The Invisible Man at the Podium: Ode to the Taped Sermon

One of the oddest, and most awkward part of growing up in the Worldwide Church of God was the experience of the Taped Sermon. Every one of us remembers the experience. 

We would all sit there - in dressed up suits and ties and dresses, mind you - briefcases on knees - staring up at an empty lectern, a waiting microphone, while an invisible voice boomed - oftentimes unintelligible - from the speakers in the hall. As a child, this was very confusing. What is it exactly that we were looking at? No one was there. Yet, there we stared. In retrospect, I think a good many of us were trying to simply interpret what in the world was being said!

Of course, because of the technology at the time, at some point, we'd get a break - often mid-word - for the sound guy to flip the tape over to side B. Oh good - we were halfway through! Commence re-staring at the empty podium and microphone. 

It was at this point in which I'd start to get genuinely antsy and bored. I would begin either: Staring at lights, or crossing my eyes to make two podiums. Or, I'd look around wondering how long people would stare at that empty lectern like someone was actually there. 

There was a time I remember very clearly when the Taped Sermon was absolutely unintelligible. A combination of horrible acoustics in the ramshackle meeting place and horrible tape quality combined to make a drive-thru speaker seem like high-quality sound. Eventually, the pastor decided to cut the tape halfway and I believe pulled a sermonette out of somewhere and just gave that. 

I always hated it when I saw "taped sermon" in the Schedule of Services in the bulletin. It just seemed weird and strange. Nowhere else, anywhere else, did we ever sit and listen to an audio presentation over tape like we did at Church. Even in school, it was video (even reel-to-reel projector in my elementary years!) Music class was audio - but we actually sang along with that. Secretly, I had always hoped that the tape would mess up. I had hoped we'd hear the Pastor speaking on Chipmunk Speed, or that the tape would break. I don't think I could have refrained from laughing if I had heard the Pastor on chipmunk speed, but it would have been a break from the sheer monotony. 

The Taped Sermon always seemed to be something absolutely uninteresting - usually a change in policy, or a new mandate, or some type of correction. Why did I have to listen to it all then anyway? After it got "played", it could be checked out from the Tape Library to be listened in the home anyway. It's not like I could understand what was being said anyway!

In what universe besides our Church did one go to Church to stare at an empty podium listening to a Cassette Tape, acting as if someone was really there? The only thing that ever rivaled that in strange weirdness was taped special music. Yes, that happened too, if I remember correctly. 

It would have been a memorable Church Day if someone had slipped the Taped Sermon out for a tape of Metal Rock. I honestly don't think the hearts of many could have taken that kind of shock! 

Perhaps if the audio was understandable, the sermon was at a decent length, the message wouldn't be completely interrupted at an awkward time to flip the tape, and we didn't have to sit and stare at an empty podium dressed formally it would have been a little better. 

But it would not have made it any less weird.

submitted by SHT

50 Years Ago: COG Member Tried To Start WWIII By Burning The Al Aqsa Mosque In Jerusalem

Armstrongism has produced a steady stream of zealots over its 70 some years of existence.  From prophets to apostles, Elijah's and Elisha's and Pharisees to Chief Overseers, the list goes on and on.  Each one gets crazier by the moment.  None though surpass Denis Michael Rohan, when after being influenced by the prophetic lunacy of Herbert Armstrong and others, decided to set fire to the Al Asqa Mosque on the Temple Mount.

Excerpts from:  The Australian shearer who torched Al Aqsa Mosque in a bid to bring on the apocalypse

Fifty years ago, a young shearer travelled from Australia to Israel to orchestrate a plot he believed would prompt the return of Jesus Christ and usher in the end of the world.

Denis Michael Rohan started a fire which seriously damaged Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque — one of Islam's holiest sites — and shook a region already shrouded in tension.

Many Muslims believed the attack had been orchestrated by Israel, and protests erupted across the Middle East.

Carlo Aldrovandi, who researches religion, conflict and peacemaking in the region, says the political consequences still ring today.

Rohan, religion, and the radio

In the early 1960s Rohan was working as a shearer in Grenfell, in the central-west of New South Wales. 

