Reading PCG's Booklet, Daniel Unlocks Revelation: Part 2

Continuing from Part 1 let us conclude this reading of Gerald Flurry's booklet, Daniel Unlocks Revelation. The original 2005 version of this booklet is discussed in this post. The current 2019 version of this booklet may be read on their website.

Chapter 4

Gerald Flurry denounces an article by Herman Hoeh from the November-December 1987 issue of Good News (pp. 9-12) and accuses him of minimizing HWA's importance in producing (PCG's approved interpretation of) prophecy.

In an article he wrote less than one year after Herbert W. Armstrong's death, A Sealed Prophecy Now Open to Understanding," Herman Hoeh didn't mention anything about the many revelations that God gave to Mr. Armstrong. ... Dr. Hoeh wrote, "Some tried to explain this enigmatic prophecy before God's time came to reveal it." Those are strong words. He was implying that God had revealed this prophecy to him, for the Church. The truth is, God did no such thing. (pp. 77-78.) 

Flurry fails to mention that Hoeh's article was a denunciation of the Seventh Day Adventist interpretation of Daniel 8. Several times Hoeh mentions interpretations that link Daniel 8 to the date 1844. Hoeh's article is clearly criticizing the Seventh Day Adventist interpretation of this passage. However Flurry presented Hoeh's article as though it were an attempt to minimize HWA's contribution the Armstrongite interpretation of prophecy. Anyone who soberly looked up what Hoeh said in that 1987 article will see that is not true.

Even though Flurry states that Hoeh's article was written less than a year after HWA's death it was actually published over a year after HWA's death when it was published in the November-December 1987 issue of Good News.

Flurry then links Hoeh with the court case with Tkach's WCG which is melodramatically portrayed as an attempt to hang on to (what the PCG leadership calls) the truth.

In fact, we had to fight him [Herman Hoeh] personally in court depositions to hang on to that truth! (p. 79.)

How can these words be true? It is not legally possible for Tkach's WCG to prevent PCG from practicing their religion. It would have been easy for PCG to continue practicing their religion without using HWA's writings just like every other Armstrongite group like LCG, UCG, COGWA and the others. If PCG had done that they would have avoided a lengthy and expensive court case.

Flurry accuses Hoeh of making false predictions without authorization from HWA. However he does not state what prediction he is referring to.

Even when Mr. Armstrong was ill, Dr. Hoeh came out with some prophecies that were wrong and quite different than what Mr. Armstrong was used by God to restore. We must be certain not to make that mistake! Why would men of such high rank, to whom God had given such honor, make such catastrophic mistakes? (p. 79.) 

Moving on from Flurry's bitter denunciation he then insists that there is some mystical meaning in regards to Daniel's name.

As I emphasized in Daniel: Unsealed at Last!, the meaning of the book’s name is critical: “God is my judge.” (p. 80.)

That is the name of Daniel. To take his name and assume it reveals something about the content of the book is taking his name out of context.

Pages 81-84 is largely a rehash of Armstrongite dogma citing Daniel and Revelation.

Then came 10 resurrections of that beast. This power kept coming back. Here God says it received a deadly wound. We mustn’t have the misconception that it just degenerated and collapsed—it received a deadly wound and almost died. That is why the Roman Catholic Church had such a vengeance in resurrecting a strong empire—the last seven of those 10 horns (after the first three horns were uprooted). (p. 84.)

This is not true. The Papacy did not revive the Roman Empire. The Papacy did not trick the Byzantine Empire to conquer Italy. The Byzantine Empire, under the leadership of Emperor Justinian, chose to advance into what we now call Italy for their own motives. The claim that the Papacy caused the Byzantine Empire's expansion at this time is an Armstrongite myth made to promote Armstrongite false prophecies.

In A.D. 554, Justinian, Emperor of the East, from Constantinople, set up his government through an Imperial Legate at Ravenna, Italy, and brought about what is known in history as the “Imperial Restoration” of the Empire. (p. 84.)

The Imperial Restoration is practically only mentioned by Armstrongites to prop up their prophetic dogmas. Look up any account of the Byzantine Empire during the reign of Emperor Justinian (527-65) in the history books. The Imperial Restoration as taught by the Armstrongites is a myth.

Flurry then praises "Philadelphians," in this context PCG members in good standing, as loving prophecy as opposed to "Laodiceans" in this context followers of WCG/GCI after the Tkach changes. And because Flurry thinks love and obeying rules are the same this leads him to make a call for his followers to follow rituals and rules derived from Armstrongism's selective adoption of certain Jewish rituals and rules. 

Flurry then goes back to "loving prophecy" by saying the future Germany and the future Papacy would be very scary and horrifying. Flurry insists that a scary German leader fated to conquer America is about to arise. At this time in 2005 the PCG leadership was fixated on Edmund Stoiber, chairman of the Christian Social Union.

This man doesn’t think he would do murderous deeds (Isaiah 10:6-7). But Satan is going to get to him—he will experience a mind change (Habakkuk 1:11).  

That man could be coming on the scene as early as this year--2005--or 2006. There has been a dramatic shift in German politics and new elections are scheduled to be held in September of this year. Watch those elections when they come! Or see how a man could manipulate the system. Regardless of when this "king of fierce countenance" appears, it is going to be for an extremely short span of time. (p. 96.)

Stoiber has been chairman of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria from 1999. He challenged Schröder in the 2002 election. He lost but the PCG leadership continued to scare monger about him to their followers. Contrary to PCG's prediction Stoiber left the chairmanship in 2007. From about 2009 onward PCG redirected their scare mongering on Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. PCG has quietly erased their previous speculation. Here is how this passage now appears in the current 2019 version of this booklet.

This man doesn’t think he would do murderous deeds (Isaiah 10:6-7). But Satan is going to get to him—he will experience a mind change (Habakkuk 1:11).  

 

That man could be coming on the scene very soon. Regardless of when this “king of fierce countenance” appears, it is going to be for an extremely short span of time. (2019 edition, p. 124.)

Clearly the PCG leadership cannot predict the future.

Flurry ends with this call to his readers for supporting PCG.

It is left to us now--you and me. This little remnant has been given that watch. We're all that is left, and God says, I want you to WATCH and PRAY, PROCLAIM my message and finish the work! Then, we will all STAND BEFORE THE SON OF MAN! (p. 102.)

However the PCG leadership have made many false prophecies since its founding in 1989 thus proving that the PCG leadership cannot see what will happen in the future. There is no need to be afraid of PCG's dire predictions of the future.

Reading PCG's Booklet, Daniel Unlocks Revelation: Part 1

Banned by HWA has revealed a letter Gerald Flurry published on February 3, 2017 demanding his followers send in money to fund the purchase of a privately owned airplane. In the letter it is estimated that it will cost about $9-11 million to purchase the plane and cost an additional $2 million per year to maintain it. In 2012 PCG's yearly income was about $19.5 million so  is a huge expense that he is placing upon tithing PCG lay members.

The road to this degraded spectacle of excess was paved with the various booklets that PCG's leadership has produced over the years. One such booklet was Gerald Flurry's 2005 booklet, Daniel Unlocks Revelation. Here Flurry asserts that PCG's doctrines are divinely revealed to the leaders and are not reached by simply properly understanding the Bible; denounce Tkach as a modern day Antiochus; insists that his PCG is the voice of (PCG's) God; complains that some people do not loath Germans as much as he does; alleges that a 1984 booklet was published without HWA's knowledge and makes other statements. You can read this booklet on their website.

This post discusses the original 2005 printing of this booklet.

Let us see what he has to say.

Chapter 1

And astoundingly, we understand most of this book today—more than the Church ever has! (p. 4.)

But if PCG understands Revelation more than anyone else among all who are called Christians then why give any respect to them? If this is true it means PCG is greater than the Apostles.

Christ also wants to make sure of that—in fact, He spent His whole ministry trying to get us to honor the Father. He came to this Earth to declare the Father (John 1:18). Nobody on Earth understands that except the very elect! (p. 4.)

