Monday, September 2, 2013

Michael Venish on the Insidious Man David C. Pack and His Lying Signs and Wonders






Michael Venish has produced an excellent 12 minute video on the insidious liar that is David C Pack.

Venish talks about how Ron Weinland sent Dave a letter a long time ago telling him that he was going to die and how Pack laughed at Ron.  Now Pack is using the exact same message of Weinland to delude his own people.

From Dave's belief that he is a type of Jesus to his outlandish claim that his god was going to kill three Church of God leaders.  

Venish says Pack uses sermons and articles to hook people in like a fisherman reeling a fish.  He wants to make you feel guilty about yourself and your relationship with God.  He wants you to come to him.  Venish says to think about what "spirit" that wants to draw you into him and away from God.

Venish correctly states that it's all about MONEY!

Best of all he pointed calls to task the "ministers" of Dave Pack who stand by and conceal the lies of Dave.  They continue to cover up for his lies.


Dennis Muses: 12 Step Program for Ministry

Mor-On and On Anonymous

 

A Twelve Step Program for Church of God Apostles Prophets and Plain Old Pastors

 

 Why the Biblically Based 12 Step Programs Work - One Day At A Time

I doubt it matters much at all which church a man pastors in as ministry is filled with weird and strange kinds of anxiety and stress.  As we know, in the Churches of God, it is also filled with weird and strange ideas but I am sure that if any minister got off into those, even if he wanted the congregation not to, the people would call him out on them.  Yes...I am sure they would.  If he warned them ahead of time that he was prone to weird and strange ideas, they would remember he warned them and would confront his weirdness. 

 
But another  reality in ministry seems to be as follows.
 

Pastor burnout
 
 
  • 50 percent of pastors reported being so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could. (June 2000)
  • 70 percent of pastors report constantly fighting depression.
  • 80 percent of seminary graduates who enter the ministry will leave in five years.
  • 80 percent of pastors' wives wish their spouses would choose another profession.

Aside from the never ending saga of whose True Church of God is the True Church of God and which knuckle head is really an Apostle, Prophet, Priest or Reincarnated Bible Guy,  I have a Twelve Step Program COG ministers might consider.  I know the stress and anxiety they faced and face.  As a pastor, with WCG it was one drama, scandal and rumor after the next.   I got to where I was regretting ministry though I loved the people and at the time, believed the WCG perspective on the Bible.  The organization and administration was another thing.

 I spent a lot of time in various forms of denial or did what most do and called it persecution or Satan "trying" to discourage the church and myself.  It was working very well from what I felt inside.    I disliked going to "Refresher" seminars in Pasadena because they were so freaking exhausting.  I realized they were more "where do you stand" environments than I wanted to believe.  And there were always the weird and strange ideas PLUS the mind numbing and boring presentations that seem thrown together by men who would say "I am too busy to meet with you , but I will."  Busy...bullshit.  I just didn't think they liked to open things up to questions.  In my personal experience I asked just two direct questions to those at "God's Headquartes," and got blown out of the water both times.  That's when I put on my mask.

There were years of Ambassador Reports in the mail and members getting them.  I threw mine out, in hind sight because I was afraid they would be right and what would I do.  I was torn between thinking I was in a place I could not move from and a "calling" that was set in stone and wishing I had never heard of it.  Of course, back then, there was no real place to go in my mind save for the organizations of a few rebels who were more weird and filled with strangeness than where I was.  Walking away, for me, was not an option.  I was young.

Dr. Dave Albert, who I always considered a friend in ministry and went out of his way when I was a WCG ignorant freshman to try and get my New York girlfriend accepted to AC  (thank God that didn't happen)  told me once way back that he never thought I was a good fit for the ministry.  That really threw me.  I thought I was.  In review of that I think he meant I didn't think like most of the ministry he knew and perhaps even like he did.  He tended towards black and white rules and regs.  Those were never my strengths or perspectives.  Life is not all that way nor are people no matter what church they have or church they attend. We were a lot alike when the masks came off.  All ministers wear them you know.  I did and know all others did as well which made me feel better somehow.  I have since upgraded to knowing all humans wear masks. 

