Questions Your Pastor Will Hate

By Dennis Diehl

I remember being 18 and sitting through Rod Meredith's 'Harmony of the Gospels' class and venturing to ask a question about an apparent contradiction in the accounts.  (Harmony in the Gospels is hardly an accurate course description).  It was a sincere question.  RCM asked someone in the class to explain it to Dennis, implying I was not listening or something.  Very embarrassing to me but it is where I learned not to ask him questions again.

No one else answered it either.  Around lunch time I headed to the dining hall and RCM was running around the track and saw me going in.  He called me over.  "He's going to apologize for embarrassing me," I rather naively thought to myself.  What he did was ask me if I had repented yet... Um....of what?  He never really said and I went to lunch.  I guess I've been out to lunch ever since.

Between GTA's calling me in to ask why I hated him (I didn't) and this, I should have just gone home and saved myself the next 30 years of the same. 

As the years in ministry went by, I realized that asking questions was a dangerous thing.  I learned not to ask questions about Biblical contradictions in science, history and origins.  I learned not to ask questions about whatever was going on in the drama filled WCG that I was supposed to represent.  Once I asked about the "rumor" HWA was divorcing.  The return call was JWT yelling into the phone to "squelch it!"   What  a nutso church.  Personally I learned that 100% of any question I had was answered in ways that turned out to be, in truth, the opposite of what I was told.  No wonder, when the end came, the minister could not win getting stuck between believing what they were told by those over me and congregants who knew more than I did because of their contacts.  WCG could make a fool out of a local pastor in a minute and did.

I have thought a lot about why in all that time, I never heard anyone ask any good questions about the many and very obvious contradictions in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.  No minister ever asked me, "Have you ever wondered about....?" or "Doesn't this seem troublesome?"  Even Friday night studies where GTA or someone would answer Bible questions, were rather lame.  One always knew the question was a bit too troubling because the more troubling the question the more sarcastic the "explanation."  

I wish I had known enough back then to have asked HWA after years of the never ending "story of the two trees," if he understood the Trees in the Garden of Eden were off limits because their fruit was god food?  The Knowledge of Good and Evil was a God topic and not for man.  Why not I never knew because if Adam and Eve weren't allowed to take of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, how could they be blamed for any sin?  They didn't know good from evil or weren't supposed to.  We see the consternation this caused the "gods" El and his council of the gods (Let US make man in Our Image etc...) reflected in one of the council members telling El that man must be driven out of the Garden, "lest he eat of the tree of eternal life (also a god tree and not for man) and live forever.  

Of course this is pure rewrite with a Hebrew twist,  of an Ancient Sumerian creation story that better explains the pagan origins of even the Hebrew Sabbath.  The original story was explaining how the god's needed rest from man's persistent complaining as worker bees for the gods.  The gods ate food then and man's purpose was to till the ground and make it happen.  In the original tale it was El (originally a Canaanite god adopted by the Hebrews) and his council that wanted rest from man.   It's why, "from now on, with the sweat of your brow shall you till the earth..".  It used to be easier for the human slaves to the gods in the original "Edin."  Basically it was the loving El telling humans, "if you think you have it bad now, just hear this punishment."  Rather like Egyptians expecting quality brick by limiting the straw needed to make it so. 

Whoa.....how fun a question would that have been to ask or explain instead of having to endure, "there were two trees in the garden....."?  Not to worry.  There never was a real garden nor a real Adam and Eve really sinning and condemning us all to the need for a blood sacrifice.  It's mythology.  If you wish to know where real humans first came from and how, get a good up to date book on recent findings.  Or even do as I did and have your DNA traced back 100,000 years to Africa.  (http://ezinearticles.com/?Biblical--Adam-and-Eve-Laid-to-Rest-by-National-Genome-Project&id=94643). 

Come to realize that without a literal Adam and especially Eve as presented, we can't demote women to the status of obedient servants nor can the Doctrine of Original sin hold any sway over us, but I spare you.  It's mythology guys and to think otherwise in this day and age with so much good information and science available to us is pure ignorance.  

If Elijah had known to dig down 30 feet in the cave he hid in and saw God's rear end, he would have found some of the best Neanderthal skeletons in the world in that cave on Carmel.  Did "Jesus" know about Neanderthals, Homo Ergaster and Homo Habilis?  No he did not and also would not have been able or willing to explain them.  And no, they weren't the "and there were giants in the earth in those days, either.

So from 1968-1996 I personally asked few good questions of my peers or of the Bible itself.  That came to a end when I read and resonated with John Shelby Spong's,  Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism.  Finally a good answer to my question to RCM long ago in class.  I wrote JSP and thanked him and that I was using his insights in my sermons and studies.  He wrote me and said,  "Thank you Dennis, you won't survive."   Alas the nature of asking too many questions to those who the power but no clue as to the answer.  

