Church of God Network: My Time in the Philadelphia Church of God

 

This week, we dive into an incredibly insightful testimony from our guest, who shares his journey in the Philadelphia Church of God. We discuss the challenges of living in a high-control environment, what ultimately led him/his family to leave, and the impact that decision had on them and their relationships. It’s a raw and thought-provoking conversation that highlights the strength and resilience of those who step away from fringe groups.

Church of God Network is an amalgamation of various COG groups uniting together for a common cause, usually devoid of the extremism extant in some COGs today. If I were still involved in the COG movement, this group would certainly be more joyful and encouraging than most of the larger COG groups are. Their feast sites certainly look and sound so much better. They also have been really successful in capitalizing on social media and its powerful impact.

A comment on their video had this:

Enjoyed the fireside chat going through decades of history and real life experience without any bitterness. Love the empathy he has towards people who are still stuck in PCG and can’t escape because the moment they do their family disowns them . Eric was right to say that the PCG look down on other groups and look down on those who leave PCG, attend other Church of God groups and people in the world in general. That is unless you are someone who furthers their own false prophesies about Jeroboam.

The Church of God movement has a problem, and it is not centered on so-called anti-COG websites and blogs. When everyday members also recognize the lies and abuse currently going on, it should be a wake call to the bigger groups. Their members are leaving in droves and going with more rational COG groups, including COG7, or nowhere at all. The glaring problem is that these problematic groups really don't care and carry on as usual.

Church of God Network's mission and vision statements should be a wake-up call to the Churches of God. You are failing your people, and people are waking up. The church had a chance to reenvision itself when the changes all happened, and yet the vast majority carried on the same old way, carrying on the abuse and outlandish prophecy lies. Today, younger COG members have a chance to create a new vision.

Our Mission

To help build community within the Church of God by facilitating connection, encouraging conversations, and giving back.

At Church of God Network, our mission is simple: to help build a vibrant and united global Church of God community. Through meaningful connections, engaging conversations, and giving back, we’re creating the framework for connection through the world of social and in-person networking. Join us as we embark on this incredible journey, where your voice matters and your passion strengthens our network.

Our Vision

Imagine a cohesive and dynamic Body of Christ, where fellowship abounds, open communication is the norm, and active cooperation fuels growth. We’re dedicated to nurturing a Church of God community where members from each COG organization come together in harmony to do good works with and for one another. Our vision is simple: A community that thrives on unity of the spirit, understanding, and a shared sense of purpose for the coming Kingdom of God.

Happy Thanksgiving And Shame On You For Watching Football Today! SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is a sunny, glorious Thanksgiving day here in California along the coast, and our most important living prophet to ever grace the Churches of God since the dawn of creation is extending to all a Happy Thanksgiving! Unless, of course, you are one of those Laodicean degenerate reprobates that like watching football or, God forbid, playing tackle football on a Thanksgiving afternoon with family and friends. The horrors!!!!!!!

The Great Magnanimous One starts off in his very first paragraph with this beauty of a comment:

Today is the national holiday in the USA called Thanksgiving. And despite certain claims, its specific origins are not pagan. But, of course, no Christian needs to celebrate national holidays like it if they do not wish to (cf. Romans 14). And the Bible does condemn gluttony.

Is this self-indulgent twit ever happy about anything? 

He then writes that we should always give thanks. 

Yet, whether on this day or others, the Bible teaches that people should give thanks: 

 

4 Sing praise to the LORD, You saints of His, And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name (Psalm 30:4). 

 

The Bible is full of admonitions to give thanks to God. The New King James Version of the Bible has the word ‘thank’ 25 times, ‘thanks’ 75 times, ‘thankful’ 3 times, and ‘thanksgiving’ 32 times. It also has the word ‘praise’ 237 times and ‘praises’ 11 times.

Then...it descends into the degenerate pits of false 'propehtry' and its endless nonsense:

One thing that I have noticed on the day called Thanksgiving by those in the USA, is when I have been at many other places than the home I lived in, American football has been playing on television. 

 

For many, other than food and family, football is a major focus of the Thanksgiving holiday for many in the USA.

He also quotes Armstrongist quackery from 1969. It is no wonder the Armstrongist belief system has always been so depressing. The boogeyman and evil lurk around every corner, ready to devour you. Armstrongism has never been about joy and happiness.

