Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Weston, Mr. Mario Hernandez, and Mr. Cristian Orrego are in Medellin, Colombia, for a regional conference for the Spanish-speaking ministry. Mr. Jonathan McNair, along with Mr. and Mrs. Rob Tyler, traveled from Thailand to Malaysia on Wednesday for a Southeast Asia leadership conference. The death toll from the earthquake in Turkey continues to climb, now at a staggering 42,000 lives lost. Amazingly, people are still being pulled out of rubble alive, more than ten days after the devastating earthquake. In South Africa, the government declared a state of emergency as a result of widespread flooding (see report below). Also, the government of New Zealand declared a national state of emergency this week—only the third in its history—as a result of Cyclone Gabrielle. The nation was also hit in the last few days by two earthquakes (see report below). In response to a reporter’s question about the earthquakes, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said, “I was looking out the window for a plague of locusts.” As God allows devastating weather to wreak havoc on our nations for our sins, we must pray “Thy Kingdom Come” for a troubled and suffering world.—Rod McNair
Report from New Zealand
New Zealand has been battered with an “unprecedented” flood in Auckland, followed by Cyclone Gabrielle, which devastated many parts of the North Island. In the past couple of days, two strong earthquakes have hit. The government has declared a national emergency. These events are on top of record inflation and the economic fallout of COVID-19. All our members are safe; however, the economic and infrastructure damage across the nation will be felt for many years. Our national leaders are blaming this unprecedented and destructive weather on climate change. There has been no mention of God, and it would probably be political suicide if one were to reference divine involvement, especially with a national election looming later this year. It just shows how much the theology of climate change has usurped the reality of a God who intervenes in world affairs.— Paul Kearns
South African Flooding
The government in South Africa has declared a National State of Disaster because widespread flooding has caused havoc in seven of the country’s nine provinces. Temporary shelters, food, and blankets are urgently needed by many affected by the flooding caused by the recent heavy rains. As far as we know, all our brethren are safe. Last week, the government declared a National State of Disaster because of excessive (stage 6) load-shedding (blackouts) by the state-owned electricity supplier. Some expect a national shutdown of the electricity supply soon. Only time will tell if the situation can improve. This gives us more and more reason to pray for God’s Kingdom to come soon.—Christo Botha
There is a terrible reality disconnect occurring inside The Restored Church of God.
Since this blog began, some have offered their assessments of which mental illness David C. Pack suffers from. I am not a trained clinician with a psychology degree, so I have not ventured to speculate, even though proofs of indications are presented.
A malignant narcissist is the “most severe subtype” of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) that has traits associated with antisocial personality disorder (APD). Aggression toward others and paranoia are present, but this is “very hard to differentiate” from severe NPD.
Antisocial personality disorder (ADP) is "a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others. People with antisocial personality disorder tend to antagonize, manipulate or treat others harshly or with callous indifference. They show no guilt or remorse for their behavior.”
Sociopath: “People with the condition might seem charming and charismatic at first, at least on the surface, but they generally find it difficult to understand other people’s feelings. They often: break rules or laws, behave aggressively or impulsively, feel little guilt for harm they cause others, use manipulation, deceit, and controlling behavior.”
Psychosis “is a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.”
Former employees and family members have much to say about this, especially those closest to David C. Pack. The more time people spent with him in close quarters, the more trauma they had to work through afterward.
This is not a personal attack or rumor-mongering, but stating facts based on reality.
His ministerial career in and out of The Restored Church of God has left a wake of damaged people in his path. This is his pattern. In all my years in and out of RCG, one person told me one positive story about David C. Pack. One. The rest are not conversation topics to bring up with him standing at the urinal.
David C. Pack has hurt a lot of people. Those nearest to him. Those he never met. He is a destructive force leading The Restored Church of God, and the hirelings at Headquarters grant their passive approval.