So, with that in mind, I present to my former minister friends the series I wrote to challenge them to think and realize an even more Present Truth than ever inaccurate  Plain Truth. 

The series is called, "Questions Your Pastor Will Hate."  Some is written a bit cheeky and sarcasm,  which reflected my sideways turned anger at the time, and a simple request to consider the Book was not written by God, unless God was drinking during inspiring much of its content.  

And yes, I am well aware of apologetics which is an apt name for the art of denial when being confronted with the real contradictions and nonsense found in the pages of the "holy, inerrant word of God."

Here are the links to the articles.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Questions-Your-Pastor-Will-Hate---The-Book---Part-One&id=173949

http://ezinearticles.com/?Questions-Your-Pastor-Will-Hate---Part-Two&id=173963

http://ezinearticles.com/?Questions-Your-Pastor-Will-Hate---Part-Three&id=174392

http://ezinearticles.com/?Questions-Your-Pastor-Will-Hate---Part-Four&id=177565

http://ezinearticles.com/?Questions-Your-Pastor-Will-Hate-Part-Five&id=178280

So while we all get to watch, yet again, the birth of the Actually Now and Really Really True, Strife Without End True Church of God  replicate itself, what ever would happen if they came to understand how they even got the texts to argue over in the first place?  If they could just face the mythology of Genesis 1-11 is not literally true or historical, they  would learn the meaning of personal crisis at the gut level. 

It's no fun learning you were wrong about something so important for one to be the truth.  I had to get counseling just to cope with the angst my changing paradigm brought me.  Here is my counselor and my first session exchange.  It is word for word as I memorized it to get through the angst.

Counselor:  "Wow Dennis.....you got fired by God!"

Dennis:         "Any other time I think that would be funny but please not now."

Counselor:   "Just kidding you. I used to be a church pastor like you."

Dennis:          "Well just understand that if you counsel me with Bible advice, I will find another counselor."

Counselor:     "No, no.  Just kidding.  In reality this is what you are about to experience.   Dennis, you outgrow your boxes quickly. We all come in a box and most never examine the box they come in.  You have only two choices.  You can go back into the box you just came from and everyone will be so happy and you will feel much more secure and safe.  However, you will be on anti-depressants the rest of your life because of your repressed anger.  OR, you can keep going and see what's in this box, but you will go ALONE."  (This is where I tear up thinking about the truth of how what he noted has worked out.) 

 Anyway, John Shelby Spong, author of Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, also told me he was pleased I learn much from his books but that "Dennis, you won't survive,"  Only true prophet I ever met.

And so enjoy these questions that you as a minister also have a right to ask before you tell people what they should or must be, do , think, act like or become.  Whether we like it or not and no matter the angst it may cause to surface, there is precious little harmony of not only the Gospels but in every book of the book beginning to end.  This can be a hard thing to face which is why we don't and go on to believe as I was told during my debate in Texas with Art Mokarrow, "There is a good answer for everyone of those questions."   Oh really?  Do tell.....

DennisCDiehl@aol.com

Dennis Diehl is a former church pastor and currently has a therapeutic massage practice in Greenville, SC.

The Place of Safety vs The Rapture

Armstrongism has always loved to mock the 'Rapture' belief of some Christians. But, when you look at the sheer stupidity that Armstrongism prompts as 'fleeing to Petra/Place of Safety' our beliefs are just as crazy.

Of course our version will have our God gather our members up on tired, worn out airplanes after our governments expel us from our respective countries. We will fly these worn out planes (held aloft by angels) to some God forsaken desert in Jordan where Muslims will greet us with open arms. Then the tired and homeless brethren will file in through the narrow gate into the glories of Petra while the leadership will be housed in the Marriott and Crown Plaza located outside the entrance to Petra.

Those lucky to make it inside will not have food, water, toilet's, blanket's etc. The Muslims will be giving that all to us because we are the True Christians.

A cloud of God will hover over Petra so that NATO bombers and the Anti-Christ's armies cannot kill us all.

We will spend three and half years having sing-a-long's in the amphitheater.

We will get to hear Meredith and Flurry preach to us day in and day out.

Health issues will disappear, cavities will be filled, contacts and eye glasses will not be needed because God is either going to cure us or we will be so glad to be 'saved' from the tribulation that we will not care.

Here's where the Church leaders will stay:

And here is where you will be staying:

So who's crazier?

Here Is A COG That Is Just As Crazy As Armstrong's COG's

I guess having the name Church of God in your church name does not make you one of the true churches! Here is a COG that has no affiliation to the 700 some splinter COGlets of Armstrongism, but reading their story it sounds just like our version.  Abusive ministers, families broken up, legalism, whining about hymns, hair and clothing regulations, money, sex and child abuse, Christmas, and countless splinter groups.

