Email To The Editor, Page 93

NOTICE:

Since the old site was shut down in December 2005, the future of The Painful Truth has been an open question. We were down for about a month, but appeared again in January. As of April 21, 2006, the management also changed. Page 93 is the first publication of email since the editorial switch. If you have submitted something but haven't seen it here, please feel free to resubmit. I apologize if anything got lost.

PT Editor number...4?

6/8/06

I am writing to thank you for the time and trouble you and your contributors have taken in unmasking the entire Herbie movement. I do not give a toss about this movement and its hundreds of splinters, but I found a lot in your site really funny. Slavery was abolished in Britain in 1807. But I was a slave in the *^%$Worldwide$£%^Church***&^%Of !God!!!!!!! from 1974 to 1996. I was in my mid-teens when I joined. Their glossy, free magazines and superbly produced booklets on the environment, famine and pollution gripped my young mind. They presented themselves as reasonable - they boasted that they believed the earth was made billions of years ago, which made a good impression on me. I was not streetwise, but far from naive. I rejected all the cults, following my instincts and research at Bradford Central Library. But there was nothing on Worldwide. I found they were more hardline than the JW'S, more racist than the Mormons, more loony than the Moonies, more loopy than the Hare Khrishna's. Being with them was like living in a Totalitarian Stalinist Gulag. I had an in-depth knowledge of Soviet Totalitarianism. and when I was young I was really bothered with the parallels with Worldwide. I learned to really detest Herbert W. Armstrong and the movement (and that was many years before I discovered the real Plain Truth via Ambassador Report, and the internet).

This was brought into sharp focus in 1977/78 when RJ Frankel quoted over a hundred scriptures proving makeup is not a sin. I had never heard of such a thing - I was really shocked. Outward appearance is the very antithesis of the New Testament. The very next week (due to a power struggle in the USA) he did a 180 degree U-Turn and quoted over a hundred scriptures proving it was a sin!

The alarm bells were ringing in my mind. I had noticed reasonable and high ranking men were being systematically cleansed from the hierarchy and a another set of men were taking over. Little did I know the real nature of these men. Intolerant, Prejudiced, Sexist, Extremely Homophobic, and above all things motivated by money and power. I remember one service in Yorkshire where the minister said a certain man in the bible was not supposed to have a relationship with a non-believer. He then quoted an OT scripture where one of Moses assistants had speared the man in the penis/scrotum and right through her vagina. He said that was the plain meaning of the Hebrew text. There were many children present and I am giving just one example of this Godly Family at work. I could write a book on incidents like this.

Though I remain committed to Christianity, I fully understand your rage and anger. Low life like you and myself were not privy to a great deal of inside information. I do not know about you, but I was lied to by the UK ministry regarding many events in Pasadena. Like many members I experienced insults and putdowns, both public and private at the hands of the ministry. I also witnessed many - a 14 year old girl was publicly lambasted and called a prostitute for wearing makeup! Herbert W. Armstrong was a fraud, a charlatan and false prophet and not fit to be a father, let alone a minister.

The internet is fantastic, I really love it. I wish it had been invented in the 70s! The reason I have written this is to the young people in the offshoots. Are you annoyed and/or upset and/or angry about something? Many of us have gone through the same experience. My advice to children and young people is investigate and look into things on the internet. My childhood was happy, often very happy, until I joined this wonderful and fantastic Christian Family and it was downhill all the way. My time in Worldwide is best characterised as really miserable and unhappy. The men who made Worldwide so bad are now in the offshoots. And Worldwide itself has many members and ministers who sing the praises of the corrupt, and shameless paedophiliac founder of the £$(*^^^~###''><<<$02!!!!!!!

Paul

5/16/06

Dear Sir,

It grieves me greatly that you mock my work! It has been over 20 years since I have been gone, vacationing in Europe in order to set into motion, the rise of the EU. God has beaten me down and softened me, ripe for submissiveness to him since I left America, he caused me to be so crucially challenged on the cardinal point of His LAW, his government, his predominances above all else, his lordship over our lives. Of all the points of God's law, covetousness is the one test commandment. Professing, sincere Christians will freely admit we should have no other gods before the one supreme and true God. They will acknowledge we should not bow down to idols, or take God's name in vain. They accept the commandment about honoring our fathers and mothers, the prohibition against murder, adultery, stealing, lying or coveting.

I found in the Internet records, that there has been heated and violent controversies over this very question directly and indirectly during the last two decades of the Church. I am innocent of all that I have been accused of. Space does not allow me, at this present writing, to give a thorough and complete explanation. God's Church had dedicated, consecrated, converted, fully instructed and trained, ordained MINISTERS in all parts of the world -- available to all and to visit all that asked in their home's, answering questions, explaining the Bible. But this is now all gone. Stolen by those heretics!

Now I present to you an proposition. Every two minutes someone in the United States attempts suicide. Each day nearly 70 persons succeed -- but is that success? The World Health Organization estimates that some one thousand people commit suicide in the world -- every day!

Suicides now outnumber murders. Now various organizations for the prevention of suicide are a reality. But the cause is individual FAILURE! In the booming U. S. -- more Churches of God have failed, than any other church denomination in the last twenty years. Across the world streaks the shocking trend of increasing failures.

But WHY? It is because their bank accounts may be full, but their lives are empty. And what they do acquire, is never enough and never satisfies!

With our new virtual Church of God, I suggest that the profit margin be only measured in conversions that CAN YIELD 30% on any given year. Under me, I shall prosper you, that is, if YOU are OBEDIENT! God will give you your heart desire!

Consider the offer. If you refuse, your website shall face some legal consequences.

Sincerely,

Herbert W. Armstrong

Dear Herb,

How nice to hear from you! I thought you were dead, but I admit to never having seen your corpse, so perhaps I was misinformed. Those Tcrotches, you know -- can't trust a thing they say!

