Dennis Muses on...

You Tell Me...

This past Sunday I sat, for the first time in almost 15 years, through the formal service of Christ Church Episcopal here in Greenville.  Services follow a very rigid liturgical format. Nothing happens or is said that is not suppose to happen or be said.  There was a time to rise and a time to kneel, a time to sing and a time to listen to singing.  The prayers were read and the congregational responses to the Pastors readings were standard and predictable.  It is not the kind of service I would look forward to every week for  it lacked an openness of teaching that seems to be what would motivate myself in such a position.  It did seem the congregation was probably Biblically basic in exposure and that job clearly rests on the shoulders of their clergy in services. Outside of services I would bet it is business as usual and mind your own business.

The Homily for the week was the following:

Luke 13:10-17

New Living Translation

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

¹⁰ One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, ¹¹ he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. ¹² When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” ¹³ Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God!

¹⁴ But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.”
¹⁵ But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? ¹⁶ This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?”
¹⁷ This shamed his enemies, but all the people rejoiced at the wonderful things he did."

While the service was 75 minutes, the sermon was perhaps 12 or a sermonette as we would know it.  There may be some leeway for the Pastor, but not much.  He was very good at his analysis of this passage and his theological education showed through.  He took the side of both Jesus AND the Rabbi or Pharisee who felt so responsible to keep the people on track in Sabbath keeping.   The Rabbi was not self righteous about this.  He was concerned that there be no "work" on Sabbath as said all the law and the prophets.  Gospel Jesus, of course, made his point in the story which was the point to be made, but I appreciated taking a compassionate understanding of the Rabbi who felt responsible to teach as well.  It was not off base one bit to wonder why Jesus could not have done this on the day before or the day after the Sabbath on the Rabbi's part since the woman had an 18 year problem that was not fatal and she was not in need of immediate help.  It was a good message on the passage.

My sense was that Episcopalians would never care to comment or speculate on when and how Jesus was going to return. I doubt they give a rats ass about "prophecy coming alive" or just which Episcopal Church is the true one.  There are no gurus, Apostles who get the last word or men who seem to need more medications than congregations. Christ Church has had it's splits but usually over social issues and conservative vs. liberal views. 

 Christ church pays these men very very well because they work very hard serving the congregation and did the hard work of a detailed theological education for their denomination.  I can't imagine the peels of laughter the congregation would let loose should the minister declare himself to be an Apostle, a Prophet , The Watcher or Joshua the High Priest as literally spoken of and predictions made  for August of 2013.  It just would never happen. 

He just said what?

So as I sat there musing on my own past and perceived losses in my own good intentions in becoming a part of WCG when very young and idealistic, I also thought..."What if this man stood up today, in front of this congregation,  and said things like...

"I want to make a statement about...me...now, if I became deceived, I will never tell you what I'm going to tell you now...I am telling you if I go off into strange ideas, misconduct, rebellion, you name it, don't follow me. I want to tell you that now, because if I start doing that I'm gonna try to get you to follow me! I'm gonna come to you and tell you it doesn't apply, it doesn't mean me, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's OK to follow me because ABCD and XY and Z. Do you understand what I'm saying? Listen to me now, when I tell you don't follow me if I go off into weird ideas, or if I get off into other things that are total absolutely unscriptural conduct, because if I do I'm gonna paint it with a different face and try to get you to follow me. Do you understand what I'm saying brethren? Please remember that, because I promise you that if I become deceived, I'll forget it, and I'll want you to forget it...And I hope you'll remember it well enough to quote it right back to me...But I'll tell you what, I'm not going anywhere."

or

"Yeah, I know, one or two can leave and say, 'Hey, you stopped preaching and started meddling, now you're messing with my goods here on earth' "
"First Timothy 6 verse 17...'Charge them that are rich in this world'...If you were born in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, then you're rich"
"If you hold those riches, I'm telling you, you trust in them"
"Go get a big chunk out of your home. And put your money where your mouth is and send it here. And I'm not talking about one, two, three thousand either. How about ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, or one hundred thousand dollars? Go do it."
"Wives, you can be independent in this. You have 1/2 the worth of whatever you have in your house.

