(For the record, AW regards British
Israelism in any form as irredeemably fallacious, totally discredited, and
intellectually indefensible.)
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(For the record, AW regards British
Israelism in any form as irredeemably fallacious, totally discredited, and
intellectually indefensible.)
|
|
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Answers in the form of a questionby Douglas Becker If you were in the Radio Church of God, you probably asked yourself two questions from time to time:
These may not have been conscious questions, but you probably were thinking these in the back of your mind somewhere along the way. These questions are not restricted to the Radio Church of God; they are questions which every member of the Worldwide Church of God would have been asking for decades. And if you happened to be in any of the Churches of God, springing from the same well, you must have asked those questions. In the Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine, Dr. Stanley Schmidt wrote an editorial, "Useful Illusions & Deadly Faith" in which he argued that religions consist of two parts: Cosmology and Morals; and that the two can be separated--that a religion can be wrong about the cosmology of how the Universe was created, but still have effective morals which are useful to society. But, he adds:
He posits this idea later:
Dr. Schmidt concludes:
This is remarkable: I have been a reader, oft subscriber and very occasional advertiser in the pages of Analog for over 40 years, and this is the very first time in memory that anything vaguely associated with the Churches of God has appeared in the magazine. Moreover, Dr. Stanley Schmidt is an educated and brilliant scientist with a doctorate, is accomplished in his field [plays for an orchestra from time to time], and does a mighty fine job editing what may be arguably the largest and most successful science fiction / science fact magazine in the world; Dr. Schmidt is widely regarded by his peers and his readers. I find myself agreeing with his editorials most of the time, but at no time should his perspectives be ignored--they are presented logically and with great thought behind them. The venue in which Gerald Flurry's magazine is mentioned should be quite unsettling, contributing a great deal of introspection given to those two important questions:
The anti-science of the Churches of God certainly doesn't work in the real world; how did the anti-science sentiment in the Churches of God become so rooted in the body of belief of the Churches? Can or should the cosmology of the Churches of God be reconciled with the moral and ethical positions of the Churches? These matters will be explored over a series of articles as well as other disturbing questions such as rape, abuse and neglect, mental illness, alcoholism and psychopaths in the Churches. In all of this, we shall attempt to continually address the two questions:
This series of articles is from a technologist's point of view, and that may take some explaining. There are at least three kinds of people for our purposes here:
In a so-called 'classless society', these are the three classes, relevant for our discussions here, because this is one way to look at the hierarchy of the Churches of God. In reality, there seems to have been a 'distinction of classes', with the abstract thinkers at the top, and the technologists and scientists at the bottom, with the people who were doing the work of "waiting on tables" somewhere in the middle-- toward the bottom--of the food chain. The trivialization of the technologist would seem to be a very important consideration in regard to the establishment and structure of the Radio Church of God and the Worldwide Church of God and this will be explored in depth as we go along, particularly when you consider that the technologist--in many cases--would be the one to "withstand the madness of the prophet", but completely disregarded as one bringing "science, falsely so called". Let us also make a distinction that we will discard the cosmology portion of the religion of the Church of God, but we will make the assumption that the Bible is an accurate depiction of the moral standards of the churches; after all, archeology has mostly supported Scriptural history to the level of minutia up to this point, but more importantly, we can use Scripture to evaluate the ministry and leadership by a standard by which they claim to abide: This is a valuable tool for our purposes to "by your own words shall ye be judged" so the moral standards of the Bible itself will be assumed--so let us lay aside any prejudices about the Bible and theology per se for our purposes here and embrace Scripture as a basis of discussion; after all, to fully understand Western Civilization, one must have a good basis understanding the foundation of the Bible, for it is the basis of our Judeo-Christian Society. Moreover, we will make every attempt to use what the people themselves say about themselves and what they claim to believe to ascertain whether or not they live up to their own standards--not that we won't "paint the tomato on the windowsill", as has been used as an aphorism in the "Bible Story for Children". We should not assume that there aren't good ministers in the Churches of God and there will be some most excellent examples of a few people doing things right, mostly to contrast against what some have come to accept as the norm. Thus we begin our journey from the real world to one of abstraction and mysticism, every bit the flawed cosmology, described by Dr. Stanley Schmidt. So stay tuned, for you should find this all very entertaining. Lies, secrets and cover-upsNo reasonable person can research the Churches of God at any depth for very long without discovering the penchant for lies, secrets and cover-ups. While the Churches of God have always claimed to be separate and apart from the ways of this world, rejecting the corporate lust for the filthy lucre mammon of this world and coming out of the Babylon the Great of petty power politics, even a cursory examination of what goes on and what has gone on behind the scenes reveals,
The reality is that there is conspiratorial self-interest being plied in smoke-filled back rooms where deals and compromises are being made without any regard to the impact upon "the sheep", or more accurately, the peons. And why not? After all, Church is just business--and big business at that. Herbert Armstrong claimed to have begun his career as a businessman--more specifically, an advertising man; therefore we should examine the Church of God as a business as it evolved. How well has the Church of God followed the philosophical model of business? In his book, "The Management Trap", Dr. Chris Argyris, Professor Emeritus of the Harvard School of Business Communications, outlines the framework and processes to create "successful failure" and "successful incompetence":
