It's That Time Of Year Again: The Church of God's Second Favorite Holy Day

Its that time of year again and the false prophets of Armstrongism are going over board in denouncing Lent, Holy Week and Easter.  Almost every single one of these guys have gotten their information out of church related works, the debunked Hislop's Two Babylons and other anti-Catholic screeds in print.  Reading their drivel makes it painfully obvious that they are totally oblivious of anything connected to the season.  This is especially true of Bob Thiel, James Malm, Gerald Flurry, Rod Meredith, Dave Pack and UCG.

As Bereans Did has an interesting posting up about Easter and all the various myths that continue to float around Armstrongism about the season.

Did Easter start in Nimrod’s day?

No. That is an outright lie built on terrible etymology and pseudo-history, and passed off as fact due to repetition. There is nothing remotely in the realm of reliable historical evidence to demonstrate this. All of these sorts of Nimrod, Ishtar, Tammuz, etc claims find their beginning with Alexander Hislop. He’s the one who made it all up in the late 1840’s. Maybe you didn’t know that Hislop is completely unreliable. I can hardly blame you for not knowing this. Among the people who promote his writings are Herbert Armstrong and thus the leaders of every one of the COG splinter churches, Dave Hunt, Chuck Missler, Richard Rives, the Christadelphians, the Jehovah’s Witnesses – the list goes on and on. But if you really want the truth about Hislop, then please send away for Mr. Ralph Woodrow’s book “The Babylon Connection”. It will give you the information that you need to know about Alexander Hislop.

See our posts “The Babylon Connection” and “The Two Babylons” for more.

Think about it… Some people, following Alexander Hislop, say Easter is an ancient Babylonian holiday that was kept continuously by the Catholic Church since Nimrod’s day. But if it was always being kept then it cannot be the result of the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. It cannot be both.

If it was the product of the Council of Nicaea then it cannot be the result of the Catholic Church which only sent two representatives to the Council. It cannot be both.

The first mention of Eostre is in the eighth century, not the first century, nor the fourth century, and certainly not 2,000+ BC. They can’t all be right.

The early church called it Pascha and only several centuries later came the name Easter. If Pascha is centuries older tha Easter then Easter cannot be the source of Pascha. It cannot be both.

What kind of coincidence could possibly cause the holiday to be called Easter by the Babylonians, then Pascha by the Greeks and Latins, then Ostern by the Germans, then Easter once again by the English?

These contradictions cannot all be true. Who will you believe? Don’t make up your mind yet. There’s more.

The article goes on to cover these qucik facts:

Is Easter a pagan holiday coopted by the Catholic Church?
Was Passover replaced by Easter at the Council of Nicaea?
Should we call Easter by the name Passover?
Is the King James Version right in translating Acts 12: 4 as “Easter”?
Is Easter tied to the Spring Equinox because of paganism?
Is the Pope responsible for the change from Passover to Easter?
Is Easter named after a goddess?
What of the goddess Ostara, then?
What of the Austriahenae inscriptions?
Was Ostara’s consort a hare?
Is Eostra/Ostara actually Ishtar?
Did Ishtar hatch from an egg?
Did Ishtar have rabbits and eggs as her symbols?
Where does the tradition of eggs come from if not from paganism?
Where does the tradition of the Easter Bunny come from?
Is the cross just the first letter of the name Tammuz?
Does Lent come from the weeping for Tammuz?
Where did Lent come from if not from paganism?
How can we fit “three days and three nights” into Friday evening to Sunday morning?
Does the Holy Week support a Wednesday or Thursday crucifixion?
Was there a holy day then a weekly Sabbath in the crucifixion week? 
When did the women prepare spices?
Wasn’t Sunday worship itself adopted from paganism?

Other links they provide:

Easter History part I

Easter History part II

Two Sabbaths of Matthew 28

Three Days and Three Nights

Wednesday Crucifixion? Not Likely.

Must Christians Observe the Old Covenant Passover?

Were Gentiles In Corinth Observing the Feast of Unleavened Bread?

The Babylon Connection

Ralph Woodrow’s “Babylon Connection” book

Turris Fortis “Is Easter Pagan?”

Many Gods “Eostre and Easter Customs”

Jimmy Aiken video on YouTube “Is Easter Pagan?”

Guardian UK “The Modern Myth of the Easter Bunny”

The Time of the Crucifixion and Resurrection

Was Jesus Crucified on a Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday?

Judaism 101 “Pesach: Passover”

Catholic Encyclopedia article “Easter”

Bede “The Reckoning Of Time” on Tertulian.org

Eusebius’ “Church History” on  CCEL

Jakob Grimm “Teutonic Mythology” on Google Books

German Adjectival Suffix -henae

D.M. Canright “The Lord’s Day Neither From Catholics Nor Pagans” on Truth or Fables

Craig Winters and Cal Culpepper Gets All Crummy Over Some Cookies

The absurdities of the Philadelphia Church of God continue to march onward leaving a trail of destruction in its path.

