Questioning the Man in the Pulpit? They Called It Blasphemy, So You’d Shut Up

Armstrongism has long held the position that to question the ministry or the leadership was anathema. To do so was to question God himself. It is a long-standing control mechanism in Armstrongism, taught from the top and repeated in pulpits and private meetings for decades.  HWA bellowed it from the Auditorium stage. Ministers preached about it. Church leaders wrote articles and pounded podiums as they shouted it.

The Exit and Support Network has a letter up from a man who was told he was questioning God when he questioned a nosy minister's wife and the minister

A few years after his wife died, a former Philadelphia Church of God member began dating a woman from another congregation. The minister's wife began telling the woman details about the deceased wife and steered her toward a different man. When the member confronted the minister he had known for years, the minister grew offended and declared that his wife was part of his ministry: criticize her, and you criticize him; criticize him and you criticize God. Shortly afterward, the man was put out of the PCG with no counsel and told never to contact them again. That logic-equating a minister's words and actions with God's own-did not begin with one PCG pastor.

Herbert W. Armstrong himself framed criticism of "the Work" or of his office as something far more dangerous than ordinary sin. In a March 1960 Good News article, he wrote that a person might speak against him personally and still be forgiven, but "if and when you criticize or accuse or condemn THE WORK, then you are speaking against the Holy Spirit... YOU SHALL NOT BE FORGIVEN." He added that such criticism usually began with fault-finding against "the one God has chosen... in the office of apostle."

In another piece titled "Would You Accuse Jesus Christ?" Armstrong told dissenting ministers and members that when they accused him they were actually accusing the living Head of the Church. Correction of "God's apostle," he said, was Christ's job, not theirs. To take that job was to accuse Christ.

A Good News article on judging and discipline went further: when Israelites rejected Samuel, God said they had rejected Him. Members were therefore to "be fearful lest you reject God by rebelling against His called servants." Speaking against "the things spoken by one of God's ministers" was described as blasphemy.

The same equation appears in the offshoots. Exit & Support Network has recorded that PCG members are taught that to question Gerald Flurry is to question God; the organization's government is presented as God's government. Questioning it is treated as rebellion against God Himself. One former member who privately raised biblical objections to a doctrine was reminded that Herbert Armstrong was "God's Apostle" and that he should simply have faith; he was later disfellowshipped.

The pattern is not limited to PCG. Church of God, the Eternal leader Jon Brisby has taught that criticizing "the Work" and refusing to acknowledge that Christ is working through his organized remnant is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Similar claims surface around other splinter leaders who treat disagreement with their office as disagreement with God.

This is the same tactic many high-control groups use when they quote "Touch not mine anointed" (Psalm 105:15) as a shield against any examination of teaching or conduct. The verse originally concerned physical harm to Israel's kings and prophets, not immunity from testing a man's doctrine or character.

A New Covenant Christian does not stand under a human apostle who mediates God's voice. The New Testament places every teacher, including apostles, under the written Word and under the scrutiny of the congregation.

The Bereans "received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so" (Acts 17:11). They checked Paul. Paul did not rebuke them for it; Luke commended them.

Paul later "withstood [Peter] to the face, because he was to be blamed" (Galatians 2:11). An apostle publicly corrected another apostle when conduct contradicted the gospel. That is not "criticizing God." It is protecting the gospel.

John commands, "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1). Testing is not optional.

Paul told the Corinthians, "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1). The "even as" is the limit. When a minister stops following Christ, the obligation to follow the minister ends.

Peter warned elders not to lord it over the flock but to be examples (1 Peter 5:3). Jesus Himself said the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, "but it shall not be so among you" (Matthew 20:25-26). A minister who announces that criticism of him is criticism of God has already adopted the Gentile model.

There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). No pastor, no "apostle," no "That Prophet," no "Xhief Overseer," no "Pastor General," stands in that place. When a minister inserts himself there, the Christian's duty is not silence. It is to refuse the counterfeit.

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, in context, is attributing the Spirit's work to Satan after seeing it clearly (Matthew 12:31-32). It is not pointing out that a fallible man has gossiped about a widow, twisted a doctrine, or demanded unquestioning loyalty. Calling that "blasphemy" is itself a misuse of Scripture designed to keep people quiet.

You should question because ministers are men. They can be wrong about doctrine, wrong about people, and wrong about their own importance. Armstrongism's history is a catalog of failed prophecies, financial pressure, medical neglect, family-breaking "no-contact" rules, and leaders who lived by a different standard than they preached. Those fruits are public. Pretending they cannot be examined does not honor God; it protects the system.

You should question because the New Covenant gives every believer the Spirit and the Word. You are not a child who must take a hired man's word as God's. You are responsible for what you believe and whom you follow.

You should question because silence in the face of spiritual abuse is not humility. It is complicity. The man in the letter lost his church membership for objecting to gossip about his dead wife. That is not church discipline. That is a man protecting his household's power.

