The Curious Case of the Commonwealth Covenant Church

Hope Christian Centre, formerly the CCC

Today British Israelism in New Zealand is overwhelmingly associated with a few outlier sects largely made up of former Worldwide Church of God members, but that wasn't always the case. Lying out on a parallel trajectory is the curious story of the Commonwealth Covenant Church. Founded in the 1930s by two brothers, it drew inspiration from a visit to the country in 1922 by Smith Wigglesworth, a Yorkshire evangelist who is also regarded as a founding father of New Zealand's Elim Church. Philip Carew in his MA thesis on the Assemblies of God writes:

"The Wilson Brothers' Commonwealth Covenant Churches commenced in Auckland and Wellington in the late 1930s bringing an intense interest in prophecy and the British Israelite doctrine." (p.19)

Smith Wigglesworth

The Commonwealth Covenant Church was never a large body, but it was active, widely known and well resourced with at least four congregations in the North Island. In the first half of the twentieth century, it was the main group people would think to associate with BI. As late as the 1970s there was a British Israel Book Depot on Auckland's Queen Street, and a CCC church building in South Auckland (Kolmar Road in Papatoetoe). But by then BI was in decline. The 1996 census showed only 168 members (WCG had 624 in the same census). From there it was all downhill. 2006 figures showed a mere 18, and in the most recent census (2013) that dropped to 6.

What happened? It's a confused picture, made even more so by a lack of relevant information. In fact, nobody within the movement seems to have been even faintly interested in recording the history and transformation of the CCC. As a result, it is largely a forgotten footnote in the story of New Zealand Christian denominations. One of the few sources to make an effort is Religionz: A Guide to Religions in New Zealand (2005) by Massey University academic Bronwyn Elsmore. There, under 'Christian Covenant Church', she writes:

"This denomination was formerly known as the Commonwealth Covenant Church. It has been present in New Zealand since its originator, Smith Wigglesworth (1859-1947) a Yorkshire-born lay evangelist and healer, visited this country in the 1920s... In the 1930s it was allied with the British Israel movement and included interpretation of the Bible in relation to world events."

It's important to note that Elsmore's approach was "to give descriptions that reflect the viewpoint of the believers" (p.5). The CCC, like other bodies, was able to review the draft section on their movement before publication. This meant that many entries were insipid affairs (the WCG entry is particularly egregious) and that they told the tale from a sympathetic viewpoint. Knowing this, note the past tense in that last sentence. Prophecy has been de-emphasised and BI has been relegated to something left behind after the 1930s, which was hardly accurate. Elsmore continues:

"Most recently it has gone through changes that include name, teaching and spiritual renewal. It is associated with the wider Pentecostal movement... There are around 700 members in New Zealand" (p.42,43)

The difference between census results and the claims in Religionz is striking. Even allowing for inflated numbers, the simplest explanation is that most members no longer identified with BI or the label Commonwealth Covenant by 2005. From what I can gather, what was once the CCC in Auckland is now a small, ethnically diverse Pentecostal congregation (Hope Christian Centre) with little or no interest in its unique past.

It's worth noting for the record that overt racism does not appear to have been a defining feature of the church. At Otenuku, a Tuhoe marae in Ruatoki, there is evidence of that in the form of a plaque.

The plaque commemorates one of the last great paramount chiefs, Takarua Tamarau, who died in 1958 aged 86. It reads: "Tamarau was a protector and guide to his Maori people and a loyal supporter of the British flag." 

The memorial at little Otenuku Marae, the last of the many marae which dot Ruatoki Valley Rd was erected by the Commonwealth Covenant Church "in high personal esteem and as a token of arohanui between the Maori and Pakeha peoples". (NZ Herald, Guerillas in the Mist, Oct. 20, 2007)

From BI to dumplings

Looking at the Hope website you'd have no idea that it was founded on BI doctrine. This also appears (from what little information is available) to be true of the other congregations which seem no different from their Pentecostal brethren. Over the past thirty years, the Commonwealth Covenant Church has morphed into something quite different from the body the Wilson brothers envisioned. Effectively, as far as BI goes, it has simply disappeared off the radar and, remarkably, almost nobody has either noticed or cared. That's probably not a bad thing, though as they say, "those who forget the lessons of the past..."