The framework and processes are scalable and extensible from any two people to the entire world to create--a process not lost on Corporate America. The point that Dr. Argyris is trying to make is that modern business lies to itself and everybody else and doesn't "have a real good method" for dealing with the truth. There are business deals in smoke-filled back rooms--a practice which produces a stink that still clings to them. Is that sulphur and brimstone we smell? It works like this: Today's modern business is based on the Ancient Babylon and Roman hierarchical models, most effectively practiced in Hitler's Third Reich, but has succeeded at the level of the Soviet Union, replete with their own "five year plans", comrade. A reading of "The Management Trap" and another fine management book on ethics, "Moral Mazes" by Robert Jackall, shows precisely the practices of modern business: People are objectified, including the CEO, Chairman, President; people, processes, principles are all abstracted; and the leadership, by necessity, is narcissistic; since narcissism is a mental disorder, this means that pretty much, all management above front line management and supervisors at the lowest levels, is insane. Many of you are already 'way ahead of me: You must have the suspicion that the Churches of God have inadvertently and unconsciously fallen into this familiar belief system; the Radio Church of God began the pattern of "Authority from the top down" in a rigid locked-down hierarchical structure of 'governance' based on the governmental structure of Ancient Babylon and Rome--justified by the advice of Moses' father-in-law. And then, of all things, the ministry quotes "come out of her, ye my people, that you not be partaker of her plagues". Plagues of modern business? Surely, you must be joking?! It is this double standard which is probably at the root of success that Herbert Armstrong has enjoyed of turning so very many truly innocent, wide-eyed believers into atheists and agnostics and leaving the rest in chaos and confusion. With apologies in advance to those understandably atheists and agnostics, I will recount here the Ten Commandments, not just because the Bible is pretty much the foundation of Western Civilization [as could be noted from Dr. Stanley Schmidt's analysis above as being useful to hold society together], not because it is the keystone of the Faith of Scriptures, but because we will want to have them handy as a measurement as to well the leadership and ministry of the Churches of God had done in their 'Great Commission' to turn the hearts of the Children to their Father God's way of thinking; we will use short form:
Now we all know that nobody is perfect, but we have some expectation that people who are in the ministry and are our religious leaders, while they may fail from time to time, and they may break the law spiritually in its intent occasionally, live to the same standard their church attendees do, and don't go out and actively break the Ten Commandments in the physical sense; no, we sort of expect that a minister and leader in the church will have the minimum qualifications of I Timothy 3:1-13, which include:
Without any prompting, some of you have been keeping count with a mental list of your own, pruning the ministry and leadership as you went down the list. The question is, how many, in your own mind, are left? Wouldn't you be much more comfortable if it turned out that your minister and your leaders had not gaily and cheerfully, but secretly, been violating the Ten Commandments and actually had some of the qualifications of elders and deacons? We get back to our two questions:
For we have well-documented examples of things like murder, incest and rape, brawling, spousal abuse, theft, homosexuality, openly dishonoring your parents in front of the congregation for years and years and years from the pulpit, children of the ministers disrupting church services, slander, openly and in front of the congregation revelation of people's sins told in confidence in private during counseling, having a terrible reputation, alcoholism, idolatry by putting oneself above God and the Ten Commandments and having people bow down before them in fear with tears, lying, and having a clinical mental disorder or two. Moreover, we have continuing reports that this is being covered up and being made undiscussible. Most of us have come to expect this sort of behavior from corporate executives and governmental leaders, but have had an expectation that those who were converted by the Holy Spirit, of a sound mind, having spiritual gifts and having some measure of self-restraint, being made our ministers and leaders in the church; we have the expectation that those dedicated to God would live by a different standard, and not by the standards of Satan, the Devil, for their own self-preservation, survival and selfish gain. We do not make accusations, we simply note what has already been established in the testimony of two, three, a thousand or several million witnesses [the last one thanks to video tape and modern investigative reporting]. We are not their judges: We shall let them judge themselves by their own words and the standards they say they have adopted for themselves. We hope that what is disclosed here will be sufficient incentive as an agent of change. One thing the Churches of God have always been good at is creating fantasy--whether it be "colorful speculation" of sermons, occasionally creative accounting, management and administrative processes, prophecies, revisionist history, attendance figures [particularly at Festivals], money income, the triumphs of the Church, the Nature of God, doctrine, enemies of the Church, people's sins or the righteousness and personal history of selected ministers and leaders--even the most staunchly unmoved person must admire how good they are at it: It takes an active imagination and leaps of creativity to create perceptions of God and the Devil, good and evil, life and death on such a broadly universal scale. More often than not, these fantasies are created by very carefully selecting facts to support the perspectives posited and to lead people away from anything which cause thinking persons to discount the fantasies: This is facetiously known as Fanagle's Law which states, "Draw the curve and pick the points to match", which means that you carefully draw you fantasies and "Fanagle" the facts into place to fit your theories. This is something typically done by large multinational corporations which declare, "Perception is reality", pushing public relations to their theoretical limits; the Churches of God have done this for decades, and, as Joseph Tkach, Senior said, "If you use the World's methods, you will achieve the World's results," [probably ghostwritten by Herman Hoeh], achieving spectacular success in terms of the mammon of this world, fame, prestige and power; they have indeed reaped what modern corporations have sown, mostly by following the same processes, for we know that if you follow the same processes under the same circumstances, you will achieve the same results. The Universe is filled with processes, and they work, if you can figure out how to employ them; Scripture is filled