Barthianity

I mentioned Reformed theologian Karl Barth some time back. Barth is one of my least favorite thinkers: any mind poisoned with Calvinism is a terrible waste. Why bother mentioning Barth? Well, he's flavor of the month with certain WCG ministerial types, poor deluded souls. Once you've been led up the garden path with Karl, your brain inevitably turns to mush and you lose contact with reality. This is clearly demonstrated by the quality of posts on the WCG's Surprising God blog - a kind of mutual admiration forum for the terminally deluded.

I'm particularly fed up with Barthianity at the moment, having just suffered a semester with a compulsory paper infused with his insidious influence. I don't mind a balance: a little Barth alongside a cross section of other voices, but alas there is an aftertaste of Presbyterian myopia on the faculty, and other traditions - other than that peculiar variety of Anglicanism that calls itself Evangelical - get second-class treatment.

More positive by far has been a paper on the Dead Sea Scrolls which has been truly fascinating, and once I recover from the examination, I fully intend to bore anyone silly enough to read it with an entry on some freaky parallels between Qumran and Armstrongism. You have been warned!

Meantime, this piece of artwork portrays the mighty Swiss theologian. It seems very apt.

Faithful flock's flinched fleeces

Don Billingsley is an old-time minister of the Radio Church of God. His chief claim to historical fame is being the second member of the baptizing team in the fatal car crash that took the life of Herbert Armstrong's eldest son, Richard. Like so many others he found it hard to adjust to the Tkach regime change, and bolted off to establish the Church of God EIM (Established in Modesto).

Time passed and COG-EIM and their pastor came to a parting of the ways - another common occurrence among disaffected brethren. Suddenly Don found himself starting from scratch and breaking in a new ministry which could well have been called Church of God DIM (Disestablished in Modesto) but instead adopted the name Church of God - Faithful Flock. It's a small group, but readers of The Journal will know of it through Don's regular full-page ads.

What's interesting is the literature that Don is offering on the COG-FF website. More specifically, the authorship of that literature, including...

Paul Kroll
Neil Earle
Bernie Schnippert

Hey, wait a minute, aren't these guys Joe Junior's myrmidons? Well, yes. Paul is the long-suffering personal correspondent, Neil pastors the Glendora franchise and Bernie apparently still rakes in some sort of salary after years as a high profile financial apparatchik under Joe.

So how come these luminaries get a by-line on Don's site? Simple. Don has dredged up ancient articles they wrote decades ago. No matter than these fellows have long since repudiated their views of the seventies and eighties.

Articles by Kroll and Earle appear in the online publication Prophecy Comes Alive. Schnippert's 1982 GN article on "counterfeit faith" is promoted separately (and prominently).

Earth calling Don, this is (a) not a good look, and (b) misleading. Whether there's a copyright issue is for someone else to judge. Regardless of that, the authors - unless they've given permission, which seems highly unlikely - would have every right to feel thoroughly hosed off.

When will they ever learn

The latest issue of Tomorrow's World is out, and Spanky and his gang are performing their seasonal beat up on Xmas, along with the usual butchery on the text of Revelation.



Notable too is this back page photograph of the Four Horsefeatherers of the post-Herbal Apocalypse. That's Wally Smith, Rod the Ranter, Dickie Ames and Rod the Aussie. Pretty scary, huh.

But fear not, little flock, here's the word from Team Charlotte:

We are definitely living in the “last days”! Christ will undoubtedly return within the lifetimes of the young people growing up today—and many older people may also live to witness this awesome event. (Rod Meredith, p.7)
Well, I bet no-one here has heard that before!

Compulsive Conservatism

The latest issue of the Not-so Good News is about to hit the mailboxes, and the lads in editorial have chosen the theme of addictions as the focus for their bi-monthly platitudes.

Douglas, did you hear that? Few people have made the connection between Armstrongism and addictive disorders as clearly as Douglas Becker. Will this latest issue bring Douglas down, Sennacherib-style, like a wolf upon the Cincinnati fold, or is he - like myself - simply struck speechless by the irony of it all?