As the Pastor General of The Restored Church of God, he self-anointed himself as an apostle in 2005, Joshua the High Priest in 2009, and in 2015, as Elijah the Prophet and That Prophet.
He got away with this because of the brethren's acceptance. I include myself since I attended and worked at Headquarters from 2012 to March 2021, even though I believed none of those.
David C. Pack does not and cannot rule on his own. His power does not operate in a vacuum. He requires the buy-in from the Headquarters ministry in Wadsworth, Ohio. On the corporate level, he could be voted out by the RCG Board of Directors and legally removed from the business side.
His self-appointed biblical titles laid the groundwork for the next phase of escalation in 2023.
David C. Pack has been preaching the near-arrival of the "Kingdom to Israel," where the Father will raise Elijah the Prophet to rule as a type of invisible John the Baptist to herald to the world the coming Kingdom of God that Jesus Christ will bring later.
David C. Pack comes first. Then, Jesus Christ. Humanity is not waiting for the arrival of Jesus Christ to bring the Christian wake-up call to the world. They are waiting for Elijah to boom his voice at sunrise. Elijah the Prophet is and has been David C. Pack.
The Father rules the Third Kingdom, so it is The Father’s Kingdom.
Jesus Christ rules the Second Kingdom, so it is Christ’s Kingdom.
Elijah rules the First Kingdom, so it is Elijah’s Kingdom.
David C. Pack is Elijah, so it is David C. Pack’s Kingdom.
I call this First Kingdom "The Kingdom of Dave" because that is what he says without saying it.
The purpose of this blog is to connect the dots. David C. Pack puts all the points on the paper, and I connect them when he will not. The man does not realize the consequences of his words and holds no responsibility for what comes out of his mouth.
He can only think in the present. He disregards and/or forgets the past. He ignores the implications for the future. Out of his own mouth falls his greatest folly.
This was a busy week in The Restored Church of God with “The Greatest Untold Story!” Series.
Part 419 on February 14 – 1:57:50
Part 420 on February 17 – 1:45:00
Part 421 on February 18 – 1:35:28
Part 422 on February 18 – 0:37:38
The brethren are not the only ones having a hard time keeping up.
Beginning with the Kingdom of Dave in Part 419, these four parts demonstrate how David C. Pack is deteriorating in front of the whole church. He is difficult to understand. At other times, his words are completely incoherent, and he draws illogical conclusions that defy facts.
On the flip side, David C. Pack exhibits moments of biblical brilliance. Some verses he presents sing together and reveal sound doctrine that makes perfect sense. For a few moments, he is the vintage Mr. Pack again. But, like an awakening, the fog of corruption and chaos returns to cloud his thinking, and the preaching returns to prophetic madness.
David C. Pack is an angel of light. He is not always wrong. And therein lies the danger.
With examples throughout Parts 419 to 422, one incident in the last message shook me to seriously wonder about David C. Pack's mental state, not as an attack or condemnation but as acknowledging a spectacular display of cognitive dissonance blended with disassociation.
David C. Pack presents this to the brethren of The Restored Church of God through gaslighting.
Cognitive dissonance is "the perception of contradictory information and the mental toll of it."
Disassociationis “a break in how your mind handles information. You may feel disconnected from your thoughts, feelings, memories, and surroundings.”
Gaslighting is “an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves.”
The video clip from Part 422 was posted on February 19. His statements ring louder for those attending The Restored Church of God during the Elul 24/August 2013 prophetic failure.
It should be equally insulting to anyone attending since March of 2022. When I first heard this, I was beside myself. Dave can still shock me.
After strengthening the certainty of The Day of the Lord and the return of Jesus Christ on March 22, 2023, by teaching Adar 1 on February 22, 2023, would usher in the Kingdom of Dave, he opens the message with a series of hypothetical questions. These questions are designed to validate the imminent timing of biblical events as he has been teaching.
