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The
Painful Truth
10th Anniversary
1997 - 2007
Contempt
by Douglas Becker
The Painful Truth has upheld the rights of the
United States Constitution Bill of Rights by supporting freedom of
speech. In doing so, The Painful Truth has relieved the distress of
countless numbers of people suffering under the despotism of
contempt.
It isn't so much that oppression against victims
is a conscious choice as it is collateral damage.
At this point, The Painful Truth
has made it past
a decade, but there came a point in time when it nearly didn't: At
the turn of the year between the end of 2005 and the beginning of
2006, a cult spin off of the old Worldwide Church of God began
taking down websites in the United States with which the leader had
issues, merely by calling up and threatening web hosts. Those who
stood their ground won against those who would rob us all of our
freedom of speech. It was a real nightmare which could have ended
dissent against the evils of Armstrongism. The Painful Truth survived and prospered. The biggest personal benefit of
The Painful
Truth is to be found in a seemingly innocuous web page about
Herbert W.
Armstrong's Narcissistic Personality Disorder by William D.
Meyer which seemed irrelevant at the time but has had a tremendous
impact upon the epiphanies relating to understanding the cult
experience under Herbert Armstrong. Here is a review of the main
indicators of narcissism:
A
pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for
admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and
present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by
five (or more) of the following:
1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates
achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior
without commensurate achievements);
2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power,
brilliance, beauty, or ideal love;
3) believes that he or she is 'special' and unique and can only be
understood by, or should associated with, other special or high
status people (or institutions);
4) requires excessive admiration;
5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e. unreasonable expectations of
especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or
her expectations;
6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others
to achieve his or her own ends;
7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the
feelings and needs of others;
8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of
him or her;
9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.
Herbert Armstrong was a man who was the center of
his own Universe and found ways to engage people to be trapped into
it. He knew all the "hot buttons" of his target audience and
manipulated them for all he was worth. His goal was to be someone
"important" in the eyes of those he considered important in this
world. Many people make the mistake of believing that he was in it
for the money, but that is not the case: If he were interested in
money per se, he would have hoarded it. Instead, it was just a tool
for him to fulfill his lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and
particularly, the pride of life. He developed a giant cash machine
in order to gain the status of the elite he worshipped. Money was a
means to an end. The people of the Worldwide Church of God were a
means to get the money.
Herbert Armstrong never really cared about people
except for what they could give him in fulfilling his quest for the
perfect narcissistic source as a psychopath. He didn't actually set
out to destroy the lives of his victims -- they were merely
collateral damage. On the other hand, he had no empathy and no
conscience. It should also be noted that he was a serious alcoholic.
Alcoholics kill and usually the deaths which follow are not
deliberate but also collateral damage. Finally, he ruined lives of
many of those around him by his sexual deviancy. It wasn't that he
wanted to harm them, but again, he did collateral and very real
damage to them, all the while thinking he was doing them a favor
because he was personally being gratified. He had no view of the
impact of what he did upon people.
Herbert Armstrong was also extremely arrogant,
severing the relationships with family, friends and associates. He
was particularly aggressive about satisfying his lust for revenge
and several examples exist in his autobiography as he recounts
occasions in which he triumphed over those who opposed his views by
"making them eat their words". Things really did seem to work out
pretty well for Herbert Armstrong: As his divorce deposition showed,
he was a high school drop out. It is no wonder that he hated people
with advanced degrees and wanted revenge on those with degrees from
"Satan's Universities" of this world, especially those who had what
he considered Piled Higher deeper and degrees. He reveled in being the
Chancellor of a college, even if it were unaccredited. It was just
another satisfaction of revenge proving his narcissistic superiority
over others more qualified than himself. This fits in very well with
the first indicator for narcissism: "has a grandiose sense of
self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects
to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)". He
was a petty and vengeful man who was particularly dangerous to those
against whom he sought personal revenge when they had the audacity
to oppose him and his ideas.
Contempt followed his arrogance. He made the
statement in 1963 that he "could not find men of quality" to attend
Ambassador College. Finding "men of quality" was a tricky thing: He
needed an alpha male with abilities who would be aggressive on one
hand, smart, clever, shrewd, polished, and on the other hand, someone
who would become an absolutely submissive subservient hack. It would follow logically that if someone had the qualities
he sought of "quality", the man would be smart enough and aggressive
enough to take over Herbert Armstrong and his empire.
