A Circus of a Different Type
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Gone Packing
Ever since the Worldwide Church of God (WCG), the church I grew up in, made the changes that led it out of near-cult status and into traditional Protestant-ville, I’ve been fascinated with the resulting organizations that broke off from it in order to hold fast to the original teachings. None has been more fascinating to me than David Pack’s Restored Church of God (RCG), a little group based in Wadsworth, Ohio, consisting of a few thousand members at most (they’re tight-lipped about their membership numbers, but I’d guess they have fewer than 5,000 regular attendees) that is certain it’s the only truly Christian organization on the planet. They believe that they will become God as God is God — that God is a family not just a trinity and that people can become part of that family, thereby becoming a god themselves.
It is, to say the least, a very heterodox group.
Yet in the world of WCG offshoots, it has insisted that it and it alone has remained true to the founder’s original teachings. Of course, every other group has maintained that, too, but the RCG has done it most vociferously. But no one can remain static forever, and the realities on the ground forced various doctrinal changes. Course corrections, Pack might call them.
Recently, a website published some letters from inside that church, though, that shows that all is not well in RCG-ville, that Pack is making changes that have to be seen to be believed. It starts with accusations that the bloke leaving, the whistleblower for lack of a better term, of course, had a bad attitude. Had problems with leadership. Did not know how to follow God’s government.
Church Administration
Sun 2020-09-20 5:46 PM
Dear brethren,
Greetings from Headquarters. We trust that you had a profitable day of Trumpets. The Work continues to surge forward despite a world growing darker.
Yesterday evening, some of you received an email from either Brian Kaidannek or his son Greg, stating they are no longer in agreement with the teachings of God’s Church. These emails came not long after Mr. Pack’s recent comments were posted. Sadly, it appears that Brian Kaidannek followed his son out of the Church. Both men chose to forsake the assembling of themselves together on Trumpets, using the Holy Day to send divisive letters to their pastorates.
As has been the case with several other former ministers, their emails were the first indications of any disagreement. They now claim disagreement with scores of teachings, several going back to the very beginning of the series. Greg Kaidannek says that he once believed that The Restored Church of God was God’s Church yet does not explain when it ceased to be or where His Church is currently (of course, a unified Church will always exist somewhere on Earth—Matthew 16:18Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)).
Brethren, it is sad for us to see any of God’s Sheep stray from the path. Your thoughts go out to the children who are now isolated. We serve a merciful God, but these divisive letters put these men on dangerous ground.
Though filled with error on even basic understanding, Greg Kaidannek’s letter is long and reasonably well written, proving much time and thought. He admitted thinking long and hard about writing it. Yet shocking to everyone here at Headquarters, he never uttered any concerns. The Headquarters’ contact for both of these men spoke with them biweekly. They had abundant opportunities to express disagreement or confusion but never did.
Greg Kaidannek’s portrayal of his time at Headquarters is flat wrong. As one who has been in scores of meetings, there is always a chance to ask questions. His problem was not questions; it was attitude. Personal spiritual issues (not prophecy) led to him being demoted in rank (which rarely happens) and given a field assignment over a small congregation. God is patient and merciful, so we hoped that this correction and re-assignment would help him develop the heart of a shepherd and learn to focus on others. His letter made it evident that he chose not to address his problems, but instead justified his transfer and allowed bitterness to set in.
Brian Kaidannek was fully aware of his son’s issues. He agreed this was the right move to help him. In private discussions at Headquarters, we were concerned that if Greg Kaidannek left, his father would follow him. Again, sadly, this proved accurate.
Brethren, please understand that the ministry must walk a fine line when giving you details when someone leaves. People can repent, and we hope and pray they do. We share as little as possible to protect the flock. Much more could be said, but it should not be necessary. God’s Government works hard to help His flock (no matter their rank) to make it to the Kingdom. When someone leaves the Church, they are forced to make a choice: (1) Honestly admit they no longer wish to address their spiritual problems or (2) Invent a “righteous” justification for leaving God’s Church.
They said they were “standing for the truth,” but sat safely behind their computers and sent emails filled with error and confusion. Greg Kaidannek claims that men at Headquarters are “afraid” to speak up. Again, I can personally attest to men having various questions answered in each of these meetings. These men have had every opportunity to speak their minds, ask questions, bring up concerns and, based on the content of their emails, have disagreed with God’s Church for years.
These men claim that they believe God is in charge and that He is working out the final stages of His plan before Christ’s return. They also profess to believe there is not much time left in the age. Everyone here is at a loss about what so-called “plan” they believe God is working out. If it is not what we are learning, then what is it? They appear to indicate they are going back to the “big T.” That means the Kaidanneks are looking for ten kings to come together in an increasingly fracturing Europe—and it must happen soon to start a 3.5-year countdown.
It is hard to comprehend how anyone can be honest with the scriptures and return to what we once understood. These men lost focus on the big picture and allowed confusion and self-deception to take them out of God’s Church. They should be thankful that our Creator can still get their attention in the fire, and we may see them soon.
As the age comes to a close, we must fight allowing ourselves to “doze off.” The repeated warnings to not fall asleep are given for a reason! Stay vigilant, stay close to God and continue to make yourselves “ready” for Christ’s Return.
While we transition the pastorate, please feel free to reach out to Church Administration with any questions that arise.
Greg’s father, Brian Kaidannek, wrote a letter to members of the church (I guess members in his congregation?) in which he explained a few facts (emphasis mine):
From: Brian Kaidannek
Sent: September 19, 2020 9:05 PMSubject: Hold Fast That Which is Good
Greetings brethren,
The time has come when I must speak. I am charged to protect the sheep from false teachings, and I can no more remain silent as the meaning of the Holydays comes under further attack. This is changing times and seasons. Leviticus 23 and Exodus 13 are plain scriptures which explain the spring Holydays and exactly when they occur. The Jews in Old Testament times confuse them, and that confusion remains to this day. Now we have followed suit. Mr. Pack has ignored what we all once knew that even is dusk or twilight, which is the time between sunset and darkness. There is only one even or evening in each day and it is at the beginning of the day. Look in Genesis where God says “… and the evening and the morning was the first day.” etc. Passover is completely separate from the NBTO. It is a violation of the rules of Bible study to go to an unclear scripture in Ezekiel and make a doctrine in the face of the clear scriptures mentioned above.
We have seen over the last few years how the teachings of a faithful apostle, who was the apostle to the Philadelphian era, an era which God had nothing bad to say about in Rev. 3, become destroyed and or altered. How could this era have been so wrong in it’s understanding? God’s Holydays have always been a map to God’s plan for mankind and we once clearly saw the meaning in each step of God’s plan reflected in each Holyday. Now the meaning of the fall holydays is muddied and therefore the understanding of God’s plan has been muddied. Ask yourself, what is the meaning of each of the 7 Holydays and Feasts. This is why we no longer have a Bible Introduction course to clearly explain them as we once did, because no one can!
We also now teach a Calvinistic type of predestination which was never taught in the previous era as this type of teaching will lead into even more heresy as time goes forward. Read our Predestination booklet, it still has it correct. Which leads me to a significant point. Our literature, in many cases, more closely reflects what we taught in the past and is far different from what is being taught in the church in sermons and so many come looking for a group that teaches what Mr. Armstrong taught and we now have a type of bait and switch going on. This is simply wrong!
One of the fundamental doctrines that only God’s church understood, different from all professing Christianity, was our knowledge of who the God of the Old Testament was: that God was the Word (Jesus Christ). This is why when Christ came as a man he came to reveal the Father. (Matthew 11:27, Luke 10:22) This lost truth has led to a mountain of error and confusion. Simply read Exodus 3:14: Moses is told the name of the God he was dealing with “I AM” and then read John 8:58: Where Christ says “… before Abraham was I AM”. Can it be any clearer. Don’t be deceived by clever manipulation of unclear scriptures, ignoring that which is most plain!
Mr. Pack, who declared last Feast of Tabernacles that he was a prophet and had been for some time then went on to make a plethora of predictions of when Christ would return, none of which obviously came to pass. Yes, he has said he had never claimed God spoke to him, that is true. But brethren do not ignore the clear warning in Deuteronomy 18:22: “When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.” Many times, we have heard, “On God’s authority, I am right!” He HAS spoken Presumptuously! And then to say he was foretold to be wrong is just foolishness. We do not serve a God of confusion! Recently he has stated he is not a prophet. When one says they are a prophet they are either a true or false prophet and later claiming not to be a prophet becomes a mute point. Now again Mr. Pack claims to be Elijah and a whole plethora of other titles; and has once again predicted that we can’t go past Thursday, just before Trumpets. Again his prediction failed and he proved himself false. How can we sit at the feet of, and listen to, this false prophet?
