The Journal: Issue 192 Online

Issue192

The latest issue of The Journal: News of the Churches of God is now online.

The Journal marks 20 years this month
THE JOURNAL, as of February 2017, has been publishing for 20 years. This newspaper’s Vol. 1, No. 1, came out in February 1997 one month after In Transition, published by John Robinson, ceased publication with its January 1997 issue.
“Although In Transition was the inspiration for our newspaper, we are not the same paper and not a continuation of In Transition,” said JOURNAL publisher Dixon Cartwright.
“John decided to end his paper after two years, 1995-97, and I could not talk him out of discontinuing it. We also could not come to an agreement by which I would buy it or otherwise acquire it and keep it going. So when he folded up shop in January of ’97 my wife, Linda, and I began THE JOURNAL” in February of 1997.
“Hard to believe it’s been 20 years and, so far, 192 issues.” Mr. Cartwright said. “Time marches on.” 

The cover page includes an article about the Church of God Ministries International and Tom Terry's latest adventure. Kerry has been quit concerned about the lack of patriotism and the removal of God from the national psyche by leftists and democrats over the decades.  He cites these three indicators:

He listed three events that he says marked the “beginning of removal of God” from American affairs ca. 1925:

• The repeal of Prohibition.
• The Scopes so-called monkey trial, pertaining to the teaching of Darwinian evolution.
• Christians campaigning for Herbert Hoover for president.

In the case of the latter, when President Hoover was seen as causing the Great Depression he, and his Christian supporters, were discredited. 

Dixon Cartwright continues his series of Church of God historical events, this time focusing upon Amarillo Church of God Pastor Jeff Booth and how Herbert Armstrong fired him 7 times in one afternoon.

Church pastor recalls the time he was fired seven times during one meeting with his boss 

Fired seven times

It was January 1980. Not many WCG members, even church pastors, could muster the temerity to request an appointment with Mr. Armstrong to ask him anything, much less probing questions about his opinions on pressing doctrinal questions of the time.

Though direct and to the point in the interview, Mr. Booth says he was never disrespectful, never raised his voice and never asked any personal questions, although the founder of the WCG and Ambassador College did “fire” Mr. Booth from his job as a church pastor seven times over a span of three hours and 20 minutes. 

This issue also features an article by our very own self-appointed, doubly blessed, Chief Overseer Bob Thiel expounding upon the miraculous African work he is doing.   We all know how well that has worked out for him.

Linda French is conducting a survey on Servant Leadership in the church:  Executive Servant Leadership Scales (ESLS) and Church Attitude Inventory (CAI) instruments

My name is Linda French and  I am conducting a research study entitled “A Correlational Study between Servant Leadership and Church Climate.” The purpose of the research study is to discover the nature of the relationship between pastors’ attitudes toward servant leadership and attendees’ attitudes towards pastoral servant leadership, the nature of the relationship between pastoral attitudes toward church climate and attendees’ attitudes towards church climate, and the nature of the relationship between combined pastoral and attendee perceptions of servant leadership within the church climate and church climate. Understanding pastoral and attendee perceptions of church climate and pastoral servant leadership could lead to changes and improvements of methods and use of servant leadership strategies leading to improved church climates and attendee outcomes.

There is also an article about those nasty Catholics and Jesuits who are out to destroy the United States and the church.  This will play well into he conspiracy theories of the Kitchen family and others who find the Catholic Church to be the big bogey-man.  How involved is the Vatican in U.S. politics?

There is also an ad for the HWA Storehouse that will send you a free 21 gigabyte USB drive of HWA and church literature and programs. Oh joy...

------------

The Journal would appreciate readers subscribing to the print version, which for many people is more convenient to read than a PDF on a computer screen.

However, you have my permission to share the links to the above-mentioned issue. Please feel free to send to friends, family, anyone.

To subscribe to the print version, please follow this link:

www.thejournal.org/payment.html

Also, we provide FREE print subscriptions to anyone who writes us to inform us he cannot afford a paid subscription. Here are The Journal’s postal and E-mail addresses:

The Journal

PO Box 1020

Big Sandy, TX 75755

USA

info@thejournal.org

Dave Pack: I am the ONLY COG leader who has NEVER compromised

Superfantabulous Dave Pack claims he is the ONLY COG splinter group that has NOT compromised on ANYTHING!  All of he hundreds and hundreds of splinter groups are being led by little men who compromise the law, allow mixed marriages, let their women were make up like harlots, marry outside the church, eat vegetarian, dance Irish dance, build auditoriums, establish colleges, and start new splinter groups.  Bob Thiel is once again suffering major butt-hurt.

All of the splinters have compromised terribly. I haven’t compromised anything about the Sabbath; not just the Sabbath, but about it, or the Law, or the Holy Days, or the knowledge that we’re born again, or the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Now you might say I have, because of prophecy. Okay, then. I’ve not taught there’s an immortal soul. There’s no dead in hell for all eternity. I’ve not said you can interracially marry, or wear makeup, or marry outside the Church. We have thorough baptismal counseling. We maintain all standards of dress, and hair, and no tattoos. You know, we don’t allow all that stuff in the wrong way.

Dave wants it made clear that he has the best child rearing standards too.  The youth he has kicked out of the church over the decades and their parents would beg to differ.

We have childrearing standards.

Dave also wants it known that he has not compromised the word of God by watering down his message by preaching wimpy-ass 45 minute or one hour sermons.  Real men of God preach 2-4 hour sermons!  Dave is like John the Baptist, he has come to show the true way.

We haven’t altered services down to an hour and a half, with 45-minute sermons, the way it is in most of the splinters, never mind Worldwide. The manner of doing the Work is the same. We haven’t watered down any elements of tithing, any aspects of it. The calendar; we do broadcasts; we follow the pattern of doing the Work. Ambassador College; the publications we produce; the quality of conferences and Feasts, and writing literature, and youth tools; building a world headquarters the way I saw it and was taught. We haven’t compromised any of that. The splinters compromise all of it. All I’ve done, like John, is come and show, in many ways, what they always believed.

Dave does admit to changing one thing though...prophecy.  Dave imagines that he has not changed anything or added anything, only that he has explained it properly.

Prophetic understand is the only thing I’ve changed…but I haven’t changed anything, because I’m not adding a new book of the Bible. I’m just explaining what was always there. So, I’ll leave you to look at that principle and go over all of the different things that we have held to, that I have not compromised—for all the decades of my ministry—and it didn’t make any difference how many people stood with me or didn’t.

The families ripped apart, the marriages broken, children thrown out, financial lives ruined, all beg to differ that Dave is the most upright and uncompromising minster ever.

Dave Pack: Those That Eat Vegetarian Open Their Minds To Demons

Uncle Dave Pack writes:

“…and to abstain from meats…” I’ve explained, many times, that vegetarianism is not just wrong, but it’s dangerous, because it opens the mind up to demons. There are critical proteins found in clean meats that strengthen the cerebral cortex. That’s the frontal lobes of the brain, where the human will was installed or created by God. And Demons don’t want people to eat meat. That’s why India is shot full of demons and mediums and wizards of every kind. They don’t eat any meat, even though there’s more beef “on the hoof” there than in Texas.