Friday, September 25, 2015

Halloween Hysteria Strikes The Churches of God Once Again



It's that time of year again in the Churches of God when they bow to the pressures of Satan and his crew of pesky demons on this their most holiest night.   This is the time of year that COG members retreat to the back rooms of their homes and turn out the lights as they cower in fear at the evil standing on their front porch.  Can you imagine the terror in their eyes when looking through the front window curtains and seeing Jelly standing there with a Mystery of the Ages book in its hand!  Satan can't get any more evil than that!

Here is Keith Stump's article about Halloween that has irritated Bob Thiel and others in the various splinter personalty cults of Armstrongism.  Keith was a former writer for the Plain Truth magazine and other WCG material.



HALLOWEEN HYSTERIA
by Keith Stump

October is quickly flying by, meaning it’s time for the traditional Christian hand-wringing over that most “demonic” of holidays, Halloween! In anticipation of the usual anti-Halloween propaganda, I offer the following observations about this alleged “satanic festival of evil”:
First, there’s no need to point out that Halloween is not found in Leviticus 23. (Duh.) Leviticus 23 is obsolete and irrelevant anyway. Second, forget the lengthy dissertation about how the papacy (the alleged “image of the beast” and “great whore”) instituted the Roman Catholic celebrations of “All Hallows Eve” and “All Saints Day”. That, too, is irrelevant. Today’s Halloween has nothing to do with honoring Christian saints. For most, Halloween long ago ceased being viewed as a religious observance—and never was, by Americans.

The Halloween that many of us know today is largely an American phenomenon. And it’s a purely secular observance.
Yet some of Halloween’s customs do have roots in pre-Christian (“pagan”) practices. “Pagan” has long been a popular buzz word among Christians, especially among the COGs. As a Plain Truth and World Tomorrow writer, and occasional GHOSTwriter (how occult!) for the Armstrongs, I used the word liberally for decades. If it’s “pagan” in origin, it MUST be evil (like, I suppose, playing cards, wedding rings, dominoes, medicine, beer, the theater, the names of the days of the week and months of the year, and so on—all of which are scrupulously avoided in the COGs, aren’t they?).
Some of Halloween’s customs can be traced to practices of the Celtic New Year, particularly among the Druids of ancient Britain. The Celts worshipped nature deities and practiced a relatively benign type of witchcraft. (Shame on them for living before the birth of Christ! Why, they must have been as evil as Cyrus the Great, who worshipped Ishtar, the pagan goddess of love and war, and Ahura Mazda, god of light and wisdom. [Oh, wait a minute—God still called Cyrus "that righteous man from the East." Never mind.])
The Celtic festival of Samhain (which means “summer’s end” and marked the Celtic New Year, and is properly pronounced SOW-in, not “Sam Hain”) was considered to be a magical time, when the thin veil between the worlds was lifted, and the dead walked among the living. It was a night of ghosts and fairies, in which bonfires were lit and fortunes were told, and the thoughts of all turned to the afterlife. For some odd reason, the Celts didn’t think that exposing their children to contemplation of death and the afterlife was a problem. And, of course, the “witches” of the time were primarily herbalists and midwives. Witches as evil, devil-worshiping crones were an invention of the medieval Church, perpetuated by modern fundamentalists.
Despite fundamentalist assertions, there were no orgies or human sacrifices or cannibalism or devil-worshipping during Samhain. Anyone who claims otherwise is an incompetent researcher or an outright liar. And—despite all those sermonettes you’ve heard—there was never a Celtic “god of death” named “Samhain”.
The ancient Samhain festival in no way “glorified” the demonic world, nor—except for a relatively few “Satanists”—does Samhain today. Modern pagans who celebrate Samhain regard it as a time to look back on the past year and reflect on how they can become better people, and a time to honor departed loved ones and welcome them into their presence. Modern Halloween is even less focused on “making contact” with the spirit world.