with processes and the godly are expected to follow them to achieve desired results; the unfortunate thing is that to insure "the same circumstances" can be a tricky thing, particularly when people are involved--so the PR folk employ manipulation to insure that the mindset being influenced is in the same state which has worked for previously successful processes; using processes for business, finance, projects, is simply good business; unfortunately, scoundrels often cut corners to achieve the desired results and somewhere along the line, the Devil must take his Due; the Universe itself usually requires a tithe in entropy; there is no free lunch and someone, somewhere, must pay because for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The Churches of God typically hate science, and, for example, at the Feast of Tabernacles in Bend, Oregon, 2002, a minister gave a sermon on how science is the number one God of our time; I talked to him afterward, and he admitted that the real number one god of today in this world was ego, but you can understand how people having only abstract thinking at their disposal would hate science, particularly when it might impinge on their pet theories about Cosmology and interfere with the creation of their particular fantasy; this peculiar hatred of reality extends to the Internet, where just a scant decade or so ago, ministers were still saying, [and I quote] "The Internet is 100% lies," the strange part of this being that, very quickly, they put up their own web sites to preach the gospel according to them, so we suspect that the Internet dropped to 99% lies. Most of the created fantasy is produced from a sincere and deep belief in the ideas and doctrines held by the Churches of God [although there are a few who deliberately lie, and we will cover that later]; some of it is factual, some of it delusional, some of it denial, but all of it, in some way, is connected to survival instincts: As beliefs extend the senses, so the extended senses including those beliefs become a mechanism for survival--and beliefs in doctrines involve eternal survival! That is why it is so hard to change belief systems, because to do so is to interfere with a person's perceived capacity for survival. This becomes particularly pernicious when it involves an entire body of doctrine of a Church of God: To threaten the doctrines is the same as attacking the Church and is by implication a direct attack on the God in whom they have the True Faith. Those "Inconvenient little truths" that pop up are quickly pounded into submission and killed off when they do not support the fantasies perpetuated by various ministers, attendees, writers, speakers and administrators of the Churches of God: It is survival. There is another, similar, and related modern management method employed today, which has been with the Churches of God from the very beginning; it is a process aptly described by Dr. Chris Argeris in "The Management Trap" which we iterate here again:
This process is employed in modern corporations to suppress the truth, because CEOs, Chairpersons of the Board, Presidents, Vice Presidents and Directors do not want to hear or read anything unpleasant about their business--primarily because bad news is bad business for their own personal survival: Witness what has already happened with Enron, Global Crossings, Arthur Andersen illustrate this reality that people want fantasy rather than "inconvenient little truths". One only need look to the situation with Garner Ted Armstrong in the 1970s to witness the cover ups--"inconvenient little truths" which would discredit the entire Worldwide Church of God, and hence, threaten its survival; instead, we were all subjected to the colorful fantasies [you can also use the word "lies" if you want], now called colorful speculations about how GTA was described in the Old Testament as the priest with "filthy garments" who would be cleansed and restored to his potential position of being one of the two witnesses. If that isn't a good example of the preceding, it's not clear what would be. Today, we have all kinds of fantasies about how the Pasadena Campus is going to be sold, or not, and how the God's Temple... er... the Auditorium is going to be subject to the wrecking ball; we are treated to the news that a minister's credentials have been revoked, and for good cause, too--whatever that cause would be--but that it would do no good to go into the details [thus, making the cover up undiscussible]. Months before the President of one of the Churches was replaced, the to be new President admitted to people in Pasadena in December that he was already looking for a place to live in city where the home office was located; apparently he already knew he was going to be voted in as a the new President--but it wasn't until March or April of the next year that he was elected--all quietly done without anyone outside a small cadre knowing what was already ordained, if you will pardon the pun. Part of the issues revolved around the Church in question coming to the point that it was within one month or so of being completely bankrupt--a point not lost on the businessmen attending that Church, but quietly, secretly, the Church put together a plan to keep operating, the crisis was averted, and none of the sheep ever had to be disturbed with the details. There has been all kinds of different cover ups, and many of them are not classifiable; often, the churches can be viewed as one of those pretty hot air balloons with the red, green, blue, yellow canvas strips filled with hot air supporting the gondola; the packaging is attractive, and while the WCG had all that money, Ambassador College was absolutely beautiful, winning all kinds of awards for landscaping; well-heeled ministers in attractive suits with good looking families, with attendees in suits carrying big Bibles and bigger babies; it presented an appealing package which, if one did not look too closely, was one which reasonably could be swallowed, hook, line and sinker; the reality was often, that, like hot air balloons, there wasn't much substance to the whole thing and it seemed to be held up with hot air. I have personally heard from loyalists who were actually on Ambassador College Campus during the Seventies about the pot parties and beer busts at the smog shrouded Pasadena site; the AC student in Big Sandy that came down on a small island in Lake Loma, was bitten by poisonous snakes and died nearly instantly; or the man on the motorcycle at Big Sandy who died from an accident on a motorcycle when he was neatly sliced in half with a cable; neither did we hear later on about the lifestyles of the rich and famous on ministerial row and some of the shenanigans going on there; you can be certain that those sorts of events never got reported in The Worldwide News, because "revelation of such details would serve no purpose" except to humanize those on godlet pedestals; if revealed, certain actions would have been taken and certain changes would have been made, and it could have resolved some challenges. For one thing, AC