Beware Angry Priests

Alas, the Red Bull company has been shamed by an Italian priest into withdrawing a seasonal ad. But rejoice all ye creatures here below, for you can still see it on YouTube. I'm not much of a fan of either Red Bull or nativity scenes (though, if I had to make a choice, the hypo-juice would win hands down), but this TV ad is really quite tasteful in contrast to most of the lurid kitsch now appearing in a shopping mall near you...

Why is it that religious conservatives - whatever their persuasion - seem to have an underdeveloped sense of self-deprecating humor?

UCG's Great Leap Backward

UCG is relocating to Texas. Details on Stan's blog. Is this another nail in UCG's coffin? Let's think. Did Herb Armstrong's Radio Church of God grow to prominence in the Bible belt? Shucks, no! Did GTA's "new beginning" take off in "down home" Tyler? Nope! For a small religious movement to prosper it needs to define itself against the values of its surrounding culture, not capitulate to them.

More Poddie Power

Skepticism, whether spelled correctly the British way [scepticism] or with the deviant North American k, is a good thing I think. Feel the siren call of the latest advertorial gadget on 2AM TV? Be skeptical. Get an email from Nigeria offering a large, easy cash return? Be skeptical.

So how come skepticism - let alone scepticism - is a wicked thing when it comes to religion?

There shall come scoffers in the Last Days... and thank God for that. The garden of the Lord is too full of credulous folk already. Dave Pack has a congregation full of such people; now there's a group who could do with a healthy dose of skepticism, preferably before their bank accounts are drained completely and their homes up for mortgagee sale.

I know I'll be blasted for saying it, but skeptics/sceptics are by and large on the side of the angels. Any faith that can't stand up to hard questions should be toppled off its pedestal.

Which is a long-winded way to introduce the excellent Infidel Guy podcast.

Reginald Finley is a former Christian of the Southern Baptist persuasion - or something very like it. Unlike some of the more confrontational types, Reg is downright polite and reasonable, and Infidel Guy sets a high standard in this kind of discourse.

Guests have included, on the one hand, Kent Hovind (the creationist) and Fred Phelp's son Tim (of God Hates Fags infamy). I know I'd lose it in the first five minutes with people of this ilk, but Reggie handles such guests with aplomb: in fact I'm humbled just listening in. On the other hand there have been superb interviews with Richard Dawkins and Richard Carrier.

But best of all, from my perspective as an uppity part-time theology student, have been the shows with biblical scholars, people like Bob Price (more on him in a moment), Hector Avalos and Bart Ehrman. Occasionally Reggie gets more than he bargained for - as in the Ehrman interview - but overall the tone is respectful, positive and inquiring. Christian media gild the lily, mainstream media dumb issues down, but ol' Reggie digs deep.

Bob Price deserves a separate entry. In fact, that's exactly what I'll do, so stay tuned...

Meantime, check out the IG website and - if you dare - consider subscribing to the free podcast. I haven't become an atheist as a result, but I'm certainly better informed!

The Christmas Conundrum

I'm seriously conflicted when it comes to Xmas. All that sentimental schmaltz and lethal doses of Helen Steiner Rice-type verse. Then there's the cheesy religious kitsch, hideous mangers, smirking cherubs and politicians trying to sound magnanimous. If I had to choose a tolerable Xmas carol it'd probably be the one about Snoopy and the Red Baron.

But who can complain about family get-togethers and doing nice things for little kids? All year long responsible parents repeat the "no" message; no you can't put that in the trolley, no you had ice-cream yesterday, no you can't have that just because it's advertised on TV, no you're not old enough for a cellphone, no we're not stopping by at McDonalds today.

Then, once a year they give themselves permission to be indulgent and splurge on the little people. But those same parents do it largely under cover of a seedy old guy called Santa, just so their offspring don't get the idea that they've suddenly dropped their adult guard. Gotta love it!

