I did say that I was going talk about the current crisis in the United Church of God. I actually had a post about Richard Burkard’s “personal” crisis over certain hymns that he couldn’t sing to the audience. J of Shadows of WCG has his own take with his emphasis on his very firm belief in New Covenant Theology (I hope recognizes there are many other interpretations of law and grace and Christendom and that his is one of many, not the only interpretation) and “NO2HWA” has chronicled the latest resignations, firings and shenanigans in the UCG in his blog Banned By HWA.
I have in the past given suggestions of where the UCG could go. My friend Douglas Becker gave me a reality check of would anyone there (particularly the ministry) would ever listen. I knew anyway that the ministers from all the XCG splinters are poor listeners (they believe in the art of ignoring people) and their members are selective listeners (where they cherry-pick what they want to hear from others).
There are people whom I know personally who are in the United Church of God. I believe some are very decent people. They are sincere in seeking God. What I think the people of the United Church of God need to do is simply need to go directly to God. Forget HWA, forget the Council of Elders and I dare them to forget their own church literature. These things have just as served as bureaucratic roadblocks. Nothing more. This is a scary step but a very necessary step if they want a radical change in their spiritual pilgrimage. It is time for ALL in the UCG, whether member or minister to recognize that the vehicle is NOT working. It is time to get a new vehicle.
I am not talking about a new splinter either. It can be guaranteed that if a new splinter takes place, sometime down the road some wild-eyed dreamy preacher (or wannabe preacher) will have some more eccentric ideas and create another split (how many times do I have really mention Ron Weinland?). What about the split from the split? Who’s legitimate? Again, splinters are ego focused and takes the focus off the real head of the invisible Body of Jesus Christ (Jesus, of course). It doesn’t take a rocket scientist that splinters are about following man and for those who angrily object are simply in denial.
Frankly and bluntly, those who are caught up in Armstrongism are just like addicts on hard drugs. They need a fix. The fix is an Apostle who is directly sent from God—or the fix is prophecy—they are so eager the world to end and be destroyed. Well God has for whatever reasons not ended the world yet (and believe me with the wickedness and injustice that run rampant in today’s world, I still have yet to understand God’s mercy). We all have to cope with that fact. It seems those in the XCG have the most difficulty doing that. They need that fix. This is why some very few would even go to a Seventh Day Baptist Church or a Messianic Jewish Congregation (with the exception to infiltrate that place with Armstrongite doctrines as been proven). The XCG’s just provide that boost—putting that person in a constant state of alertness and restlessness. Sad indeed, but the truth.
What would be my current wish for the people of the United Church of God? Note I emphasized people. I don’t care much of the organizational structure of that church. One UCG blogger wonders if the organization will last next year? Is this really a bad thing? If it could create more independent thinkers I’d say it’s a good thing. If it could produce people who can innovate and think outside of the box, it’s also a good thing. Well what would be the best alternative for some to go? Probably it is the best the thing for the people of the United Church of God to leave mass exodus from the organization and start knocking on the door of The Church of God (Seventh Day), where it may not be perfect but there is a centrality of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. The CG7 does believe in celebrating the Seventh-Day Sabbath (and have grown up in recognizing some let’s say 21st century “ox in the ditch” situations), celebrates the Lord’s Supper (Passover) on the 14th of Nisan, believes in a 72 hour death,burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, believes in conditional immortality, premillennialism and other similarities without the stranger and ascetic peculiarities of Armstrongism. If a good chunk of the people do this, I will be doing cartwheels. This is not to say that one’s spiritual pilgrimage may end there. It may lead you to places and ideas unexpected. Sadly there are those who are scared of using their own minds and wanting to be told what to do. My prayer that these people will be in the minority and may they only serve as a museum piece making no impact on the world scene being nothing but an object of humour in which the rightly deserve. The rest who desire freedom and to recapture true sanity, need our support more than ever before. This is no time for tea but a time for action. May it be sooner than later.
Life After The WCG: A Spirital Pilgrimage of an Independent Believer 
The end of Armstrong-ism is near. With the next split to take place in January, we can only hope that the people who hitch their wagons up to the new group learn to put their money and minds into a church corporate that really makes a difference in the world and contributes to the welfare of all human beings.
It is time for the light of humanity, the professing Christians in the Armstrong empire to shine upon all those who seek the face of righteousness upon the earth.
It is time for those who profess Christ to come out of the shadows and put their works where their mouth is.
