Open letters to the entrenched hierarchy.

2) Disclose who owns the Church (don't weasel out with your argument about no one owning a non-profit.)

3) Fully disclose all assets of the Church and purchase/sale prices of such assets for the past 30 years.

I know you will never meet these requests. Why? Because then you would reveal the money-grubbing slime that has run our wonderful money generating operation since its inception. Meanwhile, kids in Alabama were eating PB&J sandwiches for weeks on end, going without dental or medical care, being drove around in beat up old cars because their parents were so devoted to proving their faith, and being brainwashed about not making it into the place of safety on their parents coattails. This enabled GODS supposed servants (future Kings) to buy jets, ultra-expensive threads, high-end works of art, Steuben crystal, payoff incest victims, payoff greedy blackmailing lawyers, build incredible palaces for HWA, and jetset around the world staying at the Intercontinental, Four Seasons, and Waldorf-Astoria. All so God's end-time warning would be clearly broadcast (hey, I am sure Jesus would have stayed at the Waldorf rather than helping those pathetic slobs who wouldn't appreciate it anyway!)

If you don't like what I have said here, then please prove me wrong. EITHER PUT UP OR SHUT UP! I look forward to hearing from your harassment, I mean legal department.

P.S.- If you could be so kind as to refund my tithes and offerings if you can't do this. I would like for my money to go to a true charitable organization. Thanks.

The following is a sincere, open group letter sent to Worldwide Church of God headquarters in July 1998, signed by 62 people representing approximately 85% of the members of the Greenville, SC Worldwide Church of God congregation.

Headquarters has demonstrated to not have due regard for the concerns of a vast segment of its members. Since numerous individual letters to HQ have been of little or no avail, we hereby with common voice register our deep concerns. We have been the silent majority, but submit that published letters to the editor, etc., are not representative of the majority of our church. Most of us do not feel unhappy about our past. We value our calling, and our experiences in this church!

A pattern of HQ's non-concern for the well-being of our existing members - on the local level as well as corporately - has become evident to us. We ask what biblical principle this is based on?

On a Church-wide scale, an ominous pattern of disregard for members seems to be revealing itself:

HQ persuaded us (1995/96), that many different worship approaches are acceptable. Why then can our leadership not accept the way we are worshipping? We applaud and embrace the NT focus and we realize the "commanded" OT practices are but a shadow of Christ, but we also love and benefit from many of our traditions and desire to keep them voluntarily, within this church, our home! This was the original vision we caught and followed and supported when Mr. Tkach Sr. began to lay it out to us.

We are dismayed that attempts are made to force us (ever so gradually - condescendingly putting us in the category of the frog in the water pot) to change what has worked so well over decades and built this church. HQ's attitude is, "if you don't like it you may leave". What about the biblical principle of good stewardship? Of feeding all sheep, old and new? Of "not offending even the least little ones of these"? Of serving the people God already put into this church?

HQ is so eager for new members but does not seem to value those they already have - and all that in the name of "preaching Christ"?? IT MAKES US FEEL DISPOSABLE. This hurts; our sincerity, love, commitment, dedication and lifetimes of investment and service to Christ feel trampled upon.

We long for peace locally and in our whole church. Our hallmark used to be worldwide fellowship and unity, not the divisions we are experiencing in the name of "attracting" new people (as yet an unproven concept).

We do not want to go to services and be afraid of what may be forced upon us next, most particularly: £ The agenda for corporately moving away from support of Holy Day observances distresses us. (We love the Holy Days! They enhance our worship of Christ. We value that shared time.) £ The agenda of instituting Christmas and Easter services etc. - eventually at the expense of the Holy Days - distresses us. (For those who "need" them, these opportunities are available in other churches nearby - we are all Christian, right?) £ The agenda for emphasizing and strongly encouraging Sunday services distresses us. (It is not Sunday that will draw more people! Why should they come to our church when others are available?)

One of your given reasons is [July 1998 WN, pg.27, middle of box] that "Sunday has been the primary tradition of the Christian Church". Well, our primary tradition is Saturday! If anything, the Bible supports Sabbath more than Sunday! If the majority of a particular Worldwide Church of God congregation prefers Sunday, that's fine, but we resent that down the road this will become the preferred option being presented to the whole church.

We thought the Holy Day issue had been settled two years ago with our survey vote. Why is it quietly being overruled? Your thinking that the majority of what is left of our church can be made to accept "any" teaching IS AN INSULT. Does the admiration of the evangelical community mean more to you than the welfare of those God has placed in your care? We are by heritage students of the Bible and ask the question, where does the mandate for going "mainstream", as you call it, come from?

Therefore, for the sake of stability and trust in the church, we strongly request that such major decisions be put to a CHURCH-WIDE REFERENDUM, that is, that people be allowed to have a say in it. After all, we the members collectively are the church. If not, we would once again have to conclude that the true feelings of our church do not matter to you.

Signed by Members of the Worldwide Church of God, Greenville, SC congregation, July, 1998

In our local congregation, we the members were ignored during the events leading up to the abrupt termination of our Pastor this past April. The actual situation was well-known to all of us here. We were a vibrant, financially sound, New Covenant congregation, having held onto our members better than many others. Yet no one inquired of us, instead we were suddenly presented with HQ's de-facto decision that our Pastor had been terminated. May 22,1999

I e-mailed you over a month ago about a scathing letter I wrote to a minister or a preaching elder, what ever he was, and would like to have this letter posted on the PAINFUL TRUTH web site. In 1989 while in my early 30s I was baptized in to the cult and became a member of the Worldwide Church of God. In the early 80s I had tuned in to that heretical limp dick hick, herbert the pervert, and began to travel down that long painful road to religious mental instability. After some time in the early 90s, I lost my government job due to Clinton coming in to power, and began to seek another decent paying job in the depressed California economy.