Many have said, “This is a test of our faith”, and to a degree that is true. But brethren this is not the first apostacy that I have encountered. I have heard this all before. If one continues to listen to heresy, one will eventually begin to absorb it. Do you wish to be the proverbial frog in the water and wait to be boiled to death?
World conditions are deteriorating around us and yes, we should watch as these do seem to be the beginning of sorrows and we all wish that the return of Jesus Christ will be soon. We are told to hold fast that which is good. What we are hearing IS NOT GOOD!
I know that this letter will find its way to HQs, and there will be a story spun putting me in a bad light, it has happened to many others before me. But you brethren know me and know I have always been straight with you, regardless of what is said of me. I hold no malice and I care for you all. It is for this reason that I am compelled to try to protect you from false teaching, regardless of where it comes from.
Have no illusions, I could be marked, and you told not to contact me. But I cannot remain silent any longer! Much, much more could be said but you know me, I always head straight to the point, so this warning is sufficient. Beware false doctrine!
Brethren during this confusion, a book I have found most helpful to remain grounded in the truth once delivered is “The Mystery of The Ages” by Mr. Armstrong. I recommend you find a copy and read it.
I love you all.
P.S Attached to this email is a document written by my son to his congregation which I think you will find helpful.
What an odd feeling to read this letter and realize that each of the bolded sections has a history behind it that could fill several pages, and that the changes associated with those passages could also fill several more pages, and that all this understanding that flashes through my mind is dependant on having the same silly background knowledge that I have and that even the phrases themselves are meaningless. These people have created their own world, with vocabulary that befuddles the average outsider and a layered history that informs that vocabulary and theology which outsiders know nothing about. It’s like a portal to another universe where fundamental laws of physics are different, only here it’s fundamental laws of logic that hold no meaning.
In Greg Kaidannek’s letter that his father Greg mentions above, there is a list of doctrinal changes that Pack has introduced over the last few years. Some of the items include:
- Apostles can’t get doctrine wrong – i.e. infallibility.
- Christ is returning to Wadsworth (Joseph) not Jerusalem.
- King David disqualified himself and lost his role in the Kingdom and David Pack will assume it.
- That Prophet – Elijah – DCP vs Christ.
- Doing the Work is the Campus FIRST – then preaching a Gospel.
As with the bolded portions of the letter, these are ideas that to me hold significance. These are enormous changes. They are changes to fundamental doctrines that Pack said he would never abandon. However, with the exception of the first two items, most of these ideas are completely meaningless to outsiders.
Just how much has this guy changed things? Not that much, it turns out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asgSSILBxA8
He’s predicting the end of the age before the “Feast of Trumpets” (don’t ask) next year, which, according to the RCG’s calendar, is Sept. 7, 2021. (Oddly, even though the world is supposed to end on Sept. 7, 2021, their calendar of events extends into 2023…)
Listeners Behind the Iron Curtain
They huddle around the radio, their attention fearfully divided as they listen both to the thundering voice on the radio and to every little sound outside their darkened hovel. They’re breaking the law, listening to illegal, anti-state programming, and in listening to Herbert Armstrong’s World Tomorrow broadcasts, they’re risking their lives for the truth of Biblical prophecy while those in the free world who have free access scoff.
“What was that!?” the mother whispers in a panic. “Quick, turn it down!” Her husband silences the radio as the teenage son peers into the darkness, straining to hear another sound. Could it be the secret police? If it were, they could be whisked away and put in prison camps in a matter of days.
The three of them remain motionless. No further sounds. Father decides it’s safe.
He turns the volume back up and the three family members continue listening to Herbert Armstrong’s prophetic teachings: German is going to rise again in a Fourth Reich, the revived Holy Roman Empire, which with the Pope as the anti-Christ will crush America and put the survivors into slavery. It’s all prophesied in the Bible if you realize that America and the countries of Western Europe, except Germany, are the Lost Tribes of Israel, while Germany is modern day Assyria. Or something like that.
It’s all silly when you really think about it, and it’s even sillier to think that people still believe that despite the fact that DNA testing has shown conclusively that the only people with Semitic backgrounds are — surprise — Jews and Arabs. But this was the fifties: James Watson and Francis Crick had just discovered DNA’s double helix in 1953, and DNA testing was still a very long way in the future. In the meantime, the Cold War was in full swing, with Kruschev’s USSR just reaching the zenith of its optimism that a state-run economy could produce the paradise that seemed to elude — at least in Soviet propaganda — the capitalists.
But what of these listeners behind the Iron Curtain? The notion came from an illustration in 1956’s booklet 1975 in Prophecy, a digest-size title laying out a timetable for the end of the age. Jesus was to return in 1975, and so the time of trials so many Protestants see as preceding his return would be in 1972. The book purported to provide an “inside view” of the coming tribulation. Within the booklet were illustrations by Mad Magazine illustrator and Armstrong follower Basil Wolverton.
The purpose of such an illustration in 1975 in Prophecy is simple: make listeners in the free, Western world feel guilty for not taking Armstrong’s message seriously. After all, people in Eastern Europe are risking their very lives to listen to The World Tomorrow, Armstrong’s prophecy radio show. But it also worked to create the illusion that the entire world was listening to Herbert Armstrong, further legitimizing his claims of being God’s chosen. World leaders, Armstrong liked to suggest, read his magazine and listened to his radio show, and so literally the whole world must be tuning in. To support Armstrong’s work, then, would be to support a Global Enterprise, and everyone knows that investing in a Global Enterprise is a wise investment indeed. Especially when such an investment could also ultimately help save your own hide.
Just how many listeners were there in Eastern Europe? How many could there be? Given the fact that Armstrong only transmitted in English in the 1950s, linguistic barriers reduce the potential audience significantly. I recall hearing that in all of Poland, for example, in a country of forty million, there was one official church member. Clearly, this was meant for a local audience, then.
Yet that raises a troubling question: is this a lie? For it to be a lie, Armstrong and the administrators of his church would have to know it to be untrue, would have to realize that few people indeed listen to his show in Eastern Europe.
But what if the nature of your self-delusion is such that you see yourself as God’s Apostle on the same level as the New Testament apostles? What if you see yourself as the leader of the one true church, with everyone else in the world deceived by Satan? What if you have surrounded yourself with people who support that delusion? In such a case, believing that people all around the world are listening to your little radio show is a self-delusion of almost insignificant proportions. Of course in the 1950’s, there would have been no metric for a radio audience listening in Eastern Europe, no way to prove or disprove the claim that people are tuning in at the peril of their own lives. And it creates a powerful layer of importance on top of all the other self-delusions: If I am the leader of the only true church (which in a sense would make me the most important person in the world), it only makes sense that people risk their lives to listen to me.
I’ve often wondered about stories I hear about this or that miraculous event, wondering if the individual is stretching the truth in the perceived service of God. Surely that’s unacceptable according to anyone’s moral compass. Yet Machiavellian thinking is dangerously seductive. Could something like that be going on here?
Herbert Armstrong died 30 years ago today. For several thousand in the world, it was an earth-shattering, previously-unthinkable event. For the majority of the world’s population, it was a non-event, just like the majority of other deaths. “Herbert Who?” my classmates and even teachers would have asked. Yet he was a significant-enough player that major news outlets wrote obituaries. The New York Times wrote the following:
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 16— Herbert W. Armstrong, the broadcasting evangelist who was founder and pastor general of the Worldwide Church of God, died today at his home in Pasadena, Calif. He was 93 years old. Church officials said no official cause of death had been established, but they added that Mr. Armstrong’s health had been declining about four months because of a heart ailment.
Mr. Armstrong presided as the ”Chosen Apostle” of God over the wealthy fundamentalist Christian church, as well as over the Ambassador College and the Ambassador International College Foundation, both in Pasadena. The Ambassador Auditorium on the campus is a lavish concert hall where famous musicians and artists have performed.
The church publishes Plain Truth magazine and broadcasts television programs on 374 stations around the world, David Hulme, a church spokesman, said.
