Dennis Rohan and how he almost drug the Church of God into a Middle East War

Some of my old friends in what was the Radio Church of God, which was later renamed the Worldwide Church of God, will remember well enough Denis Michael Rohan who in 1969 brought their cult religion (and Australia) into international notoriety when he started a fire in the Al Aqsa mosque in order to hurry up apocalyptic end-time events.

Australian Radio National has what looks like a fairly comprehensive archive of interviews, videos, images, literature, court proceedings about Denis Rohan and what can lead a person to do such a thing. See their Background Briefing archive Rohan and the Road to the Apocalypse.

I suspect members of the Herbert Armstrong cult (Radio Church of God) at the time were more focussed on what the publicity meant for them - cultic fear of persecution and all that - to have noticed that this one time one person crazy event had a profound significance on Arab politics vis a vis the State of Israel. This is discussed in the Background Briefing archive. It appears that the threat of the destruction of this mosque actually catalyzed a united front on the part of the Arab states that not even the 1967 war only two years earlier had failed to accomplish.

One interesting point that emerged (new to me at any rate) was the notion of the Jerusalem Syndrome. Apparently (unsurprisingly) there is something about just being in the vicinity of Jerusalem that can activate unstable mental tendencies in some.

There's an interesting comment by Tel Aviv Professor of Religion and expert on the Jerusalem Syndrome, Alexander Van Der Haven, at the end of a program interview:

You can either use religious language to make people more extreme, make people jihadists, or you can try to in the case of Islam, you can try to emphasise more moderate beliefs in the Qu'ran, more moderate traditions. So this is the very interesting thing of religion, that people tend to regard religious beliefs as very absolute, they mean one specific thing. But in reality you can do many different things with it. Somebody might have been able to convince Denis Rohan that that you shouldn't act upon your beliefs, this is something allegorical, instead you should pick flowers in this and this garden , and one might have been able to convince him. I think what you can learn from these cases, religion is very flexible, it can lead to the most aggressive destructive behaviour and it can also lead to more quietistic behaviour. The Jerusalem Syndrome is an instance of people who act in a very strange way on certain religious discourses and stories, which of course religion has, especially in Christianity, you have the Book of Revelation, in Judaism you have this emphasis on the Temple and the hope for the restoration of the Temple. So our religious scriptures offer these extreme possibilities. I think basically you can manipulate these for the good and for the worst.

It appears Rohan was converted to the beliefs of the Radio Church of God by well-meaning members while he was in a mental institution. Rohan came to see himself as The Branch prophesied to become king over Jerusalem - partly as a result of a message given from the "Rowan tree" outside the window of his mental institution room.

I seem to recall a rumour that he also found his name in the Bible as Nahor, which of course was the Hebrew right to left reading of Rohan. 

The interesting potentials that can arise from our propensity to look for and find patterns around us! 

Background Briefing also includes an interesting article by Scott Lupo, University of Nevada, describing one of the processes by which Armstrong persuaded many to join his church. 

No doubt Rohan found religion helped him become an outwardly healthy person in many ways, giving him a sense of purpose in life. But like so many things dear to humans, it is also a two-edged sword.

40 years ago: Denis Rohan and the road to apocalypse 

Prove All Things---Believe it---Hold on to it---How?

Remember back in the day when you may have first started attending the Worldwide Church of God or along the way met other members in various other WCG congregations or at the Feast of Tabernacles and you were asked, "So....How did YOU come into the truth?"

The answer was usually a simple story of relating to driving late at night and hearing the World Tomorrow Broadcast or picking up a copy of the Plain Truth at a Newstand.  Some few may have been convinced by a coworker or a family member.  But it was a simple process.  One hears, one likes the message, one believes.

We all claimed, in our minds, that we searched out the matter and "studied" to see if these things be so.  We read the Bible, we compared scriptures Old and New.  We compared what the Bible said with what we were told it said by our previous religious affiliations and found them wanting. We proof texted our way through the scriptures and finally ended up "proving all things and holding fast to that which was good."   We were set. Nothing new to learn and if there was, it had to be presented by the fearful and humble to the high and lofty for approval.  Truth was dribble down theology.  Right up to the end, Truth had to be approved by leadership.  It had to be delivered by leadership in the form of Apostles and Evangelists and even the Evangelists had to get the OK from the Apostles.

On top of all that, we'd never consider that the Bible itself was anything less than "God breathed."  Every quote, every person, every story, every event, every promise and every threat for not believing it were absolutely immutable and exactly how it all happened in history, time and space. To question is to lose faith and to doubt or notice other explanations or problems in text or leadership is scoffing according to the scriptures.  It is also being twice dead when once will do.  

In RCG, you get your truth from David C Pack who is an authoritarian mere Bible reader know it all except he doesn't. There is a price to pay if you don't get your truth and prove all things with his approval.

In PCG you get your truth from Gerald Flurry who is an authoritarian mere Bible reader know it all except he doesn't. There is a price to pay if you don't get your truth and prove all things with his approval.

In  all the slivers run by theologically challenged farmers all outstanding in their field and in their minds, truth is pronounced, dreamed and received from God.  I recall my first "What the hell?" feeling when RCM said in freshman Bible "There is God, then Christ, then Herbert W Armstrong, Garner Ted Armstrong, myself and other leading (not to be named) Evangelists ...."   I chuckled not knowing chuckling was not allowed in RCM's presence.

These not only don't know how to actually view the Bible, aren't theologically and professionally educated but they also can't imagine there is a view different from the ones they come up with. .

And now look at them...  

Too soon old, Too late Schmart

The Scientific Method

"Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.”

Thomas Huxley

Or....

     "Trust and Obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey."?

             

             "So we all can agree, not disagree and be  happy"?

Does this sound like "prove me now herewith" or any real reason to believe anything as important as "What's it all about?"