LCG: Oh Noes! Are Britain and France Getting Ready To Persecute The Living Church of God?

Things just keep getting worse for the Living Church of God.  Persecution seems to be hitting them from every corner these days.  Satan is angry brethren!  Now LCG staff is bewailing Britain and France attempting to stop "...any content promoting hatred and terrorism in any way"

So what could really be wrong with that?

According to our buddies in Charlotte, this will prevent them from speaking forcefully the message they have to deliver to the world.  Considering 99.99% of the world has no idea who LCG is or what they stand for, how could this be considered persecution?  Especially considering the fact that LCG has never been forceful or spoken out in a strong manner about anything, well maybe except for sex. Sex seems to be their favorite topic.  Not much Jesus, but lots of sex.  When you read their blurb below you will see that sex is exactly what they want to talk about.

Now that Meredith is out of the way, why are LCG and Weston still so sex-obsessed?  Now is the perfect time for Weston to talk about grace, justification, rest, and peace that comes from following that inconvenient dude, instead of focusing on the sex.  It just goes to show how displaced LCG's loyalties are.

A COMING FAMINE OF THE WORD

26th June 2017

News and Prophecy Staff

Comment on this article

Last week French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May met to discuss a new, joint counter-terrorism effort aimed at online hate speech and encrypted messaging. A key focus of the effort will be to “make sure internet operators ‘delete any content promoting hatred and terrorism in any way’” (EU Observer, June 14, 2017). Their project will also target tech companies (primarily social media sites) that allow “unacceptable content” to remain on their websites.

In recent years, content that was once considered free speech has increasingly been categorized as unacceptable hate speech—including traditional Bible-based speech related to behaviors that God calls sin! How might such coming legislation impact Christians and the preaching of the Gospel of God’s coming Kingdom? God warned, “‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘That I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, but shall not find it’” (Amos 8:11-12). The Church of God has long understood that a famine of the word will come one day. As world events move forward and societies increasingly curtail civil liberties and free speech, actions taken in the name of protecting against terrorism and hate, we are beginning to see one way a famine of the word could come about! Will even the Bible be banned one day as a book of hate speech? 

Petra. Can You Trust Your COG Leader When He Tells You It Is Time To Flee?

There was a conversation on a FaceBook page this week about whether or not people would have gone to Petra if HWA and crew said it was time to go.

I remember the Holy Day combined services in Columbus, Ohio where we were instructed to return to the meeting hall after lunch by a precise time.  At the set time the doors to the meeting room were going to be locked and no one would be allowed in or out during the remaining service of the day. A vitally important announcement had come down from Headquarters and it needed to be passed on to the members.

During this secret time, the minister had brought onto the stage a large white writing board where he proceeded to make a calendar that led to the precise date that the church would be fleeing to Petra.  My mother copied this crap down in minute detail.  As soon as she got home she made up a calendar that she put inside the kitchen cupboard on the door.  Her reasoning for this was that if the authorities came and confiscated our Bibles and notebooks, they would never think to open a kitchen cupboard to find the chart.

On this chart, she methodically marked off the days till the time would come for us to flee.

When I look back at this utter nonsense and how sick the ministry was in promoting this lie, it just comes to show how dangerous the cult think/speak of Armstrongism was at its core. Members would do and follow any instruction from the ministry.

Some people on the FB page and others in other exCOG groups have remarked how as kids they had backpacks and suitcases ready by their bedroom doors in case the call came to flee.  It was also during this time that "phone-trees" were established so that directives from the ministry could quickly be disseminated to the membership.  My mother had her list of 25 or so people to call and guarded it obsessively.

As we had been instructed, over and over, Petra was going to be our "place of safety" for 3 1/2 years as Germany raised hell around the world, particularly in the United States, Canada, Britain, and Australia.  It was to be 3 1/2 years of glorious bliss as we received final instructions on how to be kings and priests as we worked to make the desert bloom like a rose.  We thought at the end of the 3 1/2 years we would be in the Kingdom of God rebuilding the world as we helped to teach the law while ignoring Christ.

Then BAM! The East Coast ministry exploded into a hotbed of dissension.  Ministers and members rebelled against authoritarian and aberrant doctrines of the church. The church was in upheaval and finances were in a mess.

Then Satan, according to WCG ministers, pulled the ultimate attack against the church.  Jim Jones led over 900 of his followers to their death in a mass suicide.  According to the ministry, Satan did this in order to put the focus upon the WCG's preparations to flee to Petra.  Satan was using the deaths of the cult members to make COG members stop and look at their blind obedience to HWA and the COG leadership.  WCG quickly shut up about Petra.