Herbert Armstrong used all the mind control tools
which have worked for millennia and which have worked for those who
have attempted to claim his legacy after he left: He made those few
"men of quality" doubt themselves by plying his own narcissism to
make them doubt themselves, thus firmly establishing himself as the
alpha male over them. Find a way to berate, belittle and dominate
them in a way they will be forced to accept. Get them to violate
their own conscience and "submit to authority". Certainly not God's
Authority. God was actually irrelevant in all this except as a
backdrop to gain what Herbert Armstrong lusted for most: Power over
other people.
It is amazing that Herbert Armstrong, a roly-poly,
morbidly obese short man, influenced his ministers to decry the
state of fat men--and particularly obese women--in their
congregations. The ministry was so warped in their perceptions that
they did not recognize the obvious cognitive dissonance.
Armstrong manipulated people into
compartmentalization wherein they would perform immoral, unethical
and illegal acts and live with their consciences. This was done
through the proposition that God was in charge and that God approved
the immoral, unethical and illegal acts--which a normal person would
reject out of hand. Evangelists under him supported his being "The
End Time Apostle", all the while knowing what he had been doing and
what he was knowingly allowing his son, Garner Ted Armstrong, to do.
Herbert Armstrong created a venue in which people were willing to
fall all over themselves in order to satisfy him and the rest of the
criminals at headquarters by tolerating lies, covering up, covering
up the cover up and making the whole thing unmentionable.
In all this, the information about what was going
on was virtually invisible to those inside the church. The
membership was cut off from reality. Ministers deliberately withheld
information, both out of loyalty and out of the realization that
they would lose their living if they revealed what was really going
on.
By 1972 though, the situation of the double
standard had become intolerable for some of those with conscience
and they rebelled and left in a block -- albeit a small block. The
real reason for the formation of the Associated Churches of God was
covered up and the usual inflammatory rhetoric turned propaganda was
churned out to do damage control. If more of the people really knew
what was going on, there would have been a truly "great falling
away" back in 1974.
Herbert Armstrong was as secular as any CEO of a
fortune fifty company back in those days. He used the "magic
lantern" of image making using those he had gathered to himself to
generate spin control. He lied and made up stories. At the same
time, he went on his final decade long quest for narcissistic
sources amongst the high and mighty of the world -- just before they
were deposed or died, as it often turned out. Even while he did
this, he showed contempt for the membership by castigating the
church and threatening to "start all over with my eight Japanese
sons" from the Japanese Diet. These men were simply paid to win
their favor and became quite irrelevant in subsequent years. He
selected among his new "friends" some of the most corrupt leaders on
earth during the time. While pretending to preach the simple gospel
of Jesus to these dictators, he gave them rubbish about the two
trees, sidestepping the issue of "repent or you will likewise
perish". In the Philippines, he bribed people to come to see him
with Ferdinand Marcos in front of 25,000 people. There was no love
lost for him and those of prominence would have dumped him in a
heartbeat if he had made any real attempt to preach the gospel. He
was a whoring lover who paid real tithe money to wine and dine his
paramours for a photo op to build his own ego. It was actually
embarrassing to watch Herbert standing with a check for $100,000 to
give to President Mubarak of Egypt while nattering on and on on-camera while the President was fairly salivating over the money he
was about to receive. And we all remember the Steuben Crystal. It's
like feeding the bears from your car in Yellowstone Park: It's fine
while you can still feed them. You can be sure that there would have
been trouble if Herbert Armstrong ran out of dough to cough up the
goodies for these people of prominence. For those still tapped into
Scripture, Ezekiel 16 is still one of the best pictures of what
Herbert Armstrong was all about.
Yet, in all this, while he had no shred of empathy for those who
supported him in his idolatrous "Work", he was ironically deemed a
loved father and grandfather figure. Herbert Armstrong cared not one
whit for others. Everyone in the church were just "dumb sheep",
irrelevant members to be sheared before being eaten. He never even
met most of the people who looked up to him in worshipful
attendance. There were only a few ways to gain his attention:
Provide significant amounts of money over a long period of time, be
amongst the elite of this world, be his personal narcissistic source
or be a dissident who exposed him for all he was worth. The world
was all about him. He was the center of the Universe.
Armstrong was a false prophet who signed "In Jesus Name" to
wrong-headed speculations based on his stolen version of the
thoroughly discredited British Israelism,. This arrogance is the
mark of a gluttonous blasphemous cult leader. This "man of faith"
had armed bodyguards with real guns and real bullets. He claimed to
trust in God, but after all was said and done, he trusted no one and
wasn't about to take a chance that God would protect him in his
idolatrous blasphemies and other misdeeds.