So here is my 12 Step Recovery Program for Church of God Lurking Ministers.  What are we recovering from?

...

Our Own Choices in Life
The Myth of the One True Church
The misunderstanding that men can hold positions over us to control and limit the kind of theological information given out
Compliance to ideas that we actually had choices to accept or reject
Going along to get along
Spokesman Club where being evaluated for thought content was the norm
Doing what one was told from on high and not being willing to simply take opinion under advisement instead as taking it as God's Law
Being the baloney jammed between the White Bread of Church Leaders and the members of the Church and smothered in drama sauce and title taking, untrained and small minded non theologians
Theological fairy tales
Education by Booklet
A closed education system
Prove me now here withs
...and the prayer of faith will heal the sick
Send it in
Matthew 24,  Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, Book of Revelation
Leviticus 23  and Jeremiah 17:9
Not understanding the conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christianity in the New Testament
Believing that all the New Testament Players all spoke the same one truth and all got along
"There were two trees in the garden..."
The uni plural word "Elohim"
Allowing improperly trained theologians to tell us what the Bible means
Jesus is coming soon
Not expecting accountability in financial matters
Not knowing the difference between actual meaning and concocted meanings
Not labeling openly opinion, speculation and musings about prophecy as such
Allowing men to take titles without qualification or reasonable assurances they are not delusional
Bad ideas unchallenged

 
 
I am sure you have your own lists
 
12 Steps for Ministry Recovery
  1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
We admitted were were powerless over the Bible--that our fascinations had become cultic and majoring in the minors of reality.  The Bible was our obsession and we would do anything to refer to it.

     2.Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

We came to believe that the God of WCG/COG was not the only God there was and the Church was not the only church there was.  We came to see there were many ways to understand the Bible and parts that no longer matter no matter what we thought.  We know our sanity can be restored if we just listen listen to the feeling in our stomachs and not the voice in my head.


     3.  Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God because it is ok to understand Him/Her/It as we do ourselves and not just as others told us it all is.  We made a decision to trust our own judgment when we heard bullshit. As I understand God is OK and doesn't have to be as YOU understand God for me.     (Very difficult for RCG members evidently)



Big Book Sponsorship for permanent recovery from all addictions

     4..Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

We made a searching and fearless moral and theological inventory of ourselves and came to see it is just fine to draw different conclusions from the same Bible everyone else uses as anyone can use it unskillfully proof texting their way into any belief they wish.  We are content to get to know ourselves and be ourselves before we ever let others tell us how they believe we should be.   We don't should on ourselves or must-rabate as this is immoral.

     5.Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Admitted to ourselves first, then to others and then to God the exact nature of our wrong doings, fears, anxieties, doubts , depression and concerns.  (I say in this order  in light of the fact that some ministers have the cornball idea that God corrects them and it is none of your business.) 


     6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

We are happy to have God remove all these defects of character, but we also realize we have to do our own hard work.  WE have to do the hard work of being authentic in the face of the expectation of compliance.  WE have to do the hard work of defect removal but sometimes have to realize one man's defect is another man's strength..  WE have to listen when others are hurt, offended , puzzled or irritated by our words, sermons, ideas, views and title taking proclivities.


     7.  Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Humbly do everything.  Not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think.  Not think we are special in any way.  Understand the heart of a shepherd and a servant does not mean demanding no one disagree with us. Never uttering the crass and insane words, "Woman...you have no say,"  "Pull Big Triggers," "You don't tell God how to spend your money, or his servants,"  or "I am a type of Jesus...." or _____________ (fill in the blank).  Humbly ask those I pastor to help me  stop being fool. 