has always had more applicants than acceptances--one cannot be too careful to select candidates for what Gerald Waterhouse called, "The Perfect Society"--in fact, fewer than one in five made it to "The West Point of God's Work" at one point in time; but the revelation that the less than perfect might suffer miserably from the smog or that they might be killed by poisonous snakes might have reduced the applications to a more manageable pile and given greater opportunity to a hardier, braver, more aggressive breed, willing to work to triumph over the obstacles on their way to "The Seven Laws of Success" to lead "The More Abundant Life"--real winners that would produce a more consistent crop of go-getters of ministers and their wives perpetuating the image of the suave debonair polished attractive people to go out and lead "The Weak of the World"; ah, well, we do the best we can with what we have, and things worked out pretty well to provide not just ministers and their wives, but people who would work for minimum wage or less [when it was paid, when the Work didn't withhold it because of some "crisis"--mostly from spending too much at Harrod's], long dedicated hours, fodder to be displaced and removed on a moment's notice when bad business management wiped their jobs. It also appears that unattractive, particularly fat people, have a much lower chance of entering into the Kingdom of God, than those who, though they might be scoundrels, have a much better chance because they are fit, look good, and sound good: Attractive students did much better wallowing in the social ersatz than the unattractive swine--looking good meant you were good, unless you presented the image of being disruptive and told the truth; if you didn't either look handsome / beautiful or were children of the ministry or were rich, you probably didn't even make it to visit. Image was a triumph over substance. The Churches of God should get an award for doing this kind of thing: They are so good at it, and they've had a lot of practice--they are real pros when it comes to the practice of deception, lies, fantasies and cover ups. This is not to say that they don't have the truth, it simply says that the Churches of God are good at fantasy. Few people could accept even a portion of "The Ambassador Report" or other such journalism without being absolutely amazed at the depth and breadth of the fantasies involved. These fantasies have created an entire environment of unreality which isn't always particularly healthy and is a triumph of image over substance; the entirety of the Churches of God could not exist without fantasy and I say that fantasy has created the Churches of God [you can always decide for yourself, hopefully based on the facts]. This is particularly disturbing when entering the wondrous world of prophecy--dozens, perhaps hundreds of false and failed prophecies: These have never had any adequate explanation, although one minister told me when I brought up the subject that [and I quote], "I guess we weren't that good with prophecy". This is an interesting way of discounting fantasies which became the foundation lies of the Church; this should be very disturbing, because when one speaks of "The Truth of God" in the light of all the failed prophecies, there is a nagging question as to how failed prophecies can be or ever could be "The Truth of God". This isn't just a small matter when we speak of Scripture, for the Bible explicitly tells us to reject prophets who prophesy falsely; this is often discounted by saying that the ministers are not prophets, but this is supplanted by the testimony that [in recent literature] ministers are indeed prophets to show the Ten Commandments and the Law of God as being prophesy for how to live [beginning with the Fifth Commandment, described by the Apostle Paul as 'The First Commandment with promise']; only in a fantasy world can the non-prophet prophet who prophesies the truth falsely exist. Don't believe me--believe the Bible; thus paving the way for the unbelievable fantasies which have continued to not come to pass to this day. As disturbing is the perspective in the Bible that assuredly God would do nothing except He reveal it to his servants the prophets. A minister I like, admire and respect and I have found to be reliable to tell the truth as far as he can know it, were discussing several things in a public place at a restaurant in November, 2002, when I posed the problem: If God does nothing except He reveal it to his servants the prophets, why didn't He reveal to the Church of God ministry:
He replied that God always revealed to His Prophets when He was about to punish Israel for their sins, and the Six Day War, the Fall of the Berlin Wall were not about punishment for God's People, Israel. Then he stopped cold and there was silence. This is testimony to the fantasy spouted by at least Two of the Churches of God that the United States was being punished by God through September 11, 2001; the fact that God says in Scripture that He would do no such thing without warning through His Prophets doesn't seem to have occurred to them, or if it did, they went ahead, as usual, and discounted what they say God has said. This is more fantasy. Isn't this in the slightest way disturbing? The Churches of God excel in intrigue bordering on the FBI, CIA, KGB, and the NSA [with apologies to the Kiwis among us who probably don't have an equivalent because they don't need one] and it is very entertaining if you know what is going on. There are several other factors which give the fantasies life, and among these factors is arrogance, narcissism and psychopaths. Lord Acton was wrong: Power doesn't corrupt; rather people who have chinks in their armor who have the roots and foundation for corruption, gain power and become comfortable with their corruption; as they approach absolute power, all restraint is swept away and the corrupt feel absolutely free to be absolutely corrupt--the incorruptible are, well, incorruptible. Therefore, when you see a minister in the Churches of God who makes a practice of raping women isn't a rapist because he has the power and prestige of a minister, it is because he is a rapist and has taken the opportunity to use his position to pursue his hobby. It was in the mid Nineties that I was attending a Night to be Much Observed in the home of someone who would have been considered a "leading lady in the Church" when she took me aside and told me the story of an elder who was a pedophile: He had been after young boys in the Church for years, so the women in the Church gathered together and told the minister; there was no response; they wrote it up and documented it for Pasadena; again, there was no response; she told me that they finally just agreed among themselves that they would closely monitor his activities, particularly during the Feast Days, because that is all that they could do. This code of the streets of don't rat on the rats has been a fundamental problem with the Churches of God from the very beginning [it is the same thing that happens in the modern corporate world], and it happens because to expose it would bring shame to the Church and discredit the ministry; you get into the same kind of no win situation described in the early chapters of "Without Conscience--the Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us" by Dr. Robert Hare. For those who have not yet encountered a psychopath, the first experience is generally a revelation all to itself, particularly if the psychopath just happens to attend your particular congregation and just happens to be your minister. It is at this point you really will start asking those nagging questions:
