It has always been fascinating to watch the Church of God movement over the decades as they fell in and out of getting wrapped up in conspiracy theories and "doom and gloom" scenarios. Sadly, without either of these in play, the church had no influence or a sustainable money stream to work with. The more they can whip the members up into a frenzy the better. Everything's wrong in the world around them and woe is me.
The Worldwide Church of God at one point realized that this scenario did not work so well and they started the Tomorrow's World Magazine. It was supposed to highlight the good in both the daily lives of church members and provide a foretaste of the kingdom they imagined would soon be coming. As most of us know, that magazine soon went by the wayside till the Living Church of God took the name and applied it to their pseudo-spiritual mess.
When Garner Ted Armstrong was at his height he used to brag that he had the bible in one hand and the news in the other when he spoke, not so with his son Mark Armstrong. Mark never wanted to be a church leader but was forced into it by his mother as they both knew they would have no income coming in if he didn't do it.
The Good News of Jesus, which Christians have embraced for centuries apparently has no meaning to him, propaganda and doom and gloom do though.
So this brings us to today and the message he believes his followers need to hear, ripped straight from the pages of NewsMax.
Greetings from Tyler,
Analysts are starting to wonder aloud whether Putin is winning the war in Ukraine. We see that some territory has been reclaimed, and a Russian ship blown up near Odessa. But the refugees are streaming out, and the radio tells us we’ll get 100,000 of them here in the U. S. It’s hard to know what or who to believe with the news coming constantly. It’s hard to see Vladimir calling the whole thing off and declaring victory. But everybody is nervous. By everybody, we’re talking about all the current and former politicians who were using the country as a corrupt piggy bank.
Justin Trudeau got told off to his face in the Canadian parliament. It looked like he might have been crying. Hard to tell with his mask covering most of his face, but he didn’t look happy. He got told off again, called a dictator and asked, politely, to “spare us your presence” at the meetings in Brussels where world leaders have convened to talk about the war in Ukraine. Too bad Gavin Newsome wasn’t there.
All the airline execs have signed a letter saying the mask mandate on airplanes is a burden upon employees who were never trained as enforcement agents. Airlines have hospital-grade filtered air on their airplanes, and many of the contentious episodes resulting in passengers being removed from flights and charged with crimes is because stewardesses, uglier than ever, are now barking orders instead of serving drinks. It’s not about a disease, it’s all about control.
Gas prices are near record levels. There’s little debate as to why, although we’ve been programmed to blame everything on Putin’s invasion. The government response has been, not to release the oil companies to drill proven reserves, but to try and buy oil from the likes of Venezuela and producers in the Middle East. Not to mention drawing down our national reserves. But they’ve got another idea. Why not issue government sponsored credit cards that people can use to buy gas? Inflation? Anybody? We certainly wouldn’t want to irritate the squad!
We hope you’ve seen the woman at the swim meet. About the large guy in a girl’s swimsuit she said, “I’m a woman, and that’s not a woman.” Some idiot from a couple rows below says, “What are you, a biologist?” She says, “No, and I’m not a vet, but I know a dog when I see one.” Maybe you’ve already seen the exchange, but it’s still funny. They asked the Supreme Court nominee, Judge Ketanji if she could define what a woman is, and she said she couldn’t, she’s not a biologist. We don’t need to see how she’ll vote on every issue before the High Court, everything will be totally predictable.
Wouldn’t it be something if the world is plunged into war, and U. S. leadership is utterly compromised from the outset. You wonder when the information we Americans are finding out will ever be recognized by the mainstream. They’re supposed to be telling us what is going on, but it looks like they’re the last to know. Even when nearly everybody (who’s paying attention) knows the answer, the mainstream has never heard the question.
Nobody could write a novel containing all that is afoot in high places. Who’d believe it? If somebody wrote a true rendition about what’s transpiring in our daily news, it would seem too fictional. But it’s our reality in 2022. Maybe some of this nightmare can be turned around, we surely hope so. On the other hand, it could get worse. With the U. S. fighting for the Western “values,” and the corruption that has taken place in high places it’s difficult to say who the good guys are. All this is certainly not the fault of Ukrainian civilians. It’s not our fault either. We don’t believe that a man can put on women’s clothes, and presto! Everyone is at pains to call it a girl, or suffer the wrath of social media, the corporations and the mainstream. That’s one of the “values” that’s being fought over. One thing we know for sure, you can’t imbibe too much tribulation without an emotional reaction. We just don’t know who all we should be mad at. None of this is going without notice. May God’s Will be done in His time. Propaganda means nothing to Him.
