One of the biggest con games the church has fostered off on people is Herbert Armstrong's demands on proper governance in the church. His teachings were designed to give him ultimate authority in all matters, both spiritual and temporal. He really cracked down on governance when ministers would leave the church and take people with them. It was vitally important for HWA to discredit and devalue those men. To not do so was to undermine his power and authority.
That same quagmire of spiritual debauchery is what gave the present-day Churches of God so many self-appointed leaders who demand obedience to their every whim. It gives Dave Pack the "authority" to demand his followers give him all their money, and they do. It gives Gerald Flurry the "authority" to demand that church members turn their backs on spouses, family members and friends if they do not adhere to Flurry's illogical demands, which they do.
Concerned Sister made this comment the other day about authority in the church:
If the person has not risen through the ranks of one the groups and is not "ordained" to speak or given permission to express themselves, then their thoughts and their voice is silenced within whatever corporate group they happen to be a part of, even if what they have to say would be of benefit to the rest of the body. The only way to get around this sometimes is to find ways around the system, which is what people who remain anonymous seek to do.There are three things that the Church of God hated more than anything and that was when members stepped up to the plate and held leaders accountable, understood scripture better than their leaders, and were outstanding examples of good works in their church and local community than the church was.
Ordination within the corporate cog groups has in many cases simply become a way for those who seek a certain amount of perceived power to climb the ladder, or a way to reward someone for sticking to the party line and parroting the "official" doctrine of the organization, rather than a way to simply recognize those who are already serving as servants within the body of Christ. It then becomes a way to reinforce the club mentality and perceived authority within the corporate group. It has also become a way to limit the function of the gifts of the body to being exercised only by those officially recognized as having "authority" or given "permission" to do so. God did not intend the body to function with only a few at the top of a man made hierarchy having a voice or using a gift. He has given all a voice and various gifts, and it is the job of those gifted as leaders to facilitate and equip everyone to use their voice and their gifts, rather than silencing everyone. Sometimes it is the voice that comes out of nowhere and has no recognized position that God chooses to use in the mightiest way, because it is those people who don't get as hung up on themselves, their egos, or their own authority. They are simply sharing what they feel God wants them to share, with the understanding that it isn't about them, it's about Him.
Concerned Sister
Right on cue this morning, Bob Thiel popped his homeopathic cork about "authority" in the church and how those who refused to follow Herbert's teaching on governance led to the downfall of the church and that those remaining 1/3 "faithful" now refuse to follow him, the rightful heir to that proper church governance. Hands were flailing and fingers flying as he typed out his words of warning.
...the fact is that two-thirds of those in the old WCG accepted total apostasy after the death of Herbert W. Amrstrong, and about one-third did not, makes the possible application of the Tkach apostasy seem to fit.
According to the self-appointed illegitimate leader of the so-called "continuing" Church of God, every person who does not follow him are all Laodiceans.Nowadays, most remaining Christians do not accept proper church governance–even though Herbert W. Armstrong emphasized that a lot in his final years on Earth for Philadephian Christians.
Notice that Herbert Armstrong believed that God mainly worked through the leadership of one man at a time to lead various phases of the work. Scripture, shows for example, that the mantle passed from Elijah to Elisha (2 Kings 2:9-15). The ‘mantle’ would currently be with the person/group that truly functioned as the ‘pillar and ground of truth’ (1 Timothy 3:15).
For fifty years in the second century, according to Herbert W. Armstrong, that man was Polycarp:It is significant that after his release John trained Polycarp elder of Smyrna, a city near Ephesus in the province of Asia. … At neighboring Smyrna, Polycarp presided over the Church of God for half a century after John’s death. Polycarp stood up boldly for the truth while many fell away and began having fellowship with the Catholic bishops of Rome. History relates that following the example of Peter, Paul and John, Polycarp wrote many letters to congregations and individuals, though all these have perished, save one in an edited version. (Armstrong HW. The Church They Couldn’t Destroy. Good News, December 1981)
For over 50 years in the 20th century, it was Herbert W. Armstrong.And in the 21st century, that one man is not in any of the independent or more structures Laodicean groups.
Support the remnant of the Philadephian era and God’s work today.
Do not delay (cf. Zephaniah 2:1-3).There you have it! He is the ONE TRUE Church of God leader today. Apparently, no one in the church has the ability to discern what is right except for him. By now we all know Thiel to be one of the biggest piles of horseshit the church has ever seen. Many members are more theologically grounded in the scripture than Thiel or any of the present-day COG leaders are.
The so-called "proper church governance" in the Church of God has created a cabal of spiritually and physically dangerous men who are consumed by narcissism, greed, avarice and the continual need to be affirmed as important.
These men have wreaked havoc on the spiritual lives of sincere people who want to follow God as they understand him. These putrid boils on the church have spent decades placing the focus upon themselves and their "revelations" while spitting in the face of Jesus and everything he said and accomplished.
No matter how many dreams or visitations by the so-called "god/spirit" these men have, they remain spiritually bankrupt. No sincere Christian would EVER follow these men.