I'm officially telling you this...Wives, legally you have the 1/2 the funds. What are you going to do about it?...Husbands...'well, my wife is not in the church'...tell her...'you don't have a voice woman' "

"Go get those assets and get them here?"

or

"This is different...ask Him for the faith to liquidate certain assets and give it to the work"

or


"I'll say it again, we are talking about liquidating existing assets...it all belongs to God and the brethren"


He's shittin' us right?

or

"We have a lot of plans so big going on in this office it would cause just this room to to rock and gyrate if you knew what was going on. We just need a lot of money and we need it post haste...I would give more if I had it"

or

"Let us know how much you plan to send and when you plan to send it...You must be willing to communicate... If you do need to counsel, please do that...If you are not ready to distribute what you have...you don't believe the flow of prophecy"

I don't believe in the flow of what for what reason?  I believe in cash flow. Does that count?

or

  

"This is announcing the LAST  (Sure it is...) blast, the clarion call as it were, to finish the work...Whether it is 4,5,7, 9 years to go, God knows...This is liquidating assets...I have the authority to tell you to do it... I have the moral and spiritual, and ecclesiastical authority to tell you to do what I have also done"

 He has the what...to tell us what?

or

"Get it now when it requires faith... when you are dead you don't need it... if you named us in your wills, it can take us months or years to get it"
 

But..but...I'm not dead...I do need it

or

"The wives in the faith will say give everything you can...We don't have the luxury of waiting years...today, leaving everything in your will simply doesn't work"

 So we kill ourselves now?

or

"Now you just have a second mortgage... and frankly we flee before most of it ever becomes due"

 Should I tell the bank that?

or

"...some may think that they want to tap their 401k--maybe you want to let us know that... why would you want to tell us? We are starting to prepare a budget now, the needs are now...it would be nice to know now"
"Think big...Pull big triggers"

Yeah...we'll get back to you on that right away....

or

"There is only two positions you can take regarding all that I have mentioned, only two, there is no middle ground. You're either going to yield, to submit and to follow, the clarion call that the time is now or you're not. And postponing a decision is deciding not to do it...It's saying I'm going to wait until it gets closer because it is not there yet...Don't say that I'm going to wait until it gets closer, when I can see...The decision is that my treasure stays on earth or I goes to heaven. Period. I will not lay up for times to come or I will. And this is the real test of Laodicea... either hold on to your assets... or give it... God is in this decision, no question.

or

"We live in the most materialistic age in the history of the world. People trust in physical things. They trust in bank accounts...If you have excess and don't need it, those verses mean you...That's the Laodicean attitude...Put your money where your mouth is...Empty your assets"

Put my what where?  Do What?

or

"There is only one place He works...Where the...work is...that's where God is working...one elder commented here at headquarters, if people can't be motivated by a clarion call to finish the work such as this, why will those same people somehow believe the internal signal given to the church of the 1335? Why would they believe it?"

or

"This is the Laodicean age...Be careful that you don't tell us how to spend your assets... It belongs to God.. You don't tell God or His servants how to spend it"
"Your faith is being tested. Think about that"

                   
                                     Hooooly  Shit.....Did he just say what I thought he said?????  

or

"The purposes of the fast...(a). To fast for God's intervention...(b).Fast for personal faith and courage to follow what I am asking you to do...(c). Fast for personal strength...(d)...Fast for faith and courage in others with more than you to give...Go get a big chunk out of your house...their assets, IRAs, and pension funds...(e). Ask God to move specific properties...that they have told us they want to sell. Pray that these properties move...that is part of what this fast is about"


I need a drink....

(Sorry to repeat these quotes of David C Pack but they are just stunning and need to be kept in the public view in my opinion. Perhaps they will be moot next week at this time.)

