Ai COG: Hotel Armstrong: You Can Check Out, but You go to the Lake of Fire

 

The Cult’s Favorite Tactic: Blame the Exiles

In an August 1980 Good News Article, the Ol’ Herb was on a mission to demonize anyone who dared leave his flock. In a piece that reeks of desperation, he claimed ex-members—those “embittered” dissidents—spend their days obsessing over what’s “wrong” with the WCG, conjuring up “monstrous, impossible, filthy lies” about the church and its leaders. Their minds, he said, are consumed with negativity, twisting facts into falsehoods, spreading rumors, and fueling their “vengeful bitterness.” Meanwhile, loyal members focus on the “wonderful truths” of God’s work—see the difference? If you don’t, you’re in danger of becoming one of those satanic exiles. It’s the WCG’s favorite gaslighting trick: don’t question us, or you’ll end up like them—cursed, miserable, and doomed.

We show how Armstrong and his demonic decedents shamed ex-members and current ones alike to silence dissent, all while ignoring the real reasons people left—like the WCG’s corruption, failed prophecies, and predatory leaders. In an unsurprising reveal: those “dissidents” weren’t the problem—the entire religious system of Armstrongism was.

Painting the Villain: Ex-Members as Satanic Liars

The article kicks off with a vicious attack on ex-members, claiming their “principal purpose in life” is to “expose the evils” of the WCG. The founder paints them as bitter haters whose every thought and conversation revolves around what’s “wrong” with the church. They’re not just critical—they’re liars, twisting facts into “filthy” rumors about the WCG and its leaders. He quotes Jude 8-19 to seal their fate, calling them “filthy dreamers” who “defile the flesh,” “speak evil of dignities,” and are destined for “the blackness of darkness forever.” They’re “raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame,” driven by “ungodly lusts,” and lacking the Holy Spirit. In short, they’re not just wrong—they’re satanic, and their fruit is chaos, leading splinter groups that fight each other and drag others away from Christ entirely. If you’ve been in any of the WCG’s offshoots for any length of time, you have probably seen similar letters and sentiments expressed in a similar fashion.

This is gaslighting at its ugliest. The WCG didn’t just excommunicate members—they vilified them, turning them into cartoonish villains to scare the flock into loyalty. But ex-members weren’t making up “filthy lies”—they were exposing real ones, like the cult’s failed prophecies (1972 Tribulation, anyone?), the triple tithes that bankrupted families while the Armstrongs lived like kings, and scandals like Garner Turd Armstrong’s college harem at Ambassador College, which we covered in “Suspicious Lies.” The WCG couldn’t handle the truth, so they smeared the whistleblowers, gaslighting members into thinking criticism was satanic. It’s a classic cult move: don’t fix your problems—just blame the ones who call them out.

The Warning Shot: Don’t Join the Damned

The dear leader doesn’t stop at ex-members—he turns the spotlight on you, the reader. He warns that their bitterness could infect your heart, urging you to “think no evil” and set your mind on “things above” (Colossians 3:1-3, Proverbs 23:7). The WCG, he says, is the “Body of Christ,” preparing to be Christ’s spotless Bride at His soon return, so forget the past—your sins are covered if you repent. But ex-members? They’re not blessed like the WCG, which is “back on track,” growing, and knit together with Christ. He tells you to pray for them, that they might repent and return, but also to pray for each other to endure to the end, now “near.”

Here’s the gaslighting twist: if you even think about sympathizing with ex-members, you’re at risk of becoming one of them—bitter, cursed, and lost. The WCG framed itself as the pure, blessed church, while ex-members were miserable failures leading doomed splinter groups. But the reality? The WCG was bleeding members because of its own failures—financial exploitation, authoritarian control like the Visiting Program we exposed in “Gestapo in God’s Name,” and leadership scandals. Ex-members weren’t “unblessed” for leaving; they were free, while the WCG was the one fighting to survive, hemorrhaging followers to those “eight or 10 little splinter groups” that wouldn’t have existed without the cult’s own dysfunction. The founder gaslit members into thinking the problem was the dissidents, not the cult that drove them away.