While he insisted that those little old widowed ladies who had
given up the money from the sale of their homes after their husbands
died not eat or drink on the day of atonement, he himself had a cup
of coffee and a donut to "keep up his strength". (Be it known that
there are those of us who have had occasion to have exchanges with
his personal chef.) Nor was Herbert Armstrong shy about eating out
in a restaurant on the Sabbath, either. The irony here is in the
adoption of Old Testament Laws while breaking them himself:
Ezra and Nehemiah would have had fits!
As it has been documented and even demonstrated in
his own Autobiography that Herbert Armstrong was lazy to the point
of being belittled by manual labor as bringing shame upon him when
he did it, the picture is fairly complete. Herbert Armstrong was a
lazy narcissistic alcoholic drunkard and glutton who was belligerent
about repenting about his evil ways. He was strident in his
obsessive compulsive behavior to acquire nice things, such as a
silver stand with gold inlay of the signs of the zodiac. He bought
750 crystal goblets at $250 a pop. He spent $68,000 in one day at
Harrod's of London for table settings for the rich and famous in the
manic phase of his monopolar hypomania.
For the most part, Herbert Armstrong lived the
high life -- in more senses of the phrase than just one --
unimpeded. There were troubles in paradise: The 1972 / 1974 debacle,
admissions to exactly the wrong person who ended up writing about
his incest, the Ambassador Report, the lawsuit, the heart attack,
the receivership. In all of this, he kept his head up high and was
not afraid of the storm, except for the time that he fled to
Arizona, of course, to escape facing legal consequences. Then there
was the $5 million divorce from Ramona -- which, brethren, we all
paid for.
Herbert Armstrong was a piece of work.
Herbert Armstrong was not a people person.
The impact of Armstrongism on people is complex.
People started out with the innocent naivety of a belief that they
have finally found something "right" in their lives. A good part of
it for many is that they also want to prove everybody else wrong.
The Worldwide Church of God was built on conspiracy theories and
conspiracy theory nuts were often attracted to the destruction,
doom, devastation theories of British Israelism designed to appeal
to the analytical with schizophrenia and bipolar disease as a ready
made market. The venue also seemed to attract a disproportionate
number of alcoholics. Many began with sincerity only to find over
time that things just didn't feel right: It was like an indefinable
itch which Armstrongism seemed to satisfy but was, in reality, the
cause. The biggest part of unmet needs of people was in the area of
emotions and feelings. Cult converts were to subsume their emotional
existence in favor of worshiping the man and his machine -- without
feelings and emotions -- only with mental discipline and logic
devoid of humanity. To live in such an existence creates a
tremendous vacuum resulting in unmitigated stress. One was expected
to leave all -- including the family -- in order to live an austere
life of sacrifice to serve an impersonal work in unthinking
idolatry.
-
At one point, people were prevented by
doctrine to go to doctors for treatment for the diseases they
developed from the stresses of satisfying a robotic unemotional
machine system.
-
Children were vulnerable to the sermons of
demons, death, disease, destruction, devastation, and in their
adult lives have nightmares about the Great Tribulation and
being cast into the Lake of Fire.
-
Some who never drank suffered the emotional
trauma of becoming fully blown practicing alcoholics.
-
Many were publicly humiliated by insufferable
ministers in front of the congregations and Spokesman Clubs
without one shred of sensitivity from the minister while having
to bear insults with "a good attitude".
-
Bad advice was dispensed freely from "instant
wisdom" which resulted in unmitigated tragedies later.
-
Members were not to grieve over the departure
of grown children: They made their choice -- they will be in the
Third Resurrection of the Lake of Fire.
-
No one was to grieve over loved ones at a
funeral: For the WCG it was name, rank and serial number and
then on to the preaching of unwanted gospel for the
"unconverted".
-
For loved ones who died outside of the church:
Let the dead bury their dead; we can't be bothered unless we can
preach our brand of dead works gospel at the funeral.
-
Herbert Armstrong actively discouraged his
followers from getting involved in loving and serving their
neighbor, since this world was Satan's world and would only be
set right when Christ comes back -- often creating a vacuum with
neighbors -- and certainly violating Scripture.
-
People were encouraged to separate themselves
from family, so they didn't even have as many occasions to
practice ordinary kindnesses towards their nearest kin --
alienating them -- and violating the very words of Jesus.