Here "the very elect" is a loaded term meaning "those in PCG". Once again Flurry claims that his PCG are the only ones on all the Earth that properly understands this. But in fact most of the other COG groups also place great emphasis on worshiping God the Father. They also have a Father focus just like PCG. Why does Flurry say untrue things?

If we don’t approach this with the right honor for God the Father, we will never understand what He’s doing! We’ll get lost like the Laodiceans, who have completely lost the God Family understanding. (p. 5.)

While those words are true regarding Tkach's WCG in fact the other COG groups continue to fervently believe in and teach the same God Family doctrine that HWA taught. Why does Flurry say untrue things?

There is a dramatic time emphasis here —when “one is” during the sixth resurrection of the beast! God sent an apostle (“one sent from God”) when “five are fallen, and one is.” God the Father sent Mr. Armstrong at a precise time to proclaim His message to the world when “five are fallen and one is. ” That means that God would send a man on the scene to understand events surrounding the sixth Holy Roman Empire—when “one is.” (p. 6.)

It is conveniently ignored that HWA taught that World War II would end with the return of Christ during those days.

And it was out of the Roman Empire that the Holy Roman Empire arose in A.D. 554. (p. 6.)

Outside of the COGs the Byzantine Empire is never referred to as the Holy Roman Empire. Armstrongism's insistence on calling the Byzantine Empire something else is yet another example of loading the term.

These prophecies were revealed to Herbert W. Armstrong. God would reveal much more to the PCG after Mr. Armstrong died. (p. 7.)

After Gerald Flurry established PCG he would change various dogmas and interpretations and release these new doctrines to PCG members as "new revelation".

Really, if we understood this one verse while Mr. Armstrong was alive, we could have realized that he probably would not have been alive during the final resurrection of the beast! (p. 7.)

It was widely taught by WCG's leaders that HWA would still be alive when Christ returned.

There is no way you can understand the book of Revelation without understanding the book of Daniel. Daniel 2 is the key to understanding Daniel 7. Daniel 7 is the key to understanding Revelation 13. Revelation 13 is the key to understanding Revelation 17. And the book of Revelation shows the time frame of all Bible prophecy. (p. 9.)

It was William Miller who taught this interpretation back in the 1830s and 1840s. HWA, Flurry and the other COG leaders are but imitating their predecessor Miller.

We will witness only one more head—then we can forget about the beast! Wars, terrorism, weather disasters—it will all be gone forever! When “the other” comes and finishes its work, Christ is going to come and rule forever! That’s what we need to get excited about most of all , not some titillating prophecy about the beast . (pp. 9-10.)

That would be a lot easier for PCG members to do if the PCG 1% did not constantly use "titillating" prophecies to get more members for PCG.

Revelation 17:6 shows the beast drunk on the blood of God’s saints. Many of the Laodiceans are saying nice things about that woman, but she has a history of murdering the people of God! That is what she does best! Yet the Laodiceans don’t have enough courage to tell this world what she is, even though that is what God has commanded us to do. (p. 10.)

While this may be true of Tkach's WCG the other COGs continue to fervently believe and teach that the Roman Catholic Church is the Woman described in Revelation 17.

Notice how God’s Church is intertwined with the beast. We are its number-one enemy. And those who are Laodicean—95 percent of God’s people today—will not be protected by God. They are going to die a bloody death and finally see—the hard way—just how deadly this murderous whore is. And hopefully they will believe God then and never forsake Him again. (p. 10.)

PCG insists that all those in the other COG groups are doomed to endure the Great Tribulation. PCG says the only way to escape the Great Tribulation is to join PCG and pay it three tithes for the rest of your life.

There is a two-pronged duality here. Antiochus is a type of both the spiritual and physical abomination in the latter days. First, an Antiochus is used by Satan to destroy God’s Church, spiritual Israel, from the inside. Then there is an Antiochus—leading the Holy Roman Empire—who destroys the nations of Israel. So there are two Antiochus types who destroy both spiritual and physical Israel. (p. 11.)

In 2013 Flurry would add to this dogma and insinuate that President Obama is another Antiochus just like Tkach and the future European dictator fated to conquer America. Essentially Flurry called Obama an Antichrist like figure.

Flurry later fear mongers about Satan and insist that he is very powerful.

God has an army of angels and saints. Satan has an army of demons and men—in this case sinning saints. In Daniel 10 is the example of Gabriel delivering a prophecy to Daniel and being attacked by Satan. Gabriel sent for Michael, and it took Michael and Gabriel 21 days to get past him! (Daniel 10:13). Satan has prodigious power! We really are in a spiritual war! The Philadelphia Church of God is fighting the same enemy that Daniel, Gabriel and Michael fought! This war is invisible. But the very elect are acutely aware of it! (pp. 11-12.)

Didn't Flurry just insist that PCG members should not fixate their attention on "titillating" stuff?

We are commanded to prophesy again as Mr. Armstrong did. The emphasis is on the warning—not the gospel, as it was with Mr. Armstrong. That is because time is so short and world events are extremely horrifying. We are in the period of time when Satan is cast down —the Laodicean era. We still preach the gospel to the world. However, we emphasize the warning that leads to the good news. The warning still points to the return of Jesus Christ—the good news of the coming Kingdom of God (or the gospel). This vision of Daniel 8:9-27 ends with the return of Christ. (p. 12.)

How confusing this is. One moment Flurry says not to focus so much on prophecy. Next he is talking all about such claimed prophecies.

Flurry then insists that Ambassador Auditorium was specifically mentioned in the Bible and he insinuates that it will later be demolished.

The place of God’s sanctuary was cast down. The International Critical Commentary says, “The word for place is rare, implying a construction.” Yes, it is rare: it’s talking about the Ambassador Auditorium. Mr. Armstrong called it God’s house—it was built as a place to worship and glorify God. It has already been destroyed spiritually, and I would expect that it will be destroyed physically as well. (p. 13.)

Twelve years later Ambassador Auditorium is still standing. It is now owned by a church unaffiliated with Armstrongism but it still stands.

Flurry then threatens the salvation of his followers by saying that if a PCG member fails to put one's heart into building up PCG he or she might lose salvation.

The priority in Daniel 8 is the work. When Satan destroyed that, he knew everything was destroyed. If we don’t do the work, the Church dies. The work, or open door, identifies the Church (Revelation 3:7-8). That is how you know where God is. You individually must put your heart into the work, or you will die spiritually! (p. 15.)

Such threatening language will frighten those convinced that remaining in PCG is the only way to be in contact with God.

Look how quickly the leaders in Pasadena got rid of Mystery of the Ages after Mr. Armstrong died! Joe Tkach Jr. said that Mystery of the Ages was riddled with errors—but in fact, it was critical to the work! We use it all the time; it is required reading for baptismal candidates. One Laodicean evangelist (who has since died) said it was essential to God’s work; shortly after that, his boss said it was “riddled with errors.” Then the evangelist changed his own thinking to agree with his human boss! We must have more spiritual depth and courage than that! (p. 15.)

And so it is revealed again that PCG uses HWA's last book as required reading for those wishing to be baptized by PCG.

He is leading us into spiritual warfare. He led us into a six-year court battle, and because we followed, we won the rights to print Mr. Armstrong’s writings and now the work is flourishing as never before. We would never do this work if we didn’t have a wartime frame of mind. Daniel had a 21-day battle; we had a six-year battle! That makes sense, because Christ is about to return and Satan is more wrathful than ever. We fight against Satan’s army—millions of demons. Are we aware of the invisible warriors? (p. 18.)

So Flurry boasts that PCG is now flourishing as never before after gaining the copyrights to some of HWA's writings. Twelve years later how true is this for PCG? Especially now that Flurry wants to add the financial burden of a private airplane upon PCG's expenses?

First, let’s look at the abomination inside God’s Church. When did the transgressors “come to the full,” spiritually? Certainly that happened in the court case. As it says in verses 11-12, they were saints who did fight for Christ, but then they turned and fought against Christ! The transgressors really came to the full then. If that wasn’t the peak of their evil, it was extremely close. That horror started when the son of perdition started putting the emphasis on the college. He destroyed God’s truth and began talking in enigmas and riddles. In the beginning of the WCG after Mr. Armstrong died, there were many doctrinal changes. Some of the ministers and people asked about those changes. The leadership would say, “Changes? What changes?” Then after they completely destroyed the major doctrines, they boasted about the changes. This evil leader, inside God’s own Church, is a type of Antiochus, whom historians describe as a Machiavellian diplomat—he had a monstrous skill at deceiving people. (p. 18.)

