Gerald Weston Has Melt Down Over Internet Blogs And Dave Pack's Annoying Ad's

I received the following from a Living Church of God source.  It concerns the latest screed from Gerald Weston about how the Internet is slandering him, Rod Meredith and the Living Church of God AND how Dave Pack's ads are popping up ahead of Living Church of God web links.

The LCG source writes:

No doubt this is in reference to Banned. 

It's blaringly obvious that Weston and LCG simply do not understand that it's not slander if it's true and that they are literally reaping what they have sown. 

If you don't want "bad things" about you on the internet, don't do bad things, right? Banned isn't slandering LCG by revealing the unjust/evil actions of LCG and its ministry! 

LCG is NOTORIOUS for slandering it's members. This article for Weston is so full of hypocrisy that it is difficult to read.

The article referenced above is this:  Slander on Steroids 

Gerald Weston, God's new right-hand man, has this to say:

Persecution can come in many different forms, and slander is one of them. Today we have more than slander—we have slander on steroids: the Internet. We all know the Internet can be a tool for good, but also for evil, and there is an evil spirit being who is promoting the latter.

When I refer to the Internet, I’m using an umbrella term to cover a variety of ways people communicate electronically: websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, texting and any other form of information quickly transferable through computers, smartphones and other devices and applications.

The big bad meanies on Banned, Painful Truth, Ambassador Watch, Silenced, Living Armstrongism and scores of Facebook pages are picking on poor little LCG.  

None of us who do these blogs or web sites would ever have anything to write if the leaders of the Living Church of God, and all the other COG's, would start treating members with grace, mercy and justice.  If they truly practiced first century Christianity then they would be the most loving group of churches on the face of the entire planet. But they can't because they can't even get along with one another.

Weston continues with this:

Every minister of the Church has run into people who are “on fire” for the Truth one day but who somehow lose all interest overnight. We know that some of this is the result of their reading something negative about the Church on the Internet. How many are turned off this way we can only guess, but we know it happens. We also know that some unscrupulous “Church of God” organizations actively leech off the others. They deliberately target other churches by paying to have their own website come up when people are searching for other organizations. Look for information about a “Church of God” group on a search engine, and, instead, the other organization’s false site comes up first, masquerading as the one being searched for. They then use the false site to discredit the “Church of God” organization the individual was originally trying to find.

The glorious thing about the internet, in spite of its foibles, has been its ability  to keep Church of God leaders in check.  They can no longer get by with the horrible abuses they did in the past by just disfellowshipping and marking individuals.  These people will no longer shut up and slink off into the dark nether regions of Laodiceanism where they will be perpetually ignored.

Notice above Weston's comment that LCG members are reading this site and others, are asking questions, and are leaving.  Far more must be leaving than we imagined for this to be publicly mentioned!

Then Weston takes a direct shot at Dave Pack.  Dave has been buying advertising for many years which pops up anytime a Church of God search is entered into a search engine.   His ads are on Facebook, Drudge, various news sites and most any web site that allows paid advertising.  Dave took advantage of this way before any of the other COG's dreamed of doing it, now none of them can ever outrank him in ad placement. That is a bitter pill to swallow!

Weston calls the ads by other COG's "false sites" in much the same way Bob Thiel uses "improperly named" as a smear tactic against other COG's and Christians. Weston then claims that this advertising is done to discredit the LCG, even as he next directly discredits Pack as a false church.  While Pack is the biggest user of this advertising, one can also see UCG, COGWA and PCG pop up every once in a while.  This should be fair warring to UCG and COGWA that LCG has no interest in every cooperating, regardless of the recent exchange of HQ visits. (More on this development to come in another post tomorrow from another LCG source.)

Weston then admits LCG has a lot of disgruntled members in its midst.

Of course, every business, social group or church will have a few disgruntled and unhappy individuals who are eager to trash the object of their dissatisfaction. When was the last time you found a hotel online that had 100 percent happy reviews? You cannot please everyone all the time, especially if part of your mission is to call upon people to change their behavior (Isaiah 58:1). Human nature being what it is, we have a tendency to believe the worst, especially if there is a bit of colorful sarcasm and wit thrown in.

It should be pointed out to Weston that hotel reviews and criticism of COG's by blogs and web sites are two entirely DIFFERENT things.  While both deal with poor service, some of it much deserved, LCG claims that it is God's own which hotels do not.   If it is God's own, then it cannot make mistakes or be criticized.  To do so is to criticize God directly.  Hotels/businesses that receive bad reviews usually attempt to change things for the better.  LCG does no such thing, even though it knows exactly how bad their service truly is by all of the various comments made by its own members on blogs/web sites and Facebook.

LCG claims it is there RESTORED truth that practices first century Christianity.  They claim they are God's chosen church and have the ONLY truth available that has been personally handed to them by Jesus Christ through Rod Meredith and Herbert Armstrong.  Really?   

