Reading Mark Mendiola's Article, A Powerless America? (2001)

The thirteen issue of LCG's recruitment magazine, Tomorrow's World (July-August 2001), featured an article by Mark Mendiola of Pocatello, Idaho entitled "A Powerless America?" (pp. 20-24.) This was the eleventh of several articles Mendiola would write for this recruitment magazine. Here Mendiola cites energy management issues as evidence that the United States will soon collapse.

Simultaneous energy and water shortages jeopardize the faltering U.S. economy’s chances for a strong recovery. Bible prophecy indicates that conditions may grow much worse before they improve.

Mendiola discusses strain upon the energy supply in west coast states of the USA. He cites President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. He also cites a future Governor of Washington.

“You can today see blackouts coming, as big as life, and an energy crisis going into the fall,” said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash.

In the entire article there is no discussion about climate change.

He ends this article claiming that these energy supply problems are signs of an impending catastrophe about to hit the United States.

Is it merely coincidence that the U.S. is confronting major crises on several fronts that threaten to cause major hardships and suffering? Most experts are reluctant to cite it as a source, but the Holy Bible plainly shows a cause and-effect reason for what can accurately be described as curses plaguing the nation. Our actions— the choices we make—determine whether we are blessed or cursed. The Living Creator God who inspired the Bible warns of adverse consequences if we disobey commandments, but blessings if we are obedient to His spiritual laws. ...

God then describes curses that would result—including terrorism, disease outbreaks, farm disasters and defeat by enemies. He also describes a drought that symbolically turns the heavens and earth dry and hard. ...

U.S. energy, water and economic crises are worsening as snowpack, spring runoff and reservoir levels dwindle due to drought conditions gripping major regions of the nation. Those setbacks further weaken the nation’s power and prestige. ... Breaking God’s commandments brings national as well as individual curses on us. T he choice is ours.

LCG and the other Armstrongite groups teach that white Americans are descendants of the ancient Kingdom of Israel described in the Bible which was conquered by the Assyrians around 720 BCE. This idea is called British Israelism. This idea is used within the Armstrongite groups to insist that the frightful fate of military conquest and exile that the ancient Israelites and Jews endured will occur to the United States in the near future. The Armstrongites have been teaching this since the 1930s. But the idea called British Israelism happens to be false. Non-Jewish Americans of European descent are not descended from the ancient Israelites.

 

In this article Mendiola cites Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 11 as evidence that the United States will soon endure terrible things but those passages were describing warnings to the ancient Israelites and Jews. These warnings were alluding to the conquest of those kingdoms by the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the subsequent exiles they were forced to endure. Those Biblical passages were not talking about 21st Century America. Those Biblical passages were cited out of context. There is no need to fear the dire predictions of the Armstrongites.

In September 2006 Mendiola left LCG and joined Dave Pack's Restored Church of God. Around 2008 he left RCG and joined Don Billingsley's Church of God-Faithful Flock. He was credited as helping to produce COG-FF's magazine, The Philadelphia Remnant, as late as 2012.