A new face emerged during Triumph's Feast of Tabernacles this year. Haile Keita led a series of "studies" on UFOs, Nephilim, Aliens and the Occult. Keita's speculations might seem completely loopy anywhere else, including in most of the COGs, but at TPM they're positively mainstream.
Putting aside the cogency or otherwise of Keita's material, he comes across as a personable and well-spoken guy, and in his opening comments he was duly deferential to TPM founder and end-times guru Willie Dankenbring. When Willie goes to his eternal reward, could Haile be the one to take on the reins at Triumph?Certainly, if his five-part chat is anything to go by, he has as many off-the-wall theories to peddle as his master and mentor.
12 comments:
This is not as off-the-wall or un-CoG-like as you might think.
There were always copies of Chariots of the Gods and The 13th Planet floating around my congregation (a copy each in the port-o-library).
The "wheels within wheels" verses (from Ezekiel? I forget) were often exegeticised from the pulpit as "the worldly" seeing God's signs and manifestations as UFOs or aliens (because they were deceived don'cha'know).
Most splinters preach a modified version of it; I remember Weinland saying something similar back when I was paying attention to the first timeline that the returning Christ might be perceived as aliens or UFOs. This was a popular theory in the mid-80s as well.
I think there was also a Plain Truth article along these lines, around the same time.
So, not out of the ordinary for Church(es) of God, at all. Next thing you'll be telling us how surprised you are at all the conspiracy theorists still floating around!
"When Willie goes to his eternal reward, could Haile be the one to take on the reins at Triumph?"
Haile's a Danite, there's no way he would be given the "head of the church under Christ" position. Not if TPM truly is holding fast to the truth.
All of these nutty ideas floating around and gaining traction at any given time within the COG's, whether biblical or not, are the result of three things:
1. basic ignorance due primarily to lack of wide reading and learning...
2. lack of the most fundamental of skill in applying the relatively simple principles of critical thinking in everyday life, and...
3. the will to believe, because such ideas seem exciting and appear to give believers an “inside track” to special knowledge withheld from the rest of the world, making them somehow feel special and important.
And obviously these three characteristics are to be found in tremendous abundance within fundamentalism, especially within the COG’s.
When I used to work out at Pasadena HQ I knew just about everyone in the Editorial department during the ‘80’s and early ‘90’s. One fellow, a prominent and well-known writer for the Plain Truth magazine, told me once the most popular, common and unending request from actual Church members was for the staff to write an article on the worldwide conspiracy taking place (Tri-lateral Commission, black helicopters, New World Order, mind-altering chem trails in the sky, etc.).
Church members are extraordinarily easy suckers for all this kind of nonsense. It’s what keeps many of them excited and motivated.
The devil and his demons are morphing again just as they did from Zoroastrianism into Judaism and from Judaism into Christianity.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic they say. And magic, the bible says,is of the devil....
Oh my head hurts. Must be hitting my head as I fly through the rafters on those night time abductions to extract my vital fluids.
The problem I have with this meme, is what do non-physical spirits need physical metallic space ships? But who ever said logic had anything to do with religion?
This is similar to the folks I just learned about this past weekend who are seriously claiming that Hillary Clinton and other top politicians in Washington are actually lizard-like aliens disguised as human beings trying to take over our world.
Perhaps Bill Clinton could provide us with further intimate details about this, but I'm afraid it's yet another series of wacky claims that every now and again hit upon the fundamentalist scene.
Humorous in a way, and yet there are boatloads of people who actually take these things seriously.
Has anyone here ever seen the popular long-running American TV show “Cops” – which basically is a documentary type show that follows police officers around and films all the things they have to deal with during a typical shift?
I occasionally watch it, and have noticed that one thing the low-life criminals and street thugs they have to deal with day in and day out all have at least one thing in common: DENIAL.
These scumbags can be caught red-handed, with much incriminating evidence against them at the scene of the crime, and yet they cry out that they’re innocent, that a mistake has been made, that it’s the officers who are wrong, that they have not committed the crimes that they have been arrested for. A guy will be apprehended driving a stolen vehicle, have a record as long as your right arm of past auto thefts, and yet he’ll swear up and down that he didn’t know it was stolen (“Honest Officer, I swear to God, I thought it was my friend’s car!”).