But for those of us who have fled from the Xmas-free dominion of Herb and his flunkies, the question remains - what about the pagan connection? For some like Bob Thiel it's a no-brainer: "...since “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8) true Christians realize that Christmas celebrations are not okay as far as God is concerned."
Which is where Paul Kroll's article comes in. The latest issue of WCG's Christian Odyssey has the usual mix of the good, the bad and the ugly, but Kroll, to his credit, takes the Yuletide bull by its horns and talks about those pagan connections. Yes, concedes Paul, the early Christians did indeed borrow freely, but...

And it's the but bit that makes his bells jingle. Check it out.

Not that I'd normally recommend CO (and certainly wouldn't recommend the tedious Feazell article on this subject in the same issue), but hey, even a stopped clock tells the truth twice a day.

Morgan book to feature at Harrods

John Morgan is a former member of WCG. His first book, Flying Free, chronicled his years as a member of the church and the evolution of his beliefs. He is the brother of Rex Morgan, WCG's senior minister in New Zealand. Earlier AW posts include two about Flying Free in August and September 2006, and one in September this year about Cover Up, an investigation of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

The following article appeared on page A2 of this morning's New Zealand Herald.

KIWI GETS AL-FAYED BACKING FOR DIANA BOOK
by Billy Adams

From his home in suburban Brisbane, John Morgan came to the same conclusion as millions of conspiracy theorists around the world - that Princess Diana was murdered.

But the Kiwi accountant then turned amateur sleuth and compiled a 500-page manuscript that he claims proves one of history's biggest cover-ups.

Although publishing agents in Britain and the US rejected the novice author's approaches, the long-running saga's most controversial protagonist - Mohamed al-Fayed - seemed far more impressed. Mr Morgan says the Harrods owner has offered to fly him around the world to launch his newly self-published book in his landmark London department store.

In an email sent last month to Mr Morgan, the billionaire's security chief, John MacNamara, provides a comment from his boss to be used on the back cover.

"This is a first class piece of journalism that exposes the Scotland Yard report into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi al-Fayed as a sham," Mr Fayed is quoted as saying. "The book demonstrates that the cover-up went right to the top."

The two men have little in common, except the shared conviction Diana and Dodi, Mr Fayed's son, were killed by British intelligence services.

Although the prospect of the "all-expenses-paid trip" excites Mr Morgan, he suffers from a terminal illness that leaves him virtually house-bound.

In 2003 doctors said he was showing early signs of multiple system atrophy, a rare disease that attacks motor-function and leaves most victims with a life expectancy of between six and 10 years. Forced to retire from his accounting career, Mr Morgan turned to writing.

It was after reading a book by Princess Diana's butler Paul Burrell that Mr Morgan started investigating her death full-time.

But it was the three-year investigation into the infamous Paris tunnel car crash by former Scotland Yard chief Lord Stevens that convinced him there had been foul play.

After failing to attract publishers, Mr Morgan used self-publishing firm lulu.com to produce his book - Cover Up Of A Royal Murder.

About 150 copies have been sold so far.


A related story appeared yesterday in Brisbane's Sunday Mail.

Clarion Call for Poverty

"GO GET THOSE ASSETS AND GET THEM HERE."

A report appears on Bob Thiel's site, dated December 7, with excerpts from a November 3 sermon by Apostle David C. Pack of the Restored Church of God. Not surprisingly, this sermon does not seem to be available on the RCG website. These transcripts come from the COGwriter site. Bob notes: "The following are approximate quotes (I tried to type verbatim and the following is fairly close) ..."

"Yeah, I know, one or two can leave and say, 'Hey, you stopped preaching and started meddling, now you're messing with my goods here on earth' "
"First Timothy 6 verse 17...'Charge them that are rich in this world'...If you were born in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, then you're rich"
"If you hold those riches, I'm telling you, you trust in them"
"Go get a big chunk out of your home. And put your money where your mouth is and send it here. And I'm not talking about one, two, three thousand either. How about ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, or one hundred thousand dollars? Go do it."
"Wives, you can be independent in this. You have 1/2 the worth of whatever you have in your house.