And that British Israel bookstore? It relocated many years ago to cheaper premises in Mount Eden. In 2015 it's doors closed for the last time and the phone was disconnected. The shop now sells Chinese dumplings.

It may be different in the US where so-called 'Christian Identity' groups continue to spout an ugly version of BI, but in this country BI is a spent force; irrelevant both in the wider society and even within Christian culture. It happened more or less simultaneously in both the WCG (now Grace Communion International) and CCC - though different factors may well have been at work. Only a few small, graying ex-WCG fringe sects hold on, as relevant as Social Credit candidates at a General Election. Sadly for them, nobody seems to be listening.

UPDATE: More about the CCC and its effect on members here and more recently here. Apparently it wasn't just a bit potty, it was toxic.

Demolishing the Dream

Gary Leonard has been posting photographs of the ongoing demolition on the former Ambassador College campus (see here and here). I can't help thinking about all those other photographs that graced church publications in former times (check out the old This is Ambassador College booklet, available as a PDF). A beautiful campus that was supposed to be a foretaste of what the whole world would be like in the 'world tomorrow'. As the preacher says in Ecclesiastes, "vanity of vanities".

For anyone who's even faintly interested, Ronnie Weinland, date-setter extraordinary and one of the Two Witnesses (the other is his wife!), is now out of prison. He had been in a halfway house since December, and was permitted during that time to preach to members of his designer sect, Church of God - Preparing for the Kingdom of God (COG-PKG). Not that he's quite as free as a bird; he's on three years supervised release. More information on Mike's Weinland blog.

Finally, on a sad note, Almon McCann, known to many simply as Corky, has died. Corky was a frequent commenter on a number of ex-WCG sites. He had past associations not only with the Worldwide Church of God, but also the Christadelphian movement. Some years ago he established his own blog that dealt with both fundamentalist sects. In more recent times that blog (now called ex-Christadelphians) has taken on new writers, but I'll keep the original link on the blog roll (Corky's blog) in the meantime. John Bedson's tribute to Corky can be found here.

Radio Church of God, 2016 style

Herbert Armstrong's ministry began in the 1930s as the Radio Church of God, a name that stuck through till the 1960s. Radio may have become far less important over the intervening decades, but a few faithful followers of Herb's vision are still slogging away in front of a microphone. A very few have gone beyond simply buying up time on commercial outlets, and created DIY stations of their own.

Gerry Flurry's PCG operates its own low power FM station out of its compound/campus in Edmond, Oklahoma. KPCG, variously styled The Voice and Trumpet Radio, broadcasts a heady (or perhaps headless?) mixture of classical recordings, far right rhetoric and biblical broadsides. Thanks to the internet, loyal PCG members can tune in for wall-to-wall Flurryism 24/7, wherever in the world they happen to be.

Then there's Radio4Living. Based in London and probably operating out of someone's garage or spare room, this internet-only enterprise booms out with the Armstrong gospel to whoever cares to listen which, frankly, won't be all that many (under 300 people have added it to their Tune In app, most of whom will have then forgotten it's there). John Jewel, Warren Zehrung and others hold this ministry together, with old HWA recordings added into the mix for good measure.

If it's nostalgia they want, I recommend old episodes of the Andy Griffith Show instead.

Ambassador Watch returns

As of today, all posts relating to Grace Communion International and its many spin-off sects and ministries will appear exclusively on the de-mothballed Ambassador Watch blog. Otagosh will continue to provide more general commentary as a non-academic biblioblog.

Why make the change? Writing on one blog with two quite different groups of readers in mind has blurred the focus on many occasions, so separating out Dr Jekyll from Mr Hyde makes good sense (which blog is which I'll let you decide). From my perspective it means, once AW has been given a modest makeover, no added time commitment; the only difference will be where blog items are posted.

The state of post-WCG commentary has changed hugely since 2010. Ambassador Watch will obviously have a more modest profile than previously. Even so, I hope it'll play a useful role alongside resources such as Gary Leonard's Banned by HWA blog and Dixon Cartwright's The Journal.

