AiCOG: Hidden Enemy or Hidden Agenda? The Emotional Control Con

The Real Trick: Doubt Your Own Mind

In 1982, the Holy Herbie dropped a bombshell Good News article: there’s a “hidden enemy” in your home, and it’s not Satan this time—it’s emotional immaturity… YOUR emotional immaturity. But lets be honest, the real enemy wasn’t your feelings; it was the cult’s agenda to make you doubt your God-given ability to think. In a piece that’s pure manipulation, Ol’ Herb claimed emotional immaturity—your natural feelings like anger, fear, or grief—is breaking families and causing misery. The fix? Control your emotions, obey the Ten Commandments, and let your mind guide you into God’s way of “giving.” Sounds reasonable, right? Wrong—it’s a con to get you to stop trusting your own reasoning and hand your mind over to a mere man: Herb himself, the self-proclaimed apostle who demanded blind loyalty while his cult crumbled under scandals.

The WCG didn’t just control your emotions—they controlled your thoughts, making you doubt your rational instincts and surrender to Herb’s authority. Your gut told you something was wrong—failed prophecies, triple tithes, predatory leaders—but the cult gaslit you into thinking your doubts were immature, not godly. Its been nearly 40 since the Holy Herb wilted, it’s time to reclaim your God-given mind and see this for the manipulative agenda it was.

The Setup: Your Emotions Betray Your Mind

The article starts with a dramatic hook: there’s an enemy in your home, causing suffering—emotional immaturity. Herb defines it as a lack of control over feelings like fear, anger, and grief, calling it a “departure from the normal calm state of rational thinking.” He says babies naturally “take”—grabbing toys and bottles—but humans must be taught to “give,” aligning with God’s law of love (the Ten Commandments). Most people, he claims, never learn this, remaining emotionally stunted because parents and schools fail to teach it. The real secret to Christian living, he says, is using your mind to direct your actions, not your emotions.

Here’s the sleight of hand: Herb makes you doubt your own mind by framing your emotions as a betrayal of reason. If you feel angry about the WCG’s triple tithes bankrupting your family, or skeptical of their failed 1972 Tribulation prophecy, that’s not your God-given intellect at work—it’s emotional immaturity, a spiritual failing. The cult didn’t want you to trust your rational instincts—like questioning why the Armstrongs lived in luxury while you struggled. Instead, they wanted you to surrender your thinking to Herb, the “apostle” who claimed to speak for God. Your doubts weren’t the problem; the WCG was, and they gaslit you into thinking otherwise to keep you in line.

The Shame Game: Your Thoughts Aren’t Godly

Herb doubles down with a tragic case study: a highly educated man whose emotional immaturity—never learning to control his moods—led to a broken marriage and ruined career. He was spoiled as a child, never taught self-restraint, and let his feelings warp his understanding, remaining emotionally and spiritually a child. Herb laments that most people never grow up emotionally or spiritually, failing to achieve God’s purpose: developing “right character” through mind-directed actions.

This is where the manipulation deepens. The WCG didn’t just shame you for feeling emotions—they shamed you for thinking critically. If your mind questioned the cult’s scandals, that was emotional immaturity, not reason. If you doubted the endless financial demands that left you broke while Herb flew private jets, that was your childish feelings talking, not your God-given intellect. The cult gaslit you into doubting your own cognitive faculties, insisting that true maturity meant surrendering your thoughts to Herb’s authority. Your rational mind was screaming something was wrong, but the WCG called that a sin, ensuring you’d trust Herb over your own judgment.

The Control Tactic: Surrender to Herb, Not God

Herb pivots to child-rearing, urging parents to teach emotional maturity from infancy by controlling feelings like anger and jealousy, and directing them toward “giving” (love). He shares a personal story: his first funeral, where he nearly broke down in fear but was “sobered” by his father’s stern words and God’s help, achieving emotional balance—calm dignity with tenderness. He insists emotions aren’t to be nullified, just “guided” by the mind into God’s law, but his real message is clear: your mind should follow the WCG’s rules, not your own reasoning.

