Twittering with Spanky & Son

A report today indicates that most of us who have tried the Twitter fad have quickly regained our common sense and dropped out. I'm pleased to announce that I'm also among the ranks of the former twits. If it can't be done on Facebook it probably shouldn't be.

Not so the magisterium of the LCG, which has launched its own Twitter page. Not to be overly critical (ahem) but it's a bit of a bore.

Not so the short-lived Twitter page belonging to Rod's son Jonathan. It quickly rose to become joke of the month among LCG members and other COG readers who stumbled across it. Jonathan has wisely removed it now, but not before several folk hit the print button on behalf of posterity. AW was tipped off by a correspondent who commented on the fact that any other LCG member placing content of this sort online would be booted out of the church without delay.

To be fair, Jonathan isn't as far as I know a salaried employee of his dad's sect (although it's apparent from his postings that he is a member), and was unaware he was being read by anyone other than a couple of amigos: so why give the guy undue grief? The lesson to be learned for practicing COG members here is that if you're going to use colorful language, exercise advanced scatological skills and demonstrate your need for remedial English, posting it all online is a really dumb thing to do.

Richard, wanna buy the Brooklyn Bridge?

Dear Richard

I read your article, and it's nice that you're pleased about WCG's re-branding as Grace Communion International. But if this is cause to make the Christian world rejoice, then there's something terribly wrong. The WCG transformation is more a travesty than a miracle. That's why a lot of the people in the WCG who originally welcomed the "reformation" are now ex-members. Outside commentators like yourself have too often avoided asking the tough questions in their haste to claim a victory for evangelical faith. That's why your blog entry is naive and, frankly, uninformed.

When the changes began, people like you were needed to help guide the beneficiaries of Armstrong's Empire away from a hierarchic mindset. What happened? Nothing. Sure, there has been doctrinal change, and that was hugely necessary. But it wasn't enough.

Richard, if you're serious about helping the newly re-christened GCI and its members, write to Joe Tkach and urge him to introduce genuine accountability into his church (and I do mean his church... which is why accountability is desperately needed.) Encourage him to establish an elected board and a procedure whereby the church president must be selected by a representative body for a set term of office. Familiarise him with the concept of mandated leadership.

If you can pull off that trick, then you'll be able to write about a real miracle, with no argument from me!

Gerry Spends Up Big

Gerry "Six Pack" Flurry has been swanning around in Big Sandy, and guess what he's brought home to Oklahoma?

Mormons collect "mormonabilia", so I guess Gerry collects "herbabilia," and there's been no looking back since he hauled the "prayer rock" to Edmond. Over the years since he's continued, um, pecking away...

No, Gerry, we're all really impressed, aren't we campers? Interested readers will surely want to flock, as it were, to the PCG's triumphant announcement of purchase. Maybe we could all hire a bus for a pilgrimage...

A Clever Clunker

What Aggie calls the "whitewashing" has commenced as a number of Tkach-sect websites waste no time in undergoing a makeover from Worldwide Church of God to Grace Communion International.

"One ministry blog has already been whitewashed. The Surprising God Blog has not (yet). One Pennsylvania congregation has been whitewashed. WCG’s vulnerable and at-risk youth recruitment propaganda has not been whitewashed (yet). One TN congregation has been whitewashed. Anybody speak Spanish? Looks like this congregation has been whitewashed, but I can’t tell for certain." (From ISA)

The move is clever. We all know the sect is still Joe's stolen sinecure. Legally it's still WCG, but a new name creates further distance from the past. Those of us who are past members of WCG have effectively been cut loose a second time... we were never members of anything called Grace Communion International. Joe has put on a silly hat and a plastic nose, "can't see me!"

And it is a clanger of a name. GCI doesn't have the x-factor when it comes to church marketing. I don't think the Glendora mullahs will be too worried though, their downsized sect will continue to rake in returns on legacies and assets for a long time.

One of the interesting revelations that came out in the recent Monte Wolverton interview was that (and I'm heavily paraphrasing here) Pope Joe and Cardinal Mike put the hard word on Monte to hand over his father's Bible Story artwork to the WCG/GCI, even though he had possession. Why? Well, it's obviously worth at least thirty pieces of high grade silver. Because Basil was in church employment at the time the drawings were made, they had the legal right to demand them. Morally speaking though, it was the pits. So if you're wondering why the Wolverton Bible has all those obsequious references to Joe, Mike and WCG... look no further. This is how they treat their friends.

The point is, Joe and Mike are anything but mushy marshmallows. Behind the goofy appearance and sanctimonious exteriors lie hard, calculating men. Their Achilles heel is that they rarely get those calculations right, for which we can all be grateful.

Bloggin' on COG things

A few blogs to check out that aren't in the canonical list on the sidebar.

• Reaction to the WCG's name change: Kenneth Alan.

