Same old, same old...

The self proclaimed "bishop," Brian Tamaki, is in the news in my little corner of the multiverse. The New Zealand Herald, via columnist Garth George, is labeling the prophet of many hairstyles a cult leader. In a sudden rush of blood to a bodily appendage unused to such things - his head - Bishop Brian, founder and boss of Destiny Church, has had seven hundred male members, uh, yes that's the term the Herald uses, swear a loyalty oath to him. And, oh whoopee, they even get to wear loyalty rings!

...the church document says that proof of a man's covenant with God is how they "submit to God's chosen man ... We are blessed to our spiritual father through whom this principle is being restored."

God's chosen man? Deja vu: I think I'm going to be sick. I'm told some ex-WCG members now sit in Destiny services each week. Out of the frying pan...

Now, to be honest, I'm no fan of Garth George. He is a former editor of the loathsome Challenge Weekly, the fundamentalist tabloid. I have never yet read a column of his that I agree with, though that may partly be because I make a point of not reading his columns. Nevertheless, in this case, I was prepared to make an exception after a copy of this one was emailed to me by a former WCG member (thanks Seamus.) Tamaki reminds me of a tithe-sucking vampire, preying on the credulity of decent, everyday folk who are just trying to make sense of life.

So Garth George - and it pains me to say it - does have a point. And if someone doesn't slap Tamaki down, the very stones may cry out. One positive aspect of the Herald column is that George does have a degree of "cred" with the very people who are most vulnerable to Tamaki and his ilk. Hopefully this punch will have connected.

There is a real difference between the blather that comes from the fundagelical heartland, and the loon-call of someone like Tamaki, but the irony is that it's arguably people like Garth George who prepare the ground for movements like Destiny. Tamaki simply takes the same fundagelical agenda and drives it off in the direction it's already pointing - over a cliff. Garden-variety evangelicals, on the other hand, may picnic at the edge of the cliff and admire the scenery below, but usually have enough nous not to jump.

Just What do You Mean - Doing the Work?

This one is for you, Seamus!

(The year is 1978)

Brethren, if you'd all open your hymnals to page 103, we will sing the words of Psalm 137, "By the Waters of Babylon."

Seamus (sotto voce): "Which version?"

Egg White

Will Herbert Armstrong ever surpass the reputation of the woman whose footsteps he, at least partly, followed in?

Ellen G. White is often referred to as the founder of Seventh-day Adventism, and this report indicates that her influence endures some ninety four years after her death. The SDA movement may have a lower profile, but is actually larger than its brasher cousin, Mormonism.

SDAs have also impacted on the everyday lives of all of us living in the West, thanks to Corn Flakes, peanut butter and, may God forgive them, Young Earth Creationism.

Ronald Numbers, whose name comes up in the item linked above, is himself a former Adventist, and author not only of a leading biography of the prophetess, but The Creationists,a hugely enlightening history of creationism that should be compulsory reading for anyone who wants to express an opinion on that subject. Even cut down to size by twenty first century academics, the lady is formidable.

But what will be the legacy of Herbert Armstrong, whether for good or ill? His followers have built no hospitals nor given the world a breakfast cereal. Ninety four years out from his death, in 2080, will he be anything other than a minor footnote in an obscure volume on twentieth century sectarian figures?

TPM - COGism's very own UFO cult?

A new face emerged during Triumph's Feast of Tabernacles this year. Haile Keita led a series of "studies" on UFOs, Nephilim, Aliens and the Occult. Keita's speculations might seem completely loopy anywhere else, including in most of the COGs, but at TPM they're positively mainstream.

Putting aside the cogency or otherwise of Keita's material, he comes across as a personable and well-spoken guy, and in his opening comments he was duly deferential to TPM founder and end-times guru Willie Dankenbring. When Willie goes to his eternal reward, could Haile be the one to take on the reins at Triumph?

Certainly, if his five-part chat is anything to go by, he has as many off-the-wall theories to peddle as his master and mentor.