This is the core of the con: the WCG didn’t want you to use your mind—they wanted you to surrender it to the Dear Leader. “Giving” meant giving to the cult—your money, time, and loyalty—while suppressing any thoughts that challenged their authority. The cult framed critical thinking as a spiritual failing, ensuring you’d hand over your God-given faculties to a mere man who claimed to speak for God, all while his empire was built on lies and exploitation.

The Religious Spin: True Faith Means No Questions

Herb takes a jab at other religions, claiming emotional immaturity is most apparent in faith. Some groups, he says, work up emotions into a frenzy, shouting “Hallelujah!” with no thought, mistaking emotion for spirituality. Others are purely mental, rejecting the Holy Spirit. True spirituality, he argues, comes from the impersonal Holy Spirit electrical-like force, given only to those who obey God’s law (Acts 5:32), and is “sound mindedness” (2 Timothy 1:7), not emotional frenzy. The emotionally mature, he says, express controlled joy and sympathy, but never let emotion—or independent thought—substitute for spiritual obedience.

Here’s the rub: the WCG redefined spirituality as blind obedience to Herb, not God. If your mind questioned their legalistic rules and rituals—you weren’t being rational; you were being unspiritual. If you thought critically about Herb’s failed prophecies or the cult’s financial scams, that was your immature emotions, not your intellect. The cult didn’t want you to think for yourself; they wanted you to doubt your own mind and trust Herb’s instead, even as his leadership caused the real suffering: families split by disfellowshipment, lives ruined by financial draining, and faith shattered by lies. The WCG gaslit you into surrendering your cognitive faculties, all while claiming it was for your spiritual good.

Trust Your God-Given Mind

The WCG’s “hidden enemy” wasn’t emotional immaturity—it was the cult’s agenda to make you doubt your own mind and surrender your thinking to a mere man. Herb wanted you to see your rational instincts—your doubts about failed prophecies, financial exploitation, and predatory leadership—as a spiritual failing, ensuring you’d trust him over your God-given faculties. But your mind was right to question, and your emotions were right to scream. Stop letting the cult guilt you for thinking. Reclaim your cognitive freedom, ditch Armstrongism’s hidden agenda, and trust the mind God gave you to see the truth.

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Hidden Enemy or Hidden Agenda? © 2025 by AiCOG is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0

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Crackpot Prophet: I am the 21st Century Radio Church of God

Craig White sent out his latest newsletter, which talks about the history behind the name Radio Church of God, which Herbert named his version of the Church of God when he left in a fit of rebellion from COG, Salem WV (COG7) because they refused his demands about holy days and other non-essentials. Does that remind you of anyone else today?

There is only one correct answer to that: it is the Great Bwana Bob Mzungu Thiel, the greatest Church of God leader since Peter, Paul, and James walked this earth. No one knows more about theology, world events, the Catholic Church, Mayans, Malachy, church history, geology, and herbs than he. Only an ungrateful heathen would fail to recognize the mighty one!

That said, let’s talk about radio. 

 

Jesus said:

14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14) 

 

Being on mass media, including radio, is something that COG leaders have done since no later than the 1930s to help fulfill that. 

 

Radio was used so much to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom and other biblical messages, that after he left CG7, the late Herbert W. Armstrong initially did business as the Radio Church of God.

You can be guaranteed that this is going to go just where you think he will take it!.

Notice something published by the old Radio Church of God:

Revelation 3:7-13: “And to the angel of the Church in Philadelphia write these things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that OPENETH, and no man SHUTTETH; and SHUTTETH and no man openeth.” The great door that God has opened to this work is the facility to go into all the world and preach the gospel; the door of radio, the door of the printing press, plus many other such doors. God has set before us an open door and no MAN can shut it. God can shut it, and He will when the work is finished and the Philadelphia Church goes to a place of safety. “I know thy works: Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name” (verse 8). 