Officials of the 80,000-member church announced last Tuesday that Mr. Armstrong had named Joseph Tkach, 59, as his successor. Ralph K. Helge, the church’s general counsel, said in a statement that Mr. Armstrong had felt it was time to ”pass the baton” and establish a new spiritual leader to avert dissent when he died. Advertising Career, Then Radio
Herbert Armstrong was born July 31, 1892, to Horace and Eva Armstrong in Des Moines. In 1934 the young Mr. Armstrong abandoned a career in advertising to found the Radio Church of God in 1934 with the first broadcast of his program, ”The World Tomorrow.”
He incorporated his California ministry in in 1947 as the Worldwide Church of God and began spreading his conservative beliefs with alternately fiery and folksy sermons. The religion is a blend of fundamental Christianity, non-belief in the trinity and some tenets of Judaism and Seventh-Day Sabbath doctrine.
Members pay the church at least 10 percent and as much as 20 to 30 percent of their income, and celebrate Passover and Yom Kippur as holy days rather than Easter and Christmas. Mr. Armstrong espoused creationism and enjoying material wealth as a sign of divine favor; he held that he was preparing his followers for a Utopia to be ruled by Jesus.
Controversy and Feud With Son
The church has been embroiled in controversy, ranging from the estrangement of Mr. Armstrong and his son, Garner Ted Armstrong, to lawsuits by former church members and an investigation by the state Attorney General of reports of mismanagement of church funds.
As membership swelled in the mid-1970’s, trouble arose between Mr. Armstrong and Garner Ted Armstrong, his youngest child and heir apparent. The son appeared weekly on 165 television stations across the country as the voice of ”The World Tomorrow” and was executive vice president of the church.
The church had a strict policy against remarriage for divorced people that required new church members to dissolve second marriages and remarry their original spouses. Garner Ted Armstrong vehemently opposed rescinding that order and his father’s subsequent marriage in 1977 to a second wife, Ramona, 44 years old and divorced. His first wife, Loma, died in 1967. He divorced the second in 1984.
Mr. Armstrong and his son also argued over control of the college, the auditorium, and other holdings. Herbert Armstrong excommunicated his son in 1978.
Case Led to Curb in Law
Garner Ted Armstrong, supported by some former church members, subsequently charged that his father and other officials had spent millions of the church’s estimated $60 million annual income on personal expenses. In 1979 the Attorney General’s office got a court order to place the church in receivership, saying the officials had ”looted” $1 million a year from tithed funds.
The case was dropped in 1980 after a new state law, prompted by the Armstrong case, prohibited the Attorney General from investigating the finances of religious groups for fraud and mismanagement.
The father-son rift was never healed. ”I tried repeatedly to contact my father up until two weeks ago, but it was all to no avail,” Garner Ted Armstrong said in an interview from the headquarters of his Church of God International at Tyler, Tex. ”He had a heart condition, and I knew his health was failing quite rapidly. My sister said he died quietly while sitting in a chair.”
Herbert Armstrong also leaves his daughters Beverly Gott and Dorothy Mattson, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Arrangements for private funeral services are pending. (Source)
Thirty years later, and it’s such a different world for everyone mentioned in the article. Armstrong’s successor, Joseph Tkach, is dead, and his successor, his son, is still running the original church, though it reformed twenty years ago and even changed its name.
There are still those who follow the man’s teachings, though. A few thousand scattered among a few dozen off-shoots. The leaders of several of those churches are now in their seventies or eighties, and the pattern will repeat itself.
Monday Afternoon
Yesterday was such a busy day that I didn’t even take the time to share everything that happened. The Christmas tree got a mention but little else, and the promise of the lights we put up around the house was about there was of the final product. So it would be tempting just to post those pictures and call it day. After all, there is continuity with the pictures and the day’s before.
“That tree is enormous” seemed to be the general consensus — certainly the biggest one we’ve ever brought into our house. “Remember that first tree stand we used?” K mused as she held the tree later that night while I, sprawled on the floor, loosened all the screws holding the tree in place and reinforced it with planks of wood. He might have held a tree half the size of the one we have in our living room now, but it would just laugh at the tree we brought home Sunday.
But to leave today’s story at that would be leaving out the wonder of today. For example, a girl in my most challenging — and as a result, often most rewarding — class left the room without asking permission. It’s not the kind of thing I would have expected her to do. I went out to talk to her and determined that she’d removed herself from a stressful situation so that she wouldn’t say something she regretted. It turned out, she’d already kind of said that anyway, making a comment under her breath that probably shouldn’t have even been said at all. “But she was off task, and being distracting,” S protested. I suggested that she really didn’t need to say what she said, no matter what M was doing, and after some thought, she agreed. We went back into the room and I suggested that to be really mature, to take the situation to the next level, she might want to apologize to the girl in question. And she agreed. And in a few moments, the two of them were in the hall together, working out their problems like forty-year-olds instead of fourteen-year-olds. So to leave that out of the day’s story would be a minor tragedy.
But there was still the Boy and our time exploring before dinner.
As I was putting on my shoes, E pointed out that the giant ladder truck that had been mine at his age and which Nana and Papa had saved was in sad repair. “It’s not new and shiny like it was when you got it,” he observed rather philosophically. “Did you get that from Santa?” he asked after a pause, and I thought, “Well, here it is.” It’s a moment I knew was coming, was surprised that never came with L, and yet while dreading it in a way, paradoxically never really gave it too much thought.
But it reminded me of something I wrote on a blog I used to run, now almost ten years defunct, in which I dissected the statements of leaders of various religious groups that all clung to the same beliefs I grew up with after the church in which I grew up declared its own beliefs heretical and moved to Protestant orthodoxy. When L was born, I struggled to find the time and motivation to keep it up, so in August of 2007, I resigned:
I’ve been struggling—to find topics for this blog, to maintain my interest in all things Armstrong, to find time to care.
Truth be told, to care.
Jared said it best in a recent comment:
[A] moribund XCG is [not] entirely a bad thing either. After all, there’s only so much one can say about Armstrongism before you’ve said it all. (Source)
I don’t feel like I’ve said it all—there are thousands of words that could still be written about the phenomenon of Herbert Armstrong and the sect he formed. Yet, I really no longer have the interest or time to write anymore words about it.
I feel like Chicken Little, for our common XCG sky will continually fall. David Pack will talk about his web site statistics until the day he dies. Rod Meredith will provide critics with still more reasons to call him Spanky until the day he dies. Those in the upper echelons of the dwindling WCG will continue to talk about their amazing transformation until the day they die.
But I will not be commenting on them at that point, and I certainly won’t be commenting on them when I die.
About six months ago, I started preparing a final post, but I kept putting it off. I thought, “Maybe I’ll just write a little here, a little there,” for a while. Several have noticed and commented on this, and I have remained silent as to the cause of this dip in output.
My initial draft of this post might provide clarification:
Certain things in life force us to see things in a different perspective. Births, deaths, marriages, divorces, conversions—these are the kinds of things that make us stop and reflect on where we are, what we are, and most importantly, what we’re doing with the short time we have on Earth.
We have twenty-four hours in a day. We work at least eight of them; we sleep six to eight of them; we wash, shave, cook, eat, clean, drive, exercise and a million other forms of maintenance for another three or four a day. That leaves us with precious few hours a day for ourselves.
What do we do with that time?
Until recently, I spent time looking at, analyzing, and even mocking the beliefs and actions of a group of people I no longer have anything in common with.
Recent developments in my life now make that a less-than-ideal way to spend my free time.
The “certain event” I was referring to was the birth of my first child.
Since then, I’ve been of thinking about what I want my daughter to know about my own religious past. Truth is, I want her to know as little as possible. Because of shame? Embarrassment? Certainly not. I don’t want her to know for the simple reason that it no longer impacts my life. I can’t see much positive coming from me ever going into any detail with her about what I used to believe, about what her grandparents used to believe, about the fact that a true handful of people in the world still believe it. I don’t believe it, and that’s that.
And so, to quote one of my favorite authors:
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”To talk of many things—but not the XCG. And not here.
I appreciate all the support I’ve received during this little two-and-a-half-year adventure. I thank all the fellow contributors who, throughout these last nearly thirty months, have helped to make the discussion here a little more balanced. I am grateful to all you regulars. You really kept the site going.
Most of all, I’m heartened by some of the comments of the past, folks telling me that I have helped them in some way. I appreciate you sharing those thoughts, for it gave me a certain joy that I will truly never forget.
But the time has come.
Best wishes to all, ill wishes to none, and I leave with the hope that if we ever meet again, we’ll have so much more to talk about than the XCG.
