Are We Capable of Causing People To Lose Their Faith?

One of the accusations that is frequently lobbed against us, by hit and run comments, is that we destroy peoples faith.  Of course, that was the favorite mantra that the Church of God used to quell anyone who might think differently than the established system was advocating.  Herbert Armstrong and Church Administration regularly threw that accusation out any time there was the slightest hint of turbulence arising in the church.  It was also used as a moneymaking tool to shame members into constantly giving more and more money to fund the system, just like we are witnessing today in almost every group out there.

Fear of losing faith was a strong motivator in keeping people in line.  The threat of an angry god not allowing us into Petra was a scary thing for many people that led them to knee jerk reactions any time someone criticized the church or the leadership.

We were set up in the church to revere our leaders as the personal mouthpiece of Christ on earth.  Whatever they said we were to obey without ceasing and questioning.  To question was to question God himself!  We loved to mock the Catholics for their strict obedience to the Pope, and yet we were just as worshipful and dogmatic when it came to Herbert Armstrong.  We see this evident still in the various splinter groups of the church today.  Look at how Gerald Flurry and Dave Pack are revered by their devotees today.  They are third in command under God and Christ! Dave and Gerald are the end time mouthpiece sent by God!

Church members were given an endless stream of booklets, magazines, form letters, books, TV programs and correspondence courses to indoctrinate them.  Everything was laid out in black and white as to how people were to believe and act. All of that material did nothing to help establish faith in a person.  If you cornered 98% of the members of any given Church of God today and asked them to prove any doctrine of the church, out of the Bible, WITHOUT using any church-related literature in front of them, they could not do it. Having an endless list of doctrines and rules to follow does not establish faith.  It never has and never will.

When you look at the few followers of Jesus that actually got it, they were not worried about being zealous, adhering to innumerable laws and rules, or dependant upon someone to tell them how to act or believe.  Their minds were totally overwhelmed by the love and compassion that was shown them that they totally reveled in the grace.  Look at the thief on the cross.  He did not have to keep any Sabbath, not eat any pork, or be controlled by some religious Pharisaical nut-job. He did nothing but look at Jesus and witness something that he knew he wanted and needed.  That was faith at its purest form.

What we are witnessing in the Church of God today is a group of men who are mentally unstable. Never has the church had such a crop of mentally unbalanced men.  They all could be test cases for the current DSM manual for mental disorders!

Dave Pack and Gerald Flurry top the list, quickly followed by Bob Thiel, James Malm, and Ron Weinland. These top five are psychopaths getting really close to leading their followers down dark roads of despair, which may, unfortunately, lead to the deaths of many.

The fact that Pack and Flurry have surrounded themselves with a small cabal of men who publicly back them in regards to every word they utter shows just how controlling these two are.  Somewhere, deep down in the farthest reaches of the minds of these men who support Flurry and Pack, there has to be some spark that tells them what they are hearing is a load of bullshit.  Either they are too blinded to wake up or they inwardly are just as corrupt and vile as the men they follow.  Being part of the inner circle of the Church of God has always had a strong appeal to so many mentally unbalanced men over the decades.

The same goes for Bob Thiel and James Malm.  Malm is all about control.  Not a single thing he advocates will ever create faith in his few followers.  He demands zealotry from everyone and strict adherence to the rules and yet Jesus broke the rules over and over leading people to want what he had, so-much-so that they knew that just by touching his garment they would be healed.  That is true zealousness!  Not one single law was required to be kept. No snarling and spitting of Old Covenant laws can ever accomplish that.

And then, there is Bob Thiel.  Really? WTF are we witnessing in him?  Never have we witnessed a man who is so full of himself as we are in Thiel.  His self-importance knows no boundaries; just like his thought processes.  A mentally stable mind would be able to articulate one goal, one vision or one topic at a time.  Thiel's mind wanders as incessantly as his hands do.  Who needs to hear a sermon with 40 different topics covered in it?  How in the hell does that build up one's faith?  I truly feel sorry for his African followers. I am sure many of them are sincere in their beliefs and want to do what is right, but Thiel is leading them astray with his narcissistic personality.  It is all about him, his double blessing and his dreams.   His message is never about Jesus.  It is never about real grace.  It is never about what justification is all about.  It is never about simple faith.  A faith that can be summed up on in a simple, 'help!" or "thanks!"

If what I post here, or what Dennis, TLA, SHT or others post here causes someone to lose their faith, then their faith was not faith after all, but wishful thinking.  Reading about evolution, atheism, agnosticism does not destroy faith. Being forced to question one's adherence to certain splinter group leaders does not destroy faith. Reading about the myriad of lives destroyed by the church does not destroy faith.

I for one feel no need to have to "prove" anything when it comes to God, the Bible, truth, or any other subject that Armstrongism demanded of us.  It was a tiresome and unrewarding process. I find it much more rewarding to live in the mystery and uncertainty,   Living in the questions and having to wrestle with things when it comes to religion and faith is much more rewarding.

If one wants to look at real faith, it is tied to a future vision.  An assurance in the future, a future we are so assured of that we know we already possess the inheritance of Christ in our lives.  We know that the kingdom is not here in a physical sense but we are so assured of that kingdom that we live it out today in our lives and want to share it with the world around us.  We still may screw up, often, daily or hourly, but it is ok. We can still stand firm because we know what was, is, and will be accomplished.

