Sunday, May 15, 2011

COG Splintering a Foretaste of U.S Splintering?



Armstrongism is certainly filled with some nutjobs!  
Obviously this poor soul never attended God's College!  
Oh wait, maybe she did and that's part of the problem! 


We often used to say that the nation followed the church and vice versa. One being an indicator of the condition of the other.
I equate Barack Obama with Joseph Tkach. A change has occurred and now splintering of one sort or another will begin.
When the fire or trouble goes out to all Israel, we know it begins at the altar.
If you look further you can see that the Church of God 7th day has it's own J.Tkach in the form of Whaid Rose who says the church is and always was "protestant". He has introduced the cross and pictures of Christ,etc.
Long before the WWCG or Radio Church was in abundance around the country Mr. Armstrong had told his evangelists that they could meet with Cof G 7. That didn't last long and after the WWCG  had more congregations was completely ended. But it does show they were not at that time off the track completely. They are now, however.


Saturday, May 14, 2011

Demons: Armstrongism's Greatest Friend



Who is discussed the most in your church area?  Who does your church leaders talk about the most?  Jesus or Satan/demons? Who gets the most airplay?  How many articles have appeared in your church magazines and on it's web sites?

After having spent over 40 years in Armstrongism, I have to say that I have heard demons and Satan discussed far more than Jesus ever was.  We always had to be on guard because they were lurking around every corner ready to devour us.

Demonic folktales have circulated around Armstrongite churches for generations.  Almost everyone knows a story involving demons.

One that was in Dayton church in the early late 60's was about a church woman who was visiting her neighbor (a Catholic).  While they were talking a horrible stench started filling the kitchen.  All of a sudden this huge gorilla was sitting on the bar-stool over in the corner and it started talking to them.  The Catholic woman had some 'holy water' on hand and threw it on the gorilla/demon and rebuked it. The true Church of God   member also rebuked it. Confident knowing that only she had the power to rebuke demons.  And lo and behold it disappeared.  The stench remained, but evil was gone......  Of course the moral of the story was that the WCG woman was the one who actually rebuked it instead of the false Christian Catholic woman.

Another involved Ambassador students in Pasadena.  Right before I cam to the holiest place on earth, there were some students who started having toothbrushes levitating in the bathrooms.  These demons loved to play with tooth brushes and shaving cream. For some reason these demons like to hang out in the bathrooms.

The house on the corner of Del Mar and Orange Grove was considered haunted by many students.  It particularly had a bad reputation in the late 80's when a couple of women from the dorm were assaulted and raped on campus.  Bad things seemed to constantly be happening to those who lived there.  Later residents who were evangelists and department heads, had family issues with mental health.  One had a foster daughter that they locked in her room with padlocks on the outside of the door, another had a child who tried to stab his mother.  Of course these were all attributed to the demonic forces prevalent in the house.  Even Tkach Sr. did not escape the problems with his wife's mental issues.  The fundie church members all attributed these issues with demonic influences.

But interestingly enough, the Israelite people never were that much into demons.  Since we loved to imitate Judaism as much as possible you would have thought church 'scholars' would have done their research and found out that Satan and his demons were never major players in Judaism, especially in pre-exilic Israelite religion.

So where did these little buggers come from?  Blame the Persian Zoroastrian's.  

Somethings to consider and a few excerpts from   


What’s interesting to me is the difference between pre-exilic Judaism and post-exilic Judaism. Many of the ideas that show up for the first time in 2nd Temple literature bear resemblance to aspects of Zoroastrian thought (eg. the resurrection of the dead, the apocalyptic destruction of evil, etc.). One has to be cautious about jumping to the conclusion that Judaism simply borrowed from Zoroastrianism. Our Zoroastrian sources are relatively late, so it’s not entirely clear what the religion looked like at the time of Persian rule. And of course one shouldn’t overlook the influence of Greek thought following years of Judean Hellenization. Nonetheless, there does appear to be a relationship of some sort between Zoroastrian thinking and some novel aspects of 2nd Temple Jewish thought.

Pre-exilic Israelite religion, like its near eastern neighbors, was monistic in the sense that it “viewed the universe as a unified system in which each member, divine and human, had its proper domain and function above, upon, or below the earth.” There was no band of demons, led by Satan, fighting against God and seeking to undermine his purposes. Rather, God had at his disposal both benevolent spirits and spirits of calamity. The significant point is that the malevolent spirits were not fighting against God; they were doing God’s bidding.
 This viewpoint is quite foreign to us, because we’re far more familiar with the dualistic worldview that emerged post-exile in which Satan and his demons are thought to be rebellious angels battling against God. But recognizing that this was not the way pre-exilic Israel thought helps to explain a number of passages that tend to bother us moderns.

 In other words, once dualistic notions of a cosmic conflict between good and evil emerged, some within Judaism began to read their holy texts in this light. Satan, competing deities and other dark powers were reassigned to the evil camp. The notion of a “fall from heaven” emerged to explain (I assume) how this competing camp arose. Verses such as Isaiah 14:12, “How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn!”, which was originally a prophecy against the king of Babylonian, were co-opted in support of the new narrative. By the time we get to the New Testament – take the book of Revelation, for example – the dualism is fully developed and Satan is “that ancient serpent” whom God will finally destroy.

Fundamentalist/dispensationalist Christians say that demons are active all around us and are in everything. Other Christians say that Satan and his demons have been vanquished and have no power over us since the resurrection.

So what do think about it?

Two Mile Long Line For A Double Double








Anyone who was ever in Pasadena with any ties to the WCG has probably had a burger at IN-N-OUT Burger on Walnut Street.  That is of course unless you were one of Armstrognism's food fanatics.

In-n-Out is a home grown institution that started here in Southern CA. Started by the Snyder family it is still a family owned business.  All the food is fresh and never frozen.  Service is fast and friendly with many employees making careers with the company. 

They feed all the people that work and participate in the Rose Parade each January 1st with over 10,000 burgers. And with no apologies, all their burger wrappers and cups have a Bible scripture somewhere on it.


There is a great story in the London Daily Mail today about an IN-N-OUT that opened in Texas recently. Cars were in a two mile long line!  The IN-N-OUT in Glendale can have 30 some cars in line for several hours at a time around lunch and dinner time.

I wonder if Flurry and Weinland will have a stand ready in Petra when they all show up next year?  Perhaps Spanky has ordered one when he takes his little flock to Petra when Thiel's 2012 predictions come true.

Daily Mail: In-n-Out Burger

Friday, May 13, 2011

Feeding Your Dog Unclean Meat

Looking through some of the blogs of Armstrongite acolytes today was really depressing.  What a SAD, unhappy, miserable bunch of people!  Do they not have any joy in their lives??????  Everything is satanic or 'of this world' and not to be enjoyed.  What morons!

So to lighten the mood today, some dog humor: