LCG's Co-Worker Letters (January-March 2016)

So far there have been three co-worker letters released by LCG.

Earlier co-worker letters from LCG may be seen here and here.

January 19, 2016

Here Ames boasts of the various proselytizing activities of LCG. He also scare mongers about droughts.

The first week in January brought El Niño rains to California. Many hope this change in weather will help overcome severe drought conditions. ... As of January 14, the weekly United States Drought Monitor reported that 87 percent of California was experiencing “severe drought.” That is down from 94 percent a year ago, as the rainy season beginning in October 2015 has helped somewhat. The state of Nevada is experiencing severe drought over 64 percent of its land area, while Oregon—100 percent covered by severe drought in September 2015—is now down to 44 percent after heavy rains toward the end of last year.

Other regions around the world experiencing record droughts include North Korea, suffering its worst drought in 100 years; Brazil, enduring its worst drought in 50 years; and South Africa, contending with its worst drought in 20 years.

Ames complains that Obama is not religious enough for him.

Last week, in his State of the Union address, U.S. President Obama told Americans, “Our unique strengths as a nation—our optimism and work ethic, our spirit of discovery, our diversity, our commitment to rule of law—these things give us everything we need to ensure prosperity and security for generations to come.” Sadly, the President did not ask, “Whose law?” nor did he acknowledge that without God we cannot expect to “ensure prosperity and security”—for ourselves or for generations ahead.

Ames also scare mongers about the US federal debt. He seems quite fixated on that fear in these co-worker letters.

How does the U.S. Congress plan to solve the nation’s problems? ... A nation that thinks it can spend its way out of debt by borrowing trillions of dollars is in severe denial of reality. The U.S. was, at one time, the world’s most prosperous creditor nation. It has been the world’s greatest debtor nation since 1985 (more than 30 years ago). The nation continues to add to its trillions of dollars in debt. Unless it turns to God, He will judge America and other Western nations for their depravity, sinfulness, oppression, greed, lust, idolatry and evil.

Ames is wrong to scare monger on this topic. It is not possible for the US to be forced to default on the federal debt since it is denominated in its own currency which is produced by the US government. Furthermore the US was actually more in debt per capita in the 1940s because of World War II.

February 18, 2016

It's Meredith's turn this time. Here he uses an infamous metaphor.

As 2016 gets underway, we in this Work have much to be very thankful for! Although the world around us is becoming more and more confused and even “crazy” at times, we who understand really can see “light at the end of the tunnel.”

Strange he should use that metaphor seemingly with no sense of sadness considering the way this metaphor was used during the Vietnam War.

Meredith alludes to the refugee crisis.

Daily, we read and see pictures of increasing millions of distraught human beings fleeing their own countries in a desperate attempt to get to a place of safety. These people come from Africa, from the Middle East and other countries. Why? Because their human governments are failing. Because their own people are “desperate” to find a place where they and their children can have a reasonably decent feeling of physical safety, enough food and the basics of life such as proper sanitation.

Meredith then scare mongers about problems everywhere. He then abruptly fixates on Latin America.

Yet, throughout the Middle East, Africa and many nations in Asia, South America and elsewhere, their governments are failing. Millions are literally starving right now in Venezuela. There are financial upsets and government near bankruptcies in Brazil, Argentina and elsewhere throughout Latin America. Think of the hundreds of people being murdered, raped and tortured by the drug cartels in Mexico. Again, why?

Meredith then blames Americans for the drug war in Mexico.

It is because of corrupt local governments and local officials throughout the region. But also—and we Americans need to “get” this—these tragedies would not be occurring if the thousands of illegal drug users here in the United States would learn a little bit about the “meaning of life” and repent and stop buying all of these illegal drugs in the first place! For, we in America are becoming a nation of “spoiled brats” more than any other peoples on the earth. We have been given awesome physical blessings because of God’s promise to Abraham. But we have turned away from that God! We are spitting in the face of the God of the Bible in many, many ways.

Meredith then once again vilifies gays again. One would think that with so many things that can be done to manage LCG that he would have better things to do than lambasting a numerically small minority that did nothing to stop him from building his own family. For one who claims to loath homosexuality so much he seems quite intent to fixate on gays so often. He fantasizes that they shall vomit when Christ returns.

In an Op/Ed piece in this Sunday’s New York Times (February 14, 2016), I could not help but note a piece about the problems of “same-sex” couples. ... What a shame for this man to—as he himself says—betray his own “very queer identity!”

My friends, the Jesus Christ of your Bible is coming back to this earth soon! Then, this “queer” fellow quoted above will want to vomit when he finally realizes Who he has actually “betrayed” and his real “identity,” a male human being created in the image of God! We who are “called” now to understand and who fulfill our calling as true Christians will have the challenge and the opportunity to teach, to train and to genuinely help such confused and deluded human beings who will finally understand and want to fulfill their real purpose in life as potential sons of God!

