See Glynn Washington Live!

Here is your chance to see Glynn Washington live during his Snap Judgement tour.  Glynn is a former  Worldwide Church of God member who shares stories about what life was like growing up in the church.

Tampa newspapers are playing up the angle of his return as a young man compared to the time he was there for the Feast of Tabernacles:

Glynn Washington is the host, creator, and executive producer of the public radio show, Snap Judgement. BY KENYA WOODARD Sentinel Feature Writer Glynn Washington’s last visit to Tampa was more than 30 years ago, as a young member of an eccentric religious cult. Then known as the Worldwide Church of God, the Christian group…  Florida Sentinal 

Snap Judgement

"Many NPR hosts come from NPR-ish families. Not Washington. “I grew up in a cult,” he told me. His parents were members of the Worldwide Church of God, a sect founded by Herbert W. Armstrong, an apocalyptic radio evangelist based in Pasadena. Washington got out—a story he tells with an escapee’s pride—and went on to the University of Michigan and its law school. He studied in Japan, then worked for the State Department, then ended up directing a program at the University of California at Berkeley. Some of the best Snap Judgment segments are drawn from his own life, and you get the feeling he could carry several episodes a year by himself.

“Losing My Religion,” a 2012 episode, features five stories. Two are Washington’s own (including the tale of an interracial teen romance that incurred his preacher’s wrath); one is the story of an ex-nun; another recounts a road trip the author Ingrid Ricks took with her dad; and the fifth is a profile of the South African peace activist Robert V. Taylor, who found that his religion conflicted with his homosexuality. Behind the stories are hundreds of separate sound clips, from a suitcase zipper to a police siren to a girl’s nighttime prayers. Not to mention dozens of musical excerpts: De La Soul, Willie Nelson, Aarktica."  NPR's Great Black Hope 

Restored Church of God: Wife Has Most Painful Year Of Her 24 Year Marriage After Husband Joins Dave's Cult

Dave Pack's mental breakdown as he continues to ignore the financial burden he has placed on his follower's with the "all things in common" teaching. Dave has absolutely no concern over what happens to members lives, marriages and relationships.  All that matters is that he gets his money.  His "all things in common" is one of the sickest lies that splinter cult leaders have come up with.  Each one has their own unique lies, from Gerald Flurry to Bob Thiel, but Dave has turned out to be the most despicable when it comes to money.

Dave Pack Says Members Either Pay Common or They Have No Salvation:

September 27, 2017 

I am writing this so that maybe it might help another person and tell how this is the way I have been affected by the Restored Church of God and Pack's doctrine of Common. My husband joined last year. It has been the most painful year in the 24 years we have been married. We were married in WWCG in 1993. I think I remember the words, "What God has joined, let no man put asunder" and two become one in the eyes of God. I don't think I am the only one who has had these words spoken in a wedding. My husband has totally bought into the "common" doctrine if you can call it that and has decided he wants to split everything down the middle, in half. We have argued and fought every week, because if this happens, there will be no reserves left for emergencies or contingencies. I have two parents that I have to see to as well who are in their 80's and I need reserves for them as well as they have spent most of their lives following HWA and didn't think there would be any future. So they are at the bottom of the economic scale now. 

On Monday of this week I went to see a lawyer and inquired about what splitting things down the middle would mean for me. I was told that in the eyes of the law, one can't do that and have it binding. In the eyes of the law, a marriage is a single unit and can't be split unless either there is a legal separation or divorce. Marriage includes all assets and debts. We live in a community property state. I went home and told my husband what I was told. I gave him the choice, either we separate legally or divorce. He chose separation. Yesterday was our 24th anniversary. 

How can a "man of God" think it's ok to split a union that God has sanctioned and put together and still think he has the fruits of the Spirit? I liken it to trying to remove half an orange without disturbing the peel, it can't be done. I certainly would not want to be in his shoes or in the shoes of those that enforce these policies. What will their answer be when they have to account for the lives they have ruined? Does my husband have a choice in this? They tell the members, No, they either pay common or they have no salvation. Where is that found in the Bible, I can't find it. 

