How I Came to Read the Truth about HWA

(Before we get in the main topic I just have to say that LCG apologist Bob Thiel has broken the news: the "Apostle" Dave "Hand me your assets in a" Pack has released the second volume of his Authorized Biography. However RCG's website is down at the moment. We now continue onto the main topic.)

While I was a believer in Armstrongism I had made it my habit to spend the Sabbath reading religious materials and meditating on such things as best I could.

Very rarely I allowed myself to read negative material concerning HWA. But any criticism they had simply washed over me since I was totally convinced that HWA was who he said he was.

One time out of curiosity I was looking for the Global Church of God's website and somehow I found Bible.ca's article on the Wednesday Resurrection doctrine. However since I was a believer at this time I did not find it convincing and continued to believe HWA.

I did not read this site's argument that the distinction made in Armstrongism between the "Law of God" (The Ten Commandments) which is said to be eternal and the "Law of Moses" which is said to be temporary and ceremonial, is false. You can read that article here.

Nor did I read Question 10: "How could Adam, Noah and Abraham keep the Sabbath, when Deuteronomy 5:2-4 says that the 10 commandment covenant...was "not made with any of the fathers of Israel who lived before Moses.""

Or Question 11: "If we must follow the example of Jesus in all things like keeping the Sabbath, then why do Sabbatarians not follow the example of Jesus in circumcision, animal sacrifices and keeping Passover?" I wish I kept this in mind when LCG persuaded me to become a Sabbatarian. Although this web site is mainly focused on Seventh Day Adventism much of that material is just as applicable to Armstrongism.

Later I ended up reading about PCG, and thanks to Wikipedia I found Mike's Enlightenment Page, the PCG focused section of Exit and Support Network. Intrigued I looked at his testimony. Today I now see this as a beautiful story of how one man came to be free of the PCG. But I was a COG believer at the time. Hence at the time I felt very sorry for him for leaving "the truth" because of PCG. I did not believe in PCG, but I did believe in LCG, so I (naively) believed that had he got in contact with Meredith's sect he would have continued n the truth. I did not go back to see what else they had to say. I assumed I had read all I needed to see. I did not read what they had to say about HWA. But back then I was a brainwashed slave and did not even know it. I thought I was free but I was enslaved.

I had very little exposure to critical material. No one forced that on me but I, overawed by their fine words, decided not to bother reading such things. I was totally convinced that I had proved these matters satisfactorily and did not need to prove "the truth" again.

How I came to allow myself to read critical material that made see the truth about the COGs was the result of what seemed at the time to be a trivial chain of events.

I was quite a quiet person till recently. I struggled with conversing with other people. I yearned to master what HWA called the art of conversation in his autobiography. Then one night I had an epiphany. I realized that I was holding myself back. I thanked God for this. Once I had seen this I became more open and tried to talk to people more.

One day I listened to a certain friend of mine and this person mentioned a religious radio station that I had not heard of before.

Fascinated I looked and found this religious radio station. I came to love various songs on it. At one time I listened to it quite a lot. I was still an Armstrongite, but I wanted to hear people speak about Godly matters.

One day I heard this radio station mention this Christian news website, ASSIST News. I quite liked it and read it occasionally. I was intrigued by its subject matter of what was happening among Christians all over the world. Readers may be interested to know that it carries a link to Plain Truth Ministries.

One day I found through ASSIST News some British Christian website. It mentioned issues typical of such sites. It was very new and there wasn't much, but it was refreshing to read a British perspective on these issues rather than that from America, as is usually the case.

However I lost track of this website. I could not find it.

One day I tried to find it through Google. I typed words based on the fact it was British and a Christian web site. There I found ukapologetics.net. I was immensely fascinated by the fact that the author of this web site, Mr. Robin Brace, was a former WCG member.

I read his testimony of being in WCG and leaving it. Because I still believed HWA and Roderick Meredith I felt really sorry that he left "the truth" to embrace apostate "Churchianity." I (naively) believed that if only he had joined Meredith's group all would have been well. But nevertheless I became fascinated with what he had to say. Finally I became determined to read the other side of the story.

Then I read of Robert Kuhn and learned how he became a multimillionaire and even a respected author after his stint in WCG ended. This did not coincide with my belief that those who left the truth would be subject to curses and find life miserable. Instead I found this man who "left the truth" actually prospering.

Then I somehow ended up reading the Ambassador Report's interview with Bobby Fischer. I found myself noting how similar his experience was to mine. When I read how he felt guilty for not paying WCG for their written materials I thought it remarkable how similar this was to my own experience.

Then I went to read the rest of Ambassador Report. I was looking at the names of the articles, excited that I had found such a treasure trove of information, and then I saw this title: A Treasury of Famous Prophecies. A sick feeling of dread filled me. I knew that HWA thought Christ would return in 1975. After his failure HWA denied he set a date, but Roderick Meredith stated in some sermons that he did set dates. I also knew that HWA predicted that Mussolini and then Hitler would be the Beast after reading early issues of The Plain Truth, although such is now clearly not the case. Somehow I had persuaded myself that these issues did not matter. Although I feared what it would say I decided to look and see.

The article began by quoting Deuteronomy 18:22: "When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him." Once I read that I knew that I had been tricked. They had deceived me! So that day in 2008 I was finally free of the deception spawned by HWA.

Let me assure you that Satan did not "get to me." Instead I realized that HWA was a false prophet and therefore God could not have worked through him. I woke up.

Then I read more from the Ambassador Report, seeing the venality of old WCG. I read of the extravagance built on the systematic exploitation of impoverished, deceived and robbed triple tithes payers. I learned about Stanley Rader. I learned the horrors of HWA's anti-medicine superstition and the many lives lost or permanently affected by this doctrine HWA stole from the Jehovah's Witnesses, and yet he hypocritically used medicines. I learned how HWA stole practically all his ideas from other sources, especially Adventism, Jehovah's Witnesses and the British-Israelism movement. I read about HWA's incest.

I now see that HWA was just a deceitful false prophet. A liar.

It was only while I was writing this blog that I perceived how such small, seemingly trivial occurrences contributed to my journey out of the darkness of Armstrongism. To me I feel that this is evidence that even in my deceived state God was looking after me. I find it truly remarkable how such little things could have caused me to find freedom from Armstrongism.