When I say that Ron Weinland is a heretic and a cultist, it is not done out of the sadistic joy picking on him. Thank God he has also been proven a false prophet—he predicted the beginning of end time of events on the Passover season and thank God we’re still here and thank God for His mercy that He does not wish that anyone should perish—but should ALL come to repentence through the Gospel of Jesus Christ who came to save us from sin and death and to give all a precious opportunity to live with God forever. Waaay more positive news than Weinland’s gospel of gloom, doom and destruction and you better clean up your act because these things are going to happen. Gavin Rumney also argues that Weinland is also a con-man who have manipulated members into giving their money to for his livelihood and now his prophecies that have failed to materialize it will be probably a case of “so long suckers!”
The reason I label Ron Weinland a “non-Christian cultist” is that he denies that Jesus Christ is God and I know that religious pluralists are offended that I made such an assertion. I believe if a religious leader is claiming to be Christian, he must agree that Jesus Christ is God. Not a created being. Not just a great teacher. Not just an enlightened man of his day. He was God in the flesh. To believe opposite is simply not an option! Yes, this is not some Oprahized, touchy-feely political correctness that some want to hear but if a leader and his church want be called a “Christian church”, the divinity of Christ cannot be negotiated among other essentials. To worship on the Sabbath or the Lord’s Day—negotiable! Whether Christ died on Friday night or Wednesday night—negotiable! To keep the Lord’s Supper any weekend—or ONLY on the 14th of Nisan—or only on Good Friday/Easter Sunday—negotiable! For anyone to assert that Jesus Christ was not God in the flesh…Houston we have problem. Yes, I am very conservative when it comes to the essentials of historic Christian faith—this firm belief means I am in opposition to liberal theologians who oppose—not out of hate and spite (and I will have to admit there is a lot to learn from them but not on this issue, sorry)—but to preserve the foundations of Christianity. Some are offended (and some extremely angry) at that but in due time, I hope they will understand it is for a decidedly, intellectually thought through for very good reasons. Many of the cults who have rejected basic truths such as Christ’s divinity have become the most deadliest cults in which those who lost their lives. Oh yes people will protest and say, “What about the Catholics—they are trinitarians—and killed millions of people through the ages!!!” Decidedly, I will say, “No comparison.” By the way, they took responsiblity and apologized (unlike some cults or so-called “former” cults refuse to do!). Hold off you arguments. Wait until I get the chance to write the second part to “Why The Churches of God will NOT re-unite REDUX!” I will be getting very deeper on the issue of the Godhead.
Aside from my blather, my real purpose for this post is I thank God Almighty that people can come out of the kingdom of the cults and enter into the kingdom of Christ. There has been one lady by the grace of God that have been delivered from the dark and evil kingdom of Ron Weinland’s cult and is in a journey into the kingdom of Christ by reading the pages of her Bible without the literature of Weindland’s deceptive materials. Here is what she had to say,
I grew up in WCG. Listened to RW for awhile but he was twisting scriptures & he said Jesus had a beginning, among a long list of other false teachings. And he’s trapping people on the flypaper of old covenant. ‘To this day a veil covers their eyes when Moses is read.’ I have family in his church. It baffles me how they can believe RW. Don’t they research? Do they limit themselves to the few scriptures he supplies with his own personal false interpretations?
Any reasonable person can conclude to answer the last two questions is that the first question is a resounding NO and the second is sadly, unarguably YES! This lady who goes by the pseudonym of Seeker of Truth has set up a new blog, “As The Bereans Did” and has a post refuting the heretical nonsense of Ron Weinland when it comes to the deity of Christ. She does an excellent job of proving that through the Old Testament and New Testament Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and is in NO imaginable sense a created being.
As late Walter Martin author of Kindom of the Cultist said in his ending paragraph on the section of the historic Worldwide Church of God and Armstrongism,
Since “God is not the author of confusion” (1 Corinthians 14:33), there is one sure remedy to the problem of the spread of Armstrongism. Turn off the television and radio wherever it is promoted and open your Bible, for within its pages God is always broadcasting the eternal message of the Gospel of grace. A study of the essential doctrines necessary for solid growth in the Christian life can be found within its pages. When this supplemented by attendance in a truly Christian church where that gospel is preached, there is no need to listen the Hebert Armstrongs of our day, for as the psalmist so beautifully described it, “The entrance of they Word giveth light.”
I thank God that Seeker of Truth has just did that! May her blog last for a loong time as tool to bring many out of the dark,gloomy, evil darkness into His wondeful, joyous light!
Her blog and post is right here.
Also this man may have been controversial but he had a good segment on his show about the belief in the deity of Christ. The late Dr. James Kennedy examines proof that belief in Jesus Christ as God was solid in the early centuries of the church and was simply NOT an afterthought from the Council of Nicea in the 4th century AD.
Life After The WCG: A Spirital Pilgrimage of an Independent Believer 
Church of gods cult leaders have threatened to sue me, taken down my websites when I exposed them and even lodged an official complaint to the office of the President of Australia [which was resoundingly rejected by the Australian Government as being “ill conceived”\.
I’ve gone nose to nose and toe to toe with ministers of United for their outrageous behavior. I told one minister I did not appreciate his opening sermon for the Feast of Tabernacles wherein he told us of a suicide of a baptized woman who had grown up in the WCG and told us that no one could say why she did it. I know why: It was his sermons. Also, untreated clinical depression kills.
