Monday, February 29, 2016

EXCLUSIVE BREAKING NEWS: Living Church of God, Rod Meredith and Rod McNair Being Sued For "Defamation of Character "and "Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress"




Proverbs 22:8 “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity,
and the rod of his fury will fail”


This just in from my LCG source:
        

For over a year there have been rumors floating around in LCG that Patrick and Elizabeth Scarborough were going to sue the church. The rumors surfaced big time at the LCG Winter Family Weekend in 2014 but then nothing seemed to happen so they died down again. A few Sabbaths ago the rumor started to reemerge. I called a few of my friends in the ministry but they said they hadn’t heard anything about it. Then I called a friend who is on LCG’s Counsel of Elders. He too had not heard anything about it. My source (an LCG member with family working at headquarters) was pretty confident which got me wondering so I decided to investigate further.

I started with a call to the Mecklenburg County Courthouse and much to my surprise they confirmed that LCG is being sued but they were unwilling to give me details over the phone. They suggested that the file is a matter of public record and said I could read it myself. I made the drive to Uptown Charlotte and got the gut wrenching surprise of a lifetime.

LCG is being sued for “The Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress” and both Rod Meredith and Rod McNair are being sued personally and in their official capacities for “Defamation of Character” (Slander) and for the “Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress”. The complaint made for jaw dropping reading and it went on and on and on. There were close to 150 items listed. It looks like they also tried to sue Bob League but that part of it was dismissed or withdrawn.

Mr. Meredith has clearly been hiding this information from his ministers, the Council of Elders and all of us tithe payer members who are now paying the bill for 2 lawyers (there were 2 LCG lawyers names and signatures) in a large and expensive looking Charlotte firm (Hedrick Gardner).

 I guess we now know why Mr. Meredith is extra desperate for members to send in more money.

I guess we all now know why Mr. Meredith keeps alluding to the fact that the church is about to “suffer persecution”. It looks like he’s going to try to blame this lawsuit on “persecution” instead of his own harshness and unwillingness to behave in a Christian manor.

I have slowly become more and more aware of the complete lack of the fruits of the Spirit in my church leaders. I have watched as they bully and manipulate. I have seen these men that I once held in such high esteem, destroy the lives of good people I have known and loved without so much as a glance backward. I have observed the apparent and complete lack of mercy, justice and fairness in these leading men who are supposed to exemplify “Christ living in them”. It has been disappointing and heart breaking. 

The lawsuit was initiated in September of 2015 and they have already gone to court once. It looked like LCG tried to get everything dismissed but was mostly unsuccessful.

I’m left wondering who will be called in to questioning when depositions start because so many of us in LCG were friends with the Scarborough’s. Many of us still wonder and talk about why our ministers treated them the way they did. Several of us have questioned but have never been given a solid answer. It makes it seem like they never really had a good reason to do what they did to these people that so many of us knew and loved.  Many of us still miss them and think of them every day. If we are called in for questioning and we speak well of the Scarborough’s, will we be kicked out of church and lose all of our friends? Are we expected to lie and cover things up?

I’m also left wondering, why didn’t Mr. Meredith try to work things out with them before it got to this point? I would think it wouldn’t be worth the huge amount of money and negative publicity that it will cost LCG in the end (no matter what the verdict is). 

 Is Mr. Meredith’s unwillingness to be a peacmaker going to bankrupt the Living Church of God? Is the stubbornness and unfair action of one or two men going to ruin the organization that thousands of people love? How can they allow this to happen?

I am sharing this information with your readers because the LCG tithe-payers they deserve to know that their hard-earned money is lining the pockets of worldly lawyers when it could be used to preach the gospel to the world.      


     

Living Church of God Lawsuit: Bob Thiel and James Malm Broadsided



James Malm and Bob Thiel both got blindsided yesterday by the exclusive release here of the letter confirming that the Living Church of God, Rod Meredith and Rod McNair are being sued for "defamation of character" and "intentional emotional distress". They both are taking the letter released here and spinning it as if they knew about this all along, which they did not. Neither one of them have the wherewithal to provide a link that they got their info from here. When I find tidbits of info on their sites I almost always provide a link. James Malm is particularly guilty of this since he will sometimes quote word for word things that people have only sent to me as if he wrote it. 

Bob Thiel owes Connie credit for her posting of the lawsuit document that he copied and pasted to his blog as if he discovered it.

Both Malm and Thiel have reached out to LCG for confirmation as to the legitimacy of this lawsuit. Its going to be fun to sit back and watch them both play their deceitful game as tools of the LCG spin machine. It will be interesting to see what Malm and Thiel report back since even some of the Council of Elders did not know about the lawsuit. There has been a wide coverup of this lawsuit by Meredith and a select few. 

