PCG's Recycled Prophecy

When Gerald Flurry wrote Malachi's Message he, inspired by Jules Dervaes' writings, he proclaimed the 'Man of Sin' of 2 Thessalonians 2 to be a man in the 'Laodicean' Church (WCG after HWA's death in 1986). HWA had previously taught that this would be the final Pope, he did not imagine him to be a part of 'Laodicea', but Flurry changed that. As far as I understand it Gerald Flurry identified Tkach Sr. as the Man of Sin. But Tkach Sr. died in 1995.

To prevent this from being seen as a failed prophecy the identity of the Man of Sin is now placed on Tkach Jr. Furthermore PCG now tries to portray Tkach Sr. as simply being a puppet and Tkach Jr. as being the real mastermind behind the Changes. This revision of their prophecy may be seen in Raising the Ruins. They were inadvertently helped in this prophetic revision by the fact that Tkach Jr. happened to be the man who fired Gerald Flurry and his assistant pastor John Amos, cating them out of WCG.

This desperate attempt to 'cancel out' Tkach Sr. as the Man of Sin and place Tkach Jr. in that position may be seen in Raising the Ruins. Notice what is written near the beginning of Chapter 14 of Stephen Flurry's work.

At his deposition, Tkach Jr. acknowledged that it was entirely his decision to fire these two long-time ministers on the spot. His father, the pastor general of the church, was not aware of the firings until after they had already happened.

Here Stephen Flurry tries to convince the reader that Tkach Jr. was the real mastermind, the real enemy, and Tkach Sr. was just a puppet. This is done to hide their earlier failure and indoctrinate followers in PCG's new identification of Tkach Jr. as the Man of Sin.

This attempt to attribute as much power to Tkach Jr. as possible is seen again later in the chapter.

It is interesting, looking back, that Mr. Tkach Sr. never once communicated with my dad during this whole ordeal [of disfollowshiping]. For the most part, Tkach Jr. and Helge handled the situation. And seven years later, when the WCG filed suit against us over printing Mystery of the Ages, Tkach Sr. would again be missing from the equation, having died of cancer in 1995. The two principle players, without question, in the case brought against us in 1997, were Joseph Tkach Jr. and Ralph Helge.

Again Stephen Flurry tries to relegate Tkach Sr. into just a puppet, a bit player, and tries to portray Tkach Jr. as the important man in the Changes. (Because they now say he is the Man of Sin.)

Also relevant is SF's discussion of Tkach Sr. using ghostwriters for his sermons at the end of Chapter 4. This further sends the message that Tkach Sr. was just a puppet. This further obscures their earlier prophetic failure.

The unsuspecting reader will be unaware that the purpose of these statements is to recycle Gerald Flurry's false prophecy identifying Tkach Sr. as the Man of Sin and say Tkach Jr. is the Man of Sin. Thus it is necessary to somehow explain Tkach Sr. away. It was necessary to belittle his role in the situation, to say he had no power because the Man of Sin was his son. The Man of Sin had the real power from shortly after HWA's death. No doubt when Tkach Jr. passes away PCG, or their successors, will just say the next Pastor General is the Man of Sin.

All of these details will be utterly undetected by the unsuspecting reader who is unfamiliar with the intricacies of Armstrongism. May the Lord save such people.

(Update: Gerald Flurry originally identified Joseph W. Tkach Sr. as the Man of Sin. 'Previously, GF declared that Joseph Tkach Sr. was the man of sin, but he is dead now.' Tkach Sr. died in 1995. The attempts of PCG to portray Tkach Sr. as just a puppet serves to hide this false prophecy.)

More on Raising the Ruins may be read here.