It's Almost Feast Time Again for many. But It's A Different World Than It Was in 1985. And what we all expected never happened.
We've heard it all our lives. We're all going to enter into the Wonderful World Tomorrow. Lions will be tamed, peace will be everywhere, everyone will keep the Law. The Worldwide Church of God will rule the world under Herbert Armstrong, and all the church members will rule and reign with him for a thousand wonderful, amazing, utopian years, keeping the Law and the Holy Days and forcing all to do so with a rod of iron. Well, Until that was made absolutely impossible for that to happen in just a couple of decades from September of 1985. Boom goes the dynamite, and the Church ran like melancholy sparrows or lonely pelicans smacked by a volley of roman candles.
Things are different now. There's no Worldwide Church of God as we knew it. Herbert's long gone. Scattered remnant ministers continue to try to make a work, work, and some remnant members who try to be ministers try to make a... well, whatever they're trying to do. I still haven't figured out what that is. I'm not sure they have either.
of course, we all are aware that we are very fast approaching the annual Feast of Tabernacles for those who celebrate the Fall Holy Days in the Churches of God. Many people will be going to and fro to extremely diverse locations, meeting in various hotels, homes, campgrounds, and living rooms.A few might get a hall! One or two, a BIG hall! It was a far different picture decades ago when we met at large sports arenas, conference centers, islands and cruise ships - all 140,000+ of us, all in one church, all looking forward to ONE World Tomorrow under ONE apostle in a church body called the Worldwide Church of God that we believed as a physical corporation the gates of hell could never prevail against (see the Receivership of the late 1970s to early 1980s to get this picture.)
(Photo from the Envoy, 1970s,
Lake of the Ozarks, Feast of Tabernacles)
At that point of time, many of us believed that Herbert Armstrong would miraculously recover and would not die, that Gerald Waterhouse was speaking fascinating, deep truths (ok, a few of us thought that), and that Jesus was delaying his return because the brethren were just not ready. Nonetheless, it was an exciting, festive, and unforgettable convention for so many of us - particularly those of us who were tenfold bought into the Armstrong Theology System.
Many were teenagers at the time. Many regarded Herbert Armstrong as God's Apostle. And many regarded the ministry as the authoritative word of God. So what exactly were the teenagers of the Worldwide Church of God told in the last few months of Herbert Armstrong's reign in the Worldwide Church?
The teenagers were told that the World Tomorrow was for the Children of the Church in 1985. An article was written in the Good News of September 1985 by Frank Nelte - which set up entirely incorrect expectations for the teenagers of the time. I'll quote some paragraphs.
"The members of God's Church will then be Spirit beings. We'll be part of God's Family, assisting Jesus Christ in governing and teaching that perfect world. We will see to it that Christ's instructions are carried out to the last detail. But we will not be the ones to do the physical building of that society, nor will we be the ones who will benefit most from the ideal physical environment."
Here, we have the statement that the then-current (in 1985) members of the Worldwide Church of God would be transformed into Spirit beings - managerial assistants who's job is to "see to it" that the instructions of Christ are carried out to the exact detail. I can see in my mind glorified, brightly-shining spirit entities sitting on little thrones, legs crossed, holding a spirit drink and a spirit microphone, watching down below as they bark order after order received from upper management. Wait! I think I did see that actually... Wasn't that what Dave Pack was doing wearing a white shirt staring down at his workers, barking out order after order in his office up high? Of course, it was! After all, that was the Church's teachings!
"The actual restoring of the old wastes, the planting and reaping of bumper crops, and the beautiful homes and cities will be carried out by humans. And the teenagers from God's Church are destined to be among the leaders and beneficiaries of that society".
Please forgive me if I take a moment to do just a little math. The teenagers from the Church back in 1985 (13 to 19) are currently aged 46 to 52 years of age. Those who read this and believed this back in 1985 have children, and grandchildren, and are actually approaching retirement. They've got GREY HAIR. Think about this: The Young Ambassadors of those days could now nearly attend SENIOR CITIZEN LUNCHEONS! May we now, at this point, say, without any degree of reasonable doubt, that the author of this article was just a little bit incorrect?
"When other people at the beginning of the Millennium find out that a teenager' s father or mother is now a member of the God Family -when they discover that the teenager attended God's Church or studied the Church's teachings in this age -then they will look up to that teenager to show them the way. Those teenagers who strive now to learn God's way are then going to be in high demand"
The idea going through a teenager's mind, in 1985, was simple: Feast Flings. No, I'm joking. Not really, I wish I was. But what was going through their minds spiritually was something like this: After the hellish World War 3, in just three to five years, the Millennium would dawn. The Worldwide Church of God would then surface from Petra or wherever, and they would then rule the world under Jesus Christ, and the teenager is still on earth. Others without knowledge of the Worldwide Church of God would suddenly be awestruck at the realization that their parents ARE NOW GOD UP IN THE SKY and would be in awe! The teenagers would be superstars! And, likely, MINISTERS - HUMAN MINISTERS like the WCG Ministers of 1985! What a GOAL! (Except the feast flings - that was their real goal.)
"The surface of the Earth will be dramatically changed. Mountains will be brought low. Land will appear in many deserts covered by oceans. Deserts and polar ice caps will become fertile and habitable. The surface of this planet will receive an incredible face-lifting."
Now, our mid-1980s teenagers will, presumably be 1995, expect to see the nuclear-torn, war-ravaged Earth suddenly go through a Genesis Project transformation that makes Star Trek look...wait, it IS like Star Trek, isn't it? - The only thing missing was the Enterprise with Kirk at the helm wrestling the Genesis Effect Machine from the hands of the villain! Of course, in the COG world, the Villain was Garner Ted, not Kahn.... But I digress...