Stop for a moment and consider rationally: Is a six-year-old girl trick-or-treating in a Cinderella costume “fellowshipping with demons”? Is a child covered in a sheet with eye-holes “associating with spirits”? Are employees attending a company costume party “consorting with the devil”? Is hanging a plastic skeleton in your window “paying homage to Satan”? Is carving a jack-o’-lantern “fashioning an idol”? Is bobbing for apples a “wicked revel”? Some who are reading this would reply with a resounding “yes”. And that’s because of the spiritual myopia that warps their thinking, as I’ll discuss in a moment. Goofball notions are de rigueur for the fundamentalist.
Others who are reading this have heartwarming memories of Halloween. It’s a slice of genuine Americana. It was one of the highlights of their childhood calendar—a time of family crafts and costume-making, a time to celebrate creativity and imagination. It was a time for children to dress up and solicit candy from their neighbors. (We were even taught to say “thank you”, which I’m sure irked Satan no end.) Trick-or-treating allowed the entire community to share in the Halloween festivities, as costumes were admired and rewarded with goodies. Halloween reaffirmed social bonds with friends and neighbors. These are hardly the “unfruitful works of darkness” (Eph. 5:11), unless one is a fanatic who interprets that phrase like, well, a fanatic.
(A parenthetical note to hypocrites: Anyone who condemns Halloween, yet enjoys an occasional Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff film, or reads a Stephen King or Anne Rice thriller, or a Harry Potter novel, or who watches “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or “The Wizard of Oz” or Disney’s “Snow White” or “Sleeping Beauty” or the “Lord of the Rings” films or who plays fantasy-based video games or visits Disneyland’s “Haunted Mansion” or watches a stage magician is a hypocrite, pure and simple. It’s like a conscientious objector being a fan of war movies. But hypocrisy is nothing new to the COGs, is it? And, for that matter, is “glorifying violence” any less “sinful” than “glorifying the occult”? (Hmm. I must have been imagining those LCG members sitting in the theater when I saw “Terminator 3″.))
 To all COG members out there: Is your children’s Christianity so feeble as to be endangered by a plastic mask and a few candy bars? Are your children so inadequately grounded in their religion as to be tempted into a life of witchcraft by attending a costume party? Are you yourself so poorly rooted in your faith that you fear your children will ask questions to which you have no satisfactory answers?
I have seen no evidence of children being psychologically warped or seduced into a life of witchcraft and perversion as a result of innocent Halloween activities. I HAVE, however, seen many fearful and superstitious COG children who have been conditioned to be abnormally hypersensitive to anything blackened with the feared label “occult”. One child in particular comes to mind, whom I witnessed shrieking in stark terror at the mere sight of a jack-o-lantern. Are you raising fearful children who, like medieval peasants, see Satan lurking behind every tree and demons skulking in every dark corner? Are you raising children who fear they will “open themselves up” to “demonic control” at any moment by the slightest misstep? What a tenuous, precarious and paranoid spirituality! Satan is a defeated enemy! We need not shrink inanimate mortal remains. Explain that fear of black cats is an ancient superstition of the ignorant. Talk to them about the fanciful creations of horror fiction, like werewolves and vampires. It’s healthy to examine the things that frighten us. Tell them about “ghosts” or disembodied spirits. (The dead are relatively safe; it’s the living you need to watch out for!) And talk to them about the subject of life after physical death. Tell them about the Lord of Life who overcame death. Assuage their fears about those who can kill the body but not the soul.
Halloween is also a good time to reconsider our own views about death and the afterlife. The unbiblical doctrine of “soul sleep” would be a good place to start. The Bible clearly teaches (and centuries of experience demonstrate) that death does not interrupt self-awareness; personal identity survives death! By contrast, Herbert Armstrong’s so-called “restored truth” about “What is Man?” is totally without biblical foundation, though his followers blindly accept it. Measuring truth by the teachings of a morally unprincipled deviate who was indisputably unqualified for ministry by biblical standards (i Tim. 3:2-7; Titus 1:6-7) is far scarier than any aspect of Halloween! (A rule of thumb, which I’ll throw in free of charge: The farther an individual or group moves away from the teachings of the so-called Philadelphia era of the Church of God, the closer he moves toward genuine truth and balanced spirituality.) 