Then, Garner Ted was kicked out of the church for more adulterous affairs and insubordination.  Satan was viciously attacking the church and destroying members moral.  The church was in no state of affairs to flee as a unified body.

By this time, the Ambassador Report had hit the fan as the church struggled to maintain control.  Then the State of California swooped in to stop the excessive use of tithe money for the personal use of leaders, and for other issues.  Corruption was rampant in the church at this time.  Herbert Armstrong then fled to Tuscon where he diverted tithe money away from the Receiver who had to take over WCG's books in Pasadena.  Church employees were ordered to sign a pledge of loyalty to HWA Corp Sole in order to maintain their jobs.

The church was in such upheaval that Petra got shoved to the back burner. However, through all of this, there was a loyal group of believers that struggled to maintain the teaching.  While the Church officially stopped writing about it in most publications, it was still doctrine.

Then Satan pulled his ultimate attack and caused HWA to die.  The Tkach administration came in and the changes hit the fan.  Numerous self-appointed false prophets set themselves up as splinter churches in order to divert tithe money into their own personal pockets.  From Gerald Flurry, to Rod Meredith, to United Church of God, the money and members flowed out.  With the WCG refuting all teachings of Herbert Armstrong, the Petra doctrine was no more.  However, the doctrine followed the numerous splinter daughters of the WCG into new organizations where it gained a major stranglehold on members lives once again.

From Gerald Flurry's cult to Dave Pack's double millenniums, Petra is still alive and well.  Even UCG and COGWA still believe it, but quietly push it to the back burner hoping not many find out abut it.

Knowing what we know today about the sick and twisted lies of Flurry, Pack, UCG, COGWA, Thiel, Malm and many others, the question needs to be asked, "Would you go to Petra if these men said it was time to flee?"

How can any of us ever trust these professional liars to be correct when the announcement is made?  We all sit here week after week watching one lie after another come out of these men.  We watch the lives destroyed, the marriages and families ripped apart.  Many of us have buried family and friends who have died because of these men.  Most of us know that not a single one of these men can be trusted.  Yet, there will be thousands who obey every word their lord and masters utter to them when they deem it is time to flee.  People will sell homes, cars, and businesses to send in for the final push.

Has anyone ever thought what it would be like having Dave Pack ruling over you in Petra?

What about living 3 1/2 years with Gerald and Lil'Stevie Flurry subjecting you to Irish dance as your final millennial training?

Who in the right mind would even consider going to Petra with Bob Thiel in charge?  Even God is embarrassed at this one!

What about James Malm standing at the narrow gate determining who gets to enter Petra by determining how zealous you are?  Wise people would turn around and walk back to the Petra Marriott and have a margarita.

What about living 3 1/2 years with United Church of God leaders regaling you with tales from the blue sock puppet as they try to install useless billboards on cliff sides?

What will happen when all of these buffoons all arrive at the same time at the narrow gate?  Which leader and his people get to go in first?  Which groups have to stand on the sidelines as the chosen traipse by them first?  Who will ultimately be in charge?

Do people honestly think that when the time comes all division and animosity will miraculously cease and everyone will dwell together in millennial harmony for 3 1/2 years?  If not a single COG today can get along with another COG why should we expect a sudden change of heart once in Petra?  People are deluded if they think it will happen.

After the first month or so with all the bickering, backbiting and power struggles, members will start to realize they would have been better off being German captives.

So the question remains when your phone rings and a voice tells you it is time to flee, will you believe these professional liars?

"What Eats You...Eats You" --Coping With the WCG Experience

The WCG experience is the gift that keeps on giving in one's perspectives, attitudes and mind. Memory insures it is with us to the end. What is our balance between seeing now what we did not see then and letting it continue to wreak havoc in our real lives now?

People who score high on measures of cynical hostility have shorter telomeres.

Deep within the genetic heart of all our cells are telomeres, or repeating segments of noncoding DNA that live at the ends of the chromosomes. They form caps at the ends of the chromosomes and keep the genetic material from unraveling. Shortening with each cell division, they help determine how fast a cell ages. When they become too short, the cell stops dividing altogether.

Excerpted from the new book 
The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer 
by Elizabeth Blackburn and Elissa Epel. 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Elizabeth Blackburn was awarded a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2009 for her pioneering work in discovering the molecular nature of telomeres. She is president of the Salk Institute.

