Friday Musings: I'm So Dis-illusioned.

...You say that like it's a bad thing!

If you spend enough time on the planet, one of the great experiences we all will have is that of that of being disillusioned with persons, places or things. I personally hate it. It's annoying, takes way too much energy and makes my stomach hurt, or third chakra depending on your perspective. :)

Of course, we also have to admit from time to time, that we all are a source of disillusionment for others as well, so I suppose this keeps the universe balanced in some way, and the feelings we have about how it feels when we experience it in perspective. If you are like me, I tend to remember well what disillusions me for a very long time, but rather quickly try to dismiss my own part in the disillusionment of others.

I'd like to ask a simple question. Why would we want to have illusions? After all, DIS-illusionment should seem to be exactly what we want to happen. Who wants to live with illusions? Who wants to base their perspectives on that which is not real, true or accurate? We should beg for DIS-illusionment, but in fact we don't. Plainly, disillusionment in any of life's quests is painful and is the reason we tend to defend them, at all costs. Pain is to be avoided at all costs it seems.

I think we all know people who live with well thought out, well defined and deeply entrenched illusions. As a former, very sincere and hopeful pastor type, I was a master teacher of illusions and had darn good proofs that I was right to defend them. The problem was, ultimately, I was wrong.

Let me share a few. I realize that some will be quick to point out my flawed thinking, because of their own illusions, and to refute my observations as a simple lack of faith, or trust. Some will say, I was in the wrong church, had a bad attitude or simply misunderstood God. Illusions are easy to defend and difficult to let go of at best. I understand that. But when simple theological promises are made, and then applied with either no results or negative results, that's pretty darn disillusioning. But the goal here is to not have illusions, so it's all good.

So here goes. Let me share a few of the most simple and yet theologically disillusioning concepts that many Christians struggle with. I know I am not alone, nor is it inappropriate to observe just how untrue, in human experience these concepts are in practical fact.

As a minister, I often anointed "the sick" with oil and laid hands on them offering "the prayer of faith." In most cases, it was not serious stuff, but rather, the type of maladies that would pass in time with a little self care and patience. There were many times, however, where it was either be "healed" or die before one's time. I'd like to say that the "prayer of faith" did save the sick, after all that's what it says...

James 5:

14 "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."

...but it did not. I watched many die, in time, just as those who did not ask. Doing this hundreds, if not thousands of times did not result in my personally having any real miraculous stories of obvious healing to relate to you. I have a sense even now of not wanting to admit this, knowing the arguments that humans come up with to explain why this is as it is, but I experienced this simple theological promise as I did and wish to face it.

One of my more profound awakenings happened when a client , crying on the massage table over the loss of her daughter through suicide told me her minister "comforted " her with "Well now...God lost his only child too."  Uh oh...wrong answer.  She screamed "NO!  The Jesus in the story knew he would be back in three days.  God knew he would raise him in three days better than ever.  That story was a weekend inconvenience for Jesus and God. A mere soap opera.  If I knew my daughter was coming back in three days I'd be getting the party ready. MY DAUGHTER IS DEAD!  Dennis....shouldn't a sacrifice stay dead?"

Gulp....The minister apologized I never again quite looked at the resurrection and "sacrifice" of Jesus the same way myself.  Truth can be born out of utter pain and disillusionment 

I wonder now if it helped or hurt those who were facing final days who were not healed? Did it encourage them or discourage them since God did not intervene? Did they feel a lack of faith and blame themselves or is this simply one of life's disillusionments to deal with? People get sick and die. Some live long, some die young. None of us are getting out of here alive. Believe me, I have heard every explanation under the sun as to why God did or didn't do what he said so simply in James would happen. The fact is, every explanation is a simple need we have to explain why something so simple, simply didn't work.

I have quoted in sermons the financial promises "God" makes to those who give until it hurts, "good measure, pressed down and overflowing." I have noted that humans have "robbed God" of tithes and to give so that He might open the windows of heaven to the giver, and yet they simply end up with less income and worried about how to pay the bills. Again, the poor giver seems to take the heat for having little faith, patience or the ability to grasp that all of God's blessings aren't monetary. Yeah, that's the answer! "You have air don't you...why if God wanted, he could take the air away...sooooooooo." You know what I mean.

