Our Culture NEVER Sets Dates and We Aren't Woke!
In a sermon on the first day of the CGI’s Feast of Tabernacles in Clearwater (CGI was also associated with two other festival sites in Florida), Pastor Bill Watson marveled over the fact that God’s people were still celebrating this festival in 2022. The clear implication being that most of the “old-timers” believed that the Kingdom of God would have been established many years ago by now. This observation was followed by a statement which anyone who is familiar with the history of the Armstrong Church of God culture will find astonishing. Watson declared: “We were falsely accused of actually setting dates, when in fact really we never did, as far as our culture was concerned.”
After that jaw-dropping statement, Watson went on to observe that Christians are currently viewed as an “annoyance” or as “troublemakers.” According to Bill, TRUE Christians don’t go along with the mainstream media. From his perspective, God has revealed HIS TRUTH to the folks in CGI, and they need to tattoo that stuff on their brains! He insists that CGI members can’t allow themselves to swallow the narrative of the world around them. In other words, Christians cannot be woke or politically correct!
What kinds of things did Mr. Watson have in mind? He went on to remind his audience that God created Adam and Eve - NOT Adam and Steve (I know I’ve heard that one somewhere before). Continuing, he went on to make the astute observation that homosexuals “can’t reproduce,” and that it’s consequently an obvious perversion of the biology which God intended. Watson then went on to decry the fact that he can’t say anything about voter fraud, because “we’ll lose our YouTube account.” He then proceeded to make clear that Bill Watson didn’t drink the Kool-Aid on Covid-19. He reiterated his often stated opinion that masks don’t make sense. This, apparently, is what Bill meant when he referred to the fact that Christians like him were now viewed as annoyances and troublemakers; but he also made it very clear that he was not intimidated by these gainsayers. He declared that Christians have got to put “blinders” on so that we don’t get distracted by the noise that these critics generate.
Nevertheless, Pastor Watson did admit that some folks in the Armstrong Church of God movement have been misled by clever individuals. He cited the unnamed leader of the Restored Church of God as an example of just such a deceiver and went on to declare that “any minister…that basically attempts to steer you to follow them - get outta there…because if they are not pointing you to Jesus Christ there’s something very suspicious that’s going on.” You know, despite the awkward wording, I think that Pastor Watson may be on to something with that statement – I kinda liked that one! What do you think?
Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix
