On The Current State of the Churches of God

The web blog As Bereans Did has an excellent detailed article up about why the COG's are not growing.  We have long held here that all the COG's are not bring in new members, that young ones are leaving, and that the only exist through splinter poaching.

One thing I have brought up before is that there is not a single COG out there that tried to reinvent it's self when it formed a new group.  It was their golden opportunity to become something new and alive.  Instead every single one of them had to imitate HWA and every thing he did.  They name their colleges after him, they name their magazines after his, they rewrite or plagiarizer his books, they buy his memorabilia and they live in the past.

The article goes over these major points that most people who are critical of the COG realize:

1) Availability of information on the Internet.
2) Lack of novelty.
3) Lack of charisma in leadership.
4) Sheer number of COG groups to choose from.

Some minor supporting points include:
- In-fighting between splinters.
- Aging membership.
- Failure to reach out in today's methods.

To me the one splinter group that had the biggest chance of doing something right was UCG.  They had a golden opportunity to start brand new, reinvent itself, and do a major "work."  However it did not accomplish that.  It now has splint into several different groups since its inception.

The article has this:

Armstrong was an advertising man. He knew the value of product differentiation. He knew what it meant to stand out in a crowd, and he knew what death awaited for any product that was just more of the same. He saw the appeal of British Israelism and the annual holy days. When he failed to really sell these and certain other notions to his branch of the COG7, he set out to sell them to the public. He had a niche and he had the know-how to capitalize on it.

Herbert Armstrong used his advertising experience to take his message to the radio waves. From the 1930's to the 1970's, most of the people who heard of the Radio Church of God, which eventually changed its name to the Worldwide Church of God, did so from radio programs.

What was that niche?

In short, J. H. Allen's British Israelism compounded with a few additional legal requirements created an attractive elitism. Toss on Alexander Hislop's concocted historical narratives to create a secretive conspiracy, and voila! It wasn't just about Protestant versus Catholic, nor was it just about the Sabbath versus Sunday. Now it was about being one of an elite group of people who were chosen by God to be given secret knowledge of a conspiracy stretching back 3,000 years, kept secret until this final hour before the return of Christ. Members of this elect group were called and chosen to fulfill prophecy by spreading the warning that doom and death awaited anyone not vetted into this "one true end-time church". This church superseded all previous churches; none of them would do. This was the final offer and it was only available while supplies last.

What a potent combination! Doomsday and Conspiracy. Fear and Pride.

Eat your heart out, Little Orphan Annie with your secret decoder ring. We have the keys to understand prophecy!

The problem with today's group of post-Armstrong leaders is that they have not learned the lesson of effective advertising.

They were told for so long that they had the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth that now they are in a predicament. No one boards a plane intending to be locked into a holding-pattern. How do you differentiate your product when you are more or less forbidden to change it and make it distinctive, and there are nearly a thousand other people selling the same thing?

The article then talks about the "charisma" of the current crop of COG leaders.  None of them, and I mean NONE of them have the charisma of HWA or GTA. Pack has proven himself to be lying narcissist, Flurry is batshit crazy and Weinland is in prison.

Most of the current COG leadership try to solve the problem of brand differentiation by heaping upon themselves titles and honors. "I am this or that prophetic messenger!" "I am going to train this or that prophetic messenger!" "I have the most pure and unadulterated continuation of the original."

Unfortunately this approach is almost entirely dependent on the charisma of the glorious leader. If you don't have a glorious leader with charisma, as Garner Ted Armstrong had in abundance, then you simply cannot win with this approach.

Herbert Armstrong's personal charisma was high, far higher than any of his remaining followers, but Garner Ted's was higher. It was Garner Ted that was personally responsible for the greatest increases in membership from the 1950's through the 1970's.

There was nothing in the entire organization or any of its competitors who could match him. He was handsome, intelligent, well spoken, had a baritone voice soft as butter, was educated in the areas that mattered, and you couldn't ask for better rhetoric. The women loved him. And through it all, he still seemed down-to-earth and approachable. He was a leader for the people. I tell you the truth if he hadn't been caught up in the church he would have been somebody.

Compare that to the current leader of the Intercontinental Church of God.