The Real Lies: The WCG’s House of Cards

The article’s biggest lie is its refusal to admit why ex-members left. Herbie claims they’re just bitter and satanic, but let’s look at the facts. By 1980, the WCG was a mess—GTA had been disfellowshipped in 1978 for his Ambassador College harem, a scandal that confirmed members’ worst suspicions about the leadership’s hypocrisy. The cult’s prophecies kept failing (no Tribulation in 1936, 1951, or 1972, no Petra escape), yet they still preached the end was “near,” keeping members in fear, The triple tithes left families broke while the Armstrongs lived in luxury, pulling in $200 million a year by the 1980s (over $600 million today).

Ex-members weren’t “conjuring up lies”—they were telling the truth, and the leadership couldn’t handle it. The splinter groups the founder mocks? They formed because people saw through the cult’s facade and wanted out, even if they didn’t fully escape Armstrongism’s grip. The real “fruit” of the WCG wasn’t growth or peace—it was broken lives, financial ruin, and a pipeline to atheism for those who, as the article admits, “departed entirely from Christ” after leaving. The WCG gaslit members into thinking ex-members were the problem, but the cult’s own corruption was the root of it all.

Stop Falling for the Shame Game

The WCG’s gaslighting in “How Ex-member Dissidents Fill Their Minds” was a desperate endgame: smear ex-members as satanic liars, shame current members into silence, and pretend the cult is God’s pure church—all while ignoring the scandals, failed prophecies, and control tactics that drove people away. The founder wanted you to believe dissidents were the problem, but they were just the ones brave enough to speak the truth about the WCG’s rot. Stop falling for the shame game. Your doubts, like those of the ex-members, aren’t satanic—they’re a sign you’re waking up. Ditch the cult’s lies, and walk out of the trap for good.

Hotel Armstrong © 2025 by AiCOG is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0

---

Subscribe to ::Armstrongism investigated::

By Ai-COG · Launched 4 months ago

::Armstrongism investigated:: takes a Deep Dive into the cultic murky world of the Worldwide Church of God and its offshoots. If you love investigating cults stick around and prepare to dive deep!

In Defense of Rendered Righteousness: Concerning the Holy Inquiry into Beef Tallow

 

In Defense of Rendered Righteousness: 

Concerning the Holy Inquiry into Beef Tallow

By Elder Rev. Dr. Percival Thaddeus Grone

Brethren, Saints, and Those Who Sauté Without Understanding,

It has come to my attention, with no small measure of grief, that the recent doctrinal clarity offered by the United Church of God concerning beef tallow has been met not with reverence, but with ridicule. A certain blog, frequented by the spiritually unrefined and the casually blasphemous, has seen fit to mock the sacred labor of the Doctrine Committee (DC), reducing a matter of considerable theological weight to the level of fast food and pop health fads.

I write not to rebuke the DC – for their forthcoming work will certainly speak for itself, glistening with unction – but rather to issue a gentle but firm reminder to those who dare to question the legitimacy of this fat-based inquiry, who dismiss as trivial what may yet prove to be a hinge upon which great eschatological truths swing.

Let the mockers take note: it is no light matter to despise the day of purified truth.

Of Tallow and Torah

The Levitical code – often skimmed, rarely digested – makes frequent and solemn mention of the handling, burning, and prohibition of certain fats. (Leviticus 3:16-17, 7:23-25). It does not distinguish, as modern man does, between “culinary” and “ceremonial” uses, nor does it shrink from specificity.

If the Law devotes multiple verses to the fat upon the inwards, is it so far-fetched that a Church born of Scripture would pause to consider whether piping hot tallow may cross the invisible boundary from cooking aid to covenantal compromise?

This is not pedantry. This is Adipotheology – the study of sacred fats and their role in the moral metabolism of the faithful.

