COG7 Members in Africa Being Conned By Bob Thiel's False African "Leaders"

3 Black Artists Showing New Representations of Christian Art

The Great Bwana to Africa Bob Mzungu Thiel is all excited over a recent letter from his so-called "evangelist" in Africa regarding his latest antics in Rwanda:

Evangelist Evans Ochieng is in Rwanda to meet with the the leaders and the brethren there. He sent the following in an two emails today:

Pastor Dr Bob,

Greetings from Rwanda.

I’m discussing many things with Moise right now. We are still touching many subjects concerning the law of God, The prophecy about rev. 11,12,13, 17,19,21 and 22. We have touched Isaiah 66:17-22 also I’m explaining to him about after Armstrong, now who is to lead the church. And {what} do we believe?  In the afternoon I will talk about God’s ordained feasts and and reasons why they must be observed now. {Many in} the Church of God Seventh Day here are against Moise so I must give him Strong teachings that can make him to stand and to teach. …

We are still in talks with brethren here from different congregations. My main aim is to teach this leaders first to know more about church of God and know exactly what to teach brethren.

Evans

Evans Ochieng is trying to persuade African Sabbatarians from COG7 that Bwana Bob is the greatest Church of God leader to ever exist! He is so magnificent that he is the one true successor to Herbert Armstrong! Praise be!

Ochieng never mentions that Herbert Armstrong would have kicked Bwana Bob Mzungu Thiel's rebellious behind out of the church so fast his head would be spinning. Bob is everything Herbert Armstrong ever spoke out against when it came to deceivers trying to destroy the church. Even the Tkach's pale in comparison to the lies of Bwana Bob Mzungu! 

I feel sorry for these African Sabbatarians who most likely want to be what is right regarding their beliefs and are instead being conned and lied to by Ochieng about who is to lead the church. Also,  he is continuing the con game that old covenant laws are more important than following Jesus and the New Covenant. Instead of directing followers to Christ, he seeks to enslave them with the law.

I hope the Church of God 7th Day wakes up and warns against the lies being promulgated by Bwana Bob Mzungu and Evans Ochieng.

The Deep Roots of Armstrongism In Adventism

 

Armstrongism has deep roots in Adventism that so many splinter groups deliberately choose to ignore when they claim to have direct apostolic succession from the original 1st-century church.

Note: this is NOT an endorsement of Grace Communion International, but it also should NOT be discounted because it is from them. Dan Rogers is far more accurate than the current Church of God history myths floating around various COGs today. 

COG Absurdities: Men, When Your Wives Are Rebellious, Spank Them!

 

Back in the 50s, husbands did a lot of things for which they would be arrested today. In my working-class neighborhood, it was common for a guy to get drunk after work and then beat his wife after he got home.   

I remember hearing an old sermon tape where Rod Meredith related that some WCG ministers actually spanked their wives! (RCM received the nickname“Spanky” because of his obsession with spankings.).

I don't remember Rod naming those ministers who spanked their wives. Does anyone in Banned know which of these WCG leaders practiced corporal punishment on their wives?
Wes White

Backward Thinking

 

Backward Thinking

Lonnie Hendrix

Folks who have been following the comment thread for my last post (Trying to get out from under the weight of history), know that I criticized CGI for permitting a sermon on Anglo-Israelism to be delivered to one of their congregations (Jeff Reed’s Atlanta, Georgia congregation). Although Jeff personally assured me that he was surprised by the sermon and explained his objections to the message to one of his members, the sermon still managed to get posted on CGI’s Facebook page and main website!

This kind of double-dealing, however, is typical of my interactions with the upper echelons of CGI. Privately, the leadership expresses their distaste for Anglo-Israelism and headline theology, but they continue to provide an official CGI platform for those within their community who support those views. Moreover, they justify this blatant hypocrisy by insisting that they are trying to keep the peace and to be “tolerant” of views which they don’t necessarily support. I call it trying to have your cake and eat it too!

