HWA insisted that the Jews were wrong about their ...

2016-04-26T09:01:41.876+12:00

HWA insisted that the Jews were wrong about their own religion and insisted that Passover was supposed to be celebrated a day earlier than was done by them. HWA taught his followers to observe Passover at the start of Nisan 14. But that celebration is observed 24 hours later by Jews. So HWA insisted the Jews were wrong.

It would have been better to leave their religious observances alone. I am not a Jew but no doubt these festivals are precious to them. HWA would have been more respectful to them if he had simply left these festivals alone instead of using them as a club to discredit the mainstream Christian churches to build up his own following.

The Armstrong movement always looked for numbers, ...

2016-04-24T04:55:40.187+12:00

The Armstrong movement always looked for numbers, as in threes, sevens, nineteens, fifties, thousands, etc. I suspect that the reasons for which they parsed the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Tabernacles to get two extra festivals had something to do with obtaining yet another magical number seven.

Curiously, in their theology, there is no such parsing applied to arrive at trinitarianism. They also teach that Jesus was the God of the Old Testament, a theory which is partially utilized to justify contaminating the New Covenant with parsed, picked and chosen elements of the Old. Yet, when considering that death of one party abrogates all provisions of a covenant, they don't really emphasize that in the case of the Old Covenant, and the New, the One they identified as "God" died. Finally, since they make HWA into a quasi-Biblical character, "God's end-times Apostle", anything the man ever taught is considered to take precedence over the traditional understandings of the Hebrews, or what has developed in Christian theology over the past 2,000 years. Rather than understanding that there were Jewish Christians (who eventually died off), and Noachide gentile Christians who were the essence of Paul's work, HWA taught that these gentile Christians were part of an apostasy, during which "the truth" was lost for over 1900 years. Again, one must parse and manipulate actual history, injecting several dubious conspiracy theories, in an attempt to substantiate such a view. It is a ridiculous artificial construct, making sense only to those who drink the Kool Aid.

Armstrongism, by its very design, was intended to kill off traditional Christianity. The mantras about "once you have known the TRUTH" were so oft repeated that many members or former members believe that it is more logical to embrace atheism or agnosticism than to return to the mainstream. Not that many elements of the mainstream are not a circus. They often are. However, there is also that segment in which there is fund of deeper understanding, dismissed and ignored by Armstrongites. Being only superficially rooted is why most were attracted to Armstrongism in the first place.

BB

"...a failed ad salesman [and incestuous chil...

2016-04-24T04:24:17.951+12:00

"...a failed ad salesman [and incestuous child molester] with alcohol issues..."

I wouldn't praise him with fainter-than-deserved damnation.

Comments on Ambassador Watch: Loopyness, loopholes and leavening

HWA insisted that the Jews were wrong about their ...

The Armstrong movement always looked for numbers, ...

"...a failed ad salesman [and incestuous chil...