In Search of... Bob's Th.D

The mystery of Bob Thiel's Th.D may be solved, and it's a pretty strange tale.

Bob may have acquired a mail order degree from Trinity School of Apologetics & Theology in Kochi.

Kochi?

TRINITY??

Following up on an anonymous tip in the previous comments section, a web search revealed that Trinity is a fundamentalist institution in India which has a Calvinist orientation, and offers "Free Apologetics/Theology Graduate Distance Programs." It's listed in places like Conservapedia and Creationwiki, and is sited next to Cochin University, but from what I can tell is definitely not part of that institution (although to read the Trinity website you might assume it was!) T of CU would then mean Trinity of Cochin University, which seems to be a clear misrepresentation.

Here's what Walston's Guide to Christian Distance Learning has to say about this institution (see graphic).

Not exactly positive.

And lo and behold, there is a Bob Thiel listed under "graduation news" on the Trinity site.

Now let's recap.

(1) If this is the source of Bob's Th.D, one can only wonder at his choice of an institution which wears its trinitarianism on its sleeve.

(2) To all intents and purposes, the accreditation that this institution claims is highly dubious.

(3) Bob has misrepresented it by calling it TCU. The correct acronym is TGSAT. The impression that he has graduated from Texas Christian is highly misleading. The impression that TGSAT is part of Cochin University is also misleading.

It appears that Bob's Th.D - if this is its source - isn't worth the paper it's printed on. No wonder Bob has been less than forthcoming about its provenance: it's a huge embarrassment.

However, on the positive side, Bob was being at least partially truthful. He does have a piece of paper with a recently minted Th.D., the quality of which is fully commensurate with the quality of his scholarship.

A Case of Beams and Splinters?

Over at COGwriter, Bob Thiel is busy nuking some guy called James Malm. It's completely justified, as Malm has been slagging off Thiel. Never a dull moment in the sandpit.

What this clearly demonstrates is that Bob is quite capable of standing up for himself, and assuming a posture of peevish outrage. The current entry is entitled "James Malm Continues to Mislead."

Instead of repenting for being a false accuser of me, James Malm remains an accuser (cf. Revelation 12:10) as he continues to attempt to mislead people about me and my writings... The Apostle Paul faced false accusers as well who could not prove their false accusations (Acts 24:13).

Well, bully for Bob. But isn't it interesting that Bob has still failed to respond to questions about the legitimacy of a claimed Th.D from TCU. These claims are in his bio at Examiner.com, and on his own website. Hardly a good look to accuse someone else of misleading while being unable to provide the most rudimentary documentation for one's own claims. A case of beams and splinters?

The thing is, Bob gets a lot of traffic on his site, but where does it come from? Have a look at this breakdown from Alexa.com.

Sweet mystery of life, nearly 15% of Bob's click-through traffic comes from - gasp! - AW! No other source, search engines Google and Yahoo excluded, sends more visitors through for a dose of Bob's "Th.D" fueled Biblical expertise... Most of those would go directly to the COGwriter "news" page, while most of the search engine hits would go to one of the countless ratbag pages of opinion Bob has up on things like "Catholic prophecies," Mayan calendars, and whether Barack Obama is the Antichrist. If that's the case, most of Bob's upstream traffic would come from curious and confused nutcases outside the COG fold, which means the news blog - the part of Bob's site most of us are familiar with - has been hugely overrated in its influence.

Yes brethren, I'm very tempted to rain on Bob's parade by withdrawing all links to his site... after all he doesn't link here. But that would be boorish and small-minded, so I guess he can continue to hang out in the apologists' section of the side bar.

But there'll be no more direct links from blog entries until Bob explains that alleged Th.D.

Question: Exactly which institution issued the Th.D? Full name required, as the obvious candidate for "TCU" is Texas Christian University, and they don't seem to know anything about it.

After Wolverton... Teague?

Is David Teague the new Basil Wolverton?