By "son of perdition" Flurry means Tkach.

Now he has been a “king of fierce countenance” in totally wrecking God’s Church—not with God’s government, but the government of the devil! (p. 19.)

If there was no one man rule as HWA established within WCG then Tkach would never have been able to change WCG the way he did. But Flurry sidesteps that issue.

We need to watch the European Union for a man stepping in and seizing control of that entity through flatteries. He is going to hijack the EU. We need to watch the great whore for signs of her riding the beast. Politics in Europe are going to shift dramatically to the right. (p. 20.)

Ironically PCG happens to lean far to the right themselves. Nevertheless PCG has often scare mongered that Europe will shift to the right and turn against the United States and conquer it.

In the quote below the bracketed section is in the original booklet.

I’m sure the false church will be working behind the scenes. Most likely, we will see a church leader come along who knows the German system and will help get the political leader in who can really swing Europe around—a good strong believer of this church’s doctrines. [This was written before Pope Benedict XVI, a German pope, was coronated.] That political emperor is out there now, looking for an empire. As world troubles become more frightening, the empire will be seeking an emperor. (p. 20.)

And later, unexpectedly for PCG, Pope Benedict resigned.

It’s not easy to look at things that way, but how important it is! Many young people want to marry—but how many want to marry someone who’s wrapped up in the return of Jesus Christ? What a wonderful mate that would be! What joy and success comes from having a mate, and being around people, who can help you build your life around finishing God’s work! (p. 22.)

Flurry insists Daniel 8 means Christ's return is very near.

Daniel 8:9-27 is all one vision. Here is the point of this vision : If the truth of God has been cast down, CHRIST IS ABOUT TO RETURN. If the place of God’s sanctuary has been cast down, CHRIST IS ABOUT TO RETURN. If an evil Antiochus rules God’s Church, CHRIST IS ABOUT TO RETURN. If there was a Malachi’s Message used to cleanse His Church , CHRIST IS ABOUT TO RETURN — in this last end, and now this last hour. (p. 22.)

Chapter 2

Flurry boasts that after Christ's return PCG members will conquer the world. Any opposition will be destroyed.

Nebuchadnezzar really uttered a prophecy of what will soon happen when the saints of God rule with a rod of iron! If people don’t bow down to the true God, they’ll be cut in pieces—and much worse! Nebuchadnezzar recognized that this was the way it had to be: he could see that no other god was as strong as this God—the same God who leads the Philadelphia Church of God today. (p. 28.)

And so often PCG vilifies other religions such as the Roman Catholic Church and the Muslim community of somehow yearning to take over the world. And yet PCG teaches that they themselves shall do this after Christ's return.

How about us? If we don’t receive blessings, something is not right in our lives. Perhaps we aren’t passing our tests and trials. (p. 29.)

If something goes wrong Flurry insists it cannot be PCG's fault. If a PCG member pays the three tithes and endures financial problems because of this Flurry is denying that they could possibly blame PCG's practices for his or her problems.

God the Father wants a family. He loves the people of this world deeply. He wants to give them life —but they won’t accept it! God knows that, for most of them, it’s going to take a lot of correction before they’ll recognize His plan for them and accept an invitation into His Family. (p. 31.)

This denigration of humanity is a license for PCG ministers to treat their followers harshly.

God’s lukewarm people don’t honor their Father (Malachi 1:6). Already they have lost God’s family plan, which is the gospel! They don’t see God’s family plan in the book of Daniel or throughout the whole Bible. What blindness! They have lost everything. What a massive tragedy! (p. 31.)

Why does Flurry say untrue things? Many of the COG groups continue to teach and fervently believe in HWA's God Family dogma.

Human nature is not humble; it is self-willed, and we all have it! Don’t kid yourself! We don’t realize how self-willed we are, so God has to show us! God knows how to humble the proud. Sometimes He has to get out His paddle and correct us. He tries and tests us, because He is shaping and molding—He wants us to rule the world. We must respond to that correction in the right way. We want to be like Daniel and say God is my judge. We had better be humble people.

Those who walk in pride, God is able to abase. In fact, we should regularly ask God to humble us in His mercy. (p. 32.)

And so we see Flurry teaching his followers to loath themselves and even reform their minds to welcome being rebuked by PCG's leaders.

Nebuchadnezzar wrote part of the book of Daniel, including these verses. Sir Henry Rawlings was a famous historian. He found a document by Nebuchadnezzar where he recorded this exactly as Daniel did. (p. 33.)

Is this anecdote true?

Is there a better book in the Bible regarding trials than Daniel? These men were consistently tried and promoted, tried and prospered—it was an endless cycle. We too are being tried and tested, and we prosper and are promoted. God is judging us, grading us, evaluating us. God wants us to learn to let Him judge us and to totally put our lives in His hands, as Daniel did. (p. 35.)

Flurry uses the example of Daniel and his friends to insist that PCG's dogmas that members will get to be God Family members in the future are true.

Here Flurry tries his hand at divination using the names of Daniel and his three friends.

The Jewish names of Daniel and his three friends carry special significance. The letters in their names can be assigned specific numeric values: Daniel, 95; Hananiah, 120; Mishael, 381; and Azariah, 292. Those numbers all add up to 888. Seven is perfection. But 888 is above perfection —which is what God is! (p. 35.)

888 is indeed above 7, just like 8, 9 and 10. What bizarre words he says here.

Flurry insists that PCG's God want a house for God like HWA's Ambassador Auditorium. This indicates that as early as 2005 Flurry was contemplating the construction of Armstrong Auditorium.

So why would God want a physical house of God today? Because it is a type of God’s spiritual house. This physical building helps reinforce in our minds that we are called today for one purpose: to do God’s work—which declares His message. Otherwise, we would be called after Christ returns like all the rest of humanity. Today, we are the small firstfruit harvest to help God with the great fall harvest of all humanity. This is the understanding that the Laodiceans—95 percent of God’s people—never did get. Or if they really got that message, they lost it. (p. 36.)

Flurry insists that one can only be right with God by being in PCG.

There is often a strength if you “remember your roots.” What a dramatic difference it would make if spiritual Israel—the Laodiceans—and the nations of Israel would remember their roots—their history with God! Only they have roots worth remembering! (p. 41.)

Flurry constantly insists to his followers that they are the true royalty as they are fated to rule the world under Christ for a thousand years and even afterwards will rule over those born into the God Family after Christ's return for all eternity.

We are God’s royalty! We will rule over Nebuchadnezzar and the kings of this world. God’s people must focus on the throne we’ll be sitting on and on God’s palace. We are already kings and priests who outrank every king on Earth! (p. 42.)

Maybe PCG members should see how far this claim of privilege go and argue with the IRS about taxes. On second thought they should not do such a thing.

Flurry then insists that his PCG is the voice of God.

People must hearken to “the voice” of God. Where is that voice? Who is speaking for God today? That voice is being trumpeted by the Philadelphia Church of God today. (p. 43.)

This is not true. PCG have made many false prophecies. There is no need for us to think that PCG just might be onto something. They are not. They are but false prophets.

Flurry fear mongers about various nations to insinuate that they will somehow destroy the United States in the near future.

Who sends these enemies to destroy us? God does it because of our vile sins! ... The Holy Roman Empire is going to besiege modern Israel in all our gates and then destroy us.

You can already see this prophecy moving toward its fulfillment; the European Union is moving into South America, making trade agreements that are taking business away from the United States. Venezuela, which has exported oil to the U.S. for years, now wants to award those contracts to China instead. Why would Latin America, which is right on the doorstep of the only superpower left in the world, go all the way across vast oceans to find alternate business partners? (p. 43.)

Perhaps Venezuela's acts just might have something to do with the fact that an attempted coup d'etet nearly overthrew the government in 2002. President Chávez insisted that the United States government supported the attempted coup.

