Matching Tracksuits

I was skimming Malachi’s Message this morning and I came upon an interesting paradox in the Armstrongian worldview. It was when I read Flurry’s condemnation of the WCG’s contribution to flood victims:

Dr. Ward explained how the WCG is changing its views about giving to hurricane and other disaster funds. This goes deeper than just giving to disaster victims — who do need help. This is a changing of the Church’s commission established by Christ — through Mr. Armstrong. Instead of spending money to warn the people why disasters are happening, the WCG helps them financially. Soon the world is going to be literally flooded with disasters! God is going to bring it to pass as punishment. Tithes and offerings are going to be spent in vain if they continue this approach.¹

Of course such an attitude is not a surprise when one creates such an alterative universe as the PCG as done — they “nihiliate” all concerns outside their own world. But this points to something a little more interesting: the “commission” of God’s church is such that humanitarian aid is less important than warning the world. Warning the world of what, though? It’s fairly simple. Unless the United States and Britain repent and basically start following Armstrong’s philosophy and twisted theology, God destroy them in a nuclear holocaust that only God’s elect (read, “PCG members”) will escape. However, if they do repent, then God will spare them. However, it’s “prophesied” that all this will take place: the white Anglo-Saxons will eventually get their asses kicked by the whiter German Aryans.

So what’s the point of “warning the world” if it’s doomed to failure? I suppose the PCG answer is that God wants to call out a few people for training so that they can help God enforce his petty dietary laws and make sure racial segregation is the global norm. All of this creates an interesting paradox: Armstrongites are “desperately crying out” — “a voice cried out!” reeks of this last-minute, frenzied anxiety — wanting anyone who’ll listen to do so, and then change their ways. Yet they almost revel in the coming delight they’ll have in showing everyone that they were right: Armstrong’s Gnosticism was bang-on and everyone else will be groveling for forgiveness. I think deep down inside, Flurry and his minions (and all the other Armstrongites) are just dying for all hell to break loose, literally.

This leads to another interesting point: it’s amazing the amount of help Armstrong’s God needs. He needed help finishing up the creation of Earth — “putting the icing on the cake,” to use a favorite, worn-out Armstrong metaphor — and so he created angels. He will need help ruling over all these resurrected peoples in the World Tomorrow, so he’s calling out a few people now for training.

Finally, I noticed how Flurry almost always refers to HWA as “Mr. Armstrong.” I think in other theological writings people simply follow the scholarly standard and refer to people by their last name: “Armstrong taught . . .” and so on. But this doesn’t show the respect that Flurry and others always want to show Armstrong. He was not just a minister but also an Apostle, and the capital “A” is important. To refer to him simply as Armstrong would be wrong because a) it follows the worldly standard, and b) it separates him from his divine role. “Armstrong” is just a man; “Mr. Armstrong” is God’s Apostle.

1 Flurry, Gerald. Malachi’s Message to God’s Church Today. South Africa: Philadelphia Church of God, 1995. Page 95.

After finishing the two small booklets included in the PCG mailing, I began Mystery of the Ages. It’s been a truly enlightening experience. For one thing, I’ve learned a lot of Armstrongian theology that I wasn’t really aware of. For example, according to Armstrong, humanity was created to finish the job of “beautifying” the earth. (Of course, the ideal of this process are the Ambassador College campuses [140].)

God placed man here to restore the government of God on earth. Lucifer and his angels had been placed here originally. God put them here on an unfinished earth. Remember, God creates in dual stages. Like a woman baking a cake, she bakes first the body of the cake, but it is not finished until she puts on the icing. The substance and body of the earth had been created before the angels were placed here. But God intended for the angels to develop the surface of the earth, to beautify it and improve it. . . .

But Lucifer . . . rebelled. . . .

But still “the icing on the cake” had not been added. God placed man here to do that which the sinning angels had not done (137, 8).