And since then, the Girl never once asked about Santa for me (for we didn’t celebrate such heathen festivals), and I’d really forgotten about it. Of course I still write about the phenomenon, as evidenced by a post earlier this week (and as the thirtieth anniversary of Herbert Armstrong’s death is just a little over a month away, I will likely write about it again in the near future). But I hadn’t thought about what I’d say to the Boy or the Girl about my religious upbringing. It just didn’t seem important at all in a way. Until E asked me if Santa had brought me the ladder truck. I thought about it for a moment, realizing that a philosophical/theological treatise was certainly not required, and simply answered, “No, buddy, Santa didn’t bring it to me.” Maybe some day, he’ll ask about it again. Probably not. We’ll cross that little relatively insignificant bridge when we come to it.
Forty Years Ago in Prophecy
“YOUR own future is laid bare, now, in prophecy!” Though intended as a compelling beginning, a startling call for readers to wake up and realize the cold reality they’re facing, almost sixty years later the opening sentence of Herbert Armstrong’s 1975 in Prophecy reads like the dating advertising copy it essentially was.
Written in 1956, it was a centerpiece booklet in his radio ministry. Claiming to have discovered — rather, to have received through divine inspiration — the key to unlocking Biblical prophecy, Armstrong claimed a certain clairvoyance unique among other religious figures. To his credit, he didn’t take credit for it: he was merely an instrument of God. Still, there is a certain headiness in being the one to whom has been revealed a startling truth that, for ages, no one knew.
Prophecies that were closed and sealed tight now stand REVEALED. This mystifying, neglected third of the Bible now becomes plain. Mysteries of God, never before understood, now become crystal-clear. God’s own time for this revealing has come. The KEYS that locked the future have been found.
Hidden prophecies seldom sell if they’re absolutely and completely good. Like those who slow down and crane their necks when passing the scene of an auto accident, we all have a touch of the morbid in us and a suggestion of how bad things are really going to get can be utterly fascinating. This could be even more true in the 1950s, when 1975 in Prophecy first appeared. As the Cold War continually escalated, nuclear war with the Soviet Union seemed a very real possibility. Indeed, it wasn’t so much a question of if it happened but rather when for most Americans. Catastrophe waited in the not-so-distant future, and it was this uncertainty upon which Armstrong built his ministry, and it was with this expected nuclear showdown with the Soviets that Armstrong created his catch, because of course, there was always a catch, according to Armstrong:
But what is actually going to happen is not what the world expects!
Today this world is changing – fast! Unprecedented events are shaking the world already. Yet what we have seen is mild compared to the catastrophic happenings that will rock this world in the near future!
You’ll have to live into these tremendous times. This is YOUR life! You live here, in this erupting world! It behooves you to know what the Creator-RULER of the Universe now makes known!
Armstrong claimed that the United States and Western Europe were in fact the original ten tribes of Israel, supposedly lost to the mists of time. (Jews were only of the two break-away tribes the formed the Kingdom of Judah.) The Germans, though, were an exception: they were the ancient Assyrians, forever battling the Israelites. This battle spilled into the twentieth century, and explained both world wars. It was to be the Germans, not the Soviets, who attacked and conquered America.
Before getting to the bad news, though, and perhaps in an effort to pad the manuscript, Armstrong rehearses all the technological advances of the mid-twentieth century.
Feverishly, science, technology and industry are working to produce a fantastic, push-button world of leisure by 1975. The emphasis today is on “saving steps.” Everything is to be done for us, by machines. Just push the magic button, and your work will be done automatically.
Already automobiles are equipped with push-buttons to shift the gears, raise or lower windows, move the seat forward, backward, up or down.
It’s difficult to look at our current reality, with in-dash GPS, smart phones, and loads of cheap Chinese imports, and not think the advances of the 1950s somehow quaint. In spite of the stresses of the Cold War, there was a certain naivety at the time, on both sides of the Communist-capitalist ideological spectrum. Both sides were sure that their economic model would produce a not-too-far-in-the-future utopia. Francis Spufford recently portrayed this in Red Plenty, a clever, well-researched novel about the hope in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev that the Soviet Union would soon be the envy of the West; Armstrong beat Spufford by fifty years with his visions in 1975 in Prophecy:
In the dream-world MAN is devising for tomorrow, it will no longer be necessary to cook food on stoves. Food is to be cooked by heat waves in packages. You’ll no longer bother taking a bath in a tub or shower. You’ll take an effortless and quicker waterless bath by using supersonic waves! When you pick up your telephone, you’ll see the party at the other end! The new automobiles, the new homes, the new schools are to be truly fantastic. The stores, hotels, and railroad trains will take your breath!
So far, surprisingly close to the reality we experience. Of course the waterless shower never took off — or appeared, as best I can remember — but we have had microwave dinners for over thirty years now while Skype and smart phones make land lines obsolete.
And air travel? Well, already leading air lines have placed multi-million dollar orders for still larger jet planes that will leave New York at 11 in the morning and arrive at Los Angeles by noon. These are under production, now. But what do you suppose air travel will be like by 1975?
For one thing, it is expected that many people will commute in their own private helicopters. Very probably these immense jets now being built will then be obsolete, and we’ll travel in rockets at two or three thousand miles per hour. Think of it! Elapsed flying-time, New York to Los Angeles reduced to one hour! Since it is only 9 A.M. in Los Angeles when it’s noon in New York, we may be flying across the continent, and arriving in Los Angeles two hours before we start! And elapsed flying-time from London to New York will be reduced to 1½ hours! As it is noon in London when it’s only 7 A.M. in New York, we may be flying across the Atlantic and arriving in New York 3½ hours before we start!
Yes, MAN is devising fantastic things!
Unfortunately for Armstrong and the other futurists of the 1950s, their own predictions were among the “fantastic” things, though in their case, it’s meant in the original adjectival form of “fantasy.”
It’s easy to look back on those predictions and mock them. We have the obvious advantage that it’s no longer prophecy but history.
Under Cover in Europe
While America has been focusing its sole attention on its clumsy effort to meet psychological cold-war with antiquated diplomacy and military might, the real number one enemy has been perfecting its plans SECRETLY, UNDER COVER, IN EUROPE!
These plans were laid by Adolph Hitler, during World War II. The methodical Germans took into consideration the possibility they might lose, even as they had lost World War I. This time their plans for coming back and launching World War III were carefully laid before the close of World War II.
The day that war ended, the Nazi organization went underground! Their plans for coming back have been proceeding, under cover, since 1945!
Already Nazis are in many key positions-in German industry – in German education-in the new German ARMY!
In World War I, the Kaiser, allied with Austria, sought to conquer France, Britain and America. American Industry finally beat him. In World War II, Hitler tried to conquer the world, first by taking Austria and the Sudetenland thru diplomatic gangsterism; then second, with lightning-quick war, taking Poland, Denmark and Norway, Holland, Belgium and France; and third, while holding these nations by the throat with his Gestapo, and allied with his junior partner Mussolini, to conquer Russia on the east and Britain on the west. But again, American Industry, three Acts of God, at Dunkirk, El Alamein, and the destruction of the German hydrogen-bomb plant at Peenemuende defeated Hitler.
But this time the Nazis plan to side step the causes of past defeats. Instead of exhausting their own strength by holding European nations as captives at the expense of vital Gestapo man-power, they plan to head and dominate a UNITED STATES OF EUROPE — and add the man-power of those nations to their own military divisions. And secondly, they plan to strike their first blow, NOT at France or Poland in Europe, but with hydrogen bombs by surprise attack on the centers of AMERICAN INDUSTRY!
I suppose with enough imagination, one could imagine in the mid-fifties, only ten years on from World War Two, that the Nazis had somehow managed to regroup and were planning a horrific third attempt at world domination. Such a theory certainly would work well with those still dealing with the consequences of the war, with so many people still dealing with the loss of life and property in the war.
It was this coming cataclysmic doom — famines and pandemics would also accompany the military defeat — that 1975 in Prophecy was using to sell Armstrong’s theology. The booklet came complete with graphic, violent images depicting the coming horrors, called the Great Tribulation in Armstrongian theology.
The man-made horrors would not be enough to cause humanity to repent, Armstrong reasoned, so the natural world would add to the world’s misery with great earthquakes, tidal waves, famines, and pandemics.
Armstrong had Basil Wolverton, a cartoonist who joined Armstrong’s church in 1941, used his typical over-the-top comic style, creating images that disturb not only because of their content but also their style.