     8.  Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Admit there ARE humans we had harmed and being willing to make amends is not the ministers choice to exempt himself from.  Admit it is difficult as a minister to utter the words,  "I am sorry,"  "I was mistaken,"  "I was wrong,"  "I don't know everything,"  "I have the same doubts, fears and questions you do,"  and "I was ill trained."

     9.  Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.  Never just say "God knows I'm sorry so that covers it,"  or "I meant to call but..."


     10.  Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

Continued to study the concept of "when we were wrong, promptly admitted it," all the days of my life and don't retract apologies the next day when your go back to "hey, I'm God's minister, they can't talk to me that way."


     11.  Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

With all respect to prayer and meditation, sought to improve our conscious contact with reality, theological education, the psychology of human beings,  books written by others than ourselves, ideas we did not come up with and observations we did not personally make.  We make a personal effort to understand our world of thought is not THE world of thought.  


     12.  Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Having had a religious and spiritual epiphany as a result of the Wild World of God experience, we try to carry this message to the God Haunted Guru Following souls still stuck in the mud and assure them it is just fine to think for themselves, be authentically who you are and vote with your feet to the saving of the soul.  We try to carry the message that you are not defective, your views are valid as well, your concerns are well placed, your doubts are ok and maybe you were actually born right the first time after all.
 

At any rate, lots of stories, feelings, anxieties and emotions went with ministry for me personally.  It's hard to believe all that is behind me at times, but life is only 15 minutes long when you look back as far as I can tell and how it seems. 

"One can always serve as a bad example," applies to all of us at various and sundry times.  But theologically and in ministry, we have ministers, falsely so called, like the Dave Packs, Ron Weinlands, Gerald Flurry, Bob Thiel and other leading but lessor player goof balls to thank for the specific Wild World of God experience.    Recover is possible.  We're all hear to learn and welcome to Earth School...

Sunday, September 1, 2013

William Dankenbring: Keeping Racism Alive and Well In Armstrongism


Various Church of God folk love to claim that the COG was never racist in its teachings.  The Church, according to them, was one great racial melting-pot ShangriLa.  Yet, Flurry, Craig White, and others still promote the key racist ideology of Armstrongism that is British Israelism, as does William Dankenbring.  Dankenbring takes the silly teaching steps deeper into its true elements, that of racial superiority.   Dankenbring is still of the old-school WCG here it taught that in the end times blacks and women would rule over whites (the chosen race.)

I don't care what your thoughts are on Obama, Dankenbring's article is racist to the core, AND it is not an isolated case in the Church of God.

From:  Will the Antichrist Be Born of a Harlot?
Says Alexander Hislop,
 “Now Nimrod, as the son of Cush, was black, in other words, was a negro, ‘Can the Ethiopian change  his skin?’ is in the original, ‘Can the Cushite’ do so? Keeping this, then, in mind, it will be seen that in that figure disentombed from Nineveh . . . ‘the seed of the prophet Cush,’ and the real original of the black Adversary of mankind, with horns and hoofs” (p.34). 

Stanley Ann Dunham 

Now let us skip over to the present day and age – the end of this age of mankind. Today, we see another “Nimrod”—the name in Hebrew comes from a root marad, meaning “he rebelled”-bestriding the earth, the leader of  the world’s single last superpower, end-time “Babylon the Great.” He is also leading the world in rebellion against the God of heaven. 

He is also a black man. His name is Barack Hussein Obama. His white mother was Stanley Ann Dunham, a young teenager at the time of his conception. Was his mother, like that of the original Nimrod, also a “whore”? 

Lawyer Stephen Pidgeon, in his riveting book The Obama Error, states unequivocally: “Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, was the daughter of two members of the Communist party, and there is  reason to believe that her father had betrayed the US during WWII by selling B-29 plans to the Germans. The family hatedthe US, but lived here for the prosperity of it all. . . . 