This is a silly reason to create humans. It also seems to make humans little more than a backup plan. “What was God’s ultimate objective for the angels? Beyond question it is that which, now, because of angelic rebellion, has become the transcendent potential of humans” (70)! Armstrong’s angels screwed up, and so God had to create humans. This raises some questions. (One of these questions is a little silly, but I’ll point it out anyway: It makes me wonder about HWA’s materialism. Why? Because it seems a little stupid that he would consider an un-iced cake as unfinished. HWA was always fond of icing, whether the literal kind — I’m assmuing here based on this comment — or the figurative — in the form of all the gold leave and crystal in Ambassador auditorium. Another silly question is HWA’s view of women. He uses this analogy several times — to the point of sickening redundancy — and it’s always a woman baking a cake, as if that’s all she’s good for.) Armstrong often says that Christ’s sacrifice was planned from the “foundations of the earth” (142), but it’s unclear as to whether this was before or after the angelic rebellion. Was it all planned out beforehand, or did God have to alter plans when the angels rebelled? If the answer is the latter, then his criticism against mainstream Christianity can be leveled against him:

Much supposed “Christian” teaching has been that God created the first man a perfect immortal being, but that when God was not looking Satan stole in and wrecked this wonderful handiwork of God. Salvation is then pictured as God’s effort to repair the damage, and to restore mankind back to a condition as good as when God first created him (124).

Yet, since mankind was cut off from the possibility of access to God the Father because of Adam’s sin (128), it could be argued that Armstrong’s theology amounts to the same thing. Christ is to serve as the mediator between God the Father and humans, and this would have been the original state of humanity if indeed Jesus was the God of the Old Testament.

The angels, in turn, had been created to finish the job of creating. This is extremely anthropomorphic. Indeed, the whole second chapter, “The Mystery of Angels and Evil Spirits” abounds in this.

When God created the universe, the angels were supposed to be incredibly happy about this. The creation of the earth “was to provide a glorious opportunity for them. They were to work it, produce from it, and preserve and increase its beauty” (88). This begs the question of why spiritual angels would get any joy out of an eternity spent tending a physical earth. Yet it was more than this, for “whether or not it had been revealed to the angels, it was a supreme trail and test. It was to be the proving ground of obedience to God’s government and their fitness to develop into final finished creation the millions of other planets in the vast universe” (89). It seems that everything in Armstrongian theology is a test from God, despite the fact that God indicates that he does no such thing by saying he tempts no one.

The very reason for angel’s creation shows a weak God: Today, angels “continually walk through the earth to observe and report back to him the overall conditions on earth” (68). God in his omnipotence is not able to do this without the angels’ help, I suppose. He couldn’t even finish creation without them:

To aid them in the work of creating, governing and managing what was to be created, they first of all created other spirit beings on a lower plane than the God family. Angels were created to be ministers, agents, helpers in God’s creation. They were created as servants of the living God (61).

First, the “them” in the first line is God and Jesus, the “God family” which results in Armstrongian duotheism. And the whole passage makes me wonder about God’s omnipotence and omniscience. Couldn’t God handle these things alone? Indeed, why would God create angels? Even if we reject Armstrong’s theory, there seems to be little reason for it. It couldn’t be because he was lonely — that’s a human weakness. It couldn’t be out of boredom — again, a human characteristic. But we’re never really sure, I guess.

The anthropomorphic thought continues when he discusses Satan’s rebellion. Armstrong believes there really was a battle in heaven, as described in Revelation (92). Once he rebelled, Satan “used his subtile [sic] wiles of deception to lead the angels under him into disloyalty, rebellion and revolt against the Creator and finally into a war of aggression and violence to attempt to depose God and seize the throne of the universe” (91). How can spirits wage a violent war with each other? How can a spirit try to overthrow another? The whole imagry requires human form, but of course this is no problem for Armstrong, since God has a spiritual “body” (46, 7).

Finally, after the angels’ rebellion, “God saw that no beling less than God, in the God family, could be certainly relied on never to sin — to be like God — who cannot sin” (94). It seems that the whole angelic rebellion caught God unawares, and the fact that there was actually a “war” (according to Armstrong) backs this up. One can imagine a Milton-esque surprise attack, with the forces of good almost defeated by the initial surprise.

