The Last Daze: 1335 sleeps to go

Big news brethren: "the 1335 days before the actual day Jesus Christ returns began on February 2, 2008."

Woo hoo!

These are the words of Ronnie Weinland, God's little helper. Ronnie stands at the head of a church that now boasts two "presiding evangelists", Wayne Matthews in Australia/New Zealand and Johnny Harrell in the US and Canada. My guess is that they've both sent in some generous checks to fund the final push.

And so The End, dear brethren, is indeed at hand. But not perhaps in the way Ronnie thinks. After 1335 days of fear mongering and spiritual manipulation of sincere, naive, credulous victims, Ronnie's fantasies are bound to come tumbling down on his own head. I suspect he's already arranged for a hard hat.

But spare a thought for the folk he's suckering in. Take this guy for example:

He [Weinland] has written two very good books... I have read both numerous times and find them an excellent fountain of truth about religion and the lies that have been spread/done in Gods name. I had no interest in religion of any sort up until this point but once reading his books; it was like the truth was undeniable and plain to see for those with ears to listen and eyes to see.

[T]he worst was telling my girlfriend; she was on holiday at the time so I had two weeks to read the books and formulate what I would tell her. The day she came back I sat her down and explained to her what I had found out and the great truths that had been revealed to me; I expected her to flip and call me crazy and dump [m]e for being a nutter; she was amazing and completely understood and stood by me. Again I was in shock but one thing; she does not observe the Sabbath which is a pain...

One thing we have agreed upon is that when events build in magnitude to a degree that cannot be denied she will then start observing the Sabbath with me.

Everything that Ronald states in his books are coming to pass more and more as he predicts i.e. the seven thunders and the previous 5 seals being opened.

To me the world/universe around me has always been proof of higher intelligence; up until about 8 years ago I bought evolution like most peeps but then my friend asked me some questions and pointed out some obvious flaws and that’s when my journey for the truth began.

Until Ronald I believed that perhaps E.T's were responsible for life on earth but now I know better.
(Source)Back to "Ronald":

All that we are experiencing right now is a very small taste, just an ice cube on the tip of an iceberg of what is coming, as God begins to call thousands upon tens of thousands of people over the next year. From there it goes into the millions—all in preparation for the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of God’s Government over all the earth in the fall of 2011.

Will Weinland's ice cube turn into a Titanic sized iceberg, or just melt into a puddle on a page of obscure footnotes about apocalyptic delusions?

And is Ronnie himself a couple of ice cubes short of a scotch on the rocks?

With only 1335 sleeps to go, time - as they say - will most definitely tell!

WCG reaches back to its real roots

It should come as no surprise that the ministry of Tkach's WCG is currently having a sweaty, torrid affair with Karl Barth and the Torrance brothers. WCG's roots reach back beyond the Church of God (Seventh Day) and the Seventh Day Baptists. Not to some imaginary unbroken lineage of sabbatarian True Believers anchored in the first century, but to the pestiferous Puritans. Herman Hoeh and Dugger & Dodd had it grievously wrong. Forget Peter Waldo, the WCG's great granddaddy was a highly confused Calvinist in the Church of England.

If that sounds a bit far fetched consider this, almost all Anglo-Protestant denominations and sects have been victims of the Puritan meme: Baptists, Brethren, Adventists, Mormons, Methodists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Episcopalians. You have to retreat to Catholic, Orthodox or Lutheran theology to escape the worst of its overpowering influence.

Which is why WCG once had such drawing power. Strict sabbatarianism, for example, only makes sense in the context of deformed Reformed theology.

The Puritans also raised speculation on The End Times to an art form and railed against Christmas. Sound familiar? The godly non-conformists would have loved the Bible Hymnal, preferring to sing only the psalms. (In fact Dwight Armstrong raided the Calvinist cupboard in putting his hymns together.)

Of course, in subsequent centuries the Puritan imperative has gone forth to multiply and mutate, partly thanks to those tenacious Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock. Surface details may differ dramatically among their descendants, but the same Calvinist DNA underlies the astonishing variety.

Even Arminius sprang forth from the Calvinist matrix.

WCG has abandoned only its fictional roots. It's an idea worth exploring, and to set the ball in motion here's a link to From Sunday to Sabbath: The Puritan Origins of Modern Seventh-day Sabbatarianism by Ralph Orr, available at wcg.org.

