But despite this dogma UCG's booklet, Why Were You Born?, seeks to prop up the God Family doctrine (HWA's teaching that his followers are fated to become God beings as fully God as God is God though of a lower rank,) by citing several ancient leaders of the early Catholic Church.
While the biblical concept of deification or divinization, exaltation to godhood, is commonly ignored or dismissed in modern Christian teaching, this doctrine was well established among early theologians of mainstream tradition.
Though the writings of these men are not always biblically accurate, the following quotes from their writings demonstrate that in the first centuries after the New Testament was written many still understood the clear implications of its teachings on this subject.... (Why Were You Born?, p. 20.)After those words the booklet presents quotations from Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Athanasius and Augustine of Hippo to imply that they taught the God Family doctrine or at least something quite similar to it.
It is worth noting that when HWA began to teach the God Family doctrine he did not cite these early authors. Citing these early authors has the effect, intentionally or not, of obscuring the fact that the God Family doctrine is taught among the COGs because HWA proclaimed that to be the fate of those who followed him in his organization.
But HWA's teaching of the God Family was not original. It is widely suspected that he plagiarized this doctrine from Mormonism. Another possibility mentioned in a previous post is that he may have acquired the idea from the early Watchtower Society organization. However he acquired that doctrine he was not the first to teach such an idea,
It is unfortunate that UCG's writers should cite early Catholic writers to prop up the God Family doctrine when HWA did not cite them when he first taught that doctrine.
I've read nearly all of the writings of G. G. Rupert (including The Yellow Menace). It is clear that ALL of Armstrong's ideas came from there and he did NOT use the Mormons or the Jehovah Witnesses teaching at all. It's just coincidental if some of the teachings overlap in some small way.
ReplyDeleteAnd anyway, the Watchtower concepts of becoming God differ wildly from Armstrong's views radically. They have very different ideas than what the UCG and the other Armstrongists have.
G.G. Rupert: Never attribute to Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons or even Catholics ideas which can be explained from G.G. Rupert, when it comes to Armstrongism.
And yes, Herbert Armstrong did plagiarize heavily from John Harden Allen, but it does look like that Herbert Armstrong first found the whole bookshelf of G. G. Rupert in the Portland, Oregon Central Library before he found anything else.
I've been in the Portland, Oregon Central Library. Impressive. But probably not what it used to be....
HWA never called the early church writers the "Ante Nicene" fathers. Rather than acknowledge that collectively they formed a chain of men extending back to, and personally trained by their direct predecessor, beginning with the original apostles, he dismissed them as being "Catholic", participants in a highjacking he claimed was orchestrated by Simon Magus.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, just as in the case of dismissing COG-7 as "Sardis", this had the effect of ruling out and failing to consider anything that was said or written by these leaders. Effectively, he gagged them, preventing any influence.
What I find to be abominable is that somehow, HWA and the bogus booklet "The True History of the True Church" never got around to crediting G.G. Rupert as having been part of that history. If Gary, and some of the others who worked in HWA''s house in Pasadena had not found G.G. Rupert's written materials in the basement, nobody today would probably even know to make the connection.
BB
What's the fuss about Rupert an differing standards on copyrights. HWA never made a secret an I believe it is in the autobiography also, that his grandmother told him about the stone of scone and related myths. Nck
ReplyDeleteOh I see. I confused Rupert with Allen. So Rupert was the first to combine a few common myths among Adventists resulting in Armstrongism? Nck
ReplyDeleteSee the article in Wikipedia.
DeleteFascinating! I have now and then hinted at the COG people in the Territories, but forgot it was Rupert. As mr Doudna would say to me, "expanding my knowledge of forgotten history". I major in that sort of esoteric knowledge. Like the COG people in the Dakotas. You don't get to see that kind of thing in "Dances with wolves" or "true grit". Nck
ReplyDeleteI was just scouring through the "yellow pencil". So far I find it fascinating reading. A bloke from Muskogee lining up the current news years before the outbreak of WW1 the clash that transformed all known civilisations. Citing 1905 Japanese newspapers stating in the middle of the Russian war that the USA is the real enemy 35 years before Pearl Harbor. The man is an artist. And I thought that the prince of Ethiopia visiting the COG was the remarkable event of the day. Fascinating analysis of contemporary sources in the heart of the native American territories
ReplyDeleteNck
"Yellow Pencil"
ReplyDeleteOh pray tell, do give us more!
Where can we find this "Yellow Pencil"?
We'd like to read it too!
(A URL is all we need -- we can take it from there!)
Does it have anything to do with Bible Prophecy?
Does it make Bible Prophecy come alive?
Is British Israelism the key to Bible Prophecy after all?
