WCG: A White Supremacist Doomsday Cult

I've heard a lot of folk deny that the Worldwide Church of God was inherently racist, let alone "white supremacist." As I recollect, none of them grew up as African-Americans in the bonds of their parent's beliefs.

Jerald Walker, however, did. His story is told here along with a short (9 minute) interview on WBUR which, in my opinion, is riveting listening. Walker is highly articulate, and this is no mere rant. He is now a professor at Emerson College and his book The World in Flames adds to the chickens coming home to roost.

When The World in Flames begins, in 1970, Jerry Walker is six years old. His consciousness revolves around being a member of a church whose beliefs he finds not only confusing but terrifying. Composed of a hodgepodge of requirements and restrictions (including a prohibition against doctors and hospitals), the underpinning tenet of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God was that its members were divinely chosen and all others would soon perish in rivers of flames.

The substantial membership was ruled by fear, intimidation, and threats. Anyone who dared leave the church would endure hardship for the remainder of this life and eternal suffering in the next. The next life, according to Armstrong, would arrive in 1975, three years after the start of the Great Tribulation. Jerry would be eleven years old.

Jerry’s parents were particularly vulnerable to the promise of relief from the world’s hardships. When they joined the church, in 1960, they were living in a two-room apartment in a dangerous Chicago housing project with the first four of their seven children, and, most significantly, they both were blind, having lost their sight to childhood accidents. They took comfort in the belief that they had been chosen for a special afterlife, even if it meant following a religion with a white supremacist ideology and dutifully sending tithes to Armstrong, whose church boasted more than 100,000 members and more than $80 million in annual revenues at its height.

When the prophecy of the 1972 Great Tribulation does not materialize, Jerry is considerably less disappointed than relieved. When the 1975 end-time prophecy also fails, he finally begins to question his faith and imagine the possibility of choosing a destiny of his own.

The World in Flames is published by Beacon Press and is available on Amazon.

Spanking

Spanking was de rigueur in the Worldwide Church of God. Parents were expected to spank (smack) their kids, as anyone who read The Plain Truth About Childrearing knew. Stories were told of the Ambassador College workshop producing wooden paddles so noisy youngsters could be disciplined during services at the Feast of Tabernacles. Today, the leading ex-WCG crusader against this kind of practice is Samuel Martin, son of former AC theology prof. Ernest L. Martin. There's no doubt in my mind that Martin has it right; spanking kids is a stupid, repugnant practice.

And the research backs it up. A study published in the Journal of Family Psychology (summarized here) reveals the links to difficulties kids face later in life. Of course, this was by no means just a COG issue. It's believed that, worldwide, 80% of children are spanked. Even in countries like New Zealand where the practice is illegal, conservative lobbyists wail, gibber and bemoan the development and there is widespread sympathy for parents who break the law. To which one can only reply, read the research for yourself.

The crazy thing is that in the church we were taught that God was the ultimate abusive parent, getting prepared to spank (that's the word Rod "Spanky" Meredith used again and again to describe it) the nations of modern (make-believe) Israel - the United States, Britain and the "white commonwealth" (whatever that is). Even now, the Eternal of Hosts has the divine paddle raised to wreak his displeasure. Famine, flood, epidemic, earthquake... look out below!

It's a fairly sick portrait of God.

(Samuel Martin's book, Thy Rod and Thy Staff They Comfort Me, is available to download here.)

Fragmentation reissued in paperback

Good news, you no longer need to remortgage the house in order to acquire a copy of David Barrett's study Fragmentation of a Sect: Schism in the Worldwide Church of God. Oxford University press is releasing a paperback edition (with a few very minor revisions) later this year.

This is an academic work focused on the sociology rather than the usual agenda-driven stuff that tends to be published elsewhere. If you prefer debunking and steamy apologetics larded with Bible texts, this probably isn't the book for you. In my view, however, the story of the dissolution of the WCG is better told without the invective. It's a story that speaks for itself, and David Barrett is one of the keenest observers of the COG phenomenon. If it helps, I'm told Joe Tkach hated it - which in my view is the ultimate recommendation.

You're going to have to wait till August to get your hands on a copy, but preorders are being taken with a price tag of $29.95 US/£19.99 UK. If that sounds expensive, be ye aware that the nice people at OUP in NZ have the locally sourced hardback edition listed at just under eighty smackers, so quit with the complaining. Amazon currently has the HB at $61.

An ebook edition you ask? Sadly not the Oxford way.

More on this closer to August.

Yesterday's Wonderful World Tomorrow... tickets expired

The lion shall lie down with the lamb, and Herbert will be God's right-hand man.

The Wonderful World Tomorrow: What It Will Be Like went through several editions. My 'favourite' is the original 96-page version which rolled off the presses way back in 1966. It begins...

Where will YOU be, ten years from now? You can know what is going to happen. In this booklet you are going to take an astonished glimpse into this world as it will be - in just ten or fifteen short years.

Astonished indeed, as a little mathematics demonstrates. 1966 plus ten brings us to 1976. Add on that 5-year safety margin and you're at 1981. Bear in mind that you'll need to subtract three and a half years for the Great Tribulation. Clearly time was of the essence.

It's GOING TO SOUND INCREDIBLE to you - yet it is SURE! This advance news of Tomorrow is accurate! It is as CERTAIN as the rising of tomorrow's sun! 

Incredible is understating it. That was fifty years ago.

The other interesting thing about the 1966 version is that it bears two names as joint authors, both Herbert W. Armstrong and his then anointed heir Garner Ted Armstrong.

Subsequent editions, beginning in 1973, airbrushed out the date-setting. Date setting? Who, us? And Ted quickly disappeared from the credits never to reappear.  In 1979 Everest House released a hardback version, and by 1982 it was back in booklet form, revised with a new cover.

(In 1999 Scott Lupo, a former member, wrote a paper entitled The Wonderful World Tomorrow: Herbert W. Armstrong's Vision of Life After the Apocalypse. It was subsequently published in the Journal of Millennial Studies, and is still available.)

But, of course, imitations were bound to follow. To mention just one, The World Ahead: What Will It Be Like? by the ever-original Roderick C. Meredith in 2008.

I'd venture to say that in 1970 Roger Whittaker had a better handle on the 'world tomorrow' than Herb, Ted and Rod put together.

Everybody talks about a new world in the morning
New world in the morning so they say
Now, I, myself don't talk about a new world in the morning
New world in the morning, that's today
And I can feel a new tomorrow comin' on
And I don't know why I have to make a song
Now everybody talks about a new world in the morning
New world in the morning takes so long
I met a man who had a dream he'd had since he was twenty
I met that man when he was eighty-one He said too many
folks just stand and wait until the mornin',
Don't they know tomorrow never comes
And he would feel a new tomorrow coming on
And when he'd smile his eyes would twinkle up in thought
Now, everybody talks about a new world in the morning
New world in the morning takes so long
And I can feel a new tomorrow coming on
And I don't know why I have to make a song
Now, everybody talks about a new world in the morning
New world in the morning takes so long.

