A message for Roderick

Dear Mr Meredith, Jim West has sent a message. I think it might be for you, with a cc. to Vic (UCG), Dave (RCG), the other Dave (COGAIC), Bob (with the highly esteemed 'Trinity' ThD he picked up in India), the other Jim (COGWA) and Gerry (PCG).

(Jim is the outspoken biblioblogger at Zwinglius Redivivus.)

Is there a Christian Sabbath?

Many years ago the WCG published a booklet with the title "Which Day is the Christian Sabbath?"

Wrong question. Why? It just assumes there is such a thing as a Christian Sabbath, and once you've conceded that it's all downhill; off into the proof texts. When it comes to a Saturday/Sunday shootout, based on duelling with Bible texts alone, the Sabbatarians can make a very good case.

The problem is that there's a degree of dishonesty in this approach. One false trail is to assume that there is such a thing as a Christian Sabbath. Another is to imply that Christians who attend services on Sunday are doing so under the illusion that they're keeping the Sabbath command.

The idea that Sunday was the Christian Sabbath first occurred in 17th century England under the baneful influence of Calvinism and Presbyterianism. This was the genesis of Sunday Sabbatarianism and advocacy groups like the Lord's Day Observance Society. The early Adventists were seeded with these same Reformed assumptions. Most non-Calvinist churches teach that there is no divinely appointed day of rest required of Christians. It hasn't helped that Christians have occasionally referred to Sunday as their Sabbath either. This was simply appropriating a biblical term, not adopting a commandment which they regarded as abrogated.

Why Sunday then? Tradition and convenience. If pressed, they'll talk about a Sunday resurrection, but that's not a command, it's a precedent and a sanction. There's no concept in their theology of an obligatory pre-set twenty-four hour period of sacred time. Christians, under this view, sanctify time by worship, regardless of the day. Time isn't "pre-sanctified". It's an important distinction and one that most Saturday Sabbatarians seem totally unaware of.

It's also why most Christians, other than blue-stocking Presbyterians of the old school, have no qualms of conscience about visiting the mall on Sunday afternoon or going to a cafe or watching the big game. The hour of worship is special, but not the whole twenty-four hour period.

So it's appropriate to reframe the question. Is there a Christian Sabbath? A Jewish Sabbath, yes. A Saturday tradition in parts of the early church? Yes. Beyond that, if you want to argue for a Christian Sabbath - whether Saturday or Sunday - you have to do a lot better than leaping straight in with the 'Which Day?' proof texts.

Hislop - his slop

Among dyed-in-the-wool COG preachers, Alexander Hislop is regarded as an authority, and his 1858 book The Two Babylons is treated as an accurate historical source second to none. Hislop is seen as an unimpeachable expert on the 'true' origins of Easter.

Grabbe, Can a 'History of Israel' Be Written? p.28. 

In reality, the Reverend Hislop was a rabidly anti-Catholic Presbyterian. Presbyterianism in those times eschewed anything that was regarded as 'Romish', and Hislop played the part with relish (he also inveighed against the evils of instrumental music in church services). Lester Grabbe, a name familiar to many Ambassador College alumni and a casualty of the purges that followed GTA's ouster, calls Hislop's work "naive history" (Grabbe went on to a distinguished academic career at Britain's University of Hull).

Roger Pearse asks a few more pertinent questions about Hislop's credibility in a recent blog post. Worth reading if you've ever wondered just how much weight to give the old thumper when he's quoted in COG literature.

Even the smallest splinter

From the Silenced blog.

... the COG -- which will continue to bleed money and members and prestige as its elderly leaders whither and die -- is likely to exist decades from now. Even as organizations splinter, break or merge, Herbert W. Armstrong’s ideas will somehow manage to live on. We’re already approaching a century of his teachings, depending upon when one marks the beginning of Armstrongism. 

It’s why providing as many facts as possible about these cults is important to keep people away from their grasp, or at least help them to make informed decisions. Even the smallest splinter running the Armstrongite program can cause people a lot of hurt, and even though they can’t really attract new members, they can keep having kids, which will always make informational, historical repositories about the COG an important resource to promote and maintain. 

We’re coming up on five years of Silenced and other XCOG blogs are much older than that. Here’s hoping even if we someday shutter up our digital doors that there’s someone always out there to shine the light, because the cults are going to linger like a viral remnant for the foreseeable future.