When I flipped through the booklet as a kid, I found these images repulsive and fascinating at the same time, not to mention confusing. They were supposed to be depictions of the coming holocaust, but by the time I was flipping through the booklet, it was the mid-eighties and all of this was supposed to have already taken place.
It will be, yet it was supposed to have already been.
And now, forty years later, there are still religious groups that believe Germany at the head of the EU will rise again and conquer the United States. The Philadelphia Church of God, the Restored Church of God, the United Church of God, and the Living Church of God are the three biggest groups holding such beliefs, with dozens of smaller groups professing the same thing. They all insist that this is coming, that Armstrong was ultimately correct, and that these pictures are legitimate depictions of the coming horrors.
I find it difficult to believe that people could be so naive, given the fact that so much of what Armstrong taught has been shown to be false. Most significantly, Armstrongists are in the same situation as Mormons due to advances in DNA testing, which show that both groups’ claims about the ultimate destiny of the so-called Lost Tribes of Israel are radically wrong: there are no Semitic markers in the European population (except, surprisingly, the Jews), thus discounting Armstrong’s theory, and the Native Americans similarly lack such markers, thus disproving Joseph Smith’s theory. Still, these organizations pull in members and money.
Long ago I wrote a letter to one of these organizations only to find out later that my letter was read to the entire church as an example of the horrendous persecution that awaits the leader.
I regret that letter in a sense: it seems like I’m saying at the end that I look forward to the death of the group’s leader, David Pack. Not at all. Even in my most skeptical periods, I would have never have wished death upon someone. What I meant was that I was looking forward to seeing the scramble for power and more interesting the desperate attempt to remold Pack’s statements that he would live to see these prophecies come to pass as something less prophetic than they were, just as Armstrong apologists do with Armstrong’s assurances that it would all be over by 1975. Perhaps I should write again and apologize?
A Tragedy in the Making
It had to happen. From the morning of January 16, 1986, it became an inevitability. When the charismatic leader of a religious organization dies, change is inevitable. I suppose it doesn’t have to be a particularly charismatic leader to necessitate change when he dies, but the more charismatic, the harder it is to maintain the same arch of theological development because so much of the theology is grounded in the leader’s personality, whether or not followers admit or even are aware of it.
When Herbert Armstrong (HWA) died in 1986, there was no way things could go on as they had before. The most basic reason was simple: everyone believed, implicitly or explicitly, that Armstrong would be alive until the end of time as we know it, until Jesus’s second coming. When he passed in his sleep without a single trumpet blast from heaven, without a chorus of angels announcing the return of God incarnate to Earth, it was the first of several inevitable changes in theology. When the new leadership began changing doctrinal distinctives like British-Israelism and the nature of God, the changes were simply too much for some who longed to return to the age of Armstrong. They removed themselves from fellowship and formed an offshoot. More like a hundred-and-some offshoots, but three or four main ones.
Each of these offshoots were in competition for new members as they left the parent organization for the dozens of newly-forming off-shoots, and for many, the medium for measuring the acceptability of this or that splinter group (as they came to be called) when considering membership became the group’s faithfulness to Armstrong’s teachings, which constituted true Christianity restored again. But slowly, inevitably, these groups began tinkering around the edges of Armstrong’s theology. This point was “clarified,” and that one “elucidated.” Nothing ever really changed — it was all euphemistically described to the followers, just as it had been in the original group after Armstrong’s death.
David Pack, though, founded a group called the Restored Church of God that built its whole membership on the solemn promise that nothing about HWA’s teachings would change. But reality tends to get in the way of such far-reaching promises, and one of the earliest dilemmas for the church was the appropriate use of the Internet in spreading Pack’s (and by extension, HWA’s) theological musings. After all, Mr. Armstrong didn’t use the Internet: he used radio and television. For the outsider, this seems like a simple issue: Herbert Armstrong didn’t use the Internet because it didn’t exist, and so it wasn’t any kind of doctrinal issue, just an administrative decision. Still, Pack took a whole sermon to explain to his small flock that, even though it looked like he was making a change, he wasn’t making a doctrinal change.
But further challenges waited.
As Pack was only ordained a pastor in Armstrong’s church before the breakup, and as he recognized only Armstrong as an authority, he had another problem: He wasn’t doing a pastor’s job. He was preaching the Armstrongite Gospel to the world, which Herbert Armstrong always taught is an apostle’s job. Armstrong was, in the eyes of his followers (which is really all that matters), an apostle on the same standing as the New Testament apostles, and for a pastor to step out of his assigned roll like that seemed mutinous. It was change. So in 2004, Pack declared himself an apostle as well. Problem solved.
But a door opened.
Once a leader who has sworn not to change a single teaching of his claimed predecessor, all doctrines become open for review. This is what happened in the Worldwide Church of God that ultimately led to its turn to orthodoxy and the thousands upon thousands of members who fled to other splinter groups to hold on to the faith once delivered. Pack would have to be very careful not to make changes that seem too drastic, too far-reaching. The solution: add doctrines. Don’t change any existing ones — just add. “These weren’t revealed to Herbert Armstrong because he didn’t need to know it, but now I can restore this truth.”
He has criticized other leaders for doing this, but it was of course inevitable that he do it himself. But how far could he go? He declared himself an apostle in 2004 shortly after declaring himself to be the prophesied “Watchman.” It’s been over ten years since he made a major change that he’s revealed to the public. In his most recent sermon, though, Pack makes the biggest and most dramatic change of his career, arguably of just about any of the splinter leaders.
In short, he makes the claim that if “you were called by God, and you are to participate in his work and walk in his ways, you have to turn over your assets to God’s church” and that “salvation is attached to [this new doctrine].” He calls this doctrine “Common,” and roots it in the observation that the New Testament church apparently shared a lot of things.”Not even Armstrong went that far,” a friend and fellow cult-watching enthusiast commented, and that’s about right: it is such a drastic change from Armstrong’s simple requirement of a 10% tithe on pre-tax income figures that it amounts a wholesale theological change. After all, how can you tithe 10% when you’ve already contributed all your assets?
This change reveals a megalomaniac mindset of literally historic proportions, a cult of personality that is simply dangerous.
Yet how could this happen? How could he go so much further than Herbert Armstrong ever dared, demanding more fiscally from his followers than Armstrong even dreamed of requiring? It is in part because I believe Armstrong was more mentally stable. Armstrong declared himself to be prophesied in the Bible, but he claimed no supernatural powers for himself. Pack has done just that.
Just what these extraordinary powers might be remains unanswered. But clearly there’s a disconnect between reality and how Pack sees reality. But when you see yourself literally in the Bible — well, when you see yourself in the Bible after using some horrible interpretative techniques — there’s almost no limit to what you can attribute to yourself. It’s not too hard to see how far reality has taken leave from Pack.
To suggest that because one Greek word appears to be pronounced like the man’s hometown — that shows just how little Pack understands basic exegetical concepts. But it gets worse:
Moses’s “strong hand” equals Armstrong? It would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that so many people are allowing themselves to be duped with this nonsense.
One would think that after the long history of false predictions, both in the Armstrong community and in the general Christian prophecy-loving population, that a leader of a group in 2015 would have learned some lessons. If he hadn’t learned from others, one would think that Pack at least learned from himself. In 2004, for example, he stated the following, playfully edited:
It is now 2015, so apparently we did have ten years remaining until the end of the world as we know it, and I would wager that, come 2019, we still won’t have seen the end of the world. And yet, on and on he will go until the day that he dies continually proclaiming that “time is short,” just like Armstrong did.
Autumn Ritual
In years past, last Tuesday night’s gathering would have filled a large-capacity auditorium, or even a civic center, like the Scope Arena in Norfolk, Virginia. They would have sat in dozens of rows on the floor, up risers, into the balcony area, and walking into the arena that first night would have produced an excitement in everyone that was audible.
Thousands of people, gathering for eight days, in locations all over the world. It would look something like this, except for more formal attire.
Part of my past that I haven’t experienced in almost twenty years as best I can remember. Ninety-five was the last time, I think. Those gatherings have continued through those years, but my trajectory has gone in the opposite direction before veering back to something more like an eighty-degree angle: not quite the same beliefs, but certainly not a denial of all the beliefs.
Those gatherings have continued for the last twenty years, though the single, monolithic church organization that originally held it has splintered into almost countless pieces, with the organization itself changing its name and completely reversing most of its old doctrines — like the required eight-day Old Testament festival observance — so that it is indistinguishable from other mainline Protestant groups. The splinters that fell away have been keeping up the tradition, though, and last Tuesday night, in Bend, Oregon, a pastor opened the gathering with a message that has been repeated every fall with the regularity of the changing leaves.
