A Reminder for New COG Lurkers

Anonymous said...

I don't care whether people love me or not. I do not believe that that's the problem in HWAs church splinters. All I care about is people not harming me by respecting my rights. What's in peoples hearts is between them and God, but if people respect my right to life, liberty, my property rights, my right to freedom of expression, my right to choose my own beliefs, my right to be free from abuse, my right to privacy, my right to be left alone etc, I' m satisfied.

Not surprising, rights are taboo in these splinters.

Church Member Bill of Rights

The following are basic human, religious and spiritual rights any person has as a member of any and all religious organizations or church congregations.

You have the right to expect the church to keep your personal contributions private and should be able to expect that any who deal with such things for accounting purposes will do the same.

You have the right to expect that your membership in any church or congregation is not contingent on how much you give or do not give. You should also expect that jobs, positions, opportunities or offices are not given based on the amount anyone gives to the church.

You have the right to say I can only give this even if it is not a tithe of your income gross or net.

You have the right not to be spiritually judged or have your loyalty or sincerity questioned based on what you are able or unable to give financially to the church.

You have the right to ask a Pastor if he checks tithes and offerings for any of the above reasons before giving to a church.

You have the right to say "I'm tired and won't be there, " to any and all activities, plays, fundraisers, studies, seminars, prayer groups, rehearsals, practices and sermons.

You have the right to say "I don't care about that."

You have the right to question the advice, counsel or sermon of any minister, elder, deacon or any other person in authority. 

You have the right to question authority and to still expect to be allowed to attend your church. 

You have the right to question a minister who declares himself one or both of the Two Witnesses of Revelation, a Prophet, the Supreme Watcher of Mankind for God, The Only True Apostle in this Age and any other title or position he can come up with to impress you as to why you need to support him.

You have the right to suggest a pastor get spiritual or psychological help should the need arise. You have the right tell him that the congregation is noticing a trend here.

You have the right to ask why the church believes what it does when the Bible might say otherwise, or why the Bible says something that the church practices that seems scary, weird, inappropriate for this time, out of date or controlling. 

You have the right to notice that ministers often quote scriptures out of context or fail to enforce or address the rest of the story that does not agree with the point they are trying to make.

You have the right to ask all the "how can that be," "how could that happen," "why does it say this here and that there," questions you can come up and expect an intelligent answer. If you are told that you are using human reasoning, ask the pastor what kind of reasoning he uses. If he says "God's," find another church.

You have the right to not want elders, deacons or your friends accompanying the minister on visits to your home to talk to you.

You have the right to discuss or not discuss your life with the minister as you see fit.

You have the right to expect absolute confidentiality and for your story not to show up in the sermon next week, even though "I won't say the name."

You have a right to be called ahead of time when the pastor wants to ask about stopping over.

You have the right, when he calls to say, "I'm tired," "I'm busy," "No, but I appreciate the call," without repercussions.

You have the right to keep a dirty home, grass not mowed perfectly, an older car, red in color and kids that don't say "yes sir, nice to see you sir," in just the right way.

You have the right to watch and read what you wish even if the pastor just got done bashing that particular program, movie or book from the pulpit in his sermon on "Demons in Your Home--Six Ways to Assure Your Eternal Death."

You have the right to ask the pastor not to call on you at work, even if you own the business.

You have the right to say, "I can't afford to take you to lunch." "I can't afford to give you free wood or brick." "I can't afford to fix your house up free," "I can't fix all your teeth," to your pastor should he expect professional courtesies, even if he offers to do your funeral free.

You have a right to expect free use of your church for weddings and funerals.

You have the right to expect these usages are not dependent on you, your parents or children living a sinless life six months prior to the date of the event.

You have the right not to answer questions your pastor may ask you or your children about your sexual practices. If he insists, then insist that you all share together.

You have the right to not let the pastor inform you as to who you can and cannot date or marry.

You have the right to enjoy your sexuality free of church or pastoral approval. Something that is wrong for the pastor is not necessarily wrong for you in how you express yourself to your partner. There is no Bible prohibition against....well you know. And if there were, you'd have the right to disagree with that too.

You have the right to not share which or if you are taking medications of any sort with the pastor.

You have the right to take such medication and not be judged as having a lack of faith or trust in God to heal you.

You have the right to seek professional help without informing your Pastor of the nature of the help and you have the right to not be helped solely by the pastor under threat of repercussions.

You have the right to insist the pastor get professional help should the need arise and the man is causing more harm than good. 

You have the right to remind him that God does not directly speak to him nor express His will only through the mind of the pastor and that makes you uncomfortable if he thinks that is so.

You have the right to be wrong about a many things.

You have the right to believe you are correct about many things without repercussions.

You have the right not to care about everything that others think you must care about to be a good Christian.