So here’s my point: Objection to Halloween is a reflection of something much broader: an obsession with trivialities, a confusion of priorities, a primitive fear of the unknown, an arrogance that finds “righteousness” in being odd-ball and out-of-step. Fundamentalists can find something offensive or objectionable in almost anything. They have a world view in which virtually everything is “anti-Christian”. They have lost the ability to filter the important from the inconsequential. The traditional COG prohibition against Halloween ignores the facts of history, misrepresents the modern holiday, and demonstrates a woeful lack of spiritual discernment.
So, in a nutshell, my message to Christians about Halloween is: Lighten up! There is nothing spiritually harmful about this tradition. Sensibly observed, Halloween can be a day of wholesome fun and merriment. Believe it or not, not everything in life has to have some deep spiritual connotation. Halloween is “Satan’s Holiday” only to those who concede it to him or arbitrarily label it as such. Christians have been redeemed from the forces of evil. We don’t have to give credence to Satan’s claimed authority in any area of life. Don’t surrender to the fear, superstition and hypocrisy of the fundamentalist, who wouldn’t recognize a little harmless fun if he tripped over it, who is oblivious to the value of fantasy, who has no idea what “magic” and “witchcraft” really are, to whom everything paranormal is “demonic” and who trembles before the power of Satan and his demons (whether he admits it or not). Don’t fall prey to shady “scholarship” and flawed arguments about this holiday. Don’t let anyone judge you in respect of this or any other occasion. Safe, fun Halloween activities are NOT “of the “devil”.
To believe otherwise is just plain silly!

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Lil'Joel Hilliker Says No To Immigrants, Body Graffiti and Bad Hair

No millennial lion and lamb tattoo's for PCG members!


The PCG has an article up about God has preserved "pure religion" in the PCG.  One of the ways PCG's god preserves pure religion is in marriage. Its rather odd to see this article considering how the PCG has a horrible track record of breaking up marriages (see here.)  Even when non-believing spouses desire to live with PCG member spouses, the goons in charge in Edmond tell the member to divorce their spouse and take all the money they can from them.

Why the PCG trots out Lil'Joel Hilliker, who has absolutely no qualifications to be discussing "pure religion" and marriage other than reading PCG booklets on the subject, is beyond most peoples comprehension.

Jumping from marriage Lil'Joel lets the world know that the Philadelphia Church of God is anti-immigrant.  Never mind the FACT that this entire nation was populated by immigrants. 

God’s laws reveal His desire to protect Israel from the idolatry that saturated the surrounding peoples. “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues,” Revelation 18:4-5 say. “For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” That is a command to us as well, which is why the specific laws God gave Israel on this point are so relevant today.

When God brought the Israelites into the Promised Land, He used them as His instrument of judgment against the idolatrous pagans. Contemplate His command in Deuteronomy 12:1-3. Consider how this precisely parallels what Christ is going to do when He returns to this Earth (e.g. Revelation 19:11-15). At the same time, this command was also meant to protect the Israelites and preserve the one true religion.
He next trot's out the old catch phrase of the Church of God movement: "We are in the the world but not part of it."

The people of God’s Church are in the world but not of it (e.g. John 17:14-16). We must be careful not to get wrapped up in the activities, business, customs and practices of this world. We all must examine ourselves individually and consider things like our dress, our language, our music and entertainment. Consider: God gave Israel specific laws about hairstyle, of all things. Clearly, God does care, and He wants His people to maintain high standards even amid a degenerating world.
Apparently some of the PCG women are having some hairstyle issues.  Gerald Flurry was none too happy when this was taken at the Feast of Trumpet's dance this year:

 Read Leviticus 19:27 where God forbade hairdos that were popular among idolatrous priests. He didn’t give this law so His people would look freakish—but to prevent them from looking freakish. Read verse 28 where He outlawed cutting your own body out of grief, as well as tattooing or making marks on your body. These practices all have pagan origins. God wants us to treat our bodies with respect and to avoid disfiguring or harming them. God says your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t want you making permanent marks on it any more than He wants you defacing His house with graffiti!
 Next Lil'Joel whines about PCG members reading dissident literature:

These laws directly correlate to New Testament commands about what to do when a Church member embraces dissident material or tries to pollute the true religion (see, for example, Romans 16:17; Galatians 1:8-9; 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14; 1 Timothy 3:5; 6:5; Titus 3:10-11; 2 John 10-11). God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is just as concerned about purity in the congregation today as He was anciently—and, spiritually, He deals with the problem today the same as He did anciently.
Well...I'm glad to be part of the dissident material that upsets PCG so terribly. I know PCG is mad at me since their servers regularly check out this blog.  I have Rod Meredith mad at me.  Dave Pack is mad at me.  Wade Cox is mad at me.  I must be doing something right! 