There’s an interesting discrepancy in the chapter entitled, “The Mystery of Civilization.” He writes, “Physically this perfectly created pair [Adam and Eve] had no chronic ailments or tendencies toward diseases or illnesses. This is testified in part by the fac thtat Adam lived to be 930 years old. And for nearly 2,000 year the human life span from Adam to Noah averaged close to 900 years. Think on it! The first man lived nearly one sixth of all the time from human creation until now” (145)! It’s not surprising that Armstrong holds to a literal interpretation of this passage, but it’s fairly interesting that he doesn’t notice the anomalies of such conjecture. If, indeed, Adam lived for such a long time, wouldn’t he probably have been a celebrity after a while? Wouldn’t everyone have thought, “Hey, let’s go see the first human ever!” Indeed, if the average life span was 900 years, there should be archeological evidence of this, references to people living for such a ridiculously long time.

This ridiculousness continues: “Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. When they were grown, perhaps till in their teens, Cain became envious and hostile against his brother Abel.” Cain of course murdered his brother and “God sentenced him to become a vagabond and a fugitive” (145). Continuing with the account in Genesis:

Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” But the LORD said to him, “Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him (4.13-15).

Now, Cain and Abel were the first born humans, and if this happened when they were only in their teens, where did these other people come from? I can imagine someone putting forth the argument that this dispute took place when Cain and Abel were a few hundred years old, allowing plenty of time for others to be born. Yet Armstrong’s conjecture that this happened when they were in their teens precludes this.

Another interesting outcome of taking it literally that people lived 900 years comes on the next page: “The Bible tells us little of human development prior to Noah, but after 1,500 to 1,600 years human civilization had become so evil that only one man, Noah, remained righteous” (146). This means that all this happened in two generations!

The last topic I’ll deal with is developed directly from the passage about Noah: racism. Armstrong writes that “There was rampant and universal interracial marriage — so exceedingly universal that Noah, only, was unblemished or perfect in his generations — his ancestry. He was of the original white strain” (147). Armstrong provides no Biblical documentation for this conjecture, but why does he have to? He’s the unquestioned leader, God’s called out apostle — no one would ever question this. He continues, “God does not reveal in the Bible the precise origin of the different races. It is evident that Adam and Eve were created white. God’s chosen nation Israel was white. Jesus was white” (148). Once again, no Biblical evidence — probably because it doesn’t exist, and I’m not sure he could twist any scriptures to indicate this.

It seems futile to deny that this is racism. Armstrong contends that “all [Noah’s] ancestry back to Adam was of the one strain, and undoubtedly that happened to be white — not that white is in any sense superior” (148). This seems a half-hearted attempt to avoid the label “racist,” but only an Armstrong apologist would fall for this, I fear.

It is, however, impossible, to deny that Armstrong would have been an advocate of segregation. He says as much in Mystery. “God originally set the bounds of national borders, intending nations to be separated to prevent interracial marriage” (148). He doesn’t use the word here, but he is speaking of segregation plainly. Later, he’s a little more explicit: “God intended to prevent interracial marriages. . . . God had set the bounds of the races, providing for geographical segregation, in peace and harmony but without discrimination” (151). One can only wonder what Armstrong must have thought of the attempts at integration and the civil rights movement in general. Not to disappoint us, Armstrong provides the answer himself: “God had intended geographical segregation, not integration of races” (154). I’ll bet one can find anti-civil rights articles in old issues of the Plain Truth. And I can’t help but wonder what people like the Cowards thought of this?

I received earlier this week — or perhaps it was late last week — a rather large package from the PCG. (Now that I think about it, it must have been last week.) In it were three books: The Little Book, South Africa in Prophecy, and Mystery of the Ages. I’ve read the first two — The Little Book took about half an hour because it’s only twenty some pages.