Exit and Support has the following story up from an exPCG member.

March 17, 2015

I’d like to tell you just how controlling and obsessed the ministry of the PCG really is.

A couple years after my wife died I decided to take my boys on a little vacation. The South East region of the PCG was having a 4th of July family camp out. I decided to attend with my boys. I signed up and got an email from the event coordinator. The email told me what I should bring and reminded me to bring a few dozen cookies. Well, I had just lost a lot of weight and had health problems so I suggested that perhaps all those cookies would not be the healthiest thing for me to bring. A few days later I got a call from my minister Aaron Eagle. He got onto me for saying what I did about cookies and told me not to bring it up again. I was shocked!

This is what struck me about this. If the man I made the comment to did not like what I said he should have said something to me but what did he do? He called his local minister who called Craig Winters the Southeastern director who called Cal Culpepper the Northeastern director, who called Aaron Eagle my local minister, who then called me. Two ministers and two regional directors had to get involved over a cookie comment.

I am so grateful that I am free from all the obsessed, controlling ministers of the PCG.

Thank you for your website. --Dan Moffett, KY

How David Pack Forwarned His Church To Not Believe Him When He Starts Being Deceived

David Passover Pack imagines himself to be the most educated and soundly biblical man to ever exist in the Church of God.  His god directly speaks to him and reveals all kinds of secret knowledge.  When that happens Dave puts in in print to show his dwindling flock what a mighty tool of god he is.  Now, more and more frequently those rantings are coming back to bite him.

Dave feels that he is incapable of being deceived.  His god will not allow it.  But if he ever did, then he wanted his members to not listen to him because he was going to paint things in such a way that he would deliberately try and get people to forget his words and follow him.

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. (1998)

Sexual Abuse In the Church of God Summer Educational Programs

I have received permission to post the following story from a woman who shared about her experience at SEP where she was molested along with two other girls.  Kermit Nelson, Dennis VanDeVenter and Mr. Burnett attempted to cover the molestations up.

This brought her story forward when she learned of the Jehovah's Witnesses child abuse case that is portrayed above.  Nightline has a program on tonight about abuse in the Jehovah's Witnesses cult. The parallels in the JW story are exactly like what has happened over and over in the Church of God and CONTINUES to this day in the Philadelphia Church of God, the Restored Church of God, Living Church of God, United Church of God, COGWA and other groups!

Sharing a Nightline Special on sexual abuse coverup from Jehovah Witness leadership. She won a landmark court case! How familiar is this video?

This hits close to home, as I was 13 at SEP, first time away from home so far and so long, and me and two other girls were molested and I was almost raped by an 18 year old guy in our brother dorm. He got no real punishment, but me and the two other girls had to tell our stories, emotionally falling apart but with no support or guidance, in front of Dr. Kermit Nelson (director of SEP), Mr. Dennis VanDeVanter (who baptized my parents and was our minister for a while, but by this time had been transferred to the upper ranks in Pasadena), and Mr. Burnett (our dorm minister and the women's BB coach at Pasadena AC). Our phone and mail privileges were revoked as they didn't want the word of this "to get out and spread through the congregations, then parents will be reluctant to send their children to SEP which could save them spiritually." (as SEP was fun at times, but it was indoctrination-based) 

When they said we couldn't call/write our parents anymore or anything else, it felt like *we* were the ones getting punished because we came forward, they said, "If this gets out, it will spread like wild fire through the congregations worldwide. Do you really want the eternal lives of who knows how many young people on your head?" Guilt squashed our need to contact anyone or seek emotional healing. They even made me dance with him at the end of camp to show there were "no hard feelings" - and he managed to do even more damage during and after that dance. 

 No cops were called. No parents. 

My parents got worried when my every-other-day phone calls stopped abruptly. 

They called the camp. Dr. Nelson and Mr. VanDeVanter both lied to them initially and said they didn't know of anything going on, and that we were just probably caught up with the fun of camp.

Finally, my parents got the truth out of them when they demanded to speak to me. My parents were furious, but still didn't occur to them to call the cops, and at this point there had not only been the molestation, but neglect and coverup by the church. 

I was told that this matter went all the way up to Mr. Tkatch from Dr. Nelson when they were deciding how to handle this. 

I relate with so much of this girl says in the Nightline story. Hopefully this will open the door for more lawsuits won against cults and their slimy legal/PR tactics. And hopefully people will see that the JW's and Mormons and other cults aren't just "nice people that believe things a little different" but their secrecy and closed door policies when it comes to these issues.