Jesus never abuse members like the leaders of the LCG do.  Jesus never treated members with such disdain as the leadership of the LCG does.  Jesus never had disgruntled members pushed over the edge by one of his sermons, who then storm off to later return to the synagogue and slaughter listeners.  Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners, the vile people that Rod Meredith and others refuse to eat with.  When has Meredith and Weston ever sat down at a table and had dinner with a prostitute, a drug user, a homeless family, a gay couple, a Muslim, a Buddhist or God forbid, a Catholic neighbor?  

Next Weston attacks authors of books that a are critical of the church.  How dare they call LCG a cult!  Boo Hoo!

Some Protestant groups distort our teachings and call the Church of God a cult, even meriting whole chapters in some books. There is nothing new about distortions, misrepresentations and name-calling (Acts 24:5), but the Internet in all its facets spreads such misinformation and epithets more swiftly and to a wider audience than was ever possible before through books and tracts. There is sometimes some element of “truth” but always with a twist and misinformation that distorts the “truth,” turning it into a lie. Since Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44), it should not surprise us that he would use this tactic, as seen in the temptation of Christ recorded in Matthew 4. The devil accurately quoted from Psalm 91: “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone’” (Matthew 4:6). But he took these passages totally out of context.

Truth twisted into a lie.  That is the favorite way that the leadership of the Church of God has used over the last 80 some years to discredit anyone who dares to hold them accountable.  They fail to see that that little nugget of truth is a sure sign that there is a bigger cess pool lying just under the surface.

Weston then trots out Paul, David, Jeremiah and others to discredit blogs, web sites and unhappy people.  They have always been there through history ready to discourage the true believers.

Yes, it is hard to find in Scripture an example of a significant servant of God who did not suffer persecution by false accusation. The Apostle Paul was a special target for the “bloggers” of his day...

Weston then gets to the typical end product of screeds like this.  It is big bad meanie Satan who is behind all the blogs, web sites, and otherwise grumpy church people.

It is Satan who stirs up slander, and he has no regard for the truth. He can be sarcastic, funny and charming in the way he sells his lies. How many times have we read John 8:44? And yet do we, as human beings, really get it? Jesus said of certain ones, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” 

Satan specializes in one particular kind of lie, as we read near the beginning of this article. He mixes truth with error and by doing so is able to deceive gullible people.

Satan has no power over anyone who is grounded in faith which is actually true.  Apparently the Living Church of God has massively failed in this department.  Find the truth Gerald, it will set you free, so much so that you don't need to constantly be looking over your shoulder for Satan's next attack.

Of course, Satan is not averse to making up outright lies, as seen in Genesis 3 where he told Eve, “You will not surely die,” even though God had told Adam they would. Just as with Eve, some people naïvely believe a total stranger more than someone they have known for a long time—and that is one of the problems with the Internet. Unknown and unrighteous individuals who have accomplished little, but who have lots of time on their hands, can become a “somebody” overnight. Sadly, there are plenty of people who will believe whatever they say, especially if they say it dogmatically, along with a tiny bit of truth mixed with falsehood.

Gerald....Gerald....Gerald...  The things posted here are coming for your Own people!  None of us sit around looking for things to pick at you and the LCG about.  If you and the rest of the COG's would start acting like REAL Christians and STOPPED mistreating members in such vile despicable ways, then none of us would ever have anything to write about!

Weston then writes:

Instead of preaching the Gospel to the world and warning Israel and all mankind about what is coming, these individuals are content to tear down and slander those who are doing these jobs, and they are often “equal opportunity” slanderers. It isn’t just the Living Church of God they are eager to destroy. They have animosity toward any group that teaches anything about the Sabbath, the Holy Days and the Kingdom of God. Why?

Who is slandering you and the LCG?  Your own members?  Do you recall how you treated the Scarborough's?  Do you recall how your boss drove Terry Ratzmann over the edge with one endless doom and gloom sermon after another?  How about the gay church members that have to sit there week after week and listen to your boss treat them like shit?   Since when have you ever practiced true Christianity and acted like Jesus?  When have you ever taught anything Jesus did?  Do you even know the man?

It should be obvious that they have an agenda, and even if everything they report were true—which it never is—their passion is not for God. How anyone can expect to enter the Kingdom of God by such behavior is beyond comprehension, and maybe that tells us something about what truly motivates them.

You bet we have an agenda!  We are sick, just like your own members are sick, of watching you and your fellow leaders treat members like dirt, steal their money to live your privileged lifestyles, build expensive mini campuses and worship Herbert Armstrong instead of Jesus.  We are sick of you preaching heretical doctrines and practices that ignore the New Covenant and its meaning and we are sick of your bastardization of the gospel about a world where you and your fellow masters can lord yourselves over people in your kingdoms with your rods of iron.  Who wants to be part of that kingdom you promote?  What hope do they have in being under your "government"?  Who wants it!?!?!?

Read the entire article here then let Weston and LCG know how things really are!