We are entering the “times of the Gentiles.” Russia, China, Japan and the EU are forming alliances against the U.S. and biblical Israel. The U.S. is being besieged! Deuteronomy 28 is being fulfilled right now! Soon America will find it impossible to import oil and other necessities—just as Moses and Daniel said. Britain and the Jews in the Middle East are suffering a similar fate. (p. 44.)

Little did Flurry know that the oil industry would later devise fracking which would help cause the price of oil to plummet. But it must be stated that there are widespread concerns about the environmental impact of fracking. For instance since 2009 an unprecedented wave of earthquakes has been striking Oklahoma. Some suspect the fracking might be a contributing cause.

Daniel did not understand his own book (Daniel 12:4, 9). Today God has given a deep understanding of Daniel through Herbert W. Armstrong and myself. God reveals His truth for the Church only to apostles and prophets (Ephesians 3:5). Then those who support God’s true leaders help deliver the revelation to this world. All of God’s very elect are kings and priests in embryo, getting ready to rule this world. The kings of this world are about to be replaced. (p. 46.)

Gerald Flurry claims that he and he alone is able to present "new revelation" from God.

If the Laodiceans went through something like what Daniel and his three friends endured, would they survive it? Of course not! (p. 47.)

Actually many political and religious movements all over the world have endured all kinds of deadly persecution. PCG is based in the United States, a land with freedom of religion so PCG has never had to endure turmoil such as execution for one's religious practices.

Chapter 3

Here Flurry states that HWA did not uncover his doctrines from the Bible but instead these dogmas were divinely revealed to him. He threatens that if one does not agree then he or she might somehow apostatize like those in WCG who stayed after the Tkach Changes. This ignores the plentiful evidence showing that HWA merely synthesized various doctrines from other sources such as the Church of God (Seventh Day), Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and British Israelism.

The reason it is so dangerous to view this as something “Mr. Armstrong uncovered” is that it puts this understanding on a human level. Those men ended up following a human. That is the inevitable result of thinking on a human level: You will always end up following a human being, whether it’s yourself or another person. (p. 53.)

Flurry insists that one must be loyal to PCG in order to be right with God.

In our age, 95 percent of God’s people—and, shamefully, over 99 percent of His ministers—turned against God when a rebellious leader took over God’s Church. God’s government is a vital tool and a wonderful blessing, but human leaders can go astray. This puts a serious responsibility on each one of us to know where our Head—Jesus Christ—is. (p. 54.)

Flurry asserts that the publication of an 1984 booklet, History of Europe and the Church by Keith Stump, was done behind HWA's back supposedly by those who would later implement the Tkach changes.

Flurry complains that Stump is too sympathetic to Germany regarding the Treaty of Versailles.

Also noteworthy is his unusual reference to Nazi Germany as the "Holy Roman Empire" which is a part of PCG's loaded language. Outside of the PCG information bubble it is known that the Holy Roman Empire was abolished in 1806 after Emperor Francis II renounced the title to make sure Napoleon did not claim that title for himself.

Wait a minute. Was the Treaty of Versailles really “humiliating”? Perhaps some of the stipulations were too strong, but, after all, the world had just witnessed the death of 10 million people! And Germany started that war. For the most part, the Treaty of Versailles was right. Pushing it aside did not restore Germany’s honor! World War II wasn’t about righting the wrongs of the Versailles Treaty. That war was motivated by the Holy Roman Empire’s desire to rule the world! Politically correct language like Mr. Stump’s only perpetuates the problem. (p. 56.) 

Flurry complains that Stump mentioned that there were tensions between the Nazi dictatorship and the Vatican.

“For its part,” Mr. Stump wrote, “the Vatican is at first sympathetic toward fascism, though Pope Pius XI is critical of fascism’s use of violence.” Pius XI reigned from 1922 to 1939; he died at the beginning of World War II. He was replaced by Pius XII, about whom Mr. Stump says basically the same thing. Is that true—that these popes were against violence? No, not when it was inflicted on their enemies! (p. 56.)

Flurry seems to handle Stump's words badly. Stump said that Popes were opposed to fascism's use of violence but then Flurry then rhetorically asked if these popes were against violence in general. Based on what Flurry wrote in this passage it seems that he quotes Stump out of context.

Flurry then insists that persecution may come upon PCG for saying things like this.

You can envision that down the road we will become unpopular, because we are going to tell the truth about that history and end-time prophecy. (p. 57.)

The leaders of Armstrongism have constantly insisted that some sort of persecution will soon come upon them. Such things have never happened in the United States.

Flurry does not want to deal with the possibility that the Nazi regime did what they liked and disregarded what the Pope said about such things. Instead his anti-Catholic ideology is here reasserted. Contrary possibilities are ignored. Flurry asserts that the Roman Catholic Church "was riding and guiding" the Nazi regime.

Keith Stump wrote as though the church was trying to head off World War II. God’s version of these events is very different: He says the church was riding and guiding the beast! The religious leaders weren’t guiding the politicians as much as they would have liked, but there has always been a conflict between the church and the state over ultimate control of that empire. The church wants to run the show, and so does the political head. (p. 57.)

Flurry mentions that he calls the lineage of political entities that HWA labelled the "Holy Roman Empire."

Flurry insists that if Stump's booklet is correct then he, Gerald Flurry, knows nothing.

If that church played a “peacemaking role,” as Mr. Stump suggested, then I don’t know anything about history and prophecy! (p. 58.)

Flurry cites a book named Hitler's Pope to insist his anti-Catholic attitude is justified.

Keith Stump described the pope as being “keenly concerned about the Jews.” Hitler’s Pope was written by John Cornwell, a Catholic. It is unusually authoritative because he had access to the Vatican’s own archives. That is an extremely rare privilege, given only to a tiny few people whom it trusts. He wrote that Pius XII had a history of being anti-Semitic, and I believe this is accurate. (p. 58.)

Incidentally LCG's John Ogwyn cited this very same book in his booklet, The Beast of Revelation.

The Concordat signed between the papacy and Italy's Fascist government was a prelude to one signed four years later between the papacy and the German Nazi government. The role of the Vatican in establishing both Mussolini and Hitler in power is detailed in Hitler's Pope, the Secret History of Pius XII (John Cornwell, Viking, 1999). (John Ogwyn, The Beast of Revelation, 2000, Chapter 3, p. 24.)

Flurry insists that Stump's booklet was published without HWA's knowledge.

These Laodicean leaders knew that Mr. Armstrong would not agree with that booklet. So why did they write it? They were aware that Mr. Armstrong was nearly blind and would not read this booklet. That means they also had enough control over headquarters and this 91-year-old man to keep anybody from getting to him and exposing their satanic plot! (p. 59.)

He then insists that being right by joining PCG is worth giving up one's life. Such talk incites fanaticism.

If we do our job, the Laodiceans will humble themselves before our feet—return to what God revealed. God is going to make them know that He loved us. 

What is it worth, as a human being, to have God say, I’m going to make them come back to what you believe, and make them know that I loved you! Isn’t that worth dying for? (pp. 59-60.)

He boasts that those who "fight against" PCG will face repercussions from PCG's God. He boasts that the facilities of PCG are built by PCG's God. He also refers to the Tkach changes.

People had better be careful when they fight against us. Of course people will cause us problems—but the God we serve will have His vengeance! You don’t go up against the people God clothed with the sun without incurring repercussions from God!  

Yet these men from God’s own Church would dare write and speak as they did, sounding so unlike their Father and their Husband!  

Do we realize who we are? Who clothes us? Who builds our work facilities? How we answer those questions separates us from the Laodiceans. (p. 60.)

Flurry has long gone to great length to separate his followers from the members of the other COG groups who are demonized by him as Laodiceans and unworthy of even social contact by PCG members.

Flurry minimizes the problems of the Dark Ages by insisting that the "darkest part of the Dark Ages" will soon occur.

That is not just history. Ninety percent of God’s prophecy is being fulfilled in this end time. The darkest part of the Dark Ages is just now beginning to develop! (p. 61.)

He insists that it is not easy to promote his teachings but he boasts that the more PCG does so this will bless his followers.

