Old WCG Was a Doomsday Cult, Bob Theil

Bob Theil made an article: Australian Wrong: Old Worldwide Church of God Was Not a Doomsday Cult. In response to the release of a semi-autobiographical novel written by an Australian ex-WCG member, Bob Theil insists that old WCG was not a doomsday cult.

There are a lot of misunderstandings about the old Worldwide Church of God (WCG).
But it was not a “doomsday cult.”

Those of us who were part of the old WCG and in the current Living Church of God (LCG) are not like the Jim Jones’ followers–we do not plan on drinking poisoned flavor-aid to end our lives.

This statement is very deceptive. What the old WCG under HWA did do was forbid followers from using medicine or going to doctors causing tragic and needless deaths. Herbert W. Armstrong appears to have gained this anti-medicine superstition from the Jehovah's Witnesses, in which members were also forbidden from using vaccines from 1921 till 1952. Here Bob Theil shamefully ignores this most dreadful and atrocious behavior HWA forced upon his followers and banishes it down the memory hole.

Let us now continue:

Although some are expected to die in persecutions, LCG church members mainly hope to live until the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of His kingdom, and hope to proclaim the truths of the Bible to the world as a witness until the end (Matthew 24:14)....

As far as preaching prophecies in the Bible that show that the Anglo-descended nations will be chastised if they do not repent, yes the old WCG and current LCG taught that .... But urging repentance is not a sign of being a doomsday cult. It is a sign of trying to follow what Jesus said to do.

Bob Theil is wrong. Old WCG was a doomsday cult. HWA and his cronies constantly abused the Bible and viciously used false prophetic interpretations to sow fear of being caught within the Great Tribulation to force followers to follow the dictatorial rule of the so called ministers.

HWA taught that Jesus Christ would return in 1936, then after World War II, then in 1975, then he declared in Mystery of the Ages that He would return by 2005. (PCG removed that embarrassing false prophecy in their version, so you will not see it there.)

Those were not just speculations, as was deceptively taught after these failures, but preached as definite facts. They failed. These false prophecies prove that HWA was never a man used by God.

But these facts are simply ignored by HWA's followers, such as Bob Theil, pretending these things did not happen and deluding themselves that HWA was a man sent from God when he most certainly was not.