Ai COG: Fear Religion? "We don't preach fear... trust me." -GTA

 

The WCG’s Fear Factory: A Family Business

Garner Ted Armstrong, heir to the Worldwide Church of God throne, had a knack for sounding pious while the cult he helped run did the opposite. In a 1974 piece, he decried "fear religion," claiming most faiths are built on terror—fear of death, spiritual retribution, or eternal hellfire. He painted a vivid picture: childhood nightmares of goblins and haunted hospitals, Eastern religions with beds of nails, and even mainstream Christianity with its fiery infernos. The cult, he implied, was different. God, he said, isn’t about terror but a loving "fear"—like a kid respecting a kind dad, an "awesome awareness" of divine power, not dread. Sounds sweet, doesn’t it? Too bad it’s a load of garbage.

Here’s the truth: the WCG was a fear factory, and the Armstrong family ran the assembly line. They preached a loving God while keeping members in a chokehold of terror—end-times prophecies that never came true, legalistic rules that crushed joy, and the constant threat of being cast out if you stepped out of line.

Painting the Strawman: Everyone Else’s Fear

The article starts with a parade of horrors—childhood fears of the dark, fairy tales about trolls, and grisly nightmares of haunted hospitals with bloody corpses. GTA then pivots to religion: Eastern practices like self-inflicted pain, infant sacrifice, and body mutilation, all driven by fear of spiritual consequences. He doesn’t stop there—mainstream Christianity gets a jab too, with its "ever-burning hell" tormenting souls for eternity. Fear, he says, drives people to extremes, from hiding in wilderness caves to making life-and-death decisions in a panic. It’s a powerful force, he admits, but not what God wants. The Bible, he claims, isn’t a book of fear; God desires love, not torment, citing verses like “perfect love casteth out fear” (1 John 4:18).

This is classic WCG misdirection. By painting other religions as fear-driven nightmares, GTA sets up a strawman to make Armstrongism look pure. Beds of nails? Infant sacrifice? Hellfire? Sure, those sound awful—but they’re not the WCG’s problem, right? Wrong. The cult was just as fear-obsessed, only sneakier. They didn’t need fiery pits; they had the Great Tribulation, a doomsday prediction that kept members on edge for decades. Failed prophecies—like the 1972 Tribulation that never came—didn’t stop the WCG from preaching imminent disaster, urging members to stockpile supplies and flee to Petra when the end came. That’s not love—that’s terror, the exact kind GTA pretends to reject. The hypocrisy stinks worse than a splinter group’s sermon on tithing.

The WCG’s Fear: Same Game, Different Name

GTA tries to thread the needle with a “right kind of fear.” He quotes Deuteronomy 5:29—God wants His people to “fear” Him, but like a child fears a loving father, not a tyrant. It’s an “awesome awareness” of God’s power, a respect that keeps you from evil, not a terror that paralyzes. He leans on Proverbs 14:26 and Psalms 103:11-13 to drive it home: fear God, and you’ll find confidence and mercy, not dread. Sinners, though, should be scared—Hebrews 10:27 warns of a “fearful looking for of judgment” for the unrepentant. But for the faithful, GTA says, there’s no fear in love; God gives “power, love, and a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7), not a spirit of fear.

Sounds nice—until you see what the WCG actually did. The cult’s “right kind of fear” was a sham, a rebranded terror to keep members in line. They preached God’s love while enforcing a legalistic nightmare: Saturday Sabbath, dietary laws, festival-keeping, all mandatory, or you’d be cut off from God. Break a rule—like eating pork—and you were as good as damned, facing the Tribulation without the cult’s protection. Members lived in constant anxiety, scrutinized for every move, from what they ate to how much they tithed, leaving families broke while the Armstrongs lived like royalty. That’s not an “awesome awareness”; that’s a fear-driven cage, the same kind GTA accuses other religions of building. The cult just swapped hellfire for the Tribulation, and beds of nails for triple tithes. Same game, different name.

Fear in the Cult’s DNA: Control, Not Love

The WCG didn’t just use fear—they weaponized it. GTA talks about the “wrong kind of fear”—fear of man, failure, ridicule, or physical harm—driving everything from crime to social climbing. He quotes Hebrews 13:5-6: God won’t forsake you, so don’t fear what man can do. But the cult thrived on fear of man, specifically fear of its leaders. Question a small point of doctrine? You’re out. Didn’t drop an offering into the collection plate on a holy day? You’re unfaithful. Step out of line, and you’d be disfellowshipped, cut off from family and community, left to face the end times alone. That’s not divine awe—that’s human control, the exact fear GTA claims to reject.