Part 422 – February 18, 2023
@ 01:13 What if we learned the 1335 and that Adar begins the Kingdom to Israel and that Abib 1 begins the Kingdom of God years ago? What if we’d learned years ago? We would have surely expected Christ too soon, with much more to learn after that.
“The 1335 Days of the Son of Man” was initially taught in RCG in 2011. The 1335 of Daniel 12 started and stopped a few times since. They were all “invisible” comings with “invisible” goings.
Part 387 – August 15, 2022
@ 04:29 You’re blessed if you got to a day, not a coming. We’ve talked about that. It’s called the 1335…You’re settled. And that was over four days ago.
Part 391 – September 3, 2022
@ 1:10:56 Now, one of the things that bothered me, “We're blessed when we hit the 1335." I would ask myself, and I ask other people, "You feel blessed? We been blessed for two or three weeks now?...And the answer is, brethren, let me say it clearly, no! Because blessed is attached to salvation.
Part 396 – October 1, 2022
@ 1:48:04 We are not seeking the 1335. A hundred billion people will be. So, I wanted that to be clear.
Part 402 – October 25, 2022
@ 1:27:01God’s will has been done. You made it to the 1335.The pledge is made on (dare I say?) the correct 1335.
It was not the correct 1335. According to Dave, it started about a month ago.
The Kingdom to/of Israel came back onto the scene in 2022.
Part 367 – May 14, 2022
@ 1:31:20 I am telling God’s people I believe the Kingdom of Israel and eternal life comes tomorrow night. If I’m wrong…I’m wrong by a whole year because I know the day it happens.
Every Hebrew month of the year has been declared by David C. Pack as "the day" something would happen. Adar 1 and Abib 1 are not new to RCG members.
The “we would have known too soon” rationale has been repeated countless times. That human-centric thinking is always an excuse, never a reason.
Part 422 – February 18, 2023
@ 01:35 They’re a package deal. Those three things: The 1335, Adar, and Abib 1. (There is coming a twist.)
The “twist” will be covered in another article. It is more accurate to call it a tease, cop-out, and prophetic bait-and-switch than a twist. He reverses much of what he said during Parts 420 and 421 regarding the certainty of Adar 1 and Abib 1 being exact dates. He pulls off a cheap and dirty trick.
Now begins the descent into madness. David C. Pack strings together a sequence of hypothetical questions designed to illustrate how solid his new teachings are.
The logic from which they are posed proves a disconnect from reality, a disassociation from previous declarations, and a denial of history.
@ 01:44 But imagine we had to wait another 27 days (again) next year. Almost a month. Believing we were blessed.
No one in The Restored Church of God needs to "imagine" waiting or any of what follows. His questions accurately depict what the brethren are currently living through. They believed they were blessed during the Feast of Tabernacles but came home to realize they were not.
This has been a repeated pattern for many years.
@ 01:57 How could you believe next year? How could you believe it’s certain if this year failed? Or any future year?
They cannot believe next year, and no one should. They should not believe him now.
These questions encapsulate ten years of The Restored Church of God. When Elul 24, 2013 failed, a perpetual sense of doubt was set in motion in anything David C. Pack teaches. He was wrong then. He is wrong ten years later. And will continue to be wrong into the vanishing point.
Deuteronomy 18 speaks to the validity of David C. Pack as a prophet or “inspired” messenger of God. He failed once and is forever invalidated, so says the Bible.
The brethren will never be able to trust him. Yet they stay and listen.
David C. Pack displays astonishing blindness with his questions. 2022 failed. 2021 failed. 2020 failed. 2019 failed. 2018 failed. A legitimately mentally ill person would ask such a question in the face of facts that have become history.
Our reality is not his reality.
The brethren need not “imagine” not believing “next year” because Part 422 is a living reminder of his failures throughout last year.
@ 1:58 How could you believe it if you’d been through it once? You’re waiting almost a month, “I wonder if it’s true this year?”
The brethren of The Restored Church of God have not experienced waiting and disappointment ONCE. Since June 2022, they have experienced this 43 times.
