Armstrongism: A Brief Case Study in Theodicy

 

Evil Shatters the World

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Armstrongism: A Brief Case Study in Theodicy

By Scout

Is he (God) willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent.  Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent.  Is he both able and willing: whence then is evil?  - David Hume, Eighteenth Century Philosopher

“I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.” - Job

One of the most difficult areas of theology is theodicy.  Theodicy seeks to answer the question, “If God is all-powerful and perfectly righteous, why is there evil in the world?” I have come across many unsatisfactory answers to this question in my reading of theology.  I personally do not have a solution to offer.  In this short essay I would like to pose a much narrower question of theodicy: If Armstrongism is harmful to people, why does God permit it to exist?

Answering this question, as I have approached it, is essentially justifying God. This starts with the proposition that Armstrongism is harmful.  And this harmfulness is an assertion that I will not deal with in this context though the pages of this blog are rife with data in support of this proposition.  Then one must explain why God would permit something harmful to exist and have influence.  What follows are two reasons among many for why God might permit Armstrongism to exist:

·       God wants us to understand that a religion can be concocted using Biblical vocabulary that may sound like Christianity but it is not.

 

·      God wants us to understand that the nature of a church is not to be found in what it says about itself but in what it does. 

These are just two justifications that might emerge in answer to this question.  There are many others.  And reactions to these justifications will vary.  To some people this is evidence that God mercifully teaches people using real world issues.  Christians have been elected to train for the Priesthood and will reign with Christ and understanding the two principles above will be important.  To others, the idea that even only one person loses salvation because of the existence of Armstrongism places a mark on all of us and diminishes all of us throughout eternity.  The cost is much greater than any benefit. What we need is the clarification that would be granted to us by knowing God’s view on this yet when we independently try to construct the Godly view our limited understanding fails us. 

Why doesn’t God just pull the plug on Armstrongism, if it represents a serious harm to lives of some people? I admit that I do not know. 

 

Sasha Veljic Slams Bob Thiel From The Great Beyond

Karl Kolechek, reporting from Malawi 

 

Living Church of God: Always the Epitome Of Outgoing Love

 

For decades, we have had pounded into our heads that as the true church, we were the epitome of Philadelphian love. Anyone with even minimal contact with any of the Churches of God know this is not true.

Check out this comment on Exit and Support Network about a person's recent contact with an LCG minister:

As a Sabbatarian looking for an acceptable congregation, I contacted a pastor of the local Living Church of God.  He seemed protective of his congregation in a way that appeared unwelcoming. It was a very strange response. It did sound quite controlling.  What bothered me was that it is the opposite of a hospitable and loving God. –[name withheld]