I Know What You Are Thinking:

Good morning..

.I used to be one of you. I know how you think, what you think and the Biblical brainwashing you have been through that makes you think the way you do about world events, Biblical prophecy, the Second Coming of Jesus and the Kingdom of God on earth.

 I know how ministers and pastors, most well meaning, but full of sanctified ignorance and misunderstanding of the intent, origins, errancy and the historical inaccuracies of much we read in the Bible, have filled your minds with misguided zeal. I know how you read and understand the prophecies of the four kingdoms of Daniel and the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. I doubt you know they were written after the fact and not prophetically.

I know how you read Daniel 11 and 12 as just how things will be "in the end times."  Your end times. I know how some of you think "a thousand will fall at your right side, and ten thousand at your left, but it will not come nigh unto your dwelling."  Don't try this stunt with regards to the current distress. Stay home. 

I know how you read Matthew 24. I know some of you think that you will be "born up on eagles wings" and taken to a "place of safety," maybe in Petra, Jordan to wait out the end time carnage that you see in the Trumpets, Vials, plagues and Horsemen of Revelation. Some of you have already left and some left years ago, only to return and get back to work.

I know you read the Book of Revelation as if it was a newspaper and see these times as those times and that book as revealing all that is about to happen so Jesus can return. I know you have forgotten that 2000 years ago the opening of the Revelation says "to show unto my servants, things which must SHORTLY, come to pass." I know that you view "shortly" differently than most people understand "shortly." I know some of you think you are part of the exclusive 144,000 thousand. I know you don't understand Gematria or the 12 signs of the Zodiac but I spare you.

I know that even though you know Paul said Jesus for sure would come in his lifetime, and that he was among the "We, who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall be caught up together with the Lord, and WE shall be saved,"  he was wrong. I know you know that later in his life, Paul gave up on Jesus coming for him in his lifetime and said that he had fought a good fight, kept the faith and would have to settle for a crown of righteousness that he'd get later, but not soon anymore. 

I know you know that Paul motivated the church to not marry the loves of their lives, give lots of money to the church and be ready to go at a moments notice, in vain. I always wonder about the people who believe what Paul said about the times being short and it being better to not marry and be like him. Did they get really bitter when their lives passed and Jesus didn't return, nor did they get to be intimate with the ones they loved because Paul said not to? I bet they did anyway, just like today in all churches who try to regulate relationships. The minister gets to rant about such things, but most just sneak around and do what they want anyway. You can thank Paul and his misguided view of the immediacy of Jesus return in HIS lifetime for the skepticism of most.

I know that you know Jesus said in Matthew 24 that "this generation shall not a pass until all these things be fulfilled" and that since we now know it was not the generation of Jesus this happened for, Jesus was not ill informed, but rather meant that the generation that these things happened in, would see it through. This allows your pastor to motivate you by drawing your attention to all that is happening in your world as proof of this being all about YOU. That's the apologetic, but that is not what Jesus, who was mistaken about this meant, when he is alleged to have said it. 

I know that you know "no man knows the day or the hour, but the Father only," but choose to ignore that and predict, predict, predict to put fear, fear, fear, into each other. Or as one said, "Just because we don't know the day or the hour doesn't mean we can't know the month or the year." Right... I know your ministers tell you that Jesus will return in 3 or 5 or not more than 10 years, and they are wrong, but hopeful and of course, the fear and hope of it keeps you in your seats and giving the bucks.

I know that the gayness of some people, the lack of belief of others, the movies, TV and all the events going on in the Middle East and now the Coronavirus are proof that you won't have to wait much longer for Jesus. Little does the Pastor know that out of every 100 members of his church, about 1.2 to 6.8%  are going to be gay by nature and that the same would be true for the 100 of the clergy he got together with at his last ministerial conference where they condemned it. I know you know that all fundamentalist college campuses have a normal number of gay students in attendance. Or maybe you don't. I know they are in denial on this topic but I spare you. Oh, and this would include the faculty of course.