Fascinating!
Even though yellow pencils have been out of fashion for some time now, except, perhaps in third world countries....
Give me that old time #2!!!
Of course there's more coming. Third World countries, wow there's an old fashioned expression. Outdated since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
ReplyDeleteI believe the Rupert book is the "missing dimension" in HWA's early development. I can see an not so educated person have prophesy come alive and relevant, then boooom Allen's book puts everything in perspective "the rise of the American empire......" so much more logical theory at the time than the Adventist assertion that the USA was the Beast power.....completely illogical to a man who had been working for the trade journals of the rising American power making its first steps on the international scene. Nck
Didn't the #2 pencil somehow revolve around the old joke about the constipated mathematician?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, we drew with all of the numbered pencils in drafting before the Cad-Cam systems came into play.
BB
Yes, it's true -- third world countries is outdated as the USSR became Russia with its protectorate the Ukraine while the middle class began disappearing in the United States during the time that the globalists began transforming the country into the United States Socialist Republic and the fourth world countries emerged with North Korea being an anomaly that doesn't fit anywhere in the scheme of things, showing that selfish dictators on par with Herbert Armstrong in personality and practice aren't all that good for the people of the government headed by a despot.
ReplyDeleteThings seem to be rearranging such that it may be China will be the only real superpower and the United States Socialist Republic will have achieved the dream of former President Barak Obama, mentored in his teen years by a card carrying Communist where there is a the white middle class will disappear to be poor by taking the money they've earned and giving it to fourth world countries so poverty is equally spread. They will also finally succeed in bringing in illegal Mexicans by the trainload, thereby allowing those running Mexico to avoid one whit of responsibility to care for their own people in a resource rich country run by drug lords and placing the responsibility for taking care of the people they want dumped on the United States on the U.S. Government.
This will happen shortly after the Democrats, liberal press and academia who have convinced the millennials that anyone who opposes them is committing a hate crime, overwhelm President Donald Trump with their relentless campaign of lies to frame him as racist and homophobic when he clearly isn't while the stupid fool Republicans fail to catch his vision as a business man trying to run America as a business and support him, passing clueless old white men's good ol' boy club legislation completely destroying the poor, elderly and helpless with their wrong-headed ideas about what a country should be all about.
Does that about cover it?
Have I missed anybody?
The Appalachians. I missed the role of the Appalachian ancient bloodlines like the McCabes in prophecy. (speaking about the God family as an expanding concept) And of course the role of the largest pencil in the world, Pennsylvania. (whereas a californian emissary would only represent the 9th economic world power) Nck
ReplyDeleteAnd we should all note that the latest court decision by U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson extends United States Constitutional rights to every citizen of every country anywhere in the world. For example, the freedom of speech now applies to people of Somalia because they have the backing of the Constitution of the United States. By extension, Bibles must now be allowed in Saudi Arabia.
ReplyDeletePossible implications of this ruling is that neither the President of the United States or Congress can prevent extraterrestrial aliens, let's say, from Andromeda from immigrating to the United States, even if they might be deemed as terrorists.
So congratulations to everyone outside the United States, you are free to come and go as you please with absolutely no restrictions whatsoever.
nck can visit any time he wants (although we recommend he avoid Tacoma, since the crime rate is high and the Russian Mafia isn't very friendly here).
Yes yes, I was just as you posted watching the fbi congres hearing on the Russian Mafia. Didn't realize they were talking about Tacoma when the people on the Hill mentioned Washington. Thanks for enlightening.
ReplyDeletenck
I first learned of the Russian Mafia in Tacoma when I talked with the owner of Lorenzo's Italian Restaurant and she told me that her son had been bullied in Tacoma school by Russian Mafia children. She was looking for alternatives for her son because it was frankly getting very dangerous for him.
ReplyDeleteAnd... [other shoe drops] since then, Lorenzo's has closed for good.
It makes us wonder....
And very funny combining two unrelated things in such a creative way.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't clear whether these postings are confused with an episode of Arrow....
ReplyDeleteBefitting the day the Chairman passed away........
ReplyDeleteReality is so much more entertaining than fiction......even if in pursuit of it......or despite.....nck
It is the one thing "we" all share. Completely unrelated, having been united over a lifetime, in an extremely creative way (or through "worst fiction ever") if you please.
ReplyDeleteMy stint with the Russian mob was during the collapse of the Soviet empire where we had to bribe our way in Leningrad port or have a lot of raiders disappointed.
