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
I spent more than two decades just down the street from Bob Jones University. My practice was just a few blocks down the same street the campus was located on. It didn't take long to realize that BJU produced and continues to produce the same drama, scandal and blowback that WCG/AC did. Truly two birds of a feather if there ever was one.
Bob Jones Sr was a contemporary of HWA and was said to detest HWA as both competed on the radio for the religious audience. Bob Jones Sr also detested Billy Graham, a graduate of BJU because Graham went him therefore into all the world and avoiding the world was classic BJU.
A client told me of the sermon Bob Jones Sr gave assuring the students that it would be over his dead body when kissing was ever allowed on this campus. In time he died and ended up being buried on the campus. You guessed it. It is now the place where forbidden couples go to kiss.
Bob Jones University has its own gay community that it is in complete denial over. My gay BJU clients assured me that they did well on the campus. BJU has an excellent music program as well as theatre. Their art collection is incredible. I asked how they managed to lay low on the campus to which they said it was easy. Not wishing to date women, they looked like very compliant and obedient students concerning the prohibition against dating. Students were forbidden to stand around with the girls to chat. They had to chat on the move. I met a student who was expelled for catching a female student in a fall. He was told it would have been better to let her fall than to touch her.
Dating was by permission and dating outside the campus required the couple to take a faculty member with them. In reality, I was assured that paying off the faculty member to not stick around was also not unheard of.
As legalists, BJU graduates of go into ministry, police work or City Government in Greenville. Control and Bible based law and order was the goal. It drove the good old boys nuts when BMW and the Germans moved to Greenville and wouldn't have part in their control.
When I asked clients, gay/male or female who found the experience authoritarian and controlling the answer was always the same. It's the only school my parents will pay for. As well, going against their local church connected to BJU was a death sentence spiritually. Guilt, fear and shame is a powerful control mechanism.
I present this to those who might be interested in seeing the WCG/AC experience was and is not unique. It is the product of fundamentalism, authoritarianism and getting mixed up with the one-man founder and show where it becomes a family dynasty over time.
Many a BJU graduate spends years overcoming the experience.
If you are like myself, and I assume you are, having a purpose in life is kinda what it all seems to be about. From "what's the purpose" to "what's my purpose", it tends to niggle at us in the background of our lives.
When we came "into the truth" back in the day, we found purpose. Not only did we find purpose, but we found a God given purpose. The Book told us that, as the chosen ones in the exact true church, our purpose was to become Kings and Priests and of course, go us therefore into all the world telling everyone else they could be too.
For better or worse, in hindsight, worse, I felt my purpose was to go into ministry. At first it wasn't WCG ministry as I had been accepted at another seminary in New York before choosing WCG that in my mind was more accurate. So, my purpose was to go there and become a pastor. While GTA announced the first student forum that "if anyone here thinks they came here to be a minister, get that idea right out your head!", I thought to myself, "We' see..." I didn't' understand then that God would decide who was the to be in ministry of WCG through the wisdom and leading of the Holy Spirit of the "Manpower Committee". I guess that "we'll see" thing followed me through AC and the WCG. When my fourth year public speaking teacher announced "No one gets and 'A' in my class," "We'll see" thinks I and I made him retract that by getting an 'A'.
All this because I had found my purpose. Of course, be careful what you wish for as I had no clue what was to follow over the next two decades of fulfilling my purpose in life.
One personal note. When I was told I was going into the ministry I called my dad to tell him. He got real quiet and I could tell he got teary, which I had never seen my dad ever do. I asked if he was, ok? He said, "You know, when we had your brother (my only brother is blind, deaf and cannot speak from birth trauma and being born at 6 months weighing 1.5 lbs.,) I told God that if he gave me a healthy normal son, that He could have him." (Questionable results I know :) Well, first I heard of that! No pressure there but I had purpose so obviously God made my dad a Diehl, err...deal. I think this one conversation kept me in WCG ministry longer than my heart was actually in it not wanting to disappoint my dad or remove purpose form his own perceptions of his life and family.
Gerald Waterhouse showed up every year or two to tell us all even more about our "God given purpose". It was to follow "Mr Urmstrong", who of course, would never die before the Jesus returned. I did ask him what he'd do when, not if, Mr Urmstrong, died? He said "I'll believe it after three days and three nights!" Ugh....hopeless. His God given purpose was getting really old and very annoying for me personally. I'm not sure it had not always been annoying to me personally when he showed up and I do recall telling him that he caused me more problems with the members than helped them. All he said to that was "really?". Yes, really. God given purposes are like that.