It’s not going to be easy to proclaim this message. But we must do it, and the more we do it, the more we’ll prosper; the more God will promote us. (p, 62.)

Has PCG prospered since Flurry had these words published twelve years ago? It is still just another COG group stuck in its little niche, a minuscule imitation of WCG in its height in the early 1980s. And now Flurry wishes to impose the added expense of buying and maintaining a private airplane.

These people were corrupted by flatteries and vanities. They were saying nice things to each other: You’re doing such a good job—you’re such a wonderful minister—you have such a powerful vocabulary. Just remember to continue to prophesy not! They were led to destroy prophetic teaching so as not to be labeled a cult. What kind of future awaits people who do that? It’s so painful, you cry thinking about it! (p. 63.)

He boasts that PCG has "some pretty impressive exploits" in order to convince his readers to join his organization and pay tithes to it.

If you look at what God has done through His people year by year in this small work, you would have to say these are some pretty impressive exploits. But we will do many more heroic acts if we use God’s universe-size strength! The greatest work is still ahead. (p. 64.)

He insists that PCG's God is all powerful but then he mentions that many have moved beyond Armstrongism and that this can happen even to PCG members. (How convenient it is to rationalize away the fact that some PCG members leave.)

Right up to the very end, some of us will fall. Haven’t we all seen that happen? The word try in verse 35 means to smelt, like smelting metal—in a fiery furnace! It means a fiery trial. Even when people come into this remnant and understand, they can still fall. 

Should we be shocked if some leave? God says it will happen right up to the end. We are in a war. And in a war, there are casualties. Will you be a casualty? It will happen “even to the time of the end.” (p. 65.)

One sign of an authoritarian group is that they insist that there is no legitimate reason to leave the group.

Flurry insists that the US dollar is destined to fail.

Mr. Armstrong always believed the Holy Roman Empire would develop because of a crisis—mainly the failure of the dollar. Today the dollar is in real trouble. The chief economist at Morgan Stanley ... was reported in the Boston Herald to have predicted at a meeting with select investors that “America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic ‘Armageddon’” (Nov. 23, 2004; emphasis mine). [He] predicted a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that “we’ll muddle through for a while, and delay the eventual Armageddon.” That is a terrifying economic prophecy! We can be sure it is going to happen. The massively debt burdened American economy simply can’t continue very much longer. 

How long will the Armageddon be delayed? Until God’s work is finished. Then God will protect His people who did that work. (pp. 66-67.)

Twelve years later Flurry's dire proclamation that the dollar will fall is still practically impossible. The United States cannot be forced to default because the federal debt is denominated in a currency that it, the US government, produces. It is not possible for the US government to be rendered bankrupt. Interest rates on US bonds are very low because the financial world trusts it.

Flurry then belly aches that "biblical Israel" (the United States and Britain and the State of Israel) do not share his negative view of the German people and the German government.

But biblical Israel likes to think of them [Germans] as harmless wild animals. Our nations do that because of their broken wills. They fear to face the extremely unpleasant truth. However, it’s only a matter of time until they must do just that. The only way these beasts go away is when they themselves are conquered. (p. 70.)

He complains that some readers think he is being alarmist with his denunciations of Germany.

If you think I’m being too alarmist, you need to study the history of the Holy Roman Empire and see what Satan is prophesied to do to physical Israel. Very soon, people who say what I’m saying now will be killed for doing so! Mr. Stump’s reasoning leads to the destruction of nations and of churches! Look what happened in God’s Church because of the synagogue of Satan! Spiritually, that Church has been totally destroyed. Mr. Armstrong warned us in the 1970s that history would repeat itself if we didn’t learn from that debacle. How right he was. (p. 73.)

Flurry prompts his readers to focus upon PCG's dogma of the coming Millennium continuously.

Get ready now for the return of Jesus Christ. That greatest event ever to occur in the universe is almost here. It is time for each one of us to wake up! Is this majestic, universe-rattling event a part of your daily thinking and acting? (p. 74.)

Flurry then insists that PCG members are not to be overly fixated on who will be the feared European dictator fated to conquer the United States.

“Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom” (verse 22). We live and yearn for this prophecy to be fulfilled. Our passion is not about who will lead the religious or political beast. (pp. 76-77.)

Then why did PCG's leaders so often fixate on Edmund Stoiber and, from 2009 onward, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenburg?

Flury ends this chapter insisting that most of us alive today will see (PCG's) Christ return.

What is amazing about these prophecies is that we are living through them now. Ninety percent of Bible prophecy is being fulfilled today. What an age to be alive! Most of us will get to see Christ’s Second Coming. (p. 77.)

This promise has been continuously made by HWA and his imitators since the 1930s. But they are but false prophets so their words will not be fulfilled.

To be continued...

(Update: August 29, 2021: Part 2 of this reading is now posted online.)

When WCG Members Asked, "Who is Gerald Flurry?" (1991)

Back in November 1991, PCG's Wilbur Malone wrote an article chastising those WCG members who happened to say wonder if they should submit to Gerald Flurry's authority. It is entitled, "Who is Gerald Flurry?"

That question was asked recently by a person who wondered if God actually chose this man to head the last segment of the Philadelphia Church of God (PCG). Then there have been some who have read Malachi’s Message and have agreed with it totally, but hesitate to seek membership in the PCG. When asked why this hesitation, some respond, “I agree with Malachi’s Message, but who is this Gerald Flurry?” The meaning here is, “Why is he the leader?”, “Why is he the one in charge?”

What happened was that Gerald Flurry was kicked out of WCG so he started up his own group which acted in competition with WCG to gain more converts from WCG. At the time Tkach was implementing many changes to WCG's doctrines and teachings that would soon see WCG transform into (for the most part) an mainstream evangelical church.

Many WCG members disagreed with this transformation and yearned to continue believing and practicing what HWA taught as they interpreted his writings. This widespread discontent proved to a valuable opportunity for PCG to expand membership by taking advantage of widespread dissatisfaction with the Tkach changes.

However there was no way for PCG to overcome the hurdle that their leader, Gerald Flurry, was not particularly important among the WCG ministry. He was only ordained in 1973. And in the strictly hierarchical world of WCG ministers this meant he was not particularly important. The many ministers who were ordained before him would never join Flurry's following and would view submitting to a junior minister as beneath their dignity.

This fact would be revealed after Malone's article was published with the establishment of the Global Church of God under Roderick Meredith in 1992 and of the United Church of God in 1995. Both splinter groups were able to acquire more WCG members since those who led those groups had greater legitimacy and prestige among WCG members then a minister ordained in 1973 could ever hope to have.

After the rise of GCG Flurry wrote a booklet condemning Meredith's splinter group in a desperate and largely ineffective attempt to keep WCG members flowing into PCG instead of GCG. But that development had not yet occurred at the time of this article.

And how did Malone respond to this perfectly legitimate question?

Isn’t it amazing how some people come upon this marvelous truth and yet still manage to find fault, not with the message, but the messenger? Why is it that there are some who resent someone who has been placed in a position of authority? If a person is convinced that this is the Church God is working through, then why wouldn’t that person accept the one that God is using?

In actual fact many found fault with the message as it changed the understanding of the nature of Laodicean era. Under HWA it was never taught that the WCG leadership would radically change their teachings as did occur under Tkach. Flurry changed the doctrine of the Laodicean era by dogmatically asserting that it would take over WCG. One example of a denunciation of the message (not just the messenger) of Flurry's booklet may be seen in a 1991 article from WCG's Worldwide News. That article was written before Malone's article was published.

The fact that Tkach proceeded to make drastic changes to WCG's teachings had the effect of making Flurry's denunciations of the Tkach changes seem more potent than if Tkach had maintained the doctrines of Armstrongism as the teachings of WCG.

Also Malone denigrates those who should question why it was Gerald Flurry who was in charge as those who "resent" him. Instead of answering the question Malone tried to make those inquiring why he had this authority feel ashamed and foolish to distract readers from the fact that Gerald Flurry was not important among WCG ministers until he was kicked out and founded PCG in competition with WCG.