It’s really amazing how badly Flurry writes. I wonder if folks had much training in how to write at AC other than the use of small caps and italics. He just changes the subject in the middle of a paragraph, introducing something out of nowhere, then does nothing with it. Here’s a perfect example, right from the first paragraph:

Lange’s Commentary states that Revelation 10 and 11 are one vision. A close study reveals that to be true. The entire vision revolves around the little book. . . . The little book is sweet as honey, but bitter in the belly. It has to do with prophecy. . . . There should be no break between chapters 10 and 11. Revelation 11:1-2 discusses a split in God’s own end-time Church (1).

Perhaps not the best example of what I was discussing — I don’t really care to scour the book looking for an example. All the same, this choppiness is indicative of the book as a whole.

The passage in question reads, “I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, ‘Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, and count the worshipers there. But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months'” (NIV). Forty-two months is three and a half years. WCG has been “trampling” for more than three and a half years, I would argue.

Flurry argues that Mystery of the Ages cannot be the little book because “it covers a much more comprehensive subject than the little book” (3). Of course Flurry provides now basis as to how much subject material this little book is supposed to contain, and so it doesn’t follow that Mystery isn’t the little book. He continues, “Mystery of the Ages does not contain seven thunderous messages like a lion’s roar” (3, 4)! However, there are seven chapters in the book, and the definition of “thunderous” is entirely subjective. A minor point, really.

As might be expected, Flurry continues with his anthropomorphic descriptions of God. Writing about the initial revelation of the little book, he says,

The messages of this little book was first revealed 1900 years ago! However, IT WAS NOT WRITTEN UNTIL 1989! . . . If Mr. Armstrong had understood Malachi’s Message, WHICH IS THE LITTLE BOOK, he would have warned us about this Judas-type betrayal. Then God would not know by our fruits who truly loves Him and who doesn’t! God wouldn’t know who would follow Him and who would follow a man (4).

This is a blatant refutation of God’s omnipotence, but he resorts to the same un-Biblical reasoning as proof: “God gives us free moral agency and has chosen not to know our fate individually” (5). This makes almost no sense, as I’ve said before. Humans can choose not to know something, that’s certain. I can choose not to know who won yesterday’s basketball tournament simply by not asking around — by not seeking the information. How could this be possible with God, who is present in all time? All the same, I know to some degree what I’m choosing not to know: I know the nature of the subject matter I’m choosing not to know. I guess the same argument could be made about God. All the same, there seems to be no Biblical support for this idea.

The most interesting thing is that Flurry never proves that Malachi’s Message is this little book — at least not in the way one would expect it. He states it (4), then it’s assumed to be truth: “As we said before, the LITTLE BOOK IS MALACHI’S MESSAGE. And God commands us to “eat it up” (8). Perhaps he waits until the final pages to prove that the little book is Malachi’s Message. “The prophecies reveal that there is always a disturbing connection between an end-time Elijah and the Laodiceans. Do you know of any book on earth that teaches such a message in detail? No other book even comes remotely close. It is clearly Malachi’s Message” (15). If that is supposed to constitute proof, I must say it’s really quite unconvincing. Unless, I’m sure, you’ve already been conditioned to accept anything Flurry says without question.

This idea that there’s only one such book is repeated several times. “There is only one book on this planet that I am aware of that has a chapter — or thunder — about an “End-Time Joshua” (16), he declares, failing to realize that his proof rests on an interpretation of the Bible that he hasn’t proved to many people’s satisfaction. On the next pages, we find, “The PCG has the only book on this earth which proves Mr. Armstrong was the end-time Zerubbabel.” A few lines later, “I know of only one book that reveals this man in a great falling away from God’s truth” (17). At the end, he says, “There is only one little book on planet earth that reveals this greatest catastrophe in the end time” (20)! Once again, I’m not sure how the fact that Flurry is the only one saying such a thing contributes to its validity. “Gary Scott is God!” I’m the only one on earth saying that, but it doesn’t follow that it’s true.

He says in no uncertain terms that,

Malachi’s Message was revealed to me in 1989. GOD REVEALED IT! . . . Malachi’s Message is a new vision from God. It’s a NEW REVELATION — not something somebody already knew!