He had suffered a mental breakdown in the mid-60s, and did a stint at Bloomfield psychiatric hospital in Orange. 

This was where he first discovered the Radio Church of God and an American religious broadcast called The World Tomorrow, which was syndicated on commercial radio throughout Australia. 

Its presenter, Herbert W Armstrong, was known for prophesising the end of the world that would dawn after a global war centred around Jerusalem. 

In 1969, at 28 years of age, Rohan travelled to Jerusalem.

Around four months later, on August 21, he carried a thermos flask of kerosene into the Al Aqsa mosque and started a blaze. 

"It has been proved that Rohan acted alone motivated largely by his own apocalyptic belief," Dr Aldrovandi says.

"[He believed] that destroying the existing Islamic shrines and replacing them with a temple would have brought about the advent of Jesus Christ." 

The result of his lunacy has contributed to the conflict we have today between Israel and the Arab world.  All because some crazy Armstrongite wanted to pave the way for Jesus to return!

Many Arab leaders were convinced the attack had been orchestrated by Israel.

"[Rohan's] acts were, and are still seen today by many Muslims and Palestinians, as being orchestrated by the Israeli government," Dr Aldrovandi says.

Muslim nations came together in Morocco and unanimously agreed Israel was responsible.

The move led to the formation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, an attempt to represent this pan-Islamic sentiment and unity.

You can listen to an audio production done in 2009 about Rohan here: 

Rohan and the road to the apocalypse

The Times of Israel has this story: 

How an Australian sheepshearer’s al-Aqsa arson nearly torched Middle East peace

One of the first stories I was assigned as a young journalist in Israel in 1969 was the trial of an Australian sheepshearer who set fire to the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, an act that threatened to unhinge the Middle East. It remains for me the most vivid story I covered during my 25 years with The Jerusalem Post, a period that included several wars.

August 23 marks the 50th anniversary of the event. The Muslim world assumed that Israel was responsible for the arson and Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal ordered his armed forces to prepare for a holy war. The Arab League met in emergency session, and from distant India came reports of rioting in Muslim areas, with many casualties.

As cries of jihad rose with the plumes of smoke over the Temple Mount and international condemnation loomed, the Israeli government gave top priority to apprehension of the arsonist. In annexing East Jerusalem after the Six Day War two years before, Israel had declared itself guardian of the holy places of all religions; its claim to sovereignty in Jerusalem rested on that pledge.

For proof on what Armstrongism did to this young mans mind, here is what he said talking to a psychiatrist:

“My trial is the most important event for the world since the trial of Jesus Christ,” Rohan told a psychiatrist who interviewed him. 

Rohan’s performance on the witness stand was uncanny. Mocked as a fool all his life, consigned periodically to mental homes in Australia as his mother and at least one of his siblings had been, he jousted with the prosecution during the seven-week trial without faltering. Within the conceptual framework he laid down, he was consistent, logical, almost convincing. When the prosecutor, a future chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, asked whether God would have wanted him to commit a crime, Rohan was not at a loss.

“What did God tell Abraham to do?” he responded. “Sacrifice his son? Isn’t that a crime in today’s courts? First degree murder, isn’t it?”

What did God tell Abraham to do? Sacrifice his son? Isn’t that a crime in today’s courts? First degree murder, isn’t it?

When his court-appointed lawyer could not be heard clearly, a jaunty Rohan called on him to speak into the microphone so that his remarks would appear in the record. He displayed total recall of dates and incidents from long ago and was never caught out in a contradiction despite the intricate story he told.

“My mind has never been as well balanced as it is now,” Rohan said. “Satan has no more power over me.” 

Later in the article is this:

One day Rohan came across some pamphlets from a California-based Christian cult which he joined by mail and began tithing. He internalized the pamphlet’s prophecies and its biblical cadence before setting out to see the world. He traveled to England and was to continue on to Canada for work, but the prospect of a Canadian winter prompted him to come to Israel instead.

“In Jerusalem,” he told the court, “it all came together. I understand why I was born, why I had to suffer strict discipline from my parents, why I was rejected and despised.” The tormented figure was at last serene. Asked what his attitude would be if found guilty, he said “I am above earthly courts.”