However at the time Malone's snide comments were buttressed by the fact that Flurry's PCG was then the most prominent offshoot from WCG to publicly oppose the Tkach changes. However this would change with the subsequent rise of GCG and UCG. But before then PCG succeeded in establishing its presence among disaffected WCG members as one of the most prominent offshoot groups.

Malone then proceeds to exploit various parts of the Bible to insist that God would not have chosen a prominent WCG minister to start a new splinter group. After that he then admits that they never anticipated anything like the Tkach changes to occur.

We are now very near the end of this age. We never suspected the split in the Church would occur as it has. We thought the Laodicean Church would come on the scene after God’s Church was taken to a place of safety. But you see, that would have been too easy. Not much faith would have been required. Holding fast would not have been required, etc.

In other words the Tkach changes was never anticipated beforehand by those who would become PCG's leaders. They thought the Laodicean era would only be manifest after the elite of WCG members had fled to the place of safety, widely thought to be Petra, Jordan. But now that an unexpected event had occurred (the rise of Tkach and the changes he began to implement) Flurry and Co. had changed the teaching on these matters to denounce the Tkach changes as the Laodiceans they had been waiting for. But they had never been waiting for WCG's leaders to renounce Armstrongism. PCG had changed the doctrine to fit the times.

Many of you reading this article never expected God to cause a separation that required stepping out of the Church we were called into in order to hold fast to God’s precious truth. I think it’s safe to say that most of us might have thought something was wrong in the Worldwide Church of God but never realized what God required until we read Malachi’s Message. Then it dawned on us. We had to leave the WCG in order to obey God.

In fact many others commented upon the Tkach changes. Many WCG members in time left WCG in order to continue adhering to HWA's teachings as they interpreted them. They did not need PCG to leave WCG.

But Wilbur Malone, being a paid employee of PCG, needed these disaffected WCG members to join his PCG so that the tithes money would go to his paycheck. So he wrote this article to insist to WCG members that they needed to join PCG.

If anyone of you can read Malachi’s Message and truthfully believe that it is merely the work of Gerald Flurry, then I would have to say you should not follow him, for then you would be following a man. God began to reveal these things to Mr. Flurry and he began to jot down notes and research what God was revealing to him. Other men have read this book. Many high-ranking men have read this book. The reason most of them reject it is because it condemns the ministry. God is correcting the ministry. Those of higher rank than Mr. Flurry refuse to see this correction coming from God and attribute it to just a man who wants a following for himself.

But if those WCG ministers are wrong to say Flurry just wants a following for himself then why is it when so many other WCG members later got out of WCG and established other splinter groups that PCG virulently condemned them and later ordered PCG members to shun the members of the other splinter groups?

Malone then insists the hand of God is with Malachi's Message. The following year Flurry would dogmatically proclaim Malachi's Message to be the little book of Revelation 10. That had not yet occurred when this article was written so there is no reference to Malachi's Message as the little book. But the attitude of excessive reverence towards that booklet is clearly expressed by Malone.

Can we read Malachi’s Message and not see God’s hand in it? Can we read Malachi’s Message and not see that it has been inspired by God? Can we totally reject the human instrument that was used in writing this book? Would God have inspired this book to be written by Gerald Flurry and then decide that someone else should be the leader? Who else would God use to lead this last segment of His Work? Why, the one who gave up his livelihood, his job, his pension, and his position in the WCG! He was willing to put it all on the line because God revealed to him what must be done. And Mr. Flurry answered the challenge, regardless of the circumstances.

Actually it is widely known that many of the ideas within Malachi's Message were plagiarized from The Letter to Laodicea by Jules Dervaes, written December 1986-January 1988. It was sent to 237 WCG ministers including Gerald Flurry and John Amos. In fact on September 26, 1990 Jules Dervaes sent a letter to Gerald Flurry in which he denounces Malachi's Message as "a direct and clear plagiarism" of his work. There was no hand of God behind Malachi's Message. It was the hand of Jules Dervaes.

Who is Gerald Flurry? He also is just a man. But he is a man that God, for some reason, decided to reveal certain things to. Mr. Flurry could have turned his back on these things and continued on the easy way, the easy path, the path that leads to destruction. But Mr. Flurry did not. He chose to yield to God and as he has told me in the past, if everyone left and he was there alone, he would still continue to do exactly what he is doing today.

What Malone really means is that Gerald Flurry is his boss and paymaster so he will say what Flurry wants.

Malone ends the article with these words.

No, we probably would not have chosen Mr. Flurry if we had our choice. We probably would have chosen a minister with impressive credentials (Ph.D., Dr., etc.); one gifted in the art of speaking. Also on the other hand we probably wouldn’t have chosen Moses, or David, or Paul. But just as God did choose Moses, David, Paul and many others, this same God has chosen Mr. Flurry to lead the PCG. ... I pray that none of us reject the man God has chosen to lead this end-time Work.

In other words, obey Flurry. Stay in PCG. Keep that tithe money flowing in for Flurry and Malone.

Alas, PCG has since gained a bad reputation for authoritarianism, even restricting members from having contact with members of the other COG groups and ex-members.

Reading PCG's Booklet, Lawless: Why America Is Losing Its Rule of Law

Let us now read Gerald Flurry's booklet Lawless: Why America Is Losing Its Rule of Law. This booklet was published in early 2014 to denounce the liberals within the United States (such as Barack Obama and Al Gore) and the Supreme Court for having too much power and leading America in a way Flurry disapproves of. Flurry also says that Satan is attacking America so America is about to fall apart. This booklet may be read on their website.

Let us see what he has to say.

(Parts of this booklet are lifted from Gerald Flurry's 2001 booklet, No Freedom Without Law. That booklet was discussed in a previous post.)

There is a radical spirit of lawlessness in America today. Leaders flagrantly ignore the laws of the land. The president issues executive orders to selectively enforce the law—or to explicitly circumvent it. And politicians increasingly rule as tyrants, treating the nation as their own personal fiefdom where they are free to do whatever they wish. (p. 2.)

At first glance it may appear as though Flurry is talking of politicians in general. But he is mainly vilifying the Democratic Party. PCG is a right wing organization. Their politics lean far to the right. So this condemnation is mainly directed at the Democratic Party.

This may be seen in Flurry's use of the word "radical". In this context he is using that word in a right wing sense of referring to a stereotypical scary leftists.

Also note how it is emotively said that "politicians increasingly rule as tyrants". This is mainly referring to the Democratic Party. This is demonization of those he disagree with. Where is any sense of sportsmanship or trust that if the people are persuaded their best interests are to vote for Republican candidates then the people will do so in such a situation?

In saying all this I do not condemn PCG for being right wing. But it is important that we recognize that PCG is right wing because this explanation explains so much about the political stances PCG chooses to express including this booklet.

This trend toward lawlessness is deadly! And I guarantee, based on biblical prophecy, that it is going to get far worse. (p. 1.)

Flurry has made dire predictions like this for decades now. It will never come to pass because of anything he says. PCG can't see the future. They are but false prophets.

The people of Britain and America lack the will to even sacrifice a few soldiers’ lives to fight a ground war. Our generals know that we lack the will to win any hard-fought battle—even if it directly relates to our own freedom. For example, America had to be bombed into World War II. Even one of the most diabolical leaders in history, Adolf Hitler, could not rouse us to fight until we were bombed by Japan. And America is far more isolationist today. (p. 4.)

What an insult to the thousands of US and British soldiers who fought and died for their country as well as to their families and friends who have to live without their loved ones. Does Flurry know what it is like to have a family member serve in war?

These words come from Gerald Flurry's 2001 booklet, No Freedom Without Law, which was published shortly before 9/11. How morally revolting it is for Flurry to use words written before those events to now condemn the peoples he supposedly loves.

In fact Flurry orders his PCG followers to not serve in the armed forces as it is viewed as sinful. This doctrine is inherited from HWA who plagiarized this idea from the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Considering that Flurry won't let his followers serve in war how dare he should denigrate the "people of Britain and America" when he won't let his followers in PCG even serve in the armed forces.

There is a phrase to describe people like Gerald Flurry: chicken-hawk.