There's still a bit of work to be done to bring AW up to speed. Dead links in the sidebar have already been culled, but there's a lot to now add in. To use a gardening analogy, the weeding is mostly done, but the planting will take a while longer. Regardless of which blog you visit, there'll be links in the sidebar so you can hop the fence at any time.

Announcement Pending

Watch this space. A post will appear both here and on Otagosh shortly regarding the future of Ambassador Watch, stay tuned.

AW comes to an end

This is the last posting to appear on AW. After more than eleven years - beginning with a very small website on Geocities, then moving into a fairly massive site under its own domain before finally being downsized into this blog - AW is bowing out.  

But, don't worry, some relevant content will still appear over at Otagosh, which has a broader focus than AW. If anything of significance in the crazy world of COGism crops up, I daresay it'll get a mention there. I'm still committed to commenting on events in the Churches of God, albeit a little less obsessively. But there will be no blog specifically dedicated to news of GCI and its splinters - unless of course someone else cares to take up that task.

Otagosh is a little different. For one thing it will continue to take a wider view, reflecting my passionately held belief that the problem isn't just with the dying world of Armstrongism, but with fundamentalism, evangelicalism and conservative Christianity in general. Unlike many of those who comment here however, that doesn't mean - for me at least - a rejection of either the positive side of Christianity or the fruits of biblical scholarship, any more than spurning quack remedies means rejecting medical science.

I invite you to update your bookmarks to Otagosh. I'd also like to thank those of you who've been part of AW in various ways, perhaps simply by coming back again and again, perhaps by contributing your own thoughts as comments. It is an almost impossible task to adequately list those people who have had a special role in making AW what it has become, but it required a team approach for one guy in New Zealand to keep abreast of events half a world away. Membership in that small team has been fluid, and most have been keen to preserve their anonymity, but I owe a particular debt of gratitude to the correspondent formerly known as Dateline Pasadena.

AW has been quite a journey, but it's time to turn some of my limited time and energy into other channels. I don't believe there's much more to say here, in this format, that hasn't already been said - much of it many times. After eleven years I'd like to think I've earned my parole!

Future Shock

Commentary by Dennis Diehl

I'll get right to the point. Can human beings know the future? No they cannot.

The future is an illusion, as is the past. We think the future is something ahead of us that is laid out in some way that is knowable only to the "chosenites" in the world of religion. Our experience in the WCG and all those who continue to base most of their ministries on the fallacy that the future is knowable either in the form of some revelation or prophecy is that, indeed, if we just work the dials correctly, we can know the unknowable.

The Bible is not really 1/3 prophecy as we have been assured. It has prophecy. It has failed prophecy. It has text that is made to look prophetic which , in fact, has been redacted into the text and written after the events it pretends to foretell will happen. If you want to make the head of a COG prophetic type spin, just tell him that the entire Book of Daniel was written as prophecy in reverse. It was written long after the events it foretells happened and when it gets to the parts that are really future, it goes vague. It was written to encourage the Jews in just the same way it's knock-off, Revelation, was written to encourage the Jewish Church. However in both cases, the Romans won.

Matthew, in his gospel was notorious for his "fulfillment" texts about the birth of Jesus being foretold in every detail from the flight to Egypt to the murder of the children and the Virgin Birth. Matthew needed to tell a story about Jesus and went back into the OT for hints of what to say. No one knew anything about Jesus birth, so stories had to be written.

NOT ONE of his "thus it was fulfilled" passages was a prophecy about Jesus. NOT ONE was ever meant to mean what meaning Matthew assigned it. NOT ONE is prophecy and ALL are taken grossly out of context. But since it is "Matthew" who wrote it, (the author's name was assigned to the anonymous book many years after it was written), we assume he must know what the scoop is or was. Since it is "in the Bible" it must be true. We suspend critical thinking and we pay for it by perpetuating ignorance and pious conviction salted with marginal information.

The Apostle Paul was a bit more subtle in his misquoting of the OT to make his points. For example, since he wanted to promote his approach to faith and grace over works, he made a text that really said, "The just shall live by HIS Faith," into "The just shall live by faith." Big diff. And why the Pharisee of Pharisees who was the smartest pencil in the box and a Hebrew of the Hebrews used the Greek renditions in all his OT justifications for his Gospel, we can only guess. I suspect Paul was not a Pharisee at all and only God knows why if he was the top dog in Jerusalem at the same time as the Gospel Jesus, why he never showed up to persecute him. But I wander.