A Very Hard Question

This is a special posting by Dennis Diehl, who is seeking some AW reader feedback in preparing an upcoming article. The SAB link to the right of the Bible texts takes you to the relevant page of the Skeptic's Annotated Bible.

It is obvious from scripture that Jesus predicted his own resurrection, either by his own efforts...

John 2:19-21 - Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. SAB

Or be raised up by God the Father.

Acts 2:32 - This Jesus hath God raised up.... SAB

Acts 4:10 - Jesus Christ... whom God raised from the dead.... SAB

Acts 13:30 - But God raised him from the dead. SAB

Galatians 1:1 - Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead) SAB

Colossians 2:12 - Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. SAB

1 Thessalonians 1:10 - ... his Son ... whom he raised from the dead. SAB

This, of course, implies that before his death, Jesus knew he would be resurrected over a mere weekend and back better than ever "sitting on the right hand of God."

God as well, knew he could and would raise Jesus back to life after a short weekend (Imagine how much more at ease human fathers would be if they knew that if their children died, they could get them back in a mere three days good as new?) Would take a lot of the fear out of life and having kids.

This being the case,..

Why is the sacrifice of Jesus such a great sacrifice for all humanity? Why is "God giving his only begotten son" so amazing if God knew He would raise him back to life again better than ever. Why is this mere weekend inconvenience for God and Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice for all humanity. Should a real sacrifice not stay dead to be considered a sacrifice?

This question seems to me to be one of the hardest of all to answer for Christians if they take time to think about it. It was born out of a comment a client made, who had lost her only daughter in a car accident and who was tired of the Church telling her that God gave his only son and understands her pain.

She said "No...my daughter is still dead, and God got Jesus back after a mere weekend. I would be willing to wait a weekend to get her back. God giving Jesus was a weekend inconvenience, and my daughter is still dead. Jesus should still be dead for me to be impressed by a Deity giving His only son for us."

A very hard question indeed.

Aaaarrrrggghhh!!!

LDS leader Gordon Hinckley has passed into the Great Beyond, and Bob Thiel provides a COGgish spin...

Because of their belief to store food for emergencies, I suspect that once the USA is taken over that the few that survive and do not become slaves will partially exist on food that the LDS have stored.

The year is 2008, Herbert Armstrong, Garner Ted Armstrong, and Herman Hoeh have all long preceded Mr Hinckley into the grave, and Rod Meredith probably isn't far behind. It seems fairly certain to me - though perhaps not to Bob - that Adolph Hitler is not hiding out in the jungles of South America planning a resurrected Fourth Reich (as The Plain Truth once trumpeted.) Warfare in the Twenty-first Century is no longer waged with huge conscript armies, and the mass deportation of conquered populations makes little sense. Slave labor is inefficient in the Info-Tech age, and Germans are, if stereotypes are to be believed, anything but inefficient.

So what the blazes is Bob doing by advocating this incredible nonsense about the Anglo world being swept away by the German hordes, the citizens of the white English-speaking nations being taken away as slave labor or slaughtered?

Oh sorry, I forgot: the more sure word of prophecy.

This is the price of Biblical illiteracy. Armstrongists knew a lot of things about the Bible, could quote proof texts and flick through to the book of Obadiah more swiftly than your average Baptist, but when it came to the important stuff we knew sweet little.

Genre for example: Poetry, Apocalyptic, etiological legends.

The price of mind-numbing literalism can be deadly: ask King Charles I, who literally lost his head, in part because the Puritans thought he might be "the tenth and final horn on the fourth beast described in the Book of Daniel..." (Spurr, English Puritanism 1603-1689, p 113)

But then the Puritans had an excuse Bob and the weirder splinters don't; they lived in the 1600s.

The Bible does not predict world events in advance. Germany is not Assyria. The US and Britain are not Ephraim and Manasseh. The Tribulation did not begin in 1972.

My challenge to Bob, and anyone else who thinks they have the inside track on what's ahead because of Bible prophecy, is to invest in a good one volume commentary - Eerdmans or Oxford for example, and get a clue. It's interesting that both these commentaries feature significant articles by Lester Grabbe, a former Ambassador College lecturer who is now is at the top of his field in Old Testament studies.

Which just goes to show that there may be hope for all of us.

Including Bob.

Have camera - will schmooze

The Hulme sect - COG-AIC - is one of the few splinters to demonstrate scholarly interests, largely thanks to the personality (some might say the pretensions) of The Glorious Leader. In any case, Vision cameras and microphones were there at the November ASOR conference (American Schools of Oriental Research) in San Diego.