The Problem of Unfiltered Commentary

I have read the remarks. “Who has even heard of beef tallow?” one anonymous scoffer asked, perhaps while microwaving seed-oil-drenched remnants of Babylonian Cuisine. “Do we really need doctrinal statements on these things?” cries another, forgetting thatdoctrinal papers are the very medium by which councils preserve the faith once delivered.

Even more troubling is the implication that such inquiries are mere busywork for Church administrators – something to “justify their existence.” I ask you: Did Moses not receive detailed instructions for tabernacle measurements, curtain colors, and priestly undergarments? Shall we now accuse him of time-wasting?

This same nameless critic – whose credentials remain as elusive as their courage – likened this holy inquiry to “studying the sex lives of gnats.” I would caution such individuals to reflect more deeply on the plagues of Egypt, in which the Lord made abundant use of small insects to reveal the hardness of men’s hearts.

Clarification, Not Control

It has also been suggested that such discussions are meant to cow the brethren into submissive dependence. This, too, is a theological offal – malnourished thinking dressed up as discernment. The aim is not control, but clarity. A member who inquires whether their use of tallow aligns with divine expectation is not a slave, but a seeker.

And if a minister lacks the discernment to answer such a question, then yes – a study paper is needed.

One does not dismiss the map simply because the road is narrow.

What the Scoffers Miss

Amidst the scoffing, a pattern emerges: a refusal to believe that small things matter. That fats, genealogies, shadows of the Law – while perhaps minor in caloric content – may carry theological weight. These are not the concerns of fluffy-minded milquetoasts. These are the concerns of covenant-keepers, watchmen on the dietary walls.

The idea that “we eat fat every time we eat meat” is presented as a trump card. But this is like saying “we sin every day,” as though frequency excuses gravity. Even if true, it calls not for mockery but for mindfulness.

A Final Word to the Theologically Lean

To the bloggers and commenters who see tallow as a distraction from greater suffering in the world: it is possible – indeed, necessary – to care about both. The Church is called to live in a state of faithful fatfulness – not gluttonous, not ascetic, but watchful. Whether in the pulpit or the pantry, righteousness requires attention to detail.

The Doctrine Committee, in its deliberations, has dignified the question. The bloggers, in their derision, have revealed something altogether more concerning: a tendency to laugh where trembling would be more appropriate.

May the saints consider carefully what is offered, what is received, and what is scorned.

Elder Rev. Dr. Percival Thaddeus Grone

Percival Thaddeus Grone

Senior Fellow of Sacrificial Nutrition and Theological Lipidology at the First Antioch Institute of Levitical Wellness
Certified Liturgical Edibility Analyst (C.L.E.A.N.)

Still Watching Since 1844

Pondering the Armstrongist Torah Redo: The Confessions of a Former Festival Advisor

 

Staircase to the Southern Gate of the Second Temple (Fair Use)

 

Pondering the Armstrongist Torah Redo

The Confessions of a Former Festival Advisor

By Scout

לָשׂוּם אֶת שְׁמוֹ שָׁם (Hebrew, “to place his name”)

 

At one time, I was the Festival Advisor for the small WCG congregation I used to attend.  I was a part of the regime.  It is now high time for me to do penance.  This is the time of year when many of the little apocalyptic Millerite denominations that cascaded from the collapse of Armstrongism will encourage members to start festival planning.  So, it is the season.  In this writing, I refer to the Feast of Tabernacles (FOT or Sukkoth) because it illustrates some of the issues with the way that Armstrongism re-implemented the Torah in a new rendition. 

The History of Re-imagining the Torah

I will first discuss Rabbinic Judaism. I believe this is an important preface because I think many Armstrongists view the observance of the Torah as what happens in their local Jewish Congregation.  The Jews keep all the Holy Days locally.  But that was forced by the Destruction of the Temple in 70 AD during the Great Tribulation. 

