Facebook: WCG Survivors

 

There have been some interesting stories popping up on the Facebook page WCG Survivors.

I just found out about this site & I think it's wonderful! I've been reading alot about horrible experiences each of you endured and want to speak up a little about some of the horrors visited upon members. Not long before we came into the Church, if it was discovered that the Minister was coming to you home, members would show up at your house with cleaning products & would clean you house! Also, they would go into your cabinets & throw away any food items not acceptable by the church, white suger, white bread, white flour & of course anything possibily related to pork. When we came into the church in the early 70's they no longer did this type of intrusion. However, I was told I would not be allowed to go into the medical field, and a very good friend of ours who was a RN, was told she had to give up her career, which she did. During the time of the Minister from Hell, people turned on one another, spreading rumors if they couldn't find any truth to take to the Minister. Teenagers were told to "turn in" any other teens who weren't doing what the Minister said. My little family got to the point you didn't trust anyone. Some good friends of ours took in a lady who was literally homeless. What happended, yep, she would run to the Minister or his wife with "stuff" that was going on in the home. The same home she was welcomed into. This is just a sample of some of the things that went on. My regret???? We allowed our daughter to be looked down upon, treated like dirt & made fun of, because we didn't have a lot of money & lived in a mobile home. Which is all we could afford, since so much went to the Church. She also had to endure the same type of crap at school, because she couldn't partake of a lot of school stuff due to the Church

The ever compassionate, church hopping Larry Salyer is exposed as the hypocrite he is.  Of course this was typical of many COG ministers who felt they had the right to tell people what kind of jobs they could work in.  I find it pretty sad that these ministurds were telling people they could no longer be doctors when the Pasadena are was filled with Church doctors and Herb surrounded himself with them.

My dad was a policeman, had four stai-rstepped kids, and we were poor as church mice. Minister of the day (Larry Salyer) told my dad he was sinning by carrying a gun and was told to quit his job. My dad said 'And then how am I supposed to feed my kids?' The answer: (I'll bet you already know).....trust God. Well, my dad apparently didn't have that type of trust, never quit his job, and went on to retire from the police force 30 years later. He was never made a deacon or elder or given any sort of responsibilities because of his "attitude". Although a (pretty) faithful member for many years. In fact, still hasn't come "out", even though he did switch horses many years before the WCG transformation......and all of the splinters he had followed have splintered and he doesn't attend much any more. My dad is a tough one to figure out.....he's 70 and still pretty much does his own thing.

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I've always had a natural bent towards science. It doesn't require much faith if you can prove the outcome with repeated experiments, so that's more comforting to me than wondering if some big deity in the sky will or will not talk to me.

I lost my faith when I was 16. I reached out to god and he turned away. I remember the day that I felt that abandonment. Over the next few years I looked at other religions and realized that all the Christian ones I looked at had the exact same formulas for services, scriptures, ostracism, and etc. That's not what I was looking for, so I started to look at pagan religions. Wicca was just the same thing with another god(dess). Oddly, most of the non-wicca pagans I have met seem to know the Bible better than I learned it. I never thought to ask why there are two creation stories, for example.

I used to hate any and all religions. Over the years I have relaxed my approach. Because all cultures have some form of deity, I realize that it is an essential thing for humans to try to make sense of the world and also create social customs for living with lots of humans in small spaces (as opposed to hunter-gatherer tribes) so that we can ensure our survival. Ultimately I am agnostic. Somethings can't be fully explained yet, so the question is still out there for me, but I am not looking to find anything either. If there is a god or goddess and they need me for something, they will have to find me

More Dramatic Joplin Pictures

More amazing photo's of the death and destruction in Joplin.

click on picture to enlarge

More dramtic pcitures here:

Joplin Tornado Devastation

Crystal Cathedral For Sale?

Robert Schuller used to be Herbert Armstrong's competition back in the early 1980's.  Later, WCG had to sell it's Bricket Wood, England, Big Sandy, Texas and Pasadena,CA properties in order to survive.  Now it looks like the Crystal Cathedral will be doing the same thing.  Perhaps Spanky or Six Pack might want to expand their empire?

GARDEN GROVE Crystal Cathedral Ministries will sell its gleaming glass sanctuary and tower that have been an Orange County landmark for decades as a way to emerge from bankruptcy, pay its creditors and erase its $36 million mortgage, officials said Thursday.
The church plans to sell the campus to a real estate investment group with a guaranteed 15-year leaseback and an exclusive four-year, fixed purchase buyback option on the core church campus, which includes the iconic glass sanctuary and Tower of Hope, according to a news release posted on the church's website.

Crystal Cathedral Ministries announced that it will sell the Crystal Cathedral and tower that have been an Orange County landmark for years as a way to emerge from bankruptcy, pay its creditors and erase its $36 million mortgage. The mega-church founded by television evangelist Robert H. Schuller, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010.