“As a teen, Stanley Ann was a progressive  Marxist, who preferred men of color and men who were most certainly Muslim” (p.11). 

Pidgeon declares, “Stanley Ann was also  promiscuous. She posed nude for some cheap publisher of cheap pornography around 1959 (at the age of 16) and these photos have survived to this day. The photos are not relevant; the fact that she was willing to pose gives you some idea of her mindset at that time” (ibid.). 

Notice! Obama’s mother was a Marxist. She was promiscuous (another way of saying she was a “whore,” having many male companions. And she favored black men, and Muslim men!

David C Pack: Seriously Thought He Was 100% Certain of the Names of the Three Shepherds That Were Supposed to Die



Bob Thiel, still reeling from the truth that Dave Pack did not name him as one of the three shepherds to die last month, has the following quote from a latter that one of Dave Pack's members sent him.

It is from a sermon Dave gave.  It is easy to see why Pack and Flurry do not want their tapes floating around, especially when they open their mouths and make asinine statements as follows.  Dave public claims he is not a prophet, yet in his sermon he says his message is a prophecy received directly from his god.  Dave should realize by now that his god lied to him!  What a buffoon!

The best part of it all is that Dave's impotent little god lied to him!  Not one single thing his god told him to write in the last 20 some letters to the members came true.  Dave has zero credibility now.


All Brethren United Soon Part 12
How could so many things happen in 24 hours?
Minute 26. Three men die- Elul 24, then everyone makes a decision that day.
Minute 29. Certain things about this prophesy is very complex, others are very simple.
Minute 30. No way everything could happen in one day.
Minute 32. Do you care most how the 3 Shephard’s die?  In their sleep, by fire?
Do you care who they are?
If God tells us then I want to know otherwise it doesn’t matter.
You are going to find out how they die and who they are.
Minute 33. I know their names 100% sure. Don’t want the names out yet. Now I’m certain I know.
Do you care where it happens? I don’t know where it will happen.
I know how they die and who they are. I’m certain.
Minute 34. How about when they die?  They die sooner then we thought.
Do they die together or separately. I know they die together.
Two culminating events. The death of these men is the first. The central point is God is going to bring his people back together/unify his people.

Dennis notes: Smuggly Lives!

Umm...Doc, Where have you been?

A Day Late and A Dollar Short: Newness - EDGE Magazine Online

Dr. Thiel wants us to notice what he said last week about Dave Pack's delusions.
August 2013 is now history.  The massive reunification that that David Pack, leader of the improperly named Restored Church of God (RCG) claimed should have happened did not.
This is no surprise.  Notice what I posted a just over a week ago at the News of Those Once Affiliated with GCG page"


"I have absolute confidence that David Pack is wrong about a lot of this and there is no possible way that any significant amount of Philadelphian remnant Christians will go to him and become part of his church by August 30, etc. I will be correct."

and this little piece of barfage...
"Either David Pack is right about that effectively all of God’s people will come to him on August 30, 2013 or I am right that they will not. Just because David Pack is not God’s apostle, does not mean that someone such as I do not have a prophetic role from God. Those in RCG, and elsewhere, need to consider how they should act and what they should do (see also How To Determine If Someone is a True Prophet of God). “Take heed, all you people!” (2 Chronicles 18:27).
Of course, I was right."

Arrogant Baby - i dont always drink milk but when i do i prefer
Hi...My name is Smuggly
Aside from the good folk at Banned HWA saying this for the past SIX MONTHS, Bob's use of "Notice of what I posted" and "I will be correct" is just the mini me version Dave Pack's personality and approach to "knowing."  Robert goes out of his way to say one way or the other that his readers need to either realize or admit that "HE" noticed this , that or the other reality before they did.  I suppose this is what Non-Prophets with a double portion of precisely nothing expect of themselves.

