Living Church of God: How Many Lies Can Rod McNair Speak In 15 Minutes???

More from Charlotte

Living Church of God's Rod McNair imagines himself as a great theologian and preacher.  As a preacher we all know that when a Church of God minister speaks something from the pulpit that they NEVER say anything that is not true.  As God's chosen mouthpieces that is an absolute impossibility...at least in the Living Church of God culture.  When LCG ministers speak, especially Rod McNair, it is to let members know how benevolent they are towards the members. Being the benevolent loving leader that he is, he wants all LCG members to know that they CAN disagree with those in authority in the LCG without ANYONE disciplining them for doing so!  Who knew?  Is that really true?  Living Church of God members know this is blatantly NOT true!  Just look at the trail of destruction, McNair, League and Meredith have left in their wake over the last year or so.

Below is a clip from a recent sermon of McNair where he says that members can disagree with those in authority in the LCG without fear of discipline. Really????  Many Living Church of God members know this is NOT true!  Just look at the recent purge of LCG members who disagreed with the new "upgrades" in the church and for the church's stance on British Israelism.  The repercussions to that were swift and vicious. They were supportive of the church on big issues. Just not willing to swallow all Winnail and Ames "new understandings" and other non-Biblical teachings.

"McNair2" LCG says they don't kick people out for a time period "not so long that could discourage them beyond being able to recover themselves." Really?  Some of the recent purged victims were told specifically that no one from LCG would even talk to them till a year had passed.  Most COG members would agree that one year is excessive, but not McNair.  Even his boss, Rod Meredith, whined and moaned about being exiled to Hawaii for a year by HWA.  He felt that was way too long, yet he does the exact same thing to his own members.  The only difference with Meredith is that he was restored to power again as a minister, while those he disciplines are rarely restored to anything other than being a money making machine for the church.   One's position and credibility is destroyed but those dollars sure look good!

The following clip is of McNair stating that the LCG does NOT disfellowship anyone if they have voluntarily left the church.  Those in Charlotte know this is not true! One member from the Charlotte congregations was disfellowshipped AFTER he had left LCG on his own.  McNair publicly stated that the reason they did this was specifically because the person had disassociated themselves from the church.  When McNair, Meredith, Ames and others do this they are using this as a tool of control over LCG members who have doubts and questions.  Fear is a great tool in preventing members from leaving and being publicly humiliated. Plus the threatened of losing ones salvation by being kicked out of the "true church" is a mighty weapon of control.

The "McNair3" clip below shows once again how McNair and the LCG lie through their teeth.  He says that the ministry of the LCG "strives" to NOT make comments that would impeded a wayward members journey back into their congregation.  Really dude?  Really? Character assassination is the modus-operandi in LCG. The ministers share with their wives who in turn share with the other ladies who in turn share with their husbands and before you know it LCG members in other congregations have some altered version of the original story. LCG wants to villainize ex-members. It's often the only way they can justify their harsh treatment of people who in many cases aren't deserving of the punishments inflicted.

The clip below warns LCG members to "withdraw from brothers who don't walk according to the tradition that he received from Jesus Christ."  Many LCG members have been struck by how many of the recent LCG members who were disfellowshipped by the church have remained LOYAL to standard Church of God beliefs.  McNair wants to use this verse to admonish loyal LCG members to stay away from those severed from the body but if they are still believers how does that work out? Maybe McNair should re-write the scripture or perhaps not use it at all since it really didn't apply to the majority of purge victims who are still keeping the commandments and the holy days.

This last clip is of McNair stating that before anyone is "marked" by the church that they receive counseling beforehand. Well over 200 members in the Charlotte congregation know this is not true at all!  In fact this has never been true in the Church of God culture whether it was in Pasadena or Charlotte. I have seen the letters that Meredith sent out to disfellowshipped members in Pasadena and from Charlotte.  No counseling was ever involved.  It was a cold, clinical letter that was devoid of any love or compassion.