They’ve been starting like that for decades now — I still wonder every autumn how many more decades it will continue. When will a group that proclaims definitive prophetic events within our generation and has been proclaiming it in vain for something like seventy years (Germany will rise again, don’t you know?) — when will such a group (or in this case, groups) disappear for good? For how long can someone declare that “time is short” and warn people that a great confederation of European nations with Germany and the Vatican at the head will rise up and utterly decimate the United States? At which point does the hypothesis — no, the sure prophecy — become just too ridiculously and obviously wrong for anyone to take seriously?
G Has Left the Building
For just short of three years, I ran a web site that was highly popular with a very small demographic, writing about something that the vast majority of Americans and an even larger majority of potential international readers — we’re talking the 99.9999999% range — would have never even heard of. That topic was the various offshoots of a small Christian group, the Worldwide Church of God, with a peak membership of no more than 150,000, that imploded in the mid-1990’s when it changed all its distinctive, heterodox doctrines and began moving to mainstream, Evangelical Christianity. With that change, which the church leadership enacted in what many considered to be an underhanded, deceptive manner, the church membership dropped to roughly sixty thousand within a couple of years, then to thirty thousand in a few more years, as members sought newly-formed organizations that still clung to the Worldwide Church of God’s original teachings, left for mainstream Christian groups, or dropped out of religion altogether.
In the early years, there was a great deal of bickering and sniping among the splinter organizations about which group most faithfully adhered to the teachings of Herbert Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God. It provided fascinating, sometimes amusing reading, and having grown up in the organization and just dropped out of a philosophy of religion graduate program, I was hooked.
I started a web site, recruited fellow writers, developed a readership, and wrote almost daily about this or that church’s latest proclamation, declaration, or whine. As an atheist, I took a particularly smug tone, resorting often to heavy sarcasm and occasionally to outright mockery. Still, my pseudo-academic background led me to write several serious analyses of this or that organization’s claims and arguments, and I occasionally got comments about how the site helped this or that individual.
Then L was born, and I suddenly had no time. For some period before that my interest had been waning, but I hung on, convinced that what I was doing was somehow significant but doubting it was. Then, about eight months after L was born, after steadily decreasing posting, I called it quits with the following post.
I’ve been struggling–to find topics for this blog, to maintain my interest in all things Armstrong, to find time to care.
Truth be told, to care.
Jared said it best in a recent comment:
[A] moribund XCG is [not] entirely a bad thing either. After all, there’s only so much one can say about Armstrongism before you’ve said it all.
I don’t feel like I’ve said it all–there are thousands of words that could still be written about the phenomenon of Herbert Armstrong and the sect he formed. Yet, I really no longer have the interest or time to write anymore words about it.
I feel like Chicken Little, for our common XCG sky will continually fall. David Pack will talk about his web site statistics until the day he dies. Rod Meredith will provide critics with still more reasons to call him Spanky until the day he dies. Those in the upper echelons of the dwindling WCG will continue to talk about their amazing transformation until the day they die.
But I will not be commenting on them at that point, and I certainly won’t be commenting on them when I die.
About six months ago, I started preparing a final post, but I kept putting it off. I thought, “Maybe I’ll just write a little here, a little there,” for a while. Several have noticed and commented on this, and I have remained silent as to the cause of this dip in output.
My initial draft of this post might provide clarification:
Certain things in life force us to see things in a different perspective. Births, deaths, marriages, divorces, conversions–these are the kinds of things that make us stop and reflect on where we are, what we are, and most importantly, what we’re doing with the short time we have on Earth.
We have twenty-four hours in a day. We work at least eight of them; we sleep six to eight of them; we wash, shave, cook, eat, clean, drive, exercise and a million other forms of maintenance for another three or four a day. That leaves us with precious few hours a day for ourselves.
What do we do with that time?
Until recently, I spent time looking at, analyzing, and even mocking the beliefs and actions of a group of people I no longer have anything in common with.
Recent developments in my life now make that a less-than-ideal way to spend my free time.
The “certain event” I was referring to was the birth of my first child.
Since then, I’ve been of thinking about what I want my daughter to know about my own religious past. Truth is, I want her to know as little as possible. Because of shame? Embarrassment? Certainly not. I don’t want her to know for the simple reason that it no longer impacts my life. I can’t see much positive coming from me ever going into any detail with her about what I used to believe, about what her grandparents used to believe, about the fact that a true handful of people in the world still believe it. I don’t believe it, and that’s that.
And so, to quote one of my favorite authors:
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”
To talk of many things–but not the XCG. And not here.
Some might be wondering whether this signals the end of my presence on the XCG scene. It does. In fact, I doubt very much that I will even “lurk.” As a famous, oft-misquoted teacher once said, “It is finished.”
I appreciate all the support I’ve received during this little two-and-a-half-year adventure. I thank all the fellow contributors who, throughout these last nearly thirty months, have helped to make the discussion here a little more balanced. I am grateful to all you regulars. You really kept the site going.
Most of all, I’m heartened by some of the comments of the past, folks telling me that I have helped them in some way. I appreciate you sharing those thoughts, for it gave me a certain joy that I will truly never forget.
But the time has come.
Best wishes to all, ill wishes to none, and I leave with the hope that if we ever meet again, we’ll have so much more to talk about than the XCG.
What had I accomplished?
I’d made several people mad: some sent me nasty emails or left malicious comments. Still, what could I expect? Wasn’t I doing the exact same thing with others’ beliefs? Some people threatened my web host with a lawsuit, but since the group in question was outside my scope of interest and never directly or indirectly mentioned on my web site, even a libel claim was ridiculous.
I’d inspired others to start their own web sites, and I’d provided apologists with plenty of material in turn for their own writing. What could I expect? With me criticizing them, they were right to criticize me, and since no leader or group was going officially to deal with a puny little hen like me, individual members took on the responsibility, inasmuch as the various churches officially allowed such activities.
But what about helping people? I’d always assumed that I must be doing that, that I must be helping others see the errors in logic that the various groups committed. Still, I only had a couple of emails. The comments to my farewell post provided a bit more information.
Comments
exrcg 08/22/2007 11:12 PM
thank you G — your site certainly helped me when i transitioned out of the cog world a couple years ago — it was a comment i made at that time, and i echo it again here. your efforts have been appreciated.
Jared Olar 08/22/2007 11:16 PM
I’ve been wondering when you were going to wrap it up here. Of course you told me before, after your daughter’s birth, that you were going to bow out soon. You hung on longer than I thought you were going to.
So long, and thanks for letting me have rather too much fun with Bob Thiel. Now go raise that little girl of yours and kiss [K]. Real Life is calling . . .
Lao Li 08/22/2007 11:41 PM
Thanks for all the work G.
The void between postings was a sign that time is short, we were in the gun lap!
Keeping something like this going can be the same as problems facing the COGs. Sometimes there’s some new input, but otherwise it’s just moving bones from one grave to another.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Church Corporate Critic 08/23/2007 12:12 AM
My thanks as well.
We wish you well.
You will be a much healthier person mentally.
Church Corporate Critic 08/23/2007 12:20 AM
I have a going away present:
gods
The peer review team liked it more than is customary for such articles.
It too may the last of its kind.
Robert 08/23/2007 01:19 AM
So, I’m going to take this opportunity to plug my own blog, and I hope you won’t mind. It’s a little different than XGC for a couple reasons: 1) It feature the stories of people who were in or around WCG and who now have given up faith entirely, and 2) I pretty much let them write it, so I have had no problem keeping it going since 1997– Wow, 10 years!
Non-Believer Former Members of the WCG
http://ironwolf.dangerousgames.com/exwcg/
Dennis 08/23/2007 09:21 AM
Excellent job G and yes, there is a time to move on as I know you have. The world will little note, nor long remember what you have done here…but I’m glad you’re in the neighborhood so we can have lunch and a good laugh from time to time!
And..for a limited time, if you act now, a free opportunity to finally be rubbed the right way by a former minister of WCG! Call now for a free assesment to see if you are sane enough to come to the office.
Best of all things to you and your family. I have a third little girl coming to the planet compliments of my son and daughther in law today, even as we speak.
charlie kieran 08/23/2007 10:30 AM
Best wishes G for you and your family. Congratulations on that little girl! This blog and a few others were a big help for me. My folks are still under the armstrongist thumb so I’ll continue to work on them in the meantime I just tell my kids not to pay any attention to what Pop-Pop says about God. For the most part I’ll be moving on as well although I’ll check in from time to time on Gavin’s site just to see what is going on. I just don’t have the time anymore and my fourth child is due in February.