Gerald Flurry and the Philadelphia Church of God Struggle To Keep Members Under Control



Gerald Flurry and the Philadelphia Church of God continue to struggle with members who are catching on to his lies and are speaking out to family members.  Flurry's degenerate policies and doctrines have led to countless broken marriages, suicides and other deaths.  The Internet has become a hostile environment for the Philadelphia Church of God.  Their sick policies continue to be exposed daily for all the world to see.

In an article recently published on how the PCG is preserving "pure religion" Lil'Joel Hiliker writes the following:

Despite God’s commands, at times the Israelites descended into idolatry. Anticipating this, God gave laws on what to do to ensure it didn’t spread. Again, His goal was to keep the nation and its religion pure!

These laws directly correlate to New Testament commands about what to do when a Church member embraces dissident material or tries to pollute the true religion (see, for example, Romans 16:17; Galatians 1:8-9; 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14; 1 Timothy 3:5; 6:5; Titus 3:10-11; 2 John 10-11). God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is just as concerned about purity in the congregation today as He was anciently—and, spiritually, He deals with the problem today the same as He did anciently.
Contemplate how the principle in Deuteronomy 13:1‑4 should inform the way we handle a message from a religious source that does not represent the true God. Do not treat that message—whether it be a letter, e-mail, booklet, cd, television program, phone call or personal visit—casually! It is, in fact, a test: How much do you love God? He is jealous, and wants to keep your relationship with Him pure!
Everything in Armstrongism always had to be some kind of "test" that most church members failed at horribly.  That's why we were constantly bellowed at by Herbert Armstrong and the ministry.  We could never pass the "test" becasue we "never got it."


Read in verse 5 how God instructed the Israelites to deal with those who tried to turn His people away from Him. Some people criticize God’s Church today for disfellowshiping and marking certain people. But consider how merciful that instruction from God is for New Testament Christians (e.g. Romans 16:17) compared to the law for unconverted physical Israel. Today, a Spirit-begotten Christian who turns to heresy has his eternal life on the line—and God wants to give him every opportunity to repent!

Read in Deuteronomy 13:6-7 of the far more difficult matter of close friends or family members coming secretly to peddle dissident ideas or material. The natural tendency in such circumstances is to do nothing: to reason that everything will be fine; that we can just pray about it; that it’s not really our business; that we shouldn’t “tell” and get the person in trouble; that we don’t want to break their confidence. Deeply contemplate God’s answer in verse 8. Don’t be acquiescent, don’t listen, don’t give him any attention, don’t be compassionate, don’t commiserate, don’t listen to his arguments why he’s really innocent, God says. And don’t try to cover the matter up, hide it, be secretive about it, or hope it will go away! You must bring this out into the open and let the ministry know!

To see how serious God is about keeping His people pure, read His command to ancient Israel in verses 9-11.
God wanted the family member to be the first to put the seducer to death! Surely this reinforces the responsibility each of us has to watch out for and to help those we are close to—to love them enough to encourage him or her to stay close to God! If you have questions, talk to God’s ministry. If someone close to you has questions, encourage them to go to the ministry. If it’s a serious question that could lead to problems, and he won’t go—then you go! Love that person enough to go!

Study verses 12-16 to see how God dealt with rumors of idolaters in an Israelite city in order to ensure that all Israel remained free and pure of idolatry. Consider the profound effect this law would have had on the Israelites had they kept it. It would have put a great deal of responsibility on people to ensure their city remained free of idolatry! If they heard rumors about idolatry in their city, they couldn’t simply dismiss them and say, Well, that’s their business. If they did that, they too could end up being killed! Everyone needed to be vigilant to prevent idolatry from spreading!