A New Covenant Christian can question a minister because Christ, not the minister, is Head of the church. A New Covenant Christian should question a minister because the alternative is to let a man stand where only God belongs. Test the teaching. Test the fruit. Test the claim that "I speak for God." If the claim cannot survive the Bible, the claim is the problem-not the person who opened the Book.

Gerald Flurry Destroys Another Family: Nathan Moffett and Elise Moffett: My greatest hope is that my children will one day reach out to me again

By Dan Moffett

Called and Chosen

My greatest hope 

is that my children will one day reach out to me again.

If my son Nathan Moffett in Edmond Oklahoma, and my daughter Elise Moffett Salinas in San Antonio Texas were not involved with the Philadelphia Church of God (PCG), I would likely never speak publicly about this group. I would still pray for those who have been hurt, but my focus would remain private.

What compels me to speak is not anger — it is love for my children and concern for families who have experienced similar separation. Policies that discourage or prevent normal family contact have caused deep pain, not only to me, but to many others. I believe families should not be divided, and that love, communication, and reconciliation should always be encouraged.

Because of this, I plan to continue raising awareness about the impact these practices have on families. My goal is not to attack individuals, but to bring attention to the human cost of separation and to encourage open discussion. I hope that by sharing my experience, others may better understand how deeply these situations affect parents, children, and loved ones.

My door, my heart, and my love remain open to my children — always.

THEY CAN'T SEE THE FOREST FOR THE TREES

The people TRAPPED in the Philadelphia Church of God (PCG) headquartered in Edmond Ok are so controled and brainwashed that they cannot see the control methods employed by the CULT. They actually BELIEVE what the controlling "ministers" say, that if they go against the cult leader, "that prophet" and "King", Gerald Flurry, they are told that they will be condemned to eternal death.

If someone does leave or is put out, there eyes are opened. 

CLICK HERE FOR EXAMPLES

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See THE EVIL CHURCH

And THE EVIL CHURCH part 2

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Learn about my encounter with a PCG minister in my home:

FREAKED OUT BY "MINISTER"

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The Philadelphia Church of God (PCG) 
Has Taken My Family From Me.
They Are Prevented From Having Any Contact With Me.

The PCG has destroyed hundreds of families like mine. 

Some members have even committed suicide because of their NO CONTACT RULING 

My Daughter Elise Moffett

Now Elise Salinas of San Antonio, Texas

She is NOT ALLOWED ANY CONTACT WITH ME

By the Philadelphia Church of God (PCG)

Of Edmond Oklahoma

TELL MY CHILDREN I LOVE THEM

The Philadelphia Church of God (PCG) in Edmond Oklahoma.

Will not allow my children to contact me.

It has been over 14 years since I have been able to see my daughter, who now lives in San Antonio, Texas. During that time, we have had no contact other than her answering my text to tell her or the death of her brother Sterling. I am grateful that she did reach out — when my son Sterling died, she called and texted, and she shared a photo of her son, my grandson, whom I have not yet had the chance to meet. He is a beautiful little boy, and seeing his picture meant more to me than I can express. She also shared that she was expecting a baby girl. I think about them often and keep them in my prayers.

If you know Elise, please let her know that her father loves her deeply, misses her, and would cherish the opportunity to hear from her. My heart is open, and my door is always open. No matter how much time passes, that will never change.

I believe family bonds are a gift from God. Love, respect, and communication between parents and children are things to be valued and protected. My desire is simply for peace, understanding, and the chance to reconnect.

Elise, if you ever read this — you are loved, you are missed, and you are always welcome in my life.

If anyone knows my daughter Elise Salinas and her husband Paul of San Antonio Texas.
Tell them I would love to see my grandson. They are in a cult church called the Philadelphia Church of God headquartered in Edmond Ok. They church leader, a man that calls himself KING OF ISRAEL, Gerald Flurry will not allow them to see me.
I made this short video from a picture of the little guy that I have.... I would like to meet him before I die.

The same long separation has also affected my son, Nathan Moffett, who lives in Edmond, Oklahoma. I have not been able to have any contact with him for many years, and that has been one of the deepest sorrows of my life.

I had AI make these 2 pictures of me and my son Nathan Moffett
of Edmond Oklahoma. I haven't seen him in over 12 years.
The PCG will not allow him to contact me on penalty of him being
cast into the lake of fire at Christ's return.

Nathan, if you ever read this: you are deeply loved, you are never forgotten, and you will always have a place in my life.

The Philadelphia Church of God (PCG) has ruined the lives of thousands of people, broken apart hundreds of families and even caused the suicide of some members.

My Son Nathan Moffett of Edmond Oklahoma 

If you want to see the damage caused by the Philadelphia Church of God of Edmond Oklahoma check out this website. 

Here you’ll find letters written over the past 26 years. You will read of families torn apart, lives destroyed and member suicides caused by the destructive group led by the tyrannical FALSE PROPHET Gerald Flurry and now his son Steven Flurry.