Statistically speaking, psychopaths comprise 1% (one percent) of the general population and 40% of the prison population; however, it appears from recent research that psychopaths gravitate to positions of power and it is possible to find a disproportionate accumulation of them in segments of society offering them more opportunity as "Snakes in Suits". It should not be surprising, given the environment of fantasy, cover ups, and intrigue that we would find a few scoundrels among the ministry, noting that just one of them can be extremely disruptive amongst several hundred people--these are high maintenance folk who are just chock full of challenges. Let us look at some definitions. A narcissist is a person who has no empathy. Narcissists don't really care if you exist or not, except that you contribute to their existence as the center of the Universe; the characteristics are as follows: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV), gives the following diagnostic criteria for narcissism (301.81):
Psychopaths are narcissists who have no conscience. Narcissists and psychopaths are not categorized by mental health professionals as mentally ill--these are not sick people like someone with cancer--they have what psychiatrists call a personality disorder, which is pretty much the same as calling them jerks; they are insensitive to others, disruptive and abusive. They are also perceived to be popular, interesting, even fascinating. In discussing one of the ministers perceived to be a psychopath in one of the Churches of God, a man told me about the minister who raped 16 teenage girls, convincing them to do so to "prove" they were "submissive" enough to be ready for baptism; he went on to rape 8 of their mothers; even as he would stand in the congregation apologizing to a woman he raped, his eyes would be searching for another woman to make his victim. The solution for the Church in question was to hire a minister from the Worldwide Church of God and place him under the minister as a co-pastor to "watch" him; at a time when he should have been in prison, he was busy preaching for a Church of God. This is very upsetting to a truly moral minister and the first thing he did was buy a case of "Without Conscience" as soon as it came out and distribute it among those who would listen to him. You have to know that psychopaths are very good at destroying an opponent's credibility, and this one had the advantage of learning how to weave his fantasies from the Church of God. The reason for these scenarios is often based on "love covers all sins"; to which I say, it doesn't say "love covers up all sins", and, anyway, what about love for the victim? I know, I know... it's too embarrassing to discuss. So let's say that for a hypothetical situation, a minister who endured a psychopath like that wanted to write an article, let's say in "The Journal", a newspaper dedicated to fostering communications among the Churches of God, in order to protect and serve members remaining in the Churches of God from ministers who are psychopaths in the Churches of God, would probably be welcomed by the Editor at first, happy as a person of integrity to reveal potential danger to members and attendees out of love and concern for people. He would be, right up to a Council of Elders finding out about the project--then, we would suspect--that the whole thing would be quickly and quietly covered up and made to disappear. This is only a purely hypothetical situation, mind you--based on the paranoia [another quality often found in the Churches of God] that cover ups abound and that you'll never quite ever hear the truth, particularly if it is embarrassing to someone. Besides, psychopaths sue--even when they've been convicted and nailed dead to rights; it's a big risk to expose them because they can be so very disruptive, and playing the legal games is fun to them. Now, you might not believe a word that was said here, and that's OK--maybe it's not even relevant; after all, I've personally found that the further away I get from the Churches of God, generally speaking, the better off I and my whole family is; but if you are wondering why things are the way they are, you might just consider that one of the answers is fantasy. If you are so arrogant as to shatter someone's fantasies, expect hostility: You have just threatened their survival, and it does not matter how true you are, you are the bad guy. On the other hand, if people figure out you are lying to them, they will be angry; if the person doing the lying is in a position of authority and they can't do anything about the lies, they will become apathetic, and a sure sign of this is people saying, "Nothing ever changes around here". By using inappropriate fantasies, the ministry and leadership of the Churches of God have used a consistent process to keep the troops in line with apathy and created schisms from angry people who do not want to tolerate the lies any longer. One of the things most amazing is the depth and breadth of the arrogance: These people are experts in absolutely everything: They can tell you the nature of God and the Universe, they are experts in modern and ancient history, they can tell you how to have a happy marriage, they tell us about how to rear our children, they just know the sociology to keep peace in the church, they understand so much about how to have radiant health [and in past times without doctors], they absolutely know how to manage finances, booklets delve into nuclear physics; in short, you name an important subject, and they have the answers. Who can forget the wonderful personal counseling we each received about our jobs, our homes, our mode of personal transportation, all of our interpersonal relationships, our money, and righteousness by keeping the law to get into the glorious kingdom ahead while living the more abundant life now; and they each did this in a single session without the luxury of thinking about it and doing research because they had the mind of God as they sat there evaluating, judging and defining your depths of sin of which you were to repent deeply to win favor with both the elders and God and giving you advice on your education and your entire future in the hour they had granted you by their tender mercies. Isn't it so amazing how amazing they were. Not only that, but they often took on the experts publicly, something which should be expected of them, since they were such experts on absolutely everything. People who were