Sometimes it is stated that some of the more conservative COGs are just like WCG under HWA. Personally I prefer to emphasize that all of them are different from WCG in order to emphasize that they are not the same. Each one of them can be found to have some difference from the old WCG.
PCG has accumulated a ton of new doctrines which expand upon or even contradict old WCG. Perhaps the most obvious point is their new understanding concerning the identity of the Man of Sin. In old WCG, and in LCG while I was a follower of them, the teaching was that the Man of Sin would be the 'final Pope'. Today Gerald Flurry teach that Tkach is the Man of Sin. Originally he said it was Tkach Sr. but after he died he was replaced by Tkach, Jr. In Raising the Ruins they try to get around these problems by suggesting that Tkach Sr, was just a puppet of mysterious forces, thus retroactively disqualifying Tkach Sr from being the Man of Sin.
LCG has made various changes. They have no Apostle or Prophet, instead they have Presiding Evangelist. LCG has decided that women wearing make up is permissible.
UCG has made changes. The most obvious being their acceptance of some form of deliberative government, and a rejection of the stern one man rule approach used so ineffectively by HWA.
RCG has made changes. Dave Pack is quite skillful in presenting himself as being more faithful to old WCG than any of the other COGs. But ultimately this is untrue. Pack teaches that the King of the South is Ethiopia. This ignores the fact that the old WCG at various times did suggest that there would be a future King of the South as LCG apologist Bob Theil shows.
(Other COGs such as LCG and PCG teach that there is a yet future King of the South. LCG says a future Arab caliphate. PCG's 'That Prophet' has been much more specific, insisting that this will be Iran.)
CGG has embraced mainstream Christianity's understanding of the meaning of being born again.
So you see each of these COGs contain some deviancy from the original WCG. Therefore I feel it is better to emphasize that these churches are different from old WCG rather than emphasize their continuity.
X-Mas Exasperations
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For years, I have been writing posts that try to get to the historical
origins...
14 minutes ago
But which era of the original WCG under HWA are you comparing?
ReplyDeleteWCG/RCG of the 1930’s was different to WCG/RCG of the 40’s, which was different to the 50’s, which was different to the 60’s, which was different to the 70’s, which was different to the 80s.
Your mention make-up. Make-up under HWA went from not being an issue, to being banned, to being OK, to being banned again.
Pentecost originally followed the Jewish way of calculating it, to being on a Monday, to being on a Sunday.
For a COG to claim to be following the original WCG and HWA, they also would have to define from which particular year they were following HWA. (And indeed some of the smaller groups do this very thing – they have decided which year WCG/HWA was at its ‘most perfect’ to follow).