Church of God Restoration

One of many bulletin boards detailing abuse
The topic's these people are dealing with are just the same as COG Armstrong

Organizational splits and schism's


It should be quit obvious to any person who sees a church with the word's Church of God in it to run as fast as you can the other direction!

More Split's, Merger's in the COGaWA Future?

Malm has been making some very bold comments that through his sources there may be an coming split/merger between COGaWA and LCG.  It seems many of the die hard legalistic ministers in COGaWA are in line with Spanky's legalism. He also is predicting that when COGaWA has another break-up that some will go with LCG and some will go back to UCG.  He says many of the men who left UCG left without thinking things through and did it on emotion or peer pressure.  These men will go back to UCG while the rest coexist with Spanky. Of course this also includes more silly predictions that the end times is close at hand with the tribulation looming in 3 1/2 years.

I have speculated on a merger between the COGAWA and the LCG sometime in the future. We are still in the very early days yet and the COGAWA does not even have any permanent governance structure set up, however certain major pieces of the puzzle are coming in and such a merger may well take the form of a kind of cooperative effort; with the two groups maintaining their own leadership and identities as a means of resolving the important issue of who gets to be the leader; while at the same time engaging in very close cooperation in their activities.  More will be coming in the next few days.

The COGAWA is likely to split further and some will go to LCG others will go back to UCG or scatter. The leaders of the COGAWA are very strong for a dictatorship, which will offend some others. The two sides believe that there will be a seven year peace treaty with 3 1/2 years of peace and after that the tribulation. They also believe that the first 3 1/2 years is to start very soon. I can’t let everything out now, that’s a teaser for the next few posts. James

Any merger with LCG and the Rod of Iron will certainly NOT be including Larry Salyer who has participated in two blow-up's involving Rod Meredith already.  Spanky certainly is not going to be welcoming Salyer back into anything.  UCG will not want him back either.

The remaining UCG are opposed to much in LCG. Those who have formed the COGAWA are divided into those who have masterminded this and have much in agreement with the LCG; and those who have been swept along by emotion and argument [who do not necessarily want anything to do with LCG]. This is still a big mix. A portion of the new COGAWA may possibly connect with the LCG because they both believe that an “Elijah work” is essential and imminant. Because of certain things there may yet be more splits in the COGAWA. The UCG is a different situation. The other major groups will be shaken up as well but that may still take a few more months. This will all come out with more info over these next few posts. James

A reader of Malm writes:

The congregation I attended always talked about the UCG and how they hoped their friends in the UCG would see that God is working through the LCG and hoped they would “see the light” before the tribulation. This means to join the LCG.
I believe the LCG is looking for qualified laborers to finish the end time work,(no organization will have any part in the end time work as the two witnesses will have a part to play in that)as they believe this is part of God’s plan to provide these laborers.This is now the second fast for the UCG and its members as the last one occurred approximately 6 months ago.
I would be surprised if they would allow outsiders to be in leadership roles as the LCG is their baby and they treasure the LCG because they believe it is God’s church. If Rod and Richard can physically hold up it is hard for me to see them giving up power.
However, they are shorthanded and desperately need laborers so it will be very interesting how these negotiations turn out. I would not totally rule anything out.

Necro-Evangelism-When Dead Men Do Tell Tales

By Dennis Diehl

There is a phenomenon in evangelism that is quite strange to me. I call it Necro-Evangelism and it is where local or even national radio evangelical and fundamentalist churches continue to play the sermons of long dead founders to convert the masses. There are at least three major churches in my area and one I know of nationally that practices Necro-Evangelism and I'd like to explore the pitfalls of this if I might.

I find it funny in a macabre way to hear, usually the surviving son of the now dead evangelist, inviting the audience to stay tuned for a message from my now long dead father and pastor so and so. Some of these evangelistic types have been dead for just a few years, and so we might attribute his ongoing ministry as shock that the man died on the part of the family who has no clue on how to keep the business going. Others have been dead for decades and I suspect that as long as the tapes play and can be recopied, they will continue to preach right up until the Second Coming and maybe beyond! Usually there is a college or "work" that the family of the now deceased evangelist has inheirited to be maintained and, while the current family members might be up to the task, it's just good to hear the founder as if he was alive and well on the air. Others, to me, seem like the type that would never themselves be able to do what dad did with evangelism, but can't give up on the programming dad put in their heads nor the bucks it still can generate. That is an observation about method, not sincerity.

People hate change and this delays reality for many who have grown up on the words of the evangelist, now dead. One local college where I live continues to play the sermons of the long dead founder even though two or three generations have taken over the family business of evangelizing since his death. I don't believe I have heard a sermon on the air by any of the sons, all identically named after the founder save for the II,III or IV behind the name. Some Christian evangelists might be happy to return to glory, but you'd never know it as family desperately tries to keep things the same same as always the same as before he became a Necro-Evangelist. Why do we do this and what is the message it sends? You don't see Necro-Evangelists on TV, just radio. TV would be a bit much to take and obviously in poor taste.