Dennis: Congratulations on another grandchild and best wishes to your son and daughter in law.
It has been great reading posts from everyone!
Byker Bob 08/23/2007 11:23 AM
Well, G, we’re on the same page! I’ve recently found myself either satiated, or undergoing waning interest in all things ACOG, and have been visiting all the regular sites less and less over the past several months. That’s probably a good thing, because it indicates that everything is processed.
I really don’t know if there are any answers to all of the great philosophical and religious questions mankind has asked himself over the centuries. About all a person can do is to be kind to fellow man, and indulge in the pursuit of happiness.
Thank you for all of the thought provoking materials presented here, and the work that went into them. Best wishes for a good life for you and your family. It’s been fun being part of the xCG community and making some friends here.
BB
paul 08/23/2007 05:29 PM
My daughter was born this year, and between that and graduate school, time is short. I understand your position; it would be impossible for me to do what you have been doing. It’s been a good time!
But as far as the XCG’s and my daughter go, it is my duty to protect her from such garbage. I have to shield her from the apocolyptic-paranoid-fearful-slave mindset of the in-laws who are in the LCG. I don’t want my girl’s mind poisoned. I don’t even want her exposed to the XCG Lite mindset of my mother. I’m an atheist now, and I won’t hide it from my daughter…but then again I don’t mind if my wife wants to raise her as a Christian, so long as she hears both sides and gets to make up her own mind. But XCGdom? Forget it. I don’t want that filth near her. In this vein, I still have an interest in the XCG’s. Keep an eye on the enemy.
Paul
Gavin 08/24/2007 01:50 AM
Shucks G, what can I say? You’ve been a much appreciated kindred spirit, and flown the flag for the power of free-thinking in a community known for a lack of just that. I understand the need to let it go. Thanks for everything you’ve done: XCG has been an empowering venture with a distinctive voice of its own.
Kia kaha: strength to your arm
Gavin
Buffalo 08/24/2007 02:20 AM
:)
Anonymous 666 08/24/2007 09:47 AM
G,
How long do we have?
boston blackie 08/24/2007 11:20 AM
Or you could announce your retirement, pop back in from time to time as a guest blogger on Gavin’s other “Coast to Coast” site and then surprise us all with a new format — just like some folks we know. =)
“Wanna take a ride?”
Best wishes there G, whatever you choose to do!
b²
Mario 08/24/2007 01:31 PM
Thanks for being instrumental in our exodus from an (x)CoG G.
Congrats on your new arrival. Enjoy the moments, they go by so fast…
Peace to you and yours
John 08/24/2007 09:05 PM
Thanks so much G. Your site played a very important role in helping me exit the cult, and in convincing me that suicide was not the best path.
You and Gavin literally saved my life.
My best wishes to you and I hope life brings you many, many bountiful joys.
Frenchie 08/25/2007 09:22 AM
Congratulations on the birth of your first child … it is indeed a life-changing event.
You did say one thing that has total truth in it in your “good-bye” .
the fact that a true handful of people in the world still believe it
I know that you meant “just a few”
But it is the TRUE people of God who still believe and will continue to believe.
May you find your way.
Byker Bob 08/26/2007 01:50 PM
Oh, Man! What a cheap shot, Frenchie!
Actually, I hope that one day you and the rest of the deceived Armstrongites find your way!
BB
Lao Li 08/26/2007 10:18 PM
My last posting… promise…
The winding down of this site was noted with apparent glee by Dr T, who to me implied sic semper infidelis. Au contraire, I found this to be a very balanced and temperately moderated site. On other sites, the moderator beat me to a jellied pulp at the sniff of my appearing positive about anything that eminated from a COG. As I may have said already, this site is open, COG-related discussion; most of the “correction” I’ve received has been empirical rather than imperial.
FWIW, at my remote roost in Manchuria, I encountered students from a remnant Sabbatarian community. Their little congregation was perhaps the work of a (COGspeak) Sardis-era missionary, with whom their ancestors would have lost touch two or so revolutions ago. What a coincidence to be the first westerner ever encountered since then… Their first question was about the Sabbath being on Saturday, as in China the first day of the week is Monday…
Jared Olar 08/27/2007 10:27 PM
Yeah, I fliggered Bob Thiel would be sure to comment on G’s announcement. He says:
I thought that G was planning on phasing his anti-COG site out. I have long thought that those who are against the COGs would realize the truth, as in the last two sentences that he wrote above.
He means G’s comments, “Until recently, I spent time looking at, analyzing, and even mocking the beliefs and actions of a group of people I no longer have anything in common with. Recent developments in my life now make that a less-than-ideal way to spend my free time.”
But as usual Bob doesn’t see things correctly. If G were among “those who are against the COGs,” then he’d be motivated to continue this project. But he’s not “against the COGs.” He’s just in favor of things that are more important and necessary to life and happiness than the COGs have ever been or will ever be.
Then Bob says:
On the other hand, there are those of us who ARE COMMITTED to learning, growing in grace and knowledge, trying to get the good news of the Kingdom of God to the world, and wish to be part of the Church of God. So, the COGwriter site has no intentions of shutting down.
Oh goody. We were so worried that the Cooge Writer was going to shut down.
But since Bob is committed to learning, growing in grace and knowledge, trying to get the good news of the Kingdom of God to the world, and wishing to be part of the Church of God, that means there’s still hope that he’ll eventually see the light and leave the COOGEs behind.
Not that we’re holding our breath or anything . . . .
Lao Li 08/29/2007 06:32 AM
can’t resist… must respond…
Once during an episode of Batman, an Australian friend generalized that Americans overuse the prefix anti. Did you ever notice (like Seinfeld, perhaps) that Dr T usually puts in the anti when mentioning COG criticism or another COG that has a doctrine that doesn’t match with one of the LCG? Yet the comments appear fairly warming when it is noticed that some non-COG group has a doctrine that shows some similarity? The similarity should be no surprise, as it has been widely stated that HWA was revealled those doctrines when reading their literature… or the works of Allen, or Rupert, or Adolph…
Someone, somewhere posted that Bob’s site is not really different from this one; the difference is that when making comparisons, his metric is the LCG, and ours is reality.
Okay, resistance was futile. My last post, I promise…
See you next year in Beijing.
I’ll go help my Sardis students with their English…
Buffalo 08/29/2007 10:55 PM
G Scott wrote,
”[with]ill wishes to none”
Well, that’s great. What brought about the conversion?
Jared Olar 08/30/2007 10:06 AM
What brought about the conversion?
And what will bring about yours, Mr. Snark?
Buffalo 08/30/2007 04:08 PM
Ah, Mr Olar, by engaging in name-calling you prove my point while trying to make one of your own. Thanks. That means I need say no more.
Heather Ramsdell 08/30/2007 07:33 PM
Please get off MR. Pack’s back. Leave the Apostle alone.
Dr S 08/30/2007 08:26 PM
Please get off Mr. Pack’s back
Clever! Back. Pack.
Back! Back!
Do not attack the back of Pack!
I’ve heard that before. Do all you guys plagiarize?
Now to think up something to honor Olar the Scholar.
Jared Olar 08/31/2007 12:03 AM
Ah, Mr Olar, by engaging in name-calling you prove my point while trying to make one of your own.
My snarkily observing that your comment is snarky proves your allegation that G Scott has ill will toward . . . somebody? Oooookay.
Thanks. That means I need say no more.
Indeed, it doesn’t appear that you needed to say anything at all.
Byker Bob 08/31/2007 09:24 PM
I can’t believe that the zombies have finally gotten up the courage to attack just because G has stated that xCG has become a spent force.
What a bunch of tail gunners, just like their idol AMR.
BB
Stinger 08/31/2007 10:11 PM
It’s good to see you going out on top, G.
So don’t let the religious bastards and other assorted spiritual clowns & bible freaks get you down. You’ve done a great work in exposing Armstrongism and the stupid self-righteousness that it breeds in these Pharisee clones that have that big A stamped on their foreheads (and their own little black book tucked away somewhere).
Best2U,
— Stinger
Heather Ramsdell 09/01/2007 10:09 PM
“Don’t let the religious bastards and other assorted spiritual clowns & bible freaks get you down”.