professionals and particularly scientists and technologists with years of experience who had the misfortune to be in the church were often ignored, particularly when they raised valid objections to a well-defined fantasy, having, as it were, the audacity to insist that people should apply boring process, research and experimentation to validate what was already positively identified and selected as the truth. As long as people told them what they believed and wanted to hear, things were fine; as long as the image was maintained, things were fine; when those "inconvenient little truths" were exposed, trouble ensued. Addicted truth tellers were promptly and summarily made irrelevant by disfellowshipping them; careful records were kept at Pasadena for the "experts of everything"; after counseling, attendees [laughingly referred to as "members"] could note the minister and his assistant, visiting them in their Fury [Plymouth, that is], would be sitting outside with the paperwork they needed to fill in as spy documents, sometimes taking as long as the "counseling session" itself. By the way, a few years back, I sent an e-mail to Dr. Joseph Tkach asking him about those "spy records" kept on the members, and he sent back a very nice reply that all that had been destroyed and the past was behind us [some of you on JLF may remember the actual e-mails]; it was reassuring, although it might also be the case that they were all lost in the various transitions of administration; either way, the records really are probably gone for good. Hopefully, you can see why the Churches of God would need a spy network to support their military dictatorship type hierarchical government? This doesn't explain everything of course, and for those still asking those two questions posed at the beginning, this isn't yet very satisfying. To understand things better, it would seem necessary to understand the sociology of the generations in the work place, which some classify as follows:
There are alternative ways of looking at the generations born since 1945: Some see them as three waves of materialistic technology-savvy Boomers, though there are significant nuances to the sociology represented there [what can I say, it's complicated]. Let's step back to the 1930s, to Oregon during the Depression in America. The first people Herbert Armstrong encountered in his ministry were the farmers; my grandparents were farmers, and it is clear that there are some things which are very important to farmers: Weather, good crops, family, future, stability. Farmers take the long term view to be successful, because there may be good years and there will certainly be bad years, so farmers of that era were prudent to grow gardens and can food during the good years, stock up their cellars for the not so good years. Farmers also operated within the context of a community geared to their needs; part of this community is reliability and farmers count on people being men of their word, honesty, dedication to duty--those who are not quickly and permanently become irrelevant. Now, to a farmer of that era, particularly in the United States, and particularly in Oregon, God, as being the Great Creator as well as the One who gives rain in due season [and believe me, Western Oregon has quite a lot of rain!], was very important; any preacher to come along who gave them an advantage in their agribusiness would be most welcome and Herbert Armstrong was such a person. Not only that, but Herbert Armstrong created a mental scenario of the future involving an agrarian based society in which the farmer would be held in great esteem; associated with that was the perspective that if they played their cards right and tithed to God, kept His Sabbaths, and had the right Faith, their world today would be much better. A story by Mr. Richard Pinelli in the Seventies underscores the point: In his sermon, he told of a farmer on the prairies in Canada who called him to tell him about a range fire heading his way; for those unfamiliar with a range fire, it is usually a frightening thing with grasses burning and traveling at an accelerated rate, often roaring ahead at 30 miles or more an hour; the farmer's neighbors had already been burned out and the fire was coming straight for his farm; Mr. Pinelli told the farmer he would pray for him, and what happened next was most amazing: The fire burned right up to the property line and left the entire farm untouched while all the other farms were devastated. Amazing things like this do happen [although these sorts of events are not exclusive to the Radio Church of God]. Whatever the cause, events like this are perceived to be miracles, and to a farmer, builds the credibility of any minister with whom such an event is associated. You can be certain that events of this kind did happen in the 1930s amongst the farmers in Oregon attending the Radio Church of God and they would be perceived as miracles from God. It was on the backs of these faithful and loyal farmers that the ministry of the Churches of God was built. But times have changed, and many people believe that it was around 1972 that the economic basis of the United States made the transition from agrarian to industrial [again, it's not that simple]; this would have an incredible sociological impact on the people in what became back then, the Worldwide Church of God: The Fifties and Sixties were truly over and the time of threats of doomsday, the end of the world, dedication to duty as a motivation were making the transition to an era of materialism and technology. Attitudes began changing and the leadership in the Worldwide Church of God did not seem to make the transition well: They were used to people in the Church taking their word for everything where authority was god--interchangeably used--what they were not used to was people who questioned things and wanted to think for themselves. Some people will think what follows is utterly stupid--particularly some ministers--but it is a sociological phenomenon which is difficult to ignore and will be useful for the purposes of analogy [analogies are the highest form of reasoning, but when they are wrong, they are clearly wrong--and can lead to some entertaining stupidity as well--stupidity, by the way, which has often been successfully employed by the Churches of God]. It was some time into 1980s in the United States that cats surpassed dogs as pets; there are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is that cats not only are mostly lower maintenance than dogs, but are much more entertaining on the average. Dog lovers hate to hear this sort of thing, because to them, they expect loyalty and obedience from an animal who sees them as their Lord and Master; in fact, cats are very unpopular with dictators, and most presidents of the United States have had dogs as their preferred pet; Nikita Kruschev hated cats and so have many many other powerful leaders. The reason that narcissistic people do not like cats is because of their independence; people who believe they are the center of the Universe certainly don't want competition.