This eerily sound just like James Malm, Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry, Bob Thiel, Ron Weinland, and others, who hear the voice of some creature in their head telling them they are set apart and have a mission to accomplish. 

See Denis Rohan

The Al-Aqsa Fire—The Dangers of Manipulative Education: What Can Be Done    

IN PICTURES| REMEMBERING THE ARSON ATTACK ON AL AQSA MOSQUE: 50 YEARS AFTER THE ARSON ATTACK

Remembering the arson attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque

The 'king of Jerusalem' who almost burnt down Al Aqsa

THE MAN WHO TORCHED AL-AKSA MOSQUE

Denis Rohan climbed a tree on the Temple Mount at five in the afternoon and settled down on a limb to wait for darkness. It would be a long wait.

COG Zerubbabel: The end-time Elijah, finally dressing like a real prophet as he talks about "flying rolls"

James Malm was seen whimpering at his kitchen table at the sight of the greatest prophet the Church of God has ever seen!  Never has an end time prophet to the church spoken more truth and dressed the part as Zerrbubbabl does (aka, Michael Noordhoek).  

We have Ron Weinland to thank for this Pharisaical mess of bullshit.

Why do all COG prophets need big thick bibles in their grubby little hands?

UCG: As Membership Drops, it says "the world is falling apart around us," What are they to do?????

Those fun-loving boys in Cincinnati met recently for the Council of Elders meeting. As usual, the report issued afterward is a glorious slobberfest on how wonderful United Church of God is and how it is doing such a sueprfantabulous witness to the world.

Don Ward says,

Dr. Ward read James:3:16, “For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.” He emphasized that we are members one of another (Romans:12:5) and that the members should have the same care for one another (1 Corinthians:12:25). Dr. Ward mentioned in this age when the world is falling apart all around us we should be asking, “What would God have us do?” during these times.

It is always interesting to see how after 26 years they still have no idea what God wants them to do.  I thought the entire reason for UCG's apostacy from the mother church was to do the will of God, as they imagined it, or was it actually to keep their salaries in place?

Two new council members were added. New fresh faces were added to the council.

The two new Council members were welcomed: Darris McNeely and Randy Stiver.

God forbid if any younger men were ever allowed to join the council and shake things up by injecting new visions of ministry.  These two are nothing more than "status quo" yes men.

Vic Kubik waxed eloquent on the internal treasure trove they have of "new members" to the church.  those new members should be the result of the UCG indoctrination camp for the church youth.

The summer camp program completed its 26th year. The preteen and teen camp program are a major way that United is “preparing a people”—it is the largest group of prospective members in the Church. 

The youth in ALL the splinter groups of the Worldwide Church of God are leaving in droves as they leave due to the fact of how incredibly boring services are and living in church areas with hardly any youth present.

Kubik is also excited about the HUUUUUUGE student body of members attending their mind-boggling "college":

• Ambassador Bible College: ABC is about to welcome its 21st class of students. They are expecting about 20 students from 12 different states and one from South Africa.

Kubik also released the attendance numbers for UCG.  A drop in members over the 2016 numbers:

• Average U.S. Sabbath attendance for June 2019 was 7,085. (7,459 in 2016)

Aas membership drops, UCG is adding more elders to the mix:

• 391 elders in the United Church of God (UCG)  (374 in 2016)

Kubik, them mentions how many baptisms they have had due to their superfantbulous ministerial outreach to the world.  Hundreds of thousands hear their message and as a result, this many were baptized:

• 25 baptisms since the May meetings (84 baptisms so far in 2019)

Billions of people in the world and God manages to only deliver 84 people to them. So much for saving humanity from the trials to come!  God's phone lines must have been down for most of the year as he was not able to call anyone.

Even their coworker count has dropped:

• Our coworker count is at 6,276. That’s a 1.3% decrease over the same time last year, and a 1.8% decrease over two years ago.

Even worse is the donor list of people who sent them money:

• Our donor list now includes 7,415 people. Our peak number was 9,564 in June 2016.