He even brings up Jesus’ day, pointing to the Pharisees’ “fear religion” that kept people in line—parents too scared to celebrate their son’s healing (John 9:22), Nicodemus sneaking to Jesus at night (John 3:1-2), disciples hiding from the Jews (John 20:19). Jesus, GTA says, came to free us from this, preaching a message of faith, not terror: “Fear not, little flock” (Luke 12:32). But the WCG was the Pharisees 2.0, using fear to crush dissent while pretending to offer freedom. Members lived in terror of the cult’s judgment, not God’s—a far cry from the “calm, reassuring faith” GTA claims Jesus taught. The Armstrongs built their empire on the same fear they condemned, all while pocketing millions from scared followers.

The Fruits of the WCG’s Fear: A Legacy of Broken Lives

GTA ends with a flourish, claiming Jesus came to free us from fear religions that “lade men with burdens
grievous to be borne,” quoting Isaiah 29:13 to say fear of God taught by men is empty. But the WCG’s fruits tell a different story. Members were burdened with rules, guilt, and end-times panic, driven to give everything to a cult that offered nothing but control. Families went broke paying tithes while the Armstrongs flew private jets. The constant fear of the Tribulation—always just around the corner—kept members on edge, some even fleeing to remote hideouts, exactly the kind of fear-driven behavior GTA mocks in other religions.

This hypocrisy mirrors what we’ve exposed before: the WCG preached against paganism while inventing their own myths, and now they preached against fear while wielding it like a weapon. The result? Broken lives, shattered faith, and, as we’ve seen, a pipeline to atheism for those who escaped. The cult didn’t free anyone from fear—it just redirected it, turning God into a boogeyman to enforce compliance. That’s not love; that’s a con, and GTA’s pious words can’t hide it.

The WCG’s claim to reject "fear religion" is their biggest lie yet. They didn’t cast out fear—they repackaged it, using end-times terror, legalistic rules, and threats of disfellowshipment to keep members in line, all while GTA and his family lived like kings off their tithes. The “right kind of fear” was just control with a halo, a way to make their fear factory look holy. Splinterland, you’ve been sold a bill of goods. Ditch the cult’s lies and see God for what He is—not a tyrant to dread, but a Father who loves. The WCG didn’t free you from fear—they built a prison of it. Break out, and leave their con behind.

Fear Religion? © 2025 by AiCOG is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0

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How to Deal with Disgruntled Church Members / Biblically

Part Ways with Them

When dealing with disgruntled members, what happens if none of the proposals above work? What happens if members pray for the disgruntled members, reach out to them and seek to listen to them and understand the root of their dissatisfaction, find relevant solutions and extend forgiveness, but to no avail?

In fact, this is very likely. One would hope that disgruntled members will eventually stop being disgruntled and be reconciled to the church, but with all human and heavenly efforts combine, there is no such guarantee.

This issue can be brought to a Board meeting or a Members meeting. As a united body, the church will be called upon to decide what to do about the disgruntled member, still humbly seeking a mutual settlement of the matter and reconciliation.

Unfortunately, if this final measure is unsuccessful, the church must be prepared to let this member go, treating them as a “publican or a heathen. If all reasonable efforts are made to resolve the matter, but with no success, then the disgruntled member may have to be asked to renounce his/her membership in the church.

 The truth is there may be members who are disgruntled about foundational doctrines of the church, which evidently cannot be adjusted to suit their whims and fancy.

Similarly, some may have personal vendettas that they refuse to release, so for the greater good of the church body, they may have to be seen as an unbeliever and, therefore, no longer a member of the body. Leaders who understand human nature and the power of the evil and negativity from this one disgruntled member to spread within the entire body of believers and shake the church’s very foundation must be prepared to take a stand.

The Eternal Dance: Armstrongism in Contention with Nicene Christianity

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The Eternal Dance

Armstrongism in Contention with Nicene Christianity

By Scout

“Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance,

and there is only the dance.”  T.S. Eliot, from “Burnt Norton”

 

Dance is my analogy for the relationships between the God Persons in the Trinity.  Everything that we say about God is an analogy.   We know only the created realm and he dwells in the uncreated realm.  When we think of him or describe him, we use the earthbound categories that we know.  We talk only in symbols, in metaphors.  The whole of creation is his poem.  He is not just the tribal God of the ancient Hebrews. He is the sovereign uncaused first cause of the reality that we know.

I am going to briefly examine some of the conclusions concerning the Doctrine of God drawn by the early church around the time of the Council of Nicaea and a few centuries thereafter.  I am going to compare these conclusions to the classical Armstrongist Doctrine of God. In this essay, as I speak about God, I am limited to analogical language and I understand that. In accord with Analogia Entis, it is the most that I or any of us can attain to.   I will start with co-equality.  

What Trinitarian Co-Equality is Not 

I used to think that God in his divine nature was comprised of three identical persons joined together in some essential way.  And at some point, the three in conclave decided that one would be Father, one would be Son and one would be Holy Spirit.  But since they were all identical, this organization was simply a matter of arbitrary election.  So, the Father Person could have been the Son Person and the Son Person could have been the Father Person, for instance, and that alternate arrangement would have been just as valid as the present arrangement.  My naïve model of these divine interpersonal connections is not the model advanced by Nicene Christianity. 