Elissa Epel is a health psychologist who studies stress, aging and obesity. She is the director of UCSF's Aging, Metabolism and Emotions Center and is associate director of the Center for Health and Community.

"Scientists have learned that several thought patterns appear to be unhealthy for telomeres, and one of them is cynical hostility. Cynical hostility is defined by high anger and frequent thoughts that other people cannot be trusted. Someone with hostility doesn’t just think, “I hate to stand in long lines at the grocery store”; they think, “That other shopper deliberately sped up and beat me to my rightful position in the line!” — and then seethe. People who score high on measures of cynical hostility tend to get more cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease and often die at younger ages. They also have shorter telomeres. In a study of British civil servants, men who scored high on measures of cynical hostility had shorter telomeres than men whose hostility scores were low. The most hostile men were 30 percent more likely to have a combination of short telomeres and high telomerase (an enzyme in cells that helps keep telomeres in good shape) — a profile that seems to reflect the unsuccessful attempts of telomerase to protect telomeres when they are too short.

1.  Cynical hostility is defined by high anger and frequent thoughts that other people cannot be trusted. Someone with hostility doesn’t just think, “I hate to stand in long lines at the grocery store”; they think, “That other shopper deliberately sped up and beat me to my rightful position in the line!” — and then seethe. People who score high on measures of cynical hostility tend to get more cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease and often die at younger ages. They also have shorter telomeres. 

2.  Pessimism is the second thought pattern that has been shown to have negative effects on telomeres. When our research team conducted a study on pessimism and telomere length, we found that people who scored high on a pessimism inventory had shorter telomeres. This was a small study of about 35 women, but similar results have been found in other studies, including a study of over 1,000 men. It also fits with a large body of evidence that pessimism is a risk factor for poor health. When pessimists develop an aging-related illness, like cancer or heart disease, the illness tends to progress faster. Like cynically hostile people — and people with short telomeres, in general — they tend to die earlier.

3.  Rumination — the act of rehashing problems over and over — is the third destructive thought pattern. How do you tell rumination from harmless reflection? Reflection is the natural, introspective analysis about why things happen a certain way. It may cause you some healthy discomfort, but rumination feels awful. And rumination never leads to a solution, only to more ruminating.

When you ruminate, stress sticks around in the body long after the reason for the stress is over, in the form of prolonged high blood pressure, elevated heart rate, and higher levels of cortisol. Your vagus nerve, which helps you feel calm and keeps your heart and digestive system steady, withdraws its activity — and remains withdrawn long after the stressor is over. In a study, we examined daily stress responses in healthy women who were family caregivers. The more the women ruminated after a stressful event, the lower the telomerase in their aging CD8 cells (the crucial immune cells that send out proinflammatory signals when they are damaged). People who ruminate experience more depression and anxiety, which are, in turn, associated with shorter telomeres.

4.  The fourth thought pattern is thought suppression, the attempt to push away unwanted thoughts and feelings. The late Daniel Wegener, a Harvard social psychologist, once came across this line from the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy: “Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.” Wegener put this idea to the test through a series of experiments and identified a phenomenon he called ironic error, meaning that the more forcefully you push your thoughts away, the louder they call out for your attention.

Ironic error may also be harmful to telomeres. If we try to manage stressful thoughts by sinking the bad thoughts into the deepest waters of our subconscious, it can backfire. The chronically stressed brain’s resources are already taxed — we call this cognitive load — making it even harder to successfully suppress thoughts. Instead of less stress, we get more. In a small study, greater avoidance of negative feelings and thoughts was associated with shorter telomeres. Avoidance alone is probably not enough to harm telomeres, but it can lead to chronic stress arousal and depression, both of which may shorten your telomeres.

5.  The final thought pattern is mind wandering. Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth(TED Talk: Want to be happier? Stay in the moment) and Daniel Gilbert (TED Talk: The surprising science of happiness) used a “track your happiness” iPhone app to ask thousands of people questions about what activity they are engaged in, what their minds are doing, and how happy they are. Killingsworth and Gilbert discovered we spend half of the day thinking about something other than what we’re doing. They also found that when people are not thinking about what they’re doing, they’re not as happy as when they’re engaged. In particular, negative mind wandering — thinking negative thoughts, or wishing you were somewhere else — was more likely to lead to unhappiness in their next moments."

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself. 

Eckhart Tolle