As the years of scandal, BS and authoritarian control rolled on I convinced myself for a time that my God given purpose was to have come to the ministry "for such a time as this". I thought I was there to stop the majoring in the minors and help the church grow up. Wrong! I failed to understand just how many first- and second-generation ministers were waiting to come up with their own God give purpose and either take over the church when HWA died or simply start their own version as the loons, Gerald Flurry, Rod Meredith, Dave Pack and many others did.
Dave Pack is about as foolish and stupid a man believing in his own version of his God given purpose as it gets. I thank Marc Cebrian for exposing in the details what a foolish shepherd the guy is. Foolish, stupid, ill-trained in theology, delusional and not a little dangerous as he pretends to have his own version of a God given purpose.
All this to say, that I have come to accept that one does not need a purpose to live life, learn all one can and exit. I don't need or even want a "God given purpose". I can't speak for anyone but me and in my own experience, but I have concluded that the most dangerous people on the planet are those who claim to live their lives with a God given purpose. Nothing but trouble especially if they insist that your God given purpose be identical to theirs with "send it in" attached for good measure.
Those who claim a "God Given Purpose" have done most all of the most horrible things on the planet both in history and to this day. The concept of being "God's chosen people" doesn't help either.
If one is not careful, life here in the now becomes less important and life in the fuzzy future more important. For some, as it is said, "Some people are seeking the heavenly such that they are of no Earthly good". The Book tell us "the day of death than the day of one's birth." (Ecc 7:1). You can miss your entire life if that becomes your "God given purpose". I believe is one follows that path too obsessively "woulda, coulda and shoulda" will rear their heads somewhere down the line and regrets will pile up and infect the life we actually have.
I have become comfortable with being just a very small part of "life" and have my own personal experience of what some say is the Universe observing itself." That's enough purpose for me at this stage. I think most know I am not a believer in the Biblical story any longer. That is the result of my own questions, observations and studies about the Book. Your experience may vary as I am sure it does.
I did not know I did not exist the first 13.87 billion years before I showed up and I can "live" returning to that state when the time comes. I have no God given purpose to "make it into the Kingdom" or "do everything I can to avoid the Lake of Fire, which I have been consigned to many times in the past 20 years by those with their own God given purposes.
I had my DNA mutations outline my genetic trip out of Africa a few years back around 60,000 years ago. It only took one person between me and those genetic ancestors who either ducked or didn't duck to not lead to me. The chance of you being you today is pretty remote.
So I just wanted to share the two concepts that have brought me to making peace with my personal and original "God given purpose" gone awry.
While I have long ago gotten over following anyone else's path or purposes, I do recognize words of wisdom on the topic. These two views resonate with me. I don't expect it to resonate with many because many find fear of death or "what's going to happen to me" is much stronger than just accepting this present moment and experience leaving the rest up to reality and what actually is.
So for those so inclined at this stage in all our lives and with having had all our own experiences with the WCG experience, both as members and ministers...
Gotta go climb Larch Mountain in the Columbia Gorge. Ride here. Sorry is you find typos :) My heart was right!
Doug Winnail had this up for the LCG member update for August 8. It is about what motivates you, particularly for those seeking a position and to be noticed. This is pretty rich coming from LCG when far too many of the leaders were motivated by position, recognition, and power.
Rest assured brethren, NO ONE and I mean NO ONE in the power structure of the Living Church of God, past and present was EVER motivated by selfish motivations! Never! Oh, and they have all served with genuine humility!
What Motivates You? In today’s world, many are motivated by a desire for a position, power, prestige—and a bigger paycheck. Even in the Church, these same desires can motivate individuals to seek a position and be noticed. While Jesus saw these attitudes in religious leaders of His day (Matthew 23:1–11), He told His disciples, “whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant” (Matthew 20:20–28). Jesus also set us an example in that He “did not come to be served, but to serve.” The Apostles Peter and Paul urged Christians to avoid selfish motivations and be examples to others by serving with genuine humility (1 Timothy 6:3–5; 1 Peter 5:1–6). As we strive to come out of this self-centered world, let’s look for ways that we can serve others—so God can use us more effectively as instruments in His hands (Philippians 2:3–12).
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