The Torah is bound to a gathering place for worship.  The place was a tabernacle in the wilderness and then it became the First Temple, then the Second Temple.  The watershed event in the history of Torah observance was the loss of the Second Temple to Roman destruction in 70 AD, well after the introduction of the New Covenant.   The Judaic response to this truncation was to repackage the Torah sans Temple for local synagogue praxis.  This was inaugurated by prominent Pharisee Yohanan ben Zakkai (lived circa 1-80 AD; there are various spellings of his name) who had the endorsement of the Roman conquerors, particularly Vespasian.  Ben Zakkai had credibility because he and his faction were not seen by the Romans as a part of the Jewish Revolt.  Ben Zakkai assembled the Bet Din in Jamnia, a city to the west of Jerusalem on the Mediterranean coast and they repackaged the Torah to function without a Temple for synagogue liturgy.  One of Ben Zakkai’s guiding principles was that “deeds of love” had replaced sacrifices. 

Then, for Rabbinic Judaism, there is the issue of God having placed his name at the now destroyed Second Temple.  The placing of God’s name at a particular location is referred to by scholars as “the centralizing formula.”  According to researcher Zvi Koenigsberg the rabbis noted that the locations (called “high places”) varied in the time prior to the Temple and saw that as a principle that permitted multiple locations to be chosen. 

This collection of events, briefly stated, is the source of Rabbinic Judaism that most North American Gentiles are familiar with. A further sidebar issue is whether in the formation of Armstrongism the praxis of Rabbinic Judaism was copied, explicitly or implicitly, or if a separate but similar repackaging of the Torah sans Temple occurred.  I will not seek to address that issue in this writing.  What is known is that how God placed his name on the worship location to which the Torah is bound was of a different character among Armstrongists than what is depicted in the Bible.  The Bible asserts a high revelation in which God himself spoke the place where his name would dwell.  In Armstrongism, there was a low revelation in which HWA saw that circumstances were pointing to Big Sandy (also referred to as Gladewater) as the place where God’s name would dwell and this provided a valid location for Sukkoth observance.  The former revelation is documented in the Bible and the latter is documented in Armstrongist literature and, if it is credible at all, has only denominational scope. 

In both Rabbinic Judaism and Armstrongism, the Torah was uncoupled from the Temple without a precise Biblical model that I can discern to support this action.  Scripture does not anticipate the need to reassign the placing of God’s name.  The leaders of the Bet Din sat in Moses’ Seat but how did that authority extend to this uncoupling?  And where is the Biblical authority for Armstrongists to tamper with the placement of God’s name?  These are questions that need answers from those who would perpetuate Torah observance without the Temple.  The uncoupling of the Torah from the Temple seems to be a case that is yet to be built.

The Problem of the Temple-centric Torah

The Armstrongist rendition of the Torah fails the jot-and-tittle test (Matthew 5:18).  When Jesus made that well-known jot-and-tittle statement, he was referring to the full law as delivered in the Pentateuch.  This was a practice that was Temple-centric.  The FOT involved Temple sacrifices which became no longer binding under the New Covenant after the sacrifice of Jesus, but the Torah also prescribed that this was one of three occasions when the Israelite males were to come before God for worship at the location where he placed his name and this requirement would not have been abrogated by the sacrifice of Jesus.   And God placed his name at the Temple in Jerusalem.  So, if you believe the Torah is still binding on Christians, the sacrifices became passé under the New Covenant but the command to appear at the right place did not.  So, a big jot passed from the law in the Torah sans Temple repackaging by Armstrongism. 

The Temple-centric Torah still exists.  It lies fallow in everyone’s Bible.  Nobody can fully observe the Torah because the Temple is gone and has never been rebuilt.  And the Temple in Jerusalem was the place that God placed his name and this continued until 70 AD and that designation was never rescinded.  In fact, God stated the following in 2 Chronicles 7:16 regarding the placement of his name: “For now I have chosen and consecrated this house so that my name may be there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time.”  In these prophetic words, God apparently did not anticipate placing his name in Big Sandy, Texas or Squaw Valley, California.