I know you believe the nation of Israel is the most special of God's holy nations and that as one man said to me, "anyone who picks on Israel, is challenging God himself." I know you don't believe that anyone who picks on Afghanistan is picking on God. I have to say that meme has gone a long way to insure the safety of that small rather troublesome piece of the planet. The tales of the Old Testament have insured that the rules and ways of an obscure deity, on an obscure mountain, in an obscure land, speaking to an obscure people about obscure, dictatorial and controlling obscure practices, are relevant to today. They mostly aren't. My experience is that when a nation, government, president, church or group "can do no wrong," wrong is all they get good at. I know you know that too but don't apply it to the group you associate with. You should.

I know you are told you are special and that others are not. I know that you are told you are chosen and called, while others are not chosen and not called. I know you believe you have special saving knowledge while others are lost. I know you are told that you are true and others false. I know you are led to believe that your thinking is correct on all topics biblical and prophetic and all others are wrong. 

I know you can't imagine any biblical or prophetic mistakes being made. I also know you wonder about it all. But they are being made big time and cleaning up after the shit hits the fan, may be all you get to do, and of course, ask the pastor what went wrong and where is Jesus? Oh, you'll also get to ask why you can't afford to live and why your job ended and you lost everything you worked hard for. You'll also learn the church won't be able to help you much then, and no, you can't have any of your tithe money back to get back on your feet. That was money you gave to God and he has already spent it. I know you don't know that 100% of all end time prophecies made by fundamentalist and evangelical TV Preechers, have failed miserably. I know...just around the corner.

I know you are afraid to die personally just as every human being before you has. I know you, like Paul, prefer to be "changed," at the sound of the trumpet and not die at all. After all, Paul said "we would not all die." I am not sure you realize he had to retract that later in life.

I know how you feel about "God's Law" and how much better off we'd all be if we kept "it." But I also know you aren't real sure which ones to keep. Sabbath over Sunday? Passover over Easter? Holydays over holidays? 

I know some think parents should still get to stone rebellious children. I know you are nuts if you think that. I know you that "God's Law" means different things to different people and I know that you tend to confuse what to keep from the Old Testament nation of Israel and drag it over into the New and the Church. Well except tithing of course. I know how you think we are all spiritual Israelites, but how would you feel if someone kept calling you a spiritual Zulu in order to be saved? How about a Spiritual Sioux? Actually I'd love that but that's my preference.

I also know, because I was one of you, that you don't know near as much as you think you know. You're knowing is, at times, wishful thinking, or sanctified ignorance based on the sole fact that it's what you have always been taught. I have always liked the phrase, 'Piously convicted and marginally informed".

I know that learning new perspectives is not something you are encouraged to do. I know that admitting you are wrong is not something you are often able to do. When science makes a mistake, it admits it and uses whatever information was good for future studies. If a scientist won't admit a wrong, eventually his peers convince him with actual proof.   When religion and churches make mistakes, they choke on admitting it and mostly don't.  They kill the people who point it out. At best they make fun of them or push them out the door. That's how it works.  That's how "we must all speak the same thing that there be no division among us" is applied. 

But I also know that over zealous pastors and fundamentalists need to be cautioned about your zealotry gone wrong. Zealous and sanctified ignorance can provoke all the Vials, Trumpets, Trombones and Beasts of Revelation and you will get everything promoted in the Book of Revelation EXCEPT the Second Coming. What you will get is one big mess to clean up, if you survive along with the rest of us. You'll get a place in history as the reason why the next generation wants nothing to do with organized religion or ministers and pastors who can't admit they are wrong and it's not all about them after all. You'll reap a whirlwind but not  the Kingdom of God you are so confident is coming in your lifetime. 

I know how tempting it is to say "You can sure tell Jesus is about to return" with the Covid-19 sweeping the planet and we mere mortals not yet having any immunity to it.  We even have enough earthquakes to add to the anticipation and men certainly are lovers of their own selves, proud, boasters and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. . We have leadership that puts that on display every day. I know you and I know your ministers mindset in times like these. .  I urge you to be careful, very careful, in what you allow the ministry to convince you is so about "Bible Times"  when, while devastating to our  way of life, security and not a little bit frightening, it ain't.  

Every great fire is destined to go out. This too shall pass...