A 1969 article by Eugene M. Walker put out by the old Worldwide Church of God had the following:

To many Americans Thanksgiving Day means sumptuous turkey dinners, family reunions and football games…There is nothing necessarily wrong with good food, family reunions…on Thanksgiving Day. But all too many use these activities wrongly and forget the purpose for the holiday. Many glut themselves with far more food than they ought to eat; few, however, stop to give God thanks for this food – even on Thanksgiving Day. Family reunions all too often turn out to be family brawls…Millions of others push and shove one another in large crowds at football games and parades, and kill one another on the highway as they madly strive to make sure they get their fair quota of pleasure. (Walker EM. Plain Truth, Thanksgiving Day: What does it mean to you? November 1969, pp. 39-41). 

 

Notice he wrote that certain activities were not necessarily wrong. Of course, a friendly game of flag football and a family dinner should be fine. But what about violent professional or intercollegiate American football?

The Great Bwana, the Bubba to Africa, and a few Caucasians then drags out Herbert to reinforce his anti-football stance:

Over a decade later, the late Herbert W. Armstrong wrote:

Hostility toward the other is sin… 

 

Football (American football) is a violent body-contact sport. It is often played with an attitude of hostility and is dangerous and is fraught with physical injury. (Plain Truth, July-August 1984) 

 

Wherever a game in sports involves ANTAGONISTS–in HOSTILE ATTITUDE to harm the other and/or to “GET” from the other–to get the best of the other–then a harmful, Satanic and evil attitude enters in, and the sport is EVIL, not good…football,

(American football)…because football is such a violent body contact sport, it TOO OFTEN is played in an ATTITUDE OF HOSTILITY, and is too DANGEROUS and fraught with PHYSICAL INJURY . Therefore it must be BANNED so far as participation by God’s Church or people is concerned…This is sufficient to illustrate the application of the PRINCIPLE of God’s Law to sports. That participated in with an attitude of HOSTILITY toward the opponent is evil. That which HARMS mentally or physically an opponent is evil.

Satan is the author of COMPETITION based on hostility, harm to the opponent, GETTING by taking FROM an opponent–to his harm or loss. God’s way is LOVE TOWARD neighbor equal to love of self. (Armstrong HW. Not all sports are banned. Pastor General’s Report, Volume 2, Issue 36, September 5, 1980)

Yet, Herbert watched football games as well as his beloved Lakers basketball games. COG prophets and leaders protested too much.

Our resident Crackpot prophet then lashes out at those who thank God  for football:

While I have even heard some people thank God for football, it is not a sport that I believe that the God of love would condone.
The person that Jesus stated was greater than all others born of women (Matthew 11:11), John the Baptist taught:

14 Do violence to no man (Luke 3:14, KJV)

He then quotes several sources on sports injuries and then adds these dingers:

The truth about the harm the sport causes is something that professing Christians, and others, who think that they should watch American football, should think about. 

 

As the above article points out, many (including Laodicean Christians) are too selfish to stop watching and encouraging the playing of American tackle football.

 

Christians should give God thanks, but not encourage violence in sports like American tackle football. 

The Great Bubba Bob Mzungu ends his missive with this:

To close, perhaps I should mention that we do not ‘add a day’ to God’s holy days if we somehow observe Thanksgiving or other national holidays. National observances are NOT holy days, nor does anyone have to keep them. Jesus, however, observed at least one (cf. (John 10:22-23), setting an example that we can if we so choose. But not through encouraging violence.

Even Jesus is sitting there in the third heaven, shaking his head as to why he and the rest of the Holy Trinity ever dreamed Bob up as they were creating the foundations of the world. Their gift of free will in their creation created a monster! 

Can Prophecy Really Come Alive?

Ecclesiastes 8:7 

"Since no one knows the future, who can tell someone else what is to come?"

"For he does not know what will happen; So who can tell him when it will occur?"

"If no one knows what will happen, who can tell him when it will happen?"

============

I am not personally of the view that there is actually such a skill or ability of anyone to predict the future. Generally perhaps based on trends, but not specifically as the Bible seems to do. Prophets of the past, in my view, may have spoken about what they felt would happen in their own times, but "prophecies" thousands of years in advance are simply not possible. 

Anyone can, if they are willing, to see that what seems like prophecy, such as the 8 "and thus it was fulfilled"s of Matthew 2, concerning the birth story of Jesus, are merely back written into his tale, which in no way agrees with Lukes Birth Narratives, and a clear making Old Testament scriptures mean what they never actually mean when written down. 

The reason Jesus last crucifixion story and his last words seem prophesied is because the author of the Gospels lifted quotes from the Psalms to flesh out a story, they really had no idea about how it went down nor were they witnesses of it. 

Prophecy is not so much history prophesied, but prophecy historized and brought ahead into the present by writers intending to give the impression the present was pre-dicted long ago, when it was not.  

For example, the reason Daniel 11 seems so prophetically detailed is simply because all the events it predicts had already happened. Outcomes were already known and lives lived to historize into prophecy. (Daniel was a product of the Second Century BCE and not the Fifth.) The reasons that empires could be prophesied to come is because they had already come and gone. 