Denial of the plain facts of reality is a very dangerous mindset to acquire, and it can become very addictive and habit-forming. In fact, it comprises a large part of the criminal mind.
And yet this is virtually the same evasive mindset fundamentalists have habitually developed – one of denying unmistakable realities that are as plain as day in order to get what they want, which is their magical supernatural universe where God’s will (often THEIR will) and interventions rule, rather than the objective and unrelenting facts of reality.
It’s a lethal combination of denial and self-delusion.
But ultimately the mental habit of denial and self-delusion never brings a constructive, long-lasting result. It can only lead eventually to self-destruction. I’ve seen it happen to many COG members, in matters both great and small. I remember one church member once had a toothache, and instead of facing the fact that he needed to go to a dentist for repairs, he went to be anointed by a minister. Afterwards he claimed the pain magically went away, and thought “God healed my tooth!” - until several weeks later the tooth started hurting again, this time so bad that he was forced to have a root canal because he had refused to face the facts of a serious infection earlier.
And I see this same self-delusionary refusal to face facts in quite apparent in the many comments made here on this site by the True Believers. They’re just going to have their metaphysical way (along with all the accompanying zany beliefs and implications) no matter what! And yet this mindset is encouraged by the ministry, in no small part from all the loony ideas they teach their congregants to believe.
Some of you may have heard of the unfortunate events (3 fatalities and 18 hospitalizations thus far) that took place at some New Age guru’s $9,000 (USD)-per-person sweat lodge retreat recently in Arizona.
This is yet another real-life example of the point I made above.
Here's a link to a brief article from today's Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article
_email/SB10001424052748
7045977045744873615352
81216-lMyQjAxMDA5MD
IwMzEyNDMyWj.html
"This is similar to the folks I just learned about this past weekend who are seriously claiming that Hillary Clinton and other top politicians in Washington are actually lizard-like aliens disguised as human beings trying to take over our world."
Ahahahahaha, looks like you found the "Gnostics" of "Profit" John Lash Lamb, Leonardo! :-)
Yeah the Lasheans are about as Gnostic as the bible-burnin' fundamentalist Christians down there in the States. Yes, you read that right, they're burning bibles. Why? Apparently, the bibles they are burning aren't "Christian enough".
A plague, on all their houses.....
I actually viewed these videos.
Wow - alien Grays, Nordics, Reptilians, Moth Man...sounds like creatures you'd see in Marvel comic books of the 1960's! And I thought some of the so-called visions of Ezekiel and later John in the book of Revelation were strange!!
All I can say is this fellow, as sincere as he seems, has taken fundamentalist religion to a whole new level of madness.
The "I used to be deeply involved in the occult before I was called into the one true Church" approach was another popular testimony I heard during my days in the WCG. It was a way that relatively new members could gain a little credibility with the old time rank and file members.
It really is amazing the delusions the human mind is capable of when it exchanges the power of reason for the supernatural worldview of fundamentalism.
"The "I used to be deeply involved in the occult before I was called into the one true Church" approach was another popular testimony I heard during my days in the WCG."
Funny, I heard that in reverse. A few of those in my generation who left, reportedly became involved in Wicca, Paganism (the real kind, not the church's version), etc.
Of course, a good many others went in for what the church termed paganism too! :-)
Leonardo, everybody knows that top politicians in Washington are actually lizard-like aliens disguised as human beings trying to take over our world. That's common knowledge. Haven't you ever seen that fine documentary called "Men in Black?" Why else would the politicians come up with something like the U.S. tax code if they weren't trying to totally befuddle us and take over? You just gotta think these things through and everything makes sense.
Yes, that sounds like the David Icke teaches.
"Moth Man"? I don't remember that one.
Maybe in the World Tomorrow there will be a COG Celebrity Death Match pitting Funky Flurry, The Rod of Iron, and Wacky Weinland against each other to see who will claim the TRUE TITLE of Moth Man.
Something tells me that a few others may jump into the ring, too.
Gak!
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