Thursday, May 4, 2017

Gerald Weston Mocks Christians



Gerald Weston has a letter up on the Tomorrow's World website that starts off with this blurb about Rod Meredith:
Longtime readers of Tomorrow’s World have read and become familiar with these “Personals” from Editor in Chief, Dr. Roderick C. Meredith. Sadly, Dr. Meredith, who is nearly 87 years old, has been diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer, and his days appear to be very limited. It grieves me to inform you of this, as I have known Dr. Meredith since I first took his Freshman Bible class at Ambassador College in 1965. He has asked me, his designated successor to his office, to write this issue’s Personal and relieve him of that task.
Weston then moves on to do what Meredith has done for decades, bad mouth Christians who are not part of the Living Church of God.  Meredith has been republishing his old 1960's thesis on his bastardized version of what he thinks Christian history should look like.   As most here already know, his version of "true" Christianity is appallingly void of truth.  Christian history to Meredith is a narrow defined group of people whom he claims were constantly being persecuted, due to an impotent god that could never keep his word active and was continually losing it. Christians did not exist until Herbert Armstrong and Rod Meredith came on the scene.  "Truth" can only be found residing in these men and their churches.

Weston continues:
Change is never easy, but it is an important part of life. One thing you can be certain of is that while our personalities may vary, the same basic truths that you are familiar with in Tomorrow’s World will remain. All of us here at Tomorrow’s World are deeply committed to what we often refer to as the Truth. We recognize that the true Gospel of Jesus Christ was being corrupted as early as the first century, not long after Christianity began. For, as Jude tells us, “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
What Weston really needs to be saying here is that he and the rest of the COG's have corrupted Christianity since the early part of this century by teaching lies and heretical doctrines.  Weston, Meredith and Armstrong all claimed to follow this thing they call "jesus" but never really identified with the man or anything he said or did.  The New Covenant was the furthest thing from their minds as they whored themselves out to the law.  The law has always trumped and has been promoted by the same Judaizers that prevailed in the church in the first century.

The church in the first century had to be constantly on guard to all of the Judaizers that kept trying to lead the people back to the law instead of following Christ.  The same thing happens today with Pack, Flurry, Thiel, Malm, Weston, Kubik and others that place more importance in the law than the new covenant.

Weston then moves on to mock present day Christians in various countries who are being slaughtered for their faith.  
Reports out of the Middle East, North Africa, and other scattered places in the world tell of beheadings and killings of professing Christians. It takes great courage in some locales to profess the name of Christ! One can only admire individuals who put it all on the line when faced with such dire consequences, and one must wonder, “Do I have such courage?” It’s easy to think we do, but there is a test you can take right now that will answer that question.
According to Weston and Thiel, the men, women and children being slaughtered in Egypt, Syria and elsewhere are just a bunch of dumb ignorant f__ks that died for all the wrong reasons.  They died worshipping satan, unlike the true believers in the LCG who wait to be slaughtered by invading German armies or taken as slaves to the European Union. This is the exact same thing the pissant Bob Thiel does when he calls Christians "so-called" or "improperly named."  No one is as good as they are or knows as much as they do.  These spiritual perverts seem to go out of their way to pervert the gospel message:

Galatians 1:6-9

6-9 I can’t believe your fickleness—how easily you have turned traitor to him who called you by the grace of Christ by embracing a variant message! It is not a minor variation, you know; it is completely other, an alien message, a no-message, a lie about God. Those who are provoking this agitation among you are turning the Message of Christ on its head. Let me be blunt: If one of us—even if an angel from heaven!—were to preach something other than what we preached originally, let him be cursed. I said it once; I’ll say it again: If anyone, regardless of reputation or credentials, preaches something other than what you received originally, let him be cursed.
Weston, Thiel, Malm and the rest of the "leaders" of the church have cursed themselves due to their lies, specially when it comes to prophecy.  Every single one of them has lied about prophecy and have had one failure after another.  They refuse to face the fact that if just one little itty-bitty prophecy fails then they are all false prophets.

