“Armstrong should be praised, not blamed, for a great deal of what he offered. Yes, part of his spiritual palette was unconscionable. That should be obvious to all who have known or studied his teachings. But in this great and free country, everyone has always been at least theoretically free to choose his or her own path.”

I was brought up in the Armstrong cult, and I fail to understand how a child can be, even theoretically, free to “choose his or her own path”. I also fail to understand in what ways either of the Armstrongs, father or son, should be praised, as I find that they offered nothing of significance to theology. The mindset of “us” versus “them” (aka “the world”) was deeply ingrained in all “converts”. Just as in Jones’ group, Heaven’s Gate, etc., fear of the “unknown” kept these converts from choosing their own paths, even within the tradition. Mates were chosen (with oftentimes disasterous results) from within; education was decided upon based upon the coming “end”; child-rearing techniques were based upon “Armstrong dogma”‘; dating, clothing, gender “roles”, divorce, remarriage, careers, etc.–all of these were subject to the control of the “Church” and the dogma of the Armstrongs and enforced through fear of the coming “end time”, in which the “others” would suffer while the “true Church” was protected. So, “freedom” was curtailed through fear.

Yes, there were some who did not follow everything, whose children were allowed to be children and grow up relatively “normal”. But, these families were scorned by the middle echelon as “weak”–all the while the children of the upper echelon were being allowed to do pretty much as they pleased (ask any girl who ever dated one of the Armstrong boys!).

Let’s call it as it was, and still is: a cult (“a rose by any other name,”– although I would hardly call Armstrongism or cults of any type “roses”). I, for one, am thankful I am out of this “tradition”. Yes, I am scarred, and I have to fight the bitterness that often wells up inside me as I think that I also allowed MY children to be subjected to that lifestyle–although in far more moderation–and that I stayed in a one-sided, controlling marriage based upon the Armstrong “truth” for far too long, as well as missed out on many opportunities growing up because the “end” was coming. But, my children must make their own choices, I am working at letting go of the past, and life goes on.

The Armstrongs, those who continue their traditions, and others like them, will be judged for what they did, or did not do. It is not up to humans to do so. But, we all know they have spiritual “blood” on their hands, and I, as do others, personally believe they were the proverbial “wolves in sheep’s clothing”. They will finally have to face God and answer for their sins, just as all of us will.

Wrong! Pure wrong! That so-called pastor is confusing mind control with humility and he darn well knows it!

So a WCG Pastor said in the mid-1990’s — years after HWA died.

Does that approach not mean sacrificing one’s “freedom” to some extent?

Even my decision to leave the church was made for me; if the changes had never happened, and Joe Tkach Sr. had never given the sermon from the mount, and status had remained quo—I never would have left the church.

I did not start making decisions on my own until much later in my life than I should have (and I learned the hard way the consequences of making such decisions in an uninformed manner). That is as a direct result of the church and its mind-control.

With respect, Mr. Schroeder’s comments are correct. For those members who had the choice in the first place, our parents. We, unfortunately, were not quite so lucky in that regard.

At the age of 17, I was ripped from my home and plunged into the Radio Church of God cult. I had no choice in the matter because two members of my family put me on a bus and sent me away to be picked up by the RCG minister. I was just out of high school and did not really know how to live on my own. I worked for less than minimum wage and the GROSS went to the church. I was surrounded by my roommates in the church in a true cult experience, cut off from everyone I had ever known and was with strangers.

When I say strangers, I mean they were not just unfamiliar to me: They were strange. It was a completely dysfunctional environment designed for sleep deprivation. I often starved nearly to death because I didn’t really have enough to eat. I had to walk everywhere and was at the mercy of church members with whom I was surrounded 24 by 7.

Fast forward 20 years.

Our family came home one Sabbath afternoon and somewhere along the line, our daughter told me that her best friend in the WCG was being raped by her father committing incest with her. I was shocked and did not know what to do.

It turns out the ministry in the WCG were protecting the man. Along with many other incidences, including stalking even way back then, the ministers all the way from the local preaching elder all the way up to HQ and Roderick Meredith covered up the terrible acts perpetrated on the members and their children. In legal parlance they were co-conspiraters accessories to depraved indifference and outright assault. The church managed to cover up everything.

Now, beyond the above being terrible naive, It should be noted that some people also didn’t have a lot of choices in their interactions.

Two years ago, I learned from a woman in an xcg that she had been staled by a mentally unbalanced man in her congregation. She protested to the minister and the minister suggested that she should “be more submissive”. She was a responsible business woman highly competent in her field. One day she got a call from an insurance agent telling her that her husband had taken out a life insurance policy on her. She wasn’t married and the man who had taken out the life insurance policy was the stalker in the WCG. Fortunately, she had moved to a residence with armed guards.

The minister moved to another area where the stalking proceeded without abatement. One man was being stalked by a woman in church and a week after he was married, she told him in church in front of witnesses, “You are mine”. Various stalkers in the WCG have said the same thing, including yet another incident where the victims couldn’t get recourse from the church but they did from the courts. The amazing thing about that was, as I sat in court, deacons from the church were showing contempt for the judge and he told them that if they didn’t stop, he would throw them out. They treated the judge in court as if he was supposed to be a church member subject to them.

Herbert Armstrong created and allowed the dysfunctional environment of the Radio Church of God and the Worldwide Church of God. He should have gone to prison for his part in some of the atrocities in the church as well as the atrocities he committed against his own family.

I appreciate the supposed freedoms of America. For a time, we had the freedom of choice. These days though, the government can come in and exercise the right of imminent domain to take your hard earned property from you and give it to a corporation to develop based on the premise that it might bring in more taxes [not that anyone has ever shown that any such thing ever has].

One hopes that the freedoms being stripped away by ripping up the Constitution under the Homeland Security acts won’t end up to be even less than the freedoms we had in the WCG and the xCGs. Gerald Flurry once gave a sermon that none of us “have any rights”. He’s busily working on that along with the other cultmeisters. Taking responsibility against arrogant psychopaths can only people so far, especially if they think that the sociopaths in question will be reasonable.