The Walls Are Screaming

It's been three years since I started this. It's been
two years since I saw her. She used to call me at 3
AM. I don't think she understood we lived in
different time zones.

She told me about the failed marriage to the
cult-issued boyfriend. She told me about child abuse.
how it was a church teaching. Her parents no longer
spoke to her. Mom and dad were in one sect, sis and
the brother in law were in another.

She was nice enough to meet me at the hotel after I
had come in from LAX. This was my second swing in. I
wanted one last look at Ambassador. One last look
before it evaporates.

We were climbing up and down Ambassador. That's what
you do there. We came to Ambassador Hall. I called it
the Hulett Merritt Mansion. She called it Loma
Armstrong Center. It had been recently whitewashed,
cheaply and badly including some swaths of the cement.

Who in their right mind WHITEWASHES a 20 million
dollar mansion? The Worldwide Church of God, that's
who.

The paint, such as it was, was dry. There was no
smell. A blind man would have done a better paint job,
however.

No one can ruin something like the Worldwide Church of
God. The way they treated this place was not neglect,
but rather hate. My running companion commented "It's
angry. The walls are screaming."

I would be pretty darn miffed too if I were covered in
$5 a bucket paint.

That's not what she meant. She had a vibe. Sensitivity
is not my gig.

There is a game children play with their hands. Here
is the church. Here is the steeple. Look inside and
here are the people.

If you say that the walls are screaming, I can tell
you what they say.

Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Look all
around and there are no people.

It's a perfectly good college campus. Except for the
lack of students.

You could not screw this up worse, even if you had a
design to do so.

When last I was in Pasadena, each tree on campus had
an 'asset tag'. There were orange lines here and
there on the grass. They were actually going to remove
some of the 100 year old forty foot tall palm trees.
As if they had planted them.
The neighbors stopped them.

Ever see a three million dollar mansion with DIRTY
white rubber horizontal blinds in its front window?
Ever see a dozen of such mansions. I am a very bad
housekeeper. These people are non-housekeepers.

Today the infamous Hall of AD is slated for
destruction. It was sold for land value and will be
replaced by a cheaply built nursing home. This is
easily the most sumptuous three story office building
ever. God likes quality. Good bye.

The library, which I will call the Newton Claypool
Mansion, was permanently poisoned by a carpet cleaning
accident in the 1970s. It has been allowed to rot into
the ground. Nothing like having your own Superfund
area. Built in 1879, this is the oldest mansion. "The
College recognized that this building was more
institutional than residential and developed the
facility for classrooms, recording studios, offices
and printing equipment." Nothing like putting the
students and office workers in with a bunch of badly
vented chemicals. Lake of Fire here we come.

The 300 car UNDERGROUND parking garage is loaded with
cars from a nearby dealership. The padded plastic
running track above is being destroyed by sun light.
Who could be this wasteful?

Parachuting is the fine art of jumping out of a
perfectly good airplane. This isn't that. This is
being paid off to hand the controls to hijackers and
wishing them good luck. And then taking your seat in
the back of the 707.

The jewel in the crown, Ambassador Auditorium, a
contemporary of the Houston Astrodome in all
respects-including expense-has been sold to some
bouncing Korean Evangelical

It's all evangelical now.

Nothing remains. All that is left for history is Loma
Armstrong's name on a circular pedestal in the back of
Ambassador Hall. No tears for Loma. She was a
bastard, too.

They even sold the orthodoxy. They disavowed it and
then they sold it. To someone they know is a maniac.

The late John Trechak described Armstrongism as a
"Rapidly deteriorating religious fraud."

It's not deteriorating fast enough, it seems. Add
eight more deaths.

They've sold the church.

They've sold the steeple.
How is this still killing people?

You could not come up with a religion that has NO good
works and MORE disasters if you tried. Good job, Mr.
Herbert W. Armstrong!

I can tell you what the walls are screaming.

--Mark Lax

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