As you read the hundreds of letters remember that most people do not take the time to write a letter. 

Many more people have been devastated by this cult church.

Letters from the Philadelphia Church (PCG) are listed on the left of the page.

https://exitsupportnetwork.com/letter-archives/

Only an EVIL "church" would prevent me from seeing my children,
and them from seeing me.

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Gerald Flurry and the Death of My Son:

My youngest son killed himself January 2025.

One of the reasons is because he never got over losing his older brother and sister to the PCG’s “no contact rule.” They abandoned him, me and my daughter who left the PCG.

He lost his mother when he was 12. Something he took very hard.

Then when I was put out of the PCG, he lost his brother and sister who remained in the “church” and quit contact with me and him. Toward the end he talked about them a lot. He could not understand why they would not contact me, my other daughter that is out of the PCG, or him. He wanted to go visit them but thought they would not welcome him unless he was in “the church.” But, he wanted nothing to do with that “church.”

Even though my daughter Elise is in the PCG and under the “no contact rule.” Under penalty of being cast into the lake of fire by Gerald Flurry, she did text me, call me and sent me a picture of her son, my little grandson, who it turns out she had named after her brother, my son Sterling, that had just killed himself. And she told me she was going to have another baby, a girl.

So not only did I lose my youngest son, I lost my other son, my daughter, a grandson and a granddaughter.

How much longer will God allow this evil group to continue? How many families have been destroyed and lives lost?

D Moffett (Former PCG member)

I know I will see my son Sterling again. My son Nathan and daughter Elise have knowingly and wantonly broken the commandment. If they don't repent now. I won't be seeing them again in this age or the next.
What has kept me going is knowing the TRUTH. Our loved ones that died are all asleep in the grave. No more pain or suffering. No knowledge of the evil going on in this world. They don't even know they are dead. Their next conscious moment they will be alive again in the resurrection. Unaware of all the years they have been in the grave. They will be healed of the illness that took their lives. We will see them again. It won't be long now. My prayer is that I die soon to sleep peacefully until that day.

How Three Cousins of 1844 Treated Doctors

Millerite descendants spent more than a century arguing with the stethoscope. Some of them built hospitals. Some of them built doctrines that treated hospitals as a lack of faith. A few of them did both at once, which is the most American solution possible.

The family tree is simple enough. William Miller's 1844 disappointment splintered into Adventist streams. From that soil came Seventh-day Adventists, the Bible Students who became Jehovah's Witnesses, and later Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God. They did not share one medical creed. They shared a habit: reading James 5:14 ("call for the elders... anointing him with oil") as if Luke, "the beloved physician," had never existed.

Adventism

In 1849 Ellen White told believers not to "dishonor God by applying to earthly physicians," but to apply to "the God of Israel." That was not an eccentric footnote. Nineteenth-century medicine was often heroic, toxic, and useless. Bleeding, calomel, and guesswork made prayer look comparatively scientific.

By the early 1850s she walked it back. Prayer of faith, yes; fanatical refusal of "simple remedies," no. The 1863 health-reform vision then gave Adventism its signature package: vegetarian emphasis, no tobacco or alcohol, suspicion of stimulant drinks, hydrotherapy, fresh air, and a moral duty to treat the body as a temple. The point was prevention and "rational" treatment, not a vow to die of appendicitis for Jesus.

Then they did the unfashionable thing. They built institutions. Battle Creek Sanitarium. Loma Linda. Today the Adventist health network is routinely described as the largest Protestant healthcare system on earth-hundreds of hospitals and clinics, millions of visits a year, a flagship academic medical center that does heart transplants and Alzheimer's trials. Loma Linda, here in CA, is a town which has a population of 24,000 where close to 1/2 of its residents are Adventists.

The stereotype that "SDAs avoid doctors and just don't eat meat" is half true. Official Adventism endorses evidence-based care and whole-person lifestyle medicine. Vegetarianism is strongly encouraged, not a substitute for antibiotics. Some members still lean harder into natural remedies than their oncologist would like. That is a tension inside a church that also employs armies of surgeons. Holistic is not the same as anti-medical. One of those built Loma Linda. The other built obituaries.

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses did not inherit a general ban on physicians. They seek hospitals. They do not market themselves as faith healers. Their distinctive medical wound was blood. From 1945 onward, "abstain from blood" (Acts 15) was read as a ban on transfusions. Whole blood was forbidden. Over decades the policy developed the texture of a tax code: fractions became conscience matters, some procedures were permitted, others were not. Children died. Courts intervened. Hospital ethics committees learned to diagram blood products like rabbinic food laws.

In 2026 the Governing Body moved again. In March, use of a patient's own stored blood became a personal decision. On September 18, 2026, red cells, white cells, plasma, and platelets from a donor became matters of individual conscience. Whole-blood transfusion remains prohibited. Official language is careful: the Bible "does not comment" on components, so conscience applies. Blood is still "sacred." God is not described as having been wrong. The teaching is described as an adjustment.