More perceptive by far, you could whistle or hum along, and he didn't need 96 pages to say it.

Man's Awesome Destiny - a response to Ian Boyne

Ian Boyne is one of the most approachable and thoughtful advocates for Armstrongism today (he refers to it Reformed Armstrongism). I really appreciate his willingness to engage those of us who are of a more jaundiced disposition, something which is in my experience extremely rare. Even when the language on this side of the fence gets overly strident, Ian seems to maintain his composure. He serves in one of the more benign COGs, the Church of God International, a movement with which I was once briefly associated myself "in the high and far-off times". Moreover, Ian is widely read in a way that is quite exceptional for COG ministers.

Ian recently issued something of a challenge. The gist of it was - and I hope I'm getting this right - that the shining thread that inspires the followers of Herbert Armstrong today isn't BI, but the concept of human destiny in the family of God. Here we find purpose and direction for our lives.

"[Herbert Armstrong] taught the glorious truth not found in any New Covenant church that all saved human beings of ALL RACES would become, equally, God beings after the millennium and the Great White Throne judgment. If you want to see a robust defense of that doctrine, I invite you to read my short booklet online Man's Awesome Destiny... It was published by CGI [and it] does not regurgitate HWA's Why Were You Born. I would be gleeful if Byker Bob, Gavin or Gary would read and critique it. I would be over the moon!"

The booklet can be found in PDF format here. I don't intend to go through it in detail, so doubt Ian will get all the way to the moon on this trip, but am happy to offer a few comments. I confess that it was this WCG teaching, certainly not BI, that appealed most to my teenage self, a real contrast to the rather dry trinitarianism that was drummed in during Lutheran confirmation classes (using a text with the magnificent title Catechetical Helps).

Right at the outset let's put the idea of theosis on the table. "Theosis is the understanding that human beings can have real union with God, and so become like God to such a degree that we participate in the divine nature" (Mark Shuttleworth). This is an entirely legitimate understanding of human destiny for those in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. You could argue that Armstrong adopted this position, then ran off with it adding in his own unique spin, but I think it's more likely that he simply adapted parts of Mormon doctrine. But regardless, the idea that humans can become divine isn't in itself such a big issue.

Ian's booklet delves into apologetics quite quickly, discussing "the Anthropic Principle" (I'm not sure why he capitalises it). The idea is that everything in the universe is purpose-built for life. It's an expansion of "the Goldilocks principle" (that planet earth is designed to be "just right" for humanity). Ian states, "The evidence for it is simply overwhelming." Not so overwhelming, though, that it isn't highly contested. The relevance of this to the core argument Ian is proposing seems a bit tangential to me. I guess the reason for introducing it into the discussion is to demonstrate that a wonderful human destiny is indicated by intelligent design. I'm of the opinion that there is a certain circularity to this line of thinking, but what do I know? If you're interested, there's a much smarter discussion of the anthropic principle than I could ever offer over at the University of Oregon website.

Ian loses me, though, when he makes an impassioned call for his readers to drop to their knees: "Could you please, at this point, stop reading and pray... Conviction of truth comes through the Holy Spirit... Pray now for God's divine guidance on this subject." Well, okay, but I don't think this necessarily bolsters his case. We all know people who pray an awful lot but still believe all kinds of nonsense.

For some of us the statement "If Jesus is not God, then man cannot be God" rather ruins the argument. WCG always had a very mixed Christology, reaching a crescendo of confusion with Ted Armstrong's The Real Jesus, and I'd personally want to step away from any full-blown binitarianism. I'm not saying that Ian is wrong, only that this logic only works from a certain perspective. Former Ambassador College faculty member Sir Anthony Buzzard plays the game equally well and confidently arrives at a type of biblical unitarianism (see for example The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound, co-authored with former WCG evangelist Charles Hunting) .

Ian rolls out a selection of texts to bolster his case, as you'd expect. I note that he includes 1 Peter ("In 1 Peter 5:10 we have the unmistakable words from the pen of inspiration") and Colossians. The trouble is that Colossians is not counted among the authentic letters of Paul, nor 1 Peter regarded as from the hand of Peter. At best they form a second line of defense in any credible academic discussion. During my studies, I remember being assigned a very thick textbook on the Ephesian church (Paul Trebilco's The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius) in which the author studiously avoided using the book of Ephesians because of its contested authorship. Curated proof texts of this sort are inadequate to a serious discourse, something I expect Ian would agree with in discussing the Buzzard and Hunting book. I like the fact that Ian includes a short discussion of 'weak texts' which don't support the weight of the argument.

To summarise, Man's Awesome Destiny is an interesting and in some respects quite original defense of the God Family doctrine. Ian distances himself from the more extreme statements, but I'm of the view that he weakens his argument at several points exactly where he seeks to strengthen it. If we were discussing a non-trinitarian understanding of theosis, one not intermixed with extraneous elements and rhetorical flourishes, then I might be prepared to concede a point here and there.

You can judge the merits of Ian's booklet for yourself. As for me, I suspect that the real meaning of life lies in the meaning we bring to life.


(Update: clarification added in the paragraph about 1 Peter).

"The Most Significant Book of this Century"

British Israelism is surreal in and of itself, but the hard sell, the 'talking up' that accompanies it is, well, just bizarre. Former ad man Herbert Armstrong pulled out all the stops. He took an almost forgotten 60-year-old book and essentially rewrote it, without a word of credit, republishing it as his own. What he added were a series of over-the-top claims and predictions. Those claims were meant seriously and were taken seriously by his followers. It's incredible that some people even now still think he was essentially right.

This article was written several years ago but has not appeared here before.

***

It seemed every time Herbert Armstrong wrote a book, he lauded it as the most important ever written. The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy, issued in 1967 and later retitled The United States and Britain in Prophecy, ran true to form. Plagiarized from a turn of the century British-Israel classic, J.H.Allen's Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright, this volume contained some brash predictions.

To put it in its context, in 1967 Armstrong was anticipating the "Great Tribulation" just around the corner. 1972 was to be the beginning of the end. 1975 was the anticipated year of Christ's return. This little bit of date setting was the result of, among other things, his teaching on something he called "19-year time cycles". Simply put, he was convinced God had given him two 19 year periods to preach a warning message before history came crashing to a close. This was a distinctive Armstrong doctrine, unlike the tortured logic he used to "prove" that the United States was actually the tribe of Manasseh and Britain the tribe of Ephraim (he simply lifted those elements straight out of Allen's book). But 19-year time cycles? That was a uniquely Armstrong flourish.