Thanks for listening. --[name removed]

Comment: It is always best to have separate checking and savings accounts in these situations.  See: Exit and Support Letters

Living Church of God and Jewish High Holidays

Some in the Living Church of God are all excited over a story about the Jewish High Holy days and how some Christians have appropriated their days for their own unique use.

Forward.com had the following mention of LCG: Christians Celebrate The High Holidays, Too — But Are They Welcome At Synagogue?

Yom Kippur, the holiday during which Jews atone for sins through prayer and repentance, is popular in some Christian circles, where it meshes with their belief that Jesus Christ died for the sins of man. Some are so moved by idea that during the High Holidays they venture beyond their communities into Jewish spaces. Jews have a range of reactions. Some view Christian guests as unwelcome interlopers, while others sound downright happy to have them.

Most Christian observances of the High Holidays are clearly grounded in a separate theology and typically take place in their own distinct, Christian world. 

Members of the Living Church of God, an American denomination of some 10,000 members, headquartered in North Carolina, will gather in churches across the country, for example. Like White, they will fast, reflecting on “the awesome sacrifice of the Lamb of God.”

The source that sent me this from LCG had to chuckle about the story asking whether Christians were welcome at the synagogue.  He said LCG would not be welcome because LCG thinks it is better than the Jews and knows more about the holy days than they do.

Today in the COG's it is more about not eating and drinking than anything else. With Jesus out of the picture 99% of the time, it is hard for members to even know what to think about the day and what it symbolizes in Jewish history.

Hearing the Voice of God in Their Heads

I always found this tale disturbing even as a child in Sunday School where it was drilled into us as an amazing test of faith. There was no one as great as Abraham for "taking his son, his only son" and of course it ended up being a type of God offering Jesus, which was the point.

But  I always wondered what Isaac's relationship with his father was after this and whether he ever trusted going anywhere again with dad. 

 I always wondered in the same way, what Lot's daughter's, not to mention his wife's  relationship with him, was after he offered them to the crowd to be raped instead of his Angelic guests.  Neither Mrs. Lot or Mrs. Abraham seem to have cared what the men did with the children nor questioned their sanity.  Lot was listed as a great hero of faith in Hebrews 11 and Mrs. Lot got turned to salt so I suppose that settles it.  

(IT NEVER HAPPENED)  

The Old Testament often seemed to me full of prophets, priests and kings who had no real human emotions. They acted and thought like automatons it seems to me.  The voices said do and they did. They were much more inclined to obey the voices in their heads than think for themselves. And when they were wrong, they weren't really wrong.  It was always the people who were wrong. Those who observed and noted absurdities and  thought for themselves were and are the bad guys to be dismembered and discarded.  

And so it is today. Peter called them "scoffers" for noticing that Jesus did not come back as he said and as Paul had made so clear to the church would be the case soon.   But back in the day they were not scoffers at all.  They were noticers and they were right. 

And while remnant members spend hours every week listening to the voices in the heads of others, the likes of Dave Pack and Gerald Flurry, they would not be wrong to notice that nothing these men, and others, contrive to be so, is actually true.  It is simply more De Ja Moo which is the same BS repeated over and over.  

Perhaps this is a better explanation of Yahweh's Great Test and it certainly would have made me feel better as a child in Sunday School.

The Psychopath Test Gone Awry

Bob Thiel and James Malm in 10 Years

Almost-ordained Bob Thiel and Chief Pharisee James Malm perceive themselves to be prophets of doom, acting on behalf of their god who is eternally pissed at his creation and is just itching to destroy humanity.  The problem with both of these men is that they both are liars.  Their prophecies have already failed many times in the past and will fail in the future.  God is no more part of the legalistic hell these two men try to enforce on humanity than Harold Camping's god fulfilled his predictions.  The above video will be exactly what will happen to Almost-arrested Thiel and Pharisee Malm a few years from now.

Stephen Flurry: Only Children Inside PCG are Set Apart by Jesus

If you re not a Philadelphia Church of God member your children have no chance in this lifetime.  They are "cut off" from Flurry's god.  Flurry's god is a pissed off god who is eagerly waiting to slaughter the children of non-PCG members.  Of course the parents of "set apart"children MUST be truly converted PCG members.  No slackers allowed or your children's lives will be at stake.

“While other people—not members of the true body of Christ—and all other children are cut offfrom access to God, your children—if you are a truly converted member of God’s Church—can believe in Christ—are not cut off from God—and much of God’s truth, even though as yet too young to be converted. But they are a special treasure to God!” Mr. Armstrong wrote in a September 1979 Good News article “Your Children—Future Gods?”

Lil'Stevie has an incredible future laid out for the children of PCG members.  Your children will be able to grow up and contribute to the church...financially, of course.

God has an exciting future ahead for His young people—a future of contributing to His Work through their education, their skills, their aptitudes, their interests, their faith and their prayers.

Lil'Stevie, never one to have an original thought in his head  (like his dad), has to continually quote Herbert Armstrong. Herbert Armstrong and Flurry's "god" is an impotent god because it allows the children of the church to be controlled by Satan.  Satan's goal is to take COG kids from their parents so that they never make it into the kingdom of Flurry.

In another sermon, given on Oct. 15, 1981, Mr. Armstrong corrected parents for neglecting their children. They were just sending them off to school and letting the teachers take care of everything. “Let me tell you,” Mr. Armstrong warned, “Satan is not neglecting your children! He goes to work on them when they’re, well, a few days old. By the time they are seven-, eight-, nine months old, they already have been infused with the spirit of selfishness.” 

“Satan isn’t neglecting your children,” he said again. “Are you? Too many of you neglect your little children. You think you don’t need to teach them anything. But Satan is getting into their little minds as fast as their minds develop.”

Armstrong was a strong advocate of corporal punishment for church children.  For decades beating children with a one inch think paddles was the norm.  Children should be heard screaming from bathrooms.  20 swats was the norm.  Of course after a parent beat their kids it was proper to tell the child that you did it because you loved them.

Lil'Steveie loves to quote from Herbert's Modern Dating, a sad little book written in 1969.  It is now 2017 and PCG is still stuck in the late 1960's.

“Children who are in the Church of God are in a separate category, and they are not cut off from God, and it means that the parents can—if they will, if they do—they can counteract what Satan is doing,” Mr. Armstrong said in that 1979 youth camp sermon. “And just like the Spirit of God in Jesus counteracted it so that Jesus never committed a sin, parents can teach their children in such a way, and keep so close to them that they can more than outmatch Satan and all that Satan is doing.” 

It is our job to help them come to recognize the harsh reality of Satan’s world. It is our job to help them see the incredible opportunities that come from living God’s way of life. It is our job to help them see that God’s Work needs them! 

The Modern Dating booklet states: “Yes, sadly, too few parents take an active interest in the really tremendous drives and compulsions placed upon their children in early school years. They just don’t talk to their children about their school lives. They don’t make it their business to find outabout their desires, hopes, dreams or emotional entanglements.

The lives of children in PCG are at risk. How many more need to be abused till parents wake up and remove their selves from the madness of the Philadelphia Church of God?

Never Wrong - No One Is Ever Wrong

A blast from the past and still relevant today!


I have met a lot of people who are never wrong. They never take back that which they spoke which proved to be either stupid, inane or simply wrong. They waffle, redefine and deny, but they are never wrong. These people are incapable of saying "oops," much less, "I'm sorry," You find them everywhere. They might be a pastor, a politician, a CEO or a President. They might be your mother- in-law, father-in-law, dad, mom, brother or sister. Of course, it could be you, but you won't notice that. One common thing they share is that they are NEVER wrong. Of course they are wrong, misinformed or just plain stupid in the way they view and filter their world, but they are never wrong in fact. Their inability to say "I am sorry," or "I was wrong," is legendary in the family, the church, the office or the government and the damage inflicted on those that fall victim of these people can be humorous, mildly annoying or catastrophic.

Ministers are not above the inability to say I am sorry or I was wrong either. I pastored in a denomination that was never wrong from the top down, but always wrong from the bottom up. Come to think of it, that sounds like the government too at the moment or maybe all moments. Countless, and I mean countless ministers have predicted the exact time that Jesus would return and have been wrong, oh let's say...100% of the time.  I can't recall one "I was mistaken."   I recall many, "God is giving us more time.  I was right but just had the timing wrong."   