Our Pastor just finished a remarkable series on Redemption — a series which Armstrongists could not even begin to touch. Every sermon had significant lessons. One of those was about the Passover. You know very well that the foot washing is mentioned only in Mark and nowhere else in the New Testament, but love and service are — over and over again. He posed the question of whether we allow traditions to become rituals without meaning thinking we are good to go. Redemption is an affection where God set His love on us.
That is what has happened in the ACoGs: What was traditions based on opinions of one man rebelling against his own church became empty rituals devoid of meaning.
Furthermore, as time went on in the ACoGs, it became more and more difficult to discuss Scripture and their meanings in church. This past Sabbath at the potluck, we were able to discuss Scriptures freely and learn from each others’ perspectives and experiences.
Not only do Armstrongists lose out on grace and freedom, they are locked in a mindset which prevents them from expanding their Spiritual knowledge because they are obsessed with those limiting opinions of a dead false prophet.
By the way, we call Armstrongists, “Old Testament Christians” with the conviction that no such thing exists.
I have never really understood why someone would even want to believe that Jesus was not God. The only thing that comes to mind is intellectual vanity. It’s like the example Jesus provided of people who argue how many angels can reside on the head of a pin. You really have to twist the words of St. John, and manipulate many of the OT scriptures to come to a Unitarian viewpoint. If it’s really that difficult to understand, and if you really need to go to such lengths on such a basic issue, it makes one wonder how anyone could get any of the Christian precepts right.
Someone once told me that a person of basic intelligence should be able to read the Bible, and with God’s guidance, understand exactly what God expects of His children. It seems, though, that some people, by their complex doctrinal approaches, are attempting to justify their own existence as teachers. God is the one who grants us understanding when we invite Him to walk with us.
Unfortunately, many of the extrabiblical things we were taught in the ACOGs, and many of the “private” understandings we were given can only be described as the spiritual masturbation of our teachers. Totally self-gratifying for them!
BB
The funny thing about Weinland is that he only manipulates ONE old testament scripture to prove his wacky unitarianism: And his assertion that unitarianism is the “correct” christian doctrine? Is based on the fact that apparently the word “logos” was mis-translated in the old testament. And how do we know the word “logos” was mis-translated in the old testament? Because Weinland says so.
Bear in mind this is the same man who also brought us the following “new truth”:
“Why would anyone want to use anyone in Judaism as an authority in Hebrew?” (RW April 5 sermon “The First Passover”.)
Ron Weinland is a false prophet and is delusional that he is one of the two end time witnesses sent by God. He said the end of the world would start in April 2008, and it didn’t happen. He is also wrong about everything in his book, he preaches non-Christian, foreign doctrines similar to cult religions. He is also denying the divinity and deity of Jesus Christ even though this is found in the scriptures. The bible has proof that Jesus Christ is God, and yet he is teaching a strange doctrine about Jesus. He also denies that man has a living spirit, a soul from God, created by God. He said man does not have a living soul, and he explains away the soul by stating that man has a “spirit essence” that is not a living being. This nut-head can and will explain away anything to suit his delusional beliefs. He also said that the Holy Spirit is not a living entity like God is-he said the Holy Spirit is nothing more than God’s power, that it’s a non-person, non-living, non-entity and non-being. Ron Weinland has blasphemed the Holy Spirit. I quote what Jesus said from the bible about this, “…therefore I say unto you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. (Matthew 12:31-32)”. I think Ron Weinland has got hell to pay for his false teaching because he is leading many people away from the One, True God.
I agree with you 100% Patrick. What Jesus Christ said in the New Testament is unmistakably clear that if one does not repent, they will surely perish. Ron Weinland is in no imaginable way the exception. My prayers and thoughts for a greater exodus trapped in the kingdom of the cults (like Weinlands) into the glorious Kingdom of Christ.
For Patrick:
Weinland’s theology of the holy spirit is basically unchanged from the WCG, and is same as all the other Churches of God. This is also the same theology that is taught by the Holiness Quakers, from whom HWA lifted the pet doctrine in the first place. So the other CoG splinters are actually in agreement with that part of Weinland’s teachings, as they teach the same.
It is Weinland’s oddball unitarianism, and his blatant addition, subtraction and re-translation of the KJV that has the other CoG groups up in theological arms against him. Not the holy spirit doctrine, which is (so far) unchanged from the original HWA theology.
I would like to say I am not a follower of church of god nor the armstrong group, but when saying something try to back everything up with scripture. So many believers will say Jesus is God, but when one says that, do you mean from a trinitarian view or from a oneness view, to claim Jesus God is to say he is the father, or do you mean the God manifested in the son to reveal the fathers name. trinitarians will say Jesus is God, yet they dont baptize in his name, but prefer titles, oneness baptise in his name but have trouble with understanding the diiference between the son and the father, we cannot base our faith on the nicean cread because some of their beliefs came from hellenistic greek philosophies and have mixed paganism with true christianity, the nicean fathers made saints out of the ante nicean, which some of the ante nicean fathers were taught from the apostle John, these early fathers taught that Jesus was in subordinate tothe father in which most of these early fathers were killed for their faith.
Assertions about Hellenism, Nicean Creed, Greek philosophies aside, my authority about the deity of Jesus Christ comes from John 1:1 and what John 1:3 says. It states The Word (Jesus) was and IS GOD. Nothing else was created without Him. This is the clear teaching of scripture that myself and millions of others cannot and will not compromise and re-interpret in anyway. Next question.