That is theologically tidy and historically late. For eighty years the same texts were treated as clear enough to risk excommunication and death. After enough funerals, lawsuits, and clinical workarounds, the four main components of blood discovered they had been matters of conscience all along. Members may still refuse everything. Doctors are now warned not to assume a Witness will refuse components. The practical result is that most modern transfusion medicine is suddenly compatible with remaining a Witness in good standing-except the one product labeled "whole."

If that sounds like a revelation that arrived after the bill came due, that is because it does.

Armstrongism

Herbert W. Armstrong taught the hard version. Healing was included in Christ's sacrifice. James 5 was the protocol. Doctors existed to teach diet and "nature's laws," not to heal after you were sick. Trusting "doctors and medicines instead of Christ" was putting another god before Him. Medicines were spoken of as poisons. Members heard, in print and from the pulpit, that calling the elders-not the ER-was obedience.

The doctrine had a body count. Former ministers have described members, including children with treatable infections, who followed the booklet instead of the hospital. The church did not always publish a formal "you are expelled if you see a doctor" statute. It did not need one. When eternal life is hanging on whether you trusted Christ or "dope," most people get the hint.

Headquarters was less heroic. By the 1970s it was an open secret that leading men used surgeons and clinics. Armstrong himself wrote about physicians visiting his home, recuperated in European clinics, received CPR when his heart stopped, and in December 1985 discussed his doctor's advice about transfusions while describing daily medical visits and angina. He died in January 1986 after months of intensive medical management. The man who told the church that healing was already paid for spent his last chapter surrounded by doctors.

After his death the parent church reversed course. Joseph Tkach's reforms said seeking medical attention and having faith "need NOT be OPPOSITES." God had nowhere commanded Christians to avoid checkups, medicines, inoculations, or surgery. Split-off Armstrongist groups still argue about how much of the old booklet to keep. The pattern is familiar: the rule is fiercest when it is applied downward.

Faith

Faith can steady a person in a hospital bed. It cannot culture bacteria, type blood, or reduce a fracture. The Bible's own cast list includes a physician as an author. Israel had midwives and wound care. Jesus spit in dirt and also told people to show themselves to the priests-the public-health officers of the day. None of that reads like a command to treat insulin as idolatry.

The recurring failure in these movements was not prayer. It was the claim that using the brain God allegedly issued was a rival sacrament. That claim is easy to preach and expensive to live. Leaders who can fly to Bucharest for a clinic stay, get penile implants, or parse blood into fractions until the ban is mostly a slogan, are not living the same risk as a parent told that a spinal-meningitis protocol is a test of loyalty.

God, if one is being theological about it, also allowed germ theory, anesthesia, vaccines, and the training of people who can stop a hemorrhage. Calling that "man's wisdom" while swallowing the fruits of it in private is not holiness. It is Bible pettiness at its worst

Prevention, diet, rest, and refusing to worship the pharmaceutical industry are not crazy. Adventists got some of that right early, and epidemiology later caught up in places like Loma Linda. What does not follow is the leap from "the body is a temple" to "the temple must never admit a surgeon." Temples in the ancient world had maintenance staff. Modern ones have attending physicians.

The honest synthesis is boring and adult: pray, then take the child to the hospital. Anoint with oil if desired, then consent to the component that keeps the brain from dying. Eat the vegetables. Do not confuse a leader's "new light" with a refund for the people who died under the old light. God may or may not heal. Doctors, at minimum, show up.

Dave Pack's Avoiding Accountability Master Class: Minimizing

 

David C. Pack's Avoiding Accountability Master Class: Minimizing

Anyone who thinks that David C. Pack of The Restored Church of God is not diabolical needs to watch this video. During "The Greatest Untold Story! (Part 650)," given on September 19, 2026, he ridiculed members who left because they got "hung up" on him falsely preaching dates for the coming of the Kingdom of God.

The Pastor General equates the knowledge of his made-up 7.5-year kingdom to be a blue whale and the concern over him setting false dates 145 times since 2013 as a minnow. And a gnat. And a fly. In addition to him minimizing his own actions to avoid accountability, he also blames those who have concerns by accusing them of disbelief in God's Kingdom.

Part 650 is a Master Class in brainwashing manipulation.

Marc Cebrian
exrcg.org

Why Different Races: Crackpot Bob Takes Another Lap Around Herbert’s Favorite Rabbit Hole

God's most highly favored prophet had these words of wisdom today in an article where he talks about race. Never in my life have I read anything as astounding as this! God truly worked miracles when he created Crackpot Bob's brain. This dude is supercharged with intelligence!

• Many people live in countries where their race dominates. They learn various lessons.
• Some people live in countries where their race is highly discriminated against. They learn various lessons.
• Some people live in countries more accepting of multiple races. They learn various lessons.
• And there are variations among those scenarios, which partially result in learning various lessons.

