Matching Tracksuits

I was reading through some of the UCG materials I grabbed off the web and I came upon a few quotes last night that deserve comment. These all come from a sermon by Les McCullough given on 12 August 2000. The title of the sermon is “Prophecy” — certainly not an uncommon title among the various churches of God.

It may not be exactly as we thought in times past, we’ve talked, someone was saying the other day, I won’t mention names, that they haven’t worried about the beast since Franz Joseph Straus died because some proclaimed very loudly that he was to be the beast. And, of course, I have kidded with people, I had the opportunity to have breakfast with the beast. He never became the beast, but we did have the opportunity of having him visit the campus in Big Sandy and spending time with him and so on. Very interesting man to talk with, but he wasn’t the one. We’ve had various scenarios that we’ve established. It’s not to say that it’s not going to happen, but it may not always happen exactly the way we thought it would.

The most interesting part of that quote comes at the end: “We’ve had various scenarios that we’ve established. It’s not to say that it’s not going to happen, but it may not always happen exactly the way we thought it would.” The question becomes, “At which point do you abandon some particular idea as simply one of the various COG “scenarios” and not infallible Biblical interpretation?” 1975 came and went without a hiccup; HWA died and didn’t rise to meet Christ descending; the WCG, as HWA left it, is no more. When will these people ever say, “Perhaps it’s all just one of our ‘scenario?’” Naturally the answer to that question is “Never.” That would constitute a lack of faith.

Later in the sermon he again dances around the fact that the COG prophecies have been wrong for so long that it should be cause to start doubting them:

We could say, well, we were all wrong and take a look at that over there, and here’s what this was talking about and so on, but the fact is that there is still coming a major force in Europe that is going to become a or the major power in the world, and there is going to be a great price paid.

Once again — “Well, it didn’t happen when we said it would happen, but mark our words: it will happen!” Armstrong himself said something fairly similar. Of course his explanation also included the well-worn notion that “God has given us a little more time.”

So a time of reckoning is drawing near. It’s not going to happen tomorrow, not next year, but progressively it’s going to be coming about. Where are we now? Wouldn’t you like to know? How much time do we have left? When are these things going to come about? God doesn’t give us that knowledge. He says it’s going to happen.

How long are they going to be able to say, “It’s not going to happen tomorrow, not next year?” That’s the amazing thing about Armstrongism, for the answer is almost certainly, “Forever.” Armstrong did it — he created the perpetual motion machine. These people will pass the religion on down to their kids, who in turn will pass it to their kids — always saying, “A time a reckoning is drawing near!”

Concerning Biblical interpretation he says:

Are they really going to come back on white horses? I don’t know that Christ is necessarily obligated to have all the scores that are going to be coming with him strictly on white horses. It’s talking about, it’s symbolic, it’s talking about righteousness, it’s talking about them coming in righteousness. Maybe they’ll come on white horses. We will have to wait and see, but, basically the idea is it’s talking about the purity, it’s talking about the righteousness, it’s talking about the glory of God and coming back in that way. He’s going to come back and establish his rule upon this earth and become the King of all the earth, the King of all the kings of the earth.

Wait a minute! It says right there, in so many words, that there’ll be coming on white horses. Since when does a COG begin using the word “symbolic” regarding Biblical interpretation? That is almost startling. He probably doesn’t even get the implications of what he said.

Lastly, there’s this gem, with which he concludes the sermon:

It’s good to hear the warning. We haven’t done as much about talking about a warning as we did at one time, but the fact is that there is a time coming when this nation is going to be crushed. I don’t like to think about that. You sing “America the Beautiful,” and then you hear these other things, and you really don’t like to think of this great land of ours being destroyed, and crushed, and others coming in and taking over, and the other lands of the world as well. It’s going to happen, we need to be telling people. It’s our job as the people of God to be carrying something of a witness to the rest of the people of the earth, telling them there is a time coming, and you can escape it. You can repent, you can change, and you can be spared and have the opportunity to stand in the Kingdom of God as sons and priests, to teach the rest of the world the way of peace for the very first time.

There it is — all of Armstrongism in a single paragraph. HWA began preaching that nonsense back in the thirties, and now, almost seventy years later people are still believing it, still accepting that theory despite all the evidence against it. It’s just amazing.