Herbert Armstrong would later attempt to dig his way out of accountability for his "prediction addiction", claiming he never set dates and was just overly enthusiastic. But the embarrassing statements in the 1967 edition were there for all to see. Needless to say, the offending bits were laundered out of subsequent editions.

Here then are some choice bits from the introductory sections of that volume.

Highway to Hell

William & Margie Hinson

In the 1980s, I read two books which, as far as Armstrongism is concerned, knocked the ground out from under my feet. One was David Robinson's Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web (1981), the other Marion McNair's Armstrongism: Religion or Rip-off (1977). Of the two, Tangled Web had the greatest impact. More than any other insider source, it ripped the facade off the Worldwide Church of God. After Tangled Web there could be no going back.

I know Robinson was by no means without fault. I know the book had to be extensively rewritten before publication to remove virulent antisemitic comments. Knowing that doesn't invalidate his whistleblowing. Robinson was a senior minister in the WCG, and we can be grateful he decided to blow its cover. Marion McNair was one of Herbert Armstrong's evangelists. Again, not a man without fault, but though he wrote several years earlier, it was the same basic story.

There was a third exposé; William Hinson's Broadway to Armageddon (also 1977). This was more difficult to acquire, and I eventually gave up. It wasn't as though more dirt was needed to demonstrate the rottenness at the heart of WCG. When David Barrett was writing The Fragmentation of a Sect he had trouble hunting down a copy and asked if I had one (as I'm sure he also asked others). The 14-page list of references to his study includes both Robinson and McNair, but not Hinson.

Fast forward thirty-five years, and I've had a chance to read Hinson at last. I didn't think I could be shocked all over again, but I am.

It's not a well-written book. Hinson was no wordsmith nor, despite acquiring ministerial credentials, a particularly well-educated man. I skimmed the first few chapters, though not without a growing sense of horror as to the way things were through to the mid-1970s. If the writing is a bit rough, it also conveys the rawness of life in a sect that was, without doubt, abusive in the extreme. D&R and healing in particular.

But it's the supplementary material that is a real eye-opener. The exit letters from ministers, the leaked papers, the adultery, the deception.

We have Bill Hohman to thank for making all three books - Robinson, McNair and Hinson - available for downloading in PDF format. I stumbled on Bill's Facebook page while updating the links on AW. If you have a FB account you can avail yourself of this trip back in time. Not a particularly pleasant journey, but one that might help with closure by putting those missing pieces from times past in place.

From the original AW: "Difficult Scriptures" reviewed

It isn't quite on the same scale as recovering the Great Library of Alexandria, but just before Christmas I stumbled on the long lost flash drive that held the original AW (oAW) archives. Now they're backed up on the desk-top computer, it may be timely to reinject a few bits and pieces back into cyberspace...

To begin with, here's a review that appeared on oAW of Dave Albert's book "Difficult Scriptures." It's a straight copy and paste, and hasn't been revised or updated.

A belated review of Difficult Scriptures: Coming to Grips with the Law of Moses in the Worldwide Church of God by David Albert, Tyler House, 1996

Dave Albert was best known to the public as one the presenters for The World Tomorrow in its last years. That such a high profile minister would come out in favor of the changes within the Worldwide Church of God must have been a huge asset for the church's leadership. That he would set his hand to writing a book about it was surely a much-needed gift for the beleaguered sect.

And yet, Albert's book seems to have quickly disappeared without trace. Published under a largely unknown imprint (Tyler House), it “did the rounds” for a time, going through at least three print runs, before sliding into oblivion. It didn't even rank a mention in Michael Feazell's later Liberation of the Worldwide Church of God.¹ Today, the only way you're likely to get a copy is through a second-hand book service like Alibris.

Yet this book is the only one targeted at church members, the people most affected by the WCG's about face. Joe Tkach wrote Transformed by Truth for the larger evangelical market, and is seen by many as another part of the church's PR campaign to gain wider acceptance. Mike Feazell's Liberation also explains the church's journey (or, more accurately, the leadership's journey) to those on the outside. Albert however, took on the more difficult (and urgent) task of convincing those within the community he served. More than that, he was prepared to vigorously confront the proof texts and arguments that were being used to counter the new teachings.

Albert summarizes his case in three steps (p.188):

1. The law of Moses is no longer required of Christians.
2. The food laws and sacred day laws are part of the law of Moses.
3. Therefore, the food and day laws are now matters of conscience and are no longer binding on Christians as matters of obligation.

WCG members will know that both the literature and sermons of the Armstrong era had a certain style and delivery which set them apart from most other Christian traditions. Even in a closely related sect or denomination (the Church of God (Seventh Day) or Seventh-day Adventists, for example) the difference was easily noticeable. Albert's strength is in knowing – and using – the familiar approach. In some ways the book is an extended sermon crafted to resonate with members.

How successful was David Albert? In doing research for this review² I found that for a number of people it had been an important step in moving beyond the old teachings. In fact, several found it more helpful than anything the church itself produced. In contrast, one correspondent³ provided a copy of comments he had written that critiqued Albert's thesis from a pro-law perspective.

Albert's key thesis, that the Ten Commandments, Sabbaths and food regulations were an integral part of the Old Covenant, and that any distinction between the “spiritual law” and the “law of Moses” is illusory, is argued with relentless logic and passion. It is to the author's advantage that he already knows the likely objections, and his treatment of these is often devastating. It's hard to imagine anyone holding the assumptions most members have about the Bible, coming away from this book with any ideas about the timeless value of Old Testament observances unshaken.

Albert is at his best when addressing the weaknesses in Herbert Armstrong 's theology. Chapter 3 tackles the inconsistencies in the church's former position on clean and unclean foods, with Albert taking the reader through the article “Is All Animal Flesh Good for Food.” He is clear in his rejection of the old teaching:

Unfortunately, the logic used by Herbert Armstrong is without Biblical basis. He declared the food laws not part of the laws of Moses simply on his own authority. He then indicated that we ought to keep them because they're good for our bodies, and that's that! ... What begins not as spiritual sin, but merely as “physical sin,” proves in the end to be real sin after all because lusting after something wrong. (p.49)

It becomes obvious that Herbert Armstrong 's reasoning is not a sound Biblical treatment of the subject of the food laws. It wins support by inventing an extra-Biblical law, language, and logic. Worst of all, it contradicts the words and teachings of Jesus Christ. (p.50)

Does the book have weaknesses? I believe so. Albert seems, for example, unfamiliar with recent Biblical scholarship (though he does cite a few credible sources), and still holds firmly to a hierarchical paradigm.⁴ Chapter 15, an excursus into eschatology (why the Sabbaths seem to reappear during the Millennium) is particularly dodgy. None of these factors, however, detracts from the force of his overall presentation, which makes the failure of the WCG's leadership to use this resource to their best advantage stunning.

