Dare To Doubt: Encouragement for Those Who Doubt in the RCG Ministry Currently Attending Their Ministerial Conference in Wadsworth, Ohio

 

So, there you sit. Sermon after sermon. Day after day and hour after hour listening to Apostle Elijah the Prophet David C Pack spin his non-Gospel tales about himself and his endlessly incorrect math about the coming of Jesus.  

Some of you must be sitting down on the outside and yet standing up to this foolish theology on the inside. You won't be at peace until the inside and the outside match.

If you head is telling you, "This could be". "This will pass". "This doesn't matter if it is true or not". This is nuts but...", but your stomach is telling you, "I didn't sign up for this and how do I get out of this alive...", your head is lying to you.  Your stomach is telling you your personal truth in this matter.

I understand the turmoil you are feeling and the fear of personal change and moving on some of you,  have to be considering. 

I assume those, few though they may be seeking support and encouragement, have found Banned, even during your conference, and your conference may be solidifying your doubts.

My hope is that this explanation of what you may have gotten yourself into can help you move on and put yourself first in your life.  No one is going to take care of your mental, emotional and spiritual self but YOU. 

I can't speak for anyone here on Banned but myself, but I wish you well in the difficult decision and process that arises when one realizes that sincere as one might be, the sincerity is being squandered in the wrong place and devotion to the cause is to the wrong people. 

I understand the chaos of change. There are many resources available to you emotionally and spiritually should your conference experience produce a personal "Enough is enough".

And too:  No, I am not just Satan trying to deceive you and trying just to lead you out of God's True Church under the True Apostleship of the End Time Prophet Elijah. I was one of you in many ways. I know how that niggly doubt that builds over years works. 

Dare to Doubt

Wonder if you might be in a cult? Confident that you are not? Some cults show dangerous intent upfront, requiring harmful or illegal initiation rites. Most destructive groups appear far more appealing, with unhealthy traits slowly revealed over time.

We think therapist Roseanne Henry said it best when she wrote on her website Cult Recover:

 "When ex-members had been polled (at ICSA Recovery Workshops) they consistently gave these reasons for joining their groups: Idealism, Friendship, Love, Freedom, Community, Mission, Sincerity, Salvation, Enlightenment, Spiritual high.

People don’t join cults. They get involved in groups they are led to believe represent these high ideals."

The following questions are adapted from a checklist developed by Michael D. Langone, Ph.D., Executive Director of International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA). This list is not a diagnostic tool. It is only meant to help you analyze for yourself whether you may have cause for concern based on common patterns found in cultic groups.

• Does your group show unquestioning commitment to its leader, alive or dead?

CHECK  

• Are doubts and questions discouraged or punished?

CHECK

• Are mind-altering techniques such as (meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, and sleep deprivation or overworking used in excess which, unwittingly or not, often serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leadership)?

SOMEWHAT counting free labor and constant sermon bombing 

• Does the leadership dictate how members should think, act, and feel? How they should dress, where they should live, and whom they should marry?

CHECK

• Does the group feel they’re on a special mission to save humanity? Do they see their leader as a special being or an avatar?

CHECK, CHECK, CHECK  

• Does the group have an us-versus-them mentality?

CHECK

• Does the leadership induce feelings of shame or guilt in order to influence or control members? Often this is often done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.

CHECK 

• Does the group require members to cut ties with family and friends, or to radically alter the personal goals and activities members had before they joined?

CHECK

• Is the group preoccupied with bringing in new members and/or making money?

CHECK

• Do you fear backlash to yourself or others if you leave—or even consider leaving—the group?

CHECK

If you answered 'yes' to some of these questions, it does not automatically mean you are in a cult. We acknowledge the subjectivity of words like "excessive" and "radical." What's considered excessive one person may seem like not enough to someone else. Trust yourself. What's true for others does not have to be true for you.

Where Is the Line Between Destructive and Healthy?

That line may be different for every person. You are the one responsible for you. It's important to emphasize that not all groups are harmful. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish whether a religion or organization is destructive or not. There is what Steven Hassan, leading cult expert and founder of Freedom of Mind Resource Center, calls an Influence Continuum, a spectrum of healthy and unhealthy influence:

Again, we reiterate: Not all churches, religions, and organizations are cults. Expressions of these groups, however, can be cultish. Instead of focusing on the faith, ideology, or belief system of a group, focus on the behavior of the people involved. Don't disregard your feelings. Determine for yourself whether the group is healthy FOR YOU.

Steve Hassan talk with Worldwide: The Unchosen Church

 

Steve Hassan's talk w/ Worldwide: The Unchosen Church, 

a podcast about the Worldwide Church of God. Hassan talks about defining groups as cults. 

Worldwide: The Unchosen Church Podcast Episode 1

 

Before Joel Osteen, Brian Houston, or even L. Ron Hubbard, there was Herbert W. Armstrong and his Worldwide Church of God (WCG).  A doomsday apocalyptic cult active in roughly 70 countries around the globe, the WCG lured its members in with the promise of protection from an impending World War III and a place of leadership in the utopia to follow.  

Who exactly was Herbert Armstrong and his followers? What was it like to grow up believing that you were one of only 144,000 people that God called in all of human history to lead his new world order?  And how has Armstrongism survived in the 2020s? Find out these answers – and so much more -  in this introductory episode, “God Speaks to Us,” narrated, written and produced by a former member of the church itself, Dr. Tricia Jenkins.  Sound design and editing by Thirteen Media.