-
People "of color", particularly "Negroes",
were treated as Gentile second class citizens by Herbert
Armstrong and subjected to racism and were forbidden to
intermarry with Caucasians -- or even to date them.
-
Draft eligible young men in the church were
required to be Conscientious Objectors, but the ministers,
administrators and employers of the church not only treated them
with utter contempt, but persecuted them as being treasonous --
alienating them and damaging them as marked men.
-
Many suffered marriages which objectively
could end in no other way than divorce because of the church.
-
In later years, the wives of ministers and
former ministers often died from cancer at a rate far above the
average because of the strain they were under to submit to a
system which just plain feels all wrong.
It is a supreme irony that a cult religion which
supposedly brings people to God for salvation has ended up producing
a disproportionate percentage of atheists, agnostics and skeptics.
Herbert Armstrong was the maven of The Master
Course in betrayal.
We can learn a lot from exploring the personality
of Herbert Armstrong and his methods: Mostly we can learn never to
get involved with men of such ilk and to avoid them like the plague.
Nevertheless, even with the Ambassador Report,
most people may have suffered on with the Worldwide Church of God if
it weren't for the advent of the Internet and the subsequent
founding of The Painful Truth. When the Internet appeared, ministers
tried what they always try: To silence the dissidents. The
methodology is always the same:
1) Arguing: "Things are OK as they are";
2) Listening but not hearing: "You should write
that up as a study and submit it to the council of elders so we can
take it under advisement";
3) Laughing it off: "They're just rebels" / "99%
of everything on the Internet is lies";
4) Ignoring: "We've heard this all before";
5) Making Invisible: "If it were true, don't you
think everyone would know?";
6) Forbidding: "You will be thrown into the Lake
of Fire" / "We will disfellowship you if you reveal that";
7) Getting Rid of the Dissenter: "We don't have a
place for you in the church any more".
This only works if very few people know about it,
but it becomes quite problematic when a fair sized majority starts
getting the message and realize that they've been had. People may
accept lies at first, but when they find out they've been lied to,
they first become apathetic when they realize they probably can't do
anything about it. After awhile, when people realize they might just
have a chance, they rebel. After the door is opened, there is no
turning back.
Herbert Armstrong built his life on unwarranted
assumptions that things would work out for him. Many things did work
out for him only because he could get the money he needed to cover
bad mistakes by sending out coworker letters to fill his coffers.
Unfortunately, people came to rely on the assumptions they learned
from Herbert Armstrong and they did not have the excess resources to
fix the chaos produced by the assumptions. Herbert Armstrong did not
have high foresight. He did not have to look ahead. He was careless
about his future because he had the ability to rely on resources
being there to support himself. Herbert Armstrong told the
congregation: "Prepare to lower your standard of living". He never
set the example and went right on with his materialistic hedonism.
Tragically, too many people relied on Herbert
Armstrong prophecies and gave all their money to "The Work" in the
early Seventies. The high school dropout convinced people that it
was "the gun lap" of "the Work" and it would all be over soon.
Letters were sent out telling people that they should sell or
mortgage their homes to send money to headquarters because "it would
all be over soon". People responded because they thought they would
be taken to a place of safety and would never have to pay the bills.
Ironically, at the same time, Herbert Armstrong drummed up money for
a building program to bring Ambassador College into a new age and
build "A House for God". No one seemed to realize that the two
perspectives were at odds with each other: If the Work is going to
be over, just why is it necessary to build more on to Ambassador
College when it would be desolate by the time the buildings were
finished. Far too many people ended up in financial dire straights
as a result and some never actually recovered. Herbert Armstrong
lied, but that should have come as no surprise, since he was a false
prophet. Herbert Armstrong conned people to sacrifice their future
so he could have a present.
Those members who were not prudent, basing their
lives on his example, did not fare well because they couldn't fix
the things in their lives broken by the assumptions they made
following the example of Herbert Armstrong. One quick example to
think about: Retirement.
Unfortunately, today we have a situation where
those trained in the ways of Herbert Armstrong have hung out their
own shingle and when it was once monolithic, there are now about
1,000 spit-offs which vary in the intensity of their contempt for
both the people who follow the leaders of the sub cults, but also
the contempt that the sub cults have for one another as many of them
have declared open war on each other. Herbert Armstrong spawned a
very wicked and evil thing in his narcissism which has now been
copied and emulated far too many times and often too effectively.