Well said. You can read the full post here.

Herb Armstrong's Sickening Racist Fantasies

Thanks to Pam for pointing out the audio file of a sermon Herb Armstrong gave - probably in the last year of his life - on interracial marriage. It is, simply, horrendous, salted with threats of the Lake of Fire. Includes appreciative clapping from the mindless sycophants in the congregation. It fairly drips with racist rhetoric. God destroyed Noah's world because only he and his family were racially pure and, therefore, worthy of saving ("Noah was perfect in his generations"). He was the only man left who was "pure white". Segregation is good ("God's way is geographical [yells] segregation! And integration is not the way of the Eternal God!"). The Canaanites were black.

As usual for Herb's sermons, he rambles all over the place (Adam, two trees, give/get...) before getting to the point, but the point - when the old goat finally gets to it - is painfully clear.

The audio (a little scratchy) is available here. It lasts just under 69 minutes.

Just so you can keep your disgust fresh.

COGs - the road to extinction

With the probable demise of the late Robert Ardis' sect in the not-too-distant future  - see the previous post - it seemed opportune to identify a few that have recently headed down the highway to oblivion. In 2008 the blog-meister at Foresight of Hindsight set out to list as many active COGs, both in the States and beyond, as he could. He put together two lists, one for the US and another for the rest of the world.

Eight years later one thing is evident. A number of these groups have effectively disappeared.

Gone with no forwarding address:
Raymond McNair's Church of God 21st Century. (Didn't survive McNair's death).
John Allen's Destiny-Worldwide (Costa Rica). (Didn't survive Allen's death).
Church of God - Christianos (Canada).
Sabbatarians (Netherlands)
Church of God IIA (Philippines)
Fading from view:
Neville Steven's Zion Ministries (Australia). (Site seems to have been last updated in 2012)
Sprats swallowed by bigger fish:
Church of God, A Christian Fellowship, Canada. (Now refranchised as the Church of the Eternal God.)
Global Church of God UK. (Now refranchised as the Church of the Eternal God.)
Arlen Berkey's Stedfast Church of God. (Not so steadfast after all. Arlen reportedly jumped fences to Ronald Laughland's Wholeworld COG.)

Those are just the groups that FoH listed with a web link and so could be checked out. The actual number of inactive or deceased COGs since 2008 could easily be twice that number. Some of these groups - Zion Ministries in particular - were extremely vocal in their day.

The takeaway message is that once a sect's leader passes on, the group's days are numbered, unless there's someone groomed and waiting in the wings. Better yet, there's an enduring structure that draws on more than the ego of one self-anointed cult leader.

"Urgent Understanding"

The Midnight Cry calls itself "a magazine of urgent understanding". Not so urgent in that not a single issue appeared last year. But wait, 2016 has kicked off with an overdue reappearance.

Cry is published by the Church of God's Faithful, a breakaway from PCG, led by Robert Ardis. Though it has a low profile among the splinters, it manages to operate mailing addresses in England and New Zealand as well as its main office in South Carolina.

Ardis obviously believes that he is a key figure in the great scheme of things.

I have stated quite a few times that I believe we of the CGF have as much or even MORE faith than many of the righteous characters of the Old and New Testaments! (p.3)

I have not seen God or heard His voice. But I have, on many occasions, felt His presence and have been directly guided by His Spirit to certain verses of Scripture that He wanted me to apply in my life. The CGF is God’s true Church, and we use the Holy Bible, through which Christ speaks to us. (p.3)

 And wouldn't you know it, CGF is mentioned in Bible prophecy.

Gerald Flurry was raised up to lead the Laodicean work of Jesus Christ and to reveal the apostasy in the WCG. But, as predicted in Revelation 3:14-20, the Philadelphia Church of God (PCG) became a lukewarm church doing Mr. Flurry’s work instead of the work of God.

However, God had reserved a few faithful brethren to carry on the Philadelphia work of the sixth candlestick of Revelation 3:7-13. And they were ready (although they did not know it) for the Day of the Lord and the secret coming of Jesus Christ as “a thief in the night” (II Pet. 3:10). This happened 12 years after Mr. Armstrong gave his final message to the WCG at the Feast of Trumpets 1985! The Gospel of the Kingdom of God had been successfully proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations. Now it was time for the message, “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” to go out in power!