Whether Lawrence Stager, Eric Cline or James Strange had any idea exactly who was asking the questions is unknown, but archaeologists seldom pass up a chance to talk about their work, so probably not. Regardless of that issue, all three provided brief interviews for Vision, and all three are worth viewing if you have an interest in history and the Bible. Last year I posted a couple of brief items about Cline's book (which debunks Ten Tribes theories such as BI) here and here. Interesting that COG-AIC didn't quiz the professor about that part of his work.

The videos are available on Peter Nathan's First Followers blog.

On the subject of COG-AIC (Church of God - An International Community) David Hulme has contributed a chapter to a volume called What Makes Us Human? According to the blurb: " In What Makes Us Human? some of the world's most brilliant thinkers offer their answers to this perennial puzzle..."

Uhhhhh...

Stone Age

Two trips to the Stone Age. A National Geographic report from 2005 states that: "Despite invasions by Saxons, Romans, Vikings, Normans, and others, the genetic makeup of today's white Britons is much the same as it was 12,000 ago..."

They forgot to mention those roving Ephraimites who dropped in for a cup of tea and a biscuit after the fall of Samaria, and then took the place over.

"The notion that large-scale migrations caused drastic change in early Britain has been widely discredited, according to Simon James, an archaeologist at Leicester University, England."

"They were swamped culturally but not genetically."

Who's going to tell Craig White and Steve Collins?

The second trip actually takes us way back further, then fast forwards through time. The bright young things at Vancouver Film School have produced a short but impressive presentation called Duelity that puts the Genesis creation story up alongside the scientific story of origins. It's very, very clever, approaching each view from the alternate perspective. Click "watch" then view each of the segments in order (creation, evolution and then the split screen version.) Trust me on this; you won't want to miss it! ... and watch out for that apple!

Finally, a memory trip into WCG's Stone Age (a.k.a. the 1970s): Remember Ralph Helge? Often seen in close proximity to Stanley Rader, Ralph reigned in Pasadena as church attorney and legal counselor for many years. The United News reports that Ralph has recently been ordained an elder (non-salaried?) in the UCG.

Big Trouble in Big Sandy

Things have not been going smoothly of late for members of the Church of God, Big Sandy.

If any independent COG congregation deserves the title prima inter pares, first among equals, then Big Sandy is probably it. For years now it has served as a positive example of how Church of God people need not submit to hierarchical leadership in order to get along. The Big Sandy church has successfully forged associations with other independent ministries, forgoing both the empire building mentality of the extremist sects along with their exclusivism. Minister Dave Havir is well respected. If the Worldwide Church of God is to have an enduring legacy, it will be among people like these rather than the Glendora-based organization that has inherited the name, or the ego-driven rip-off imitations.

All that is now at risk. One local has described the situation, perhaps with a feel for the dramatic, as "war." Some 30 - 40 brethren are now meeting separately, and a board member has been dumped. Details of the story are likely to appear in the upcoming issue of The Journal.

I find that incredibly sad. Gainsayers at both extremes will take comfort at the Big Sandy church's discomfort. Regardless of what you might think about the doctrinal position of the church, it has been good to see what appeared to be a healthy, balanced congregation holding its own in a "marketplace" dominated by weird apocalyptic speculation and manipulative power-trippers.

Disagreements are hardly the preserve of COG congregations. Mainline denominations often train pastors whose job is to go into troubled local churches and defuse a situation before it blows, something that is more common than most of us might think. Perhaps it's not too late for the folk at Big Sandy to do something similar; to bring in an outside facilitator - someone without a personal stake in the issues (and someone with prior experience of this sort of thing.) Such a person would not go in to bang heads together, but to respectfully listen to all those involved and arbitrate a solution. To cast blame isn't the way forward, to focus on solutions is.

I for one hope the Big Sandy church comes through its current difficulties intact, and continues to be an inspiration to those who chafe under a plague of pseudo-apostles, pastors-general, presiding evangelists, prophets and other charlatans. There has to be a better way than that.

Place of Safety

All right class, pencils and paper out, time for a quick multiple choice question to see if you've been concentrating.

No Gerry, you may not go to the bathroom now.

Roderick PLEASE remove that pencil from your nostril, accidents happen that way.

Now here's the question; pay attention David!

What is the meaning of the term "place of safety"?

Yes Ronald, I can repeat the question... What is the meaning of "place of safety"?

Stop that whimpering Joe, you only have yourself to blame if you didn't do your homework, and besides, you can always use your excellent common sense to work out which of the answers is most likely.

