The COGs' Selective Amnesia -- Part 1

I have taken a look at PlainTruth.com which Ambassador Watch has recently highlighted. I read an article of this website that AW pointed to. In that article I read this statement:

"They [HWA and GTA] predicted long before anyone else of the coming European Union (in 1934!)"

This completely ignores the fact that HWA

• expected Christ to return by 1936. (Plain Truth, June-July, 1934, pp. 3, 5.)

• that he proclaimed Mussolini to be "the Beast" who would fight Christ at His coming.
  "Mussolini will fight Christ!" (Plain Truth, Herbert Armstrong, Jan. 1939, p. 4.)

• then Hitler became the Beast. "It is CHRIST and the Angels that Hitler will fight!... THAT is to be HITLER'S END!" (Plain Truth, March-April 1943, p. 6, left hand column, paragraph 7.) I am indebted to Wikipedia for the last two quotes.

• then after that the coming of Christ was reset to 1975,

• then said that the second coming had to occur by 2005.

Now I do not want to pick on PlainTruth.com. The COGs have used this selective historical amnesia to hide the flaws of their history for a very long time. The number of times this has happened are too numerous to recount.

The man who first started this art of selective amnesia was HWA himself.

You will not find any information on the previous failed prophecies in his last book Mystery of the Ages. In that book HWA even set a date that Christ would return by 2005. Those ordering MOA from PCG will not know of this because those statements have been cut out by PCG.

In HWA's Autobiography he wrote hundreds of pages about his life. He tells us about how he met his wife, about how he was an advertizer, his obscure disputes and power struggles with other COG7 ministers, the proud milestones of his radio broadcast show as it gradually gets bigger and bigger. We even learn how he first heard of the Pearl Harbor attack while on the first plane ride of his life and telling his audience about it just hours after it occurred (see Chapter 42). We are treated to all of these specific details about his life. He clearly recalls these little things.

Yet reading that large two volume work you would never know that he told his listeners and hearers for years and years that the Great Tribulation would occur any moment, that Christ must return by 1936, that Mussolini will battle the returning Christ, that Hitler is the Beast, that the Nazis will overthrow and conquer America and enslave them.

A book that relates HWA's personal experiences on one day (December 7, 1941) does not even mention what he taught on the radio and in his publications for years and years. For HWA to not mention such things must be judged to be a deception.

These are not 'accusations' inspired by the Devil as HWA & Co. told us but are perfectly provable facts. Some of these facts may be seen here and here.