He teach that Tkach, Sr. died forty Sabbaths after he delivered his sermon that renounced Armstrongism on December 17, 1994.
"So from exactly forty Sabbaths from the day he gave that sermon back in December 1994. He gave that srmon on a Sabbath and forty Sabbaths later to the very hour he died." This is what he is recorded to have said in a Weinlandite video.
When I first saw that idea being taught by Weinland I instantly remembered reading this.
And, just as a little leaven leavens the whole lump over time, so to has the apostasy in the Worldwide Church spread and grown from that one scholar, until now they have faculty members from a worldly university “instructing” the new church leadership under Joe Tkach, Jr. What an abomination! They have exchanged wholesale God’s truth for the lies of this world that the people in God’s church had learned were not true! And the leadership won’t pay attention to God, either, even when He makes it plain He does not approve. Exactly 40 weeks before his sudden death, Joe Sr. said that he believed God had inspired and was inspiring the changes. He said that if God didn’t agree, He could strike him down. exactly 40 weeks later he was dead! But did the church leadership and the brethren pay attention? No! They still go down the same path! In fact, I was kicked off of all discussion groups even among former members for suggesting that such a connection existed and that God had struck Joe down! Well, GOD DID STRIKE HIM DOWN, AND THE PRESENT MEMBERSHIP AND LEADERSHIP HAD BETTER TAKE INSTRUCTION AND WARNING FROM THE EXPERIENCE, LEST IT IS REPEATED!No, it's not Weinland. This is by M. John Allen, leader of the COG sect, Restoration Ministries, in his work, The Plain Truth About Church Government (1994, 1997).
More information on this COG splinter sect based in Costa Rica may be seen here on this blog.
Ron Weinland has been talking about that as far back as I can remember. I'm guessing 1998 is about the first time I heard this. I recall thinking that it was one very interesting factoid.
ReplyDelete(What's with the initialized names? Herbert W, Joe W, M John...)
I notice the first copyright on that publication is 1994. Joe W died 9-23-95, so the original version must not have included that statement, and the 1997 revision must have added it.
That means that M John could have beat R Weinland to the punch.
Wow! So maybe it was Allen who said this thing first.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what I thought. That particular statement could only have been made in 1997, and not when it was first released in 1994.
I have no idea why M. John Allen publishes his Armstrongite writings with that particular name with an M. at the beginning.
Also Allen expresses it diferently from Weinland. Weinland says 40 Sabbaths. Allen says 40 weeks.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to recount. one of those Sabbaths is an annual, so 40 weeks doesn't seem right.
ReplyDeleteGood luck, Luc.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, this is a pretty common belief amongst ex-WCG members who are still splinter-hopping, and looking for "the one true church". Even some who've gone towards professing Christianity believe this, I think, but that's only my opinion, based on reading between lines of some of the more fundamentalist bloggers.
ReplyDeleteI do recall a former member of the church who had started subscribing to some American whackjob who was sending out tapes (this was pre-Internet-in-every-household-days), saying essentially that he'd proven from the Bible God had punished the church for its apostasy, and Senior dropping dead was, IIRC, as a result of some verse about selling the church for coins or something to that effect.
Dunno what ever happened with the whackjob, if he managed to get his "tape ministry" splinter off of the ground, or if the person I knew even stayed with it. Likely not, as this was a type of person who followed whatever whim came from the mouth of the one who sounded the most "authoritative".....I'm just glad I never ended up splinter-hopping.
The "one true church" was dead and gone, there just didn't seem to be any point, since I didn't believe ANY of the 700+ splinters (there weren't that many back then, but you know what I mean) were "the true church of god".