It truly is sad that LCG members have to come to this blog to find out truths about their own church. Truths written by fellow members who feel they are not being heard when they air their grievances. The internet has become the enemy of the Church of God because it allows free flow of information that the leadership restrict. This lawsuit is just the tip of the iceberg of the type of corruption that is rampant in the Living Church of God and the broader COG communities. If the Scarbouroughs prevail, it will set a precedent in other COG's for abused members to sue Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack and others. LCG will fight this with everything they have and will do everything in their power to smear the reputation of the Scarbouroughs.  


Rod Meredith did this exact same thing when he lied about Leona McNair in front of 800 Worldwide Church of God ministers. He blatantly lied about Mrs. McNair in order to make Raymond look like the persecuted one. Leona sued, WCG spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending Meredith. They lost and had to pay Leona a substantial amount of money. It was not long after this that Meredith then jumped ship to Global Church of God. He stayed in the WCG long enough of for the church to defend him and pay for the lawsuit. How ethical is that?  

For a man who claims to never have committed a major since since baptism he certainly has proven to be one of the most unethical ministers the church has ever produced.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Hall of Ad Demolition

Herbert Armstrong: TO BE ENFORCED! Ruling On Women's Dress


Herbert Armstrong writes:
And I want to say, before quoting from the former article, that God’s ministers are quite frequently embarrassed, while preaching in the pulpit, by women wearing too short skirts that do not cover their knees, sitting with their knees spread apart at least eight or ten inches. Usually the careless ones are middle-aged or elderly women. Just once, I believe, have I personally noticed this inexcusable carelessness on the part of a college girl. This happens REPEATEDLY. Personally, I have not wanted to publicly embarrass these women. But if, after this article has appeared in print, such carelessness occurs again in my sight, I shall personally reprimand such women regardless of the painful embarrassment it may cause them
Apparently the "men" who masqueraded as ministers were having issues with elderly women spreading the legs in front of them during sermons.   What kind of nonsense is that?

To show these apostate elderly women who is in charge, HWA says that they are to be told ONCE and then punished if they do it again.  Armstrong was like most other patriarchal men when it came to women in the church.  Women were nothing more than "children" in his sight, under contestant need to be controlled and disciplined. Women are too stupid to know right from wrong and need a REAL man to tell them what to do.  Of course only real men could be found within the Church of God.
In our teaching on child rearing, based on God’s Word, we teach parents to speak plainly JUST ONCE-and then punish. The women guilty of this neglect are old enough to know better, but they are our spiritual children, and I am instructing all ministers to PRACTICE WHAT WE PREACH, and ENFORCE this ruling! 
Herbert was especially disgusted by women's knees.  What could be more revolting?
It is embarrassing to me, personally, when I see a woman in constant embarrassment tugging away at her skirt while she sits, to make it cover her knees when it simply is not long enough to cover them. Or, as so often happens, now, because her skirt comes merely to her knees when sitting, but leaves them completely exposed, she continually tries to pull her skirt tightly around her legs just above the knee, fastening the skirt underneath. between her legs and the chair.
So what was a poor woman to do in the church?  Herb has the answer: 
Women who care more for what GOD thinks than what this rotten, filthy, doomed WORLD thinks, will immediately let out any skirts shorter than that. Those who care more about what THE WORLD thinks than God will mark themselves as PART OF THE WORLD and NO LONGER MEMBERS OF GOD’S CHURCH. 
So what else ticked off HWA?  Tight skirts!  Women who wore tight skirts deserved to be SPANKED! Now we know here Spanky Meredith got his deviate passion from.  Meredith frequently bragged about how he spanked his wife and daughter when they were rebellious.
Since the last article on this subject, the Ruling has been so flagrantly ignored or disobeyed that the time has come TO ENFORCE this Ruling. God’s Ministers are instructed to act accordingly. 
And THIS INCLUDES THESE TOO TIGHT SKIRTS. 
By that, I mean these skirts taken up just below the hips, so they FORM-FIT the buttocks, clinging tight behind and under the place where they OUGHT to be SPANKED! I know that nearly all skirts are made that way today. 
It seems that HWA thought most women in the church were walking harlots. 
Candidly, when I see a female with a skirt tight enough to call attention to the shape of her hips, especially when tight below the hips and under the buttocks, I know that she is either care- less and needs sharp admonishing or else she is wearing it deliberately to attract male eyes and arouse lust toward her in men’s minds. 
 It's not the men's fault their tongues hang out in lust, but the women's fault for making the men sin. 