The Constitution is the foundation of our republic. And the Ten Commandments were, in many ways, the foundation of the Constitution. Our forefathers believed that if we didn’t keep God’s Ten Commandments, our republic would collapse! We can’t afford to take the words of our founders lightly if we want to see our nation stand. (p. 6.)

Flurry insinuates that America might be destroyed because of the liberals Flurry despises. But what an unsuspecting reader unfamiliar with the intricacies of Armstrongism will not know is that Flurry teaches that it is inevitable that America will be destroyed by a German led European superpower that (he claims) will arise soon in the future just before Christ's return.

Why is Flurry misleading the reader by insinuating that America can be saved when he teaches that America will not be saved at all until Christ returns? How is that not a lie?

The Constitution was based to a great extent on God’s law. That is why I believe it is the most noble document ever written by a government of this world.

What a rare document it is. We received some foundational direction from Britain’s Magna Carta, but Britain has no Constitution.  (p. 7.)

Actually Britain has an unwritten constitution.

 Our forefathers had the awesome opportunity to establish the rule of God in the wealthiest country ever. So they established a Constitution to protect all of us from the extremes of human reason. Tyrants, unjust judges and biased leaders were controlled by this law. (p. 7.)

Note again Flurry's use of the highly charged word tyrant.

Also noteworthy is Flurry's mention of "unjust judges". This a foreshadowing of his condemnation of the Supreme Court later in this booklet.

And in regards to "biased leaders" it must be pointed out that PCG has loaded the word, "bias". Outside of the PCG information bubble "bias" simply means an inclination to view things a certain way thus making it likely that one has missed perceiving something contrary to the bias. But PCG uses the word "bias" to mean any opinion contrary to what PCG's leaders teach.

Flurry then promotes a book by Robert Bork, a candidate for the Supreme Court who was rejected by the legislature.

When Mr. Bork wrote that book in 1990, he believed America was more than halfway along in the destruction of our Constitution. Look at what has happened in the decades since, particularly under the current presidential administration! We live today under a government and within a culture that is far more anti-law and anti-God. Our republic is in grave danger. (p. 8.)

Flurry says the United States "is in grave danger" because the Presidency is controlled by the party Flurry does not like. Flurry is right wing. So of course he does not like the Obama Administration or the Democratic Party. That is the real reason Flurry singles out "the current presidential administration".

If the Constitution is to be changed, it should be done lawfully, by our legislative branch, or Congress—with the consent of the president, or the executive branch. Today, instead, we see lawful procedures for altering the law being routinely ignored and trampled upon by all three branches of government, especially the executive branch and the judiciary! (p. 8.)

Meaning Flurry does not like the Obama Administration because he is a rightist who wishes a Republican was President and who does not like various decisions of the Supreme Court.

Flurry then proceeds to denounce the Supreme Court arguing that it has usurped the power to change the Constitution from the legislature. But Flurry neglects to mention that the Supreme Court has had this power to strike down laws it rules as being unconstitutional since 1803 at the least with the landmark Marbury v. Madison case.

The Supreme Court's power to strike down laws it rules as being unconstitutional is no new thing. But instead of explaining things Flurry seeks to make the reader panic that the Supreme Court will somehow overthrow America.

Flurry cites one example of a Supreme Court justice making a decision in favor of slavery to discredit the Supreme Court to the reader. 

In America’s history, one judge wanted slavery. He kept searching the Constitution to support his belief. He found the phrase “substantive due process,” and he twisted these words to show that slavery was “constitutional.” (pp. 8-9.)

As painful as such memories are this does not change the fact that the Supreme Court does have this legal power to interpret the Constitution and to even strike down a law ruled unconstitutional. They have had this power since 1803.

To complain that their power is somehow illegitimate is a vain exercise. The Supreme Court has this legally recognized power. Rather if one disagrees with a ruling of theirs he or she should work to get the decision legally overturned.

Flurry serves no one by wrongly insisting the Supreme Court should not have this power to strike down laws it rules to be unconstitutional. This is misleading misinformation. It creates a sense of grievance based on misinformation.

The great heresy being taught in our law schools is that the judges are not bound by law. Some are saying the Constitution isn’t even law! (p. 9.)

Whether we like it or not the Supreme Court has the power to strike down a law it rules to be unconstitutional. It has had this power since 1803. This is not some "great heresy" as Flurry hysterically proclaims but the practice of the judiciary of the United States since 1803. The reader is not told of this.

Today, the Constitution is being used by the liberal culture to force their unlawful ideas on people! (p. 9.)

And so we see error added onto error. By denouncing the power of the Supreme Court to strike down a law it rules to be unconstitutional as some kind of scary usurpation Flurry creates an ill informed sense of grievance towards the Supreme Court. The reader is taught to see persecution and repression when in fact the Supreme Court has had the power to strike down unconstitutional laws since 1803.    

That means we are being led by the human reasoning of a liberal culture. (pp. 9-10.)

In other words Flurry is moaning that the Democratic Party, the party he does not like, now has the Presidency after gaining it in a democratic election. Flurry and his PCG are right wing. So of course they do not approve of the American people electing a Democratic Party candidate as President. Hense Flurry's denunciation of "a liberal culture."

In PCG's jargon "human reasoning" is a term that means any opinion contrary to what is taught by PCG's leaders, often with the nasty implication that the opinion in question is inspired by Satan. In PCG's jargon it is similar to "bias" but it has a stronger religious implication.

The founders of the Constitution put in place the walls, roofs and beams of our Constitution, as Mr. Bork said. The judges’ purpose is to preserve the architectural features—adding only filigree or ornamental work. Instead, lawyers and judges are changing the very structure of our representative democracy.

The Constitution is being altered dramatically. And it is the foundation of our republic! We are experiencing a constitutional earthquake, and most of our people don’t even know it—yet. Your future is being changed for you, and often you have no input.

This process is sure to lead to anarchy! That is why you and I should be deeply concerned. (p. 10.)

The unsuspecting reader driven into a state of horror and shock at these words will not know that the Supreme Court has had the power to strike down laws it rules to be unconstitutional since 1803. It has always been like this since then. And all this time the United States has not fallen into anarchy despite the Supreme Court's power to rule laws to be unconstitutional.

Having read this it seems that one reason Flurry opposes the Supreme Court is because he does not trust them to act as right wing as he is. The Supreme Court makes decisions and he does not trust them to consistently rule in a way he pleases.

Flurry now begins to turn his attention to liberal politicians like Barack Obama and Al Gore. 

Flurry then cites Bork mentioning that an unnamed Harvard professor told him that the Constitution is not a law.

A Harvard law professor is actually stating that the Constitution is not even law! That view comes from our most prestigious university. The very fact that he would even make that statement reveals extreme lawlessness! The majority of our leaders now agree with that Harvard law professor. (p. 11.)

In other words Flurry is denouncing political leaders and ideas he disagree with as being "lawlessness".

Flurry then uses this unnamed Harvard professor to condemn President Obama.

President Barack Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law School, has been at the forefront of this movement. In his book The Audacity of Hope, President Obama argues that the Constitution “is not a static but rather a living document, and must be read in the context of an ever-changing world.” As a senator, he characterized the Constitution as a “charter of negative liberties” and called for the courts to “break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, as least as it’s been interpreted.” The real issue here is lawlessness. (p. 11.)

Flurry is right wing. So of course he is no fan of President Obama. But instead of just admitting that fact he hysterically denounces President Obama's political ideas as "lawlessness".

Also does Flurry even understand what "negative liberties" even mean? Flurry shows no sign in this booklet that he understands that. Negative liberties refer to being free from something unwanted. The opposite of this is "positive liberties" in which one has the liberty to do something he or she wants to be, like get a good education or to advance one's career.

Flurry then cites an article to repeat his claim that these liberals he despises are somehow ruining America.

On page 13 is a picture of a stern looking Al Gore. The picture is accompanied with the following caption:

UNCONSTITUTIONAL: When campaigning to be president, Al Gore said he would appoint Supreme Court judges who view the Constitution as a “living” document. This philosophy, which has become common in liberal circles, is aimed at undermining the law.

In other words Flurry is demonizing attempted reforms by the Democratic Party as "undermining the law". Changing a law or striking down a law ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court is not "undermining the law."