I'm officially telling you this...Wives, legally you have the 1/2 the funds. What are you going to do about it?...Husbands...'well, my wife is not in the church'...tell her...'you don't have a voice woman' "

"Go get those assets and get them here"
"Don't sit on vast resources that we can use now"
"We are not a splinter"
"I do not covet your silver or gold...the gold and silver is God's and He will get it someway"
"We do not have the funds...plans...bookstores...We need to redesign our website...We need many hundreds of thousands of dollars to arrive at God's headquarters soon...the timing is now"
"This is different...ask Him for the faith to liquidate certain assets and give it to the work"
"I'll say it again, we are talking about liquidating existing assets...it all belongs to God and the brethren"
"We have a lot of plans so big going on in this office it would cause just this room to to rock and gyrate if you knew what was going on. We just need a lot of money and we need it post haste...I would give more if I had it"
"Herbert Armstrong wrote an article...'Prepare to greatly reduce your standard of living'...What he wrote by far, is more for us now than it was then... its all going to be taken away from us anyway brethren"
"There will be follow-up sermons. Time to bring in related points"
"Let us know how much you plan to send and when you plan to send it...You must be willing to communicate... If you do need to counsel, please do that...If you are not ready to distribute what you have...you don't believe the flow of prophecy"
"This is announcing the last blast, the clarion call as it were, to finish the work...Whether it is 4,5,7, 9 years to go, God knows...This is liquidating assets...I have the authority to tell you to do it... I have the moral and spiritual, and ecclesiastical authority to tell you to do what I have also done"
"Get it now when it requires faith... when you are dead you don't need it... if you named us in your wills, it can take us months or years to get it"
"The wives in the faith will say give everything you can...We don't have the luxury of waiting years...today, leaving everything in your will simply doesn't work"
"Now you just have a second mortgage... and frankly we flee before most of it ever becomes due"
"...some may think that they want to tap their 401k--maybe you want to let us know that... why would you want to tell us? We are starting to prepare a budget now, the needs are now...it would be nice to know now"
"Think big...Pull big triggers"
"There is only two positions you can take regarding all that I have mentioned, only two, there is no middle ground. You're either going to yield, to submit and to follow, the clarion call that the time is now or you're not. And postponing a decision is deciding not to do it...It's saying I'm going to wait until it gets closer because it is not there yet...Don't say that I'm going to wait until it gets closer, when I can see...The decision is that my treasure stays on earth or I goes to heaven. Period. I will not lay up for times to come or I will. And this is the real test of Laodicea... either hold on to your assets... or give it... God is in this decision, no question. Testing the church's faith"
"We live in the most materialistic age in the history of the world. People trust in physical things. They trust in bank accounts...If you have excess and don't need it, those verses mean you...That's the Laodicean attitude...Put your money where your mouth is...Empty your assets"
"There is only one place He works...Where the...work is...that's where God is working...one elder commented here at headquarters, if people can't be motivated by a clarion call to finish the work such as this, why will those same people somehow believe the internal signal given to the church of the 1335? Why would they believe it?"
"This is the Laodicean age...Be careful that you don't tell us how to spend your assets... It belongs to God.. You don't tell God or His servants how to spend it"
"Your faith is being tested. Think about that"
"We will all fast on November 17th...I have to...ask you for a very special financial sacrifice for God's work"
"The purposes of the fast...(a). To fast for God's intervention...(b).Fast for personal faith and courage to follow what I am asking you to do...(c). Fast for personal strength...(d)...Fast for faith and courage in others with more than you to give...Go get a big chunk out of your house...their assets, IRAs, and pension funds...(e). Ask God to move specific properties...that they have told us they want to sell. Pray that these properties move...that is part of what this fast is about"

Anyone even slightly tempted to give way to this bullying might wish to first pause and ask themselves whether Pack - who says he's set an example - will be selling up his home and moving into a trailer park.

Where's Gary Scott when we need him?

In Man's Own Image

Many have tried to twist God’s omnipresence to portray Him as some kind of shapeless “blob”—even though the Bible clearly shows that God has a body and a shape—and it is a shape like ours! Consider Genesis 1:26, which tells us that man is made in God’s image and likeness—words that do convey a sense of shape. We do not use human philosophies to avoid the clear statements of Scripture! Consider, as well, the passage in which God says unambiguously that He has a face, a hand and a back (Exodus 33:18–23)! The only way to understand this passage from Exodus without making a mockery of God’s word is to agree that God has a shape and a body!
I'd forgotten just how numbingly literal Armstrongism was in its doctrine of God till I came across this bit of nonsense in the latest Living Church News. The writer is Wally Smith, the bright new hope among the sect's geriatric generals, but the guy is clearly not an original thinker.