David Albert expresses his confidence in the way reforms are proceeding in the church (remembering that he wrote in 1996):

To its credit, the Worldwide Church of God has adopted the Biblical teaching and policy [referring to Romans 14:5] that no longer finds it warring with itself and others on matters of conscience. It is a policy that promotes peace and preserves unity, a policy we can live with.

Such rose-colored optimism seems a little unjustified in hindsight. He concludes with a plea to those who have left to “come home”.

May I say that I think your place is here – here in the same fellowship of which you have always been a part. Your place is is with us, your brethren, your spiritual family. We are not the same without you. Please come back to that part of the body into which you were called.

However, the most telling factor among those who have expressed a warm appreciation for David Albert's book to me is this: the overwhelming majority⁵, who were members at the time they first read those words, were, eight years later, no longer associated with WCG.

Perhaps he did a better job than he realized.

GR

Notes

1. Feazell also failed to mention Earl Williams. See the AW review of his book.

2. I asked for impressions on Mark Tabladillo's JLF group, and Douglas Becker's Missing Dimension group, as well as receiving further unsolicited comments from several readers who had seen the book review mentioned as a pending item on the Ambassador Watch website.

3. Available at http://www.webspawner.com/users/wmstorey/index.html

4. In chapter 6 Albert describes Peter as “pre-eminent church elder”, and is at pains to relegate James to a lower status, although it's unclear why he sees this as significant. The concept of the priesthood of all believers is notable by its absence from the book. He states “the living Christ has mandated change for the Worldwide Church of God” (p.187), but seems to have little concept of what the term mandate involves.

5. One gentleman, WCG elder Oleh Kubik, constitutes the main exception. Mr. Kubik's congregations, however, seem to have failed to "catch the vision". Once with more than 450 attending in two locations, the faithful have been reduced to a mere handful which meets once a month.

Up the Amazon and Flying Free

At last. John Morgan's exceptional book - Flying Free: A Journey from Fundamentalism to Freedom- is now available on Amazon, and at a better price than elsewhere. This is a large quality paperback book, and I've raved about it before. A review of the first edition can be found here. A lot of rubbish has been published over the years by insiders and outsiders alike, much of it pushing the authors' personal agendas. Flying Free soars above the petty self-justifications and tithe-farming ploys to tell a genuine story of one man and his involvement in the WCG from childhood to freedom.

The nice people at Amazon even give you a chance to look inside and, dear lord, there's even a peek at the back cover endorsement by a certain Kiwi stirrer!

New Buzzy Book

Former Ambassador College teacher Sir Anthony Buzzard has moved on from his earlier treatment of the Trinity in a jointly authored volume with fellow Armstrong refugee Charles Hunting (currently unavailable on Amazon, but procurable from Atlanta Bible College), to a solo title of 400 pages called Jesus Was Not a Trinitarian.

The newer book appears to avoid some of the clangers that plagued the earlier tome. Buzzard is, of course, not arguing from a place of scholarly objectivity, but making a case for a biblical unitarianism. This is the perspective that is aired in the One God seminars organized by Ken Westby, and influential in unexpected corners of the WCG diaspora.

For a critical pro-trinitarian review of the book, click here. It appears however that the reviewer is every bit as one-eyed as the author he critiques. Provided you share the same assumptions Buzzard does - about the inspiration of the Bible and the factual status of the gospel accounts for example - he seems to make reasonable good sense.

Flying Free in print

John Morgan's Flying Free is now available in large soft-cover format. Here's an edited version of two earlier posts on AW about the first edition (which was only released on CD ROM.)

John Morgan is a member of the Kiwi diaspora living in the Big, Dry Country, west of Eden. He is also a former member of the Worldwide Church of God.

He’s the latest to put his story in book form, but unlike some others he doesn't appear to have a sectarian axe to grind. He’s put together a valuable resource.

Here’s a brief excerpt from the preface:

“I believe that to be successful in completely moving on ... it is important to understand more about Herbert Armstrong – answering critical questions like: what was his background, and where was he coming from? It is important to understand the actual reality of the organisation WCG members were a part of. ...

“In Flying Free I have addressed these issues. This book contains never previously published research on Herbert Armstrong’s Holiness Quaker upbringing. It includes extensive research on the WCG’s comparison to a cult, and the characteristics that actually define a cult. There are also many pages devoted to scanned material from original WCG literature – the content of material read from an external perspective, is assimilated and interpreted completely differently to the identical documents read from within the organisation. Reviewing this material can give new insight into the journey taken by WCG members and ex-members.

“Further to this, Flying Free also contains an open-minded assessment of the origins of the Bible, the authority of the Bible, and an appraisal of organised Christianity’s influence on the individual Christian.

“Flying Free documents the impact of the Armstrong teachings on individual lives, but then goes on to show a priceless freedom – found in life beyond fundamentalism.

“Flying Free should serve as a warning to those contemplating entering a fundamentalist church.”

I've read quite a few books by ex-WCG members. Some of them have been shattering (Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web springs first to mind) while others have been facile. In recent years I've reviewed – favourably – Pam Dewey's Field Guide (an excellent primer on American religions), Dennis Embo's The God that Prevailed (a testimony by an ex-member who converted to Catholicism), and Henry Sturcke's Encountering the Rest of God (a theological dissertation.) Good people, good books.

Then there are the less worthy tomes. These are filed away in box where I can blissfully ignore them, side by side with ancient “literature” sanctioned by the church.

Flying Free is in a category of its own. I can honestly say my expectations were exceeded. In fact I've read nothing like it before. Author John Morgan captures the spirit of growing up in the old WCG. Looking at it through his eyes put a lot of things in a fresh light, and as I read through the first chapters I found myself thinking: man, we really were weird!

I was blessed with the rare opportunity to come into the church during an atypically “liberal” period. It lasted a few brief years – an Indian Summer of relative sanity – then was swept away in the “cultural revolution” that saw Garner Ted dumped, Stan Rader facing off against the State of California and Herbert taking a final extended trip into megalomania. I didn't hang around much longer – Christ was using an extremely caustic “spot remover” to tart up his Bride, and the local minister wisely decided I was a definite liability (thanks Jack, you did me a favor!)