The sermon, Forward Thinking, was delivered by an independent COG elder named Jim Eason. To be fair, Mr. Eason begins well. For the first fifteen minutes (or so) of his sermon, he talks about the centrality of the message about salvation through Jesus Christ to the overall message of Scripture. Unfortunately, at that point in his message, he begins to decry the fact that most Christian Churches aren’t focused enough on prophecy. More particularly, he noted that NONE of the mainstream churches are preaching about Anglo-Israelism. Even worse, according to Mr. Eason, is the fact that the ACOG’s aren’t focusing more attention on these teachings.

In typical Armstrongist fashion, he begins with the promises made to the one who would eventually be known as Abraham in the twelfth chapter of Genesis. Elder Eason then proceeded to list the promises which Abraham’s descendants would eventually inherit. Predictably, the sermon then shifted to Joseph and his two sons: Ephraim and Manasseh. Of course, he went on to identify the United States as Manasseh and the British as Ephraim.

Like Herbert Armstrong before him, for Mr. Eason this is the key to understanding prophecy and current events. He went on to say that his audience wouldn’t hear this important message in any other churches (meaning mainline, traditional Christian churches). Next, he read from the first chapter of the book of Isaiah and insisted that the passage perfectly described the current condition of the English-speaking peoples of the earth. He went on to talk about the time of “Jacob’s trouble” and suggested that those same peoples would shortly endure incredible sorrow and suffering. He said, “There is a judgment coming on the nations of Israel” (including the United States).

Even so, Mr. Eason ended on a note of hope – insisting that God would eventually restore these nations to prosperity and power. He concluded his message by saying that we (the ACOG’s) need to be “shouting” this message to the people of the United States. Indeed, he insisted that this is “an important part of the Gospel” message; and that “if we aren’t speaking about it, then we aren’t preaching the Gospel.”

Now, to Mr. Eason, all of this sounds like “forward thinking.” However, for those of us who are familiar with the history of Armstrongism, it sure sounds like backward thinking to many of us. And, for those who would present CGI as a more progressive and intellectually honest manifestation of “The TRUTH,” all of this sounds an awful lot like that old-time religion of Herbert Armstrong. Moreover, if you really have accepted the fact that Anglo-Israelism has been thoroughly discredited, how can you continue in good faith to provide a platform for it?

John Brisby Sinks to Another Low: Calls His Members "Mentally Retarded"

From a COGE source:

In the race to the bottom in the wacky world of Armstrongism the dark horse, Jon Brisby, of the Church of God the Eternal, presented another outlandish sermon (Love vs. Tolerance) in which he spends an hour lecturing his congregation to not just be tolerant of their particular splinter's brethren, but to go a step further and "love" them. Not like those heathen Sunday churches do with their "worldly love" of feeding and sheltering the homeless or strangers, but rather love your brethren with the love that was divinely revealed to Herbert Armstrong... towards the end of his sermon at the 1:06:00 mark he laughingly calls his entire congregation; mentally retarded. Yes, mentally retarded. If I were lecturing my flock, I might have chosen different words, I would have maybe chosen to quote the Psalms and tell my congregation they are fearfully and wonderfully made, but that sounds an aweful lot like those Sunday preachers, wait a minute, maybe there's something to those Sunday churches, and their love, that Brisby is trying to scare his followers from. No in his eyes his congregants are all retards to fund his lavish lifestyle. However, it does make you question the mental state of his splinter group that would stick around after being called a retard from the pulpit.

Brisby's record of "Godly" love includes: counseling a man to divorce his wife to protect his finances, telling happily married people to separate because of his perceived idea that their marriage isn't legitimate, telling his followers not to seek medical attention, and die a preventable painful death. Yes, this is his example of love, of the god he serves. It is no wonder his church is rapidly shrinking.

 

Crackpot False Prophet: We are not into "inflicting torture for conversion"

 

 

I cannot imagine what a miserable life the Great Bwana Mzungu Thiel must live that he has to constantly find fault in everything around him. Everything pushes the buttons on this little guy. If only he put as much energy into being a follower of Christ as he does in his looney conspiracy theories and alternative news items. What more can we expect though, after all, he is a self-appointed Church of God minister.