"And then God will need thousands of pioneers! Have you ever envied the pioneers of yesteryear? - Like Christopher Columbus, Marco Polo, Vasca De Gama, Captain James Cook and David Livingstone to name a few? Well, the achievements of the pioneers of tomorrow, which are being trained today, will pale into insignificance anything accomplished in past ages."
Yes! Now we are telling our teenagers that their names will be as important and etched in stone as the next Christopher Columbus! The next Marco Polo! The next Vasca De Gama or Captain Cook! What a reward! Now our teenagers will really be somebody! They'll be important! Yes, you teenagers will be what you envy!! Envy is a Ferengi trait, not a Christian trait. Sorry, another Trek reference. I'll stop already. Someday. Moving on....
They'll build farmlands and industries in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and on the top of Antarctica! Oh, what's that?
"Some will have to set the example in establishing family units that practice God's Way of Life. Some will have to set the example by living in accordance with all of God's Health Laws. With guidance from God, thousands of inventions are just waiting to be discovered... trendsetters will be needed!"
YES! Make it SO, we'd think, gleefully.
But it could not be made so.
Then, this is said...
"That's a big responsibility. God is very selective in the foundation He builds. The teenagers associated with God's Church today are being offered a part in that foundation. God is not going to make any mistakes. So teenagers in God's Church are being tested as to whether God will be able to use them....
Often the teenager may be the only one in the whole school who knows about God's truth. To reject the way the other kids do these things means to be rejected by them, and none of us wants to be rejected or ostracized. Yes, it's often tough, but it boils down to this: Either they seek the approval of other kids by being just like they are, or young people seek God's approval and possibly face a certain amount of persecution, but then look forward to pioneering God's Way of life in the incredible future."
Not that I need to say this. But I'll do it anyway. None of this happened. It's 2018. Thirty-Three YEARS in the future. That's at least 5 TIMES further than the 3 to 5 years we were expecting in 1985, which is FORTY years later than the expectation in 1945. (Look at me sound like some kind of Church of God Date-Setting Dude). Let's be frank. None of it was true. It was entirely, totally, and completely FICTION. There's no other way around it. The teenagers are grandparents in some cases, the United States still exists, the entire generation of members in 1985 who were adults are middle-aged to senior citizens... or dead. It IS a totally, completely, incredibly different world, yes. But it's not the World Tomorrow we were told it would be. I guess you could say it's not your father's world tomorrow. But it is a World Tomorrow no one ever anticipated. All of the above I just mentioned is what they were told. And many believed it. That's a shame. A real, honest, absolute shame. We said lying to our children about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny was such a sin, but then lied to them about their world to come and thought it acceptable. It was not.
Among countless other marvels, Computers and information have taken over the world. Smartphones, Twitter and Facebook. Instant news. Instant communication. Cell phones without cords with nearly unlimited apps. An unlimited library of videos at your disposal. GOOGLE, for crying out loud. Music you do not have to pay for via YouTube. TV's that are flat and curved. Video conversations are every day. Everybody now has the technology to do a "Microwave Satellite Transmission" with the push of a button. And this blog has reached every nation in the world - and the thing is? That's not a big deal. A cat video reaches every nation in this world too. And so does every blogger and podcast operator and video producer. It's an everyday thing. And in ten years, everything I wrote will probably be horribly outdated.
But because of our fictional World Tomorrow that never came, no one who was a teenager in 1985 was prepared for the REAL "World Tomorrow" which is the unthinkable-then World we know of today. Because
No matter how you slice it, no matter how you look at it, no matter how you parse history - the truth is, the Worldwide Church of God told the children to expect something that never happened. They believed it on the authority of Christ - dictated by Herbert Armstrong, the evangelists, and the pastors of the Worldwide Church of God. What did our children learn from that? How did that affect their trust in their parents? Their ministers? God? Everything?
Nine years later from 1985, the greatest tribulation ever to hit the Worldwide Church of God hit with the force of a 1000 megaton detonation. People were left bewildered, stunned, and the Church was literally destroyed into thousands of small splinters, shards, and pieces of shrapnel. Some went left, some went right, some went - well, anywhere they could find to go. But the world around them went on. The world around them continued, progressed, developed, and became the crazy futuristic world that we live in today, beyond the dreams of anyone in 1985. A world that many of our teenagers were not prepared for, because of the fictional expectations they were told of by those who were trusted. No, it wasn't THE Great Tribulation, of course. But for us, it might've well been.
Now, what was written above are indisputable facts. However, the following paragraph is just an opinion - so take it, leave it, or whatever, but here it is:
As the Fall Festival Season comes for 2018 to those who continue to observe it, I hope you have an enjoyable time with family and friends - and fun. But there is a lesson learned that the teenagers of 1985 have learned very, very well. That lesson is simple: Guard yourselves against feeding your children with unrealistic, fictional, biased, irrational and unreasonable expectations of ideas and inaccuracies of things that no one knows the date, the times, or the hours of - or can know, which will rob them of the trust they put in their parents if they imagine or teach that they do know. Instead, prepare them to have the ability to live, laugh, love, and succeed in this incredible World that no one back then could ever have expected. Teach them respect, honor, and joy. Give them the abilities to set a wonderful example for their children and their grandchildren which most are nearly certain to have. Jesus isn't interested in the propagation of untruths to his little ones. Jesus is interested in those who understand and live a life of love. Those who achieve that have achieved a better recognition than Marco Polo or any explorer or real estate developer of a worldwide scale ever could. And what happens beyond that?
As long as we do the right thing, the true thing, and the honest thing - we'll be more ready for whatever comes our way than if some teach what end up to be lies and deceptions unaware.
guest contribution:SHT
