The Journal: Issue 192 Online

Issue192

The latest issue of The Journal: News of the Churches of God is now online.

The Journal marks 20 years this month
THE JOURNAL, as of February 2017, has been publishing for 20 years. This newspaper’s Vol. 1, No. 1, came out in February 1997 one month after In Transition, published by John Robinson, ceased publication with its January 1997 issue.
“Although In Transition was the inspiration for our newspaper, we are not the same paper and not a continuation of In Transition,” said JOURNAL publisher Dixon Cartwright.
“John decided to end his paper after two years, 1995-97, and I could not talk him out of discontinuing it. We also could not come to an agreement by which I would buy it or otherwise acquire it and keep it going. So when he folded up shop in January of ’97 my wife, Linda, and I began THE JOURNAL” in February of 1997.
“Hard to believe it’s been 20 years and, so far, 192 issues.” Mr. Cartwright said. “Time marches on.” 

The cover page includes an article about the Church of God Ministries International and Tom Terry's latest adventure. Kerry has been quit concerned about the lack of patriotism and the removal of God from the national psyche by leftists and democrats over the decades.  He cites these three indicators:

He listed three events that he says marked the “beginning of removal of God” from American affairs ca. 1925:

• The repeal of Prohibition.
• The Scopes so-called monkey trial, pertaining to the teaching of Darwinian evolution.
• Christians campaigning for Herbert Hoover for president.

In the case of the latter, when President Hoover was seen as causing the Great Depression he, and his Christian supporters, were discredited. 

Dixon Cartwright continues his series of Church of God historical events, this time focusing upon Amarillo Church of God Pastor Jeff Booth and how Herbert Armstrong fired him 7 times in one afternoon.

Church pastor recalls the time he was fired seven times during one meeting with his boss 

Fired seven times

It was January 1980. Not many WCG members, even church pastors, could muster the temerity to request an appointment with Mr. Armstrong to ask him anything, much less probing questions about his opinions on pressing doctrinal questions of the time.

Though direct and to the point in the interview, Mr. Booth says he was never disrespectful, never raised his voice and never asked any personal questions, although the founder of the WCG and Ambassador College did “fire” Mr. Booth from his job as a church pastor seven times over a span of three hours and 20 minutes. 

This issue also features an article by our very own self-appointed, doubly blessed, Chief Overseer Bob Thiel expounding upon the miraculous African work he is doing.   We all know how well that has worked out for him.

Linda French is conducting a survey on Servant Leadership in the church:  Executive Servant Leadership Scales (ESLS) and Church Attitude Inventory (CAI) instruments

My name is Linda French and  I am conducting a research study entitled “A Correlational Study between Servant Leadership and Church Climate.” The purpose of the research study is to discover the nature of the relationship between pastors’ attitudes toward servant leadership and attendees’ attitudes towards pastoral servant leadership, the nature of the relationship between pastoral attitudes toward church climate and attendees’ attitudes towards church climate, and the nature of the relationship between combined pastoral and attendee perceptions of servant leadership within the church climate and church climate. Understanding pastoral and attendee perceptions of church climate and pastoral servant leadership could lead to changes and improvements of methods and use of servant leadership strategies leading to improved church climates and attendee outcomes.

There is also an article about those nasty Catholics and Jesuits who are out to destroy the United States and the church.  This will play well into he conspiracy theories of the Kitchen family and others who find the Catholic Church to be the big bogey-man.  How involved is the Vatican in U.S. politics?

There is also an ad for the HWA Storehouse that will send you a free 21 gigabyte USB drive of HWA and church literature and programs. Oh joy...

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Dave Pack: I am the ONLY COG leader who has NEVER compromised

Superfantabulous Dave Pack claims he is the ONLY COG splinter group that has NOT compromised on ANYTHING!  All of he hundreds and hundreds of splinter groups are being led by little men who compromise the law, allow mixed marriages, let their women were make up like harlots, marry outside the church, eat vegetarian, dance Irish dance, build auditoriums, establish colleges, and start new splinter groups.  Bob Thiel is once again suffering major butt-hurt.

All of the splinters have compromised terribly. I haven’t compromised anything about the Sabbath; not just the Sabbath, but about it, or the Law, or the Holy Days, or the knowledge that we’re born again, or the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Now you might say I have, because of prophecy. Okay, then. I’ve not taught there’s an immortal soul. There’s no dead in hell for all eternity. I’ve not said you can interracially marry, or wear makeup, or marry outside the Church. We have thorough baptismal counseling. We maintain all standards of dress, and hair, and no tattoos. You know, we don’t allow all that stuff in the wrong way.

Dave wants it made clear that he has the best child rearing standards too.  The youth he has kicked out of the church over the decades and their parents would beg to differ.

We have childrearing standards.