 

I know exactly what would happen at Christ Church or any Church in Greenville.  There would be a stunned reaction from the audience of very successful and decades long members of the Christ Church congregation to begin with.  I'm sure the other four pastors in attendance would escort the man from the pulpit, or the "pool pit" as the radio preachers call it.  I think the audience full of doctors, surgeons, dentists, bankers, businessmen, the Mayor of Greenville and many other highly educated and intelligent people would simply feel the man had gone off his rocker and they would wish him a good recovery. He'd never speak again and would be the topic of memories of "that day" for decades to come.  The news of his mental crash would spread through Greenville like a tsunami and there would be Episcopal services again as usual next week.  Christ Church did have it's experiences with arrogant and misguided types from my contacts and, while it took time, they did manage to run them off.  The survival of the church NEVER depended on the current pastor.

Why on God's Green Earth does it happen without fail in the Wild World of God Churches?  Why does a Gerald Flurry even exist as a religious leader?  Why oh why did and do people , however few in reality, identify with a Ron Weinland who never gave a meaningful sermon in his life and thought he could live like a King while telling people he and his wife were and are the Two Witnesses of Revelation?

What kind of people sat and sit listening and agreeing with Dave Pack over all this Spring and Summer Time foolishness that he is the Joshua spoken of in the Minor Prophet Haggai?  Who lets a man get away with the bullying for bucks and meanderings of thought over his self and ego centric importance to God and planet earth?  Are they just so used to ONE HUMAN BEING telling them the who, what, where, when, why and how of all things God and Christ that they simply cannot think anymore for themselves?   What kind of theological and religious dis-ease is this? 

Fear? Misplaced Hope? The scriptures seem right even though the minister seems nuts? The inability to shake the viper from their arm?  What?

Sad to say but in 5 days, Dave Pack, will be shown to be badly mistaken in just about everything he has let out of his mouth this past three months or more. I'm not stupid. They always find a way to recover. Maybe not this time.  I don't think Dave deserves to recover any credibility from all this but I don't think like his seat warming members do. This will be interesting and a bit fascinating for those who can stand by and not be the victims of it.

. 

You tell me...

  Contact Dennis at DennisCDiehl@aol.com

PCG Trots Out HWA To Mock Christians - Again

The Philadelphia Church of God has trotted out another article of Herbert Armstrong's that he wrote in 1971.  It is a smear letter against Christians outside of Armstrongism.  They are painted as fools because they refuse to listen to HWA's message.

As the supreme leader of the Worldwide Church of God, HWA was THE authority in all matters.  Only his books, booklets, articles, TV broadcasts and radio programs were the legitimate manifestation of truth.  Therefore, all COG members recognized him as the superior authority over them. 

Who can forget the COG organizational charts that the Church  passed out in the 60's and 70's. There was God, then Jesus Christ, then Herbert Armstrong.  Salvation was only accessible through HWA and his authority.

The very source of Armstrongism was Herbert Armstrong.  He was the source of our religion.  Our belief was professed according to his demands.

Our religion was Herbert Armstrong, the source of all knowledge.  It is no wonder the hundreds of splinter groups still can't talk about Jesus but slobber all over HWA.  He is their religion.  Spirituality, be damned!

What is religion, anyway?

Religion is the obedience, service or adoration rendered to the object of one’s worship—a system of faith and devotion to a superior authority—the profession, practice or observance of whatever belief and practice is required by that superior authority.

The very source of your religion, then, is that superior authority. Whatever that authority that to you has appeared superior—you received your religion from it, and you profess whatever belief, and observe whatever practice it requires!

The question, then, now becomes: “What IS that superior authority?”

Is that source of your religious belief and practice a supreme, all-powerful, personal God?—a God who created all matter, force and energy—who created everything that exists?