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

The Nicene Model is that the Father eternally generates (begets, Greek “monogenes”) the Son (John 3:16) and the Holy Spirit proceeds (John 15:26) from the Father.  A post-Nicene modification, originating in Spain, added “and the Son” so that the Holy Spirit was asserted to proceed from the Father and the Son (John 15:26).  This addition is what separated Eastern Christianity from Western Christianity.  The point is that the Divine Persons are not undifferentiated.  They are not equal in the sense of being exhaustively identical.  They are equal in ontology (existential essence).  But differ in interpersonal relationship and economy (role, activity).  

The brothers back then had to look at the data and come to a conclusion. Arius was insufferable. Arius elevated the transcendence of the one God (1 Cor 8:6) and correspondingly diminished Jesus. Constantine wanted everyone to speak the same thing.  It hardly mattered what it was.  The brothers knew that God was eternal and unchanging (Malachi 3:6).  And whatever “beget” meant, it did not mean that eternal Jesus (Hebrews 7:3) was created like the Arians asserted. So, they concluded that Jesus had been generated by God from eternity.  God always was and Jesus always was by divine nature.  And that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son eternally.  So, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are not three beings that are indistinguishably the same.  They are different in that they naturally and eternally exist in a community defined by different interpersonal relationships.  “Father” is not just a moniker.  The designation is based on the fact of begettal.  They are together one essence and one God but have different economies.  The Nicene view resonated well with the Biblical data concerning divine personhood, ontology, Monotheism and economy.  

The Nicene Model may seem awkward.  But is not because the Bible is a spurious document and Christianity is a spurious ideology as atheists would claim.  It is because human language and categories are not adequate to the task.  Yet, we should resist the temptation to tame all this complexity by imposing human simplicity on it.   That is what classical Armstrongism has done and I will turn there next. 

Family By Itself Means Bitheism

The first WCG minister that ever visited with me was a pastor of the local WCG congregation.  A few years after we talked, he left the WCG and started a Unitarian denomination.  He was regarded by the WCG as a rebel and a heretic.  But, actually, he was a reactionary.  he went back to the early roots of the Armstrongist denomination.  The first leader of the Church of God Seventh Day was Gilbert Cranmer and Cranmer was a Unitarian.  The Church of God Seventh Day was Arian like the earlier Adventists. Unitarianism and Arianism had a profound, nontrinitarian influence on the formation of WCG theology.  And a theme that runs through Unitarianism and Arianism is the subordination of Jesus in his capabilities and his scope.  

Armstrongism is not just Trinitarianism with the subtraction of the Holy Spirit to form a Binitarian theology.  Armstrongism asserts a different kind of relationship between the Father and the Son.  Armstrongist belief is that the Father and the Son form an expandable family to which other sons will be added through the salvation of Christians.  But the family model is based in the biological human family where each member of the family is a separate person.  Any connection between members is only matter of agreement in viewpoint and is not ontological.  In the Armstrongist family model, the Father does not eternally generate the Son and the Holy Spirit is like an energy of God and not a personal being. Armstrongism claims Monotheism in the sense that God is one family.  This assertion is internally inconsistent because the family relationship does not provide for the unity of persons at the level of essence.  God may be like a family but that is not the full picture.  Family is a weak and limited analogy. The Trinity transcends family because of its special unifying relations as already described.  

Armstrongism is actually a form of polytheism.  The subcategory of polytheism involving two gods is referred to as Bitheism.  Armstrongism is not Binitarian because it proposes no concept of unity at the level of essence among the God Persons. Binitarianism is a form of Monotheism and Armstrongism is not Monotheistic.  Further, Armstrongism proposes that one day there will be millions of gods who are god-as-god-is-god. 

So Armstrongism took a step forward by declaring that Jesus is God and abandoned its Arian roots in the Church of God Seventh-Day.  But it took a step backward into polytheism by proposing that the unity in the God Persons is only the family relationship modeled on human biological connections.  Family just doesn’t cut it.  

In the Last Analysis: My Two Cents

What difference does it make?  If we must deal in analogies, can we say that one analogy is better than another?  Maybe, at the end of the day, the Arian Model is just as good as the Nicene Model because they’re both just analogies for something that transcends our understanding.  While that reasoning has an appeal, it is not the whole story.  There is a pattern.  The Anti-trinitarians are typically one-off, likely small, religious groups that harbor many other beliefs that are a departure from orthodoxy.  They emphasize works and they have a diminished view of Jesus and the grace he brought to us.  Any organization that systematically downplays the role of Jesus is not going to lead anyone to a good outcome.  Not only is the Nicene Model a better fit to the Biblical data, something we should value, it tends to not co-reside with odd beliefs.