"Who?" you ask. Exactly!

Certain ones in the current crop of splinter group leaders have a portion of charisma, but they simply don't have enough. Their charisma is a flash in the pan. It may keep established believers, but gaining new believers is much more difficult. Cult of Personality can only take you so far. As with the Intercontinental Church of God, when the leader is struck, the sheep will scatter.

The universal method to overcome lack of charisma is to spend money. You have to have members to get money, then you have to spend money to get members. It's a catch-22. Not only that but you have to keep spending more and more money, which means you have to keep asking for more and more. There's only so long you can squeeze blood from that turnip. It never, ever lasts. It never truly can replace charisma.

Armstrongist COGs these days are stagnating and declining in attendance because their leadership lacks the charisma of old.

Read the entire article here:   Current State of Armstrongism

Bob Thiel Disappointed That COG Members Are Not Reading His Article About David C Pack

Poor non-ordained Bob, try as he might, he just CANNOT make the impact that he thinks he is making.  Like Pack, Thiel thinks he is reaching more people than any other COG in human history has ever done.  Like Dave Pack, he also is an abysmal failure.

Bob, like most of us, has been saying that there will be no large influx of COG members from the top three COG's into Dave's personality cult.

Bob also for some illogical reason seems to think he is one of the three COG leaders Dave clams will die by August 31.  All I can say to that is, dream on little guy, you are nothing but a pimple on Dave's plans.

Bob wrote an article some time back, Why Not The Restored Church of God in which he hoped to stop large numbers of COG members from jumping ship into RCG.  Bob was trying to influence people into coming into his improperly named Continuing Church of God.  Apparently no one is reading Bob's article and Bob is sorely disappointed.

Since my article Why Not the Restored Church of God? shows up on the first page when people do a Google search of the improperly named Restored Church of God, it would seem that there would be a massive increase in views if indeed, massive numbers were going over to RCG. But alas, that is not the case.

Kubik is UCG's New President

No real shocker there.  The same old party politics and manipulation still are the order of the day.

Robin Webber also lays out some goals that UCG is to be striving for.  These goals are the exact same things I have been hearing them say for the last 18 years.  For 18 years they have not been able to accomplish any of this. The only thing they have accomplished is division and upheavals.

Robin writes:

We held a retreat session for a day before the formal meetings to earnestly pray and talk to one another as to how to “grow in grace and knowledge” in conveying the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God in a compelling, loving, relevant and hope-filled manner. With today’s fractured and distracted audience, how do we best grab their attention, address their personal needs, and make them consider the great questions of life. Who and what is God? Who and what is man? Why was I born? Why would God even care? What does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? Does it mean simply to acknowledge Him and experience a casual acquaintance, or does it mean to follow Him by surrendering every fiber of our being into His service? Those big questions of life must be matched by the ultimate Life-giver’s big answers that come directly from the Scriptures.

"Growing in grace and knowledge"  Year after year they have said this exact same thing.  For 18 years they have never accomplished this or learned to convey the message of Jesus to the world.  Until they surrender to grace and stop prostituting themselves to the law, they are never going to cross the wall they have built that separates them from  "grace and knowledge."

It’s our collective prayer and continuing desire to effectively preach the gospel in such a manner that will move people to change their lives and echo the apostle Paul’s words: 

“What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering, being conformed to His death, if, by an means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:7-11).

Allow me to be clear. We are not out to “grow a church” by some worldly methodology, but first and foremost always desirous of growing in understanding the depth of God’s spiritual purposes as defined by His grace, love, law and judgments. When we understand that this is an ongoing activity till the day we die, then things begin to change in our lives, our families, our local congregations and our potential impact expands upon our fellow coworkers and neighbors. As we do our part, God will do His part in what only He can do—call others to understand His truth (John 6:44, 65)! The book of Acts informs us that at times He “adds” (Acts 2:41), and sometimes He “multiplies” (Acts 6:7). We must leave that to Him and “be about our Father’s business” in making ourselves ready as the Bride of Christ.