I mention that because one's experience of the WCG is determined to some extent by when you were actively involved. John was there long before me, as a kid growing up in the “Truth”, and stayed with the church through till the changes. With a measured style he sets about detailing his story – our story – with great fairness. Warning: if you're anything like me you'll be entering the “flashback zone.” So many things I'd forgotten about. So many fanatical teachings, so much manipulation! Being a part of the church came at a cost. If it wasn't so downright tragic it'd be hilarious.

Unlike some others, John isn't pushing a particular barrow, nor is there any sense of bitterness. It seems he just wants to put it all “on the record”, and he does a magnificent job. No nutty conspiracy theories or cheap apologetics, no strange interpretations of Bible passages, just an amazing story, all the more bizarre for its familiarity. There's also a personal touch to John's account. You can't miss the fact that this church, these doctrines, had an effect on real families, people just like you and me. The personal asides add a great deal to Flying Free.

And oh, those quotes! I'd forgotten just how blatant a lot of Herb's writing was. The thinly veiled threats of eternal damnation if we didn't do this or that. I read them again with a sense of disbelief... was I really taken in by this rubbish?

A full review can be found here, once again based on the first edition. Back then I also commented that it would be wonderful to see it appear in hard copy, and it's great that Flying Free is now available in book form. You can order a copy through lulu.com, either as a $10 download, or in paperback format at $38.95. It is expected by be available on Amazon shortly.

To repeat something I said when the first edition came out - "My advice? Get a copy."

A Snake in the Grass

Every so often a troublesome fellow comes along who turns the barrel of certitudes upside down, dumps them all over the carpet and then stands there smirking while everyone else is rendered speechless.

Such a troublesome spirit is Henry Ansgar Kelly, author of Satan: A Biography.

Kelly enters the fray from UCLA. Not a theologian, but a professor of English with a passion for Medieval history. As we all know, non-theologians are dangerous creatures with a nasty habit of thinking outside of the square.

Now let's pause for a quick true or false quiz:

1. Satan is also known as Lucifer (T / F)
2. Satan first appears in Genesis as the serpent who tricks Eve (T / F)
3. Satan fell – he was cast out of heaven for leading a rebellion against God long ago (T / F)
4. Revelation speaks of a coming Anti-Christ (T / F)

If you said true to any of the above, Kelly has news for you. In a closely argued book which isn't without a sense of humor, the author sets out to put the record straight, and the gasps from the cheap seats are quite audible.

Now, just to be clear, we're not talking about some Biblicist text-banger who has discovered a “new truth.” This is a serious historical account of how we came to believe what we do about Satan. And according to Kelly, most of the things we think we know about the devil are creations of the Church Fathers, especially Justin Martyr, Origen and Tertullian. And that includes a lot of detail that Herbert Armstrong taught. Kelly doesn't mention Armstrong, but anyone who has read the literature will see that, for example, much of that “new truth” in his booklet “Did God Create a Devil?” was lifted directly from impeccably Catholic sources. Kelly argues that these views were then read back into the Bible, or “retro-fitted.” Put another way, it doesn't really say what most of us assume it does... and he proceeds to make a strong case.

Kelly goes through every occasion where Satan or the devil (which he translates as a proper noun, Devil) appears in the Bible, and even takes the reader through a crash course on the influential books of Enoch, Jubilees and the Wisdom of Solomon. The Prince of Darkness emerges as an authorized agent of God, a kind of divine Tester, not a particularly nice one, but “just doing his job” as they say.

And who really is Lucifer if he isn't Satan? Well, maybe not who we think he is, and Kelly indulges in a fascinating bit of exegesis to demonstrate another possibility entirely.

This wide ranging book is a major broadside at traditional beliefs, and the surprise is just how traditional COG beliefs on this subject really are. It's sure to stir up a hornet's nest, or perhaps it would be more apt to say a devil of a fuss.

A COG Bible?

One of the scariest things I've heard of in recent days is Fred Coulter's plans to produce a “translation” of the whole Bible. Coulter, as you probably know, abandoned the ministry of the WCG in the late 70s to establish the Biblical Church of God which swiftly sank without trace. Fred then founded the Christian Biblical Church of God.

Fred's telephone directory-sized New Testament is already with us, it came out a couple of years ago, built around the text of his revised Harmony of the Gospels (to his credit, Fred at least knows how to read Greek, based on his time at AC.) His “Faithful Version” reads like a slightly updated and rather dull KJV, nothing like the first edition of his Harmony which was then in contemporary English (he's since moved to adopt a severely literal translation approach.) Most notable in his New Testament are the copious and rambling essays and explanations that have blown out the book to 880 pages. By my estimate at least 50% is made up of commentary. A hardback copy of Fred's Faithful New Testament (full title: The New Testament in its Original Order: A Faithful Version with Commentary) will set you back around $50 on Amazon, exclusive of postage.

Individual translators, as opposed to committees, have often produced colorful and stirring versions. James Moffatt, J.B. Phillips, Eugene Peterson (The Message) and John Henson (Good As New) spring to mind (Fred wastes 3 ½ pages attacking Henson in his NT preface, and 2 more attacking Peterson, but Fred simply isn't in this league.) What is remarkable though is his reliance on a corrupt Greek text - “the Stephens text of 1550” (which, of course, he passionately defends at tedious length as the most accurate!) The Stephens in question is “Stephanus” (Robert Etienne), a French printer who produced a revision of Erasmus' Greek text. This is part of the "Textus Receptus" tradition out of which the KJV came. But there are problems.

“No translation can be better than the text on which it is based... those were the days before the art of serious textual criticism had begun. They were able to use only those manuscripts that had been available to Erasmus (which he recognized to be defective) and to the Parisian printer Stephanus... These manuscripts were mostly of the Byzantine (or Koine) family of texts, which subsequent research has demonstrated to be amongst the least trustworthy.” (Robinson, The Thoughtful Guide to the Bible, 2004, p. 269-270.)

“When the AV/KJV was translated, the oldest and best Greek manuscripts had not then been discovered. The earliest used by Erasmus for his 1516 edition of the Greek NT dates back no further than the tenth century.” (Dewey, Which Bible? A Guide to English Translations, 2004, p. 195.)

Now Fred is “doing” the Old Testament. But wait, does Fred actually know any Hebrew? Not that I'm aware of.

The strategy seems to be to revise an already obscure translation called the Modern King James Version to produce an even more obscure one. Fred has paid out $20,000 for this privilege (courtesy, one assumes, of his tithe-paying supporters.) Troublesome verses are being duly “COGified”, so Genesis 1:1-2 will now read “ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth became without form and void...” The inspired marginal notations are migrating into the text itself!

In essence this doesn't seem much different from Joseph Smith's rewrite of the KJV to produce the “Inspired Version” (still published, last I heard, by Herald House in Independence, MO.)