You can probably see a conflict of personalities between cat and dictator. Let me give you a clue: I took a little survey and found that ministers in the Churches of God today mostly have dogs as pets, and, not to put too fine a point on it, the ones who have cats either leave them outside in the feral state, or have grudgingly included a cat in the family [usually with a dog] to please their mate or their children. This informal survey doesn't mean an awful lot, being based on anecdotal evidence and all, and not having been backed by a double blind study involving ministers, presidents and dictators with a significant sample population with chi squares and standard deviations being drawn, but you have to know that I believe in the anecdotal evidence, mostly because it makes sense given what we know about the personalities involved. To illustrate further, I have a convert: A colleague of mine was basically a "dog person" and did not that much care for cats until his dog died of old age at which time he got two cats and he loves them and they like him--his son complains, "Dad, you spend more time with those cats than you do with me!" [it's not actually a serious charge, he's a most excellent parent]. When he comes home at night from work, it doesn't matter where these furry scoundrels are, they come running for the door and sit there until he comes in; then he picks them both up and holds them for a minute or two; well, that's enough of that, so then he puts them down and gives them their kitty treat; if he goes upstairs to the study, they follow him there; if he goes downstairs, they follow him there; they also "work the system" and together cooperate in a team effort for certain activities: For example, they may both be way up high on the cabinets where he definitely doesn't want them, but one of them will get down and distract him while the other one stays at his perch. One of his cats watches television: The cat isn't interested in just sitting in front of the TV watching, but becomes very interested when there is a ball game on; he likes basketball and will put his paw on the screen everywhere the ball goes! Cats, while finely honed predators, can be so cute! My friend said he thought he would never like cats, but we have a convert here. Those who have watched the movie, "The War of the Roses," should recognize Danny Devito's truth that "dog people probably shouldn't marry cat people"; there probably is some kind of contention there, and for those with a greater sensitivity may observe conflict in the Church between those who want attendees to be submissive and the attendees who want to think for themselves and demand that the minister earn their respect in an environment of equality--equality seems to be the very last priority for many of the ministers in the Churches of God and don't seem to be very consensus minded [to them consensus means doing everything absolutely the way they want--see it my way, or the highway!]. The analogy of using sheep to represent church attendees is quaint and an analogy unavailable to most people, many of whom have never even seen a live sheep up close and personal [cloned Dolly notwithstanding], but most understand dogs and cats, and it just seems to me that, as the leader of the pack, most ministers will tend to see members as dogs; they certainly don't want any cats in their congregation, because cats are so very hard to herd and they want to be top dog. By this time, "cat people" are having great fun with this and the "dog people" will have found it to be insulting stupidity and that is their loss, because play time is not over yet. Most of the Churches of God have had significant losses of attendees lately, and only one seems to have a modest increase--mostly from another failed Church of God bankrupted [literally] by the arrogant narcissism of their former leader who disfellowshipped them all [you are supposed to wait until you a godlet to use these powers!], and it is my belief that it is because they have not noticed the sociological changes: People want to be free and independent--and within a certain context this is a mature expectation, because controlled people never learn and grow--while the leadership of the Churches of God still want to pull the "world is coming to an end" in Chicken Little like fashion, using threats of impending doom and disaster, and appeal to the ethical and moral senses of the masses [there isn't any] while they themselves have dirty little secrets is not that persuasive. Let's just say that at this point, this is not a workable solution: If the Churches of God want to be successful, they will have to find out what is important to people today and provide it, because as sure as shootin', hell, death, taxes and revenge, you aren't going to be that popular with all but a small segment of weirdo nut cases if you continue the hyperbole that the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket and you just happen to make handbaskets. And just what is the way to win the favor of Generation Y? My suggestion on another site was to first feed them and then provide a fun activity: The week there was a potluck at church followed by a swim party after the Sabbath, attendance was 93, the week after with just normal services, there were 23 [December, 2002]. It is probably accurate to observe that Generation Y is very high energy and fun activities really appeal to them. There seem to be two main priorities: Entertainment and prosperity; if you can provide both, you have a winner. In the United States, at least, the greatest fear for Generation Y, and, indeed, for the Boomers, is being labeled a Loser. Competition is important to the US and winning is even more important; being labeled a Loser is the very worst catastrophe to befall a Generation Y person that could ever be imagined. If it ever turns out that Generation Y--the largest segment of the population, and our future--ever perceives the church as Loser, it's future, outside of a very small elite cadre of people not affected by fashions of the day, is very much dead; failed prophecies, unviable fantasies, authoritarian hierarchical structure unsuccessful in in producing viable results, narcissists and psychopaths, secrets, intrigue, hidden agendas, petty power politics, do not bode well for being a winner in this environment. We spent years suffering from the knowledge that we sinned, took personal responsibility and were so VERY sorry for our sins that the ministers were so happy to point out to us, so we would attend every Passover and sing that Psalm 51 at the end of the service, written by a man who committed adultery and covered it up by murdering the husband, knowing that that depressing song was all about us personally, even though we had never murdered anyone and had never committed adultery [although the minister may have], examining ourselves and repenting and not looking at the sins of others; yes, singing the song from a photocopy, copied in violation of all copyright laws from another Church's hymnal. It will probably be difficult to influence Generation Y to follow that example without a certain amount of clean up and repentance of the leadership of the Churches of God first. What do you suppose the future holds? Questions, Questions!Let us return to the premise of Dr. Stanley Schmidt of the duality of religious belief: Cosmology and Morals. Was the earth created four billion years ago, then ravished by war between Lucifer and Michael, only to be re-created in seven days? Was man created about six thousand years ago, or did the man-animal-primate exist three million years ago and then "receive the spirit of man" six thousand years ago? Was there a world wide flood from which three main races progenerated, or was there a local flood, or no flood at all? Did the sun actually stand still for that Long Day, or was it some kind of illusion? Did Moses cross the Red Sea or the Reed Sea or any Sea at all? Or was it all allegorical? Many traditional Jews seem to think so. Is the Hebrew Calendar sacrosanct or can you just willy-nilly use "postponements"? Did Moses receive the Ten Commandments on two tables of stone directly from God, or did he plagiarize them from Hammurabi? Did people live more than 800 or 900 years, or was that months? If you follow Dr. Schmidt's reasoning, it simply doesn't matter! As