Monday, December 31, 2012

I was Deceived by Bob Thiel

I first encountered Tomorrow's World, LCG's telecast, in early 2000. I became persuaded that they were the true religion and that God is working through them. I should follow them, I thought.

But I knew absolutely nothing about them. I knew nothing about Armstrongism, HWA or WCG. Later a saw a news report about a cult. In the course of this report it mentioned that the cult was started by ex-WCG members. This greatly agitated me. Because I this I decided I needed to know what this religion was.

I learned about HWA and his WCG, that his successor had changed WCG and that there were literally hundreds of Armstrongite COGs out there.

Because there were others it was difficult for me to decide which one I should align myself with. All I knew was from LCG, but their website did not provide information to decide what set LCG apart from the other COGs.

I went looking around and discovered Bob Thiel. I was informed before I visited that he supported Meredith. But I went there. He compared the major COGs (UCG, PCG, RCG, and many others) with LCG and confidently argued that LCG was where God is working today.

UCG votes among themselves unlike old WCG, but LCG has one man rule as HWA recommended, he said.

PCG has all these bizarre and crazy doctrines so God cannot be working through them.

RCG teaches that HWA was the end time Elijah, but LCG does not dogmatically assert this.

After reading things such as these I decided that LCG must be where God is working and gave my heart to LCG, thinking I was giving it to God.

Oh, what a cruel mistake that was. One of the worst decisions of my life. I did not suffer financially but it was terrible. I sacrificed peace of mind to follow what dictates of theirs as I could, straining relations with family and friends, only to later learn I was but chasing the wind.

Later, in late 2008, I discovered that HWA was a liar. I discovered that the failed predictions he made proved that HWA was a false prophet. I learned that he made many false predictions that Christ would return in 1936, after World War II, 1975, by 2005, etc. I was aware of some of these failed predictions before 2008, but being brainwashed as I was, I simply assumed he was off in his timing and that these events would occur later. I did not see that his many false predictions proved that God was not working through him.

Knowing this I had no choice but to renounce that wicked false prophet Roderick C. Meredith and his predecessor HWA.

Then I discovered about Divorce and Remarriage which Roderick Meredith enforced under HWA's dictates, the anti-medicine superstition he took from the Jehovah's Witnesses that killed many WCG members (and continues to do so in some COG splinter groups like PCG), that HWA took three tithes from WCG members and LCG continues to do so (second and third tithes were never mentioned in LCG's deceptive recruitment writings), that HWA had a ten year incestuous relationship with his own daughter, that there is no difference between the moral law and ceremonial law in the Old Testament (HWA took this idea from Seventh Day Adventists and related groups) and many other things that made me deeply ashamed to be a part of this false and disgraceful religious movement.

Now Bob Thiel has created his own COG. How I wish he broke away from LCG before. He would have saved me a lot of trouble.

He complains that Meredith said 'factually inaccurate' answers in response to his queries. The evidence that Meredith was a liar has been around for decades. He deluded himself into not seeing it. He should have seen through him during the split of 1998.

It is terrible that he has gone against just about all that he has said before to support LCG and decided, in his overweening arrogance, that Meredith and LCG are not good enough for him so he has started up his own COG as though he were another HWA or Roderick Meredith, and trying to get followers to give him tithes.

This Bob Thiel deserves absolutely no financial support from anyone. He has rebelled against the organization he has so long claimed to be the one true church. By his own previous standards he is a Laodicean hindering the effort of the so-called one true church in spreading its deceptive propaganda to lure people, like me, into a web of deceit and fear to get their money.

Bob Thiel must repent and renounce Armstrongism. I will not tell what he should convert to, but he certainly have no moral right to arrogantly and rebelliously set himself up as another little HWA to further delude and abuse deceived followers just like Meredith and HWA.

What a disgrace this man is. 

2 comments:

  1. I am empathetic with your experience: So sorry for your loss.

    It is a great loss: A loss of respect and trust in people who tricked us with their con games -- it's like ripping a part of us away -- a very painful process, indeed.

    The lesson, if there is one, is that it is useless to seek competence from the Armstrongists: There isn't any by design.

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  2. Thank you. Your kind comment is appreciated.

    You know, I thought I was over this whole blasted Armstrongism mess, but learning about Bob Thiel's break with LCG has quite infuriated me. Although I feel a lot better about now. It's like, I can't be bothered taking it so personally anymore.

    But that does not change my view of the man. As far as I am concerned he is a deluded scoundrel who, alas, could cause real mischief to anyone who takes him too seriously.

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