Fred has also decided to structure his Bible version “in its original order.” Original order? Certainly there's precedent for reordering the books of the Bible, but this one (which owes a good deal to Ernest Martin) has little to recommend it.

There is the consolation of knowing that the Coulter Bible, when it arrives, will be little noticed, as with his existing – and widely ignored – New Testament. This is largely because no other COG is about to give a rival the satisfaction of citing his Bible version in their own publications. Unless you are a collector of uncommon or abstruse Bibles, you may want to give this one a miss.

Showdown review - British Israelism

Greg Doudna is no slacker. His name should be familiar to anyone interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls beyond the “Michael Baigent level”. In fact, I tripped over his cognomen quite by accident in the notes to a recent text on that subject (along with fellow WCG alumnus Lester Grabbe.) So, imagine for a moment an academic of this calibre turning his attention on the time-dishonoured theories of British Israelism.

Imagine no longer, but pull on your coat and gumboots, because the blood is up to the fetlocks and rising!

There are four chapters on this theme in Showdown. Doudna begins with a surreal tale surrounding a student paper he wrote in the 1970s at Big Sandy, where he tried to show that the church had things back to front: Ephraim was America, not Great Britain, and the English/Australians etc. were Manasseh. The paper was ignored at the time.

Fast forward to the late 1980s, and Greg was looking for a publisher for the first edition of Showdown. A copy of the manuscript was sent to William Dankenbring, including an outline of that original paper, now a curiosity piece set amid a thorough deconstruction of the BI doctrine. Willie however was converted to the tribal reassignment on the spot, and eagerly began to proclaim the “new truth” - much to Doudna's consternation. But lo, more was to follow. Ken Westby adopted the theory (without crediting its source), Norm Edwards championed it for a while, there was coverage in The Journal, while an upstart New Zealander (modest bow) opined that the whole idea was totally absurd either way. Doudna notes:

“In my dreams I would rather see myself credited with helping to put the Anglo-Israel idea in the grave where it belongs. The idea is factually untrue as an historical claim and has borne bad fruit...” (p. 227)

So it is that Greg is responsible for an Armstrong heresy without even trying. Providence obviously has a droll sense of humour!

The other chapters constitute a focussed discussion of BI that deserves to be read by anyone even remotely drawn to the Lost Ten Tribes theories. To cut to the chase, the historical sources used to justify the doctrine were abused and misused and sometimes created out of the whole cloth. Doudna spends some time demolishing the Tea-Tephi/Jeremiah fiction. “It may be an interesting story,” he writes, “but it is completely fabricated.” And then he proceeds to demonstrate just that in merciless detail.

As an aside, Greg relates how he once asked the great Doctor Hoeh whether he'd ever publish a new edition of his Compendium. The good doctor replied no, giving the reason that he didn't want to contribute to the world's paper shortage!

But back to the demure princess Tea-Tephi for a moment. It seems even that grand old dame of Biblical jingoism, the British Israel World Federation, no longer regards TT as a historical character. The whole story was a fiction from the beginning, and the supposed references in ancient Irish annals about as traceable as a leprechaun's pot of gold.

Having stripped the finery from the fair princess, Doudna takes a pneumatic drill to the Lia Fail Stone, and, barely pausing for a chapter break, asks “Were the Scythians Israelites?” Another fascinating anecdote: AC instructor Allen Manteufel taught Ancient World History using the legendary Compendium, but his other source materials were conveniently unavailable. Greg provides the following verbatim snippet from one of Manteufel's classes:

“Noah took his sons on a world tour to show them the world around the Mediterranean in 10 years. He began by the Black Sea, circled the Mediterranean, and left a colony on the Tiber River in Italy. Noah then retired to Armenia... He took another world tour in 2210 BC and spent 9 years in Spain. Then Noah arrived in Italy, found Gomer had died and the Italians were being corrupted by Ham. Noah kicked out Ham and ruled Italy himself. Noah died and gave the land to Saturn and one of Joktan's kids.”

Such was the depth of scholarship at AC!

Doudna, on a roll, proceeds to demolish the work of Anne Kristensen (cited by BI enthusiasts as a credible authority) and then turns to Herbert Armstrong's assertions that Adam and Eve were white (Mystery of the Ages, 148.) Next to feel the heat is Raymond McNair's loopy thesis Key to Northwest European Origins. He concludes with some apt observations on the dark side of BI: GTA referring to the Inuit peoples as “grunting savages”, and Bryce Clark calling Native Americans “heathen savages” who were therefore quite rightly dispossessed.

There are other books dealing with British Israelism, but this one has the benefit of coming from the keyboard of an incisive thinker and genuine researcher who has actually walked a mile in the moccasins of this “hallucinogenic” delusion. In short, it's priceless.

(Link: Showdown at Big Sandy)

Showdown review ... Part 1

Did you know that:

*The opening of the Ambassador Auditorium was marked by the appearance of streakers?

*Herb Armstrong claimed to be related to US president Richard Nixon?

*GTA proposed cancelling the 1975 Feast of Tabernacles so the members could send in their second-tithe direct to Pasadena?

*Rod Meredith held a shouting match with Black WCG elder Tom Hall over racial matters in a Doctrinal Committee meeting?

*AC Pasadena refused to recognise many of the courses taught at its Big Sandy sister campus?

Well, I didn't, and I'm indebted to Greg Doudna for plugging a number of gaps from the WCG's past. More specifically, the way the world looked from Big Sandy in the Seventies.

The WCG can probably be grateful that Greg wised up and found better things to do, for it's just plain scary to imagine what he would have got up to if he'd stayed and risen through the ranks. Just reading through his doctrinal papers from that time – positions he has long since moved beyond – indicate that this guy would have raised more than a little hell along the way.

The book in question is Showdown at Big Sandy, and the subtitle says it all: “Youthful Creativity Confronts Bureaucratic Inertia...” Doudna provides insight on a number of characters from the times: Dean of Students Ronald Kelly, for example, who is described as a hard working “company man”... one of many “yellow pencils” cut from the same mold... [who] did not try to disguise his lack of interest in things intellectual.

There are also anecdotes involving Herman Hoeh, Kenneth Herrmann, GTA, Charles Dorothy and other characters. The chapters on tithing and creationism are excellent, the treatment of healing and medicine is downright sobering, and the discussion of the old God Family doctrine is simply fascinating. (Let's all not tell Bob Thiel about that chapter, as he'd probably misunderstand it and gloat insufferably.)

But my favorite section of Showdown deals with the British Israel teachings. This is the best discussion of the subject I've seen yet, and it begins with Greg, in his youthful enthusiasm, floating a brand new theory which was later to be adopted by Willie Dankenbring, Norm Edwards, Ken Westby, Old Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. Only trouble being that Greg had already abandoned the idea and was amazed to find it being trotted out again long after leaving WCG behind. More details in part two of the review.