First of all, it matters not if it is a right or wrong thing to do. I am sure the argument is "well if we had Jesus or Paul on tape, would we not play it?" Well yes it would, even though that isn't going to happen. We have them in books and we're not sure there if they really said and wrote what some say they did. All we need is a bunch of fake Jesus tapes floating around and here we go again! A whole industry would break out verifying or repudiating "the Jesus tapes." So while I understand the point, these men are not Jesus or Paul, and besides if you really know theology, you might suspect that the real Jesus would not have really appreciated the real Paul anyway, so now we have tape conflict. Then we'd have to deal with James tapes and what a mess! There would be a whole market in underground tapes and pseudotaperapha and we'd not be much further ahead than we are today with our understanding.

So while Necro-Evangelism might keep the family church, college or business going a few more generations, is it the thing to do really and what message does it send? One advantage is that, indeed, it does buy the unskilled or founder beaten children time to regroup and figure out what to do now that dad is gone. All their life they had preached that the Second Coming was going to for sure be in their lifetime but now what? Usually the first generation founds something, the second maintains it, and the third loses it all. Necro-Evangelism can postpone the Necro-evangelist sinking into a "who?" a generation later than this perhaps. But back to the message it sends that might be not good.

1. Necro-evangelism tells the audience that the sons do not have the conviction or skills that dad may have had but aren't willing to give it up as something dad did but we don't wish to do. So we play dad's sermons and don't have to come up with our own, "alive" ones. In my town, one such family member certainly does not have the voice quality or sound of conviction of his dad for sure, so I can see why he might wish to have dad keep it all going. He confines himself to introducing "my deceased dad, Dr...." and selling his tapes and even the library books his dad cherished, which obiously he doesn't. But he also has another line of work from what I understand, so does not depend on his Necro-Evangelist dad for his sole income.

2. Necro-Evangelism sends the message the survivors are spiritually lazy, but again, just can't give up on the potential to have a following or keep it all going. The second generation makes forays into the world of evangelism, usually getting caught up in politics more than dad did because down deep they know most of what dad either predicted or said did not really happen that way, and they just aren't convicted the same way dad was. Dad kept them out of "the world", and darn it, they are going to see it before they become Necro-Second-Generation-Evangelists too. Since dad impacted their lives with his own worldview, and often not in a very good way, they just don't have the same need to pass it along with dad the Necro-Evangelist's same fervor. In fact, they can't. So they busy themselves with producing dad's tapes and books and don't have to do much that shows their own creativity. They can run for public office or lecture as they wish, but keeping a ball rolling is much easier than getting it started. Anyone can be made the next president of a Necro-Evangelical College or Pastor of a Necro-Evangelistic Church. Starting the sucker is the hard part. Keeping it going can be a challenge but if we keep dearly departed dad in the picture, it is easier for sure. Somewho we filter out the fact that the Necro-Evangelist is long dead and maybe evangelism is a profession for the convicted living.

3. Necro-Evangelism sends the message that the Necro-Evangelist knew all there was to know about the Bible and all related topics. There is nothing new to learn or even unlearn, since dad made no theological mistakes, which is not true. Since we all like to hear the "old, old story, let dad explain it over and over. This is one thing that is wrong with religion in general. It supposes that all it's spokesmen had it right to begin with. If they could read the bible, tell a few good stories, keep you interested and convince you that the reading was the same yesterday, today and forever, bingo!...why change a winning game? Problem is that for every tape played, there are many that can't be for they are either dated by comments made during the sermon or even the family realizes that how or what dad said that day is not true or not appropriate today and let's just not play that one. So you're really not getting the whole man, you are getting the "Best All Time Hits of the Necro-Evangelist," as selected by the next generation. That's kinda no fair to me!

4. Most of those that had been inspired by the now Necro-Evangelist are now themselves Necro-Christians so they aren't even around to hear dad anymore either. They were all about the same age and have long since moved on to other heavenly realms. The kids of those who loved the now Necro-Evangelist aren't going to be inspired by a dead man. Sorry, they just aren't. They will feel the above three points even if they don't voice it. Kids aren't stupid and will see what generations II and III might be up to and how lame it is. These kids tend to find churches by saying "as for me and my house, we shall serve a living evangelist" and not just the memory of the good ol' days when the parents thought the now Necro-Evangelist could do or say no wrong. I used to pastor a church that on way too many occasions sent out taped sermons from the then living Apostle and occasional Evangelist. It was hard enough when they were alive, don't make me listen when they are dead!

Well I think we get the point. Is it right or wrong to conduct a Necro-Evangelically-Centric ministry? I don't know. It's just lame and nothing but a evangelical dead end.

DenniscDiehl@aol.com