When God or the Bible  does not deliver, it's never God or the Bible's fault, it's our fault and we spend the next six weeks examining ourselves for bad attitudes, poor faith or misunderstanding the text as explained by apologists. I have even given church emergency help to those who gave too much of their income to "God". Does God really need income, or is this a organization thing?

In my denomination, members gave much to help the "poor" and often I ended up giving it back to those who gave it, so I guess they were blessed by the church in a round about way wit

h the occasional return of their own gifts to the church. But, in fact, giving to God or the Church of your choice is often just that, giving, with precious little to show for it in practical and real life returns. Oh I know we are not to give to get, but the promises of scripture plainly say we shall receive and the practical reality of it is disillusioning to say the least.

Try asking your church for financial help, in most cases, no matter how much you have given and see how far you get. "Why Mrs. Jones, if we did that for you, we'd have to do that for everyone, and we just can't. Don't you have some relatives you can call?" I always wondered if we are to give to and serve others so much, who are they supposed to give to and serve? Themselves it seems. If we are to esteem others BETTER than ourselves, what are all the others suppose to do?

Finally, there is the illusion of protection. While the Bible might boast of angels who watch and protect children and the idea that "a thousand shall fall (hey who protects them?) at thy right side and ten thousand at thy left, but it shall not come nigh unto thy dwelling," it is a disillusionment of epic proportions to believe. I have buried too many children whose lives ended because they made one bad mistake at just the wrong time, or were the victim of a moment out of their control. I've gotten too many calls to come quickly, so and so has been killed, and so and so never made it to 18.

Were "their angels" on strike or vacation? Is this the time where once again, God gets off the hook and reminds me that "all things work together for the good to those that love Him." Is this another time where I have to ask about who had faith and who didn't? Is it the fault of the human...again, that things did not work out so well? How come when it happens to a believer, it is Satan, with God's permission, trying to discourage them, and when it happens to a non-believer, it is God, trying to get in touch with them? It's all so disillusioning.

We all can come up with miraculous saves in life. I missed a plane that got hit by a fighter Jet out of LAX.  I missed head-ons somehow.  My Grandparents unbooked from the Titanic in April of 1912.  It's natural in a near miss to give credit to the miraculous.  But in my view, we often luck out in life and of course, so far.  I have scores of  sincere member stories of those who did not luck out.  

Time would fail, as would space to recite all the promises made to sincere believers by the writers of the Bible for their obedience, loyalty, belief and faith. I believe there is a book entitle "All the Promises of the Bible." After a lifetime of application, I suspect it is a list of disillusionments.

But...GOOD NEWS! DIS-illusionment is a good thing! Who wants illusions! In the long run, they are more painful,harmful and detrimental than reality, which is something we innately seem to wish to avoid at times as humans. I suspect even Jesus, who just knew that if he did his part and pushed the Romans hard enough to ignite the final confrontation at the Temple in Jerusalem, learned a lot in his final moments on the cross. I don't think he was kidding when he is said to have cried out, "My God, my God...why have your forsaken me?" I know the theology of that where we say "God had to turn his back on him" etc. 

The Kingdom did not come in the nick of time to save him. I think he died honestly disillusioned about his own perceptions, unless the line is simply for dramatic effect. I think the early disciples were pounded with their illusions about how things would be if they followed Jesus. One of the first reactions , is said ,  to flee and go home to catch fish again, like the whole thing never happened.

Every church member of the first century who was told "Soon", "The day is far spent", "Of things which must shortly come to pass," "Behold I come quickly" and we who sang 2000 years later "It won't be long now," have faced that kind of disillusionment .  

It's a lesson to live the present life you actually have and not 3-5, 10 or 20 at the outside years ahead only to get it right between the eyes again. 

The historical church, that grew out of the great dis-illusionment would go on to offer the now familiar apologetic we experience today as "The Church," with the best yet to come, always just around the corner, just ahead, in the near future, any time now for sure.