Thank you for the update, and please keep in touch. I will carefully consider your offer.

Be sure to give our best to Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa..

Editor #4

4/23/06

I made a good attempt to read through your rules and regulations for your website, but remain a bit confused. What I really want is to contact [one of your authors]. For some reason, I thought I could contact her directly with the information at the end of her article, but I am in error.

My question is: I there a way to contact her through your site, or if I send you my message, a three-page document, will you forward it to her?

Thanks,

[name withheld]

(Editor #4 offered to forward the material)

4/24/06

Thank you. I am sending basically unedited because I can just get ridiculous with the agonizing and changing what I've said. She would have gotten it in this form several days ago had I direct access to her.

You may read it if you like. There's probably no surprises here for you and I was totally understated in what I did write.

Thanks for being the go-between. I really had no intention of starting a regular correspondence with [the author]

[name withheld]

(Upon forwarding the information and reading the contents, Editor #4 invited [name withheld] to join the PT Forum.)

4/26/06

Thank you for your offer to contact the PT moderator, but I really do not believe I'll ever become involved with the site.

When I said it was too painful, I was serious. Several years ago, when I first learned of the site, I went in and read some of the postings. At that time, I was most focused on the "you might have grown up in the WCG if..." section. I sat down for several hours spanning a few days, thinking of things to add to the list. Instead of finding things like grossing out my 11th grade Social Studies class with the Plain Truth "The Meat That You Eat" article and sitting all alone for two hours in the grade school hallway when I was 8 years old because everyone else was at the Christmas concert humorous, I became depressed. I remembered things such as the recurrent nightmares where my family was escaping on foot through something like a Blitzkrieg with the mortar falling around us and the soldiers closing in, and all I could think about was that I hadn't even graduated high school yet. Every "strange" or red moon was a trigger for this nightmare. Then it hit me how unproductive that was for me, and I never pursued expanding or sharing my list.

When I went on the site last week, I read two large postings by my brother-in-law. They are actually books he's had published and I have both of them. I scanned through other postings and that's when [your author's] name caught my eye. I have no idea if there are others I may know on the site or not, it doesn't matter, but I admit to being curious.

Over the years, each and every time my husband and I get together with his brothers, 85% of the time was/is spent reliving the "good ole days" in the WCG. It is like some sort of sick ride that never ends. And those are our childhood memories. It's been my experience that a particular type of conversation or thought in a common group just breeds more of the same. Our family visits are only for a few days now and then, but if I had access to the Internet and any amount of time to sit on a chat site, I would do nothing else but wallow in WCG sewage.

(Editor #4: I disagree. It might be painful at first, but support groups generally aid a person in overcoming the worst of the pain. It's therapeutic knowing you are neither unique nor alone. I hope you will reconsider at some point.)

As far as I'm concerned, that is enough therapy for me. My experiences were not unique, even though I really did not go into any sort of meaningful detail in my letter to [your author], and no one could benefit from hearing my perspective on the past.

(Editor #4: Mmmm...never mind.)

I have to disagree that your experience with the WCG was not as traumatic as mine. I was only exposed for just under 15 years, from the age of 5 until nearly 20. You had 40 years, 30 of them "active duty". You started attending services at a most vulnerable age, a young person just starting high school. I'm assuming your background was in some other religion/belief system, so you were probably giving up the traditional holidays at the same time. At least I never knew birthdays, Christmas, etc. Worse than starting off clueless, yours was a life interrupted.

Once again I'm rambling on. So, anyway I will thank you again for helping me get my impulsive message to [your author]. And thank you for listening to me, and sharing something of your experience, too.

May we both, all, continue to become healthier people away from the WCG.

[name withheld]

These are the first letters received at The Painful Truth using the new email address. This person escaped the Kingdom of Herb many years ago, yet the pain still lingers. Living proof, in my opinion, that The Painful Truth is still needed. Witness the following letter as well.

Hello,

My name is [CF] and I was a student at Ambassador College/Pasadena in the early 70's. It seems so long ago that I was a member of this horrible religion (I'm age 60) but my painful memories never seem to leave me. I came across your site several years ago and would look at it from time to time but never really able to read a complete article. I was, however, comforted to know that you were around and that there were others who where betrayed by their Herbert Armstrong "God's Apostle" who now is dead.

I don't know if I can write on the forum of the PainfulTruth, but I would like to read what others have to say. I'm so tired of the tears--never knew that one could cry so many years. If you would send me the code I would be most grateful.

I'm glad that you were able to get your site back. Amazing that it was taken off--being in America.

Thank You, CF

Hello Again,

I'm sorry that I need to make a correction to when I was a student at Ambassador College. Times and dates are very difficult for me to retain. It was somewhat after President Kennedy was killed (1963) so it must have been around 1964-1965 that I was a student at Pasadena.

The pass code was sent to CF. Then...

4/28/06

Hello,

Thank you for the code. It has just been in the last few months that I'm able to read what has been written about HWArmstrong. I just didn't have the emotional strenght to read through the truth but knew around 73 that I had allowed myself to be manipulated in a twisted religion.

Thank you again for your site.

5/15/06

Dear Sir,

But WHY? It is because their bank accounts may be full, but their lives are empty. And what they do acquire, is never enough and never satisfies!

Consider the offer. If you refuse, your website shall face some legal consequences.

Sincerely,

Herbert W. Armstrong

Herb! How good to hear from you. We all thought you were dead. Tell me, how is the weather down there? It's been cool and balmy here this week, but I hear your neighborhood has had record highs. Say hello to Elvis and the Hussein brothers.

Editor #4

Email By Pages

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40
41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50
51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60
61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70
71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79	80
81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90
91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	100