The GN is still a quality magazine compared to LCG's Tomorrow's World, but that's not saying much. Take a look at the political content (exhibit one: "Nations around the world gang up on America" - lead item in the World News & Trends section.) It seems that each passing month the commentary becomes more facile and predictable. Will these guys - Schroeder, Aust, Rhodes and company - ever start to think outside the box? Thirty long years ago The Plain Truth produced, despite itself and allowing for very mixed motives, some reasonably cutting edge material on issues like the environment (anyone remember Our Polluted Planet?) OK, so it was part of the doom and gloom thing, but at least it took the focus away from the usual line-up of self-pitying whinges and whines. Could the old blokes at UCG possibly do something as imaginative as that in 2007, or are they just too addicted to playing "ain't it awful" on apple-pie knee-jerk issues.

I guess that's a rhetorical question.

Bloggin' with Peter Nathan

Peter Nathan was once the regional director for the WCG in New Zealand, sandwiched between Bob Morton and Raymond McNair. Our paths never crossed as I left the church shortly before the great man took up the helm. These days he continues in the ministry of the Hulme sect, COG-AIC.

You've got to hand it to Hulme, he produces a spiffy magazine by COG standards, and rubs shoulders with an impressive cross section of scholars. Peter Nathan follows in his steps with a blog - part of the sect's official Vision site - called First Followers. For a fringe Adventist group with decidedly unorthodox leanings, these guys seem to have built up a surprising degree of credibility. First Followers has begun to appear on lists of scholarly blogs. If nothing else, this WCG/UCG splinter has a talent for convincing PR. (Needless to say, though, there's no facility for Peter Nathan's readers to post comments.)

The problem is that, despite the appearance of articulate views and informed opinions, COG-AIC is, to put it as charitably as possible, right up there with Appalachian snake handlers and Polygamist Mormons in the estimation of much of the theological establishment. Impartial academics they are not.

Barbie, Ken, Martin, Herb

I used to think that Catholics had the market pretty much cornered on repellent religious kitsch. You know, plaster Madonnas, ornate crucifixes and suchlike. But then I discovered the windup Luther doll, and now I'm not so sure. To be honest, it may just be a bunch of American Lutherans with an untypical sense of humor: please tell me that's the explanation!

But, once I picked my jaw up off the floor, I got to thinking. What about a windup Herb doll? After all, if dour Scandinavians and wooden-headed Missouri Teutons can laugh at themselves this way, surely anyone can (except Calvinists of course.)

I'm personally drawn to the idea of a talking model that says "pour me another Harveys Bristol Cream, hic!" or maybe "we're in the gun lap now brethren," but other possibilities abound. Any suggestions?

Of course, a GTA doll would be more properly referred to as an action figure, and be anatomically correct.

Meantime I'm rather tempted to order a set of those Sin Boldly beer glasses.

Have a Herbaceous Halloween

The reason for the season... a different version of the photograph that appeared a few days back (click to enlarge)

A Flurry of foolishness

People all over the world are following the news of the fires ravaging Southern California. Disasters like this have a terrible impact on people's lives. You'd think nobody would think to use events like this to manipulate and finger-point. Unfortunately there are bible-quoting vultures circling, eager to find an edge and offload their hateful ideology on vulnerable individuals.

"Catastrophic wildfires, multi-year droughts, out-of-control deficits. Why is this happening to the Golden State? The answer will surprise you."
Gerry ("That Prophet") Flurry

Wicked Californians! Wicked!

The Romans only crucified Jesus, but you BAD Californians attacked Herbert W. Armstrong.

Do you know how naughty that was?

If not, Gerry Flurry will explain it to you. Gerry can do that because he's a prophet. Not just any old garden variety of prophet, mind you, but THAT prophet...

Boy, are you Californians in deep manure!

Which is why the grumpy old Deity keeps throwing His toys out of the crib in your general direction. We're talking FIRE here. You Californians deserve it because, after all, God is never wrong, and God is clearly hosed off. Gerry knows: he's got the inside word.

