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After Brookfield

Like many AW readers, a number of thoughts crossed my mind as I read of the horrible tragedy that occurred in the Living Church of God congregation just outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Certain things come quickly to mind to someone with a Church of God background, and, as the mailbag shows, I wasn't the only one who reached these conclusions and asked these questions.

According to news accounts, Terry Ratzmann was a 44-year-old bachelor who lived at home with his mother and sister. This is a familiar profile for single church of God members. I've lost count of how many frustrated single men and women I knew in the church, and for about 15 years I was one of them. Forbidden from looking outside the church for companionship, many of us stewed in our hormones for years as lack of opportunity caused endless frustration. In my congregation in New York City, stalking was a real problem, as frustrated, underachieving single men would fall head-over-heels in love with any available female and hound them to ends of the earth in the vain hope that something romantic would happen. Occasionally, single church women were sometimes surprised when they opened their front doors to go to work, and standing there would be the latest single "gentleman" who wanted to make her a part of his life, if only she would cooperate. After the rebuff, the single man, probably jobless, would go to his parents' home, where he still lived, years after barely graduating from high school and flunking out of college.

One unattractive trait that the average Church of God single male possessed was an eye for young females. Single church men always seemed to be attracted to single church women in their early twenties. It didn't matter what his age was. His taste never changed, even as he aged into his late twenties, thirties, forties and even fifties! Fat, balding, and underemployed, they still expected attractive college-age girls to take an interest in them, even though they were old enough to be their fathers.

Ratzmann appeared to be an accomplished professional, unlike many of my fellow New York singles. But, like many of my friends, he was socially awkward, which no doubt made him less attractive to the few single ladies that were still left in the post-New Covenant church of God. And, at age 44, he still lived in his mother's home. The single ladies couldn't have been impressed with that.

Church singles lacked the outlets available to non-member singles. True, the church did provide the occasional singles' Bible study, or an annual singles dance. But these were hardly substitutes for a normal life. At most of the singles' Bible studies I attended, the married minister would usually end up talking about marriage. Most ministers had no clue about single life in the church because they were already married when they graduated from Ambassador College and were ordained into the ministry. The dances were usually dreary affairs, with the attendees hoping to strike gold in the three or four hours they had available to them.

In my congregation, the large singles contingent developed their own sub-culture, against the serious objections of the local ministry. They would gather together after services and hang out in bars and clubs till the wee hours of Sunday morning. This is normal behavior in the real world, but in the church this was shocking. The singles crowd would find themselves being rebuked by angry ministers from the pulpit, and many sermons were directed at singles, admonishing them that such behavior was inappropriate for truly converted Christians. All of the normal outlets open to non-church singles were frowned upon in the church, if not completely closed off. Even parties attended only by church members were frowned upon unless responsible married church members were there to keep an eye on things. The ministry treated single church members like children who couldn't control themselves. What they did not realize is that church singles acted just like non-church singles. They looked for opportunities to meet available members of the opposite sex, and failing in that, they at least tried to have a good time. The ministers tried to anathematize normal behavior. This hostility from the ministry led to resentment among the singles. When Joseph Tkach liberalized church doctrine, and the activities that were formerly taboo all of a sudden became OK, the singles abandoned the Manhattan, NY congregation en masse. They didn't leave because they opposed the doctrinal changes. They left because they no longer felt the need to put up with a hostile ministry in the unfriendly-to-singles WCG church environment.

Even when a single man and woman met and developed a relationship in a manner deemed acceptable to the church, there was always the danger of ministerial meddling. If the pastor decided that the relationship wasn't a good match, he could end it with a single command. A few rare couples refused to stop seeing each other and were disfellowshipped. But most church members were sincere believers and wanted to do what was right. The man and woman would be devastated, but they would obey the minister and stop seeing each other. The local church pastor would usually grant one of them dispensation to attend another church congregation in order to spare them the pain of seeing each other every week, and to avoid the temptation of re-igniting the romance against the pastor's will. Every unmarried person I knew in the Worldwide Church of God had at least one relationship ended by ministerial diktat. The Worldwide Church of God was an extremely frustrating place if you were not married. I wonder if today's offshoots are any different.

A word on John Ogwyn's public comments. While it may be true that official Living Church of God doctrine does not prohibit psychiatric counseling, or dating and marrying outside of the church, it was official church doctrine in the Worldwide Church of God for decades. These doctrines were formulated in the early days of the WCG with Rod Meredith's input. One of the things Meredith learned after decades of bad publicity in the Worldwide Church of God was that you don't put the more disagreeable teachings of the church in writing. During Herbert Armstrong's last years, the church prohibited medicine, dating and marrying outside the church, and interracial dating and marriage. Many sermons were preached on these subjects, but you never saw an article or booklet discussing these matters unless a member of long-standing went to his personal archives and found a long out-of-print publication. Armstrong, Meredith and the rest of the WCG hierarchy did their best to bury the past when it came to church publications. But the doctrines were alive and well and ruthlessly enforced within the privacy of the church congregation. The casual observer who watched the World Tomorrow program and subscribed to the Plain Truth would never know about these doctrines. I only learned about them when I started attending services. (Second and third tithe was also something they liked to spring on you after you had started attending services. I believe that most people could handle one tithe, but three tithes could scare off someone new to Armstrongism. They waited to tell new people about second and third tithe after they had decided they wanted to be a part of the organization. Once the initial commitment to attend services was made, it was easier to accept the extra tithes, especially since it was so hard to be invited to services in the first place. One did not want to be un-invited.)

