By early summer, my brothers and I had been rather
forcibly introduced to Armstrong's god and he was a
demanding piece of work. All unnecessary social contacts
with the heathen world, such as playing baseball at
school or hide and seek with the neighbor children were
terminated. God's people, including their offspring,
were commanded by God (through Herbert) to "Come
out from among them and be not partakers of their
sins!"
The sect's marching orders were simple and succinct
coming nearly straight as they did from the Lord via
Armstrong. "Fear and Tremble," to question
Herbert, his hand picked ministry, or their god. While
the enduring task of the laity, on the other hand, was
to listen and obey. All else emanated from the evil one.
This new deity didn't mess around. He was extremely
touchy. One never knew what might set him off. But there
was nothing prejudiced about the way he evidenced, in
general, an unbiased and unmitigated disgust for all his
children. He was an equal opportunity destroyer.
Besides wreaking vengeful havoc upon rebellious
teenagers, lipsticked females, and skeptical males, he
was a killer of disobedient children. He waited his
chance, bided his time and kept the most meticulous
records imaginable of every six year old's felonious
crimes and gross misdemeanors. For soon enough they
would all add up into a veritable mountain of blasphemy,
and carnal depravity which no amount of forgiveness
could ever expunge, and they would dwell in the lake of
fire forever, amen.
-------------
Sooner or later (sooner knowing me) I'd spit on the
sidewalk, say "Ah, shit," or be thumbing
happily through the pages of the National Geographic to
gaze in wonder at the dark naked ladies and remember: HE
was watching, listening, taking it all down, and I would
be toast.
I discussed this (and other) theologically weighty
problems with school yard buddies to get their slant on
the matter, but they were all of different faiths and
persuasions (if one could believe first graders had
faiths and persuasions) and what I learned was shocking.
None of them knew the truth, at least the truth as I'd
heard it. Furthermore, they'd never even heard of the
fundamentalist church I was forced to attend, the
Armstrong congregation of the called and the chosen.
That being the case, they could lie, steal, and
fornicate to their hearts' content...and still have hope
in salvation! That really sucked, and for the first (but
not the last) time in my life I looked heavenward and
mentally asked, "Why me?" What offense could I
possibly have committed to be unfortunate enough to have
parents who'd stumbled across "The Way" and
worse yet dragged me along with them? For I knew the
truth, but instead of setting me free it seemed
determined to slit my throat.
I knew the year of my execution as well. Herbert had
written a book on the subject entitled 1975 In Prophecy.
1975, he publicly proclaimed, was the year a merciful
God had lovingly chosen to show humanity the error of
its ways. Privately, however, church members were
instructed to be prepared for their Lord's return by
1965. As religious tracts go, 1975 In Prophecy was
crude, even for its time, full as it was, of prophetic
invective and coarsely drawn pictures.
For all of that, it was still a nightmare booklet
designed to strike terror into the hearts of all who
read it by purporting to show the ghastly end of a
corrupt and decadent world, a world which had stubbornly
refused to heed the dire warnings of God's last true
prophet, Herbert W.
--------
On top of all that, the church's idea of a properly
kept Sabbath bordered, if not wholeheartedly tromped, on
the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual
punishment. Sabbath, in their estimation, began some
hours before, at sunset the previous day to be exact.
From then on, no form of activity outside of reading
Herbert W's private interpretation of the Bible was
permitted. On the big day itself, the called and chosen
bestirred themselves from their mild mannered walks of
life, donned such formal attire as they were capable of
affording after numerous tithes and offerings and,
strode forth to become the future masters of the
universe.
A rented grange hall was the arena for this weekly
metamorphosis in my neighborhood. A hollow shell of a
place with windows too high to look out of and filled
with the most uncomfortable fold out steel chairs humans
have yet devised. Here the merry throng gathered for at
least five hours every Sabbath and the exhausting ritual
of rest and relaxation began.