It might help if Arnie wears sackcloth, throws dust in the air and weeps at Herb's grave. Think of it as additional insurance against acts of the Almighty.

Here's how That Prophet puts it: "California is the only state that ever attacked Mr. Armstrong and his work. Actually, it attacked a lot more than that. California really attacked the living God! It also attacked its only hope—a hope beyond what mankind can even imagine! Could such an unjustified attack by the state have anything to do with California’s problems in the last several years? It certainly does, and you need to know why."
Yes, you guys ATTACKED GOD. What were you thinking?! No matter that it was decades ago, and some of you weren't even born then, Gerry's god has a long memory and He isn't big on the forgiveness and compassion thing.

Prophet Gerry's article explains it all, except for the one thing I most wanted to know: how come his god is such a vicious jerk.

Accurate labelling

(Click picture to enlarge)

Here be dragons

One of the interesting features in the continuing development of Joe Tkach's WCG is an emerging infatuation with the theology of Karl Barth. Barth is required reading for a course on Pastoral Theology taught by Russell Duke via ACCM, and the Swiss Reformed theologian seems to be much gushed-about at present by those attempting to gain profile in the Tkach ministry.

Barth was arguably an extremist among Protestants in that he denied that anything could be known about God outside revelation. If you imagine you can find a sense of God in a fantastic sunset or in holding a newborn child, Barth would slap you silly while shrieking NEIN! None other than Martin Luther King expressed reservations about this approach, though in more considered terms:

...Barth proclaims the utter separation of the high God and the world. The two are totally unlike and exclusive. At no point does God touch the external world with its corrupted nature and evil matter. No part of the world is, therefore, a manifestation or revelation of the infinite, majestic Deity. Barth's God is "above us, above space and time..."

King very sensibly takes issue with Barth.

A signal proof that God reveals himself in nature is seen in Psalms 19: "The heavens declare the glory of God, etc." The New Testament writers are even more explicit at this point. According to Paul, man through reason, may have sufficient knowledge of God to render him "inexcusable." This passage, found in the Epistle to the Romans, is practically ignored by Barth. He says: "We know that God is the one whom we do not know and this not-knowing is the problem and origin of our knowing..." (source)

Barth also gave birth to that bizarre idea that Christianity is not a religion. Long before Greg Albrecht turned it into a money making ministry, this giant of Reformed (Calvinist) scholarship had decided to ignore the accepted meaning of religion as something non-sectarian and positive - the sense it's used in James 1 (pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction...) and redefine it. After Barth every world-hating air-headed preacher and his brother would blather something about religion being human idolatry while their particular form of Christianity was something quite different. How convenient.

All our attempts to reach God are defined as religion [by Karl Barth], and against religion stands God's act of revelation. Here began the fight against the use of the word "religion" in theology. (Paul Tillich)

Barth is frequently lauded as the greatest theologian of the last century. A dissenting view might be that he is simply the most over-rated. Certainly he gained great credibility in his opposition to the vile compliance of the German churches to the Nazi regime, but so did many others, some of whom, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, paid with their lives. Barth's opposition was not based on human rights however, but on the rigidities of his theology. Human concerns took a back seat to systematic theology. Paul Tillich notes that it was only when the National Socialists posed a threat to the churches that Barth spoke up. Earlier attacks on Jews and minorities were ignored - a fault that certainly wasn't his alone.

Much of Barth's popularity probably lies in his rejection of liberal theological trends, which caused conservative Protestants of the time not a few ulcers, but beware the cure that is worse than the disease. These days Barth is perhaps seen as the way ahead for WCG to embrace a better quality of evangelicism. Maybe, but maybe not. The internal logic of this kind of dogma is built with little reference to wider concerns of the world at large; after all, the Barthian God is not revealed anywhere except in Christian truth (however that is defined - the great man was not a biblical literalist). Barth may well be a dead end, or even worse, down this road there may well "be dragons."