If at first a pastor is wrong, does he try, try again?
Maybe not. A spokesman for a small church denomination in northern Ohio denies online claims that its leader is predicting the return of Jesus Christ will occur Sunday, June 1.
“That is not something that the Restored Church of God teaches, or that Mr. Pack is claiming,” Edward Winkfield said in a phone interview Tuesday, May 27.
David Pack, the founder of RCG, has been accused of setting failed dates many times in messages to his headquarters congregation. Former member Marc Cebrian has posted dozens of video clips from Pack's sermons to illustrate that.
“It is interesting that it was coming from someone who was being critical,” Winkfield said. “But I can say unequivocally that is not what we teach.”
Cebrian might respond by saying that's because Pack has revised the Pentecost date again. Cebrian's website showed two predicted return dates Tuesday: June 1 and June 11.
Cebrian's
ExRCG.org blog did not explain the later date, except that it was a full moon. But
one video clip dated Saturday, May 3 shows Pack defending his Pentecost reasoning.
“God would never say regarding the arrival of His Kingdom, 'It's Pentecost,'” Pack said. “He almost does a number of times, in ways that are impossible to misunderstand.”
But, Pack added, God stops short of providing a specific date in the Bible because “the whole world would know.”
An earlier article cited clips posted by Cebrian in which Pack predicted Christ's return on Sunday, March 30, the start of the Hebraic calendar year. He called that date “immutable church doctrine”.
“The second coming of Christ is a pretty foundational doctrine in any Christian, Bible-teaching church,” Winkfield said when asked about that. “We study prophecy... it's part of what we teach.”
Winkfield added RCG is a group which “remains hopeful... more than anything definitive.
“Maybe you could go as far as speculating different things, but I wouldn't take it as anything beyond that,” Winkfield explained.
Yet Pack's early May video claims that proving Pentecost as the return date is like “falling over backwards without even being pushed. It's that easy.”
Pack goes on to cite a main Bible verse quoted by opponents of prophetic date-setting. Jesus said of end-time events in Mark 13:32, “Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
“Well, we know both,” Pack claimed in the early May video.
Winkfield, RCG’s Publications and Media Director, admitted he doesn't know the motives of RCG critics. Cebrian's website says its goal is “exposing the truth” about RCG and Pack.
Pack would not be alone in expecting a second coming of Jesus on Pentecost.
Ron Weinland, leader of the Church of God-Preparing for the Kingdom of God in northern Kentucky, predicted Jesus would return first on Pentecost 2009, then Pentecost 2012.
Days after the 2012 prediction failed, Weinland was convicted by a federal jury on five counts of tax evasion. Weinland's
website biography says he was “falsely imprisoned by the government of the United States,” with a sentence of 3.5 years.
But
newspaper accounts of his trial say Weinland's attorneys admitted he moved church funds to a Swiss bank account. Weinland reportedly thought the U.S. economy was on the brink of collapse.
Both Pack and Weinland's groups are related to the Worldwide Church of God, made famous by Herbert Armstrong through
The World Tomorrow broadcasts of the 20thcentury.
Both ministers left WCG (now Grace Communion International) after the denomination made major changes in doctrine years after Armstrong's death.
Not every WCG spinoff group preaches that the second coming will occur on Pentecost. Without setting dates, they hint a Biblical timeline of salvation points to Jesus possibly returning on the Jewish “Feast of Trumpets” or Rosh Hashanah.
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