 

Notice that this Church has works. It has works of ZEAL and of REPENTANCE. This Church has only a little strength. But, by contrast, the Church of Laodicea believes that IT is increased with goods and has a great deal of strength. Philadelphia has little strength to do this great work that God has given it to do. God has opened the door, and yet look how insignificant, how weak, how little strength we as a Church have to do that work. How much we lack in every way, and yet God has opened the door and has given us certain vital, supernatural, spiritual gifts. Very often we lack enough money to pay the radio bills and other expenses. WE ARE FEW IN NUMBER, while many other eras of the Church of God numbered in the hundreds of thousands. We indeed have little strength. And yet, look at the great power that God has placed before us. (Neff L. What Is the LAODICEAN CHURCH? Good News, August 1959) 

 

The ‘open door’ to the Philadelphians does have to do with gospel proclamation. Consider the following scriptures:

12 Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened to me by the Lord (2 Corinthians 2:12).

8 But I will tarry in Ephesus until Pentecost. 9 For a great and effective door has opened to me (1 Corinthians 16:8-9).

27 Now when they had come and gathered the church together, they reported all that God had done with them, and that He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles (Acts 14:27). 

 

We in the Continuing Church of God are going through the open doors in radio as well as with the printing press, the internet, travel, and personal contact. This includes to areas like Africa with Gentiles.

Did you also know that Herbert Armstrong knew that Bwana Bob would rise up in the latter days to lead the one true church?

Consider also the following from Herbert W. Armstrong’s last letter before he died:

It may be that the Work that God has given me to do is complete, but not the Work of God’s Church, which will be faithfully doing God’s Work till Christ, the True Head of this Church, returns… 

 

Remember brethren, this is not the work of Herbert W. Armstrong…The greatest work lies ahead… Never before in the history of the Church has it been possible to reap so great a harvest. It has only been made possible through modern technology, beginning with the printing press, radio, television...Each of you must commit yourself to support God’s Work…God’s work must push ahead as never before. God is opening up new doors in television (Letter, 1/10/86).

Actually, those new doors for television have included the internet, which allows videos as well as online radio. 

 

Another new door has been being a radio guest. 

Being a radio guest where he cons his host that he is a real Christian and a person who understands the Bible is NOT using an open door. Besides, the door has never been shut. Not when Herbert was alive, nor now, when various COG cults are spreading heresy freely.  

As long-term readers are aware, I, Dr. Bob Thiel, AKA COGwriter have frequently been a radio guest. After being so over 230 times, the time seemed right for the CCOG to sponsor our own programs. 

 

Prior to that, CCOG Overseer Samuel Ofosu from Ghana had already doing that. 

 

Plus, in New Zealand, Shirley Gestro helped handling our Bible News Prophecy online radio channel. Various men in CCOG have been on it. This is another way we reach people. 

 

We reach people all around the world from the online radio program. We also have Bible News Prophecy International radio which Kristy Gorman handles.

The Great Bwana just entered into an agreement with European Gospel Radio to spread his illicit message of Old Covenant bondage. And that, boys and girls, is why he is the New Radio Church of God. This new radio program will bring him into direct conflict with the Catholic Church and help usher in the end times.

Being on radio in Europe is part of The Final Phase of the Work. When we see certain prophecies fulfilled and are identifying the upcoming European Beast leader in leading some of those efforts, it is my opinion that being on radio in places like Europe will be key for attention to be drawn to the Continuing Church of God (CCOG). 

 

I believe that being on European radio may be the spark that will set off more public scrutiny of the CCOG and our teachings. That will lead to more people looking at our websites as well as the hundreds of languages that of our The Gospel of the Kingdom of God has been translated into. The coming scrutiny of our teachings will lead not only to support the fulfillment of Matthew 24:14, but also events in Daniel 11:28-35 and other scriptures. 

The Great Bwana goes on to name numerous radio stations he is on ( a prime list of organizations to contact as to why they are letting American cultists spread heresy.

He ends with this:

Consider that most, even in the Church of God, will not believe the message of the work, even though they were told and could see the truth if they were willing. 

 

Now, we are continuing to lay the foundation for the short work of Romans 9:28 and I believe that having a radio presence around the world, and particularly in Europe, will be a factor in it.

No faithful Christian would EVER follow such a deceptive, illegitimately ordained fraud as we see today in Bob Thiel. That is a simple fact!