Those Elusive True Values--- Journey to the Center of the Armstrong World, By Henry Sturcke

Buy it here:  Those Elusive True Values

Prelude 

"The book you hold in your hands continues the story that I began in Fooled into Thinking: Dylan, the Sixties, and the End of the World. 

In that book, I explored how I, a teenage baby boomer, became fascinated by the message of a small church with an over sized public outreach program, the Worldwide Church of God. At the same time, I was gripped by music, especially the songs of Bob Dylan.

 Both obsessions took root in the course of one fateful weekend, the days that followed the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I was fifteen years old, a high school sophomore in the suburbs of the New York metropolitan area, and suddenly the world made no sense. 

The oscillation between the twin poles of Bible and Dylan continued as I went through high school and enrolled in an urban university; it culminated in the paradox 2 

Those Elusive True Values of committing to Worldwide through baptism by immersion and then, four months later, attending the Woodstock music festival.

 In this book, the spiritual journey continues, taking me to the center of the church’s activity, the campus of Ambassador College in Pasadena, Calif. There I met the church’s founder, Herbert Armstrong, and his flamboyant son, Garner Ted, at the time approaching the peak of his influence as a pioneering televangelist. Along with hundreds of fellow students, I soaked up the church’s teachings and strove to prepare to play my own part in the outreach of the church. 

Midway through my time in Pasadena, Worldwide experienced dis-confirmation of its interpretation of Bible prophecy and entered a period of upheaval. Yet I remained a true believer. I thought I had reached my goal and that my search had reached its conclusion. The reality was otherwise as this book shows."

Henry Sturcke 

---------------

Henry and I were contemporaries as students in Pasadena and his recollections as presented in this book are so accurate down to both the details of the experience and the emotions that went with them, I found at times I had to put the book down and take a breath for all the memories and emotions it brought back to me as a teen myself going practically sight unseen into Ambassador College and ultimately the Worldwide Church of God and ministry. 

Though he used first names only, I often knew exactly who he was talking about by the accuracy of his experiences with them.  In Chapter One he introduces "Hal", the guy with the camera, and had to chuckle knowing Hal as well as I did back in the day. Always the camera!

Henry easily expresses all the emotions of those first days on campus. He well describes those first days in the dorm and we shared the same ones along the way it seems.  Henry captures the flavor of those first days and impressions very well.  

In chapter 2 we seem also to have shared the loss of the girl back home and cautionary advice from parents about going to AC and  Church. 

From dealing with one's first Feast to what to do about the draft and the Vietnam war, it all comes alive again after all these years having passed in "Those Elusive True Values".

In Chapter 4, Mr. Sturcke well recalls the Rod Meredith of both sermon and First-Year Bible fame as well as the somewhat flamboyant and personable Richard Plache as both teacher and Dean of Students.  Plache taught Second Year Bible which was the class the Master Teacher of Creationism, Apostle Pack, referenced when he claimed to have disproven evolution with intense study 50 years ago in his recent series on the topic. "The Genesis Flood" as text was no way to disprove Evolution then or now.  

"  Meredith’s typical sermon contained a heavy dose of making us, his listeners, feel guilty for our spiritual lethargy. He sought to stir us, to infect us with a spirit of urgency, but often the effect was to make us feel not good enough. I came to feel that his sermons were like cod liver oil or some other purgative. It did one good once a year or so, but one wouldn’t want to make it a steady diet. In personal interaction, however, his sincerity and bashful smile were winning. 

Those of us with previous college experience also joined the sophomores in the same hall for second-year Bible, or “Systematic Theology.” More indoctrination, this time from Richard Plache. Tall, brilliant, witty, charismatic, he was also dean of students. One major aim of the course was to make us into good creationists. 

We read the required text, Whitcomb and Morris’s Genesis Flood. Our assigned term paper was a refutation of a book promoting evolution. I chose The Meaning of Evolution by George Gaylord Simpson, and my research centered on highlighting every instance of the use of the words “presumably,” “perhaps,” “we may suppose,” and other words and phrases I now realize are the sign of a careful scholar. Yet I thought I was refuting the author"

If you came upon the Worldwide Church of God as a teen and went on to Ambassador College, you will enjoy and recognize this highly accurate account of the experience.  