On September 28, 2026, while the Churches of God were at the Feast sites and while most of the planet was busy being a planet, Crackpot Bob of the improperly named "Continuing" Church of God published "Why different races, different hair colors, etc.?" It is not new. It is the same "Mystery of Race" lecture he has been giving for years, now re-upholstered for the Feast of Tabernacles season like a motel bedspread that has seen one too many self-appointed prophets.

The argument, boiled down until the bones show, is this:

• Evolution is a lie because a suntan is not heritable and Jeremiah 13:23 says a Cushite cannot change his skin.
• All humans come from Adam, Eve, and then Noah's three sons and their conveniently color-coded wives.
• Cush means "black." Some of Phut's kids are also black. Ambassador College said so in 1968, and 1968 Ambassador College is still the gold standard of physical anthropology if your laboratory is a Pasadena basement and your peer reviewers are already dead.
• No race is spiritually superior. Salvation is for everybody. Variety exists so that in the Kingdom we can all love each other more creatively. Different heights, hair colors, and melanin levels are God's way of assigning unique homework before eternity.

It is the theological equivalent of saying "I'm not racist, I have a Black friend who will be in the first resurrection too, just not from the same tribe that got the birthright."

Armstrongism did not invent racial taxonomy. It inherited it when it co-opted British-Israelism - the 19th-century parlor game that decided the lost tribes of Israel packed up after the Assyrian conquest, wandered around Europe, and eventually became the British, the Americans, the Canadians, the Australians, and whoever else needed a prophetic participation trophy. Herbert W. Armstrong turned that parlor game into a multimedia empire.

Old Worldwide Church of God teaching held that God "does not want the different races to mix socially or to intermarry." Social mixing starts in school, they warned. Ambassador College was late and reluctant to admit Black students. Congregations were often de facto segregated. Black members in Chicago and elsewhere recalled being told, as children, that whites sat at the top of a biblically ordained hierarchy and that even heaven would keep the seating chart. Herbert himself wrote that Jesus had to be of "the original pure racial strain, even as Noah was." "Perfect in his generations" was read as a genetics certificate. Our minister in Dayton mentioned many times that when the millennium started, everyone would go back to their ethnic nation of origin, which meant blacks would return to Africa and ethnic South Americans would return to South America, and Asians back to Asia.

None of this required shouting slurs. It only required a prophecy chart that mapped physical blessings onto specific modern nations and then treated everyone else as supporting cast. You can love the extras and still write the script so that Ephraim and Manasseh keep the best lines.

Crackpot Bobl has spent years insisting he is not that. He is "predominantly Gentile" himself, he says. Salvation is not a racial issue. He is not Christian Identity. He just happens to still publish an entire book called Lost Tribes and Prophecies that assigns the English-speaking world the starring role in end-time catastrophe and, later, in the Millennium's administrative class. He still quotes the 1968 Ambassador College race booklet as if it were a primary source instead of a period piece. He still needs Cush to mean black so the Table of Nations can do the work that genetics and archaeology refuse to do.

The spiritual-equality paragraphs are the insurance policy. The tribal identification is the product.

Today's article performs the familiar two-step:

• Deny evolution with a verse about skin color that was never written as a genetics paper.
• Affirm that God likes variety the way a collector likes different stamps - then immediately sort the stamps back into Shem, Ham, and Japheth drawers.

"You cannot change your race," Crackpot Bob writes, as if anyone in 2026 were trying to file an amendment. The sentence is doing pastoral work. It reassures readers who grew up being told that certain unions were "against God's law of kinds" that the old categories still have divine backing, even if the pastor now adds a disclaimer about the Kingdom being a big, loving potluck.

The purpose of racial difference, we are told, is so that people learn different lessons in this life and can therefore contribute unique flavors of love later. It is a charming thought until you remember the institution that produced it once taught that some of those "lessons" included knowing your place in a hierarchy that just happened to look like the American 1950s.

Armstrongism has always been better at announcing that racism is over than at noticing the architecture it left standing. Thiel's version is the polite remodel: same floor plan, new paint, a plaque that says "All Welcome" next to the genealogy chart that still has the good parking spots reserved.

The piece is not really about hair color. Hair color is the decoy. The real subject is continuity. A tiny church that claims to be the Philadelphian remnant cannot admit that one of its founders' central interpretive keys - the physical identification of modern nations with ancient tribes - was a racialized 19th-century hobby horse that caused real harm to real people in the pews. So the lecture returns, year after year, like a relative who will not stop bringing the same casserole.

Critics have been calling this out for decades. Former members, Black and white, have described the quiet ranking, the intermarriage panic, the Millennium as a place where the nations stay in their lanes. Crackpot Bob's response is always the same: those people are scoffers, the Bible is clear, and anyway he has a video.

The video is 22 minutes long. It asks whether one race is superior and answers no. It does not ask why a church that spent fifty years acting as if some nations were prophetically more important than others still needs a 1968 booklet to explain why some people have darker skin.

