Charasmatic Cult That Bought Ambassador Auditorium Underfire

Harvest Rock Church

Harvest Rock Church, the charismatic personality cult of Che Ahn, which is part of the Toronto Blessing charismatic movement, is under fire for publicly defying a state order to not hold church during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Harvest Rock is the tongues-speaking, pogoing, slain-in-the-spirit, gold dust blowing, hysterical laughter, has people who bark and roar like lions, has miraculous instantaneous gold and silver tooth fillings during services, and much much more. If people thought the Worldwide Church of God was crazy, these people trump us to the extreme.

The Pasadena Star-News ripped them a new one on July 22, 2020, in an article after Harvest Rock and other churches sued the State for prohibiting them from free worship.

Pasadena church should stop the singing, for now, and pray to protect its flock

By Larry Wilson | lwilson@scng.com | Pasadena Star News PUBLISHED: July 22, 2020 at 3:52 p.m. | UPDATED: July 22, 2020 at 4:12 p.m. 

Pasadena’s Harvest Rock Church, which took over the already (at least in classical music circles) hallowed ground of the Ambassador Auditorium when the Worldwide Church of God blew town, says it has a constitutional right to hold services indoors. And to sing. Except that it doesn’t, on either count.

And it takes a lot of hubristic gall to claim special infecting privileges in the midst of a worldwide pandemic spread by large groups of people getting together, especially spread by singing when standing shoulder to shoulder, an otherwise fun and spiritually uplifting practice that early on in the novel coronavirus crisis infected 28 and killed two of the members of the Skagit Valley Chorale after rehearsal in Mount Vernon, Washington.

Singing is the best part about going to church. Some day it will be again. That time is not now. So it’s awfully sad to see Harvest Rock suing California’s governor for the right to spew a deadly virus on the same day we also report Pasadena’s first relatively young death — age 30 — from COVID-19.

It’s sad because the church pretends government interferes with faith when it’s trying to stop people from suffering and dying. Isn’t your faith strong enough to support that?

The church, as one would in this case, cites the First Amendment, that same good stuff that protects newspapers: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

And if you were the church’s lawyer, you would highlight for the judge that clause about “prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” obviously. But what you would be ignoring is the precedent in jurisprudence akin to your free speech rights stopping when it comes to falsely yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater. Just because we won’t stand for “abridging the freedom … of the press” doesn’t mean we get to likely infect people with a disease in order to stay free. We’d have to find a workaround if we were.

Pastors live for having a flock in front of them, and so I get why Harvest Rock’s Pastor Ché Ahn says: “As a pastor, I believe we’ve been essential for 2,000 years.”

But these are unprecedented times. Even if we don’t love it, even if we’d all like to get together and belt out a song, we don’t get to be so selfish. Instead, we get to Zoom. It may be the pastoral equivalent of kissing your sister — wait, don’t do that! — but that’s what other churches are doing.

Be responsible to your flock. Drop the lawsuit. Stop holding in-person services indoors. Save lives, and there’ll be more people to preach to when we get to the other side of this. 

See other stories about this:

‘We’ve Been Essential For 2,000 Years’: Pasadena Church Holds Indoor Services Despite Coronavirus Warnings

Harvest Rock Church Files Federal Lawsuit Against Newsom's Church Ban

SoCal church sues over Gov. Newsom's singing ban

Here is an article from The Journal: News of the Churches of God about Harvest Rock's acquisition of the Auditorium:

An elder with Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena tells why Harvest needs Ambassador Auditorium

Racism Is Inherent in Anglo-Israelism

Racism Is Inherent in Anglo-Israelism

Lonnie Hendrix

Many of the adherents of Anglo-Israelism have expressed their disbelief that anyone would have the audacity to characterize their teaching as being inherently racist in nature. “It’s not about race!” they indignantly declare. “Ephraim and Manasseh were the product of a mixed marriage (their mother was an Egyptian),” they remind their critics. “Yes, Herbert Armstrong and the old Worldwide Church of God did introduce some racist ideas and policies into the mix,” some of them will admit; but they insist that they have moved beyond such past ignorance and mistakes in their application of the teaching.

As a consequence, I thought it might be instructive to try and explain why the teaching is racist in nature and cannot be redeemed with improved window dressing. To do this, we must first summarize the teaching to understand how it could be racist.

Anglo-Israelism is the notion that the English-speaking peoples of the world represent the modern manifestation of the Israel of the Bible. More specifically, that the British Commonwealth is synonymous with the tribe of Ephraim, and the United States is synonymous with the tribe of Manasseh. According to the proponents of the teaching, these nations are the heirs of the promises of material wealth and power promised to Abraham so long ago, and their preeminent position in the modern world is the evidence that this is true.

So, how could that possibly be considered racist in nature? They reason that God is the source of this wealth and power – that HE gave these things to the English-speaking peoples to fulfill HIS promises to their ancestor Abraham. The problem with this reasoning is that it excuses a whole lot of racist behavior on the part of these people!

Take a moment to think about the history of the rise of these people to the position they have occupied on the world stage. After all, the expansion of British influence around the world was part of the larger movement of European colonialism which resulted in the subjugation of native peoples and the appropriation of their lands. Likewise, it has resulted in the exploitation of the resources and labor (in the form of the institution of slavery) of weaker nations. Moreover, the Americans and British have used their wealth and power to maintain their advantages over other nations. And, finally, all of this has given rise to the notion that their culture, institutions and beliefs (religious and political) are superior to all of the other nations and peoples of the earth.

In the United States, this gave rise to beliefs that God’s saints were planting His kingdom in the wilderness, and that it was the Manifest Destiny of these people to occupy all of the land between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Thus, Native Americans could be butchered and pushed off of their lands, and African slaves could be used to build the infrastructure of a great republic.

Thus, Anglo-Israelism legitimizes all of this clearly racist behavior because it all happened to fulfill God’s promises to Abraham! Moreover, supporting things like the Black Lives Matter movement and immigration from Latin America to the United States and Muslims to Great Britain threatens to change the very nature of the nations who have inherited these blessings and destroy their Israelite character!

Look at the encyclopedic and dictionary definitions of racism and tell me that this teaching isn’t inherently racist in nature! No, Anglo-Israelism is not benign and harmless. By its very nature, without embellishment or overt expressions, it glorifies some of the most racist behaviors and policies ever inaugurated in human history!

Hi Brian Davis from the Philadlephia Church of God!

We need to all wave at Brian Davis from the Philadelphia Church of God. Being the wild and crazy guy that he is, we found out that he is a reader of this blog!  Woo Hoo!

It seems that Mr. Davis likes to read our blog and Exit and Support and then make fun of us in his sermons at PCG services!  What a hoot!

He particularly likes to read letters sent to Exit and Support from exPCG members and others complaining about abuse in PCG. He mocks those people from the pulpit.

I can't stop laughing!