Monday, April 13, 2009

"You Will Gain Precious Insights and Information Available Nowhere Else"

Recently LCG sent their co-workers a DVD featuring four Tomorrow's World broadcasts, one by each of the presenters. I got one too. Instead of talking about how you can be saved by Jesus they chose to send out programs about fear-inducing (false) prophecy.

I seriously considered destroying the DVD. But I decided to watch it. I wondered how I would view these broadcasts now that I had renounced Armstrongism. I watched Roderick C. Meredith's broadcast.

After watching Meredith's broadcast I think I shall keep it. I am actually glad they gave it to me. Why?

Well, at the end of his broadcast, The Power of Prophecy, beginning at 26:53, Meredith said, "You will gain precious insights and information available nowhere else."

This statement may well have been true when he first got caught up in Armstrongism, but he very well knows that there are many other Armstrongite churches that preach exactly the same thing as Tomorrow's World teaches. Some little details differ from sect to sect, but what unites them is far greater than what divides them.

When I discovered YouTube I soon ran into UCGia's TV program, Beyond Today: The Next Superpower. Even though I had been aware of UCG for years, thanks to LCG apologist Bob Theil's website, I was still amazed that this show taught the same thing as Tomorrow's World. That the Beast is a revival of the Roman Empire, etc, etc.

There are also many other places out there where one can learn about HWA's doctrines. There are literally hundreds of Churches of God out there, as he knows very well, many of them continuing to teach much of HWA's writings.

So that assertion, and I can personally testify that he was using precisely that kind of language when I first started watching his program way back in 2000, is simply not true.

How dare you say something that is simply untrue.

This reminds me that back in June 2008 Stan reported that Roderick Meredith on his faculty page at Living University portray Meredith as having graduated from Ambassador University. It still says that.

This also reminds of what one former LCG member wrote in this letter, "When I was in LCG in 2001, Meredith was like a chameleon and could change at will. He was very slick and I witnessed him lie whenever it served his purposes."

Also in AR 29 October 1984, under the heading 'Meredith's Counseling' the following was written concerning what Robert Hoops, who at the time was a minister with Garner Ted Armstrong's CGI, had to say about Roderick Meredith:
During a deposition and later with us privately, Hoops described how, when Meredith once counseled his wife, Meredith made such insensitive and unwarranted accusations against him that his wife cried for a week. When he found out later what had been said about him, he became so depressed he was almost suicidal. Said Hoops, "When you have really committed your life to the church and believe the ministry represents God, a harsh assessment of you by a superior can literally create severe emotional trauma." On the stand, Hoops was asked by Stuart for his opinion of Meredith. But Judge Olson disallowed the question. Later, however, Hoops was quite candid with us about his assessment of Meredith's character.

"Meredith is a liar," said Hoops. "But that isn't surprising when you consider how big a liar he works for." Sadly, Hoops' opinion of Meredith is shared by many ministers who served under him in years past.
Alas! Because of the misleading statement he made in his TV program I regretfully am forced to conclude that such an assessment seems most reasonable to believe.

After seeing him make such an obviously untrue statement on TV, what other conclusion can there be?

To paraphrase what Stan said on that Ambassador Reports blog about him then, "Tell the truth!!"

1 comment:

  1. RedFox,

    I updated my ARs link to the Meredith's new faculty page.

    Herbert Armstrong knew Meredith as well as anybody for decades and had his private reservations about him.

    Evidently he didn't give much serious consideration to Meredith after he booted GTA out for the last time.

    Stan

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