hulme’s COGIC he jettisoned for defying him. At the moment, its collective of newly-unemployed ministers seem content to focus on greater transparency, less corruption and abuse and more sanity. We’ll see if they will actually practice what they preach — a rare thing in the COG — or prove once again that absolute power corrupts absolutely. It may not be too long until we find out if COGFC — or whatever name it ultimately settles on — keeps making noise.