You can read the rest of Weston's abomination here:  Living the Way


Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Did God Let HWA Preach Incorrect Information Just So Pack, Flurry, Malm and Thiel Could Reveal The Truth Later?



A question was asked that pretty much sums up the current state of affairs with the various self-appointed, lying false prophets of Armstrongism who claim their god has revealed specially hidden knowledge that is only available in the end times.

...I mean God COULD have said to him "there's more yet to be revealed, I'm not telling you the half of it; you know I have My own purposes....". But instead He allowed HWA to preach, if not a lie, then at the very least, a very incorrect misunderstanding that deceived many. 
So did God allow Herbert to preach incorrect and misleading information just so Pack, Flurry, Malm and Thiel could be the end time true witnesses? If that is so, then what a cruel joke the trickster god has played upon the church!

Pack, Flurry, Thiel, and Malm are the four biggest culprit's in blatantly lying that their god has given them new knowledge or an inside track as to how prophecy is supposedly "coming alive" in these "end times."  These four stooges are the most visible liars the church has right now.  That being said, it does not let the lies of UCG, LCG, COGWA and others off the hook either.  They lie just as equally.


Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Follow Gerald Flurry As He Flies Around The World Wasting PCG Members Tithe Money


Sit back and relax as you follow ALL of Gerald Six-Pack Flurry flights with his new Gulfstream jet as he continues his quest to imitate everything Herbert Armstrong did.

Will he soon have all the metal fixtures in the jet gold plated like HWA did?

How long do we have to wait till he starts paying off world leaders for an audience so he can preach about "a strong hand from someplace?"

We can also watch as they fly his grandkids around the United States for their Irish Dance competitions.

Number registration of PCG's Gulfstream G450 jet.


See it full size here.   FAA Registry

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On a Personal Note


Indulge me a bit in sharing how one can go from being a minister in WCG, or any church for that matter, to an informed skeptic and I suppose now atheist which simply means, to me, one who does not emotionally or intellectually need a Deity to explain the world and my own part in it.   It means I do not feel compelled to live in either the Bronze or Iron Age in my thinking and beliefs.
Years ago I took a personality profile test found it so accurate, down to the kinds of gestures I use and why, that I suggest to Joe Tkach that all ministers and leader types take one. This, from my naive perspective, might just prevent sending the same, ill placed and probably not really called to serve anyone but themselves type ministers from going on and on and hurting one congregation after another. WCG had this very bad habit of transferring it's problem ministers rather than confronting them. They said no to testing. Now I know why. People hate the insecurity that comes from knowing they aren't as special as they think they are. I'd challenge any leader of a WCG split, splinter or sliver to take one.  They won't ever....ever.
Being out of the loop, it took me years to figure this out. It took me years to admit that what I was seeing in WCG was happening as my ENFP personality, which is Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Perceptive, also is founded upon the idea that people like me are negotiators, ministers, counselors and even massage therapists,  simply hates conflict. Or as my son said so aptly said once, "dad, you'd take a stabbing lying down." That hurt, not the stabbing, but the fact he was right. It's my loathing of conflict I have found that some, like Dave Pack, leader of the Restored Church of God, and others, who are what I would consider abusive, personality driven and more narcissist than shepherds, actually thrive on. Or as Stanley Rader, personal counsel to Herbert Armstrong once said, "I don't care what you say about me, just spell my name right." True narcissism. And so I dismissed in my mind what my heart was telling me was so and went about the business of pastoring people in concepts I still had faith in, even if I could see that the higher up one went in the business of religion, the more your brains turned to shit and you forgot where you put your spirit.
But even more than that, even more than losing faith in a particular church, I knew I was losing faith in faith. I had seen too much that was real and did not match the great promises of the Bible. For all the conflict over healing and doctor care, make-up, and all that I generally labeled as "majoring in the minors," I never asked anyone to do or not do what I would or would not do myself. My conscience is clean when it comes to being an enforcer of stupid things in years gone by. I found that "ask and you shall not have, do not ask and all things are possible", worked just fine in most cases and the years have proven my gut feelings correct in thinking that "someday, none of these things will be issues."
Back to the original thought. I have always been a seeker and open to new things even as a minister. Actually my internal definition of a minister seemed to contain the "keep looking" clause, but that was rare among my peers who felt they had found once and for all, as I did too, but now don't. I think my working mostly alone, apart from the big cities and multiple ministers in one place, probably saved me from scrutiny. The few times I did work with other ministers it was ongoing drama and egomania. I found it entertaining but stupid as well and it took me years to see it was more widespread than I imagined. So even as a minister in a "One True Church," I could see the Bible itself had problems that my Church and all Churches simply do not want to address.  There are many issues, Biblical and secular churches and pastors don't want to address.
Even as a kid in Sunday School, the stories in the Bible generated many questions about how such things could be in reality. Did Joshua really stop the earth from rotating so the Israelites could kill more Amelakites? Answer: NO. Not only is it bad science, but it's a just plain stupid reason to stop the rotation of the earth! Also, no one else on the planet noticed, which made me suspect.
Did 600,000 men, plus women, children and hangers on really trek around the Sinai in a group for 40 years leaving no signs of it? NO, they did not, at least not that many or for that long. I once read a study on how long it would take those in the back of a group that large to get moving once the front of the group started to move. It was weeks! It's mythology adopted to give a small insignificant people, who now get way too much attention, a history. How many times have we almost found Noah's Ark? Always a great story in the news that just goes away. It never happened, at least not in anyway the Bible describes.
Homo Erectus 1.8 Million Years

