Trouble has been brewing in some of the extreme sacred name groups as the wander further outside the bounds of reality and into sheer craziness. It seems there is a growing number who actually believe the earth is a flat disk. While these former people and the former Armstrongites who joined with them should know better, they have allowed themselves to be swayed by more nutty leaders.
The Church of God's Chief Pharisee, James Malm, is having to deal with this issue in a big way as his sidekick, Constance, has now jumped over to the flat earth society. Constance has a deeply troubled past with Armstrongism and Wicca. According to family members, she was deeply involved in Wicca for quite some time and then suddenly saw the "light" and jumped into James Malm's personality cult where she immediately became a prophetess, writing articles for Pharisee Malm. Like most entrenched in the dark side of Armstrongism and its worship of the law, Constance destroyed her relationship with her family, egged on by Malm and others. When family members tried to intervene, Malm lashed out recently, claiming that Satan was attacking them because they teach "the truth."
Constance was a writer for Malm's website of deception, The Shining Light, for quite some time. While he devoted himself to twisting scripture to fit his fanatical devotion to the law, as he waded through the books of the Bible interpreting every scripture, Constance was writing letters and articles as filler for his site. She got so good at it that Pharisee Malm let many of her articles be posted without editing. She was his Pharisaical soul mate.
Recently Pharisee Malm said he had to go in and edit some of Constance's articles. Then the great apostasy happened, she became a flat-earther.
The Chief Pharisee was so shocked by her actions that he had to make a public statement essentially publicly marking her and disfellowshipping her from the True Church of the Law.
31 Jan: It is my very sad duty to inform the brethren that my very dear friend Constance Lynn Belanger has been seduced and has left the faith. At the beginning of 2017 Constance retired from writing for this site and during the course of that year departed from the faith under the influence of a certain person.
Later in the year Constance wrote me with some links and asked me for my opinion on a flat earth. I thought that this was an honest question and dutifully looked this up and then sent her my opinion.
She got all upset at my answer and wrote accusing me of treating her like a child and of attacking her. It was obvious that she had swallowed this and had been trying to get me to accept it as well. Then when I did not do so, she justified her refusing to look at the evidence and rejecting me, by accusing me of something that had never entered my mind. I had always considered her a beloved friend and I found this quite a shock.
This kind of cop out is so common in today’s COG’s: when people cannot refute something they do not want to accept; they just accuse the messenger of attacking them and tune out, cleaving to their error.
Constance had fully swallowed the Flat Earth error [hence my recent post on the subject]. She then chose to disassociate herself from me because I did not agree, taking the view that nothing I say can be believed because I do not accept the “truth” that the earth is flat.
Then she wrote insisting that I remove “her” articles.
I responded by reminding her that:
- She had given me her very rough drafts and told me to do whatever I wanted with them and I had spent endless hours working on them to bring them up to a minimum level for use. In fact the articles now bear very little resemblance to the first drafts she gave me,
- Further I had actually paid her several thousand dollars for the articles
I am not about to trash several thousand dollars paid to her and several hundreds of hours of my own work on something that actually belongs to me, just to satisfy her fit of pique.
Constance is now coming out against the “gap theory” of creation week and other issues.
I had wanted to avoid making this public, but the need to inform the brethren of the facts has now become a priority. Please be aware that Constance is no longer associated with me, that she is a flat earth believer and that she is now teaching contrary to sound doctrine.
Are there truly any normal people in Armstrongism? Why are people attracted such nuttiness? They spend their lives jumping from one nutty leader to the next, letting themselves get wrapped up in the latest conspiracy theory or outrageous claim.