Rod Meredith and the Living Church of God had a great opportunity when they jumped ship from the Worldwide Church of God to start anew and do things "right."  Power, narcissism and ego remained the dominate factors of the church hierarchy that carried over.  That is why the Living Church of God has been incapable of growing in significant numbers or even maintaining its present members.  They carried over the abuse and fear tactics that Meredith and others used while in WCG and terrorize LCG members with it to this day.

What new things and truth do they have to offer anyone?  What love does the LCG offer to their  members?  Is being lied to from the pulpit love?  Is being publicly humiliated in front of Charlotte members or local congregations showing love?

If the Living Church of God is supposedly a foretaste of the soon coming Kingdom of God then people should really think twice about being part of the LCG.

You Know You Grew Up In The Church of God Continues On....

The Dodo, Science, Gerald Flurry and The Sensuous Curmudgeon

In my side column I have links to various interesting sites.  Some are are COG related and others are there to help some give serious thought to use their ability to look at things from a different viewpoint; something that Armstrongism has always frowned upon.  It doesn't mean you have to believe or agree with any of it, but at least use your mind to look at different points of view.  Use what is useful and move on if its not. Stop checking your brain at the closest stack of COG booklets or the web sites of Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry and Rod Meredith, to name a few.

Speaking of Gerald Flurry.....There is a great blog entry on The Sensuous Curmudgeon today (August 15, 2015) about Gerald Flurry and his "reasoning" concerning scientific thought and evolution.

Did you know that Flurry claims that science began with original sin?  Inquisitive minds apparently are the result of Eve beguiling Adam with that big old apple called thought processes.  To think is the result of Adam and Eve sinning in the garden.  That thinking process is what created science which then led to evolution.

The Sensuous Curmudgeon quotes Gerald Flurry in The Futility of Science:

Believe it or not, the problem with science is actually revealed in the biblical story of the garden of Eden! In the garden, Adam and Eve rejected the tree of life and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As a consequence, God expelled them and cut them off from the tree of life [scripture reference]. From that point, God allowed humankind to devise their own systems of science, religion and education — apart from His direction.

The pursuit of science is a continuation of original sin! Moving along:

As Herbert W. Armstrong wrote: “With the emergence of ‘modern science’ around the beginning of the 19th century, scientists assured the world that man had progressed to the point where he then could dispense with the superstitious crutch of religion and belief in God” (Plain Truth, March 1980).

If Armstrong wrote it, then it must be The Truth™.

In a previous article on August 11, 2015, The Sensuous Curmudgeon looks at how Gerald Flurry claims that The Dodo Disproves Evolution.

We present to you, dear reader, some excerpts from The Dodo’s Posthumous Message to Mankind, which appears in The Trumpet, a publication of the Philadelphia Church of God, which has some relationship with Herbert W. Armstrong. The bold font was added by us:

In 1681, the last dodo bird on the planet breathed its last breath. But that was not the final chapter of the bird’s story. Some 300 years later, botanists on Mauritius — the island where the dodo had lived — noticed that a certain species of tree was rapidly dying off. Tambalacoque trees had historically grown in abundance on Mauritius, but by the 1970s only 13 remained. And all of those remaining were thought to be around 300 years old. Even though they were producing fruit containing seeds each year, none of the seeds were sprouting into saplings. This meant that no new Tambalacoque trees had sprouted since the late 1600s.

Aha, a mystery! When the dodo went extinct, the Tambalacoque trees stopped reproducing. Why?

For the rest of this delightful entry read it here.

It has always amazed me how Church of God leaders can spout such utter nonsense when not a single one of them have EVER studied science or evolution, let a alone read books on the subjects.  This should be really no surprise to anyone since not a single one of these men even have a REAL theological education.  Their viewpoint on evolution comes from the writings of Herbert Armstrong and the silly rants of Rod Meredith, Garner Ted, Dean Blackwell, Hermann Hoeh and loudmouth Gerald Waterhouse.  Science was NEVER a major class at Ambassador College which encouraged students to think and study outside the boundaries of COG thought processes.

They could not do that with theology so why would they with science?