Over time, I came to see that evolution of all life, including man, is generally true, details to unfold as time goes on. The defensive arguments of the Creationists are lame. Not to them, because they need to believe it, but to me, because I don't. I'm not afraid not to believe the unbelievable. I'd rather be ahead of my times than behind. The 4.5 billion year old meteorites, the 2.5 billion year old banded iron and the 1.8 million year old early human tools in my room inform me more than the Bible and Genesis.
I have had my DNA taken back 100,000 years to Africa (I'm Dutch) and tracing the personal journey my cells, blood and spit have taken to get "me" to America. Fascinating how my saliva proves that in the distant past, "I" traveled through Yemen, Iran, Iraq, the Russian Steppes and left into Europe as Cro-Magnon, routing the Neanderthal who were already there, but lacked the imagination I had to rid the place of them in 18,000 years or so. I love that explanation and journey far more than I do those of the Bible, because it is true.
When I was a pastor and WCG was changing over from Holydays to Holidays, every doubt about the Biblical story of Jesus birth circumstances and the actual narratives came out. I felt that if they could flip over to something so theologically lame as Christmas, I could finally examine my doubts about the whole story. Needless to say, the birth narratives, over which the Church said I studied too much, are not coherent, do not agree, are two different stories, are not known by Mark, John or Paul and find their origins in pagan mythology. All Paul knew of the physical Jesus, who he never met or quoted, was that he was "born of a woman of the tribe of Judah." Nothing special there. Long story.