I cannot find any place in scripture where the placement of God’s name in Jerusalem is rescinded.  2 Chronicles 7:16, quoted above, refers to the First Temple.  God abandoned that Temple (Ezekiel 10:18) and it was destroyed by the Babylonians.  But God’s name was still placed there even though God’s presence was not there and there was no physical structure.  We know this name placement had continuity because Darius stated the following concerning the proposed Second Temple (Ezra 6:12): “And the God that hath caused his name to dwell there destroy all kings and people, that shall put to their hand to alter and to destroy this house of God which is at Jerusalem.”   The continuity of the name placement extends into the New Heavens and New Earth because in Rev. 21:22 it states that there will be a New Jerusalem and God the Father and God the Son will be the Temple in that city.  A city that is eternal.  The placement of the name in Jerusalem survived national upheavals, destructions, captivities, loss of physical structure but it will continue into perpetuity.  Given this history and prophesied future, it is staggering that some believe that God would place his name at Wisconsin Dells or Tucson. 

The Temple Returns

In 1 Chronicles 7:16 quoted above, did God disclose that he could not really tell the future?  Did he not foresee the destruction of the first Temple or the Second Temple?  God actually creates reality so it is impossible that he would not see down the corridors of time and into the future.  God’s name continued to be placed in Jerusalem even though the physical structure of the Second Temple was destroyed in the Tribulation.  There has been a replacement for the Temple that was destroyed in 70 AD.  We are told of this in John 2:19-22 that Jesus said: “’Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.  The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”  How about that? The disciples did not, with a spirit of unbelief, turn to the Book of Ezekiel chapters 40 through 48 and tell the resurrected Jesus that he was wrong – that there was going to be another physical Temple building.  Since the Gospel of John and the Epistle to the Ephesians were roughly contemporary, it is like that the early church understood the full import of Jesus as the Temple. To seal the deal, the Levitical Priesthood, based in the Temple, was replaced (Hebrews 7:12).  And further, Christ as the Temple was attested by Jesus himself in John 2:19-22, Christ as the Temple was attested by Paul in Ephesians 2:20-22 and by John of Patmos in Revelation 21:22. In the mouths of two or three witnesses a thing is established.  

In spite of all this evidence, amazingly, there are those who claim the Torah is forever and written on their hearts (Hoeh says that the eternal law of God includes the Ten Commandments and also the “statutes and laws” derived from them in his article titled “Which Old Testament Laws Should We Keep Today?”) and that the Levitical Priesthood and the sacrificial system will be restored (Ezekiel 44:15) in the Millennium all based on the idea of Ezekiel’s Temple. So, it is worth having a look at Ezekiel’s Temple.  The account of it is starts in Ezekiel 40 but finishes in Revelation 21 and 22.  I will turn to that topic next. 

Ezekiel’s Temple and the Apokatastasis

Ezekiel delivered a lengthy prophecy (Ezekiel 40-48) that is a detailed description of an unbuilt Temple.  The passage describes a being giving the description of the Temple to Ezekiel.  The being says the message of the description is for Israel which was then in exile in Babylon.  Otherwise, the being does not provide any information about the purpose of the description. In particular, the being does not assert that it is a plan for a future physical Temple.  Consequently, there are many interpretations of this passage. 

The meaning of the passage about this imaginary Temple is problematical.  I will present what I think is the most plausible theory. Briefly, at the close of Ezekiel’s description of the Temple, he describes a river of healing waters that proceeds from beneath the threshold of a door to the Temple (Ezekiel 47:1-12). This description is repeated by John of Patmos in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 22:1-5).  Ezekiel and John are using the same imagery.  The connection is undeniable. John seems to provide a gloss on Ezekiel’s Temple writing.  But John of Patmos, a few sentences earlier in Rev. 21:22, makes an explicit statement about the Temple: “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”  What this means is that Ezekiel’s imaginary Temple is a symbol of God the Father and Jesus Christ according to John of Patmos.  In the Apokatastasis, there is the renewal of all things prophesied by Jesus when he walked the earth (Matt. 19:28).  Jesus is the Temple renewed, and this renewed Temple in the person of Jesus is not attended by the Levitical Priesthood but the Elect are the priests of that Age (1 Peter 2:9). 