Since Jesus is not the focus of UCG's "gospel" message they will never make a huge impact upon their fellow coworkers and neighbors.  Because the focus is upon the law and not on Jesus they are not doing their part.  Because they do not focus upon Jesus, his word's, his teachings, or actions, they have to leave it up to God to do their work for them.  He has to go out and find the people to send to the doorstep.  Apparently he has not been to keen in doing that, by UCG's own admission.

Dave Pack: Ten Years of Making Scripture Mean What It Never Meant

Some Final Thoughts on August 2013 From a Restored State of Mind



 

I would like to take a moment to refine David C. Pack's view on "Why would God command the rebuilding of the House (i.e. The Temple of the 500's BCE) and not mean NOW?" which to him means during the month of August 2013 and culminating the last Sabbath of that month.

I think we can see that in the course of his meanderings over his role in religion and the role of the Restored Church of God in Ecclesiastical History, Dave has had to make the leap from the ACTUAL meaning of Haggai and the ACTUAL people it was written to THEN, to making it mean what it did not mean THEN to what it must mean NOW.  Review his Screeds 1-25 if you wish to see how this miracle occurred.



Following is key argument  and belief on why God MUST mean THIS August (Elul) and why it all MUST mean it as some vast 2500 year old ultimate fulfillment and meaning of what Haggai could never have understood.  After the huge leap of logic from Haggai's actual time in history to Dave's perceived analogy of the real meaning of it all, you can make Haggai easily mean what it never meant by analogy to many churches, ministers and theological needs of today.  Dave simply has woven his own tale and I suppose actually believes it or he would not risk what is about to come upon his credibility as "one who knows."

I will plainly state that Dave Pack is terribly wrong in how he has looked at Haggai's message to the literal remnant back then.  By his own reasonings of how it must apply to  him, his Restored Church of God and the WCG experience in the Wild World of Religion, the very book of Haggai must apply then and not today unless you just wish to make it one big analogy.  I don't think Dave is dealing with analogies.  But no matter.  The entire Book, including the seeming "Wonderful World Tomorrow" verses which any good COG type would take as Second Coming and Christian Jesus predictive has NOTHING to do with the Church of God views or what thousands of years later became Christianity which had a very bad habit of mining the Old Testament to explain what they wished to express and needed to define in the New Testament. 

 Please get this.

The reason many Old Testament scriptures seem to be so amazingly accurate and predictive of Jesus, his life and death is because the New Testament stories of Jesus and the many proofs of who he was to Christians are mined out of the Old Testament scriptures for the very purpose of telling a story that no one actually or literally knew what or when happened.  The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.(Occam's Razor)  They are not mystical predictions of the distant future.  They were written for the people then, addressing the problems in their culture and lives then and not today. **

For example:

The birth narratives of Jesus were written using the Old Testament to tell the story of Jesus birth which no one actually knew how it came about much less when or where. They were written to address the "then" problem and accusation that Jesus was a bastard and born of fornication. There are four "loose women" in one geneology, Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba and Ruth to send the message that if God could use those women, get off Mary's back.  John 6 thru 8 is a reflection of this rancorous issue.  One would think Sarah, Rebeccah,  Leah, Rachel or Deborah might have gotten a bit more press.

 Matthew never read Luke's story and Luke never read Matthew's.  They cannot be the same story.  "Matthew" is the master of this in his birth story where he quotes and OT passage as proof of his NT story when in fact he used the OT passage to write the NT in the first place..  Not only that but he misquotes and misinterprets (by our standards) the OT to tell that story.  In short, like Dave, "Matthew" (the names were added to anonymous Gospels a hundred years later) makes scripture mean what it never meant. That may be acceptable to some, but it is not to myself and today we would call it fudging the facts and making up tales. Dave is fudging the facts big time and making up tales.  While Matthew did it, he knew he was doing it.  Dave is not in the "I know it is just an analogy and a form of Midrashic writing."  I am sure he does not know what Midrashic Writing is.

On the other end of Jesus life story, Psalm 22 is not predictive of what Jesus would say when he was dying, (It's not talking about Jesus to begin with) but rather was used to tell the story of what the NT authors imagined Jesus would have said dying.  It was a common practice and is also the reason you have great orations in the NT that no one could possibly have written down at the time or at least anywhere near accurately.  "John's" Gospel has Jesus making great speeches from John 13-17 because that is what he imagined Jesus would say doctrinally.  Obviously no other Gospel writer or Paul ever hear of these words of Jesus. 