From there, I discovered that the story of the dying Sons of God in history, such as Osiris, Mithras and Jesus, were retelling of the larger story of the journey the real SUN of God takes around the 12 constellations of the Zodiac every year. It is no coincidence that the SON of God and the SUN are crucified in the Spring on and around the Spring Equinox or that Jesus was the Lamb of God as was the SUN in Aries, the Lamb when it was "crucified". For Jesus to be "with you until the end of the age," means more the age of Aries which ended 2000 years ago with Jesus death and not the end of the world as fundamentalist Christians insist. 
It explained all those 12 tribes, 12 sons, 12 disciples, 12 Apostles etc, that surrounded the "SON" on his one year ministry, according to Matthew, Mark and Luke, but three years according to John. It's no coincidence that in Revelation, God is surrounded by 24 elders, which are the hours in the day. To me this makes perfect sense and the fact that Matthew's Gospel accounts of Jesus ministry through the twelve months of his short ministry, exactly match the story of the SUN through the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Stories in the Bible that make no sense literally on earth, (like the Magi seeing Jesus star in the East and following it West to his house) often make perfect sense when you understand them as astro-theology. The story of the dying Son/Sun of God takes place every year over our heads. Light is the great revealer, but light also hides. You won't hear that story in church! Nuther long story. I suppose years ago I did wonder why in Malachi, the "Messiah" or Jesus as Christians said it pointed to, was said to be "the Sun that arose with healing in his wings." If you know of the Egyptian sun symbol with wings, you'll see how old a concept that was.
So while I find the story of the Bible in the heavens, as below...so above etc, I don't fear the literalism of the Bible anymore, nor would I teach it. This is, in part, why I feel strongly about those that are manipulated by ignorant and pushy pastor types, into supporting something literally that is not literally to be supported. Ideas have consequences and we see that every day with religion gone amuck. Spirituality, as I have always noted, comes from within and doesn't need your money nor for you to show up Wednesday evenings, Saturday or Sunday.
Now to some, the reason I can go on this journey of discovery and enlightenment, while painful at times, is because I was never converted to the truth of past affiliations. I think I was. I was a true believer for a long time. But when I saw how quickly those in "high" places could change and demand change, everything I ever doubted bubbled up and here I am. 
I have both a deep resentment for those that have hurt so many and a gratefulness that I was able to get out and not have the drama of all that followed. The local church I last pastored was already using me as a punching bag in place of those they really resented enough. Remember, I don't like conflict, much less being the imagined target and cause of their anger. I learned to tell people I was never one of them, but one of "you" working for "them." I grew up Presbyterian and well outside a lifelong WCG mentality. I did manage to remind Joe Tkach that he was reinventing the wheel and that what he found so so new in Jesus, was so so old a story to the vast majority of those who came to WCG in the first place. For that I was told later that "HQ thinks you know a lot about Jesus, Dennis...but they don't think you KNOW Jesus." Uh oh.... :) Actually I think I know about Jesus more than they can possibly imagine... at least the Jesus of the Bible. It seems real contemporaries of Jesus know little or nothing of a Jesus who was known everywhere according to the Bible.
And so I have lost faith in just having faith. I like the facts more than I like faith. I understand faith and I agree that sometimes there is nothing to have but faith until facts come forward. But I do not substitute faith for facts. Eventually faith falls to facts.  
 Even a good Buddhist will say that sometimes there is nothing left in life to do but have a good laugh. A good laugh and "faith" sometimes are the same thing. When I had my kids immunized in 1974 when it was not fashionable theologically in WCG, I did so because facts over rode my faith factors. When Herbert Armstrong said in a Bible study that dinosaurs probably couldn't reproduce because they were created by Satan who couldn't either, I went with the cover of National Geographic  I saw on his coffee table in his office that displayed dino eggs. That happened a lot over the years when I listened to one minister or another on various topics they really knew little about. Mixing religion with science is lame.
 I"m still an extrovert, intuitive, feeling and perceptive. I still do "counseling" and I still hate conflict and confrontation. I don't, however, believer I will take a stabbing lying down again.  

Transitions are messy and in looking back, mine certainly was.  As Frank sang, "Mistakes I've made a few. But then again, please don't make me mention them..." or something like that .  Older, wiser and more settled is the end result.  Moving to Oregon was the best thing I have ever done and only the second place I choose to move to in my live rather than have the church tell me to do it.  If I can see Mt. Hood or Mt St Helens on the way home from work which I will do til I drop, it's all good. 
 I suggest you find out what you are and you'll understand your life in much more detail. Humans are hardwired the moment the sperm hits the egg...the rest is conditioning, programming, tribal expectations, fear, guilt and shame that keeps one in line with the group, religion or organization.

I also simply want people to think before they get hurt by those god-haunted types who run on emotion and the need to control. 
Sometimes we have to loose our minds to come to our senses. You can loose a lot of other things along the way when you do that, but being more authentic is well worth it. It's what ENFP's treasure almost above all other things.
Thanks for listening.....