Armstrongism's racial problem was never only the occasional ugly sentence. It was the system that made ancestry destiny, then called the destiny "prophecy," then called the prophecy "love." Crackpot Bob has sanded the edges. He has not replaced the machine.

The latest post is not a breakthrough. It is a man standing on a stack of his predecessor's books, pointing at the same wall chart, and announcing that variety is beautiful - as long as you remember which branch of the family tree you came from, and which blessings were promised to which branch, and which branch is currently being punished for forgetting the Sabbath.

Some things, as Jeremiah might have said if he had a blog, a Cushite cannot change. And neither, apparently, can a church.

Why Are So Many COG Leaders and Members Who Claim 1st Century Christianity Tend To Be Such Abusive Bullies?

Anyone who has attended a COG for any extended period of time has come face to face with bully ministers, elders, deacons, deaconesses, ministers' wives, and regular members. There are several reasons for this appalling behavior. 

• The corrupt teaching of church government, top-down control
• The complete lack of confidentiality when members counsel with ministers
• Ministers' wives who gossip about members' problems
• Ordaining incompetent and/or unworthy men
• That church members are somehow more special than the rest of humanity, especially other Christians
• The complete inability for restoration if a person had "sinned" due to gossip

I am sure many more reasons can also be listed here (add to comments).

I think the main problem arises from the "proper" church government that all of the splinter churches use as a distinctive mark for pretending they are practicing 1st-century Christianity- which, incidentally, is not a single COG group's practice. There has never been a COG that has practiced 1st-century Christianity. Not one single group, and especially those that crow that they do. They are liars to claim they do so.

It is easy to do research on 1st-century believers and how the church operated. While they were Christ followers, they were still Jewish. That is why so many COG groups pretend to be Jewish, in name only.

First-century Christianity, we are solemnly informed by various Armstrongist groups, has been faithfully restored. The Sabbath is kept. The holy days are observed. The "true gospel" of the coming Kingdom is preached. And, most importantly, the government of God is once again operating on earth through a single, specially chosen human channel at the top of a very tidy pyramid.

How convenient that the primitive church of Acts just happened to look like a mid-20th-century media ministry with headquarters, ranks, and an apostle who needed to be obeyed in matters ranging from makeup to medicine.

First-century Christianity emphasized local, relational communities with servant-oriented leadership, voluntary mutual care, and a restoration-focused process for discipline-not centralized control over members' personal lives.

Armstrongism claimed to restore "true" primitive Christianity through Sabbath-keeping, holy days, and other distinctive doctrines, but its top-down "government of God," extensive lifestyle rules, and fear-based discipline produced patterns of control that do not match the New Testament or earliest extra-biblical sources. This became fertile breeding ground for bullies.

In Jerusalem after Pentecost, believers shared possessions voluntarily so that there was not a needy person among them. Property remained theirs to keep or give; Ananias and Sapphira were judged for lying, not for failing to surrender everything. Deacons were appointed when widows were neglected. People ate together in homes. Later letters assume collections for the poor, not a mandatory multi-tithe system flowing upward to support an expanding headquarters and an apostle's lifestyle. The Didache told communities to appoint humble bishops and deacons who were "not lovers of money," to reconcile before gathering, and to test itinerant apostles: don't let them stay too long or solicit cash. When have you ever seen a humble COG leader? 

Reproof was to be done "not in anger but in peace." Itinerant apostles and prophets were tested: they were not to stay long or solicit money. When have you ever seen correction or reproof done lovingly? Anger fills the hearts of the leaders and ministers who lash out at members for perceived faults. In Armstrongism, church leaders and most ministers are for life (though more and more tend to be retiring). The church leaders solicit money and remain in place until hell freezes over or they die.

Leadership in the New Testament was local and plural. Apostles appointed elders in churches. Those elders were to be gentle, hospitable, able to teach, not violent or greedy, and they were explicitly told not to lord it over the flock. By the time of 1 Clement, there is concern for orderly succession and not casually deposing appointed men, but nothing resembling one man in Pasadena (or Edmond, or Cincinnati, or Grover Beach, or Charlotte) directing every congregation's finances, dating rules, and medical decisions.

Jesus outlined a graduated process: private confrontation, then one or two witnesses, then the church; if unrepentant, treat the person as an outsider (Matthew 18:15-17). Paul applied this to grave, unrepentant immorality (1 Corinthians 5) and to factious people after two warnings (Titus 3:10). The stated goals were protection of the community, shame leading to repentance, and eventual restoration (2 Corinthians 2). Members were also told to test teachings (Acts 17:11) and to correct one another gently (Galatians 6:1). Excommunication existed, but it was not the first or default tool for disagreement with leaders.

The members' job is to submit to "the government of God" as represented by whoever currently occupies the top office. Humble service was apparently optional once the organizational chart was laminated. Once it was laminated, the bullies had a field day.

Armstrong taught that God governs the church through a pyramidal hierarchy. Armstrongism solved this inconvenience by discovering that God prefers a pyramid: Father → Christ → Apostle (Pastor General) → evangelists → pastors → elders → members. 