Some deacon or elder would hop up on stage, bid the
congregation be seated and, once it was, to rise. The first of
four hymns was then thoroughly butchered...and they were
no ordinary hymns either. Herbert W. had a brother who
fancied himself a song writer and musician. He'd taken
many of the more bloodthirsty of the Psalms and added
what he thought were appropriate melodies, most of which
sounded like lugubrious variations of the funeral dirge
played backwards. Once the joyful noise had been
replaced by blessed silence, the called and chosen were
told again to sit, and they did. For the next four
hours.
The ministry of the church labored mightily under the
illusion that they were experts in every field of human
endeavor. Their training and education did little to
relieve them of this happy burden. They were, to a man,
all educated at Ambassador College in Pasadena,
California. This college had been invented by the big
man himself to teach young minds his version of God, the
universe, and the hereafter. Among other things, the
curriculum fostered a humble attitude of self
importance, spiritual arrogance and personal conceit.
They were, they were told, the most called of the called
and chosen.
The rest of the curriculum at A.C. was decidedly
simple. The entire universe was six thousand years old,
modern science was all wrong, contemporary educational
institutions were tools of the devil, as were medical
doctors, dentists, and especially psychiatrists. If you
had the faith (and were as nearly perfect as they were),
God would cause all you did to prosper. If you had the
faith, he would protect you from all manner of evil and
heal you of all maladies...except mental illnesses
(these were, and remain to this day, in private church
theology at any rate, products of either self deception
or demon possession).
----------
The order of worship in a standard disfellowshipping,
which is to say that of a lay member, was precise and
prescribed. It entailed verbally flaying the flesh off
the unrepentant, vocally roasting their heretical
remains over brightly burning cauldrons of collective
self-righteousness, then figuratively holding the still
smoldering carcass up before the entire congregation for
spiritual edification and formal disfellowshipping.
When a member was disfellowshipped, all regular
sermons were temporarily preempted to deal with the
juicy allegations. Questioning the authority of the
ministry, divorce and remarriage, use of tobacco
products and poor attendance were all capital offenses,
spiritually. Once a member was amputated from the body
they were regarded as dead, spiritually now (unless they
humbly and abjectly sought the pardon of the ministry)
and literally later when God returned.
On the great day of a disfellowshipping, the pastor
would mount the podium with that dejected air of
reluctant regret which only the hopelessly
self-righteousness can muster, the consummate spiritual
executioner too weary to wield his axe.
He would then stare out over the sea of gathered
faithful and begin. But he wouldn't just solemnly
announce the distressing news and get things over with.
No, he would begin softly, sadly, blending shadow with
shade, color with hue, till, in the middle of his
discourse, the lurid portrait of a vile sinner would
slowly begin to emerge and take horrifying shape. Toward
the end of the sermon this despicable creature, once
known as a Christian, was conclusively identified and
their craven deeds of rebellion and intransigence fully
and finally described in a crescendo of sound and fury
from the pulpit that would have had even Satan quaking
in his boots. And members would park pitiful expressions
of dismay and shocked disbelief on their incredulous
faces and ask each other, "How could this be? How
could Brother or Sister... have fallen from grace so
horribly?"
But in reality none of them were surprised in the
slightest. Everyone had been discussing the situation
for weeks as befits concerned responsible Christians
and, as a rule, had socially ostracized the poor bastard
many Sabbaths previous. The obligatory casting out was a
mere formality. Except when it involved, as it sometimes
did, the ministry. In those cases, the hell fire and
brimstone was kept to a minimum with little or no
information on dastardly deeds forth coming; other than
"by the way," asides to the flock to pray for
an endangered brother who was fighting a deadly one man
battle in hand to hand combat with Satan himself.
The sense of relief at any sermon's end was palpable.
More than a few of the called and chosen would quietly
(but wholeheartedly) whisper "Thank God!" as
the minister wrapped things up, and not for the
spiritual sustenance they'd nearly gagged on either. But
even this wasn't the end. Two more uplifting hymns were
essential, plus a closing prayer.
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