On the Feast of Trumpets 1997, the Day of the Lord came as a thief in the night, and the living Christ came suddenly to His Temple (Mal. 3:1). A new 19-year time cycle also began on that date on the sacred Hebrew Calendar and we have now come to the 19[th] year of this time cycle. Has God given us this one 19-year period to get the bride of Christ ready for her Husband? If He has, we have much work to do. (p.3)

Yes, those 19-year time cycles are back.

This is a sure thing. Revelation 3:9 will be fulfilled, and I still wonder whether we have only a little less than two years to complete our work of preparing the bride! (p.4)

 Ardis relates a personal testimony to his faith.

I am a sick, old man and it is difficult even to write this article... I look forward to the healing that God is going to do for me soon, and for all of us in the CGF... I have been afflicted with cancer of the bone marrow for seven years. It has been a “thorn in my flesh”! (p.4)

So here's the reason for the blip in publishing. Yet Ardis' health issues don't seem to have led him to secure a smooth transition for his church. Nor has he taken the tough option of reconsidering the prophetic speculation that led him to create CGF. Once he passes from the scene, as we all must ultimately, his work will be forgotten. The hosts of heaven are not coming to his rescue at the end of any imaginary 19-year time cycle. "Urgent understanding" is required, but seems in limited supply.

 I wonder whether this will be one of the last issues - if not the very last - of The Midnight Cry.

Somehow it all seems a bit sad and pathetic.

The PDF is available for download.

Update: Robert Ardis passed away less than a week ago on St Patrick's Day, March 17, according to correspondence on the Exit & Support Network. He was aged 84. Thanks to Redfox for passing on the information.

Easter and the fertility goddess

We have been warning all our Western nations — and countries all around the world — that God will judge them for their lawlessness and evils (Joel 3:12-13). By the time you receive this letter, hundreds of millions of professing Christians will have celebrated one such evil — a pagan Easter Sunday — on March 27. Millions of Eastern Orthodox will observe Easter a month later, on May 1... Why do nearly all of our world’s 2.2 billion professing Christians participate in a non-biblical religious tradition named after a pagan fertility goddess? As I told our Atlanta audience, if any of you are observing that festival, you need to repent!

Richard Ames
Co-worker letter, March 18


Easter is evil. It's named after a pagan fertility goddess. Richard Ames thinks so, but is that really true?

Word derivations can be complicated, and false trails abound. There is a line of logic that connects Easter with an Anglo-Saxon goddess who rejoiced in the name Eostre. But there's a problem. The only source we have for this connection is the Venerable Bede, a monk in the 7th century. Everything we know about Eostre comes from Bede, and it's precious little. There's a very good chance that this name died out, and that the modern English term Easter has a quite different derivation.

All major languages except two refer to this festival by a term related to the Greek Pascha  (from Pesach - Passover). In Spanish it's Pascua, in Dutch Pasen, in Latin Pascha, in Italian Pasqua. The two exceptions are German and, obviously, English.

The modern English usage seems to come from the German Oster. Blame Martin Luther. When he translated the New Testament he chose Oster, a German word for resurrection, alluding to the metaphor of sunrise.

Up till Luther's time, the only English translation of the Bible, John Wycliffe's, used the word Pask. No mention of Eostre. Later, William Tyndale, who was greatly influenced by the Luther Bible, adopted the Reformer's preference and coined a new term, Ester. The King James translators, with the sole exception of Acts 12:4, went back to the earlier usage, Passover. The name Easter, however, stuck.

So, other than the German Oster, major languages other than English use a version of Passover. The English term Easter came into usage via the German and Tyndale's Bible. The whole Easter/Eostre issue is meaningless in most other languages. Even in English, the identification with Eostre is dubious.

Any questions? Probably best not to ask Ames.

There's a nice discussion of these issues here.

Welcome "elite intellectuals"

"The idea that the western nations on earth today came from the descendants of the sons of Jacob whose name God changed to Israel is something that the elite intellectuals not only deny, but condemn." 

Mark Armstrong.


Mark Armstrong, son of Ted and grandson of Herb, is an amazingly insightful commentator, as we all know. Somewhere, in an alternate universe, he's sitting in the big chair in an undemolished Hall of Administration, presiding over an unreconstructed Worldwide Church of God. That's the universe where Ted managed to oust Stan Rader and sideline Rod Meredith before the effluent valve blew in 1978. I imagine Mark, in that parallel reality, is ably backed up by the head of the Ambassador College theology department, Professor Robert Thiel, PhD., ThD. Joe Tkach is one of the deacons who hands out bulletin sheets for Auditorium AM services.

