IS HERBERT DIVIDED? Click here for PART 1
PART 2: THE BABEL EFFECT
By: The WatcherMore than 100 Worldwide Church of God spin-offs have been counted so far and the number is still growing? What on earth is going on?
Everyone reading this will have surfed the Internet. Therefore every reader of Ed's site is probably already familiar with "Babel-Fish" - the new translation program that breaks down language barriers on the net. Swell idea.
The name comes from Douglas Adam's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" where the "Babel-Fish" is a literal fish that you stick in your ear and it telepathically translates every language for you.
Being in the Worldwide Church of God was precisely the opposite of that.
For those of us who have, or are in the process, of coming out of it, the horrible experiences we all had IN it is a strong bond between us, as witness the contributions and interactions on this site.
But for those who remain inside it, the teachings of Herbert and his "sons" are now splintering them right and left as never before.
There is a profound, one might even say, Biblical scale irony and justice in this. In Genesis 11, the Bible tells the ancient, primordial tale of how mankind joined in unity for a blasphemous unworthy goal. But God responded by scattering them across the face of the earth unable to communicate with each other. They were isolated in small, chaotic and warring groups, and left to despair and madness.
Herbert blasphemously claimed to usurp the identity of virtually every major figure in the Bible. He claimed that the teachings of every other version or sect of Christianity that had ever existed was satanically-inspired and controlled and that every Christian who ever lived was doomed to be burned to death in hell-fire unless they came to Christ through Herbert himself, alone.
Has a more blasphemous or ambitious heretical doctrine ever been promulgated in the nearly 2,000 year history of the Christian faith? Presumably there have been other such heresies and there will be more. But it's hard to think of any more extreme.
Now, the Tower of Herbert's Babel has fallen, and his former tribes are scattered in confusion and growing madness, unable even to communicate with each other.
Veteran Worldwiders will recall those endless sermons pouring ridicule and contempt on all Catholic and Protestant churches. (Herbert's ministers were too piss-ignorant to know that an Orthodox Christian world of 300 million people even existed). THEY were DIVIDED. WE were UNITED. WE were learning to RULE, in harmony with each other, as a TEAM, in the Wonderful World Tomorrow. Gerald Waterhouse was particularly big on this.
Well, who's on the team NOW?
Not only could Worldwide not stay together, but after it split, all its different members couldn't even communicate with each other. And THESE are the people who are going to set the example of love, teamwork and communication for the world???
Instead, they are fulfilling prophecies all right, the prophecies of Deuteronomy, chapters 11 and 28 which explicitly promise destitution, humiliation, family disintegration and madness on those who are led astray after false gods and false prophets and teachers.
As a casual reader every few months of "The Journal" of the Churches of God, The Watcher has been struck been a significant change in tone in recent months.
As recently as the start of this year, the tone of The Journal was still determined and dignified self-denial. Enormously long, would-be scholarly and "serious" articles appeared on every aspect of Herbert-ian "theology". Many uplifting suggestions were made about the need to improve dialogue between different Worldwide offshoots.
But now the tone is changing.
A desperation and manic need to believe has entered. Members of the United Churches of God rant desperately about their "Pentecost miracle" and "the spirit of Indianapolis" on leaving Worldwide. Yet within a couple of years, it seemed, this all-powerful "spirit" had already left David Hulme and his friends so out they had to go. The need to believe in the immanence of God's presence to the writers and readers of The Journal was quite palpable.
This desperation is certain to continue as long as the thousands of remaining true believers continue to look to Herbert or his "heirs" for their spiritual salvation.
That happy 40,000 plus of us who have left completely either for mainstream Christianity or the wider world know that there is no short cut to sanity and healing. We know that Herbert Armstrong was a false prophet and that all of us who.followed him incurred a frightful curse for doing so. Those who still believe and who still deny the reality of what really happened remain delusional. The curse is still on them, and it will increase over time.
One might draw a parallel with a cyclotron, those enormous nuclear accelerators in which sub-atomic particles are smashed and studied.
The more the fragments of Herbert's empire split up, the less able they are, in reality, to deny reality. Still accepting Herbert's narcissistic theology, they must believe that their own tiny, squabbling little group remains the center, the pivot and the focus of world history and that God's concern is centered on it, and them beyond all else. This is how Herbert projected his own extreme narcissistic personality disorder on all his followers.
But the fragments of Herbert's empire are now like the scattered tribes after their Tower of Babel was destroyed. They learned a common language, a spiritual "Babble", or Babel, in which they - and us - communicated when we were all True Believers together. But now, the language, concepts and ideas of "Herbert-speak" or "Babel" are dividing all these dissident groups and making it impossible for them even to communicate civilly with each other.
After all, Herbert taught that since Christ was not divided and that HE was Christ's one and only supreme viceroy on Earth, there cannot be MORE THAN ONE TRUE CHURCH OF HERBERT. All the rest must be phonies. But which one is the real one? Ah! As Shakespeare said, THERE'S the rub!
To Flurry, to United, to Dankenbring, to GTA, Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all, they and they alone must be the One True Church. Every one of them wants to be Herbert's heir. Every one of them has inherited and embraced Herbert's personal narcissism, believing that the Divine Maker of the Universe has selected him and him alone to carry out the divine work of redemption.
Therefore mutual toleration is impossible between them. Only mutual vituperation is possible.
Therefore, more splits are not just possible they are inevitable.
In a cyclotron, the more energy you pour into the device, the faster particles whirl. And the faster they whirl, the more they split and the more volatile they become.
A very wise friend of The Watcher's - another escapee from Herbert's clutches who is today a happy Presbyterian predicted these developments some years ago. He foresaw that eventually one or more of the spin-offs from Herbert's spin-offs would self-destruct in a mad suicide or equally cataclysmic and bizarre act of separation, madness and despair.
This would happen, he said, as their belief systems came crashing down on their own heads after they had sacrificed every thing in their lives for those beliefs. We have not reached that point yet, but we are appreciably closer to it.
Is Herbert divided? Yes he is. And for reasons inherent in his blasphemous teachings, he is getting more divided by the day.
There are many reasons to maintain this site and others like it. Here is another one: the tale is not yet told. The madness has not yet fully run its course.
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