Why has the Church of God always been embarrassed about its self?

I am on a secret Facebook page filled with over 780 former COG members that has all kinds of conversations going on, usually about abuse at the hands of the ministry or church.  One of the conversations has centered around how the church called it's self  a "nondenominational church" instead of a Christian church.

I remember in 1962 when I was in first grade that we had been instructed to say the church we attended was nondenominational.  We did not claim to be Christian because that was a label for back sliding,  Sunday keeping, pork eating  Christmas keeping false Christians, even though they proclaimed Jesus much more than the COG did.

Because of church beliefs many thought church members were Jews because  we rarely, if at all, talked about Jesus but sure talked about old testament holy days and old testament biblical characters.  However, church members found the Jewish label to be just as offensive as being called Christian.  

Church literature and sermons rarely mentioned Jesus and if they did, it was in the last couple of paragraphs in an article or as a side comment in a sermon.

Even Herbert Armstrong could not bring himself to say God or Jesus and had to talk about a "strong hand from some place."

When HWA started gallivanting around the world bribing audiences with world leaders with offers of cash and Steuben crystal, he did it under the auspices of the Ambassador International Cultural Foundation.  It was too embarrassing to say he was there as a leader of a church.

Even if you look back at old issues of the Tomorrow's World magazine, which was supposed to be filled with "meaty" articles for the baptized, there was seldom mention of Jesus, but lots and lots of law.

I think part of the problem today that almost all of the various COG incarnations suffer from is the fact they still cannot take a stand on who they are and what they believe.  They pretend to be Jewish, then whence when people compare them to the Jews. They pretend to be Christian, but can't talk about Jesus.  

Because the church has no identity, it allows it self to fall under the spell of devious men like Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry, Bob Thiel and James Malm.   These men have made it all about themselves. They are special conduits of streaming knowledge directly from God the Father, but never Jesus.  Everything revolves around their personal interpretations regardless of how sick and perverted it is.  Just look at Dave Pack and Bob Thiel with all their self aggrandizing comments about themselves.  It is all about them and not the church or Jesus.

United Church of God makes endless attempts to make a name for itself with public campaigns and appearances, but it has accomplished nothing other than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.  It has left no witness about Jesus anywhere.

Now that this version of the Church of God movement moves into the 80 some years of existence it is still shocking that it still has no identity or focus on the one it claims to follow. 

One Facebook user made the following accurate description of the Church of God:

"A non denominational non sectarian educational group in the public interest!"

This is exactly why not a single Church of God group is growing today nor has any impact.

The Woo Woo Masters

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Definition of woo–woo

1. 
   
2. :  dubiously or outlandishly mystical, supernatural, or unscientific thinking, practices and beliefs
3. 
   
4. And she has written a book … in which she dismisses what she calls “woo-woo spirituality” in favor of some straight talk on living with loss … 
5. — Linda Richman
6. 
   
7. Energy beams from the eyes certainly sounds like woo-woo stuff …
8.  — Steve Blow

Jesus Christ returning to Wadsworth, Ohio where Dave Pack can preach, "He walks with ME, and he talks with ME and he tells ME I am his own"  is pure Woo Woo

__Dennis Diehl

woo–woo

 nounOne man's woo-woo, of course, is another's deeply held belief system. — Julia Moskin
When teaching therapeutic massage at a local college, one of the classes I taught was on watching out for quackery or "woo woo" as it is wont to be called in the field.  I endeavored to instill in students that not every modality that is available to them in massage therapy is something they might want to risk charging people for and that making dubious claims, perhaps outside their scope of practice , may cause them nothing but trouble.

I demonstrated not only the dangers of but the lousy science associated with ear candling.  Ear Candling is the idea that vast amounts of debris can be drawn out of the ear canal with a flaming cone candle which sets up a suction drawing the debris out of the ear.  It does not and cannot work as advertised and it is dangerous to boot.  Some charge $50 for this service and it is simply a useless procedure.  I demonstrated this by doing an ear candling on a student and burning another candle in a cup. I then unrolled both and had them tell me which one was in the ear and which in the cup.  They were both the same.  The "wax" came from the candle, not the ear.