The comparison isn't in style, but in affiliation. Teague is a UCG member, and his depiction of the second resurrection hangs in the office of church president Clyde Kilough. You can view this painting here. Judging from comments on Mike Bennett's blog, opinion is divided over whether the work is inspiring or just plain disturbing.

For another taste of Teague, try his impression of the Red Sea crossing. I quite like this one.

The greater COG movement has attracted relatively few artists or musicians, so it's interesting to see an exemplar. Has there ever been a commercially published COG novelist - other than the terrific Ellen Hart (who doesn't really count, having found a new life.) How about musicians who have achieved at the highest level (sorry, Ross Jutsum is good, but not that good.) I have no way to evaluate David Teague's talent. Anyone here who can offer an informed opinion?

UCG's inane, cheesy, cheap creationist fraud

Are the lads at The Good News hiding under the bedsheets and hoping the wicked world of science will go away? It seems so. After promoting their anti-evolution booklet (a decadent confection of wishful, woolly thinking and bad science) via Google ads on P. Z. Myers' blog (big mistake!), they got a whole lot of orders. But not the sort of orders they wanted it seems. What to do? Maybe if we shut our eyes really tight the problem will go away!

Alas...

Way back in July, I proposed that an appropriate response to the inane creationist ads that were appearing on scienceblogs was for people to take advantage of one, an offer of a free booklet on creationism, and then we'd all tear it apart mercilessly. I ordered mine, a lot of you did likewise, and some of you have even written critical posts already.

I forgot.

It wasn't my fault, though. They didn't send me my booklet! I jumped through their hoops, I filled out their form, I did everything they asked, and I set the issue aside, anticipating that the arrival of tripe in the mail would be my wake-up alarm to get going. It never happened.

Anyway, we'll salvage something. If you already wrote a dissection, leave a link in the comments here. I'll try to pull off a web copy of their garbage, and use that instead. Let's set a date — a week from today — on which I'll post my criticisms and link to everyone else's. Cheesy cheap creationist frauds,[grumble, grumble, grumble]

Myers titles this entry Hey, where's my booklet? Good question Good News. Or do we only send the lit (short for either literature or litter, I forget which) out on a selective basis to folk who are more likely to be less capable in the critical analysis department?

Whatever. Regardless of the GN's side-stepping, fallout is pending, and it'll be interesting following the thread. Do you think "Super Mario" Seiglie might deign to poke his head up from among the pillows to defend his writing?

Update: Here's one pretty cool response to the UCG booklet.

The Lovely Bones

COG preachers may like to make fun of the Roman Catholic practice of holy relics, but you have to wonder at the bravado of doing so when you consider the dessicated corpses that are regularly trotted out in the cause of the COGgish gospel.

Of course, we're not talking actual body parts here, but the analogy is still pretty close. In Edmond, Gerry Flurry can hardly complete a sentence without referring to "Mr Armstrong." Herbert's body lies a moldering in his grave, but he still gets trundled out in each and every issue of the Philadelphia Trumpet to validate Gerry's ministry. Lo and behold, the same thing is true in Wadsworth, Ohio; and other locales where splinter ministries have sprung up like weeds in a cemetery.

Out in Texas, the holy family endures in the form of Mark Armstrong, grandson of Herb, son of the once heir apparent. Mark recycles his father's TV shows, and you'd scarcely know that Garner Ted was dead judging from his website. Presumably the aging tapes still ensure a steady income stream.

Ernest Martin is also long gone, but you can still "ask ELM" over at the ASK website, where David Sielaff dusts off his master's finery each month like a high-class rag and bone merchant.

Maybe we're just a remarkably backward looking bunch. The glory days of slick magazines, saturation TV and radio, and carefully coiffed college campuses has passed into history, and the giants of the faith - or is that ogres? - have toppled (or soon will!) None of the inheritors, despite healthy egos, has the chutzpah of Herbert Armstrong who, unlike his pale imitators, felt absolutely no need to call on the authority of his predecessors - men like Andrew Dugger.

The COGs are walking backward into the future, eyes firmly fixed on the past. It's not a recipe for survival.