The Armstrong god was always a bit of a monstrosity, and anthropomorphic from His (definitely His) graying head to his neatly trimmed toenails. There's not the slightest subtlety here, the concept of metaphor never reached through the wooden mindset of HWA and his sometime-beloved disciple, Roderick C. Meredith. Does the Eternal have divine genitalia, one wonders? If He does (and if He means He it seems inevitable), they're composed of Spirit, whatever that might mean, and without a Mrs God in evidence, it seems a moot point.

This vision of God, as a man-shaped Sky Father, is about as pagan as you can get. The Old Boy adorns the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and sits enthroned in classical mythology as Zeus and Jupiter Olympus. Among the Israelites this crass literalism was mercifully offset by forbidding images. The Sky Father is a time-honored idol, and a projection of the imagination for those without much imagination.

It's not that the Hebrew Bible doesn't contain anthropomorphisms - as Wally indicates by citing the revelation of Yahweh's "back parts" in Exodus... but honestly, what purpose does he think the celestial buttocks serve? If this is God, then we should all be atheists.

The Power of the Poddie

I've been online for years, but only recently discovered the joy of podcasts. So, for something a bit different to the usual "pastor general's new clothes" routine, here's a list of what I currently listen to, beginning with something of no relevance whatsoever to the subject of this blog. In return, feel free to recommend your own favorites.

Category One: Nostalgia. When I was but a lad in short trousers, the family radio - a wooden cased monstrosity with valves - was permanently tuned into what later became Radio NZ National, the Kiwi equivalent of NPR. In those far off days people who were born in NZ would still speak of Britain as "the old country", and the cultural cringe extended to BBC entertainment shows. This had its benefits with some outstanding comedy (The Goon Show, The Navy Lark, The Men from the Ministry...) and an early rustic soap called The Archers, set in the fictional town of Ambridge, which I particularly remember as it was broadcast soon after I'd get home from school, and listening in was slightly preferable to doing homework. The accents were fascinating (was that really English?), but the theme music - actually a maypole dance! - especially burned its way into my memory after the thousandth episode or so (only a slight exaggeration as the 13,546th episode was aired on St Patrick's Day 2001.)

Sometime in the 1970s most New Zealanders finally worked out that they were something other than transplanted Poms, and local news pushed the BBC bulletin off the air, the silly but erudite quiz shows disappeared, we dumped God Save the Queen as the national anthem, and The Archers disappeared among the detritus of Empire.

A few weeks ago I discovered that BBC Radio 4 was still running the show six days a week, the theme music was still the same, and lo and behold, The Archers was even available for download as a poddie. Now, in an act that would disgust my younger self, I religiously listen to the show in the evenings, though each episode has no more pace and excitement than a herniated tortoise. I'm now at the stage where the characters are starting to gel together and it's possible to make sense of the loose story line: almost certainly a sign of geriatric decay on my part. You probably need to be somewhat advanced in years to appreciate this one!

Category Two: Skepticism.

(To be continued)

The Ten Terrors of Spanky M

"My friends, in the 58 years that I have been carefully watching world affairs, I have never before been so sobered! I have never before seen such a broad pattern of events begin to come together to clearly indicate that the prophesied Great Tribulation will soon be upon us!"

So writes the Spanker in a November 8 letter to Tomorrow's World subscribers, a copy of which was passed on to me today. Nothing new here. 58 years of crying wolf and getting it wrong. But wait...

"... I now alert all of you to "Ten Terrors" now facing the United States and our British-descended allies."

New truth brethren! But all of you Irish folk, people of Scandinavian descent, Maori, Chinese and others can relax. It seems Spanky thinks you're peripheral - second class observers in the great drama of the ages.

