Living Armstrongism: Thoughts Regarding Christmas

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Thoughts Regarding Christmas

Soon it will be Christmas. Many people will be gathered together to celebrate.

Traditionally the COGs have forbidden their followers from observing Christmas say that it is of pagan origin. So is the Latin alphabet that is used to write English and which is used in your Bibles. This is an absurd argument.

Let me say here that the true reason HWA and his imitators forbid Christmas is that they are trying to isolate their followers from society in order to control them more effectively.

Persuading people that they are forbidden from observing gatherings in Christmas isolate them from their families. This inevitably causes tension. The COG follower is indoctrinated into believing he or she is being tested by God and must stay away. It does not occur to them they are being led into isolation within an authoritarian cult.

I am reminded of what one commenter said, saying that it is an extremely wicked thing to isolate people from their families. This person is correct.

Many ex-COG members have resumed celebrating Christmas in their own ways with family and friends after years of cultic oppression by HWA and his imitators. Some do so religiously, others more as a secular celebration because everyone else is doing it. Either way this is a good thing allowing people to come together for this happy occasion.

Recently some COGs have started holding Winter Family Weekends. I remember fuming when I heard about this long after I had renounced Armstrongism. Perhaps it is a good things for the COG members but it certainly goes against what HWA taught.

The COGs desperately need to abandon this useless self righteous ban on Christmas, this artificial way of pretending to be morally superior than everyone else. HWA banned women's makeup claiming they were a sign of vanity. How vain is it to say you are morally better than others by not celebrating Christmas and condemning it as sinful?

Let me say Happy Christmas to everyone celebrating this important occasion, especially to those who have renounced HWA's self serving ban on Christmas. Whether religious or secular this celebration is a good thing and is to be encouraged. Every Christmas must seem especially important to them as a step out of Armstrongite oppression.

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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

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Thoughts Regarding Christmas

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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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Truth About The Key of David's Gerald Flurry and his PCG

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