for the Morals though, that is another matter: They are quite relevant to the successful operation of society, and even if they are based on wrong Cosmology, they can have the right impacts. So let us look at the impacts of the Radio / Worldwide Church of God: If you believe that God was involved in any way in our lives through the Churches of God, then you have to have accepted the premise that "By their fruit, ye shall know them" at some point in your life. There seem to be two aspects to this: The external--the so-called Example to the World--and the internal--the operation within the Church. One would expect a certain standard for a minister: Modern ministers have a complex and difficult job these days--they have to be successful businessmen to balance the books for their church [although, to be fair, they usually have deacons / accountants to do that], they have to find ways of raising funds, they are involved in a whole host of activities including, but not restricted to, youth activities, visiting the sick, the elderly, the widows, the imprisoned, helping the homeless, giving counseling, coping with the mentally ill and balancing their needs with the needs of the congregation, perceiving spirits and / or attitudes, protecting the congregation from "wolves" and other dangers, spiritual, and in the case of psychopaths, occasionally physical, he must be observant to prevent deviants from affecting the children and provide Bible Studies, Sabbath / Sunday School, coordinate everything connected to the church including, music and materials, keeping on schedule, preaching the gospel, setting a good example and taking appropriate care of his family as a balanced priority, and above all be a man perceived as having the highest moral values, apt to teach, setting a great example and helping people to grow in grace and knowledge who brings people to God. This is a tall order and few there be who can hack it with a cheerful positive attitude while occasionally suffering through terrible and excruciating trials and learning from them to help others without whining. At a personal level, we would expect such a person to exude love and warmth, being knowledgeable and humble, willing to take a back seat, personable, but never the center of attention--after all, it's not about him, it's about God. Now that's my standard and not yours, but a lot of this is based on Scripture. To be fair, I actually know a couple of ministers in the Churches of God who do fit that criteria--and they are to be commended. So after 70 years, how have we done? If you believe that God has given 70 years--a literal life time--to accomplish this and much more, how have we done? Is your faith stronger, stirred, not shaken? Or have you personally lost it all to wonder if God exists at all, based on the example you have received? Have we gotten any closer to turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers lest the earth become a dust ball, smitten with utter destruction, or are the children more alienated than ever and fathers struggling to even have a relationship with their children after abandoning the Churches of God [and how long did we have to wait for that one?]? Have we really gone to the whole world and preached the gospel to everyone? When I travel, I can leave my Bible at home, and if I am seized with the desire to study one, every hotel and motel room I've stayed in for the last three decades has had a Gideon Bible in it--quietly put there by sincere dedicated people: Can the Churches of God match that? Or how about the Seventh Day Adventists who have entrusted to them $120 Million a year by corporations to use for charitable purposes because they have been found to be effective and honest stewards of the money: Can we top that? Or for that matter, does a year of "Plain Truth" magazines do as much good teaching us about God's Love as a single episode of "Touched by an Angel"? [And I would point out that "Touched by an Angel" actually makes a profit and reaches more people!] Japan; Japan; what ever happened to those "Seven Japanese Sons" and preaching the Gospel to Japan? And the mountain people in Thailand? Where are they? Where did they go? [Clue: Terrorists ran them off and the school and property are GONE, abandoned by the Churches of God--worse off than when they started!] Do the Churches of God represent a solid converted front to the World? Or has the infighting resulted in blaspheming His Name? [What a TERRIBLE example!] Do the Churches of God represent a sound mind to the World? And concerning preaching the Gospel to the whole world: Has anything been done to remove the restriction in Saudi Arabia that no one is permitted to bring a Bible into the Country? [I know, the doors haven't been opened yet, and the wickedness of the Gentiles is not yet full.] Are the fatherless and widows cared for, or do they have to receive welfare from the government? Does anyone ever even visit them anymore? Or are we too busy for them, struggling to exist as a modern business Corporation? And speaking of corporations, as the Watchman to the House of Israel, why didn't we warn the real leaders in Physical Israel of their sins: The CEOs, Presidents, Chairpersons of the Board, Vice Presidents, and the Directors of the United States Fortune 500? After all, aren't they ones who should be warned of the evils they commit, that they are going to be resoundingly whacked by God as punishment for breaking His Law? Why haven't there been articles condemning their practices--particularly in light of the teaching of James 5--instead of picking on the easy targets of the poor shmucks who couldn't change anything anyway, making minimum wage in a sweat shop? And those new song books: It's been five years since they've been promised--has anybody looked at Psalm 15 lately? Or is the capital all tied up in printing magazines which ministers who produce telecasts on local access channels are too embarrassed to offer on the program? Did your minister always follow Matthew 18 when certain matters come up and follow the rule of establishing the facts with two or three witnesses, or did he listen to the people who had the most apparent credibility and not get his facts straight? Did your minister comfort you, teach you, treat you as an equal, trusting his teaching, trusting you, and trusting God for you to make mistakes, learn from them and grow, or did he treat you as a stupid child who understood nothing and amounted to nothing and made it clear you never would? [While I don't call people names, there have been frustrating days when I hoped that when the minister returned home to his kennel that his mother would bite him.] Did your minister stand up for you, stand behind you, stand beside you, or did he stand over you? Well? How are we doing? Mr. Joseph Tkach, Senior said after the death of Mr. Herbert Armstrong that "This is the Golden Age, the Golden Age of Opportunity for doing the Work"-- was it the Golden Age of certain people gaining power and authority, lining their pockets with Gold? Seventy years. Billions of dollars. One would think. Well. It is obvious that this is all radically radical, extremely extreme, over the top, but can you deny that there are valid questions to ask here? After all, we have become acclimated to a totally screwy, completely insane environment, not too unlike what we see in the World around us. The Churches of God. We wouldn't want to discourage a good work would we, but wouldn't we want to make it better? Have we learned anything from "Useful Illusions & Deadly Faith" and more importantly, are we willing to do something about what we have learned?
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Last Updated: Monday, January 17, 2005 |
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1) has a grandiose
sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects
to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements);
Besides,
cats can be so aggravating because they just don't accept authority from
people--they make up their own minds; while a dog might sit there and take
abuse, a cat usually won't stand for it; give a dog a command, and he will
probably want to please its master and comply; give a cat a command and he will
probably look at you as being the most stupid being in the Universe and saunter
off at his own pleasure.