LEONARD ORTIZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

MORE PHOTOS »

Marc Winthrop, the attorney representing the cathedral in bankruptcy court, said the plan will ensure that the church can continue its ministry and other programs unhindered.
"The purpose of this plan is to generate funds to repay creditors without affecting the ability of the ministry to operate," he said.

No details have been released about the purchase price or the identity of the investor. But Winthrop confirmed that "there is a buyer and a seller." The church owes about $7.5 million to unsecured creditors including many longtime vendors who provided services for its annual Christmas and Easter pageants.

Church administrators say the cathedral will continue its local worship services, community outreach programs and its weekly "Hour of Power" broadcasts. Also, the plan will immediately eliminate both the church's mortgage and the majority of its vendor debt, they say. Any remaining vendor debt will be repaid over the next 42 months, officials say.

Senior Pastor Sheila Schuller Coleman, who took over leadership of the megachurch from her father and founder, Robert H. Schuller, said this plan was picked over other proposals because it repays the vendors quickly without interrupting the ministry's work.

"We are pleased that we are able to honor the debt that we have incurred and to honor the creditors who are due their payment," she said in a statement. "To pay them back 100 percent has always been a top priority and we are grateful to God for providing the resources to be able to do just that."

Kristina Oliver, who is owed $57,000 for supplying livestock for the "Glories," said she is optimistic that the church will pay her. Oliver's home went into foreclosure after the church refused to pay her what was due.

"I would just be relieved to put all this behind me and move on with my life," she said.
Anne Waltz, who joined the church 57 years ago as a member of its first choir at the Orange drive-in, said both she and her husband, Ken, were shocked to hear their church was being sold.

"This church needs a dynamic preacher to survive at this point," she said.

Ken Waltz said he is saddened to see the fall of a church that was built from the ground up by the older Schuller, who wowed Orange County's faithful with his powerful message of possibility thinking.

"The church has done so much good for the world," he said. "We hate to see it all muddied up like this in the end."

Ken Waltz also questioned the viability of the church's plan to emerge from bankruptcy.
"If they don't have the money now, how will they have the money to buy back the church four years from now," he said. "There are a lot of questions here."

He added that a church needs three elements to be successful – a powerful message in the form of a dynamic preacher, fellowship and divine music.

"The fellowship's still there at the cathedral," he said. "But they've lost their preacher and the music. They need to get that back in order to be successful."

Anne Waltz said she misses the music led by artists such as pianist Roger Williams and choir director Don Neuen. Both Williams and Neuen left over differences of opinion with Schuller's daughters who are in charge of the cathedral's programs.

"The music we had was starting to rival the Mormon Tabernacle Choir," she said. "Now we've lost that and we've lost our Glories that brought tens of thousands of people through our doors."
The Crystal Cathedral, over the last three years, has been torn by a family feud that saw the exit of the founder's son Robert A. Schuller. In the year leading up to its bankruptcy filing Oct. 18, the church sold many of its assets, cut about 150 of its staff members and slashed air time by 50 percent. Its congregation has shrunk to less than 5,000. According to bankruptcy filings, donations fell by 24 percent in 2009.

The church, at this point, owes money to about 550 creditors. Among the unsecured creditors are vendors who provided their services to the megachurch's popular "Glory of Christmas" and "Glory of Easter" pageants – both of which have been suspended as a result of church's financial troubles. The Cathedral lost $16.8 million over three years on total revenues of $70.8 million.
The mortgage includes the cost of two more buildings on campus – the Family Life Center and Welcoming Center – which were added in 1990 and 2003 respectively. The mortgage also covers the cost of other refurbishments on campus and parking lot expansion as well as funds to acquire neighboring properties.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7909 or dbharath@ocregister.com

Orange County Register 

UCG Ethics Committee

Ethic's and UCG in the same sentence is the ultimate in paradox.  UCG has a long history of being unethical.

It's very formation was one of unethical behavior.  Most of the men in charge at UCG now, and also those that split off to form the new COGWA, are the same men who sat for months and months in the 380 and 390 apartments on the Pasadena campus planning and plotting their new church all the while still raking in their paychecks and standing up in church each week supporting the changes.  Some were even firing men left and right who disagreed with the changes coming down, while they were plotting their new church.


Mario Seiglie is the new head of the UCG Ethics Committee.  Seiglie is also the one that UCG sent to South America to 'straighten out' the issue with the family that was operating a day care center on the so called 'sabbath.'  What was unethical about that?  These 'sabbath breakers' were extended members of Seiglie's own relatives!  We now all know the result of that 'family intervention.'  The break up of UCG and the defection of a huge number of it's ministers.

UCG ethic's involves church members who embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from a bank and built UCG a church meeting hall in West Virginia.

And, we cannot forget some of the current UCG ministers who are committing adultery and others who are raging alcoholics.  Yep, ethic's is a real concern for UCG right now.