His delicate sensibilities got into a twist over an R.E.M. song, Losing My Religion, and an article in Christianity Today. As we know by now, anything Christianity Today publishes sends the Great Bwana immediately to the bathroom medicine cabinet for that huge tube of Butthurt Ointment.

Losing Our Religion review … 

13 August 2023 

 

In his new book, the Rev Russell Moore opens a chapter, “Losing Our Authority: How the Truth Can Save”, with the words “Jesus Saves” … 

 

Moore is mindful of history, and the roles Christianity has played: “Parts of the church were wrong – satanically wrong – on issues of righteousness and justice, such as the Spanish Inquisition and the scourge of human slavery.” He is editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, a publication founded by Billy Graham. Losing Our Religion offers a mixture of lament and hope. In places, its sadness is tinged with anger. In the south, the expression “losing my religion”, popularized by REM in a 1991 song, “conveys the moment when ‘politeness gives way to anger’,” Moore explains. Losing Our Religion review: Trump and the crisis of US Christianity

The the Great Bwana Muzungu Thiel adds: 

Before going further, let me point out that the true church was the persecuted not the persecutors in the Spanish Inquisition–true Christianity has never been militaristic nor into inflicting torture for conversion, etc. 

That may be true of true Christians but not so of Armstrongite Christians.

The structure of government in Armstrongism was militaristic with the Pastor GENERAL leading the ship. It then coopted biblical titles like evangelists, pastors, elders, and deacons to take the place of Major Generals, Colonels, Majors, and Captains.

While most of the time the church never inflicted physical torture, it certainly was well-versed in psychological torture with intimidation, manipulation, gaslighting, censorship, isolation, public shaming, humiliation, and sexual abuse. All of these were tools used in the so-called conversion process of followers. The carrot constantly dangling at the end was the loss of one's salvation for any infraction.

Mental and spiritual torture sady is the name of the game in Armstrongism, especially in the aberrant splinter groups like the Restored Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, and the improperly named "continuing" Church of "god".

It is no wonder well over 150,000 members have come and gone over the decades in Armstrongism. It has been unable to feed ht souls of people. COGs cannot hold on to their youth and longtime members leave in disgust. What did or does it have to offer to anyone anymore?

Depressed? Suicidal? Then Join The So-Called Continuing Church of God!

 

Our favorite crackpot self-appointed Church of God false prophet has been on a roll lately dumping his sermons online as if they were a solution to humanity's problems.

Never once in his little sermon summary below does he mention finding peace and rest in Christ, or even following the dude, as inconvenient as it apparently is to Bwana Mzungu Thiel. Instead, the law and the 10 Commandments will make you happy. Never once does he recommend good therapy. Of course, why should he since therapy has always been anathema in the Church of God movement by claiming it is evil and only a Church of God minister is capable of true counseling?

Americans are depressed and suicidal. What’s the hope for happiness? 

 

On December 12, 2019, the FCC approved a proposal for a nationwide suicide prevention hotline in the USA using the number ‘988’). 

 

Suicide is that nation’s 10th leading cause of death. 

 

A Harris poll reveals 72% of Americans experience loneliness. 

 

Michael Synder claims Americans are lonely, miserable, and depressed. He claims that this is a legacy of a society that has rejected family, faith, and patriotism, but instead embraces an immoral anti-God agenda. 

 

Was immorality and societal decline prophesied? 

 

Where can people find the truth? Is there any good news? 

 

What about the gospel of the kingdom of God? 

 

Do scriptures offer a way to prevent suicide? 

 

What are some scriptures that give hope about being happy? 

 

Can the Ten Commandments help? 

 

What is the meaning of human life? 

 

What about love? 

 

Will you be able to give love throughout eternity and lead a happy life now? 

 

Dr. Thiel addresses these issues and more.