During the Presidency of Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s Jerry Falwell entered into politics and mobilized evangelical voters to participate in the political process in order to pursue their interests and advance various policies through supporting aligned candidates for political offices. He was not the only evangelical minister to do so but he tended to get most of the attention regarding this trend. They, along with many others, helped Reagan to be elected to the Presidency in the Presidential election of 1980.
The stance of Herbert Armstrong's WCG in regards to Jerry Falwell may be seen in the following two articles.
'Born Again Politics' by HWA (Worldwide News, October 27, 1980). Here HWA's condemns Jerry Falwell for teaching that Christians are now born again upon conversion. HWA taught that one is not born again until Christ's return. HWA also restated his ban against voting.
"The Plain Truth About the So-Called CHRISTIAN RIGHT" by Jeff Calkins (Plain Truth, February 1981). Here Calkins repeats HWA's prohibition on directly participating in politics and his ban on voting. He also fear mongers that the politically active evangelicals might later forbid Sabbath observance. But reflecting the right wing leaning views of Armstrongism Calkins favorably compares Jerry Falwell, those he mobilized and the then newly elected President Reagan to King Josiah.
Afterwards HWA every now and then made sarcastic comments against Falwell in various sermons, usually mocking him for not teaching his version of the born again doctrine.
I talked with Paul Woods, the leader of the Seventh Day Church of God, earlier this year and one of the things he mentioned was the Herbert Armstrong heresy of 'begotten' vs 'born'. He said that Armstrong got this from the Salem church and pointed out that if you read the Scriptures concerning born again, saying that it means 'begotten' makes no sense. How does a fetus consume the 'meat of the word' or even 'milk of the word'?
ReplyDeleteIf we are to believe Scripture, this is another major fail left as a legacy of Herbert Armstrong.
And as for mocking, we have Herbert Armstrong's Prophetic Record as a resource to support our efforts of mocking.
In the Jewish mindset, there were several ways of being "born again." It meant that an event has taken place that changed someone's life forever. Some of the ways to be born again were: getting married, having a child, being ordained a priest or king. I Peter 1:3, 23 show that we "have been born again." It isn't something that will happen but has already happened.
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