The incredible answer, in nearly all cases, believe it or not—is NO!!  Why God Is Not Real To Most People

PCG Says: Those Who Have Tattoos are Vanity Filled Rebellious People Who Are Into Satanism, Sexual Perversions, and Criminal Behavior

Tattoos are linked to criminal behavior, sexual perversion, rebellion and personal vanity. The desire to have a tattoo finds its origins in the mind of the god of this world, Satan the devil, who was lifted up by his own vanity which led to his rebellion (Ezekiel 28:17; Isaiah 14:13-14).

The mind numbing stupidity that comes out the Philadelphia Church of God never fails to surprise me.  Besides Dave Pack, no other Church of God  is filled with such theological depraved idiots as those in the Philadelphia Church of God.  I don't think these jerkwads have a Godly bone in their bodies.

A Lessons From Lawn Bowling - PCG Style

Dennis Muses...Sucketh It Up

The Branson 2013 Challenge

I am absolutely the last person any COG would ever pick to write about the Unity of the Faith  and with good reason.  Balancing, if that is a goal in the realities presented by both science done well and religion, the conflict between faith and skepticism is a challenge for me and many to say the least.   "Just have faith" means nothing to me as it seems like what you say when you can't explain something well or simply have no answer for something that obviously is unbelievable.  Believing the unbelievable has become a personal problem. On top of that, the politics of religion and in my own experience, within the Church of God has put me off beyond measure.  I'm probably still stuck in an idealism of childhood.  Someone once thought I did not get much beyond 11 in my reactions and idealistic expectations of oneself and others.  Perhaps they were right.

Christ Church Episcopal-Greenville, SC

Founded 1826

 I'm writing this because I am going to have my first formal church experience in a couple hours. It will be Episcopal and the oldest surviving church building in Greenville.  The reasons for going are varied at this time.  This is only the second time in 15 years I have been inside a church building.  I do like the fact that Christ Church's stain glass, done in 1914 of the Lord's Supper, clearly shows Da Vinci's belief that Mary and Jesus were closer than the Gospel stories would like you to believe.  She plainly sits on his right hand in the picture at Christ Church.  Even the person I was with when I commented on the whole picture suddenly said, "Hey, who is that woman in the picture?"  Lol.  She has gone there since childhood and never noticed until I mentioned how nice the stain glass was. I did not say anything about Mary. 

Da Vinci also made it so that if you placed Mary on Jesus left instead of right, it forms a very endearing couple with robes complimenting each other.  Also , the four groups of three may have had the deeper message of the Four Seasons around the Son of God (Sun) who was Most High in June, but I spare you! 

 I returned to my old Presbyterian Church for mom's memorial service.  It was the same inside as when I played a shepherd in the Christmas play for Sunday School.  The pews were the ones we all sat on decades ago as children when our feet would not touch the floor and our parents were young with all of life ahead.  The woman who brought me down the isle for my baptism to present to my parents, as an infant, and the baptismal still sitting where it did then, was sitting on the front row.  The Sanctuary had not changed one bit but we all had of course. That's the nature of a stable church.  It gives good memories

 So why write to challenge the myriad of Feast of Tabernacles churches and groups that will descend upon Branson, Mo. this year, to reach out and mend broken fences and share common hopes?   Because I know they won't and can't I suppose. Maybe to prove they tend to more competing corporations and marketers than really stable beliefs and congregations. .

 Religion is an organizational thing.   Spirituality is a whole other thing. They are COG "leaders" and leaders don't wish to give up their autonomy for the general good it seems. It threatens loss of members to others.  No Dave Pack is going to shake hands with a Vic Kubik of course, but maybe Vic Kubik could shake hands with one or two or three of the more balanced and open minded leaders of other groups. Or at least try   I suspect those under a Rod Meredith type might really wish to shake the hand and share a common service at Branson with someone they know but they don't have the power to make such a decision. Of course there are the zealots in each who would howl to the heavens.  Rod would require them to come to him and the idea of "come let us reason together" is totally lost on that generation of COG leaders.  Anyone outside of them is of the "marked" and "disfellowshipped' or as Vic Kubik taught me when I was 22, "dis-membered" crowd.  We don't talk to them. 