Where the Data Leads

My penitential confession. The Torah has an unbreachable linkage to the Temple through Holy Day observation. The three major Holy Days required sacrifices and that all the males of Israel appear before God at the place where he put his name. The curtain fell on the Torah in its physical implementation in 70 AD when the Temple was destroyed in the Tribulation.  The physical Temple in the interval after the Crucifixion and before 70 AD had already been superseded by Jesus as the new Temple.  The physical destruction of the Temple just underscored this supersession. So, then the Torah as an integrated package of liturgy and praxis could no longer be kept.  All subsequent renditions of the Torah innovated by men are partially truncated without the Temple.  (Somebody needs to convince me that re-inventing the Torah sans Temple is a God-ordained directive rather than a pathology.) Proclaiming that the Temple is no longer required because there are no longer any sacrifices overlooks the fact that there were other Temple activities that are still executable.  Abrogating the sacrifices does not uncouple the Torah from the Temple.  The Torah and the Temple stand together or fall together. Ezekiel’s Temple does not proclaim a revitalization of the Torah, sacrifices and Levitical Priesthood but symbolizes God the Father and the Son who gave us the New Covenant with a new High Priest and a new priesthood and the Law of Christ.

 

Note:  Let me hasten to add that it is my exegeted position that there is nothing wrong with keeping any of the Holy Days. Knock yourself out.  I feel that it is highly probable that the Jerusalem Church in the First Century observed the Holy Days and some Temple worship prior to 70 AD.  Observation of a Holy Days can have pedagogical value if observed from a New Covenant perspective.  What is blatant heresy is to declare that Holy Day observance is required for salvation.  Circumcision is the canonical case against this view.  

UCG Trying To Determine If True Christians Can Use Beef Tallow

 

Why do Church of God leaders have to continually stick their noses into what church members do? They have no excuse for doing so, and that is why they have to constantly trot out submission to church government. Keep the members cowering in fear of losing their salvation, and church leaders and church councils can decree all kinds of idiotic nonsense like the use of beef tallow and British Israelism.

Unfortunately, this topic probably came up because some church member who had no discernment skills felt they had to ask a minister if they could use it. Church members are not encouraged to use their own wisdom and discernment in making decisions on their own. Sadly, this has been ingrained in COG culture for decades.

Now, we have those fun boys in Cincinnati, who recently unceremoniously kicked Rick Shabi to the curb, feeling they have to weigh in on various topics that most members couldn't care less about.

Empowering members to think for themselves is a dangerous predicament for church leaders.

Doctrine Committee (DC)—Mario Seiglie

Mr. Seiglie presented the following items that have been assigned to DC and their status:

• DC has completed a question-and-answer topic on the use of beef tallow. This subject was researched, sent to the COE for edits or comments, and then sent to the Media and Communications Department to be used as a PCD letter.
• The Prophecy Advisory Committee (PAC) has completed its research on the topic of carrying guns at work and having leadership responsibilities at Church services, such as leading songs and speaking. The DC is now reviewing this. 
• New Project: A study paper on the “Eighth Day/Last Great Day.” The paper will be presented for discussion during these May meetings.
• The PAC is reviewing a new project concerning the United States and Great Britain in Bible prophecy.
• DC is discussing questions that were submitted by MMS concerning the timing of the Night To Be Much Observed meal.

Mr. Seiglie then opened the floor for any comments or questions.

Members of the DC: Jorge de Campos, John Elliott, Mario Seiglie (chair) and Rex Sexton.