Living Armstrongism: HWA's Attitude to Leaders and their Followers

Sunday, May 31, 2009

HWA's Attitude to Leaders and their Followers

In my reading about the false prophet HWA I can't help but notice a remarkable similarity HWA took in his approach to "preach" to world leaders. HWA assumed that if he preached to the ruler, it is the same as though he preached to the entire nation.

"From the beginning, Mr. Armstrong received astonishing welcomes from kings and presidents, prime ministers and cabinet members, legislators and educators. These summit and near-summit sessions are of overriding importance because, as Mr. Armstrong stated: "When I get Christ's vital message of the Kingdom of god to the king, president, prime minister, and others high in the government of such nations, I have, in God's sight, gotten His message to that nation or Kingdom." (Outsider's Insider Update, Vol. 2, Part 2, quoting Stanley Rader, Against the Gates of Hell, Chapter 9, p. 154. Note: Against the Gates of Hell is hosted by a small Armstrongite church.)

I also recall reading something very similar in Ambassador Report.

This sounds very similar to how HWA approached the leadership of the Church of God (Seventh Day) way back in the 1920s. Once again he assumed that if he tested the leader then the whole church has been tested.

"God’s church, he reasoned, should be willing to confess error and change....His test of the Church of God (Seventh Day) assumed....that a test of a church’s leader would be a sufficient test of the entire church....Apparently it never occurred to him to ask the Church of God to test him. It was the Church of God (Seventh Day), not he, that was on trial." (Ralph G. Orr, How Anglo-Israelism Entered Seventh-day Churches of God: a history of the doctrine from John Wilson to Joseph W. Tkach.)

This is also similar to how HWA would declare that "King" and "Kingdom" are synonymous in the some contexts in the Bible. As HWA wrote in Who is the Beast? referring to Daniel 7, "the word king is synonymous with kingdom". Again the leader is viewed as somehow being one with his followers as also described above.

What are we to make of this blind assumption HWA held that if the king/leader is preached to/tested then all of his following has been preached to/tested as well? This is obviously untrue. What are we to make of this? Does this show that HWA possessed a sick sense of elitism assuming that the 'little people' are all only following their leaders? That they are only automatons following their leaders? That he thought that people are to be judged based on what their leaders did and heard? If so I feel that this is a very disturbing attitude. It is an attitude that shows absolutely no regard for people, only the leaders. This only exposes HWA's complete fixation on power and those who had it.

1 comment:

Robert June 8, 2009 at 1:20 PM
My view is that HWA fell away from the truth at the time he began to meet with world leaders. Like Solomon, he clung to the love of pagans more than being loyal to the one true God. Anything HWA wrote after 1972 can pretty much be disregarded. A similar view is held by the Church of God The Eternal where they would also have a cut off point but they tend to cite doctrinal changes to be the reason.
The mandate for visiting world leaders was not to teach them the truth from the Bible but was for vanity, prestige and power.

Is it a coincidence that Solomon and HWA both had their kingdoms or empires torn up and destroyed?
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Fall of Berlin Wall NOT Proof HWA was Right

It is often asserted that the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 proved that HWA was right and he really did see the future.

This of course is nonsense. Herbert W. Armstrong said that Christ would return within twenty years in his book Mystery of the Ages. (PCG has since deleted those words so someone in there knows HWA spoke nonsense.) How convenient for them to forget this.

Also Herbert W. Armstrong never said the Soviet Union would collapse. He thought it would survive intact until a few years after Christ's return. It shows how biased some many in the COGs are that they never seem to notice this. This inconvenient truth is just tossed into the memory hole.

It is true that HWA said that some Eastern European states would break away from Moscow's orbit and join the European Empire he said would arise at any moment. But he never talked of the Soviet Union collapsing. He did not teach that. Also he portrayed the rise of the European Empire to be far quicker then what has actually happened. In Mystery of the Ages Christ was supposed to return by 2005 at the most.

So assertions that the fall of the Berlin Wall somehow prove that HWA was right is just complete nonsense spread by people who, for whatever reason, are still in denial that HWA was a false prophet who merely talked out of his own "human reasoning".

Truth about Roderick C. Meredith

What sort of man is he? A man who could say things like this.

"Mr. Armstrong has reminded us again that we are to disfellowship any members who attend GTA's [Garner Ted Armstrong's] campaigns, church services or other meetings. Some of our weaker members apparently do not realize that this man is in direct rebellion against God and His government! We must not allow them, or ourselves, to rationalize about this matter, to try to "help the underdog," or in any other way lend support to one whose gross immorality, whose long standing "play acting" and hypocrisy, and whose direct insubordination to the Government of God has long been and is now a source of confusion and DIVISION among God's people. So, as per Mr. Armstrong's instruction, I charge and exhort every one of you faithful ministers of the living Christ to explain this in no uncertain terms to your members, to warn them about this cause of division and then to disfellowship any who consort with GTA or any of his fellows." (Roderick C. Meredith, Pastor's Report, May 21, 1979, pp. 1-2.)

See here for this statement's context.

David Robinson on Roderick C. Meredith

WCG minister David Robinson had this to say about Roderick C. Meredith in a letter he wrote to him on September 19, 1979.

"During the ten years I have been an employee of the Worldwide Church, you have been poorly spoken of by most of the ministers and employees I have known. I vividly remember the absolute unbounded glee that was openly expressed by a good number of respected men in the church when you were first "shanghaied." [In 1972.] I could begin by naming names, which I am sure would shock you. I was one of the few who stood, where possible, for you. Your tenure as superintendent of ministers, as I believe the office was then called, was looked on as nightmarish. While you held office during the years of growth, most of those whom I know gave you very little credit for that growth. Almost everyone whom I know, whether they be former friends of yours, or continuing foes, recalls insensitive and terrible things you have done. Without exception, at least among my acquaintances, they all credit you with an unbridled lust for power and list you as one who is willing to pay the price of gaining that power, no matter what. I have, through many of the last few years, believed you had principles you would not violate. Many a man of experience in the church assured me of my error. Events have proven me wrong and them right. Mr. Armstrong has himself been widely quoted as saying of you that you were so righteous that you were so "righteous you were unrighteous." " (David Robinson, Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web, Chapter 16, p. 207.)

Of course it is impossible for me to personally verify these assertions but people deserve to know what this knowledgeable man had to say about him.

Living Armstrongism

Sunday, May 31, 2009

HWA's Attitude to Leaders and their Followers

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If You are new please read this

Fall of Berlin Wall NOT Proof HWA was Right

Truth about Roderick C. Meredith

The Truth About Europe and Prophecy

Followers

Truth About The Key of David's Gerald Flurry and his PCG

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