Ever wonder, with all the disciples sleeping and Jesus alone and a distance away pouring out his private prayer to God over his impending death, exactly who and how someone found out exactly what Jesus said in his mind to God?  It is what a writer imagined Jesus would have said in such a time as that.  It was ok to write stories this way then.  Today, not so much without at least telling the reader what you have done.  If you don't, you end up on Oprah apologizing.

Unwittingly, Dave Pack is doing the same thing.  The difference is that Dave actually sees the Bible and the Book of Haggai speaking of him and it was written to speak of him.  He does not believe he is any analogy nor his position analogous to Joshua the High Priest.  He believes he is the true intended meaning of the old shallow meaning of the original Haggai back then.  The NT writers KNEW they were mining the OT writings to explain their NT Jesus, doctrine and experience. It's what they did when they did not literally know Jesus birth, life or death circumstances. It's why there are so may contradictions in the Gospel accounts and copying of each other's writings.  Matthew is 94% copied from Mark and Luke copies almost half of Mark for his Gospel.  Copying is not eyewitness accounting.  It is not identical experiences.  It is copying.  No Gospel writer ever actually saw anything he was writing about.  No writer says, "And then Jesus and I went to Galilee,"  or "And then as Jesus and I were talking, the Romans showed up really angry and demanding to know which of us was Jesus." 

Dave Pack is also mining the OT to explain his view of himself and RCG but to Dave, IT IS NOT KNOWN TO HIM THAT HE IS DOING THIS. HE REALLY BELIEVES THE OT HAGGAI LITERALLY POINTED TO HWA AND NOW POINTS TO HIM.  This is empty headed theology. This is insane. The Book of Haggai does not and never could point to a Dave Pack of Haggai's future.  It was meant for THEN by Dave's own arguments.  Why would God speak so plainly THEN to THOSE folk of 500 BCE if God did not mean THEN.  Dave's argument for Haggai today is bogus, concocted and addle headed by his own arguments.  As I noted, he can make any analogy he wants, but he is not making an analogy from all that I can tell. 

Notice his core reasonings on this:

 2) Directly related, why (or how) would God command the remnant to “Go…build the House!” (Hag. 1:8)—but not mean NOW? How could He mean some undetermined future year? Why would God tell them (twice) to “consider their ways”—but not mean that they should do this now? Try to imagine God saying, “Consider your ways, but take your time. There’s no hurry. In fact, take years to think it over—even though you have been out of My Church for 20 years! You don’t have to DO anything now.”

3) Also related, if God waited 2,500 years to reveal the prophecy’s meaning (3,000 years when various related much older Psalms are considered), is not His waiting done? Does His revealing it not signal that He has reached the time to fulfill it rather than having reached a point one, two or three years out?

17) Recall Haggai 1:13: “Then spoke Haggai the Lord’s messenger in the Lord’s message unto the people…” Haggai is the messenger to God’s people, with what is an all-important message from God. Would not God make clear in such a unique message He describes as “the Lord’s message unto His people” the correct date for action? What kind of message would it be if people did not know WHEN TO CARRY IT OUT?"

But now notice that the actual book of Haggai from start to finish is speaking to them THEN.  So by Dave's proof texting and reasonings, it really did only mean then because why would God tell those folk all that and mean it was all for later, years down the road and not really for them ultimately.  There is NO connecting between the THEN of Haggai and the NOW of Dave Pack.  Analogy maybe. Knock yourself out.  But any whacked out Baptist minister who saw his church falling apart or the Baptist Convention straying from the faith once delivered could also make this a great sermon ANALOGY.  He'd be scorned out of existence if he meant that he was literally the fulfillment of Haggai.  I suppose they don't call it an anal-logy for nothing.  It simply means  and literally so,  "a study of the anus"

A few obvious reads of Haggai meaning THEM not the current WCG/COG debacle and the original Zerubbabel and Joshua and not HWA and Dave Pack.

Haggai 1:

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’”

³ Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: ⁴ “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
⁵ Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways...
^12... Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord.
¹³ Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, gave this message of the Lord to the people: “I am with you,” declares the Lord. ¹⁴ So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the Lord Almighty, their God, ¹⁵ on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month.