Mark
Imagine what the Churches of God could be if they decided to preach a message of hope and joy, even in the face of troubling times? That's what Christians have done for centuries and what sustains Christians in countries where they are being martyred. They don't dwell on the present evils but realize that peace is already in them and an even greater joy awaits them.
Imagine what a COG would be like if they actually believed in the kingdom they so long for and lived it in their present-day lives and preached it.
Imagine no more doom and gloom sermons.
Imagine happy, joyful, and peaceful members, who trust in something greater than they can imagine and have confidence in that, even in the face of troubles that may be coming.
Imagine what the Church of God would be like if they actually followed that Jesus they claim to and actually had confidence in his message.
1. The Biblical genealogies are right.
2. Genetic Science is right.
3. Herman Hoeh is right about Germany being Assyria.
1. If propositions 1 and 2 are right, then proposition 3 is wrong. If the Biblical genealogies are to be believed and Genetic Science is to be believed, then the ancient Assyrians are Y Chromosome Haplogroup J. This is because we have a valid genealogy in the Clans of the sons of Noah in Genesis 10 (erroneously called the Table of Nations) that specifies that Ashur must be the same Y Haplogroup as the Jews. That’s the science as applied to genealogy. Y chromosome haplogroups are traced through the masculine line and the Biblical genealogies likewise trace the masculine line. Here is what the two lines of descent look like:
Noah ➣ Shem ➣ Ashur
Noah ➣ Shem ➣ Arphaxad ➣ Hebrews ➣ Jews and Arabs (Reference population: Qahtanie (Joktani) Arabs who trace their ancestry to Joktan the son of Eber and are 84% haplogroup J with one sample scoring 100%.)
Because of masculine line inheritance, all the patriarchs shown above would have the same haplogroup as Noah. And all would have the same haplogroup as the Qahtanie Arabs. The Qahtanies are used as a reference population because they are not so much mixed in ancestry as the historically more mobile Jews. So we can trace back from the Qahtanies to Noah and down the branch to Ashur following the rule of masculine inheritance of the Y chromosome to deduce that Ashur and his descendants were all haplogroup J like the majority of Jews. But we find that the modern Germans are principally Y haplogroup R – an Indo-European haplogroup not the Middle Eastern haplogroup J. Someone might argue that a mutation occurred so that haplogroup J gave rise to haplogroup R. This couldn’t happen and didn’t happen because R isn’t on the J branch it is on the neighboring K branch. (See Phylogenetic Structure in Wikipedia article titled “Human Y Chromosome DNA haplogroup”) No way Shem could ever have given rise to either the Germans or the British. Therefore, Herman Hoeh misidentified the Germans. This is the position that I feel has the credibility that comes with scientific backing.
Keep in mind that this is an argument from science not an argument from national semi-mythic history or tourist-oriented fable about Assyrian King Ninus.
2. If propositions 1 and 3 are right, then proposition 2 is false. Here the Biblical genealogies are correct and Herman Hoeh has properly identified the Germans as Assyrians. This would be the position of most Armstrongists. But the complication is that it says that Genetic Science, a hard science, is wrong. This is like saying that chemistry or physics is wrong. And this places a burden on Armstrongism, if it is to spread any credible end-time message, to demonstrate that Genetic Science is wrong so the message can be believed. This is a pre-condition to their end-time message. And this pre-condition is as unattainable as demonstrating that chemistry and physics are wrong.
3. If propositions 2 and 3 are right, then proposition 1 is wrong. This means that the Germans are in fact Assyrians and Hoeh was correct. It also means that Genetic Science is right. If those two propositions hold, then the ancient Assyrians were Y Haplogroup R because the modern Germans are Y Haplogroup R. This then means all of the patriarchs identified in the Clans of the Sons of Noah in Genesis 10 would necessarily have to be Y Haplogroup R. Then this means that the people we know as the Jews are not really Jews. And Jesus was born into the wrong group of people.
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy”
1. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”
2. “The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.”