It is time that the associates of the Armstrong churches not say to themselves:
“My mind is made up; don’t confuse me with the facts.”
It is time that you quit supporting men who set new records for arrogance, deceit, greed and reign by oppressive terror.
And last, it is time to quit following men who have locked you into their present course of destruction. You do not have to follow men who’s fundamentally detestable schemes, lead you to spiritual and financial ruin.
Armstrongism is now provably false. British Israelism is a fraud and we can absolutely prove it.
Consider this: Armstrongism rests entirely upon British Israelism. It does not exist without it.
And think about this: The sole reason that Herbert Armstrong left the Church of God Seventh Day is that they would not accept British Israelism.
So what we have are thousands of people who follow Armstrongist ministers preaching some perverted form of what was given to them by a nutcase who rebelled against his parent church because they wouldn’t accept his heresy based on idolatry.
Does anyone really think these Armstrongist ministers today are better than the manic delusional rebel who led them into the wilderness in the first place?
The Church of God Seventh Day is not filled with chaos of constant agitation. They have peace. The minister isn’t some Guard standing over faux Prisoners in some bizzare psychological experiment.
The UCG is but one of the failed psychological experiments, based not only upon the contradictory delusional obvious paradoxical cognitive dissonance of their own selection, but on the worst of the corporate model implemented badly from Weyerhaeuser, with all the detriments which proceed from the Collective where the end justifies the means and the end is to keep an organization together for the sake of keeping it together.
Forget God. Forget Jesus Christ. For that matter, forget what’s moral, legal and ethical. Continue to share the fellowship of nutjobs, narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths, based on your fear of losing your salvation, fear of losing out on the place of safety, fear of losing out on some fantasy revenge of the world tomorrow, fear by intimidation, Stockholmed by captors who only pretend to care about you when it is in their interest and who keep you in your place with emotional extortion, trapped by your concern for your family and the borderline fear that your family and friends will abandon you.
Stop worrying about it, you’ve already lost about everything anyway. 1975 failed to materialize this year yet again. Just how long have we been living in the Great Tribulation and how much worse is it going to get? Ah yes, The Famine of the Hearing of The Word. Screw that! It’s the famine of the listening of the Word which started somewhere in the 1930s.
The worst is already past — particularly if you decide to overcome your moral inerita, declare enough is enough and leave for happier times and happier places.
The Feast of Tabernacles just isn’t the Disneyland it used to be.
Don’t lose hope Felix: 2010 will be proven to be a significant turning point and 2011 is not going to go well for the Armstrongists if we have anything to say about it.
Amen James and Mikey for President! Amen!
The ministers leaving UCG are better off. UCG is lukewarm they are in the process of being spewed out and I can prove it with evidence by the word of God at http://thegoodtale.blogspot.com read all the posts to see the true Gospel now going to the world Acts 3:22-23, at the heel of time.
http://thegoodtale.blogspot.com/2010/11/philadelphia.html
Sigh. My post when I mentioned about selective listening proves my point on the comment above. Members and ministers don’t need to fling from one XCG to another XCG. They don’t need putrid doctrines of Armstrong. For the risk of sounding churchy, they all need Jesus Christ—and NOTHING ELSE!
Val,
Shameful self promotion. And by the way, you proved nothing. It is the same old box of crap no matter how you box or label it.
Spot on again James!
Well, Google is being particularly recalcitrant, so I can’t post on any Blogger blogs, and haven’t been able to do so, for the past couple days now (reading the Help forums, I am apparently not the only one), so I’ll say it here:
110 names is not a small number, yo.
I do get the feeling that that the “new and improved” (but leaves the same bad taste in the mouth!) splinter-of-the-splinter-of-the-splinter will probably fall into the same kind of xenophobic isolationism as did the FIRST splinter break off from the United Church of God, David Hulme’s group. (And one of the members will post anonymously immediately following my comment, saying Hulme’s sect is not secretive, and blah blah blah. Spare me.)
Unlike splitting the atom, however, splitting the Churches of God even further, is actually a GOOD thing.
“Frankly and bluntly, those who are caught up in Armstrongism are just like addicts on hard drugs. They need a fix. The fix is an Apostle who is directly sent from God—or the fix is prophecy—they are so eager the world to end and be destroyed.”
You’ve just said a mouthful, Felix, and I couldn’t have said it better myself. You and I may disagree on the state of “the world” (I hardly see it in the same pessimistic light that you do), but on the above, we are 100% agreed. The hate mail I received whilst running WeinlandWatch was more than proof enough of that…..