And then there is this:

• Combined with our co-workers, we continue to have more of our readers and viewers contributing to the work of the Church than the total number of members in the U.S. and abroad—13,691.

Readership of their uninspiring rag is down too:

• U.S. Beyond Today (BT) magazine subscribers are at 238,911. This is 91% of subscribers compared to the same time last year, 94% compared to two years ago, and exactly the same as three years ago.

• The total BT magazine print run stands at 292,283. This is 7% below the same time last year, and 10% below our peak of 324,738 from November 2017. Our all-time high was 567,309 in May 2008.

UCG then blames this drop in readership to the cost of advertising.  Apparently reaching out to potential members with the witness of God's word is not that vitally important that they would cut back in other areas in order to spend more money as needed.

• Due to increased printing, paper and postage costs over the past year (but the same budget), we have had to reduce our advertising—which has resulted in lower subscriber numbers the past year or so.

One positive sign for this is that phone calls and web traffic increased this past year:

• The number of telephone and website responses from Beyond Today TV since 2006 stands at 334,971. Responses for 2019 will easily outpace 2018 by about 40%.

• The Church’s Beyond Today YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/BeyondTodayTV has had 11.22 million views (a 30% increase over a year ago), has 50,687 subscribers (a 42% increase over a year ago), and hosts 2,017 videos (8% more than a year ago).

UCG has wiped the gloating smirk off Dave Pack's claim that his web site for the Restored Church of God is the most amazing web site ever produced by a Church of God:

• UCG.org Website: We are pleased to report that ucg.org has broken into the top 10 list of Christian denomination websites around the world. We are currently ranked at #9! This is the highest ranking we have seen to date. And ucg.org is currently ranked #28 of all Christian websites globally.

Ever since the Worldwide Church of God imploded into an abominable mess of splinter groups, all claiming themselves as God's most favorite church, every single one of the splinter groups has failed to find any common ground with other COG's.  That comes from their self-righteous leaders who don't want to lose control of their little empires. And, God forbid if any church member gave money to some other COG.

Ever since UCG hemorrhaged COGWA into existence, it has never been an impactful, dynamic Church of God doing an amazing work that the entire world is aware of. Almost every world leader out there has no idea who UCG is and what it stands for.  Following in the footsteps of their previous leader apparently is not a priority.  But, then when has it ever been?  A money-making empire to fund the entitled ministry is all it has ever presented itself as.

Dreams In The Church

I'm going to talk a little bit more about dreams today in this post. 

Last night I had a dream. It was a very vivid dream - very detailed, very weird, very imaginative. It was about David Pack. Let me stop here and now before I begin and preface this by stating it was only a dream, for those whom should need this to hear. 

In this dream, I had to attend a service of David Pack's. It was set in a large, semi-circular auditorium laden with brown and gold overtones with a central podium and risers with warm-toned lighting. Why I had to go there, I really do not know. I was not alone - I was with someone - a tall, blond-haired gentleman who told me when I was there that I had to stay there. 

As the service began, well, just before the service actually began, a youth member way back somewhere (presumably a kitchen, or someplace) accidentally dropped and broke some dishes. Pack, in this dream, immediately got up to the podium and blasted out condescending and hurtful rebukes about how horrible it was that this young person broke dishes in the house of God. 

It seemed that Pack went on for a while, and I was getting absolutely disgusted. But no one else was. The entire congregation approved of how shameful the youth was, and in a rare vocal agreement agreed completely with Pack. No one left - or could. To the chagrin of the tall, blonde gentleman by my side, I decided I was going to leave. 

So, I tried to leave. I exited the tunnel that led to the concourse (seemed like an arena type exit) and I was met by someone who claimed to be an appointed Judge of the Church that I could not leave. I challenged him and said yes, I could - and he suddenly held some sort of a strange puzzle. The implication was if I could put the puzzle together, I could go. I wondered - who are you to tell me what to do and how I can or cannot go? At that point, I decided to run, as fast as I could, out of there, and ended up down a street. 

