Greco-Roman Crackpot Prophet Feast Update: Some Of His African Members Were Held For Ransom And He Shames Canadian Members

 

It is another bright sunny day in California, where the greatest Church of God to ever exist in the history of humanity has its astounding headquarters. No Church of God has ever done as mighty of work as the improperly named "continuing" Church of "god" has been doing. Of course, none of this could be possible without the all-knowing self-appointed prophet who believes he was preselected by God to come in the 21st century to turn the hearts of the children back to their fathers, as the greatest work to ever exist, publishes hudnreds and hudnreds of the booklets in multiple languages.

The Great Bwana Bob Mzungu Thiel starts off by mentioning his Galveston feast site with 34 followers in attendance.

Greetings from the Five Cities Region of California.

We are back from the Feast of Tabernacles which, in the US, was held in Galveston, Texas.

As it turns out, we met in what is called the “Training Room” for services at Moody Gardens. Of course, all Christians are being trained in this life and especially also at the Feast of Tabernacles.

Where would the COG be without "coincidences" popping up all around them to prove that they are the true church? 

However, things did not go well in the Congo with his followers there:

Congo Update

Last week, I mentioned that there were troubles at the festival site in the Congo.

Dear Pastor Dr Bob ,

Greetings .

We’re now in Rwanda and we’re safe all here in Rwanda.

Dear Pastor , when we arrived at Congo , we started the Feast of tabernacles properly, but on the seventh day Satan fought us again. The bad things that happened to us in Congo surprised us all because before we went there, Rwanika informed the leaders of a place where there was a house of prayer. Even when we were on the Feast , these leaders came to visit us. But then we were surprised to see 4 other leaders in the car they told us to go to the office to lock us up, others leaders went to take our sisters and ones is my wife where they were staying, they put us in the car but then they left brother Aaron Joel from Uganda and the rest of us took us to the government office and told us that an unknown person called them and told them that we have mistakes so they burned all our documents except for Aaron from Uganda.

When we arrived there at their office , they check our documents and Church documents after seeing that they are complete , they start to accusing us for fabricated crimes that Rwanika and his assistant in the Church called Mapendo that informed some leaders and left others them and that we are also many foreigners and every foreigner don’t have a document of to go to the mission in the Congo so we should all be imprisoned. Immediately they locked our documents and Church documents in the office they ordered us to leave at the temple and some for us to go to Rwanika home where you are imprisoned, then who called Mapendo was locked up in the local government prison then Rwanika and I were taken to the main office where the police were to pay the money they asked us . when we finished paying the money, they started threatening us and asking us about politics between the countries and about our races and trying to burn and check our telephones and saying that we have many crimes . Immediately they arrested Rwanika so that time I was the only one who was not arrested. Then they told me to go to get other money for the second payment. When I had seen all that and all the money had been spent, and it was evening that’s when I asked them to go to searching network and to get more money. For that I appreciate Pastor Evans who sent the money required quickly. However, when I had already paid the money again they only opened Rwanika {to let him out} and the another one stayed in the prison until morning  and they refused to give us our documents and Church documents. What we found out is that there is someone unknown did a cruel thing to us. We don’t know if is XXXXXX because we know that XXXXXX is with that group he joined they go to government in another territory to register their Church but in the name of Continuing Church of God and they had sent to me the picture of that group and XXXXXX is in that picture. For that I told Rwanika and brother Mapendo to go to that territory to ask and stopped about that.

So , for that all because the Congo is the country of corruption and injustice , we all decided that we will not go to Congo again like many people because Congo is bad country and we decided that while it not be possible to meet in Rwanda we will stay home or if it will possible next we will go to Kenya in the Feast of the Lord.

Attached there is a picture we took after from prison.

Thanks,

Moise. 

Sadly part of this looks like a smear campaign against Sasha's group that he started before he died. Bwana Bob has trained his African leaders well in smearing Sasha's church. 

The Great Bwana then ends his letter to his faithful by shaming his Canadian members because they did not attend one of his sites and instead chose to watch services by Skype.

Start saving your money boys and girls! The Great Bwana Bob EXPECTS you to attend in person. After all, he needs your money!

While we had thousands attend at our couple of dozen Feast of Tabernacles’ sites around the world this month, not all who should have attended, did attend.

There were some that mainly watched Skype services. Nadjia Fontaine, who hosted such a place in Canada, sent the following email comments to me:

The Feast went well for the faithful who attended/participated. Being able to use Skype to bring scattered brethren together was a joy.  But having been at Feast sites, it was not the same.  While the Holy Spirit that joins us is not hindered by time and space, our physical ability to sense and channel it can be hindered by distance.  The physical proximity of gathering for the Feast, and for eight days or more in succession and sometimes for extended periods on those days (sometimes all day), I believe amplifies and strengthens our connectedness and ability to tap into the Holy Spirit.  Sort of like exercising our spiritual antennae.  God knew what He was doing commanding us to gather for the weekly and annual sabbaths.

Whether or not you attended in 2024, you should plan and resolve to attend in 2025 if at all possible. The Apostle Paul wrote:

23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:23-25)

21 I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem; but I will return again to you, God willing (Acts 18:21).

Will YOU try to insure that BY ALL MEANS you will keep the coming Feast of Tabernacles next year as we see the day approaching?

It is good for you to do so.

The Feast of Tabernacles begins at sunset on October 6th and runs through (including the Last Great Day) sunset October 14th in 2025.

Plan to attend! You should not wait until next Fall to plan to do so.