In reality, of course, none are bad folk or fallen away from their hopes and understanding of what the Bible says to them.  They just ran afoul of closed minded, limited view and authoritarian Bible readers of this or that persuasion.   Gone are the days of feeling bad about being put out of the one true church.  Now you can just slide over to another true church and feel right at home.  It was my first thought when the Tkaches reinvented the wheel of my Presbyterian past.  "Well if this is so, then screw driving thousands of miles a year to church.  Down the street works just fine and no you can't have anymore of my resources."  Seemed a no brainer to me.

 Anyway...  May I suggest if not arranging to share a service together, how about a hymn sing before or after one?   I know...that could be emotional and someone would lose members to the other who would gain them depending on the mood. I suspect there will be a lot of festival sermon and church hoping in Branson anyway.  A day here, a service there and meals out with the "enemy" are probably going to be common place. The kids with friends in "the splinters" in Branson will find each other and talk about how stupid church is and this idea of same hopes and views, practices and even hymns but turf wars galore. It will cause them to shun the whole thing first chance they get. Just because they aren't talking to mom and dad about it does not mean they do not observe such stupidities among themselves and their peers.  I know I would if I was a COG kid in Branson this year.  I also know I would not care who my kids talked with in Branson were that the case.  I found it more healthy to send them the message in life that they got to make their own beliefs and truths decisions just as I did and do .  Of course you have to live with them and sometimes recover from them.

 So...We all know now that after 3 requests for Dave Pack to come out from behind the walls of the Restored Castle of God and down from the mountain, to talk theology and the Bible , he won't, but how about a challenge for even just two different but the same Churches of God in Branson to share a common service at least once?   We need two real Church of God leaders to suck it up and show some class.  We need someone , somewhere to prove it's not just about getting and keeping members, collecting money and increasing  the numbers. 

Religion is what others stuff into your head.  Where to be, when to show up, what to believe and how much give.  Spirituality is an inside job and while each may have a different perspective on the whole thing, spiritual people don't sweat the details and they don't major in the minors as we see so pathetically done by, say, a James Malm type of Church of God cast off. 

Besides...If any Branson Feast Churches of God, even just two, answer the challenge, it will drive the Apostle Joshua C. Packstrong nuts.

 Well...off to Church.  If they sing the "wrong" hymn and memories of a kinder and more gentle time in religion come flowing back...I'm toast for a time before the skepticism returns.

Seven Different COG's Will Be Having A Feast In Branson And None Will Speak To Each Other

Remember the years of one COG site in a city with sometimes up to 15,000 people?  Well those days are gone, along with a "one" COG.  Now there are hundreds and hundreds of COG's all pretending they are the best ever.  Imagine what it is going to be like in Branson, Missouri this year with SEVEN different COG's all holding God's most important Feast days in their own  insular little groups.  All of them preaching about a Kingdom of God where the world will be unified.  Are they too dumb to see what is wrong with this picture?

Talk about awkward moments in restaurants and casino's!  Everyone is going to be watching which group eats some shrimp or some bacon. What's a poor parent to do when their kid wants to play with another kid from another COG.  Ghastly days!  What a dilemma!

According to feastgoer.org, at least 7 COG’s are going to be united in one city but divided and not meeting together in Branson  from the largest UCG to some smaller groups – it looks like if Florida’s got the biggest city to site capita, Branson’s got the biggest cog-in-city capita. Well, it’s for good reason – if you like shows and entertainment. They’ve got the silver dollar park, and what seems to be countless shows with stars, singers, and entertainment. I checked what’s going on in September in Branson – and no wonder! You can be on The Price Is Right Live, literally countless shows and singer tribute shows, hey, might as well just show you the whole huge list to choose from!

From:  Preparing For The Feast, COG-Wide, and Luau’s seem to be OK with COG People Despite their ORIGINS??