Greg can be restrained at times. He makes only passing reference to Armstrong's alcohol problems and steers clear of the incest allegations altogether. At other times his critique can be biting (you can almost see the tooth marks.) I read the 500 plus pages of Showdown over three days, and was left wanting more! There are some slower moments as, for example, he explains how he once tried to make all those numbers in Daniel add up to apocalyptic significance, but I guess this just goes to show that there's hope for even the most dogged date-setter.

If you're interested in the story of the church, or you still secretly wonder whether the church had some things right when it taught that the English-speaking countries were descended from Ancient Israel, this is one volume you really should add to your bookshelf. More details at www.scrollery.com.

(Part 2 will follow in a few days time.)

An Unconventional Bible College

"I invite you to walk with me some of the steps of the way, like going to a strange land and back again."
Greg Doudna

I was delighted to discover John Morgan's book Flying Free earlier this year. It is the story of life in the Worldwide Church of God over several decades, told from the perspective of a fellow Kiwi. I recommended it without reservation, and I still do.

Just this week I was made aware of another book which also relates the WCG experience from a personal perspective. Greg Doudna was a student at Big Sandy during the turbulent Seventies, and this is his story. Like Flying Free, Showdown at Big Sandy seems to be mercifully free of the hobbyhorse apologetics that spoil many books of this sort. This is, in addition, more than just an AC alumnus on a nostalgia trip. The author, who later returned to his Quaker roots, is in fact something of an authority on the subject of the Dead Sea Scrolls, with articles in The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures and The Bible and Interpretation, and an 800 page text published by Sheffield Academic Press entitled "4Q Pesher Nahum: A Critical Edition." Be assured, however, that Showdown seems anything but a dense academic dissertation, and will be compulsory (and perhaps compulsive) reading both for those who attended Ambassador College in its heyday, and those of us who are simply fascinated by the history and evolution of Armstrongism.

Showdown at Big Sandy was first published in 1989, but has been out of print for some time. Greg has now updated and reissued the book. From what I've seen so far, I'm very glad he has. He has previously written of the book:

"It is a light-hearted, but also serious, memoir of the fundamentalist experience from one who was there (me). I sought through humor and the foil of myself as the innocent, believing, naive, but growing young mind at this Bible college, to show the way forward and out of such thinking. Everything in the book is true yet I wrote it as a story with plot and theme. The theme revolves around about a dozen or so creative papers I wrote mostly when I was a sophomore student..."

By clicking across to http://www.lulu.com/content/435005 you can preview some of the content for yourself. Or even better, try www.scrollery.com, which is a dedicated website. The book (540 pages) can be downloaded for under $15, or ordered in print form for around $30. A full review will appear here a little further down the line.

Junia not Junior

I suspect most readers of AW are blokes, judging from the gender balance of the comments. The old time WCG was a blokes' club with not just an all male ministry, but (and this was highly unusual) a preponderance of men over women in the general membership. This caused problems for the single men, exhorted to be maintain a high moral standard but unable to marry outside of their faith (and for most of the church's history outside of their “race” as well.)

Which is why most of the eligible bachelors scrubbed up with particular care for the Feast of Tabernacles. A chance to impress was too important to miss!

But what about the women? In some ways women have been the forgotten 50% of the Church of God. No women as preachers of course, no women as administrators, no women consulted when it came to the latest flip-flop over divorce and remarriage or make-up. For years even the by-lines in church publications were exclusively male, women apparently made inferior writers as well.

Today the new-look Tkach-WCG has, thankfully, made most of that history. They're even looking at the issue of women in ministry, though that reform is slow in coming, and you've got to suspect that, despite the advocacy of Sheila Graham and others, there is a lot of resistance. A cousin of mine, a fine and sincere man who has stood by the WCG through thick and thin, has written a paper opposing the idea.

So, let me introduce you to Junia, woman and apostle. Her story is a fascinating one. She's been hiding away in Romans 16 for nigh on two millennia, but precious few blokes seem to have noticed. Those that have, more often than not, have felt the need to perform gender reassignment: poor Junia has been shorn of her femininity and morphed into a man.

Check out Romans 16:7. “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” (NRSV)

Compare the same verse in the NIV where Junia goes under the knife to emerge as Junias, a male.

No, this isn't a trendy new feminist re-reading of the trusty old KJV, the KJV has Junia correctly identified, as did the early church fathers (mainly composed of misogynists who'd make Rod Meredith look positively enlightened by comparison.) Even Fred Coulter's translation (gasp!) gets it right - though I doubt he thought through the implications.

Junia, a woman who was “prominent among the apostles”? What gives?

Rena Pederson comes to the rescue with “The Lost Apostle: Searching for the Truth About Junia.” Pederson is a Washington journalist, not a theologian, and a “moderate Methodist”, not a COG member. Her book, however, illustrates the doggedness of a journalist who knows how to go after the facts, find the people “in the know” (she has interviewed a “who's who” of Christian scholars) and then present the findings in a highly readable, accessible way. I particularly enjoyed her account of meeting with a gaggle of Vatican scholars at the Pontifico Instituto Biblico:

"Surrounded by male scholars at the table, I had the feeling that this was what it must be like to have lunch at the Elks Lodge. I had envisioned a defensive or hostile reaction from the church scholars, but the institute professors exuded a gentlemanly curiosity about my topic. As it turned out, studying the women of the church was not high on their list of scholarly pursuits. It was like asking them what they thought about hormone replacement therapy."

You won't trip over theological verbiage, but you will get a fantastic insight into how women have fared in the Christian church down through the centuries, and who knows, just maybe you'll end up agreeing with Joe Jr. that the issue really does need addressing.

Agreeing with Joe about anything is a scary thought, but he's got to be right about something occasionally. And, just quietly, I think the various COGs would be much improved if some of the wooden-minded blokes stepped aside to make way for a few multi-tasking females. Any one of the service-minded secretaries who make coffee and clean up after Dave Pack would be a definite improvement, don't you think?

Flying Free and Marmite sandwiches

This is the second part of the Flying Free review.
John Morgan's book, Flying Free, has had me engrossed for several days. I thought I'd heard it all, but John surprised me more than once. Chapter 4 on the marks of a cult (using Steven Hassan's experiences as an ex-Moonie) was among the clearest I've come across. Chapter 6, addressing HWA's genuineness (or lack thereof) is excellent.

Flying Free is generally supportive of the new WCG, but the discussion on tithing also makes it clear that Joe Jnr's position on that subject is backtracking on a commitment to freedom.

John is the only person I know who can proudly state that he no longer attends any church, and is better off for the fact!