Special thanks to Dr. Steven Hassan, Lisa Metzel Bonnet, Nathanael O’Reilly and D.J. Grothe for their contributions to this episode and to Joel Kramer, who gave us permission to use clips from his documentary Called to be Free, which can be viewed on YouTube.

WCTV Public TV: Wadsworth, Ohio

Dawn Blue conducts her second interview with Marc Cebrian and Dennis Diehl regarding Dave Pack and the Restored Church of God

RCG’s Inept Prophet: Dooh! I Meant July of 2022

 

RCG’s Inept Prophet: Dooh! I Meant July of 2022

 

There was a sound of thunder this morning in Wadsworth, Ohio. At first, I thought it was just another storm, but after listening to Parts 376 and 377, I realized it was perhaps a chorus of hands slapping foreheads during the Ministerial Conference.

True to form, David C. Pack of the Restored Church of God shifted the expected start of the 1335 from Sivan to Tammuz [June 14^th to July] of this year. Why? Because “the math fits better” and scriptural bla bla bla—Of course, it fits better, it’s further away. Plus, all those people sitting in front of Dave will be back home so he won’t have to face embarrassing questions on his way to the bathroom like, “WTF, Mr. Pack?”

 

Part 376 @ 08:35 “But, could Tammuz work? Now, I I sorta concluded that it it wouldn’t when it looked like maybe a a threat was on its way. But you know, I’d watched us go from Sebat to Adar to Adar II to Abib to Iyar and then to Sivan. Was it possible it could happen yet again?”

 

What do you mean, “I’d watched us,” when you preached it from your own mind with your own mouth? You were not just an observer watching this unfold before your eyes. Also, there is no “us” in that scenario unless you are grouping in the broken ministers at Headquarters. These defeated men have been trained for years to keep their mouths shut or else you’ll rise from your chair, puff out your chest, and verbally blast them in front of everyone. Is that the “us” referred to?

 

What do you mean, “it could happen yet again” like that is some external event outside your own control? You cannot possibly mean when you preached for hours about the math and the scriptures and the world conditions and the metrics that Christ is coming imminently each of those times…right?

 

Part 376 @ 12:07 “And if we can if we can agree, yes so to speak, we can sort of agree with the scriptures that are fighting us right now, then we’d be in a position to talk about exactly what it is, knowing that something absolutely doescome because Tammuz simply does fit better than Sivan…”

 

Perhaps dedicating his youth to training as a wrestler rather than a swimmer would have helped Dave to sort out God’s word correctly today. That slippery Bible just keeps moving around and like a kid at the Feast, will not sit still.

 

Part 376 @ 12:56 “…they’re helpful in positioning these 14 ½ days. If you can take all of those and and you can shift them one day, because you’re you you would advance four weeks and one day, 29 days which so you’d advance everything would shift by one day, does it [Tammuz] fit? And what if it not only fits, it fits better? So for now I’m gonna tell you it absolutely fits if you went one more one more uh uh month. It does.”

 

I’m sure there is a physicist who could comment about what happens to the state of an atom when you “shift by one” electron (plus or minus). True prophets need to be that precise or what are you forced to call them according to the Bible?

 

Part 376 @ 27:25 “I don’t want this tomorrow night. I want it three months ago. In fact, three years ago would be better. But that’s not what happened. So what we want is the truth. If I’m gonna be wise, fine, but I’ve gotta be faithful to the truth. I can be as wise as however uh wise I think I am or God may think I’ve been, if I’m not faithful to the truth, then forget it. We need somebody else and the same would be true of all of you. So, I’ve gotta be faithful to what the Bible said.”

 

If only Dave could hear these words outside his own self-made reality and ponder the irony of it all…if only.

 

Attendees were encouraged to re-read the article, “All God’s People Back Together Soon!” and then Dave asked, “Was it wrong or was it wrong timing?”

 

While revisiting “the flock of slaughter” in Zechariah 11, he blessed the audience with this nugget:

 

Part 376 @ 1:01:25 “I’ve believed for a long time, I’ll say honestly: off and on, off and on, off and on, is that the Laodiceans? Here’s the biggest reason I believe it. A powerful telltale sign. First of all, I know the guys who lead’em, “whose possessors slay them!” A lot of the men in the Splinters who’re leading those groups are killers! I know them! And there’re a lot of others who are wonderful. They’re 24-karat gold. But it’s a lot of the leaders who’re the biggest problems.”

 

I’m sure nobody in the Restored Church of God can relate to the concept of leaders being the biggest problems in the church. Nobody.

 

There was nothing in Part 377 worth quoting. However, for the curious, here is a summary of that 47 minutes:

 

(bla bla bla) Synagogue of Satan, Man of Sin (bla bla bla) “I can slam verses together” (bla bla bla) “zero chance for [June 14, 2022] but it’s okay to hope” (bla bla bla) math math math, new moon new moon new moon (bla bla bla) “I know the people in the Splinters” (bla bla bla) Q and A. Good night.

 

What do you call a man who re-declares himself Elijah the Prophet and the very next day changes what he prophesied?

Marc Cebrian