Sincerely,

Bob Thiel

Pastor and Overseer

Aljazeera Documentary on The Worldwide Church of God: Apocalypse Maybe

 With Dr James Tabor 

"You get the right person in charge of an insane script, the script becomes believable"

Why it is right, and even necessary to talk about our experience in the Doomsday Cult of our youth

The End of Fear - video

With Dr. James Tabor

The End of Fear

A look at the fear of growing up in a doomsday cult and believing that, any day now, the world may end.

In part two of our Apocalypse Maybe series, End of Fear, people raised with a belief in an impending apocalypse look back on their upbringing, and find some parallels in today’s increasingly unstable world.

Acclaimed author and professor Jerald Walker shares the story told in his 2016 autobiography, The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult, while writer and PR professional Fleur Brown connects past fears with the current day.

The Church of God and Halloween Myths

Its that time of year again and various Church of God groups are starting their annual Halloween traditions.   Satan and his demons are pictured running rampant around the earth on this night looking for naive COG members so they can be swayed away from the "truth once delivered." Church of God members turn off their living rooms lights and slink back into the rear of their houses and try to hide from the evil knocking at their doors.  It's amazing how a church that claims to be God's one true restored church have allowed Satan to have so much power over them.  No other church on the earth has to deal with the constant attacks by Satan than the COG.  Satan is obviously more powerful than that inconvenient Jesus dude.

The following quotes were from a Conservative COG Yahoo page several years ago.  These are the kinds of silliness that occupy the minds of Armstrongites this time of year.

No one ever said Armstrongites were not creative in their thinking!  Eating mice for Halloween?  I feel so left out all these years!

A different spin on it where the kids go trick or treating?
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The church has never stated that. In the histories, when Jeroboam (I think) set up a golden calf in the north in Israel, it's been said that was at Halloween time. In any case, it was a different time than FoT, which it was made to replace.
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I've also heard that this particular holiday was moved from May 1 and that originally it was a remembrance of the dead when Noah & family came out  of the Ark. Imagine how they must have felt, knowing every other living soul was dead... This is how dead became associated with the day. Perhaps.

Is Isaiah a reference to the ancient pagan festival now called halloween with a

Isaiah 66:17 Those who sanctify and purify themselves to enter the groves, imitating one in the center, eating the flesh of the swine, the reptile, and the mouse, shall one and all come to an end - declares the Lord. For I know their deeds and purposes.

We actually have COG members who believe kids eating candy are practicing an ancient custom of worshipping in the groves and that it originally was the day set apart by Noah to commemorate all the dead rotting bodies that covered the earth after the flood.

Here are some pithy says by Richard Ames of the Living Church of God:

Pithy sayings of Richard Ames, Living Church of God 

Should we follow our neighbors, like proverbial lemmings, off the dangerous cliff of pagan practices?

By observing Halloween, we teach our children to make light of Satan the Devil—or even to think like him! Should we then be surprised when our children remain curious about evil—or even invite it—for the rest of the year?

Do we teach our children to attract and cultivate evil spirits at Halloween? Certainly, dressing up like a demon or a witch invites evil rather than opposes it!

Some parents encourage their children to participate in the world of demons. Are some of you parents sacrificing your children to Satan and to wicked spirits

It’s time for such so-called Christians to repent of supporting the Devil and rebelling against Christ!

Dress you baby up for Halloween 

and they will end up devil babies! 

Many years ago Keith Stump, a former Plain Truth writer, penned an article about Halloween that sent diehard COG believers over the edge.  He pointed this out:

"To all COG members out there: 

Is your children’s Christianity so feeble as to be endangered 

by a plastic mask and a few candy bars? 

Are your children so inadequately grounded in their religion 

as to be tempted into a life of witchcraft by attending a costume party? 

Are you yourself so poorly rooted in your faith that you fear your children

 will ask questions to which you have no satisfactory answers?"

I have seen no evidence of children being psychologically warped or seduced into a life of witchcraft and perversion as a result of innocent Halloween activities. I HAVE, however, seen many fearful and superstitious COG children who have been conditioned to be abnormally hypersensitive to anything blackened with the feared label “occult”. One child in particular comes to mind, whom I witnessed shrieking in stark terror at the mere sight of a jack-o-lantern. Are you raising fearful children who, like medieval peasants, see Satan lurking behind every tree and demons skulking in every dark corner? Are you raising children who fear they will “open themselves up” to “demonic control” at any moment by the slightest misstep? What a tenuous, precarious and paranoid spirituality! Satan is a defeated enemy! We need not shrink inanimate mortal remains. Explain that fear of black cats is an ancient superstition of the ignorant. Talk to them about the fanciful creations of horror fiction, like werewolves and vampires. It’s healthy to examine the things that frighten us. Tell them about “ghosts” or disembodied spirits. (The dead are relatively safe; it’s the living you need to watch out for!) And talk to them about the subject of life after physical death. Tell them about the Lord of Life who overcame death. Assuage their fears about those who can kill the body but not the soul.

So here’s my point: Objection to Halloween is a reflection of something much broader: an obsession with trivialities, a confusion of priorities, a primitive fear of the unknown, an arrogance that finds “righteousness” in being odd-ball and out-of-step. Fundamentalists can find something offensive or objectionable in almost anything. They have a world view in which virtually everything is “anti-Christian”. They have lost the ability to filter the important from the inconsequential. The traditional COG prohibition against Halloween ignores the facts of history, misrepresents the modern holiday, and demonstrates a woeful lack of spiritual discernment. 

See:  Halloween Hysteria Is Back In The Churches of God Again

Is Halloween Evil?  Responding to UCG

Keeping Halloween Makes You think About Evil??