"When I talk to fellow Christians, and they find out that I no longer attend any church, most of them look on me as someone in need of spiritual help. They look on me as a weaker Christian – if a Christian at all! They talk to me as though I have fallen from a position of spiritual strength.

"The truth is the opposite. I feel spiritually stronger now, than at any other time in my life. I feel that a Christian who doesn’t attend a physical church, has a spiritual freedom that churchgoers probably are unable to experience."
I've often thought that, but saying it publicly is something else. Chapter 7 is intriguing. It seems clear that the author is still a Bible believing Christian in the first pages, and then wham, he launches into a very useful discussion on the gaping holes in Biblicism. It's this balanced approach that makes the book unique. You might not agree with John on everything, but you surely have to respect his position.

Being chained to a whiteboard most of the working week, I really have issues with writers who can't be bothered with spelling or proof reading. So it was a delight to find this self-published work was virtually bullet-proof. I can't argue with John's account of the way it was: it's honest and accurate. I liked the fact that Flying Free avoids polemic (something I'm frequently guilty of) and preachiness. My advice? Get a copy.

(But lest this sound too uncritical...)

So, what's the beef (so to speak) with Marmite?

"Then there was Lev 17:12: “None of you may eat blood”, so we could not eat marmite – a breakfast spread containing dried blood – or black pudding."

I remember some of the urban legends that circulated in WCG, related in that peculiarly sincere tone of voice and received with a wide-eyed "is that so!" But this is one I hadn't heard. The local version of this pungent spread (a yeast extract) is an iconic item in the Australasian diet, and completely vegetarian (produced by the fastidious Seventh-day Adventist company Sanitarium.) Bad enough for any Kiwi to be deprived of whitebait and sausage rolls, but to forego Marmite sandwiches on a misunderstanding... only an Antipodean would know the pain!

To find out more about John Morgan's Flying Free, click on the link in the sidebar.

John's story

I wrote about Flying Free a few days ago, but all I had to go on then was the publicity material. This is part 1 of a review.

I've read quite a few books by ex-WCG members. Some of them have been shattering (Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web springs first to mind) while others have been facile. In recent years I've reviewed – favourably – Pam Dewey's Field Guide (an excellent primer on American religions), Dennis Embo's The God that Prevailed (a testimony by an ex-member who converted to Catholicism), and Henry Sturcke's Encountering the Rest of God (a theological dissertation.) I keep promising to put them online again (sorry Henry, I hope you haven't been holding your breath!) and hopefully that'll happen when I find a bit of spare time. Good people, good books.

Then there are the less worthy tomes: Willie Dankenbring's stuff, Fred Coulter's New Testament "translation", and a copy of Peter's Story that I have yet to crack open the covers of. These are filed away in box where I can blissfully ignore them, side by side with ancient “literature” sanctioned by the church.

Flying Free is in a category of its own. It looked promising from the preview material on the website, but now having had the chance to dig into the actual text I can honestly say my expectations were exceeded. In fact I've read nothing like it before. Author John Morgan captures the spirit of growing up in the old WCG. Looking at it through his eyes put a lot of things in a fresh light, and as I read through the first chapters I found myself thinking: man, we really were weird!

I was blessed with the rare opportunity to come into the church during an atypically “liberal” period. It lasted a few brief years – an Indian Summer of relative sanity – then was swept away in the “cultural revolution” that saw Garner Ted dumped, Stan Rader facing off against the State of California and Herbert taking a final extended trip into megalomania. I didn't hang around much longer – Christ was using an extremely caustic “spot remover” to tart up his Bride, and the local minister wisely decided I was a definite liability (thanks Jack, you did me a favor!)

I mention that because your experience of the WCG is determined to some extent by when you were actively involved. John was there long before me as a kid growing up in the “Truth”, and stayed with the church through till the changes. With a measured style he sets about detailing his story – our story – with great fairness. Warning: if you're anything like me you'll be entering the “flashback zone.” So many things I'd forgotten about. So many fanatical teachings, so much manipulation! Being a part of the church came at a cost. If it wasn't so downright tragic it'd be hilarious.

Unlike some others, John isn't pushing a particular barrow, nor is there any sense of bitterness. It seems he just wants to put it all “on the record”, and he does a magnificent job. No nutty conspiracy theories or cheap apologetics, no strange interpretations of Bible passages, just an amazing story, all the more bizarre for its familiarity. There's also a personal touch to John's account. You can't miss the fact that this church, these doctrines, had an effect on real families, people just like you and me. The personal asides add a great deal to Flying Free.

And oh, those quotes! I'd forgotten just how blatant a lot of Herb's writing was. The thinly veiled threats of eternal damnation if we didn't do this or that. I read them again with a sense of disbelief... was I really taken in by this rubbish?

I'd love to see a print edition of Flying Free, but the CD version has its advantages too. Publishing a 300 page book is no easy task, and the cost to the reader would be a further disincentive. In this form its affordable, and hopefully it'll be widely read. I recommend it without hesitation.

Want to know more? Check out the Flying Free website.

(Part 2 in a few days time)

Flying Free

John Morgan is a member of the Kiwi diaspora living in the Big, Dry Country, west of Eden. He is also a former member of the Worldwide Church of God.

He’s the latest to put his story in book form, but unlike some others he doesn't appear to have a sectarian axe to grind. From what is available on his website, it seems he’s put together a valuable resource.

Here’s a brief excerpt from the preface:

“I believe that to be successful in completely moving on ... it is important to understand more about Herbert Armstrong – answering critical questions like: what was his background, and where was he coming from? It is important to understand the actual reality of the organisation WCG members were a part of. ...

“In Flying Free I have addressed these issues. This book contains never previously published research on Herbert Armstrong’s Holiness Quaker upbringing. It includes extensive research on the WCG’s comparison to a cult, and the characteristics that actually define a cult. There are also many pages devoted to scanned material from original WCG literature – the content of material read from an external perspective, is assimilated and interpreted completely differently to the identical documents read from within the organisation. Reviewing this material can give new insight into the journey taken by WCG members and ex-members.

“Further to this, Flying Free also contains an open-minded assessment of the origins of the Bible, the authority of the Bible, and an appraisal of organised Christianity’s influence on the individual Christian.

“Flying Free documents the impact of the Armstrong teachings on individual lives, but then goes on to show a priceless freedom – found in life beyond fundamentalism.

“Flying Free should serve as a warning to those contemplating entering a fundamentalist church.”
The book is available on CD for a nominal cost, and the contents page indicates that there’s much there that will be helpful for members and ex-members alike. Further downstream there may be a review available on Otagosh. John's web address is www.flyingfree.zoomshare.com. His email address is shining.bright@optusnet.com.au