Other people on the street - I don't know who they were - suddenly realized I had left Pack's service by some sort of telekinetic or telepathic instruction (think the Borg), and attempted to stop me as well. However, it did not work. It was at this point that the dream ended. 

Thank God. 

Yes, Dreams happen. Some are extremely vivid. Some don't make any sense. Some make a lot of sense. Rarely do they mean anything at all. In this dream Pack was a jack-ass - which is fairly accurate -  but I can count on one hand the amount of dreams I have had throughout my entire life that I can tell you were proven to be either "prophetic" or inspired because of their accuracy and future-telling ability that actually came true. (I told only one person about them!) This? This was just a crazy, strange dream about David Pack that I probably had because I had just eaten a good bowl of raisin bran. So I'll tell you. 

In the COG Universe, so-called prophets put emphasis on dreams because they are already self-obsessed with their own grandiose ideas of their importance. They will assume that God is telling them something, but the only thing speaking to them is an astounding amount of carbs and protein from leftover pizza or lasagna! Their dreams are self-centered, self-absorbed, and usually absolutely senseless and complete nonsense. 

Now, about that Pack Dream. 

If it had happened to someone, say, like Thiel, or Malm, I can pretty much bet you they would probably get up, write it down, think it was from God, and run with it into some sort of strange interpretation. God forbid if it actually happened to Pack! He'd probably write a 356 part sermon about it, divided into twenty-four subsections and sixteen overtime segments. If Waterhouse was alive, could you imagine how he would run with such a dream? It would be one of the most rambling messages you could probably ever hear! The point is - this was just what it was - a dream. Exactly as the other dreams I've had I've told you about previously - such as the dream of Herbert In a Box some time ago that I shared. They. Are. Just. Dreams. 

People have got to stop attributing such grandiose callings to COG "ministers" like Thiel and others - including Thiel and others - with the idea that somehow God is talking to them alone with information that only they are privy to. This can become extremely dangerous, and downright delusional - especially if they are already entrapped in ideas, doctrine, and other complete crap ideologies that belong in the bottom of the sewer. Why is it that these people think so highly of themselves that they can't simply accept that they, too, are human, and dream like the rest of us? 

Now, I, too, have a real dream. 

I have a dream that Bob Thiel would somehow learn how to preach. It's obvious he is batting way out of his league. If he had just stuck with vitamin pills, instead of getting his nose into people's spiritual lives as the world's biggest know-it-all, he might have earned some legitimate respect. 

I have a dream people like Jon Brisby would stop dreaming up fantasies that some sort of Christ reappeared - apparently, in the form of a man named Herb who came and went years ago. 

I have a dream that David Pack would realize the immense harm that he is causing people based on absolute delusion and self-fulfillment, bringing people to the poor house for more than "two trees" in his precious little mini-me "campus". 

I have a dream that Ronald Weinland would take the hint and just stop already. He's already the most embarrassing COG personality around. 

I have a dream that Gerald Weston would realize he isn't the big cheese in the minds of many he thinks he is, and sorely lacks respect from many of his own "flock". 

I have a dream that James Malm would stop idolizing and worshipping the Law, bringing people further into bondage with his legalistic long-obsolete crazy ideas. 

I have a dream that Gerald Flurry would stop focusing on the physical, and sit on that little Herbert Rock he loves so much and wake up to the harm he is causing within his own church by allowing, enabling, or enacting wickedness - and ask himself, was this all worth it? 

I have a dream that Armstrongism itself will completely shrivel into an even lower form than it is now, for all of its folly and shame with seventy plus years of nonsense proven as nonsense through the chambers of time. 

At least these dreams make sense. Now, maybe I will remember what I ate last night so I don't have another silly dream about that tall weirdo out there in Wadsworth who really thinks he is all that. Who is, after all, the biggest narcissist? Is it Pack? Or Flurry? or Thiel? or Malm? Or Weston? Or Brisby? Or Weinland? Or................

It would be a miracle if any one of them would focus more on Jesus then themselves and realize for once in their lives the infection of narcissism enabled by the teachings of a splinter Church from the Church of Christ back in the 1800s. 

Submitted by SHT