It has been another rare and wonderful year in the history of the Churches of God. How quickly we forget the stories that made waves in our little pond over the last 12 months, so here is a quick reprise:
GOODBYES: Brian Knowles called it a day as a columnist for The Journal. Syd Hull jumped ship from LCG to reappear on the deck of the tug-boat SS Pack. Charles Bryce jumped ship from LCG and is still floating somewhere. Herberth Cisneros, UCG rep in El Salvador, rowed the lifeboat across to LCG but wasn't allowed to board. Dennis Leap walked the plank on the garbage scow SS Flurry and hasn't been seen since.
PUNCH-UPS: Mike Minton pulled the plug on The Painful Truth, and a heated war of words ensued on the PT forum. Eventually John Bowers, with the help of PT-founder Ed Mentell, resurrected the site.
SING ALONG: WCG dumped Dwight Armstrong's hymns into the public domain.
STICKS & STONES: WCG became Grace International Fellowship -- no wait, make that Grace International Communion -- no wait, make that WCG again.
FUNNY MAN: Jerold Aust, UCG minister and writer, shares racist humor directed at Asians on his blog .
PREDICTIONS: Ron Weinland declares 2008 the year of God's final witness.
RESURRECTIONS: After a 5 month absence AW returned in blog form.
BEST MATES: Clyde Kilough drops by for beer and pretzels with Rod Meredith at LCG HQ.
THOU SHALT NOT: blog. Kevin Denee reports the Packatollah's edict. RCG rewrites the Denee article to remove the Great One's name after the article achieves instant infamy.
CONDESCENSION: Joe Tkach clings to the Cuckoo Throne, but graciously deigns to admit women to the inner circle of the ordained.
POLITICAL NEUTRALITY: Melvin Rhodes - his ongoing display of "objective" and "impartial" journalism in The Good News. What an inspiration!
PAGE TURNERS: COG authors have had a busy year.
* Ron Weinland, 2008: God's Final Witness. Very weird.
* Greg Doudna, Showdown at Big Sandy. Revealing!
* David Hulme, Identity, Ideology and the Future of Jerusalem. Pointless.
* Thomas Geiger, Martyrdom in Milwaukee. Misnamed.
* John Morgan, Flying Free. Honest.
* James Tabor, The Jesus Dynasty. Provocative.
* Stephen Flurry, Raising the Ruins. Doh!
12 comments:
RESURRECTIONS: After a 5 month absence AW returned in blog form.
Hooray!
That was a rough 5 months, being forced to glean what little info I could from Bob Thiel and other, infrequently-updated blogs. Thanks for bringing back AW. Even though it's now set up to take up less of your time (which I hope it is), this site is still at the top of my info list.
Best wishes for 2007, Gavin.
Hear, hear. Great to have AW back. Now I can continue to wallow in the dispair I created by having entered the House of Herbie, those decades ago. It's so true that the most meaningful life experiences are encountered while unlearning the falsehoods previously "learned."
Gavin, we all owe you a debt of gratitude: Most of us would have been clueless without you. It is difficult to imagine anyone with more wit, humor and keen perception concerning this venue.
Reflecting back over the past year, thinking in terms of activities surrounding the ACOGs, I am grateful for two things. One is the return of AW, and the unique insights expressed here. The other is that there were no further tragedies or shootings amongst our former brethren.
Gavin, thank you for the work you do here, which benefits us all. And, to you and all of my fellow bloggers here, I wish a very joyous holiday season, and a happy and prosperous New Year!
BB
Gavin,
Wot a momentous yer it has bin.
Your summation of the past year's events brings a touch of reality,sobriety and humour to the mess and mangle that is the COG.
You have a huge range of overt and covert contacts...this is COG espionage at its best.
Yes, where would we be without AW as "Libro" has stated ??
Congratulations on the professionalism displayed within the "covers" of your blog.
All the more strength to your arm,though some "ativistic" woolly wonkers would wish the inferred cognomen to be reinstated at the highest level.Fortunately, that is history,now.
May all your blog readers participate in the formerly taboo activity on the 25th, and also may the New Year bring all many happy hours of blogging with AW.
Frohe Weihnachten und Ein Gluckliches Neues Jahr.
jorgheinz
PUNCH-UPS: Mike Minton pulled the plug on The Painful Truth, and a heated war of words ensued on the PT forum.
I don't understand all I know about that, heh heh, but he probably had his reasons for it even though I don't know what they were.
I'll let everyone else judge that but I have been thinking of pulling the plug on my website too. Just seems like a waste of time and effort.
Don't be too hard on Mike though, he's from Arkansas, so he can't be all bad.
Herbert Cisneros wasn't allowed in LCG? Is he still in UCG? UCG is keeping members completely clueless about this.
Speaking of LCG vs. RCG -- have you seen the latest COGL weekly update page? It might as well be war.
Yes, I would like to know more about what is going on in El Salvador with Herbert Cisneros. I've met Herbert on more than one occasion, and always found him to be a warm person and genuinely concerned about the people he pastored.
I gather from some of the discussion on the Likeminds group a while back that Cisneros has taken a good portion of his churches with him out of UCG, and that he's now functioning independently. As I wrote in an earlier post, his name seems to have been removed from UCG websites. Sorry, beyond that I have no further info.
Good Gavin,
You are very critical of the Churches of God, and there is plenty to criticize. But you give our upstanding and most righteous Orthodox Christian leaders and Evangelical Churches a huge pass. They have essentially taken over our US government. And they want to become the national church of the United States. You basically support their cause by bashing opposing voices.
Is this fair?
How about orthodoxy?
The Orthodox Christianity community is more corrupt then the Church of God community. And yet you laud their scholars while they hold back and distort the truth.
A little bit of good natured bashing of Orthodoxy might be in order?
Good Gavin, are you a supporter of Orthodox Christianity?
Perhaps there will be predictions for 2007.
To paraphrase Arthur C. Clark in Clark's Third Law: "Sufficiently advanced religious prognostications are indistinguishable from insanity".
TO Anonymous. You wrote:
"The Orthodox Christianity community is more corrupt then the Church of God community."
You have got to be joking! Religion is religion. If it be a priest molester or an "herbal" molester, what is the difference?
Now as far as scholars go, Herbie was a high school drop out. He never received a "Higher Education"
but played the role of educator and prophet (or is it spelled "pro$it?”) this from a high school drop out!
The school of “Herbalism” and Orthodox Christianity have much in common.
Perverts, false prophets, narcissists, predators, stalkers, child molesters, enablers, ECT.
The spiritual offspring of this incestuous group(s) of misfits, should be labeled as Armstrongites! For in Armstrongism, there are NO checks and balances that will cause the groups leaders to act in accordance to biblical law. The leader is the owner and whore monger that sets the rules (and steals the doctrines from other religious groups.) Just look at the cog'lets history. Just examine the fruits. Doing so will reveal that Armstrongism is JUST, if not, MORE CORRUPT than Orthodox Christianity. The history of Armstrongism is but a short span, with so much corruption, that if one did not know of Amstrongism, they might think of it as a third world country's political system!
Kscribe.
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