When you get into Daniel 12, it all gets rather vague again about the real future and Daniel is simply told to shut it down. The reason?  We don't actually know what will happen as it has not yet happened. 

Today, I am more inclined to see OT prophets as being fascinating for their schizophrenia (Ezekiel and Amos along with any who noted "And the Lord said unto me), depression (Jeremiah) and others who heard the voice of God in their heads when no one else did. If Paul's visions were real, to Paul, they take on the symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy. (Voices, bright lights and often with religious content). These now understood mental issues would not have been understood and assigned divine gift status back in the day. 

I recall visiting a mentally ill member in the hospital where she calmly said "I know you don't understand this, but Mr Diehl, you are an angel unawares".  Well yeah! LOL.  Mania and bi polar issues can do that to you. 

"Someone once asked what's the difference between a Bible Prophet or Christian fundamentalist and a paranoid schizophrenic? Well, one hears voices in their head, has a heightened moral code, is judgmental yet can be very deceptive and manipulative, has delusions of being on a mission from God, sees things that no one else present sees or hears , sees lights in his head, is the center of the universe and has special knowledge that must be kept secret until the right time an then can only be understood as explained by the one. The other, of course, is a paranoid schizophrenic."

Prophets, Apostles, and Mental Illness

Jesus is said to have prophesied his coming "soon", "shortly" and "quickly", and the Apostles joined in specifically telling those in the NT Church to be ready, not marry and if you had a wife, act as if you didn't, whatever that meant. The Apostle Paul, not unlike all Church leaders today who build their churches on the fear of imminent prophetic fulfilments, spent his whole ministry pre-dicting "we shall not all die...", until he did of course. That was our collective experience with WCG.  "Just ahead", "Three to five years, 10 at the outside, 15 max" was just more prophetic fiction mean to motivate, perhaps for less than honorable reasons. 

Dave Pack, the greatest fool ever produced by the WCG is addicted to making an ass out himself prophetically. He is never right and he never will be because the whole concept of prophetic abilities is simply wrong. No one can pre-dict the future in any theological sense. 

While Dave claims...

DCP – Like No One Else

“I’ve been studying God’s word for almost 50 years. And I’ve studied prophecy, I know
this, like no man who’s ever lived. And I’m gonna tell you things over the next several weeks that are so awesome, so mind-bending, even before today.”

“I know literally, literally everything that happens from the time Christ drops outta

that cloud ’til this things rolls into the box. I’ve got the whole picture ’til there’s no more

earth. So, I know what God is gonna do and you know what God’s gonna do.”

and...

“I’m gonna to reveal a great prophecy is ending. A great prophecy no one ever saw

in the Bible is ending right now, and you know nothing of it, and the church didn’t, and

every historian and theologian who’s ever lived never knew anything about it.”

...he will always be a fake and badly mistaken prophetic fool. 

Now, I can probably predict the loss of the war by Ukraine and the "chosen people" making themselves the most accursed people on the planet, but that's not based on anything any Holy Spirit had to "inculcate" my mind with. That just seems to be common sense at play. 

Both the Gospel Jesus and the Apostle Paul, as well as others, real or imagined authors of the NT were wrong. When Jesus is said to have said, "This generation shall not pass until all these things be fulfilled" it does not mean and never did mean, "this generation to whom these things happen to". That's the apologetic since it did not happen then. Jesus meant it for none others than for those to whom he was speaking.  Jesus was wrong. The beat went on...

Bob Thiel is big on prophetically awful weather because "God is trying to get our attention."  Rubbish...  Weather is just weather and we know better, or should. Unless, of course, God is a low pressure system in disguise. Besides, what's with God having to "try".  Lame. 

Our first hint of the fallacy of prophetic skills is realizing that...

• Fortune-Teller
• Seer
• Prophet
• Augur
• Cassandra
• Crystal Gazer
• Doomsayer
• Futurist
• Jeremiah
• Oracle
• Palm Reader
• Prophesier
• Prognosticator
• Sibyl
• Soothsayer
• Herbert Armstrong
• Dave Pack
• Gerald Flurry
• Bob Thiel

...have not yet won the lottery. It's not unlike our not finding faith healers working for hospitals. They lose their magic powers outside of church. 

Whoever said it was spot on...

The future isn't what it used to be. We can predict everything, except the future. The future's uncertain and the end is always near. 

And prophecy can never really come alive because

"Since no one knows the future, who can tell someone else what is to come?"

"For he does not know what will happen; So who can tell him when it will occur?"

"If no one knows what will happen, who can tell him when it will happen?"