Life does what it does, not at times, but always. The experience of Disillusionment, while painful is necessary for our growth and when it comes knocking...let it in. It really does work for the good as the book says

I am the counterpart to John. I am both an apostle and a prophet of God and of Jesus Christ

From the time I had come into the Church in 1969, I knew there had not been any prophets in God’s Church during that entire period. This was even somewhat of a foreign term for the Church and was basically recognized as referring to individuals like Ezekial, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other prophets whom God had raised up hundreds of years prior to the time of Christ. Although John, who was among the original apostles was a prophet, the Church mostly recognized him only as an apostle. But since the time of John, God simply had not had a purpose for placing someone in that position again until he gave it to me to write that book. Even then, I was still resisting somewhat and did not claim the full role of a prophet, but only a partial definition as is written on the back cover about me: “Then in 1997, he was called to be a prophet for this end-time. A prophet, in this context, is ‘one given inspired interpretation of recorded prophecies.’”

As time continued on, I knew and was then able to accept the fact that I was a full prophet of God. I had come to see many things God was giving me to know that only a full prophet could fulfill. However, that still was not an easy thing for me, but instead, a very uncomfortable one. Even then I did not realize that He had first made me an apostle to His Church, even before being made a prophet. God had raised up one last apostle to lead the Church from the destruction it had begun to experience in December of 1994. I was given charge to raise up a prophesied remnant of the Church that would continue on to Christ’s actual coming.

So yes, I am both an apostle and a prophet of God and of Jesus Christ to the Church of God, and to the world, in this final period of the end-time. I am the last apostle in this age of mankind’s self-rule.

Yet even more, I am the counterpart of John who wrote the Book of Revelation. He was the only other apostle whom God also made a prophet. John wrote the book, but did not understand the revelation it contained. It was not for his time, but for the end-time that would lead up to the return of Jesus Christ in the Kingdom of God that will reign over all mankind for 1,100 years. Nearly all of the Book of Revelation is about those things that would occur in the end-time which lead to the Kingdom of God being established on earth for 1,100 years.

Just as John was imprisoned and placed on the Isle of Patmos and then given the contents for the Book of Revelation that he wrote, I too am currently in prison as I am writing this book.

The government of the United States has convicted me of willfully and purposefully evading paying taxes. It doesn’t really matter what I say about it, as people believe what they choose. I have stated some about this on the book website. There is no purpose in trying to unravel all that has been twisted and misrepresented concerning what is true. God will do that soon enough.

Thus saith prophet, apostle and convicted felon Ronald Weinland.

June 9, 2019 A Day To Remember (as another EPIC failure)

Here is what God's most holy righteous apostle/prophet and second witless witness has predicted to happen on June 9, 2019.

“I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and he who sat upon it was called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war [a war to end WWIII, to stop those who are destroying the earth]. His eyes are as flaming fire, and on his head were many crowns [symbolic of rulership over nations], and he had a name that no man knew, except Himself. He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. Armies in heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should strike the nations. He will rule them with a rod of iron[with great power against those who resist], and he treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. He has on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:11-16).

This is an account of what is clearly expected to occur on June 9, 2019. The long prophesied Messiah, the Christ (both words, Messiah and Christ, have the same meaning), will be sent by God to take control of this earth and to establish His government to rule over the nations. The self-rule of mankind will be brought to an end as the Messiah and his army will take control of all government over all nations. He will do so with great power—a level of power never before witnessed by mankind.

I can guarantee as a fact, that this will NOT happen on June 9, 2019.  I can also guarantee that on June 9, 2019, as the day winds down with NOTHING happening, that Ron Weinland will declare that it really did happen, but it happened spiritually.  This has been the ongoing track record of Ron Weinland ever since his 2008 prophecy failed ever so epically!

Weinland's upcoming failure should be no surprise to any of us.  Every single Church of God prophet over the last century has failed.  Every single one of them. This will also include those false prophets like Miller, Armstrong, Waterhouse, Thiel, Malm, Pack, Flurry, Weston, Kubik and many many others.  None of them has been sent by God as a prophet.

Physical and Sexual Abuse In The Church

This appalling first hand account of physical and sexual abuse in the church is just the tip of the iceberg.  COG leaders have covered up sexual and physical abuse for decades.  Every single one of them to this day still do.  Oh how they scramble and pat themselves on the back that they are far beyond this now in 2018 because they publicly claim this was only an issue from the past.

This was a comment on the LCG Member Has A Question For Gerald Weston entry.

My father was a fulltime paid minister in WCG, and an elder in UCG. The stories from others passed on about sexual abuses in the church are staggering. There are many written about online as well.

It seems that if you had to "personally witness" every act to be considered the truth, then I guess you can't believe many of the books of the bible either, as many stories are written by people that weren't there.