You have the right to tell the pastor he is wrong, mistaken or exaggerating.

You have the right to dress as you wish, wear the jewelry you wish and make up you wish or not wish without being labeled a whore or a goody goody.

You have the right to feel that dressing as if it was still 1957 and only watching Disney Movies or How the West Was Won as proof of your pureness is baloney

. You have the right to not be told that the best times for entertainment, movies and TV was when the Pastor was a boy. You have the right to like the food he does not like and to not like the foods he does. 

You have the right to like the schools he doesn't and not like the ones he does.

You have the right not to bear your soul to the ministers wife.

You have the right to like or not like, agree or not agree with the ministers wife.

You have the right to not view the world through the pastor's eyes morally or politically. You have the right to hate the war while he believes the war in Iraq is God's will and thinks it's all in the Bible.

You have the right to expect him to speak clearly where he thinks the Bible speaks for us today and to walk slowly and drink cool water where it doesn't.

You have the right to tell the pastor that that is his opinion and not necessarily the only true opinion on earth.

You have the right for you, your children, your partner and your friends to be themselves.

You have the right to read whatever you wish to read

And too...Since two wrongs don't  make a right, you are allowed to point out one or more than three times where you feel the pastor's sermon or booklet was a bit off the track.  

These are but a few of the rights any member of any Church, congregation or religious organization has. In short, you have the right to not be required to check your brains, your insights, your perspectives and your free will at the door to be welcome and a member of any church.

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Wes White: There Is a Lack of Love Within Too Many COGs

     

                                    

There Is a Lack of Love Within Too Many COGs

By Wes White

Suppose you lived during the founding of Jamestown in 1607 and you suffered from hypertension (high blood pressure).  You were basically screwed because back then the medical professionals had no cure for this disease.  In fact, they didn’t know this disease existed.

            The invention of the sphygmomanometer (blood pressure cuff) by Scipione Riva-Rocci in 1896 was perhaps the greatest breakthrough in diagnosis of this disease.  The development of oral diuretics in the 1950s was perhaps the biggest breakthrough in the treatment of this disease.  

            In medicine, accurate diagnosis and correct treatment are both required in order to cure a disease.  One without the other will not allow for beating the illness.  

            It’s the same in religion.  If a church suffers from a sin and doesn’t know it, then all the cures listed in the Bible are not going to enable these Christians to overcome that sin.  That group must first understand they are suffering from the illness.  

The malignant disorder of mistreating people is still rampant among many Armstrong COGs. This contagion is still as epidemic today as it was at any time since the creation of Armstrongism in 1933.

And this religious pathology is not going to go away as long as the leaders and the brethren refuse to recognize there is a problem.  Like any medical disease, it is only after recognition of a sin that removal of the sin can begin.  Again, you’ve got to have both diagnosis and treatment. 

            The Bible can help Christians who need to do better in their treatment of others.  The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, and 7) is the perfect antidote for the spiritual malady of lacking proper love for others.  But this cure is no good if the afflicted church doesn’t understand that it has an illness.  

Your bathroom medicine cabinet can be filled with the wonderful drug Lisinopril.  But it does your hypertension no good if you don’t know that you need this medicine.   After all, how can you know to pop one of these pills into your mouth every morning if you have not been properly diagnosed?

            This is the problem in so many of the Armstrong COGs today.  The very Bibles that sit on their laps during church services every Sabbath have the perfect cure for what ails them, but they have no idea they are infected. 

            And infected they are!

            In addition to the typical maladies that bedevil Armstrongite churches (headline theology, setting or implying dates of Jesus’ return, racist beliefs against interracial marriage & interracial dating, 2nd & 3rd tithes, church eras, judging another’s heart, love of revenge, authoritarian church government, end-time apostleship, humiliation thru marking & disfellowshipping, harsh D&R administration, one true church, condemnation of non-Sabbath keeping Christians, banning members from voting, anti-doctor/anti-medicine/anti-science teachings), many COG people also suffer from either possessing insufficient love for others or a total lack of love for others.  

We see this particular Armstrong illness demonstrated in the following ways:

n  Inability or unwillingness to resolve conflict;

n  Showing interest and loyalty only to those who are in their own organization;

n  Imputing motives;

n  Falsely accusing others;

n  Name-calling of those they disagree with;

n  Unwillingness to tolerate even the most minor of doctrines differences;

n  Refusal to acknowledge the sins or errors of their leaders;

n  Undo loyalty to fellow elders within a ministerial brotherhood;

n  Denial of any responsibility to help those in need in their communities.

            

And it gets worse.

