Mike is reporting on
Don't Drink the Flavor Aid Served By False Prophets that imprisoned felon Ron Weinland had a massive heart attack on May 28. This will soon be surely spun into some prophetic sign from Weinlands's god.
According to sources including a comment left on the blog, False Prophet
Ronald Weinland suffered a heart attack last Thursday, May 28. This
was not his first heart attack, as he had one on or about August 4, 2005
and was out of commission for 5 weeks recovering from triple bypass
heart surgery. Word is that he returned to prison yesterday and is to
have stents put in after he gets stronger. Some skepticism on that from
some quarters. Perhaps he had urgently needed angioplasty in one area
of the heart and they see some other areas that are marginal but not
urgent.
JD left a comment:
People are upset in pkg. Ron had a massive heart attack last
Thursday and people are just finding out and are upset because it has
been keep under wraps. maybe the big wigs think people will start
running for the doors if their mighty leader has fallen yet again.
Hmmmmmm maybe Ron is one of the ones who is scheduled to die for not
repenting. Has to start somewhere.
Reading the additional comments show that the PKG deliberately kept this from its members. Others are questioning whey he was released till he gets better and then come back in for heart stents. There apparently is far more to the story than PKG is relaeasing.
1. HWA regarded lay members as just a resource for his use. They were called to help him "do the work" which involved large amounts of money and some questionable activities that to this day seemed to have produced nothing. Their salvation was of no importance. If lay members were not ready to impoverish themselves for the work, then God could raise up stones to do the job. (Nobody ever called him on this point.) He was not trying to make the point that the funding of lay members was not needed - he was making the point that they were essentially worthless in his sight and in God's sight. They could easily be replaced by stones. Explicit in this view is that God had no personal attachment to lay members or their salvation. (All this form the guy who touted the wonderful human potential as an advertising ploy.)
2. HWA in a tape played across the country, found the budget to be short and angrily blamed this on self-indulgent lay members. In this context, he stated that he did not expect lay members to receive salvation. He only expected the leaders and ministers of the WCG to receive salvation.
3. HWA repeatedly chided lay members by stating that they just wanted to "get" salvation. He converted what Christians would regard as the hope and glory of salvation, highly to be desired, evinced by God himself, into something shameful, evil and wicked all in the interests of squeezing more blood out of the turnip.
Oddly, lay members read and listened to this for years yet fanatically remained loyal to HWA and seemed to believe that he had their interests at heart when he proclaimed over and over again that he did not and was utterly hostile toward them for not coughing up enough money. You can't say the guy wasn't honest, at least about this. It was Joe Tkach, Sr. that actively elevated the salvation of the average lay member to something important. This particular change was revolutionary - a complete sea change in the WCG. This was an abandonment of HWA's view of derision and an alignment with Christianity. This new view was presented in an editorial in the Worldwide News written by TKach Sr. and people in the WCG were so brain-washed that nobody I know even noticed. I would bet that most even today do not know this happened.
-- Neo