I became pregnant with our first child in January of 19--, my due date was - you guessed it "THE FEAST." My parents were already feeling alienated by our "crazy church beliefs" and were thoroughly disgusted upon hearing that my husband would attend the feast even though there was a chance he would miss the delivery of our baby. ALL MALES MUST ATTEND THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES SAYETH THE LORD.

I'll never...til my dying day...forget some of the horrid things said and done to me by "ministers" of that cult.
One thing I'll share...at a fot one year, in Wisc...it was sooo bitterly cold...and I was an EMT (worked on an ambulance) and I volunteered for First Aid. There was a woman...just skin and bones, really...eaten up with cancer of every organ...I don't know HOW she managed to still be alive...anyway, her daughters brought her to the feast...and the "ministers" told her to GO HOME!>>>>> but she refused! She was dying and yet her only desire was to be with the "brethren!" She wanted to die at the feast!!!

Did you ever notice the similarity between the Linus security blanket and Herbie's agenda the splinter groups still espouse to keep the "brethren" enrapt and bankrupt? Especially during the holy days and the money-bleeding, feeding -frenzy feast days. During which time oft repeated warmed over sermons were given. Warning of God's soon coming wrath and the vengeance that was to be reeked upon Satan's world.

My employer gave me a couple of days off for vacation as a "reward" for completing a very large and stressful rush job on time, when a long time friend, who still attends the Worldwide Church of God, started talking to me about the Feast of Tabernacles. I had almost forgotten the whole holy day thing. Then I started to get curious...

Dear Diary:

I woke up feeling a little bad after last night's party. The room looked worse than I felt, but I got up and went to breakfast anyway. The condition of my stomach wouldn't allow for a heavy meal so I just had toast and milk for a paltry $2.95. As I approached the room I noticed the maid giving me the evil eye--guess we left a little mess......It Was the Best Feast Ever

As I read through The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, I came across a passage that was eerily familiar. The thought that popped into my mind was, "This is just like the church!" Shirer wrote, on page 265:

"Tied down by so many controls at wages little above the subsistence level, the German workers, like the Roman proletariat, were provided with circuses by their rulers to divert attention from their miserable state. 'We had to divert the attention of the masses from material to moral values,' Dr. Ley once explained. 'It is more important to......Der Fuhrer, Herbert W. Armstrong

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Now here goes the feature codes:

Within the first two days at the beginning of the Feast, the liquor stores were always packed with Worldwide Church of God members. All that week the liquor sales were up, and the state run stores told us that they used to "stock up" for the members during that time.

With his gravel voice, Raymond Cole barked at the membership one evening in services, with one of his predictably long, straitlaced, legalistic, and boring sermons. He yelled that each year, the liquor stores are packed with the Worldwide Church of God folks, and we're all getting a reputation locally of being "drunks." He needn't have bothered with his comments, as it appeared no one listened. The reason was simple......Alcoholism And The Worldwide Church of God

Cleaning up after the Armstrongites

HORROR in the PCG!

My husband was appointed area coordinator so we could have a truly local congregation. One of the long time members had a peculiar habit of explicit sexual conversation always involving children, usually the sexual torture and mutilation of children......How Bad Was It, Really?

This mother told me she found the facilities totally unsuitable for her child's needs. The only place she and others could go to try to put their babies to sleep was on the sidewalk outside the hall, or in the adjacent shopping mall. The Worldwide Church of God members on the feast security crew ordered the mothers (some with crying kids) back inside the hall, because "it looks bad". The Worldwide Church of God's image was paramount. Can't give the church a bad reputation from having mothers and babies hanging out on the street......Worldwide Church of God and MOTHERS ROOMS

"This," said he, with his arm extended toward the congregation, "is my family." I wished him well, and went on my way, now happy that I wouldn't have to spend the afternoon listening to a bunch of politically correct platitudes. Ah, yes. The family. How many times have church of God members heard that one. The church was one big happy family. Thanks to our shared faith, we now had more in common with our "spiritual" family than we did with our "physical" families. Or so we were told. But, as it turned out, the behavior of the spiritual family was dysfunctional, reflecting the dysfunction of our "father in the faith," Herbert W. Armstrong......The Family

Hoeh's world-shaking wisdom, based on his tremendous compassion and milk of human kindness, was why don't you just let your child die, save all that money, and you will see him again in the resurrection? I came away from this Feast actually hoping that somebody would go shoot that bastard Hoeh and all others like him......Childrearing "God's Way"