• The shameful abuse of George McElroy revisited: God Discussion.

• "Mr. Media" Interview with Monte Wolverton about - what else - Basil's Wolverton Bible: Andelman (scroll down).

Oh, what the heck, here's the Wolverton interview right here.

Radical Forgiveness

A book recommendation from longstanding AW correspondent and occasional Journal columnist Dennis Diehl:
Radical Forgiveness

More information about the program is available here.

Not from the back page of the GN!

From the Sacred Sandwich.

Spanky and the Web Cheats

A while back AW posted details of how UCG was trying to manipulate Web traffic. I guess all's fair in love, war and proselytizing, though there were UCG members among those most outraged by the "cheating" aspect. Now comes news that the LCG, home of some of the most highly moralistic poseurs of Philadelphian righteousness, is being accused of wheedling away in an even more blatant manner, this time to skew Alexa rankings in their favor.

Just a day or so ago we posted the latest Alexa rankings for COG sites - and lo, LCG was shooting up the ladder, both for the Tomorrow's World and official church sites. Could it be that God is moving powerfully to increase LCG's influence on the Web?

Well, no. These comments were received shortly after the posting went up.

"...the reason you're seeing LCG and TW pull up in the Alexa ratings is because LCG HQ sent out an email to all its ministers asking them to install the Alexa toolbar. So now when they pull up the LCG or TW websites, it of course helps their rating. Now you know..."

No Virginia, there is no increase in LCG's audience. It's all a pathetic jack-up.

A word to The Glorious Leader and author of The Ten Commandments: "thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's Web ratings."

Link updates

The granddaddy of dissident websites, The Painful Truth, has a new editor, James. I guess he has a surname, but I'm not privy to it. Despite some initial alarm that he might be taking the anti-PT in new directions, it seems that the site still stands in the tradition pioneered by Ed Mentell (wherever you are Ed, here's to you!) There have been four previous editors, including the inimitable if polarizing Mike Minton.

Back in the land of the living after a few months absence, and promising not to disappear any time soon, is a newly reconstructed Shadows of WCG blog, subtitled Next Generation.

Addendum: Russell has moved from the I Survived Armstrongism blog (now managed by Aggie) to the provocatively titled Holy, Mighty Atheist. Double the ginger in your diet...

Time to Break Free

So the WCG is now Grace Communion International?

You know, the really ironic thing is that Pope Joe and Cardinal Mike sat on their hands all through the fiasco of the eighties and early nineties.

The Apostle raved, and they joined in cheering.

Decent, honest people were purged, and they whistled and hooted.

These guys knew what was going on, and they assented.

Joe and Mike were active collaborators with evil.

Of course, now they've "seen the light." But only after it was convenient to do so.

And they've reformed the church, and now with a final coat of whitewash, even renamed it.

They reformed the doctrine, but not the structure.

One wonders why.

Sabbaths are out, Pastor Generals stay in.

The Trinity is in, but an elected Board with inbuilt checks and balances is locked out.

Financial transparency is shunned, but feel free to wave your arms at appropriate moments in services.

Sure, the church's teachings needed an overhaul: and a really radical overhaul. That's a no-brainer. But the church's hierarchical, oppressive structure needed dismantling even more.

It still does.

But there sits Joe in his comfy high-backed swivel chair, the third Pastor General.

BY WHAT RIGHT? By what MANDATE?

None, other than Daddy tapped him on the shoulder.

And Joe Senior? He was tapped on the shoulder by whom?

Herbert W. Armstrong.

To dress this up as some kind of episcopal governance is plain deceitful. This was, and continues to be, a top-down structure that spits in the faces of those that rally to it, even those who sacrifice hugely for it.

There is more accountability in the Roman Catholic communion than the post-Armstrong sect that Tkach and his buddies reign over.

Let's be clear, the name change illustrates just how Pope Joe operates.

Who suggested the name (initially something like Grace International Fellowship)?

Pope Joe.

All the "consultation" was pro forma. Window dressing. Rubber-stamping. Right from the start it was evident that Pope Joe the Petulant would have his way. You'd have had to be particularly dense not to realize that when Joe christened the church's post-graduate program "Grace Communion Seminary." Even a moron in a hurry could see the writing on the wall.

Joe Tkach is no better than Herbert Armstrong. In fact he's arguably worse, in a weak-kneed, underhanded way.

Those members who remain with WCG/GCI might well ponder what benefits now remain for continuing:

• to attend a church which denies them the rights of full members
• to fund a church which allows no meaningful participation in decision making
• to support a denomination which is now virtually indistinguishable from a thousand evangelical bodies, almost all of which carry less toxic baggage
• to financially contribute to a church which has a history of sub-standard financial accountability and undisclosed salaries

It's time to tell Joe where to go. Now is a great time to finally break free.