Since I was not a member of the Living Church of God, I cannot say for certain that the members were told one thing at services while the general public was told something else. But the comments of church members in press accounts indicate that at the very least, members were not made aware of the church's official doctrines and believed that Armstrong's prohibitions were still in effect. Many members of that sect still believe that you cannot marry outside of the church, and that psychological counseling is not permitted. In the Worldwide Church of God, medicine itself was considered satanic. John Ogwyn's press conference was clearly damage control. The Living Church of God ministry doesn't want to see the gravy train derailed. They have a good thing going, and don't want negative publicity to endanger the revenue, always a priority with Armstrongist groups.

Was Ratzmann on medication? Should he have been, but was not because of church teaching (official or unofficial)? During my membership in the WCG, I knew two men who killed themselves. Later on, when the WCG lifted the ban on psychotherapy, one depression-prone friend of mine was encouraged to see a psychologist by our pastor. He was later referred to a psychiatrist who prescribed anti-depressants, and it turned his life around. (In the United States, psychologists are licensed to provide counseling, but they cannot prescribe medication because they are not physicians. Psychiatrists are MDs, and can prescribe medication). He changed from an unhappy, insecure individual to a more relaxed and contented one. He even put on some weight. Would the outcome have been different for the two suicide victims if psychological counseling had been an option? Maybe, or maybe not. But we never got the chance to find out. Was Terry Ratzmann denied his opportunity to be helped by trained, licensed professionals? Considering the history of hostility to the medical profession in the Armstrong movement, it is an easy assumption to make.

Those of us with Church of God experience know how insensitive and uncaring the ministry could be. People who didn't quite fit in, like Terry Ratzmann, were tolerated but were always held in low regard. The church was not kind to oddballs. After all, Herbert W. Armstrong's teachings were supposed to bring perfect happiness. If a person had problems, if he wasn't happy, if he was quirky or had idiosyncrasies and lacked the Ambassador College polish, it was attributed to his failure to follow Armstrong's teachings. If a person's behavior was especially unusual or strange, he could be deemed demon-possessed by the all-knowing, all-seeing ministry, even though the behavior was not harmful to anyone. From the descriptions in the press, Ratzmann seemed to be a moody person. In the far reaches of the distant past, did Ratzmann rub a minister the wrong way? Did he set himself up for persecution by ministers or by other church members because his behavior was not considered normal by Ambassador College standards?

The insensitivity of ministers was mind-boggling. My first pastor (Manhattan, 1980) urged single men to relieve their sexual tension by taking cold showers. We all remember Herbert Armstrong's suggestion, published in The Missing Dimension in Sex, that men should lie on their backs to induce nocturnal emissions. I heard another minister at a Bible Study say that a good cry was the best way for single women since nocturnal emissions were not an option for them. How's that for being helpful and sympathetic? If, after applying the ministers advice, you still felt unfulfilled, it was your own fault because you didn't try hard enough.

Did a minister, past or present, berate Ratzmann for not straightening himself out? Did Randy Gregory pay the price for another man's stupidity? The ministry was a close-knit club, a good-ol'-boys network of interchangeable men who all sounded alike and were, to varying degrees, uncaring and insensitive. Terry Ratzmann may have been fed up, and took out his wrath on the nearest authority figure. It may be insensitive to speculate, but the job of the ministry in an Armstrong offshoot is to make sure that the members stay in line and obey the leadership. Ministers do provide counseling services for members. But the counseling is more to find out whether a member might cause difficulties in the congregation rather than to help him to resolve any issues he might have. The counseling is for the benefit of the church organizations, not the members' well-being.

Church of God members react to the cross the way Dracula did. The makeshift memorial set up outside the hotel where the shooting took place was made up of crosses, one for each victim. The spontaneous outpouring of sympathy by the local community to show support for the victims and their families used the mainstream Christian symbol held in contempt by the Armstrong groups. It was no surprise to see a negative reaction to these crosses by certain members of the Armstrong movement. One thinks back to the advice the ministers gave members on how to react when someone greeted you with "Merry Christmas" during the holiday season. If you didn't celebrate Christmas, it was sensible advice. They told us to simply say, "thank you," rather than lecturing the well-wisher on the origins of Christmas as the Babylonian Saturnalia. Some Living Church of God members forgot this principle, and instead of thanking the community for their concern, they chose to lecture them on the pagan origin of the cross.

One final thought. The suspicions of many Ambassador Watch readers of the demographic situation in the COG's tend to be confirmed by the ages of the victims. Most of the victims were either over age 50 or were teenagers. One victim was just out of his or her teens at age 21. In other words, the various churches of God are made up of people near or above retirement age and their teenage children. There was one young adult victim, and only one of the victims (not including Ratzmann) was a middle-aged 44 out of the twelve or so that were killed or wounded. The LCG is a graying church, and young people, rather than remain with the church, are moving onto other things once they reached the age of independence. This does not bode well for the churches of God. Their membership is aging, and they are not getting new, younger members.

The shootings in Wisconsin were terrible tragedy. While mass shootings are not restricted to the Armstrongist churches of God, there are a couple of things we can say for certain. If a church zealously follows the doctrines and teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong, it is not equipped to handle seriously disturbed persons like Terry Ratzmann. The ministers are not trained to help the mentally disturbed. Ministers are trained to maintain cult-like mind control over the membership. They want stability, not controversy. Troublemakers, whether they deliberately seek to cause dissension, or who create problems because of the mental troubles, are not welcome. Mentally disturbed persons find themselves in a hostile environment in the churches of God. It's no surprise that somebody finally snapped, with deadly consequences.