Question the hierarchy, the extra-biblical distinctives, or the apostle's unique role, and the process often jumped straight to disfellowshipping. Discipline in the first century followed a process: private conversation, then witnesses, then the church. The goal was restoration. Grave unrepentant immorality or persistent divisiveness could lead to treating someone as an outsider, with the hope they would be ashamed and return. Members were also told to test teachings and correct one another gently. Home inspections, family authoritarianism modeled on church structure, and a climate of fear around being "put out" became familiar features in many accounts. Restoration took a back seat to protecting the organization.

After Armstrong's death in 1986, the main Worldwide Church of God (now Grace Communion International) publicly repudiated many of these practices, including British Israelism, legalism as a test of fellowship, and the most extreme forms of one-man rule; a small number of leaders issued apologies for spiritual abuse. Numerous splinter groups (United Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, Living Church of God, and others) retained core Armstrongist distinctives and hierarchical structures. Reports of high-control dynamics, financial pressure, and trauma among former members continue through support networks and published testimonies. The New Testament churches had real authority, moral standards, and expulsion for unrepentant sin. They did not, however, feature a single human leader claiming unique end-time apostolic restoration who regulated members' medical choices, family details, or private questioning under threat of being cut off from God. Early sources stress humility in leaders, voluntary generosity, local plurality of elders, and a process aimed at winning the person back. That combination is the clearest available picture of how first-century communities treated their members. Bullies did not exist.

Armstrongism's record of control is not an unfortunate implementation detail. It is the predictable result of grafting a top-down "government of God" onto a claim of primitive restoration. For those who still want to keep the Sabbath and holy days, those can be observed without turning the church into a pyramid with fear at the base and money flowing to the apex.

Bullies exist in Churches of God for a simple reason: the system was built to produce and protect them. Top-down "government of God" is not a minor administrative preference. It is the distinctive that many splinter groups still treat as proof they are practicing first-century Christianity. It is also the distinctive that no first-century church actually practiced. Once a man is placed above question because he occupies an office in a laminated pyramid, ordinary safeguards collapse. Confidentiality disappears. Ministers' wives and inner circles become rumor mills. Unworthy men get ordained because loyalty to headquarters matters more than character. Members are taught they are a special class, so outsiders-and even other Christians-do not count. Gossip then makes restoration almost impossible: the "sin" is no longer the original offense; it is the fact that everyone already knows the story.

That is not an accident. It is what happens when servant language is kept in the sermon and lordship is kept in the structure. The New Testament told elders not to lord it over the flock. Armstrongism told the flock that resisting the man at the top was resisting God. Reproof was supposed to be done not in anger but in peace. In practice, anger, public humiliation, and the threat of being put out became tools of control. First-century discipline had a process and a goal: win the person back. Armstrongist discipline too often had a different goal: protect the organization and the office. Question the hierarchy and the process skipped Matthew 18 and went straight to exile. Friends were told to shun. Leaving was sold as leaving God.

The New Covenant does not authorize this.

Christ is the head of the church-not an apostle in Pasadena, Grover Beach, Edmond, Charlotte, or anywhere else. There is one mediator between God and humanity. Every believer is a priest. The Spirit was poured out on all flesh, not reserved for a ministerial caste. Leaders exist to equip the saints, not to own their consciences, their doctors, their marriages, or their friendships. Jesus explicitly rejected the Gentile model of lording it over others and told His followers the greatest must be a servant of all. Paul told the Galatians to stand firm in the freedom for which Christ set them free and not submit again to a yoke of slavery. The Bereans were commended for checking even an apostle against Scripture. Galatians 6:1 says to restore the one caught in a trespass gently, watching yourselves. None of that describes a system in which a handful of men can end your fellowship, isolate you from friends, and call it the government of God.

Members have allowed this because the doctrine trained them to. Fear of being "put out" was made larger than fear of enabling harm. Tithes kept flowing because withholding them was framed as stealing from God rather than refusing to fund unaccountable power. Silence was called humility. Endurance of abuse was called loyalty. That bargain is not faithfulness to the New Covenant. It is surrender of the very freedom the New Covenant created.

No Church of God group today practices first-century Christianity. Keeping the Sabbath and the holy days does not require a pyramid, three tithes traveling upward, home inspections, medical control, or a climate of fear. Those are later Armstrongite inventions wearing primitive clothing. The earliest communities were local, relational, and restoration-minded. Their leaders were to be tested, humble, and not lovers of money. Their members were expected to examine teaching and correct one another without a headquarters veto.

Members no longer have to pretend otherwise. Stop treating office as immunity. Stop confusing one man's authority with Christ's. Stop letting gossip replace the Matthew 18 process. Stop funding structures that punish questions and then claim to be the church Jesus built. If a leader will not be accountable, he is not exercising New Covenant ministry; he is exercising control. The New Covenant already named the alternative: one Head, many priests, servant leadership, gentle restoration, and freedom that no bully is entitled to revoke.