To OPS. I deleted part of my story. Lest it becomes too recognizable for potential visitors and cause collateral damage. I know you understand that no malice is intended.
nck
This touches on a few scattered thoughts, one being HWA’s transition from the “revealer of (new) truth” to the “restorer of (lost) truth”. As the “revealer” it’s no secret that his recent predecessors such as G.G. Rupert and J.H. Allen revealed these “truths” to HWA in their own writings. And as he did not wish to reveal his source, he presented proof-texts and extra-biblical “evidence”, primarily those cited in the sources he plagiarized.
ReplyDeleteAs “restorer of truths lost by the early church”, I don’t recall HWA presenting evidence of the early church practicing these “truths”, let alone losing them. He may have simply left it to later apologists to find evidence for the loss of the “18 Restored Truths”.
Another thought was that if you can show a “truth” appeared to be practiced in the early church, lost, and then restored, there may be no need to “prove” the validity of the “truth”. This argument assumes the “truth” was valid in the first century, and even though “lost” remained valid. So, was true, so it must still be true; no proof needed. Of course, it could have been heresy, was stopped, and a heresy, rather than a truth, restored.
I believe the exact words of HWA were that, "God used him to "restore" truths to the Phil. era of the Church."
ReplyDeleteBut since it's a long time ago for me I guess many can come up with quotations saying that HWA claimed to be the revelator.
I don't think there can be any doubt that since the early beginnings of the church there were churches that kept to more Jewish interpretation of the NT. Even the pope would acknowledge that. As a matter of fact some have apologized for supression of dissenting thought and the protestants in general.
It seems the Celtic church stemming from Ireland until the synod of Whitby hearkened to far more Middle Eastern practices as compared to Roman. Like the celebration of 14th of Nisan etc. I guess the Celts were more accustomed to Moon worship so when scholars from Egyptian monasteries reached the Irish shores and established the Irish monastic system it developed in an entirely different way than the Southern Anglo tribes who were under Roman control.
nck
I personally believe that the myths surrounding "wise men" or patriarchs reaching Irish shores coming through the usual routes over Spain mirror the routes of the first Monks from Egypt, later transformed into a "teatephi" like story that supposedly took place 900 years before.
ReplyDeleteI believe ancient myths exactly mirror (proven) ancient trade routes or routes of travel. But the content of myths is usually a hodgepodge of events or fiction tied together in one great story some later tend to call "worst science fiction ever" , but are grounded in real events, like the establishment of the Irish church with its deviating doctrines from Rome
nck
There are several dynamics in play here. One is the natural evolutionary processes which take place. If we presume the "primacy of Peter", then a series of proclamations over hundreds or thousands of years, by whomever is in charge, is going to gradually change many things, very gradually, and for totally supportable reasons at the time such decisions and proclamations are made. If you take a slice of life from 65 A.D. (Before the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple), and compare that to a slice of life in 1965, the two slices are going to appear to be radically different. Only a scholar of history and theology who has studied the progression of edicts, and understands the reasons behind them is going to be able to make any sense out of them all. An ignorant person, painting himself as a reformer, might attempt to single-handedly reverse all of them, in an attempt to recreate the conditions of 65 A.D.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, unity is something that can happen temporarily as a function of a cause. People rally and unify, temporarily putting their differences of opinion and methodology aside. However, as time progresses, apparent monoliths give way to a texture built from many individual concepts and ideas, an ornate "whole".
Lastly, history is written from perspective, usually the predominant or official one being that of whomever emerges with power. It provides a look into the prevailing culture of the day, despite attempts at neutrality and objectivity. It often gives the impression of a monolithic culture, although the fact that there are many and diverse people from any one time and place guarantees that there will be a wide spectrum of opinion, and various nonconformists. Yet it becomes boiled down to what we might call under other circumstances or argumentation a "strawman" version of reality.
All of these dynamics, if people are not aware of them, or do not carefully consider them, open the door for a Herbert W. Armstrong type revelator or restorer.
BB
Excellent.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing I find fascinating about the Roman Catholic church is their understanding of these processes stemming from thousands years of experience.
They are very certain about what constitutes tradition and what constitutes dogma. They have a way of integrating "dissenting" groups like the Franciscans. The Franciscans were nearly exterminated for their views until they provided an excellent group to attract those that were attracted by the Waldensian ideology offering similar complaints against the roman clergy.
The description of "fundamentalism" and is very good. Exactly what happened in 1920 Americas and later in Isil territory. An attempt to "restore" the original purer faith and hearken back to "a golden time", with the promise of prosperity through the frugality of an earlier era.
The return of a savior, or messiah, a king arthur, or restoration of the city on the hill are circular attempts by man and will occur in nearly mathemetical precision on the cycles. Only the roles and players differ but the play is scripted to repetition. Shakespeare knew that.
nck