I am not sure whether I’m being completely naïve in saying that a COG member and a non-COG member (and I’m counting the WCG among them) can actually be friends? I’ve been thinking about that since I received an email from Mr. Kobernat yesterday. More on that in moment. For now —

The COGs define reality in a certain way. They say that Germany is going to rise again; they say that they are going to be God as God is God; they say Christians are required to keep the Sabbath. All these things, while not necessarily originally, are in an original combination. Original packaging, you might say. It places them in the cognitive minority, as I’ve stated so many times in this damn journal. One of the things their worldview has to do is to account for that very fact — if this is the “Bible interpreting the Bible” and it’s all so clear to them, why isn’t it clear to everyone? Why can’t they go to their neighbor, explain the doctrines, show the scriptural backing, and then watch as the neighbor, now fully convinced, picks up the phone to call the local COG minister? That’s something the worldview must explain. “God’s calling” and “worldwide deception” are two ways of doing it — or rather, two sides of the same method. So their unique packaging requires a unique grouping. Yet another way to reach the necessity for plausibility.

My naivety further comes from the thought of my parents and the Kobernats now trying to get together. Imagine the K’s head up north for whatever reason, and as a gesture of good will invite my parents out to dinner. What are they going to talk about now? If they talk theology, it will descend into argument. If they talk about church life, that will certainly lead to a discussion of theology. In my open letter I wrote that the only thing that we shared in common was an assumed mutual belief. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure that anyone ever pretended anything else. It’s not that the Kobernats sought out new friends coming into the Kingsport area and my parents are the ones they happened to find. They were moved there by the organization that defined this unique package of beliefs, which in turn necessitated the creation of a sort of mini-ghetto.

In other words, the WCG brought them together, so that was the first and strongest aspect of their friendship. Now that that’s gone, what the hell would they have to talk about? Grandchildren? My parents, much to Mom’s dismay I’m sure, are not grandparents — a no-go there. World events? Mr. Kobernat sees these world events as fulfillments of prophecy, while Dad doesn’t (I’m assuming). Sports? Dad doesn’t care much for sports, and I don’t think Mr. K. does in and of themselves either. What does that leave them to talk about.

Now, about Mr. K’s response:

Hi Gary, I did respond. To your hotmail address. Didn’t you receive it? It didn’t come back to me making me think it went through. Which address do you like best. I will respond to your answers to my questions as soon as we are sure we are connected.

My first reaction was, “Oh shit — what have I done?!?” I thought I’d jumped to conclusions that were certainly unwarranted. But further thought has made me realize a few things, things which I would like to clear up with him as well.

To begin with, I’m worried that I now appear to be somewhat quick to judge, as if I fired this letter off as a result of one unanswered email. If that were the case, then I certainly would be justly labeled a hot-head. However, this is not an isolated incident. I’ve sent many emails that have gone unheeded, and as my journal shows, it dates back to at least October 1999. That’s almost two and a half years ago. Further, Mr. Kobernat was not the only one not to respond. I sent Brett several emails at one point (though I can’t provide documentation regarding the specific date) and never got so much as a “Howdy” in return. I’d mentioned this to my folks, and they said that they’d had messages go unreturned. Add to this the fact that they went to the Kingsport area several times without even calling my parents.

It seems to me that the chances of all those emails not making it through, and of not a single response back not making it through are slim indeed. Lost email is the exception, not the rule, so even if two or three did get lost, certainly he would have received a few. And of those few, if he’d responded, certainly one or two would have fallen through.

He doesn’t seem like the type of person to lie — I know him well enough to know that he is sincere in his beliefs and wouldn’t consciously go against them. Yet I find it hard to explain his lack of contact any other way than by saying that he simply didn’t respond.

I guess I’ll just have to write some kind of careful reply saying all this. I do, however, stand by the contents of most of the letter. Even if it’s not true in this particular case, it is true in a number of cases. Though as I’ve pointed out, that seems to me now to be somewhat inevitable.

Despite all this — damn, I feel stupid. I emailed my folks asking them what to do. I chatted with Chhavi (via MSN) asking her what to do. And I even talked to Mamo about it. “You didn’t kill anyone,” was her response, “So it can’t be that bad.”

I found tonight the most interesting thing: a message board for young people from the Living Church of God. And I was able easily enough to get a membership and begin posting! Surprisingly easy access for something linked to a church of God. With its closed-door policy, the LCG has left a big open door on the internet.

I was thinking about this, though, and it’s certainly a different experience being in a CoG today as compared to when I was attending in Kingsport. “Dissident literature” was some vague, nebulous bunch of booklets and pamphlets floating around out there, as difficult to get as narcotics. Just as you can’t walk up to anyone on the street and try to buy pot, you couldn’t walk up to any church member and say, “Hey, have you got any Dissident Literature?” I remember thinking I’d found some downstairs in Dad’s library one time — it was almost like finding the ark. “It does exist after all!” was almost what I was thinking. But now, one only has to log on and in a matter of minutes you can find all the “dissident literature” you want.

I wonder if I’ll get kicked off at some point. I’m sure it’s monitored. I’ll bet Meredith even gets reports about it on some regular basis.