Venom spued from a moron. Leave Mr. Pack alone. Idiots
Dr S 09/01/2007 10:45 PM
Ms Ramsdell
Remember the prime directive: avoid ad hominem arguments
We only comment on what is said. Take it as brutally frank feedback.
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions” — Denis Waitley
Besides, Mr Pack loves it! He believes it’s persecution, one of his proofs that he is on the right track! (From one of his World to Come “broadcasts”.)
Jared Olar 09/02/2007 09:26 AM
Heather, how do you know David Pack is “the Apostle”? Did he receive laying on of hands from Jesus? Did Jesus tell him, “Feed my sheep”? Has his shadow healed the lame or the sick? Has he raised the dead?
What is it exactly, apart from David Pack’s say-so, that makes him “the Apostle”?
Big Red 09/02/2007 04:28 PM
G is doing the right thing. Raising a child is the hardest, most rewarding job a person can know.
I want to address some comments to Frenchie, Buffalo, Heather, AMR and the like.
First, the comment about you being tail gunners is true. You hear the website is discontinued, so you want to toss in some venal cheap shots at the very last moment. Doesn’t sound very Christian to me.
I don’t have the same antagonism towards Armstrong as some do. My experience in the old WCG was generally positive. I know that some people did get burned, however. I saw it happen.
During a FOT, Mr Armstrong said “so many of you people don’t get it.” Then he added “a lot of you ministers don’t get it.” That comment hit my brain like a thunder bolt.
After that comment, I stopped kissing the minister’s foot. I stopped looking for assurance from other people.
So many people were burned by bad pastors. So many people were burned by the people around them. Like Jonathon Livinston Seagull, I became free of that stuff. Thank you Mr Armstrong!
Heather? You want to call people morons and idiots? Then you still don’t get it! You’re still “in the flesh.”
Where were you when God created the universe? Where were you when God created life on this earth? Can you set the sun or moon in its orbit?
Yet you feel free to pronounce judgements on people that you’ve never met? Whom are you to presume such things? You better look at your own life, and take care of your own sins.
And the same goes for Bob Thiel. He thinks highly of himself, but he’s going to face a big surprise.
Dr S 09/02/2007 09:13 PM
Well said, Big Red!
There’re so many splinters, with so much to hide —
When we assess, they return and deride.
With AMR and Heather, with us their beef
Is that we choose not to hail to their chief.
That said, Big Red,
it’s time to go to sleep…
The comments show the nature of the web site, indeed all sites: topic X soon morphs to topic Y in the comment section. One post, in fact, had well over a hundred comments that were mostly about something entirely different. Still, there they are, the comments that still bring a smile when I consider them:
- your site certainly helped me when i transitioned out of the cog world a couple years ago
- Thanks for being instrumental in our exodus from an (x)CoG G.
- Thanks so much G. Your site played a very important role in helping me exit the cult, and in convincing me that suicide was not the best path.
You and Gavin[, author of a similar site,] literally saved my life.
All those hours of work for three comments? To help three people? One could of course make the argument that only three people replied but that perhaps many more felt the same way.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
Twenty-five years ago today there was a death that only a few thousand true believers and former true believers even remember, let alone know anything about. There are of course a few specialists — historians of religion and theologians — that would remember this man or know anything about it.
Herbert Armstrong died on January 19, 1986. He was the founder and leader of the church I grew up in, and his death came both as a shock and an expected consequence of age: he was 93 years old.
I remember his death; I remember his life; I find myself compelled to mention it. In that regard, I am hardly alone: there are dozens of bloggers writing about the same thing today. They’re rehearsing for the millionth time how he made false predictions (Armageddon was scheduled to begin during World War II, in 1972, and by 2005), how he lived in a palatial mansion and wore hand-tailored while his followers gave ridiculous amounts of their income (minimum of 10% of one’s gross salary plus offerings) to his church, how he was accused of some fairly awful things (which are certainly unprovable but highly suspect given the amount of circumstantial evidence).
Yet what strikes me about today — yet again — is how quickly time has passed since then, how insignificantly short twenty-five years can be.
This is most noticeable when thinking about music. I think of the music I grew up on, the music that was freshly released while I was in junior high and high school:
- Boston’s Third Stage
- U2’s Joshua Tree
- REM’s Green
- Pink Floyd’s Momentary Lapse of Reason
This is music that today’s teens consider “old music.” I think of how little time seems to have passed between the release of those albums and the present moment. It doesn’t feel like two and a half decades; the music doesn’t sound that old. And yet.
During high school, I was much more interested in “old” music myself:
- Genesis’s albums when Peter Gabriel was still fronting the band.
- The Grateful Dead
- Pink Floyd
- The Beatles
Now I stand in the same relationship to the music I grew up with as my teachers stood to Pink Floyd and the Beatles: twenty-plus years in the past (“It was twenty years ago today…”) yet feeling like yesterday (fill in the Beatles allusion for yourself).
And so I look back at the death of Herbert Armstrong realizing that it was an insignificant blink of time ago. Less than the flit of an eyelash in the grand scale of time. And not such a big chunk of time as twenty-five years seemed when I was thirteen and Armstrong died.
Behind the Scenes: The Wisconsin Shooting Tragedy
This is not the first time that someone associated with the ideology behind the Living Church of God committed such a vile act.
The Living Church of God (LCG) split from the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) in the mid-90’s over doctrinal differences. The founder of the WCG, Herbert Armstrong, died in 1986, and his successor, Joseph Tkach, began dismantling the doctrinal distinctives of the WCG. Those who wanted to remain faithful to Armstrong’s teachings left in droves in 1995, and one of the organizations formed was the Global Church of God (GCG), which eventually transmuted into the LCG, both led by Roderick Meredith.
Before Tkach made the drastic doctrinal changes, the WCG was a cult, pure and simple. Distinctive theological elements included
- Rejection of the Trinity.
- Observance of Jewish, Old Testament holy days.
- Rejection of “worldly holidays,” including Christmas and Easter.
- The teaching that the WCG alone was the true and undeceived church of God, and that all other Christians were merely “professing” Christians, deceived by (and ultimately worshiping) the devil.
- The belief that the United States and England are peopled by the descendants of the original Ten Tribes of Israel.
- The belief that Germany will rise again and defeat America in a nuclear World War Three.
The Living Church of God still holds to all these doctrines.
Precedent
Herbert Armstrong wrote his heretical theology up in many books and smaller booklets.
One of them was 1975 in Prophecy written in the 1950’s and predicting Jesus’ return in 1975.
The book had a violent effect on one Michael Dennis Rohan.
In an effort to hasten the building of the temple and resumption of Jewish cultic sacrifices in Jerusalem, Rohan set fire to the Al Aksa mosque in 1969. No one was killed, but there was significant material damage. The ripples of the attack continued through the years: fourteen years later, Hamas began a series of terrorist attacks scheduled to coincide with the Al Aksa attack.
Trying desperately to distance himself from the bad publicity the act generated, Herbert Armstrong responded by denying any connection between Rohan and his church:
Every effort, it seems, is being made to link us with it in a way to discredit the Work of God. The man, Rohan being held as the arsonist, the dispatches say, claims to be identified with us. This claim is TOTALLY FALSE. The first any of us at Pasadena ever heard of this man was when the press dispatches began coming over the Teletypes in our News Bureau. Checkups revealed that this man had sent in for and received a number of our Correspondence Course lessons. Last December he had sent in a subscription to The PLAIN TRUTH. But any claim to any further connection or association with us is an absolute lie.
Rohan claims he’d been in contact with a WCG minister, and that, combined with the fact that Rohan not only had subscription to the Plain Truth but also had received church literature, makes Rohan a “P.M.” – prospective member.
According to a Wikipedia article, Armstrong stopped claiming that a physical temple would have to be built
because at the time he was trying to establish a relationship with the government of Israel. He had previously developed a relationship with King Hussein of Jordan prior to the Six Day War and had actually signed a contract to go on the AM and shortwave [sic] Jordanian transmitters located in the West Bank with his daily radio program called The World Tomorrow. When Israel gained control of the West Bank it also voided Armstrong’s contract and as a result he then courted the favors of the government of Israel by becoming involved with such projects as the archeological digs in the area of the Temple Mount.
Practicalities won out over “God’s truth!”
Armstrong had a choice, it would seem, and in this case, continuing to preach “God’s truth!” as it had been “cried aloud” before would have been tantamount to Armstrong shooting himself in the theological/fiscal foot.
Unfortunately, Armstrong was not an idiot. He chose to tone it down.
Funny how “God’s truth” can be so self-defeating in some contexts.