Oh for mercy's sake, pick yourself off the floor and stop cackling like a loon Mark!

Now, here are your choices:

A. An old rock city in the Jordanian desert
B. A tax shelter in the Bahamas
C. A Nazi concentration camp
D. Denton, Texas
E. The first name given by the Pilgrims to Rhode Island

No Clyde, there isn't an "F" option with "all of the above."

Now pass your papers to the front. Frederick, kindly put your name at the top of the sheet, I am not a mind reader. Robert, you have misspelled your own name again.

Thank you children. William, put away that Prophecy Flash comic book immediately and come up here, I'd like you to read the correct answer from the dictionary of euphemisms.


***


Given the almost exclusive use of this term in a religious sense by COG people (as a Google search quickly shows) and the fact that it doesn't actually occur in the KJV Bible, a cynic might wonder whether HWA was indulging in a sick private joke when he adopted the expression. Why? Remember what the Place of Safety was meant to offer protection from?
"place of safety: an inhumane prison. Himmler's favored term for his concentration camps."
R. W. Holder, How Not To Say What You Mean: A Dictionary of Euphemisms. p.299

While it's an unlikely connection, it would be still interesting to know if there was any documented use of the expression by HWA prior to World War II.

The Good News

I like The Good News.

No, really!

Although I'm not a subscriber, the occasional copy of UCG's flagship magazine comes my way. The Good News is a pleasure to handle, has a great design and layout, and a thoroughly professional appearance. In these categories the GN is simply streets ahead of LCG's Tomorrow's World.

The person who deserves the credit is Shaun Venish, a freelance illustrator and graphic designer who graduated from Ambassador College (Pasadena) in 1990 (that's him in creative pose). This guy is good.

But content-wise it's another story.

The Jan-Feb GN belies the slick design with the same tired old ideology that failed thirty years ago in WCG.

For starters the political content is far from subtle. Political content? Sure, what else would you call Melvin Rhodes' imperious articles, or the weltanschau that underlies the World News & Trends section? Objectivity? Fresh thinking? An international perspective? A willingness to challenge comfortable assumptions?

Not a sign of it. This stuff is only marginally less one-eyed than Flurry's Trumpet.

And then there's Paul Luecke's article called Help Your Child Refute Evolution in the current issue.

WCG did a nice little number on the creation/evolution thing once, in fact it was one of the draw-cards that attracted me to The Plain Truth in the first place. Sadly it was all nonsense. I've written about this elsewhere, so won't bore you with those comments here.

Luecke (whose credentials on this subject are not immediately obvious) won't have read it of course, but the US National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine have released a new book called Science, Evolution, and Creationism. It's tone, according to New Scientist, is not confrontational; rather the book draws attention to those many believers "who do not interpret creation stories literally, and do not view evolution as counter to their faith."

"The authors focus on why understanding evolution is critical to agriculture, medicine and specifically to tackling viruses such as SARS and HIV. They also stress that if Americans do not have a basic scientific literacy, which must include evolution, the nation will not be able to compete in the global knowledge economy."

Which is a thoroughly sane position. The creationism advocated by the GN (and its sponsoring church) is far more dangerous than any of the "bad news" dreamed up in the tormented imaginations of wooden-minded editors and columnists. Children need protecting from the pseudo-science of creationism, not the bogey man of evolution.

"There's nothing wrong
with a 5th Grade understanding of God
... as long as you're in the 5th Grade."
From the movie "For the Bible Tells Me So."

The Good News: great form, shame about the substance.

"We were zealots"

A former WCG kid makes good - in Bermuda.

Newly appointed Senator Thaao Dill (Progressive Labour Party) is known for hosting a radio show on HOTT 107.5, and is a convert to the Bahai Faith. But he "was raised under an incredibly strict religious regime - no birthday or Christmas celebrations, and certainly no Hallowe'en."
Any guesses which incredibly strict religious regime that might be?

The family belonged to the Worldwide Church of God, which literally put God front and centre above everything else. "I didn't have a birthday party until I was 13 and we didn't do Christmas," Mr. Dill said.

"We were zealots. We were taken out of school a week before Christmas or Hallowe'en so we didn't get contaminated by these pagan celebrations," he laughed. "As soon as the pumpkin placards came out, I'd be like, 'you know you are going to hell, right?'"
Read the article in the Bermuda Sun for an engaging portrait of a young politician who breaks the mold.