Why has the Church of God, and in this case, the Living Church of God, always used the epitaph of "you have a bad attitude" to shut down members? Rod Meredith and others in Pasadena were notorious for doing that. One would think after all that has transpired and the grievances COG members have talked about during and after the changes that COG leaders would learn to be more compassionate. Apparently, that is not the case in 2021.
A comment from an LCG member in response to LCG: Keeping Track Of Troublemakers?
As is the case in LCG, their reasons here are to cover what they really do and their internal attitudes not for the public. Just for one instance, I had been travelling for some weeks away from my home congregation, being with family elsewhere and working through the passings of several loved ones far away. When I got back weeks later and showed up at church, it had been already concluded that I had left the church. They were suspicious of me because I hadn't showed up in my home LCG congregation for just two weeks, and so that was that. Did they reach out to me with genuine outgoing concern, or even just to casually find out where I had gotten to? No. they were skeptical of me rather than reaching out to at least offer a safe place to worship and to grieve. Their ranking deaconess who just loves the attention and praise of the ministers got it in her mind that I was out of the church, and so they believed her, and Iwas "on probation" since that time. Try as I might I could not snap them out of it, and I was accused by the ministers, who never even spoke to me directly, of trying to cover up a "bad attitude" on my part. No, no bad attitude, whatever that means. I was actually one of their more loyal and knowledgeable members, and I was travelling and spending time with loved ones. that's all. But of course they were right, the deaconess said so, and God is inspiring and leading his true ministers because he is the head of his church, so logically how could it be otherwise. For those of us who believe (broadly speaking) in the teachings from Mr. Armstrong, it is impossible for me at least to recommend LCG to others as a Jesus-centered church which holds to the truths. Its leadership has contorted it into an insidious corperation with the veneer of some things familiar to us, not as blatant as Dave Pack but in ways actually worse, and in which suck-ups and players like this deaconess damage and even destroy the faith of the lay people. In 1987 at a Feast Of Tabernacles a Mr. Wainwright gave a sermon entitled The God Of The Barbecue, in which he preached against this climbers' mentality just like this deaconess. A few years ago one from our congregation slipped her a copy of that sermon as a nudge. Well, it didn't do any good. It is easy enough to superimpose a veneer of religious duties on one's lifestyle, change their day of worship, stop eating certain meats and so forth. This is all well and good inasmuch as it should be done and as far as it goes. But, I wonder how many people, like these insidious ministers in LCG and the high-strung deaconess have really and truly begun their inner spiritual journey, let alone understanding true conversion. When LCG's stats policy began to be enforced I did challenge the elder on the real reasons for why they were more aggressively and thoroughly taking down notes like this, and he did acknowledge that it was to keep tabs on members.
