Living Armstrongism: Go Back to Africa?

Friday, January 22, 2010

Go Back to Africa?

I was reading this interview of The Times with Nick Griffin, leader of the infamous far right British National Party. In former days the party used to be explicitely racist although it has softened its openly racist character in recent times and now professes to be 'ethno-nationalist'. Though they still oppose interracial marriage.

Here he offers this advice on what the USA should do with African-Americans.

He thinks American blacks should have been resettled in Africa “because the two peoples living side by side would cause problems forever”.

This seems very similar to advice the April, 1957, Plain Truth gave in the article, 'The Race Question'. Here Hoeh advises African-Americans to go back to Africa.

America could have solved the whole race question by providing a home in Africa and putting all Negroes [sic] back on their rightful, God-given inheritance. (p. 23.)

Doesn't he know about Liberia? That country was established in the 1820s by Americans in order to be an African home for freed slaves and gained independence in 1847. Not every freed slave went there. So this solution has already been tried by some.

The whole problem would have been solved if the Negroes had been restored to their rightful inheritance in Africa....The Negro [sic] should have been returned to his rightful inheritance in Africa, just as Egypt should have returned the enslaved Israelites to Palestine. (p. 23.)

Where in Africa? There are many different tribes speaking different languages. The African-Americans' ancestors came from all over Africa and, unlike the enslaved Israelites, they do not know their ancestors' place of origin. So, based on his thinking, they do not know what their 'rightful inheritance' is anyway.

So this is very bad advice for African-Americans. Impossible.

It also ignores the fact that there are ethnic communities scattered all over the world. This advice denies the reality of such things. It is the product of a severe dogmatism that is not based on reality.

I find it strange and disturbing to see an extremist politician offer advice very similar to that given in The Plain Truth.

2 comments:

Felix Taylor, Jr.January 23, 2010 at 8:18 AM
Another sensible article here as always! As an African Canadian I remember this "going back to Africa" nonsense when I was growing up in the historic WCG. Not even bigoted whites liked the idea,there were even blacks who just was crazy about it. Thank God for exposing some "realities" about this strage bizzare fantasy. Canadian I was born and Canadian will die. The racists can stick it where the sun don't shine!
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RichardJanuary 23, 2010 at 8:31 AM
Methinks Herman Hoeh rethought that position after 1957. As I recall, He became a big supporter and friend of ethnic Thais in southern California before his death.
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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

Friday, January 22, 2010

Go Back to Africa?

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Fall of Berlin Wall NOT Proof HWA was Right

Truth about Roderick C. Meredith

The Truth About Europe and Prophecy

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