HWA continues with his desire that women be spanked because they are nothing more than common  prostitutes:
Do you want to know my personal reaction when I see such an example? It makes me feel that such a girl or woman needs either a good lecture driven home by a sound SPANKING of what she so brazenly displays, or to be classed as a fallen woman and a common prostitute. 
THAT IS PLAIN LANGUAGE! I mean it to be plain, and I want the women in God’s Church to know it is coming from God’s Minister, who speaks by Christ’s authority!

Recently some of our girls and women have been wearing skirts that are entirely TOO SHORT! Often I have felt I ought to speak personally to some of you. If this article does not quickly correct this EVil-AND IT IS A N EVIL! -God’s ministers will be instructed to begin speaking personally and in a manner that ought to cause a deep sense of shame and produce a very red face on any girl or woman who invited such sharp rebuke from a Minister of God! 
Even Herbert's god is embarrased by those knees:
When many of you women wear skirts as high as (and now above) the knee, and which completely expose the knees when sitting, your skirts are an abomination in GOD’Seyes. I wonder, frankly, if God doesn’t blush when HE sees you! Are you women who do this, deliberately trying to tempt men into breaking the spirit of God’s law against adultery? Are you trying to make yourselves adultresses ? Are you not breaking the very spirit of that law, yourselves? 
Again, its the women's fault, not the poor over-sexed men.

Lest we think Herbert only looked at knees; he also was disgusted by breasts.  It must have been a real struggle for him and other ministers to have to preach every week looking out at all of these spread legs and boobs hanging out of dresses.

More than once I have seen a few of our women, in evening dress, exposing entirely too much female breast-with neckline cut so low as to show a goodly portion of breasts, with a crease in the middle. On one or two occasions, I have instructed Mrs. Armstrong to speak to such women, telling them plainly that their necklines are too low. 
Women’s breasts, in plain language, were designed by God to nurse babies- not to be flaunted immodestly to arouse lust in men. 

Can you imagine the catatonic fit HWA would go into today when he saw a woman nursing her baby!

Herbert has this final thing to say:

In the matter of too-tight skirts around the hips, the excuse often is that the girl has taken on weight-and she protests that she cannot help it. But she can help it, and if she is to remain in God's Church or enter into God's Kingdom, she must-one of two ways: either don't remain over weight (fasting and proper diet will cure that quickly). or let the seam out.
It is the over-emphasis of lust-arousing portions of the female body that MUST BE CORRECTED.


The only over-emphasis that I have ever seen in the church has come from the top down.  Men who can't control their lusts or perversions.

Male cult patriarchy it its finest!

You too can read this absurd article here: TO BE ENFORCED Ruling on women's dress

Reactions to the Pasadena Rubble



The reactions have been swift at the latest photo's of the demolition of the Hall of Administration.  This meme was done by a child of the church (an actress) who's life was screwed up because of it. Others have been moved to tears at seeing the debris because they have been hurt so much by the church, yet still identify with it.

Broken families and marriages, suicides, and mental disorders have been a result of the church and its teachings.  Some have been scared for life by the church and so many want to sweep it all under the rug and act like nothing bad ever happened, and if it did, it was the person's fault for being weak and not the church.


On the Banned Facebook page and the FB pages the following comments have been made: 

Reminds me of the destruction of The Temple signifying the end of the Levitical Priesthood and the daily sacrifice and how many still insisted on living in OT OC times. The splinters are in denial of this being a significant sign, Armstrongism is dead...
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I fight very hard not to be bitter because it is counter productive. That said, after a 50 year exposure to that hot mess, I can't help not be angry. It was bad enough being raised in it, but now, in my early 60's, I have no hope of ever retiring, a still live paycheck to paycheck. After all, we should be in the Millennium, right? Who needs IRA's and Social Security when we are all now in the Wonderful World Tomorrow! 
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Many lives and careers are a pile of rubble just like that. it is not so easy just to sweep away the damage done to children and marriages. I contributed thousands of dollars and there it is in a pile of trash. 

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I'll say it again. That pile of rubble was what was stolen out of our mouths as kids, was stolen of our backs. That building, was built and paid for by people like my parents with the thousands of dollars they didn't have to spare which they sent to Pasadena every paycheck. It seems a waste to see a beautiful building that my parents in part paid for laying there as a pile of rubble. I don't miss the organization but to see the sacrifice decimated is a hard pill to swallow. Just my thoughts and feelings on this.