Articles Pertaining To Herbert W. Armstrong, Garner Ted Armstrong and The Worldwide Church of God
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Email To The Editor
(Page 96)
Hi to Everyone
I have recently completed a book, entitled Flying Free, on my
journey in and later out of the Worldwide Church of God (Worldwide
Church of God) -- I spent 35 years in the Worldwide Church of God,
prior to the changes taking effect in 1995. Flying Free is a
fairly large and extensive work. I have decided that in order to
make it as available and affordable as possible, I am distributing
it on a compact disk, at a cost including international postage of
$A10 ($A12 for those outside of NZ, Australia, Asia and the
Pacific). The book also includes some scanned graphics which would
be compromised had it been published in book form. Of course, you
can print the book off from the CD.
Flying Free is a thoroughly researched book, which can help people
to freely move on from the legacy of the Armstrong errors. Book details, including "Lara's letter" and other excerpts, with
comments from those who have read the book, can be seen on the
Flying Free website:
www.flyingfree.zoomshare.com/
Regards
John Morgan
Brisbane, Australia
12/05/06
Please pray for my friend and your Christian brother, Richard
Markland of Covington, Ohio. Richard was accused, and has been
declared guilty of raping his eight-year-old granddaughter. He is
presently in Miami County jail awaiting his January 2nd sentencing.
Since his alleged victim was under the age of ten, Richard could
face ten years to life in the state prison.
Richard is well-known for his on-line denunciation of man’s
governmental and judicial system. Could his incarceration be the
system’s way to silence him?
Please also pray for his aging parents, Paul and Treva Markland.
They have suffered greatly though the lingering death of Richard’s
wife, Linda, by cancer, as well as through the months of accusation
and incarceration of their son.
Only three people know whether the charge against Richard is
just: Richard, his accuser, and God. Please pray that God will
determine the outcome of January 2nd’s sentencing, as well as for
Richard’s parents’ future. Also, please pray for his granddaughter,
who may have been coached in her accusations.
anonymous.8bc568ef37
[anonymous.8bc568ef37@anonymousSpeech.com]
Say it ain't so, Dick! Say it
ain't so!
Yeah, everyone
pray for Richard Markland. That will fix everything. How about
praying for the granddaughter who has the rest of her life
ruined?
I was
watching The Glenn Beck Show last night. He is a little too
religious for me but I find him easier to watch than the
constant screaming and talking over each other on the
Hannity and Colmes show. (Does there have to be a Right and
a Left opinion on everything? Can't we agree on some
things?)
Anyhow, he
had a guest on the show that had a new Christian video game.
I didn't pay too much attention to what was being said,
hoping they would move on to something interesting as I was
doing computer work. But, then the guy says, in his
Christian video game, the person can play a "Prayer Card."
And I'm
thinking: "it is the card you play and nothing happens."
Just keep pushing that prayer button as your minister (God's
servant) aka "grandpa" (or "daddy" in Herbert W. Armstrong's
case) the rapist, comes after you and nothing
happens. Nobody saves you, as you keep frantically pressing
the button, just like real life. Its kind of like that "Easy
Button" that Staples has but at least that button actually
works. Well, maybe it doesn't really work but it works just
as good as that "Prayer Button."
Pray for
this, pray for that. Nothing happens except you might feel
better because you "think" you did something because you
placed all responsibility into the make-believe hands of
your make-believe god. If it turns out good, then god
answered your prayer. If it turns out bad, then it is just
god's will and who are we to question that? Sheeeze.....
The God
that could have done something to stop this
minister-grandfather-rapist did absolutely nothing to stop
this poor little girl from being raped but now people should
pray to this same make-believe God that He would help a
convicted rapist.
How could
we have been so delusional to ever believe such things?
Ignorant people can be excused but how can educated people
be so stupid?
12/18/06
I don't know whether this is useful or not but I
have had a couple of email battles with Markland. I was a
member of WWCG and recently questioned his beliefs in Herb.
After I mentioned to him that Armstrong was a pedophile, he
stopped replying. Sound strange?