His one thousand bastard pastors have built on who
and what Herbert Armstrong was. Armstrong is the foundation (mental
illness) that others continue to build on. However, the focus is now
on these bastard pastors who use Armstrongism as the faulty
foundation. These "churches" are built on sand. The membership still
provides the narcissistic source that is needed for the
gratification of the "leader." This support (attention and financial
bleeding) is maintenance of the leader. The leader must always feel
good about himself. The need is to stand out among anyone else -- to
be honored, worshiped, to die a legend in their own twisted and sick
minds! The sad thing is, all this could come to an end if the
membership would take the time to try and understand what is being
said here. A few will. Many will not. The ability for reasoning can
never take place as long as the membership is under the mind control
of the guru. Some people know of no other way: It is called the
slave mentality.
How did Herbert Armstrong get to where he had
gotten? He was a high school dropout who never finished eighth
grade: Shouldn't college graduates with advanced degrees be able to
see right through the sham?
College graduates with advanced degrees and chess
champions alike fell prey to Herbert Armstrong. Half the time, the
Radio Church of God didn't even advertise itself as a religion at
all. It was Ambassador College, sponsor of the World Tomorrow radio
program, heard and seen in all of the 100 top media markets in the
United States. And if one did bother to scratch the veneer of that,
all the church on the surface claims to be is a Worldwide ecumenical
organization, one with rather typical Christian trappings at that.
By the time it became the Worldwide Church of God, it was a pat act,
an industry, with a radio program (daily in some places), Television
program, a college, several magazines, numerous books and a formal,
if weird, network of congregations. It even seemed pretty
establishment to those who took an objective look at it. In the
1950s and early 1960s, no one was jumping up and down about "cults"
as yet. In fact a sort of weird tolerance for all things religious
had taken hold in the United States in the aftermath of World War
II.
How were even well educated people supposed to
know that they were walking into a cult: A "cult" with a network
radio program? No. It's on the radio. They have a college and stuff
and have men of science who have figured all of this stuff out for
us.
In short, it was hardly just Armstrong one had to see through. It
was a lot of establishment trappings.
For those who were teenagers just coming into the
first realizations of adulthood, particularly those following an
older sibling or another admired family member into the cult, it was
two strikes. The number one cause of cult membership, at least as
far as Armstrongism is concerned, is family tie in. (This is true of
most churches.) Teens weren't old enough to know better and a family
member was involved. For bonus points, the church has a well honed
industry going by the time most of the teenagers showed up.
It was also the case that Armstrongism tended to
alienate prospective members from their families, as most cults do.
The unconverted family members were "unbelievers" who "can not
understand spiritual things" because they "have a carnal mind at
enmity with God". Never mind, "Honor your father and mother that
your days be long upon the earth": You are not breaking the Fifth
Commandment because the church is your mother and Herbert Armstrong
is your father. Many teens became headstrong because of Armstrong
when their parents openly warned them about Herbert Armstrong and
would not listen.
The truth is Herbert Armstrong honed his skills
first in the advertising business with business connections in ad
copy writing. Although it was period pieces he wrote which would
seem quaint today, back then in the thirties, it was a big deal.
With this background, Herbert Armstrong made the
transition to conning farmers. Farmers are a practical lot and have
a lot to lose if they get conned, but Herbert Armstrong was a
chameleon-like predator who knew how to adapt to them. Once he
gained the farmers' trust, they backed him all the way. They backed
him, that is, until he abandoned them, took their money and
established a broader support system through radio.
After that, he attracted a motley skeleton crew to
found a college to build a foundation to support an infrastructure
with which he was familiar: Corporate Business. Once that was
established, the Church Corporate people lost to Armstrongism
because the odds were not in their favor as the Church Corporate
began churning out religious entertainment of the prophetic sort
disguised as a news program: It was all so very reasonable sounding
and appealing to a particular segment of the population as a ready
made audience to lap up the scrap.
Religious folk, even those conversant with
Scripture, seemed to have missed the fact that the Bible --
particularly the Old Testament -- was Israel centric. The story of
the children of Abraham includes the struggle of antagonism of
Ishmael and Esau as the Arab peoples against the children of Isaac.
The Book of Jasher gives a chilling account of Ishmael directing his
bow and arrow against young Isaac at the tent door. It was only
because of Sarah that the young child, Isaac, was spared from death.