Dave also wants it known that he has not compromised the word of God by watering down his message by preaching wimpy-ass 45 minute or one hour sermons.  Real men of God preach 2-4 hour sermons!  Dave is like John the Baptist, he has come to show the true way.

We haven’t altered services down to an hour and a half, with 45-minute sermons, the way it is in most of the splinters, never mind Worldwide. The manner of doing the Work is the same. We haven’t watered down any elements of tithing, any aspects of it. The calendar; we do broadcasts; we follow the pattern of doing the Work. Ambassador College; the publications we produce; the quality of conferences and Feasts, and writing literature, and youth tools; building a world headquarters the way I saw it and was taught. We haven’t compromised any of that. The splinters compromise all of it. All I’ve done, like John, is come and show, in many ways, what they always believed.

Dave does admit to changing one thing though...prophecy.  Dave imagines that he has not changed anything or added anything, only that he has explained it properly.

Prophetic understand is the only thing I’ve changed…but I haven’t changed anything, because I’m not adding a new book of the Bible. I’m just explaining what was always there. So, I’ll leave you to look at that principle and go over all of the different things that we have held to, that I have not compromised—for all the decades of my ministry—and it didn’t make any difference how many people stood with me or didn’t.

The families ripped apart, the marriages broken, children thrown out, financial lives ruined, all beg to differ that Dave is the most upright and uncompromising minster ever.

Dave Pack: Those That Eat Vegetarian Open Their Minds To Demons

Uncle Dave Pack writes:

“…and to abstain from meats…” I’ve explained, many times, that vegetarianism is not just wrong, but it’s dangerous, because it opens the mind up to demons. There are critical proteins found in clean meats that strengthen the cerebral cortex. That’s the frontal lobes of the brain, where the human will was installed or created by God. And Demons don’t want people to eat meat. That’s why India is shot full of demons and mediums and wizards of every kind. They don’t eat any meat, even though there’s more beef “on the hoof” there than in Texas.

Is Rod Meredith The Most Uniquely Qualified Man To Write About The Protestant Reformation?

Gerald Weston and the Living Church of God have been heavily promoting the "new" earth shattering series of articles that Rod Meredith is "working" on regarding the "truth" about the Protestant Reformation.  The Living Church of God, as well as Rod Meredith, feel that he is the most qualified human ever to comment upon the Protestant Reformation.

This is coming from a man who has had no theological training outside of the Church of God information stream.  He has had zero historical education, by qualified and well versed professors, on the Protestant Reformation movement.   Most of his knowledge is garnered from anti-Catholic sources that are just as biased as Herman Hoeh's and Dean Blackwell's treatises on church history and the Reformation that the old Worldwide Church of God claimed to be historically accurate.

The latest issue of the Tomorrow's World contains the article:  The Plain Truth About the Protestant Reformation.  Ah yes, the "Plain Truth,"  how veeeeery original.  Why is it that none of the men in any of the splinter groups can ever come up with something original?

The byline for the article states this:

“Roderick C. Meredith, the Editor in Chief of the Tomorrow’s World Magazine and Presiding Evangelist of the Living Church of God, is uniquely qualified to write this series. His ministry spans almost 65 years, from the earliest years of Herbert W. Armstrong’s worldwide work to today’s multi-media continuation of that Work of reaching the world with the Gospel of the coming Kingdom of God. 

Dr. Meredith has long been an expert concerning the history and significance of the Protestant Reformation, and this series collects his research on this highly misunderstood subject. 

The article starts out with this:

The Protestant movement today is on trial. The Protestant Reformation has spawned a veritable Babylon of hundreds of different denominations.

Seriously?  He has the gall to start out like this when he is part of a movement that has spawned hundreds and hundreds of harlot daughters of the mother church!  The Church of God is the most fractured single church movement in modern history.  Lecturing others about a "movement" being "on trial" is pretty hypocritical from a man who has helped spawn church divisions.

This entire article is nothing new for Rod Meredith.  It is not like he has been focused upon studying the Protestant Reformation over the last few years, and particularly now that he is on his death bed.  What Meredith has done is republish his 1961 thesis that was a requirement of the unaccredited Ambassador College "graduate" program.  This is a paper that never defended in front of real theologically and historically trained professors.

Church of God News has this to say about Meredith's series:

Roderick Meredith has not collected “his research on this highly misunderstood subject” during “his ministry (spanning) almost 65 years.” 

He wrote The Plain Truth about the Protestant Reformation 61 years ago, when he was a student at Ambassador College. His thesis was written in ‘Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts in Theology’.
The first article in this “ brand-new series” comprises chapters1-3 of this thesis. It is almost word for word, with some slight (or should that be ‘sleight’?)amendments by the editors, e.g. “thesis” is changed to “series”; “the following chapters” to “this series of articles”; and “the present work” to “this series”.

Why does the Living Church of God need to deliberately deceive their members by pretending that this is an all new series that Rod Meredith's been working on?