After nearly 6 months on unemployment, leaving my family behind to sell the home, I packed my tools of the trade and moved to "THE BIGGEST LITTLE CITY" Reno, Nevada. It was here that I would soon begin the slow painful decent out of armstrongism. After living in a tent within a National forest for 6 months and spending only $6.00 a day between food and gasoline, chopping my own wood to heat food and bathing out in the nude in a stream that ran within 2 feet of my tent, I began to see what my future as a so called son of God would be. I actually had a running tab in my mind as to what I owed God and knew that it would be impossible to pay up.

Shortly afterwards the home I had in California sold (and NO God did not Get his CUT of the profits) and I moved my family into a new house in Nevada. It was about a year later that Tkach Sr made his so called Christmas day sermon, and that day forward I began to wise up to this religious hucksterism. After the "Heavens Gate" weirdoes caught their intergalactic flight on the tail of a comet and flew off to "save yourself land", I really put in some thought as to what they or how they could believe this bullshit. It was only a week or two before Passover that I made the most intelligent choice in years, I quit going to services!! When the Pastor of the fleeced called as to inquire as to why I was not present at this dysfunctional church service, he was told by yours truly "It's all about $$$ and the whole thing of the church is bullshit". I managed to figure this out, and this is before I was introduced to Ambassador Reports!!!! INTELLIGENT THINKING! I WAS CAPABLE OF THINKING FOR MY SELF!!!! Well that should lead you to the mind-set I was in when I fired off the following letter: (notice how I kept referring to "I" in the above preface? I am sure some of your armstrong lovers will count them)

The purpose of this letter I write today is about your irresponsible if not criminal behavior toward me and others you counseled with concerning membership in the Worldwide Church of God. What am I talking about? After studying several books including "Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web" and John Tuit's "The Truth Will Set You Free" along with "Ambassador Reports" not to mention some reprints of "News of The World" a British tabloid, along with the "Painful Truth" web site, I wonder how you could never have known of the behavior of hwa!! Further I wonder how you could allow yourself to preach or teach armstronism to anyone, while having knowledge of this mans true character. Hwa is documented as a sexual pervert who committed incest with his own young daughter for a period of 10 years, this fact confirmed by his own family, and was a pathological liar, a thief who misappropriated funds for his own lavish lifestyle and overseas trips. We won't mention how God's apostle made over 400 failed prophesies, and got less than a half a dozen good guesses correct.

Certainly you must have had knowledge of this or did you just close your eyes to it? How could God reveal truths to such a enormously wicked man? Has God fellowship with evil? How could you teach other naive people to follow the teachings of such a man? Do you still believe hwa was a Godly man? If your answer is YES perhaps you should study the subject of brainwashing! If you, however, unconsciously just discarded these facts (that must, of all things, be known to you about hwa) and teach armstrongism, what could your motives be? To earn salvation? I THINK NOT!! Perhaps it is a deep inner desire to have power & rule over other people, hiding the real truth behind a smile and plenty of pious words? This would explain the little tolerance for those who would "think" for themselves and speak openly without fear of excommunication by there leaders. Is this you Wayne? Is this why you taught hwa's TRUTHS? Think about 1 Peter 5:3. The apostles learned from Jesus, fellowshipped with believers, not batter them. As you who has raised sheep must have noticed that battered sheep do not reproduce (that is why armstrong's churches will eventually fail) and do not normally recover from the abuse.

Perhaps if you look at your United Church of God, you will see what happens when you have your "pope" running the show instead of an elected board. I understand that Pontiff David Hume has been recently de-throned, something to do with Lordship over money? Anyway back to the point, corruption and abuse of power will prevail, not caring for the sheep but seeking a quest for power and authority. Hwa's "Quest" magazine a truly perverted piece of garbage, must have given you some insight Wayne! Or how about the civil disobedience when AC went through the receivership. Is this showing obedience to the authorities? Hwa did not care, as the precious tithes were being mailed to his home in Arizona. He was criminal in regards to the receivership!

All in all, hwa never could sue for slander, and never did sue for that. When people wrote books he simply dismissed them as "poppycock". To the braindead at that time in the church, documented proof meant nothing. They followed a man. But if you, yourself, are brainwashed beyond hope, I pity you for not exercising an objective and reasonable mind. Do you lack humility to admit that you knew these things and yet taught this wicked man's doctrines? Paul wrote the Christians of his day "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them" Eph 5:11-12. For myself I have "Tried them which say they are apostles and are not, but have found them as liars".

So I have written today my expression on this armstrong thing but want you to know that I have not forgotten the good you showed me, and the help I received from you{It was at this point of time I was living in my car. The help I received from this man was a welfare check of cult funds}: Ken and others, I am grateful.

But that does not let you off the hook by any means!! I wasted over $15,000 causing my family great financial difficulties in the past due to my naivete. I hold you partially responsible for this along with "Ozzie" (pastor) for your part in this fraud. So "PAY UP": Lev 6.

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