This blood feud described throughout the Bible has culminated in the
Arab threats against the modern Israelis. Even the New Testament
speaks of the Spiritual children of Abraham. Jesus is said to have
said, "My kingdom is not of this world". Yet it is, that Herbert
Armstrong diverted the attention of the people joining the Worldwide
Church of God from what Scriptures taught by teaching not about the
struggle between the Arabs and the Jews, but of Americans and Brits
against Germany from a derived fantasy stolen from J. H. Allen. The
cult leader always creates a captive audience, corralled by smoke
and mirrors generating illusions of truth which is invented to
control and manipulate the narcissistic source and the source of
revenue. British Israelism not only is thoroughly discredited, it is
also the source of the false prophecies upon which the simple hung
with rapt attention, not realizing how unscriptural the proposition
really was.
Herbert Armstrong was high maintenance: He got
people to focus on him. He founded a religion in which he was the
center -- not God, not Jesus Christ -- but him. In Christian
circles, this is called idolatry; in other circles it is called
narcissism. He got people to turn off their radar to his con games
-- the result was that he got people to adopt his antiquated
antediluvian opinions as doctrines. His arrogance was that he was
always right and if you did not agree with him, you would go into
the Lake of Fire. He dominated everyone and everything within his
venue in his arrogance and his arrogance was the source of his
contempt: He was the only game in town and there was no place to go.
A thousand others attempted to do the same thing
after his death: Each little spit off putting up its own shingle,
claiming to be the absolute truth but having nothing really
different to say, until the protesting daughters with all their
outrageous claims fuzzed out into some sort of entropic sameness.
The people continued in their idolatry to put men first in these
little groups that don't amount to a hill of beans and suffer the
consequences. Most of the leaders have gone off into strange
weirdness claiming to be such things as Jesus Christ literally in
the flesh, the End Time Apostle and such, having the secrets of the
Universe and having nothing but disdain and contempt for their rival
groups who teach about the same thing: Without a scorecard and a
name on the door, no one can tell the difference. They are pathetic
in their contempt, attempting to recapture the glories of the
Armstrong Empire and dominate the world, but never achieve so much
as a blip on the radar because they can never recapture the glories
of the past. The world has changed, they don't have the resources
and they don't understand how they could ever pull it off. The sub
cults are pathetic and the leaders have little else but the hope of
maintaining their salary and finding a way to survive retirement. No
one really needs them any more. Perhaps no one ever did. They are
irrelevant.
Humans are akin to gods in their own right: They
explore, create, develop, grow. Curiosity and a burning desire to do
the right thing make humanity remarkable. The ability to
collaborate, form consensus, expand communication across nations and
peoples. People find solutions. The world can be transformed.
It is the self-styled guru which often stands in
the way of breaking barriers to achieve good works.
Was Herbert Armstrong successful? If living an
hedonistic lifestyle of the elite were his goal, he certainly
succeeded beyond the normal dreams of avarice. If influencing people
to bend to his ideas were the goal, he failed miserably. People
sitting next to each other for 30 years, believing that they
believed the same thing, were shown to be definitively divided after
the death of Herbert Armstrong. Only about 20% of those who were a
part of the Worldwide Church of God in its heyday of the Seventies
retained even a semblance of the eschatology of Herbert Armstrong.
Herbert Armstrong was a visionary who
had little or no capacity for real planning: He let life go his way,
following his vision. His lack of foresight created chaos. As in his
lifetime, in his death, he left it to others to clean up the mess he
created. Herbert Armstrong was proud to be "an idea man". After what
has been said and done though, most of his ideas have died with him,
but even a few years after his death, the illusion of the con was
continuing to be blessed and prospered.
It was only later that critics began popping up to
expose the con for what it was.
It really began with what someone called
The
Painful Truth as "the Granddaddy of them all". People began
contributing a decade ago and have not stopped. A forum was opened
up and the flood of information came in a deluge. From that time,
other forums, websites and blogs have been established. There are
few people of any prominence anywhere who get away with much of
anything any more. The high maintenance elite have taken major hits.
As we contemplate our experiences and work to find
some meaning to them, it is important to recognize that without the
defense of the freedom of expression which all cult leaders want to
destroy, we would probably still be captives to slavery in a cult
religion.
It would be all so much more simple if everyone
could understand that what we suffered was not a religious
experience, but merely an encounter with yet another psychopath.
Once you know their trick, they are all boringly the same down to
the detail level.
Let us go forward to learn the lessons of the past
and to build on them as we celebrate the freedom of speech and
information and its significance.
--9/02/2007
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