At first, I did question the limited appeal of the title "Those Elusive True Values" as being a phrase understood in total only by those who may have attended and lacking wide appeal. However, it is a book for those who attended at its core and so well done, it may stir up memories you'd rather not poke at times too!  

But if you'd enjoy an accurate record of the Ambassador College experience as a student, this recollection is for you.   Thanks for the memories Henry!

Mr Sturcke went on from graduation to be...

"...Sent by WCG to Switzerland in 1987. Began taking classes at the local university on the side. In 1995, at the time of the big split, named regional pastor for all of German-speaking Europe. 

 Laid myself off in early 1997 to balance the budget, enrolled full-time in degree program, completed in 2003 with dissertation on the Sabbath in the first Christian century (Encountering the Rest of God). 

After a year of training, ministerial credentials accepted by the Reformed church, pastored a congregation until retirement 2013. For the last eight years until retirement a dean (the equivalent of old WCG district superintendant). Adjunct at the Zurich University of the Arts, teaching New Testament to students in the church music program. Involved in the continuing education program of the Reformed church, training pastors and candidates for ministry in how to conduct worship services. 

Married to Bricket Wood grad, Edel. We celebrated 45th-anniversary last year. Five children, seven grandchildren."

....and lives in Klingnau, Switzerland

Weird COG Dude Upset No One Acknowledges Him As Modern Day Amos

Prophets seem to be a dime a dozen in the Church of God now.  In spite of that, some still crow on and on about how special they are and that their message is being ignored.

There is one particular dude though that has to work overtime by repeatedly making claims on how special he is and that no one heeds his message today. Try as he might, people still look at him as this weird guy from Living Church of God that Rod Meredith rejected and publicly rebuked. Stung by that humiliation, he started making fantastical claims that he was suddenly "set apart" from all the other fake COG prophets as the ONE TRUE prophet for the end times.

Church of God members used to be suckers for these types of men as they hit the scene claiming they are modern-day Elijah's, Elisha's, Habbakuk's, and even Amos himself, not so much anymore. In spite of that, one little dude, in particular, loves to make that claim.

It is interesting that he [Amos] had to tell people that one becomes a true prophet in a manner that most did not expect. The Apostle Paul attempted to defend his apostleship that type of way (2 Corinthians 11:5, 22-29)–and that was to people who were supposedly in the Church of God.

One of the messages that Amos proclaimed is that the time would come when people would not be able to find the words of God:

11 “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.
12 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)

Where would a good COG prophet be today without some tragedy looming on the horizon? The "famine of the word" has always been a favorite tool of COG prophets to hook people in.  Their message is so special that it will be prohibited by the authorities, in horrible times soon to come, from spreading the gospel of Moses.

Of course, in 2020, nothing drives this home to COG prophets more than the coronavirus pandemic and the orders for citizens to not congregate and to stay at home. This is a sure sign that the government is out to stop COG's from meeting. 

With people homebound, the internet is the main way news travels and COG prophets have to use this medium as a way to get their message across. Even that is in peril now, because that big bad dude Satan is ANGRY that they are preaching the Gospel of Moses and therefore is going to shut them down from preaching that message.

I believe that the above warning is a reference to a coming internet censorship. This is likely to start just before the start of the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7), also called the Great Tribulation (Matthew 24:21). Perhaps under the guise of “neutrality,” perhaps under the guise of “The Patriot Act,” perhaps under the guise of “public welfare,” perhaps because of alleged “intolerance,” calling parts of the COG message “hate speech” and/or national security threats/issues, something will be done to stop perhaps all of the organized media efforts to proclaim biblical truths. A short work will be done (Romans 9:27-28), which will trigger the end (Matthew 24:14), and likely then the famine of the word (Amos 8:11-12).

This modern-day Amos ends his missive with this as he bemoans the fact that ALL of the Churches of God ignore him as do those the world. 

Of course, few in those nations believe that they will be taken over and have such calamity. But that will come to pass. Most would not listen to Amos then, and most, sadly, will not listen to Amos now.