Another bit of woo woo was "Ionic Foot Baths".  In this, one's feet soak, and it feels great, in a slightly electrified foot bath with salts added to the water.  Soon "scum" makes it's appearance in the water and was once said, until the Government said enough of this BS, yellow scum was from the speen, brown was nicotine,  green was from the liver and so on.  Like foot pads that "release toxins" in the feet, it is bogus.  If one leaves the feet out of the bath, the salt and electricity produce the scum anyway.  It's bad science and a $50 scam I warned them not to sell in their practice if they knew what was good for them.
In Therapeutic Massage some are taught "to drink a lot of water because we push around a lot of toxins"  Studies has shown this to be less than dramatically true and "a lot of water" for some is cup while others will risk death and drink gallons. 
Sermons in the churches of God can stir up a lot of toxins as well or more than not, be the source of them driving one to drink without being advised to. 
I once worked for a Chiropractor who had a stim unit with three settings.  Low, Medium and Spirit.  No really, the highest setting was "Spirit! "  I asked him why he had that and he admitted he didn't know and "It's just bullshit" and smiled.    We lost more clients on that setting than the other two combined.  His Reflexologist made life decisions by asking Spirit to show her three yellow truck on the way to work if the answer was yes to her questions.  Woo Woo.    She almost got fired for making a client winch when getting reflexology and when he did said, "Did that hurt?  Hmmm....you have a heart condition."   Woo Woo! and practicing outside the scope of her practice as do  Dave Pack , Gerald Flurry, Bob Thiel , and all other split, splinter and sliver Woo Wooartists. 
I have my doubts about practices such as homeopathy, (all our drinking water has "the essence" of every drug ever produced),  reflexology (do I affect my heart stepping on small stones too?) and various forms of "energy work."  
At a seminar once, when my skepticism was still fresh from my WCG experience, we were doing energy work and "feeling" the energy around the body without touching it.  "Can you feel it?" asked the teacher,  Everyone said  "uh...yes!  I feel it".  Well ....I said, "Not really" and then it began.  "I don't actually either...",  "Me either....." and before it could spread too far the teacher said it was not important yet at this point to feel it and moved on quickly.  LOL  
There is plenty of Woo Woo in the Churches of God and in the leadership of those churches.
Dave Pack is a Woo Woo Master with his never ending Waterhousian speculations about how Christ will return, when and where along with his glorious part in it all.  He's simply full of Woo Woo and NONE of what Dave says will every happen .  In fact, I guarantee it, both in this age and in the age to come . Dave's use the scriptures is pathetic and toxic to his followers.  It will not end well.
Gerald Flurry is also a Woo Woo Master in the style of Dave Pack, or maybe it is Dave who is in Gerald's style of Woo Woo.   Gerald is given to Prayer Rock, Stones of Scone and Ark of the Covenant Woo Woo .  There is some Song of Solomon Woo Woo thrown in their somewhere for some reason but that is called Woo Hoo in some circles.  
Dr. Thiel is a Woo Woo Master as seen in his self ordination simply because someone asked Bob's God to give him a double portion of the Spirit when being anointed for sinus drainage. (Just kidding.  I don't know the malady he had when anointed. Perhaps Biggisegoitis which is a swelling of the head.   From that Bob  practices  his own Woo Woo and then dreams himself into a Prophet and Head Woo Woo Master of yet another only true church.  Bob has a tendency to Major in the Minor Woo Woos when he sermonizes but how he got to be so important a theologian in his own mind is by pure Woo Woo, mystical and magical.
Ron Weinland was a Financial Woo Woo Master with a major emphasis on a message of End Time  Woo Woo, which, like Dave Pack's Woo Woo, never did, ever will or ever could come to pass.  His Apostleship was also a function of Woo Woo magic and theological maneuvering and manipulation.  It's difficult , and you have to be creative in anointing yourself an Apostle with no backing from others, but with the right application of Woo Woo, it happens like magic!  You simple wear down your congregation and by the time they have had enough and want to go eat lunch, you announce,  "And yes brethren, I am an Apostle."  Sure, fine, whatever....let's eat.  
Joe Tkach got himself caught up in Evangelical Woo Woo complete with Gods a many , well three and all the Woo Woo of Incarnational Theology. While this is the mare traditional theology of Christianity, Woo Woo nonetheless and like all religious thought, can be contemplated but never proven to be real or factual.  It's a feel good Woo Woo with precious little appeal to Church of God types who simply have to have their prophetic Woo Woo to keep them in their seats, paying, praying, obeying, gyrating  and staying. 
Quackery is alive and well in the Churches of God.  It mainly settles around the self proclaimed credentials of the Woo Woo Master and his prophetic rants, speculations and pathetic manipulation of scriptures making them mean what they never meant or can mean.  While entertaining at times and providing excellent examples of how the human mind can become toxic with God-Haunted views, those associated with, following minus critical thinking and caution and just sure their man is preachin' God's truth are going to be in for one sorry surprise in time.  
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and there simple is none for the claims of the Church of God Woo Woo Masters.  

Men Who Shave Their Heads Are Not Proper Christians

Why is it that so many COG ministers and leaders have to stick their noses into peoples lives? We have had men over the decades dictating clothing colors, car colors, red ties for men, hair lengths, how close to dance, skirt lengths, what type of car to buy, what jobs to have and not have, etc.   Almost-arrested, Elisha, Elijah, Amos, Joshua, Habakkuk, doubly blessed and bitter disappointing "son" to Rod Meredith is also dictating what men should not be doing with their hair,

According to the false prophet and false teacher men should NOT shave their heads.  Why?   Because some pagan thousands of years ago might have shaved his head.  They also shaved their faces, but you never see the foolish hypocrite claiming men should not do that ether.

Christian women should not have short masculine hair styles and Christian men should not have long feminine hairstyles. Since pagan priests tended to totally shave their heads, this does not seem to be a proper regular practice for Christian men (Leviticus 19:27; 21:5).