I found some old computer disks that had some save messages from the old WCGnet that was a great source of information for following the train wreck that was the Worldwide Church of God through all of the changes. I don't know who the author was.
Can you guess the
name of this church
based on the following clues?
* It was founded
by a businessman who had been raised in another religion and who had little formal
education.
* He moved from
the mid-West to southern California and became established in the Los Angeles area.
* He claimed to
have new insights into scriptural truths for the present age.
* The church was
Sabbatarian, millenarian, authoritarian and legalistic.
* The church
heavily emphasized predictive prophecy and the imminent return of Christ to establish
David's Kingdom in Palestine.
* Members and
others who did not measure up to legalistic standards or display adequate zeal were term
'Laodicean'.
* The leader
thought of himself as The Elijah and that his role was to restore all things before the return
of Christ.
* The church
obeyed the dietary laws of Leviticus.
* The church
leadership had predicted the return of Christ for a certain date but was wrong.
* The church
observed the Old Testament Festivals of Leviticus 23. In fact, they thought they were very close to
primitive, first century Christianity because of this.
* They believed
they were the only true church. The
members believed they were the first fruits and would play a special
role in serving God and the nations when Christ returned.
* They published
a monthly magazine advocating their beliefs.
* They had a
rigid, top down, pyramidal governmental structure.
* Members were
required to follow a rigid agenda of Bible study and prayer.
* The young men
in the church were conscientious objectors.
* In recent times
the heir-apparent, a young man of musical gifts, was involved in sexual scandals involving women in the
congregation.
* None of its
leaders had acquired any theological education from mainstream Christian colleges.
* They
established a church facility in Texas, including a school, near a lake and had an uneasy relationship with the
surrounding community.
* Membership was
international, multi-ethnic and multi-racial.
* They believed
deeply that they lived in the time of The End and their preaching and spiritual concerns focused on
this. They referred to the secular world as Babylon and were
strongly anti-Catholic.
* They believe
they could identify the people of the United States as descendants of patriarchs mentioned in
Genesis.
This list might
go on but the church involved is known as the Branch Davidians,
theologically, our first cousins, if not our brothers. Their lineage may be
traced, like the WCG's, to the Millerite Adventist Movement in the Nineteenth
Century. They were at one time known as
the Davidian
Seventh-Day
Adventist Association. They differ from
us on the last point above in that
they believed that the USA was Assyria rather than Manasseh.
I have compiled
this list for several reasons:
1. There is a
mystique that attaches to the WCG in the minds of many of its members that
is a carry-over from the days that we believed that we were the one and
only true church. This is to demonstrate
that we were really just
another Millerite Adventist group.
Recent articles in the WWN
confirm HWA's
foundation in Millerite teaching and the third angels message. Mrs. HWA dream or vision about the return of
Christ and the work that needed to be
done (see The Autobiography) is virtually an Adventist cliche in the
spirit of Ellen White. We are not
special; we are rather commonplace.
2. We would all
readily admit that the Branch Davidians were a cult but somehow, the WCG
was not a cult. How can this be?
3. People cite
the fact that the Davidians hoarded weapons and had a shoot out with the ATF and
true non-violent church members would not do that. But what would
members of the WCG had done if a leader had risen up and said that it was
time to go to the place of safety.
Everyone should sell
what they have
and buy airline tickets to Jerusalem and with your surplus funds buy tickets
for those who cannot afford it. Might we
not have done some extreme
things under the circumstances? The
Davidians were traditionally
conscientious objectors until they were staring into what they believed was
the Apocalypse. Does anybody remember
the account of one of our
leaders resorting to fists in the State of California occupation in the
late Seventies?
4. We should all
be filled with joy that a man, Joseph Tkach, Sr., while riding this train
to whatever destruction it might have met, suddenly awakened in his
seat, realized what was happening and pulled the emergency brake. Many
bewildered passengers got off and had to look for a new train.
But the tragedy
is that many stayed on the old train and, like the Davidians, will
meet whatever their destiny will be.