This new revelation is God’s way of saying that we must give the little book a special importance and the majesty it deserves. Only then can we properly respond to the great Work of God — much of which revolves around the little book (20, 21).

That’s some big claims he’s making for his own work. Of course, it came from God, so he’s really making the claims for God. (It makes me wonder once again, how many times has he read Malachi’s Message? Since it was revealed through him from God, I would think he’d read it many times — at least once a week or so!) He even seems to promote his own writing to a position above the Bible or even Armstrong’s writings: “Malachi’s Message is the centerpiece of God’s work” (22). An organization that says its Christian, yet has a book other than the Bible as its “centerpiece.” A strange situation indeed.

I also got South Africa in Prophecy, specifically because I wanted to see if there was much racism in the book. Not only is it a racist book, but it is also a work of a colonial apologist. Surprisingly, it’s not by Flurry, but instead, Ron Frasier — who wrote the piece on Australia in The Philadelphia Trumpet some time ago.

The thesis seems to be that God gave South Africa to the whites because of his promises to Abraham, and that in turn, the whites are giving it to their traditional enemies. It’s a little unclear who these traditional enemies are, though. One might assume that it’s simply the blacks — those who are “not called” — but there are several references to the ties of the ANC to communism (9, 15), playing on the fears of a Red South Africa. Considering the fact that Armstrong theology has always maintained that the real threat is not from the communist Soviet Union but from a revived Holy Roman Empire led by the Pope and German, this seems a strange change of tactic for the PCG.

Of course there is plenty of the racism I was looking for. (I seem to indict myself by saying that I was looking for it. “If you’re looking for something in a text, you’ll find it,” I’ve said to myself many times. Am I doing the same thing?) Fraser begins this racial diatribe from the beginning, with a startling statement:

A well-orchestrated campaign of disinformation, propaganda, and scurrilous slander has been waged against the South African nation by the combined forces of government officials (both within and without South Africa), the liberal press, leftist church authorities, and the United Nations. The catch phrase of all this as been apartheid — the policy of separate development pursued by the South African government since 1948. What escapes most commentators’ attention is the reality that the whole world has been hoodwinked by this disinformation campaign (4).

I read that and almost fell out of my chair. “He’s an apartheid apologist!” I muttered to myself in disbelief. “Separate development,” he calls it. In Plessy v Ferguson it was called “separate but equal.” In both cases, it resulted in a complete denial of basic human rights to a substantial (often majority) segment of the population based on race.

Fraser minces no words when he talks about race. Here’s a sample of various quotes which can be labeled “racist”:

“God lavished national blessings upon South Africa because a particular race was living within her borders” (23).

“Under British rule, South Africa reaped the blessings of God passed on from Abraham to Ephriam, promises inherited because of their race” (24).

“God showered His blessings on the nations of Israel by allowing the British, Dutch and French to conquer South Africa” (28).

“Land has special meaning for blacks” (36). (As if it doesn’t for whites.)

“It has to do with race, not grace” (52), quoting HWA (The United States and Britain in Prophecy, 1980 edition, 29).

It becomes quite clear that this is a book geared toward racism, but the extent of this ideology is not obvious until the end of the book: “One of the greatest unthruths thus perpetuated in society is that race has no bearing on the achievement levels of various ethnic groups that abound in the melting pot of the earth’s teeming billions of mankind” (52). While Fraser would undoubtedly argue that this is simply because God has blessed the descendants of Abraham, it smacks of the theories in The Bell Curve.

Not only is he a racist, but a colonial apologist: “Colonies formerly governed by a few sterling characters schooled in the administration of a global empire . . .” (49). When I read that to Chhavi, she said, “I have one thing to say to Mr. Fraser: ‘Fuck you.'” I share the sentiment.

One last quote from this most intriguing book: Fraser says that “As Mr. Flurry has written . . . the Russian mind seems to have a particular proclivity to creating, publishing and accepting lies” (17)! Of course, Flurry has lived in Russian long enough to become well-versed in the culture and language and has based this statement on careful sociological and psychological research. He’s not just saying this because the leader of the WCG is of Russian extraction . . .