But no matter.  Bob Thiel has the very same self absorbed  tendencies as Dave Pack and like most, has no awareness of it.  He mistakes his own ego centric views for some sort of spiritual insight which it is not.  This trait among the "creame of the crud" for lack of a better concept theologically which I actually hate but it fits here, is unprofessional and misguided.  COG members get so used to it, they don't realize genuinely trained ministers and theologians would not survive five minutes with these attitudes about themselves infiltrating and infesting every comment about every topic they can come up with Biblically.  Episcopal Priests have their scriptures for the day and 12 minutes to stick to the topic, which they do very well.  I sense there are plenty of things they leave out, but they don't promote themselves, no not for a second.... 

I just returned from a second Episcopal service. Very formal and very predictable and I can't say it helps me with my own theological conflicts, but one thing is very clear.


Michigan Stained Glass Census

 It actually confirms them as I gaze upon the stained glass of a literal lamb on a cross which in my mind is the symbol of the end of the Age of Aries 2000 years ago when the SUN , in the constellation of Aries the Ram/Lamb moved out of the Easter Spring position at the crossing of the ecliptic and the celestial equator to be replaced by the two fish of Pisces, which is the Christian symbol of the last 2000 years.  Jesus the Lamb of God wasn't kidding when he is said to have said, "Behold I am with you always, even unto the end of the AGE,"  which was the Age of  Aries. .   Ok, Dennis...drop it! :)


Saint James Church: Eucharist Adoration


  But also, it  is obvious the Priests are not fools. They don't promote themselves or their own views of themselves or obscure passages and pet ideas.  They are educated and know more than they probably can actually say to a congregation about how things really are in theological studies.  My sense of the average congregant, who are very high end successful and a positive influence on the community is not all that Biblically literate. It does not seem to be a need. They don't harp on being the True Church and making snarky comments about "splinters and slivers."   The Priest certainly does not make a complete ass out himself by finding himself spoken of in the Bible as either "that Prophet", "A double portioned Prophet", or "Joshua the High Priest."  Pull any of that and you lose.


Slap my head - Newest images - page 1 | Meme Generator

In the COG and many fundamentalist churches, ignorance is almost proof of calling and being the true church.  I hear it all the time here on the radio.  Preachers making fun of going to college or some "fancy seminary" when all you need is the "Word of God!"  (Audience snickering..)  In Greenville, and up until the mid 70's, the Mill owners gave huge donations to local churches for Pastors to discourage kids from going to college.  They were needed in the mills and the clergy pointed them that way...Bastards.  I can't tell you how many radio sermons around here begin with, "Now I ain't the smartest pea in the pod," or "I don't got no fancy education but...."   Ignorance and mere Bible reading is a badge of honor around here and all the credentials you need to be God's man of faith and power..  Half the ministers who I ask just what their theological credentials are tell me, "I quit drankin'"   Really?  Great.......


I have to say that I personally cringe at my own "theological education" at Ambassador, which I swear to you know who, I thought was a real seminary when I turned down going to Roberts Wesleyan Seminary in Rochester, to go there.  Now naive.  I know I was educated in Bible reading.  That's all Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry, Ron Weinland and now Mini Non-Prophet Bob Thiel are educated in.  It's mostly what Baptists fundamentalists are educated in and certainly what Bob Jonesers down the street get.  It's why I got rid of the TV 12 years ago and upgraded myself so, even without credentials, I could live with myself when I spoke of things theological and get the background, history and even the problems with scripture half way understood and recognized so as not to mislead anyone or to be really able to give an answer of whatever is still left in me.


At any rate, wake up Dr. Thiel.  See if you can go an entire day without writing about how YOU understood this or that or YOU pointed something out before others saw it in your own mind.  Are we supposed to say "wow....he saw that coming.  He must be a prophet."?   If you don't, you're just another Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry or Ron Weinland in a not very convincing disguise seeking whom you may devour, which we already suspect even if you don't.

...and get a booster seat to at least be even with the book shelf when you major in minors giving sermons. 


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