The very lifeblood of the major splinter's of WCG depend on prophecy and their "time is short" rendition of it for their survival. It is their schtick. It's the Goose that lays the Golden Egg for them. It is also bunk.

A close reading of the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel will show that much of what they predicted failed to occur. Yet in our day we can project those past failed prophecies into the future as if they have yet to occur the first time and keep the hokum alive. Most would never understand that competing factions in the OT inserted failed prophecies into the text to make fools out of their rivals.

The further back in history prophecy seems to go the more we lionize the author of it. We all know today that ANYONE who laid seige to a frying pan, crawled through a small hole he punched in the temple wall, cooked his food with his own dung, laid on his side for a year and flipped over for a bit more time and heard voices constantly in his head was not well. However as the Prophet Ezekiel, we look the other way. What if modern Christianity is based on the perceptions of men with temporal lobe epilepsy, bi polar difficulties or schizophrenia? These conditions would make fascinating personages and easily attract the religious among them, but today we would put them on medication.

Even in the NT, any man who cast the demon out of a human being, in reality, having an epileptic seizure, and restored him to normalcy in about thirty minutes, would feel he had done something amazing. Of course, it takes about thirty minutes to get over a seizure. Mayan Priests used to get up before sunrise and beckon forth the sun. Sure enough...it dawned on them. What miracle workers!

The Book of Revelation, the very lifeblood of the COG splinters is a failed prophecy and it failed in either 56 AD or on October 8th, 70 AD depending on one's chronological tendencies. Revelation is a marvelous astro-theological text adapted to encouraging the Jewish Christians before the destruction of the Temple by the Romans who were not often held to prophectic timetables in their running of the country. It's a book that bashes the two most hated people in the minds of the Jewish Church....Vespasian and the false prophet and destroyer of Jewish Church Customs, the Apostle Paul. (All this is IMHO.)

In the letter to the church at Ephesus in Revelation we find this simple reality:

The Apostle Paul: I am the Apostle to Ephesus
Jesus to the Jewish Church: You have tried those who say the are Apostles and found them wanting."
Jewish Church to Paul: "Sorry, but we hate you."
The Apostle Paul to the Church: "All those in Asia (where Ephesus is) have forsaken ME." (You'd think he'd ask why? instead of just asking God to forgive them all for being wrong about him)
Jesus to the Jewish Church: "Well done."
Jewish Church to Jesus: "Thank you."

Time, past and future is an illusion. It is not real. It either is a present moment now past or a present moment not yet here at which time it will not be the future but just another present moment. It is unknowable because it has not yet occurred. And the story can go ten million ways before it ever arrives at another present moment.

Are we so blind that we cannot admit that 100% of all speculations both in and out of the Bible about how it will be and when it will all go this way or that depending on one's beliefs, have proven 100% false 100% of the time for the past 2000 years?

Do we not see that "God does not see time as you do," or that "a day with God is as a thousand years," is the apologetic for getting it wrong...again?

It is said that not even God can change the past. Dare we say that not even God knows the future? I dare say we can and it is men who dabble in such silliness and not God at all. Jesus said he did not know the day or the hour and assumed only God did. At least he admitted he did not. Jesus did not know the day or the hour because it is unknowable as it has not yet happened or not happened depending on which event actually occurs.

It used to be intriguing to me but now is quite sad and not a little frightening to witness the battle of the ministers in the splinters for top dog. I think it takes a mentally ill human being to put his name in the same sentence with Elijah, John the Baptist and Jesus. I'm not a little annoyed that the Apostle Paul said he was called from the womb ranking himself right up there with Jeremiah and Jesus. Nothing has change in the world of title taking. I think it takes a mentally ill human being to demand his congregation "send it in," or claim to be the only one true Chosenite cult and follower of one man. It certainly is a delusion. I think a man who see's himself in the scriptures needs medication not encouragement or a following.