Just my 2 cents.

Adult Sabbath School: "The Problem is YOU never understood the Bible or Jesus"

My View is the Correct View

It's just that simple. 

Anonymous said...

"The problem that I see with so many who were once part of the WCG experience is that yes, you all "soaked in it" but you didn't really understand it (The bible, not WCG doctrines)."

Meaning:

"The problem that I see with many who were once part the WCG experience is that yes, you all "soaked" in it but didn't really understand it the way I understand it, the Bible, not WCG doctrines"

I never met anyone in Christianity, whether Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Evangelical or Two Seed in the Spirit, who thought they understood the Bible and Jesus in any other way than the correct way. No one ever said, "Yes, I know I believe the wrong way from what the Bible teaches and I attend the false church, but hey...."

There are hundreds of denominations and thousands of splits and splinters exactly because the Bible lends itself to confusion of belief and every imaginable opinion and view of it and "the meaning" of everything God, Jesus, Life, Death and the hearafter.  All are the true church and all see the Bible correctly or they'd not attend the church of their choice.

That should be obvious

The Apostle Paul made it very clear that HIS view of the Gospel was the correct one. Those that troubled him and the Galatians were none other than the Jerusalem Apostles were the ones who took exception to Paul's view of Jesus, which came before any Gospel was ever written, no matter how cloaked in the NT the "there are some who" were.  

Galatians 1:6-15 ⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel- ⁷which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God's curse! ⁹As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted,(From me) let them be under God's curse! ¹⁰Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. ( Evidently yes. This from the man who said or forgot he said, or failed to mention he said because he was being a Galatian to the Galatians. I Corinthians 9 ¹⁹ Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. ²⁰ To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. ²¹ To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. ²² To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. ²³ I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

How could you ever really know what a man given to this approach believed?

con't...

Whether on the Damascus Road, In vision carried up to the Third Heaven or taught by Jesus personally in Arabia, Paul's knowing was mystical

Galatians 1: ¹¹I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. ¹²I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. ¹³For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. ¹⁴I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. ¹⁵But when God, who set me apart from my mother's womb (like only Jeremiah and Jesus)and called me by his grace, was pleased.... Paul makes it clear that he cared little for any Gospel input from those held in high esteem and he learned NOTHING from them. (The Jerusalem Apostles) The Paul of Galatians evidently had not heart that Luke portrayed the Paul of Acts as very cooperative of them in Acts 15. Luke's job in Acts was to bridge the gap between the later written Gospels placed before Paul and Paul's calling. The Book of Acts is all about Paul with the Jerusalem Apostles only playing bit parts. Acts was meant to make Paul seem more cooperative and a team player than he actually was as evidenced by Galatians. ⁶ As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they (Peter, James or John)  added nothing to my message. ⁷ On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised,^[a] just as Peter had been to the circumcised.^{[b] 8} For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. ⁹ James, Cephas^[c] and John, those esteemed as pillars,,,, (Or as the KJV says, "who seemed to be pillars")

All this to note that telling others that their problem is that they never really understood the Bible, God, Jesus or "the Gospel" really mean the way THEY understand it.  

Personally, I understand the Bible very well from my own perspectives, study and experience. It can be no other way. Not for me and not for you. 

. At the risk of igniting  a response to one being a "mere Bible reader", not seeing the ever present tensions in the NT between the Jewish Christian Jerusalem Apostles and Paul at least understand  they did not teach the same things, they did not believe the same things, they did not promote each other as "all one body we" and that they reflect the same conflict today in the churches over whose view is the right view as if one could ever come to the truth of that anyway, is a mistake that clouds a more realistic view of scripture 

When we say someone never understood the Bible or Jesus, we really mean "As I do and correctly" It is a myoptic and inaccurate view of the supposed pristine truth of one's beliefs. 

PS  Apologies ahead of time for various text sizes. I could not homogenize it.

UCG Still Struggling To Attract New Members

United Church of God has long been trying to be the most relevant Church of God splinter group out there. And yet, 25 years later they still cannot find their place. Even with having, what they claim is, the 13th most popular religious web site in the world, they still struggle to find new members.  As their present leadership retires and the membership ages, they cannot replace them with new younger members.  Still operating on a 1970/1980's model for television, they struggle to make their three presenters actually present topics that anyone cares about in 2019.  They recently dumped a ton of money on a new television recording studio, and they are hoping this will be their savior.

From Church of God News:

Media Director, Peter Eddington, states that, “UCG.org is currently ranked by Alexa as the 13th most popular religious denomination website in the world. Last year, the UCG.org website received over 10 million unique visitors and 99.8 percent were non-members.”

UCG is by far the highest ranked ex-WCG organization, having an Alexa ranking similar to the SDA, whose membership is over 100 times larger than the WCG at its peak.

UCG’s outreach to new people is thus exceptional – but how many of these become members?

Treasurer Rick Shabi reports that, “The Days of Unleavened Bread and fall Holy Day offerings this [past] year were $100,000 over budget, while general contributions were lower. This is due in part to demographics of the Church; as more people retire, they give offerings but have less titheable income.

The income is steadying out in the $18-19 million range, about equal to estimated expenses this year, as they have steadily risen in the last five years.”

The UCG is failing to gain new, younger members to replace those who are retiring and, if there is no improvement, expenses will have to be cut to match the flattening income. Much then depends on the success of the output from the new TV studio.