Members of RCG have been through this 43 times since June 2022.
What a callous insult to all the brethren.
David C. Pack has lost his mind, but even putting it that way is an oversimplification of the catastrophic darkness that has hijacked his thinking.
@ 02:15 The 1335, truly, can only apply in the first year you learned its powerful meaning.
For this logic to be accurate, the 1335 of Daniel 12 needed to begin in 2011.
The "first-year” application proof has been repeated before. The “why are we learning this now” reasoning rings more hollow each time Dave uses it.
Part 177 – June 6, 2019
@ 1:29:38 Wow, we’re just learning this right now. What are the odds we’re learning it right in front of Pentecost…?
Dave often uses that as "it has to be this year," and the people of RCG know that. The brethren who stay accept falling for it again as some virtue of “holding fast” by the power of faith. Even they are enabling Dave’s descent further into lunacy.
This was the topper for me. I was shaking when I first heard it.
Part 422 – February 18, 2023
@ 02:25Imagine yourself waiting another year and another year and another year and another and another.
This is disturbing, insulting, tone-deaf, blind, ignorant, foolish, horrific, and staggering all at once.
The RCG brethren do not need to imagine…
they live this.
What is wrong with David C. Pack? What combination of mental illnesses compounded with dark spiritual influences has captured his mind to cause him to say things like this?
The brethren of RCG have been living this since 2013.
But David C. Pack does not get that. That is a severe problem. That screams the man is suffering a deep mental breakdown. There is a complex psychosis happening at Headquarters in The Restored Church of God.
Or maybe I am being Chicken Little about it. To call this out as simply "insane" underrepresents the harsh reality of his distorted and twisted thinking.
The most positive and optimistic view would be that David C. Pack suffers from Alzheimer's or Dementia. Those would be the best-case scenarios under the circumstances.
@ 02:30 Twenty-seven days blessed works once. Faith becomes hope ever after. And “surely come" goes away ever after.
It already has. Faith already turned into hope back in 2013. And in 2018. 2019. 2020. 2021. 2022. Past tense. History. Fact. This is our reality, but not his.
David C. Pack has already handled God's word deceitfully, and "surely come" lost meaning long ago. He adds to and takes away from the Bible. Words are malleable. Numbers are fickle. The math always disappoints. The proofs evaporate. The metrics dissolve.
David C. Pack has built his entire world on vanity, imagination, and mental illness. Nothing else makes sense, and nothing else explains the path he has taken RCG in.
@ 02:51 The picture is set in stone. It is inarguable.
As is every other artificial construct that crumbles as time passes. His rock-solid cases are made of dry ice. Some teachings do not endure 24 hours. Excuses are not in short supply at Headquarters.
@ 02:54 I put it up there with believing the Sabbath or tithing or baptism by immersion, or any other element of the truth that you know of.
He forgets what he already said. He forgets what he has already taught. And he desperately needs you to forget so that he can maintain his appearance of legitimacy.
Part 379 – June 25, 2022
@ 18:34 I believe [Tammuz 1] no less certainly than I believe the seventh day is the Sabbath.
Part 378 – June 15, 2022
@ 37:30 I won’t be telling you we’re gonna wait a month. That’s impossible. You could throw my own words back up against me…
Part 386 – August 2, 2022
@ 1:37:28 I promise you that’s the picture. You have the picture. It's inarguable. You have the picture. It will not change. It cannot change if we wait a hundred years.
Part 401- October 22, 2022
@ 34:11 We will never change One Month. And I will never change Cheshvan.
Believe the words of David C. Pack at your own peril. He is not a man of his word. His words mean nothing to him and should mean nothing to you. He lies to himself, and he lies to The Restored Church of God.
Is that observation a wicked attack from the devil or a statement of fact?
Part 422 – February 18, 2023
@ 03:30 The Series ends, and we know we’re close. Nothing could change that.