Charlie Ezelle
Thanks for the info,
Charlie. Another reader sent information that indicates
Mr. Markland has been in and out of court several times since
the early 90s. A couple of those looked like theft
or fraud charges, and once it appears he was the complainant in
a case involving a neighbor's dog. Then, suddenly -- child
rape! Quite a leap. 12/21/06
I am surprised
to find not listed on your suicides related to WCG the
following:
Murder(7)/Suicide(1) Terry Ratzman age 44
Milwaukee (Waukesha), WI. My parents were in the front
row at the church service of Meredith's offshoot of WCG,
where Terry gunned down seven people before turning the gun
on himself. My parents, and those who chose to side with
the church, indifferently shrug off the incident: It was 'satan'
that got into poor Terry's head.... I didn't argue with
them, having grown up in the WCG, I already know that is
useless. The poor guy, victim of the disallusionment of a
waning Armstrong empire - the media had a field day with
ex-members talking about cultish rules, etc of the WCG
and the members denying it all (LIARS). I was thoroughly
disgusted.
You're right!
I don't know how that one slipped past us. Thanks for
bringing it to our attention. 12/29/06
Hello, I have some things to add to the 'You
Might Have Grown up in WCG...' section of your website. I
was in tears laughing as I read it. I forwarded it to my
brother and sister who also grew up WCG (the youngest in UCG and
then GCG and then LCG).... They were ROFL as well! Thanks so
much for your site, for bringing information, healing, and much
needed humor about our experiences with the abuses of cultism.
Please leave this anonymous, even though I am not ashamed of any
of these things, I fear the 'lurker' who may try to contact me
to 'set me straight' as my parents are each still members of
local WCG/LCG churches.
[name withheld]
Thanks for writing. For a
girl who was discouraged from "thinking too much", I'd say you
have a pretty sharp mind. The way women were treated by
the church was positively medieval. (Oh, yeah...GOOD FOR
YOUR BROTHER!)
John B 1/11/07
Okay, this is just too funny....
I left the WCG as an adolescent, never
understanding the road my parents took to wind up in this
cult. Even as a small child I never really took too much of
the doctrine to heart. I can remember my parents spinning
tales of Petra, the place of safety, and telling me about
the tribes of Isreal, and the eras of churches, the true
origins of the evil pagan santa claus and the easter bunny,
etc. They were great stories, and I enjoyed most of them,
but found them similar to stories about witches who ate
children, evil stepmothers who tried to poison their
daughters with apples, and big bad wolves who ate
grandmothers or blew houses down. I realized that all of
these stories were supposed to teach me something, but never
took them to be literal facts. Perhaps that was my
salvation in the end.
Anyway, I decided to check out the tactics
that worked so well on my parents in getting them to to fall
for such crap. I decided to visit the Tomorrow's World
site, as my mother still attends Living Church under
Meridith. I decided to email them and ask about
the validity of the bible to see how they responded. I
received an email from Gary Ehman, instructing me to read
their booklet, The Bible, Fact or Fiction? I did a
search on their site and came up with nothing. After
browsing through their booklet list, I found what I was
looking for....
How appropriate that the title of this
booklet has so blatent an error. I've attached a
picture of the error
just in case they catch it and change the title before
anyone takes a look. Are they trying to turn people away
from the bible? Not only does the title read The Bible,
Fact of Fiction? but in the first
paragraph there are two words stuck together. The title of
this booklet sounds more appropriate as one introducing a
proof that the bible is taken as fact but built almost
entirely upon fiction... coincidence? Perhaps not - must be
old SATAN up to his dirty tricks again! Ha Ha Ha.
On a side note, it's nice to see that
Merideth has traded in SHOUTING emphasis for italicized
emphasis! Also interesting is that the method of induction
is still to lure common, uneducated people into believing
lies built on selected truths. If you don't bother to read
these selected truths outside of the context of the
booklets, it is easy to connect the dots and end up with the
final picture that this organization wants you to! Many
probably do not realize that this is not true research, and
obediently following along does not prove anything.
Just thought I'd pass this on to someone who
would find this as humorous as I do!
[name withheld]
Thanks for pointing that out.
I agree, it's a "good 'urn". Literacy has never been the
strong suit of COG types, but in this case it's a simple case of
carelessness. You think Jesus would leave a type-o like
that? I think NOT!
1/14/07
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