Alongside of their inability to recognize their lack-of-love illness, many of these folks work from the faulty premise that, the more biblical knowledge of certain doctrines you have, the more morality you possess.  They then assume the converse must be true which is that, the less biblical knowledge of certain doctrines you have, the more immorality you possess.  These Christians don’t understand that atheists and agnostics can indeed possess honesty, kindness -- AND LOVE!  Further, these misguided Christians don’t understand that people who are irreligious can actually live their lives being more in line with the loving precepts of the Sermon on the Mount than many Christians! 

History has shown us that understanding truths like the Sabbath and unclean meats is no antidote to the affliction of lacking love.  The hard-headed Pharisees were the perfect example of this principle.  Like the Pharisees, love-lacking Armstrongites seem to have this problem within their very DNA.  

A COG leader once confessed to me that his church needed more of Matthew 5, 6, and 7. At the time, he was trying to place emphasis on these Gospel chapters in his sermons.  That was several years ago.  Today, I am convinced he has not succeeded in that mission.  And I fear he has given up on the whole idea.  Lack of love may very well be too deeply embedded within the DNA of that congregation.  

            For those of us with faith, it becomes more and more incumbent on us that we pray daily for those who claim the name of Jesus, but fail to have love for their fellow man.   Those of us who follow Jesus and embrace God’s Law have a responsibility to reach out to the spiritually ill – even those with the very disease that inspired them to run us off or write us off.  

            As one who has had to overcome the disease of lacking love, I can speak about it candidly in the same way that a recovering alcoholic can speak of the disease of being addicted to liquor.  I don’t bring up the subject to condemn others. I am discussing it only because I want my brothers and sisters in Christ to know that they can overcome it.  But you can’t overcome it until you have admitted you have a problem. 

            And just because your church organization refuses to overcome this sin, it doesn’t mean you as an individual can’t.  If a Christian has this problem, his first step is to admit that there needs to be more love within himself and the COGs. Only then can he truly follow the admonition, “Come out of her my people,” and have healing.  And it is only then that Jesus will be able to truly say, “By this will all know that you are mine.  That you have love for one another.”

            Make yourself a committee of one which has been tasked with the job of promoting Christian love for all other people. 

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            Wes White is president of the Ronald L. Dart Evangelistic Association (RLDEA.com), a Sabbath-keeping Christian ministry which preaches the Gospel of Jesus thru the works of the late Ron Dart.                       

LCG: They Wrote the Book on Religious Hypocrisy. They're Still Selling it.

They Wrote the Book on Religious Hypocrisy. They're Still Selling it.

Recently, the Living Church of God has, with the force of a snail pushing a sailboat, declared a voluntary fast for their membership to be held maybe on October 20th, or around there, whenever. It was the most apathetic of any ecclesiastical decisions any Church of God could make. But for what reason? Why? And the bigger question is - on what spiritual basis? Do these Churches of God really show God, or who He is? Do they really obey His Commandments? Are they authorized, really, to ask for a church-wide Fast? Will the members who see the wickedness around them really respect the calls to fast of those who don't take their concerns to heart? And if they do fast - will it be in prayer against the leaders who proclaimed it, because they claim to know God, but by their actions deny Him? 

Titus 1:16 - They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for anything good. 

The word "Hypocrisy". It's defined as the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform. (Google definition). Hypocrisy is one of the very things that has caused many scores of individuals to leave their particular form of Christian faith. It has been observed from all corners of organized Christianity - from the laity clear up to the governing bodies. It's one of the strongest condemned behaviors of Jesus himself. Since the Worldwide Church of God claimed to be the One True Church, you'd expect the hypocritical behaviors of this organization to be reigned in, wouldn't you? 

In the Plain Truth of 1952, a question was asked about the wearing of Jewelry. Of course, the thought was, "is it wrong"? The response is quite clear. 

August 1952 Plain Truth 

No, it was not wrong to wear Jewelry - or wedding rings - the church deemed. Why was it not wrong? Here is the way the Church taught the brethren: 

"The wearing of gold ornaments and pearls in connection with costly array is forbidden by the apostles. Gold and pearls are not sin; for God sanctified the use of Gold in the temple.But their great expense was not becoming to Christian women who were to put their treasures into spiritual traits of character which God views as much greater worth. These two verses contain no prohibition on wearing a moderate amount of relatively inexpensive, but not "Cheap" adornment. A string of inexpensive pearls would not be violating the principle which the apostle lays down. For women to bedrock themselves with cheap objects for vanity is just as wrong as to put one's treasure in expensive jewelry." 

Well isn't this interesting. 

The wearing of gold ornaments and pearls in connection with costly array is forbidden, the church wrote. Though God "sanctified the use of gold in the temple", it was the great expense that was sinful to a woman because the "spiritual traits" are of greater worth than the gold. 

Beautiful, timeless, and humble pastoral counsel, isn't it. I'm sure every woman in the church at the time followed it expressly. It would have been a great example for the church to practice what they preached, wouldn't it. 

What happened? 