Slander on Steroids 

The Church of God and Halloween Myths

Its that time of year again and various Church of God groups are starting their annual Halloween traditions.   Satan and his demons are pictured running rampant around the earth on this night looking for naive COG members so they can be swayed away from the "truth once delivered." Church of God members turn off their living rooms lights and slink back into the rear of their houses and try to hide from the evil knocking at their doors.  It's amazing how a church that claims to be God's one true restored church have allowed Satan to have so much power over them.  No other church on the earth has to deal with the constant attacks by Satan than the COG.  Satan is obviously more powerful than that inconvenient Jesus dude.

In 2011 I had the following quotes up from a Conservative COG Yahoo page.  These are the kinds of silliness that occupy the minds of Armstrongites this time of year.

No one ever said Armstrongites were not creative in their thinking!  Eating mice for Halloween?  I feel so left out all these years!


A different spin on it where the kids go trick or treating?
 --------
The church has never stated that. In the histories, when Jeroboam (I think) set up a golden calf in the north in Israel, it's been said that was at Halloween time. In any case, it was a different time than FoT, which it was made to replace.
--------
I've also heard that this particular holiday was moved from May 1 and that originally it was a remembrance of the dead when Noah & family came out  of the Ark. Imagine how they must have felt, knowing every other living soul was dead... This is how dead became associated with the day. Perhaps.

Is Isaiah a reference to the ancient pagan festival now called halloween with a

Isaiah 66:17 Those who sanctify and purify themselves to enter the groves, imitating one in the center, eating the flesh of the swine, the reptile, and the mouse, shall one and all come to an end - declares the Lord. For I know their deeds and purposes.

We actually have COG members who believe kids eating candy are practicing an ancient custom of worshipping in the groves and that it originally was the day set apart by Noah to commemorate all the dead rotting bodies that covered the earth after the flood.

Here are some pithy says by Richard Ames of the Living Church of God:

Pithy sayings of Richard Ames, Living Church of God 

Should we follow our neighbors, like proverbial lemmings, off the dangerous cliff of pagan practices?

By observing Halloween, we teach our children to make light of Satan the Devil—or even to think like him! Should we then be surprised when our children remain curious about evil—or even invite it—for the rest of the year?

Do we teach our children to attract and cultivate evil spirits at Halloween? Certainly, dressing up like a demon or a witch invites evil rather than opposes it!

Some parents encourage their children to participate in the world of demons. Are some of you parents sacrificing your children to Satan and to wicked spirits

It’s time for such so-called Christians to repent of supporting the Devil and rebelling against Christ!

Dress you baby up for Halloween 

and they will end up devil babies! 

Many years ago Keith Stump, a former Plain Truth writer, penned an article about Halloween that sent diehard COG believers over the edge.  He pointed this out:

"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.

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. 

See:  Halloween Hysteria Is Back In The Churches of God Again

Is Halloween Evil?  Responding to UCG

Keeping Halloween Makes You think About Evil??

The Troubled World of David C Pack and the Restored Church of God

I reached out to an RCG source to get their take on Dave Pack's latest escapade.

They feel that Dave is doubling down on what he has taught.  He has released so much information that even his own members are confused a times.  If they are confused then Church of God members who are not part of RCG are doubly confused.  It is vital to Dave that COG members understand what he has been preaching.  It is important to him that his message be made clear to them so that they can either accept or reject it.  If they reject it then they will be held accountable for that mistake by his god.

Dave feels that his message is similar to the "warning Israel" message that Herbert Armstrong proclaimed in the past, but is now to a new audience, "wayward COG members." Dave seems to think this is the "last step" till Christ returns to Wadsworth and confirms everything he has been teaching.  COG members know how much Dave has deviated from what Herbert Armstrong taught.  It is going to be a monument task for Dave to reconcile all of his previous messages to fit his current "understanding."  Every time Dave preaches or writes and article it deviates from last teachings.

One interesting thing was pointed out by the source about Dave and RCG members.  Now that Dave has sold his home in a public neighborhood and built himself a new home on the compound, he has further isolated himself from reality.  The source questions if Dave was really trying to draw in COG members, but acknowledges that some RCG members may actually believe that is what Dave is attempting to do, but that and they truly do not understand what others outside their group actually think of Dave's message. RCG members have isolated themselves so well that they only listen to what Dave and HQ has to say.  The source had this to say about RCG members perception of those outside the group:

"The thought inside is that people are "watching closely" and "really intrigued" because "their splinters aren't doing or producing as much." 

As has been pointed out here countless times in the past, there is no other Church of God on the entire planet that is as knowledgeable and God driven than the Restored Church of God.   No other Church of God has the depth of understanding that Dave and his church has.  The Philadelphia Church of God, Living Church of God, United Church of God, COGWA and also Bob Thiel and James Malm are incapable of being used by God to gather the church together before the end times.

While the source did not mention this part; I have a sinking feeling that we will see something horrendous happen with RCG members at some point in the future.  Dave is a troubled man that has the potential to be deadly. Those now outside the group are devastated at what they see happening to family members inside. It truly is frightening to see how these everyday church folk, that some of us may know, have let themselves be taken over by Dave's subtle brainwashing.

How Well-Meaning, Intelligent People End Up In A Cult