Nothing can change it except for the passage of time. The Series is not over.
Only a mentally ill person would say such things believing them to be true when they have said it all before, and every single time, reality proves the words to be false.
Figuring out which ailment is afflicting David C. Pack of The Restored Church of God is moot because the end result is the same: God is not guiding him, and he will never be right about prophecy.
To think otherwise would be a total reality disconnect.
Would you be willing to spend a couple more thousand dollars a year in addition to Feast of Tabernacles expenses just so you can spend 7 days at a "feast" location for Unelaveend Bread? Some Sabbatarian groups think you will.
Not content with living in grace and new covenant freedom, those entrenched in legalism seek to even further impact members' wallets.
Prior to the great Worldwide Church of God upheaval that spawned hundreds of splinter groups, some WCG members were getting wrapped up in the sacred name and Messianic Judaism groups. Given that many COG members felt that they were better "Jews" than regular Jews, it made sense for some of these people to venture into Messianic Judaism and sacred name groups. The more Jewish they could pretend to be the more righteous they felt.
The Forgotten Seven Day Feast Some smaller churches will be observing the Festival of Unleavened Bread in 2023 for the full seven days – but for most people, particularly those who were in the Worldwide Church of God, going to “The Feast” means Tabernacles. Very few are aware that the Church, under its former name, the Radio Church of God, also celebrated the Festival of Unleavened Bread for the full seven days – not just the two annual high days as now.
When my mother first joined the church in 1959 people still looked fondly back at the items that they got to gather together for 7 days during Days of Unleavened Bread. Some of the people in our church area did attend these sites, but far too many could not get off work for this. By the late 1960's the church was spreading around the country and these "feast" locations were not feasible for people to drive long distances to, take more days off work, and spend more money.
In 1952 Herbert and Loma Armstrong travelled to Gladewater, Texas, for Passover and the 1st holy day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread. They were overwhelmed by the large numbers who came, not only from Texas, but as far afield as Wisconsin and Michigan.
“We know now – God has shown us plainly and unmistakably – that we must have an adequate place of our own in this central location for the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread EVERY YEAR.
The proper place for meetings of this kind is not an expensive brick or stone or concrete church building on a main corner of a city in all the traffic and noise of the world – but to get CLEAR AWAY FROM THE WORLD – out into God’s own open beautiful nature, utterly secluded from the world!
Next Spring, we shall plan a full eight-day festival, to last thru the entire seven days of unleavened bread following the Passover, and all who plan to come are urged now, with a year ahead to plan, to start laying plans to come for the entire eight days …
Yes, this opens up AN ENTIRE NEW PHASE of God’s great work. This will provide a place for annual great conclaves of God’s people, where many who cannot come as far as Pasadena can meet together at God’s great festivals.
“In SEVEN major Festivals here in America, plus others in England, Australia and around the world – a glorious season was observed this year! “THEREFORE let us KEEP THE FEAST …” (I Cor. 5:8).
In obeying this inspired New Testament COMMAND to Christians, over TEN THOUSAND brethren of God’s Church assembled this spring to observe the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread. All reports indicate that there was GREAT JOY in this observance.” Why then in 1968 (the year the church was renamed Worldwide) were all the festival sites discontinued?
According to the article Days of Unleavened Bread – How Should They Be Observed? [p.4] by the Church of God the Eternal (supporting the change to observing the 2 high days only): “… the receipt of income for “the Gospel” was appreciably reduced each Spring, because most of the members did not receive any salary or wages during the week they attended the seven Days of Unleavened Bread. Consequently, tithes and offerings dropped off alarmingly in the Spring …
It was felt by Mr. Armstrong that if the Gospel were to continue to go forth with growth and power, the membership would have to be in a financial position to contribute heavily. The observance of the Days of Unleavened Bread for the full seven days was thwarting this effort.”
Like everything in Armstrongism, money was the common denominator.