Can human beings know the future? Does the Bible accurately predict the future as if it is all neatly laid out and all the Chosenites have to do is get the combination on the dial correct to unlock it's mysteries? I say no. I believe it is inherent in humans to feel safer THINKING they are both special and in the know about what is going to happen and how they are going to both survive and thrive through "it." I believe they are wrong.

The present moment is all human beings really have. Don't squander it spinning and basing your present moment life on tales full of sound and fury...signifying nothing.

What say you?

COGs on the Internet

Who's having an impact on the Web, and who isn't? Here's the current list of Alexa ratings. Anything below the million mark has been left off.

1. UCG, 57,077
2. The Good News (UCG), 73,606
3. Flurry's Trumpet (PCG), 74,270
4. Alan Ruth (Indep.), 91,374
5. Bible Tools (CGG), 130,159
6. Pack (RCG), 144,453
7. Tomorrow's World (LCG), 159,161
8. Tkach (WCG/GCI), 173,342
9. Weinland's Sticky End (PKG), 182,537
10. The Real Truth (RCG), 195,250
11. Thiel (Indep./LCG), 199,068
12. LCG, 225,539
13. Ritenbaugh (CGG), 306,774
14. Hulme/Vision, 331,902
15. Ambassador Watch (Indep./critical), 367,941
16. LCG member site, 382,898
17. Born to Win (CEM), 513,005
18. Wally Smith (Indep./LCG), 547,700
19. Beyond Today (UCG), 558,837
20. Albrecht (PTM), 595,826
21. The Journal, 655,874
22. Kubik (Indep./UCG), 710,578
23. PCG, 774,569
24. Coulter (CBCG), 805,521
25. Billingsley (FF), 845,824
26. Sielaff (ASK), 876,322
27. World News & Prophecy (UCG), 853,984
28. CGI, 967,237

Fred apes Greg

Church at home. It reminds me of the cartoon where the kid, about to be dragged off for services, asks "if I can be home schooled, how come I can't be home churched?"

Greg Albrecht has made this a speciality with PTM. Not a particularly successful speciality, judging from the "I'm eating beans" begging letter he sent out last year, but he gets a B minus for effort.

Now along comes dour old Fred Coulter, staring down the barrel of the camera and practising his humorless speech techniques. Yes folks, welcome to churchathome.com. Here you can view the Grate One (nope, that's not a typo) preening for the camera. None of this limp-wristed five minute stuff, Fred certainly couldn't restrict himself to that. Here you get a near thirty-minute monologue, chock full of Fred's rambling, ill-tempered pontifications. British-Israelism, law-keeping, the deception of "born again" and promos for Fred's very own "translation" of the Bible (a mere $119 - quite the bargain!) Are we all excited? Unless I'm much mistaken, Fred has spent a good deal of tithepayer moolah on this one, but making the team at Vild Productions ecstatically happy.

Fred left WCG shortly after Garner Ted Armstrong was booted, circa 1978. He initially founded the Biblical Church of God then, apparently after a spat, walked off to found the Christian Biblical Church of God. Listening to some of his stuff on the new website it's apparent that he hasn't learned much since. Frankly, you're probably better off with Greg.

Meeker - Digging Up the Dirt

There might be those who, in the wake of recent events concerning UCG's Council of Elders, suspect that Joel Meeker has something of a penchant for digging up the dirt. Now we have independent confirmation, and from none other than that august publication Biblical Archaeology Review.

The latest issue features the Meeker family, Joel, his wife Marjolaine and daughters, mucking in at Megiddo in 2008. And yes, there's even a photo of a smiling t-shirt and shorts clad Joel.

In fact it's a nice, warm human interest article with daughter Tatiana, for example, remarking that "sometimes it seems like all parents do is embarrass you!" Nothing to indicate Joel's profession as a UCG minister though. You could be forgiven for thinking he was just your regular used car salesman from Santa Barbara.

Elsewhere in this issue is an excellent article by April DeConick on the Gospel of Thomas.

Sadly, the Meeker feature (on pages 35 and 36) isn't available on the BAR website, but I'm sure Joel wouldn't mind if you deducted $5.95 from your next tithe check and used it to buy the hard copy!