Meredith insists we are "very close" to having the long awaited catastrophe to come to the United States.

When we read the inspired account in Genesis 6 of why God Almighty “destroyed” all flesh except the family of Noah, it becomes obvious that this present generation is getting very close to the same degree of human degradation as Noah’s period.

Meredith then boasts about the proselytizing activities of his LCG. It is stated that LCG's recruitment magazine had a record circulation of 539,000 issues but he also states that this is likely to decline.

My friends, I hope you are praying for the continued growth of this Work! We are grateful for the increase in our Tomorrow’s World magazine subscriptions, which reached a new record of 539,000 unique individual subscribers receiving our March-April 2016 print edition. When you keep in mind that many copies are read by two or three people, this means that perhaps more than a million of our fellow human beings are being reached by this powerful message!

Long-time subscribers may notice that this 539,000 circulation will very likely be our “all-time record,” at least for a while, since we know the ongoing “renewal” program also drops inactive readers from the list. We “renew” subscribers from time to time because we seek to be good stewards of the tithes and offerings God provides, and if a subscriber does not want the magazine after a while, we want to provide that subscription instead to someone who is truly interested.

Meredith also announces the production of yet another website to get more converts for LCG.

And finally, we are also excited about a new Web site that should be available soon after you receive this letter. This new Web site is called TheBibleSaysThat.org and it is intended to be a topical resource that asks and answers challenging questions facing professing Christianity. While the Tomorrow’s World Web site remains our primary and flagship Web site, this new Web site will be a resource and will also be used to support some new advertising initiatives that we plan to give more details on later.

This website has now been released. It is a sort of LCG-lite website. It presents the Armstrongite dogmas under the guise of simply presenting what is in the Bible but obscures the fact that these ideas were developed over many years by HWA and his followers. Many of these ideas were often acquired from other sources (Church of God (Seventh Day), Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, G. G. Rupert, Alexander Hyslop's 1850s anti-Catholic polemic, The Two Babylons, etc,). LCG's leaders did not just get these ideas from the Bible.

It even has a "Do Not Donate" page but the whole point of promoting their dogmas is to get more converts. (Maybe LCG members should follow LCG's advice on that web page and stop tithing to LCG.)

March 18, 2016

Here Ames talks about a presentation that he and Dan Hill presented in Atlanta on March 5, 2016.

Thank you very much for your continuing support and prayers for Tomorrow’s World and our efforts to preach the true gospel to the world. I appreciated meeting a number of you who attended our Atlanta, Georgia presentation, “Wake Up, America!” on March 5. Regional Pastor Dan Hall and I addressed a group of enthusiastic Tomorrow’s World subscribers and Living Church of God members.

Many expressed their agreement with my attack on the sins of America, which included:

• Greed, corruption and government mismanagement in overspending funds, while entrenching ourselves internationally as the world’s greatest debtor nation. 

• Continuing moral decline, including same-sex marriage and practices God calls an “abomination”.... 

• The sin of abortion. Americans have purposely murdered more than 50 million babies in the womb....

• Following false religions and counterfeit Christianity.

Ames also ridicules Easter.

By the time you receive this letter, hundreds of millions of professing Christians will have celebrated one such evil—a pagan Easter Sunday—on March 27. Millions of Eastern Orthodox will observe Easter a month later, on May 1. I hope you have seen Mr. Gerald Weston’s powerful Tomorrow’s World telecast, “Easter: The Untold Story.” Why do nearly all of our world’s 2.2 billion professing Christians participate in a non-biblical religious tradition named after a pagan fertility goddess? As I told our Atlanta audience, if any of you are observing that festival, you need to repent!

Ames cites HWA's Wednesday crucifixion doctrine to justify denigrating all Christians who believe in a Sunday resurrection as false.

Ames also quotes a letter from a person who is gradually accepting LCG's doctrines.

I hope this letter from a woman in Summerfield, Florida, will give you an inspiring perspective on how God is working in the minds of those who for the first time hear the gospel, “the good news,” of the coming Kingdom of God:

“I have to stop between my Bible Study Course to say thank you for the free course and all the free literature. If I didn’t receive it, I sure would be in the dark. I did not know we had a kingdom to look forward to. I listen to Mr. Meredith. He explains very well how the evil ones attack us, and I’m also learning about the feast days which I knew nothing about. Now I’m learning the truth. It’s like seeing the scriptures for the first time since I’ve become acquainted with Tomorrow’s World. Thank you again for the time and literature for reaching people like me. This Tomorrow’s World is a true gift from our Savior Jesus Christ.”

And so another person is learning to give her loyalty, allegiance and three tithes to LCG.

Other activities of LCG's are promoted.

And so we see that LCG continues to try to get more people to join LCG and pay tithes to them and to retain the loyalty of current LCG members.