It took only around two decades to find out what happened. 

As the Church continually chastised the brethren around the world for the accumulation of wealth - what did they do? They accumulated wealth. Why did they accumulate wealth? For the purchase and use of expensive property. Yet, we know that it went far beyond just expensive property. 

It was Garner Ted Armstrong who - just a couple tens of years later - was flaunting, according to one of our readers here - a thirty thousand dollar watch (in today's monetary value) as if it was a small toy out of a cereal box (remember those days?). I'm pretty sure he thought it was okay because of the extremely expensive furnishings, paintings, and apparel purchased by his father for the college. His mom was photographed in a denominationally-famous large wall art wearing an expensive fur wrap. In fact, GTA was so used to wealth, that in one large, negative missive from the ministerial Bulletin, he was complaining about being trapped in the four walls of "the little condominium" he had to stay in. 

It was Herbert Armstrong who was continually obsessed with the accumulation of wealth. He never was "getting enough", it seemed - discouragement was always on him like a dark, musty cloud from a dingy, ratty basement. His plans were always costly - never inexpensive. 

But it wasn't the large, expensive, gold-leafed, wool-carpeted, extravagant Auditorium that wasn't sinful. It wasn't the million-dollar buildings that was the sin. We all know that the Campus was awarded as one of the most beautiful in the world. What was sinful was the absolute, blatant, carnal, disgusting hypocrisy that rained down from Headquarters like a tropical torrent, that flooded the life out of the members who hardly could have 60 percent of their own money to themselves. 

The very church that told woman to put their treasures in spiritual worth put all their treasures in physical riches. The very church that said that such an accumulation of wealth was violating the apostles' mandate went full steam ahead violating the same mandate's spirit of the law in snatching the finances of their members in the most threatening, abusive ways possible. 

Though women were commanded in the church to be temperate in expense and modest in apparel, (and even strip them of any form of make-up as soul-exterminating), the church was anything but temperate and modest. Time after time, they'd take out loans for expenses beyond their means and thrust the bill on the members with the force and weight of a beach-ball shot out of a cannon. Time after time Herbert would beg, plead - and finally threaten members with eternal damnation for not giving enough. He'd call them slackers or not fully converted. He'd make them feel like a dog's freshly defecated dinner from lunch in so many letters about how they're not "in it" or helping enough. Herbert would lower their standard of living while increasing his, letter after letter, year after year, decade after decade. 

Eventually, Herbert would be living in the lap of luxury with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tableware, an auditorium worthy of the greatest kings and queens, a Gulfstream Jet worthy of a Fortune 500 for-profit organization , with his son Garner Ted reaping all the benefits. 

This was hypocrisy. And what did Jesus say about hypocrisy? 

Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew 23:27-28)

Luke 20:46 says these "teachers of the law" devour women's houses. Who is it that had no problem taking the homes of the elderly and asking for their wills? Was it not the WCG, the "teachers of the law"? 

Matthew 15 says "these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me". How accurate this is, when GTA constantly made fun of people who "gave their hearts to the Lord". No, that's pansy pansy, love love talk, he would say. 

2 Timothy 3 condemns those who are "lovers of money". It also condemns the abusive, the conceited, the proud and the brutal. The WCG is well-documented to have been ALL of these things. .

This all from a church that claimed to be the One and Only true Church. This all from a church that claimed to hold the keys to the Kingdom of God - This from a church that claimed to hold the bindings and loosing of ecclesiastical power from heaven. A church that became rich and powerful in the ways and wealth of the world by lording it over the weak, and using the tithe as a way to financial gain and accumulation at the oppression of the poor, the needy, the hungry, and the sick - even denying the sick health care to gain more finances, which in some cases led to death. This is the very definition of wickedness. This is the very definition of injustice. This is the very definition of ungodliness. Yet, in this same church - this was all okay - because they were "the True Church who was keeping the Law - the Sabbath, and the Holy Days" - and called themselves "the Church of God". 

Hypocrites.By their actions we know they didn't know God. By their actions we know that their hearts were on the things of this world. By their actions we know that their minds were on material positions. And by their words we know what their intentions truly were. 

These attitudes continue these days in the organizations that remain from the mother, the old Worldwide Church of God. From Edmond to Wadsworth, the same hypocritical passion for material wealth and the oppression of the people continues. The same spiritual starvation emanates from the leaders who were trained by the worst hypocrites of them all.

And people still go to church to have fellowship with those who scripture clearly says by their actions deny Him. Those ministers who claim they are ministers of Christ, but are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for anything good. 

Yes, I do think that Living Church of God - and the other COG's - need a fast. But not the members.Those who stand behind their lecterns and take the tithes of the people need to fast. The only "fast" that needs to be done by the members is the setting on the level of speed required by their legs on their exit. 

-by SHT, Contributing Writer