Haggai 2:

⁶ “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. ⁷ I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. ⁸ ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. ⁹ ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”

I know we get so used to seeing the NT in the OT and I have explained why. I know it is so easy to take OT Messianic hopes in the Jewish mode as Second Coming , Jesus hopes in the NT.  It is near impossible for a Church goer today of denomination to understand that Isaiah 53 is not about Jesus.  It is a THEN analogy about Israel and may actually be Isaiah writing about his own impressions of himself trying to get to the Israel of then and his not so warm welcome in doing so. Too much information I know.

So to the point.  Dave Pack arguing that all these things MUST mean HIM and MUST mean NOW because why would God reveal all these things to HIM NOW and not do them NOW, this year, this August, this next week because this date is in the book of Haggai, are MISGUIDED, MISUNDERSTOOD, MISINTERPRETED and MISTAKEN.



One final example.  When the Book of Revelation says,  "To show unto his servants what must soon take place," and "behold I come quickly,"  those were the intent of the author for those folk then under that which they were going through then.  We read those words today as if they were written three days ago instead of to others two thousand years ago for reasons and in circumstances that are not ours today.  It is very easy to read the NT that way and we do it all the time.  It may be a mistake and the reason others have had to add concepts to the scripture and reexplain what "soon" and "shortly" must mean for us today. The apologetic was "for a day with the lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day."  People way back in the day were noticing (not scoffing..that's the authors definition) that things are not working out as advertised.  The author of II Peter accused them of accusing God of slackness concerning promises.  The answer was typical of nice hopes gone south for the time being.  "God does not see as you see."  "There is a way that seems right unto a man but the way thereof ends in death."  "The wisdom of man is foolishness with God." and "My ways are not your ways saith the Eternal."  It's a very common and oft used way of saying "oops, seems not to be unfolding as we had taught."  

The next question will be just how will he handle this?  Will be God be "giving us more time!"  Will there have been wiggle room for "I never said it was me," or "Then it must be next year?"  Dave has reasoned way too much for this year to ever get away with that.  Will it be swept under the rug of proof texting gone haywire?  Will it become "Spiiiiiiritual" as Ron Weinland blamed the folk for misunderstanding?  Will it revert to "I meant it as an analogy!"    Who knows...    But I do know, I really do, and believe with all my unbelieving heart that nothing of what Dave Pack has written about this topic will come to pass as Dave demands that it must.  Dave Pack is not really an Apostle anymore than Bob Thiel is a Prophet or James Malm a Theologian.  These men are unqualified by any standard to tell the who, what, where, when, why and how of theology and all things Bible.  These are men who read nothing outside their own views for consideration and members who consider mere booklets on topics to be the be all and end all of understanding the Bible.  It is sad to me and dangerous for those so inclined.

That wraps up my views of Dave Pack as spoken of through the Prophet Haggai.  Time is short and it remains that those who are entranced and mesmerized by this kind of Church and theological and spiritual leadership wake up and take charge of their own minds in these matters.  The individual life experience and journey is not meant to be one where you give yourself over to see the world and all things it can present to you through the five senses of another.  You don't need to filter your religious world through the eyes of anyone else who you think has more insight and more understanding than you could ever have. 

I have nothing against Dave Pack personally.  Another time, another circumstance and we might be able to actually "reason together," but Dave's reasoning really means agreeing with him which I never could. I wish the RCG/COG "lurkers" here the very best on this whacky journey your are being lead on.  I/We care about you because we have learned to care about ourselves first again after our own experiences.  Time now is short...for Dave Pack and the Restored Church of God.  We are seeing what Ron Weinland's Church and people are doing in response to Ron's personal machinations.  Shortly we shall see what the people of the Pack's reactions will be to his.  I am sorry for the theological lesson the members of RCG are about to learn as if it could not have been learned from others like Ron Weinland, but Earth School is like that...

**Please understand I realize fully that this view of scripture is my own based on my own years of study and considerations of past views.  It is not my intent to offend or confuse anyone on this topic.

Contact Dennis at DennisCDiehl@aol.com