But back to Earth 1. Here Mark is holed up in East Texas, glowering out at the world from his ludicrously named 'intercontinental' bunker. It's a threatening world out there, what with people rabbiting on about global warming (what nonsense!), extending health care to those previously unable to afford it (socialism!) and the shameful travesty of a "black president". That's without even mentioning those nasty homosexuals (which Mark does, again, and again and again) who should, in any right and decent society, be tarred and feathered before being railroaded off to a gulag in Alaska.

But, here's the clincher, and I know we all will find this hard to grasp brethren: there are "elite intellectuals" out there who don't believe in BI! It gets worse (another exclamation mark needed)! These people actually condemn BI! They think it's (gasp!) racist!

No, I wouldn't make this stuff up (except for the alternate timeline of course, but then again, who knows?) Mark has once again risked rupturing his spleen in his latest Trump-friendly missive to the Intercontinentalites... hmm, maybe it would be more grammatical to say "missive to the incontinent". Whatever.

Of course, you have to discount all those articles in the Plain Truth that seemed to point to human-influenced weather calamities. And probably best to ignore those stories about Ted and his zipper problems (let alone the mention of a young Ted cruising the streets of LA for a 'manly encounter' - as recounted in Broadway to Armageddon). The important thing here, brethren, is that Mark has unknowingly identified many AW readers as "elite intellectuals".

I wonder if we can apply for a signed certificate...

Yesterday's Wonderful World Tomorrow... tickets expired

The lion shall lie down with the lamb, and Herbert will be God's right-hand man.

The Wonderful World Tomorrow: What It Will Be Like went through several editions. My 'favourite' is the original 96-page version which rolled off the presses way back in 1966. It begins...

Where will YOU be, ten years from now? You can know what is going to happen. In this booklet you are going to take an astonished glimpse into this world as it will be - in just ten or fifteen short years.

Astonished indeed, as a little mathematics demonstrates. 1966 plus ten brings us to 1976. Add on that 5-year safety margin and you're at 1981. Bear in mind that you'll need to subtract three and a half years for the Great Tribulation. Clearly time was of the essence.

It's GOING TO SOUND INCREDIBLE to you - yet it is SURE! This advance news of Tomorrow is accurate! It is as CERTAIN as the rising of tomorrow's sun! 

Incredible is understating it. That was fifty years ago.

The other interesting thing about the 1966 version is that it bears two names as joint authors, both Herbert W. Armstrong and his then anointed heir Garner Ted Armstrong.

Subsequent editions, beginning in 1973, airbrushed out the date-setting. Date setting? Who, us? And Ted quickly disappeared from the credits never to reappear.  In 1979 Everest House released a hardback version, and by 1982 it was back in booklet form, revised with a new cover.

(In 1999 Scott Lupo, a former member, wrote a paper entitled The Wonderful World Tomorrow: Herbert W. Armstrong's Vision of Life After the Apocalypse. It was subsequently published in the Journal of Millennial Studies, and is still available.)

But, of course, imitations were bound to follow. To mention just one, The World Ahead: What Will It Be Like? by the ever-original Roderick C. Meredith in 2008.

I'd venture to say that in 1970 Roger Whittaker had a better handle on the 'world tomorrow' than Herb, Ted and Rod put together.

Everybody talks about a new world in the morning
New world in the morning so they say
Now, I, myself don't talk about a new world in the morning
New world in the morning, that's today
And I can feel a new tomorrow comin' on
And I don't know why I have to make a song
Now everybody talks about a new world in the morning
New world in the morning takes so long
I met a man who had a dream he'd had since he was twenty
I met that man when he was eighty-one He said too many
folks just stand and wait until the mornin',
Don't they know tomorrow never comes
And he would feel a new tomorrow coming on
And when he'd smile his eyes would twinkle up in thought
Now, everybody talks about a new world in the morning
New world in the morning takes so long
And I can feel a new tomorrow coming on
And I don't know why I have to make a song
Now, everybody talks about a new world in the morning
New world in the morning takes so long.

More perceptive by far, you could whistle or hum along, and he didn't need 96 pages to say it.