But what about these "Ten Terrors"? Here they are:

I. Increasing Drought, Floods, Fires and Earthquakes!
(yawn)

II. The Growing Power of Islam!
(well, I guess that's a nice change to the growing power of Germany or the EU.)

III. Over 12 Million Illegal Aliens!
(uh, wasn't America built on the sweat of illegal aliens... just ask the Native American folk about those pesky, land-grabbing Pilgrims.)

IV. China on the March!
(another exclamation mark, another failure to mention the Assyrian hordes pouring out of Frankfurt am Main. Do you think Spanky has forgotten the Fourth Reich?)

V. Russia a Growing Threat!
(Russia?)

VI. America Is the "Most Hated" Nation!
(honestly, I think America comes a distant third after a couple of more obvious candidates. I mean no New Zealander is bothered much by a country that doesn't beat us in Rugby... but even if it was true, the US could instantly reverse the trend by canning all those awful reality TV shows exported around the world, and sending Benny Hinn back to wherever he comes from.)

VII. The United States Dollar Heads DOWNWARD!
(excuse me, but when was the greenback declared sacred? But even here, when Rod Almighty has the chance finally to do some serious euro-bashing, he muddies the water by also referring to the Chinese yuan, the British pound [!!!!] and "many other currencies.")

VIII. The Growing Power of "Gay Activists!"
(does this dude read history? Does he know anything about classical Greece? Now that might be a worry... oh but wait: "as I have stated and will prove in an upcoming article in Tomorrow's World magazine, hundreds of respected doctors, psychoanalysts and scientists acknowledge that people are not "born that way."" Do you reckon he's dusting off the 1960s "Queer Men" article?)

IX. Disease Epidemics Coming Soon!
(hey, I have a cough right now!)

X. Our SINS Will Bring Us Down!
"My friends, will we really wake up? ... We are trying to warn America and our British-descended brethren of what lies just ahead."
So if your name is Patel or Singh, slumber on.

Two thoughts: (1) despite all the palaver about sticking to Armstrong's Philadelphian truths, Meredith is clearly de-emphasizing the Assyrian captivity schlock. Shock horror - could Chuckie Bryce and the Packatollah be the genuine voices of the Philadelphia Era after all, and Rod a mere waterer-down of prophetic truth?

The second is just how downright racist, jingoistic and insular the Meredith gospel is.

The Good Guys?

The Churches of God are, by and large, a dire and toxic faith environment; restrictive, hierarchic and dumbed down. An array of ego-driven warlords provide bread and circuses for their flocks - dry bread and performing fleas for the most part. The big players are bad enough, but the petty local tyrants can be even worse, as the bickering at Port Austin continues (and continues, and continues) to remind us.

But there are always exceptions, and maybe this is one. I'm referring to Faith Networks, a group I'd frankly forgotten about till someone asked "what's happened to Jim O'Brien?"

O'Brien, for those who've understandably lost track of the countless splits and splinters, was a popular UCG minister who fell afoul of the Cincinnati Sanhedrin, and now leads a couple of independent congregations on the doorstep of the Holy City itself.

O'Brien collaborates with an interesting assortment of refugees from the "orgs" in producing a small but professional looking newsletter called Faith Networks. A PDF of the November issue is available here. Those involved in various ways include Bill Jacobs, Wendy Pack, Guy Swenson (ex-UCG), Ronald Dart, Pam Dewey, David Antion (ex-CGI), the Church of God, Big Sandy, Herberth Cisneros (ex-UCG) Lenny Cacchio and Bill and Scarlett Stough. FN also seems to involve many of the same people who use CEM/Born to Win materials (the photograph below is of a CEM Pentecost gathering.)

The contrast in tone between FN and the bug-eyed, manipulationist apocalyptic ministries we're more used to is astonishing.

Yes, I'm sure these folk have their problems too, and this would hardly be a suitable resting place for the worldly-wise and cynical among us. I can also hear some of the more strident voices claiming that anything COGish is tantamount to hell-bound heresy in a hand-cart (evangelicals: gotta love 'em!) I freely admit that these very decent folk are barking up a tree I'd personally prefer not to build a tree-house in, yet for those still searching for a healthier alternative within the broader COG community, this might be a reasonable place to begin.