Based upon this Exit and Support Network letter on COG bullies:

Beware of Anyone in Authority in These Offshoot Churches:
September 3, 2026
Deacons and deaconess were hypocrites in my church area. A new couple came to me complaining about our deaconess. She organized camping in a wilderness area and the couple found it hard to cope camping with five young children. When the mother told the deaconess about her difficulties, she replied, “You have to practice for the place of safety!” I realized then that she had an unhealthy obsession with the place of safety.
So I told the couple what happened to me about two years before the couple started to attending services. The deaconess had organized another camping trip to another wilderness area from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. This particular spot was very popular with trail bikes so on Sabbath morning they roared up and down the steep hill next to the camping site. The deaconess was very unhappy with the “heathens” disturbing the peace on the Sabbath day. So I told that couple with the five children that the deaconess complained all weekend and they never went camping with her again. This happened 50 years ago so we are still waiting to go to the place of safety. 

 

As time marches on, it shows what I believed in was all nonsense. From the first day I met her I always thought she was very strange. Many years later she had to be put in an intensive care facility because she had dementia. 

 

My WCG church area had two deacons and both were proud bullies. I watched one deacon for years wash only the local ministers feet at Passover until that minister transferred to another area. Over the years I grew a healthy dislike for ordained people in my area. 

 

One by one when each of them died I never went to their funerals and it was a great relief to never see them again. 

 

If you are thinking of attending any of the WCG offshoot churches, beware of anyone who is in authority, they will make your life a misery. I still have trouble trusting other people because of my experience in WCG. –B. S.

It's the First Day of the Feast of Tabernacles and Guess What The Most Important Message is that You Need to Hear...

 

The first day of the Armstrongite Feast of Tabernacles has arrived, and the improperly named "Continuing" Church of God wasted no time identifying the most important theme of the day: your wallet. Of course they did!

James Martenet gave the offertory. 

Giving an offering is an act of worship. Give faithfully and you honor God with your resources. Walk by faith, not by sight. The Feast pictures the millennial kingdom, when God will dwell with humanity. Also, here is the mailing address in Grover Beach, California. PayPal works too.

Nothing says "walk by faith and not by sight" like a street address and a donations page dropped into the same paragraph as the coming Kingdom of God.

This is not an accident. It is straight from the Armstrongism playbook. Holy days in this tradition are not merely commemorations. They are collection days. Deuteronomy 16:16-17 said males were not to appear empty-handed three times a year at the pilgrimage feasts. Armstrongism stretched that into seven annual holy-day offerings, plus first tithe, plus a second tithe saved to spend on yourself at the Feast, plus (in the classic system) a third tithe in certain years, plus building funds, plus member letter appeals, plus tithe of the tithe. The Bible never commanded seven cash extractions nor all of these extra money grabs. Convenience and revenue did. Even some former insiders have said the quiet part out loud: more holy days means more offerings.

New Covenant Christians do not need any of this.

The festivals were shadows. The substance is Christ. Paul said so without embarrassment: "Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ" (Colossians 2:16-17). You do not keep camping in the shadow after the Person has arrived. You do not send the shadow a check.

Galatians 4 is even less polite. Observing days, months, seasons, and years after coming to Christ is not "restored truth." It is turning back to weak and worthless elementary principles. The Galatians were congratulating themselves on seriousness. Paul called it bondage.

The old covenant is obsolete (Hebrews 8:13). The Levitical calendar, the pilgrimage requirement, the "do not appear empty-handed" rule, and the whole sacrificial apparatus belonged to a covenant made with national Israel at Sinai. Gentiles were never parties to it. The Jerusalem council did not add "and keep Tabernacles and mail an offering to headquarters." Jesus kept the feasts because He was born under the Law. He fulfilled them. He did not commission the church to reenact them with hotel ballrooms and PayPal."

God will dwell with humanity." That is already the Christian confession. "The Word became flesh and dwelt [tabernacled] among us" (John 1:14). The Spirit already lives in believers (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). Revelation 21 describes the final dwelling of God with man. None of those texts instruct you to picture it by taking a week off, sitting through sermons about Herbert Armstrong's 1981 feast message, and making sure Grover Beach can process your card.

Giving is not the problem. Cheerful, voluntary generosity is New Testament Christianity. Scheduled holy-day offerings framed as worship, tied to a calendar God never bound on the church, and immediately followed by an address and a donations URL-that is a different animal. It turns the first hours of a "spiritual" festival into a fundraising opener. The Kingdom of God is coming. In the meantime, please honor Him with your resources. Faith, not sight. Also Venmo.

A New Covenant Christian can rejoice that God tabernacled in Christ, dwells in His people by the Spirit, and will dwell with redeemed humanity forever. None of that requires a booth, a second tithe, a holy-day envelope, or a reminder that the most important theme of the first day is cash. The substance already came. The collection plate for the shadow can stay in the museum.