To my experience. The most recent was a friend of mine was kicked out our local congregation. The minister told the congregation one story (I recorded it), when I asked him on the phone what happened and why was my friend kicked out, he told a different story. (I recorded this as well) and when I asked my friend what the minister told him, it was again, a third different story.

To many people they wouldn't care about being kicked out, but this has been hard on many people, and it was done with lies and deceit.

My personal experience has been my child was attacked by a sexual predator, and the minister and elders supported the pervert over us, so we didn't attend there anymore. I regret this, and if I could have done things again, I would have stood up and accused that man in front of everyone and shamed the ministers and elders in front of everyone.

I personally suffered physical and sexual abuse at home, having a minister for a father didn't protect me from this, I think it even made it worse, as the physical abuse was based on "tough love" and the common teachings from HWA on parenting. I was told by my father "you have to break a child like you break a horse". (I think this is a quote he got from GTA)

I have personally talked with people that had sexual advances made on them by the minister. Another (a child in the church at the time) experienced witnessing incest at the ministers house between their children, with multiple witnesses. There were even worse beatings in his house than in mine, and his family members are more disturbed than mine.

I was a suicidal young teen with no hope for the future. "the world can't go on for even another 10 years" was the refrain I heard my entire childhood.

Read the stories online about a UCG elder sexually abusing the members in a congregation in the east coast some where in the last 10 years, and nothing was resolved because head quarters sided with the elder. ("I know this man, he'd never do anything like that" from Richard Pinelli). Finally almost the entire congregation just left.

I have relatives that were at Ambassador college that knew about the sexual escapades of GTA, their friends had slept with him. GTA bragged about his conquests.

I knew about HWA's incest issues when I was a young child, when I was a teen I asked my father (again, a full time minister running a congregation) about this, and he didn't deny it. He simply said "If Mr. Armstrong repented of it, God will forgive him".

To top it all off. I had multiple family members that were full time paid ministers. One was a paedophile that died in prison. Guess who he preyed on, church kids.

I met more perverted and vile kids at the feast than I ever did at public schools. And my own experience pales by comparison to many others.

The corporate based churches of God are on a foundation of sand. Those that follow God in truth and seek him and his kingdom, and his righteousness will eventually wake up and find others of like mind when everything falls apart around them. And if not, I hope God has mercy on them in some way.

R. Roberts

February 27, 2018 at 8:59 PM

Is Salvation Only Accessible Through Your Particular COG and Its Appointed Leader?

Lenny Cacchio has an entry up on the 7th Day Sabbath Churches of God site. I usually don't agree with a lot of what he has to say, but I find his comments below to be spot on.

He asks why church members feel the need to have an organization or particularly a leader of a church as their mediator between then and Christ.  Far too many feel the need to allow men like Flurry, Pack, Weston, Cox and others be the conduit to salvation. Through them, church members seem to feel that they have access to Jesus because they are in a particular COG and therefore have access to God.

No Church of God leader, from Herbert Armstrong to Gerald Flurry, from James Malm to Bob Thiel or even Rod Meredith to Gerald Weston, has the authority or power to grant access to Christ or to separate anyone from Christ, even when they do in outlandish manners from time to time, with their vile disfellowshipment policies. These men all seem to think salvation is available through their organizations as they sit in judgment of their members.

Over the past 20 years or more, I have changed my mind about a few things Biblical. A big one is my understanding of I Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

This Scripture might seem clear enough, but I brought a lot of past baggage to my early theology. I believed from my earliest years that God really works through an organization, and more particularly through whatever man was leading that organization. I bought into the myth that the church is the Mother of us all. (The Scriptures never say this about the church. You can look it up).

Even when I reached adulthood and changed my religious affiliation, I ended up in an organization that claimed the very same things regarding church authority as I had been taught in my youth, accept more so. The only way I could reach the Father was through the Son, I was told, but reaching the Son could only be through a particular church organization headed by a particular man.

That dangerous theological view implies shifting responsibility for salvation to the organization and its leadership, giving them a dangerous degree of control over your life and thinking. This, in spite of Paul’s admonition to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”, in spite of Jesus’s teaching about the truth setting us free, and in spite of Peter’s statement that we, i.e., we Christians, are a royal priesthood and therefore by definition have a direct private line to God without the need of a physical priesthood over us.