We here on Banned have noted for YEARS the Splits,  Splinters and Slivers, silly and more clever than intelligent  big heads with fantastical ideas about themselves and the ridiculous ideas that they see themselves spoken of in the scripture as Elijahs, Zerubbabels, Apostles, Prophets , Witnesses  and  Joshuas of all sorts.  We have well documented Dave Pack outright blunders in scripture and his ideas of prophecy especially concerning himself and who he thinks he is.  NOTHING the man has said would be true is actually true and never will be true.  Has he had amble time and reason to admit he was mistaken?  Yep.  Ever hear the man say "I was mistaken."?   Nope and you never will.  Will any on the Council of Agreers ever admit that Dave was mistaken and they themselves mistaken for not noting his mistakes?  Nope...Doubt it.   

Will Almost Arrested and Soon to be Probably Be  Martyred Bitter Bob Thiel ever uttered the words, "I was mistaken"?  Nope.  Men like that are never mistaken so why would it cross their weak minds to admit it?  Bob is very mistaken about many things.

Will Rod Meredith suck it up and admit he and his advisers have blundered badly with regards to their current dilemma in public and member relations?  I doubt it.  It is going to be a painful lesson but no real man in LCG will take personal responsibility for the mess.  Satan will get the blame and outsiders will be said to  just want to persecute the True Church. Somehow it will all fit into proof of the end times again.

  Whole denominations have mislead the faithful on a myriad of topics but to say "We're sorry, we were wrong," is just not something even the humble in Jesus can come up with very often. Saying one is sorry is usually something that occurs only after one is caught or trapped. It's has taken over 400 years to absolve the then heretic Galileo from thinking the earth revolved around the sun and that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system, but maybe not the universe. 

Churches hold on to their fables and apologies for  them way beyond what most normal institutions do. How long will it take to apologize when Church officials decide that Limbo is not the place where the unsaved babies go, like they know, when they announce this reality to the faithful? You can bet you will hear things like, "It was never a doctrine," or "It never was an official teaching," but you won't get away with that kind of "we're sorry," with the average person who was either tormented or only mildly comforted by this when they lost a child prior to the arrival of the sprinklers. Too many ministers have the subconscious belief that if they are wrong, God will correct them and, of course, any apologies or admissions of wrongness will be spoke privately to the deity. They will, however, announce to you that they have done this, but you will never really know. Ministers need to apologize to people for it is people they offend at times.

Some of us can't say we are sorry or we were wrong because we falsely believe that somehow it a weakness to admit such things. More than one psychologist has noted that "Fool me once..shame, shame...on...you," is not so much a gaff as the deeply psychological inability to say "shame on me," which is another way of not being able to admit to being wrong or a committing a misstep. To choke on the words expressing shame, sorrow, apology or being mistaken is not a good sign when we are talking about mature leadership. To come across as anything less than human is not going to win points with the not as stupid as one might think average church goer or American.

We lie when we can't admit we are wrong, mistaken or perhaps have another agenda that we do not wish disturbed. I think Americans are beginning to believe that this last reason is more the case with Iraq and perhaps Iran. Even church goers are beginning to question the motives of those that demand too much of their money for the Lord and remind you that you can be "dismembered" when you ask uncomfortable questions about doctrine or the Bible itself. "Just trust me," is no longer going to work among the informed. Lie Snickers, the Internet is a gift from God Himself.

We live in a time where Presidents, Politicians and Pastors who have the inability to say that they have been misguided, unguided, mistaken and plainly wrong is endangering not only our intellectual health, but our lives on the planet. Suck it up guys. Just say it when it dawns on you. Allow it to dawn on you from time to time. "I was wrong, I am sorry."

When was the last time you heard your executive, judicial, senatorial, congressional or pastoral leaders say "I was wrong," "We were wrong," "I am sorry"? From "I did not have sex with that woman," to "those weapons of mass destruction must be around here somewhere," just saying "I'm sorry," seems the hardest thing to do. Give it a try anyway before you kill us all.

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