Thanks to DP for drawing attention to a book by former WCG minister Paul Krautmann. The Rich Hiker's Guide to Walking with God was published in 2007, but I confess to never having heard of it before.Substantial excerpts can be found on Google Books. This is apparently an evangelical Christian testimony. Click on the image for a section of the back cover blurb.
Krautmann seems to have been associated with the WCG/GCI in Perth, and John Klassek's now defunct Life Today magazine. (Since 2007 Klassek seems to have dumped WCG in favor of a relationship with Sabbatarian movements such as COG7 and Ron Dart - and his links page also appears to endorse Craig White's BI-promoting site. There is no indication that Krautmann is currently associated with Klassek.)
The Rich Hiker's Guide to Walking with God
is available through Amazon.
3 comments:
The book cover says Mr. Krautmann was working in Guyana. He then attended AC from 1972 to 1975. Mr. Krautmann subsequently went into the WCG ministry in Guyana, becoming full-time in 1978.
While Mr. Krautmann was busy attending Armstrong's cult central to return to Guyana, Jim Jones was busy building the People's Temple in Jonestown, Guyana in 1974. On November 18, 1978 more than 900 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana committed suicide and caused the deaths of nine other people at a nearby airstrip in Georgetown.
In the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion”...stating that it spoke of a "Sky God" who was no God at all.[11]
By the spring of 1976, Jones began openly admitting even to outsiders that he was an atheist.[40] He said,
“Off the record, I don’t believe in any loving God. Our people, I would say, are ninety percent atheist. Uh, we— we think Jesus Christ was a swinger. He taught some pretty damn good things at feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, uh, maybe a little paternalistic, but it’s still uh— all the emphasis of the judgment of character— the only time he ever mentioned judgment at all was in Matthew 25, and it had to do totally with what you were doing for other people, so we— we emphasize the teachings of Christ...”.
Marceline Jones stated that "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion," and had slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" [35] In one sermon, Jones said that, "You're gonna help yourself, or you'll get no help! There's only one hope of glory; that's within you! Nobody's gonna come out of the sky! There's no heaven up there! We'll have to make heaven down here!"[41]
The Painful Truth website has an incomplete list of WCG suicides. Not more than 900 suicides in one day, mind you, but add all of the unlisted suicides caused by Armstrong's defective ministry over the years. Next, add to that the number of those that suffered and died prematurely due to lack of medical care. The total personal tragedy of Armstrongism might well exceed that of Jonestown's.
May all of them rest in peace.
Voltaire
Extract from book overview...
>>Having travelled and survived the rocky road from cultish legalism to grace and truth in Jesus Christ, Worldwide Church of God minister Paul Krautmann has learned much about walking with God.<<
I have never met the couple, but I remember an announcement in either 1975/6 that he was returning to Guyana to pastor the church there.
It would appear that he repudiated his first faith, and have embraced the Tkach changes. If that is the case, he has learnt nothing about walking with God.
Tom, your are certainly consistent.
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