The Supreme Court has had this power to rule a law to be unconstitutional since 1803. Although Flurry does not like it that is how the United States judiciary has operated. This is perfectly lawful. Flurry is confusing and misinforming his readers using such hysterical rhetoric.

The liberal culture in politics wants a “living Constitution.” Mr. Bork stated that many liberals imply the Constitution is dead. They don’t want unchanging truth, established 200 years ago, to direct their lives.

Members of the mass media—about 80 percent of them—are also a big part of the liberal culture. Destroying of our constitutional republic [sic] would not be possible without their support. All too often they are deceived, and in turn they have the power to deceive our citizens. (p. 13.)

What paranoid demonization! Has Flurry ever talked to these liberals to see if they think "the Constitution is dead" as he hysterically accuse them of teaching.

Flurry says these liberals he oppose are somehow "[d]estroying ... our constitutional republic". How exactly does one "destroy" the United States? What does Flurry even mean? These are words made not to explain but to horrify the reader into thinking these liberals must be loathed and are a personal threat to the reader.

And Flurry accuses "the mass media" of helping these liberals. Such an accusation is designed to make the reader lose his or her trust in the media and make them dependent upon PCG for information about how to "properly" understand what is happening.

Flurry then somewhat confusingly starts to condemn mainstream churches.

The liberal religious culture similarly wants a “living Bible.” Their “intelligence” demands that they adapt the Bible to modern times—even though every word was inspired by God .... Most religions preach that God’s law was done away... (p. 13.)

Flurry is trying to attract more tithe paying members into PCG. Consequently he condemns every church aside his own as being false and unworthy in (PCG's) God's eyes.

But whether secular or religious, we are racing into lawlessness, and our nation is plunging toward disaster. Any good history book will show us that! The Bible should be even more convicting. Study it and see the deadly danger of lawlessness. (p. 14.)

Flurry is right wing. Because of this he opposes the Democratic Party. Now that the Democratic Party had the Presidency and the Senate (this booklet was published before the 2014 mid-term elections) and since Flurry cannot trust the Supreme Court to act in a consistently right wing manner Flurry condemns the fact that they have too much power (in his opinion).

But instead of just plainly stating that the party he does not like have too much power for his taste Flurry hysterically and vindictively condemns the influence of the Democratic Party as "lawlessness" that is supposedly a "deadly danger" which is "[d]estroying ... our constitutional republic". What wild denunciations! What bitterness and contempt lies in his heart!

When the nation’s leaders show such contempt for the law, that has a profound effect on the people. Most people know very little about how the law works. But they know enough to lose respect for our governmental institutions. They also lose interest in the whole political system. (p. 14.) 

This is a curious and strangely misanthropic statement Flurry makes. Could it be possible that Flurry views his followers in such a way? He does not even say "Most people know little about how the law works" but "Most people know very little about how the law works."

Flurry then insinuates that the United States will soon be conquered because the political party he does not like (the Democratic Party) has too much power for his taste.

Today, we have no king or president or real authority figure that we look to for leadership. We are a nation without strong leadership. The same is true of Britain. No ship of state can find its way to a safe harbor without a captain to guide it. That is exactly the way it was in ancient Israel just before it was conquered! And that is exactly where America and Britain are today! There is no leader who can or will establish the rule of law. (p. 14.)

So we can see that Flurry calls leadership he admires and support "strong leadership" that establishes "the rule of law." In the context of American politics Flurry is clearly talking about right wing politicians. But in contrast he denounces those he opposes of "undermining the law" and of being "lawless".

How crudely partisan Flurry is. Instead of just hoping that a new election will put other right wing persons in charge he denounces the party he disapproves of with such vituperative words.

But Flurry's not done yet. He then brings up Lucifer and compares him to the "lawless" liberals he demonizes.

Even angelic empires fell because of lawlessness. This was Lucifer’s problem. ... He sinned, and sin is the transgression of God’s law..... Then violence was all around him. (p. 15.)

Flurry then cites various proof texts to teach the traditional Armstrongite view of Satan as an all powerful and controlling being who influences all of humanity outside of one's favored Armstrongite group.

Ephesians 2:2 calls Satan “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” He is stirring up people’s emotions, moods and attitudes. When people get into a negative emotion, a bad attitude or a wrong mood, he works on those people. He has power to influence those wrong emotions; he has deceived the world through them! People don’t understand God’s Word—they don’t have any depth spiritually—so they just follow along emotionally, and Satan deceives them all. That is amazing, but it’s biblical and you can prove it to yourself, and you certainly should. (p. 16.)

Flurry then insists that Satan has been cast out of Heaven and he and his demons are now on the Earth doing all kinds of mischief. 

What are these evil spirits doing? These are beings with awesome power. Surely their being cast down to this Earth would have enormous impact on world affairs. We must be seeing things happen that would indicate the reality of this end-time Bible prophecy. How did it affect this world? And how much is it going to impact your life? Their dirty work is going on now, but do you see it? Do you understand it? If this is actually true, then there must be a lot of damage. (pp. 16-17.)

These words are made to make the reader fearful and afraid. This is no need to fear Flurry's words.

It is not mentioned in this booklet but Flurry teaches this happened upon the death of HWA in January 1986 and this is taught to explain why the Tkach changes occurred within WCG. Other COG groups tend to teach that this will be a future occurrence.

After this Flurry fear mongers about Satan being on Earth. What could Satan possibly be up to? Flurry asks.

What is happening to America’s leadership, its domestic policy and foreign policy is not just a quirk of history. The fact that Americans are casting the Constitution to the ground and encouraging lawlessness in their marriages, in their government and in their policy toward other nations has a very definite cause. The worst of it traces back to Satan having been cast down —and who Satan has now gotten control of.

Once you understand when Satan was cast down to the Earth, the radical changes in America and this world suddenly make sense. You can understand why America has taken such a self-destructive turn against the Constitution—the foundational document which is the basis for the rule of law and the foundation upon which the nation is built. (p. 18.)

Flurry ends this booklet with advertising for another booklet of his.

If you are concerned about where the current administration is leading this country, and whether the nation can survive the next several years, you need to read my booklet America Under Attack. It explains the hidden cause of society’s deadly decline, the attack from within, and why the attack on the law is so deadly serious. The conspiracy is worse than you think, and there is only one way to solve this gigantic problem. Request a copy of America Under Attack, and understand what the Bible says is ahead for America. This issue is so important, we will send you a copy absolutely free. (p. 19.)

In that booklet Gerald Flurry insinuates that President Obama is under the influence of Satan the Devil. What a paranoid way for him to say he does not approve of the Democratic Party.

And this shrill, mean spirited and misinformed denunciation and demonization of liberals come to an end.

Clearly the paranoid style of politics is alive and well in Flurry's booklet.

PCG's Condemnation of Halloween (1994)

Back in the November 1994 issue of Philadelphia News, a PCG publication discussing developments within PCG, Wayne Turgeon wrote an article reciting Armstrongism's long standing ban on Halloween inherited from HWA.

Wayne Turgeon is married to Gerald Flurry's daughter, Laura Turgeon. Their son, Grant Turgeon, has been advancing within PCG's leadership recently.

Let us see what Turgeon has to say.

Halloween, a strange holiday, is increasingly stranger in terms of things which are occurring on or around this festival every year. You only need to look at the news to learn of the tragedies related to its observance. Is it merely coincidental? Though many will admit that it stems from pagan origins, they refuse to stop keeping it because it’s “fun.” Actually, it’s big business. (p. 1.)

It's always about money to Armstrongite sect leaders. HWA infamously complained that Christmas caused his income to slow down afterwards. The same motivation seems to be laying behind this article as well.

Why let PCG members spend money and time with family members celebrating Halloween when PCG's leaders could simply use their religion to ban PCG members from celebrating Halloween and hopefully using the money saved from not celebrating Halloween to tithe more to PCG?

Turgeon then claims that Halloween causes children to behave badly and is responsible for juvenile delinquency.

By keeping a holiday such as this, it should come as no surprise that there are so few ethics in the home when we teach our kids to get something for nothing by begging. And, when they don’t get what they want, they vandalize. Space does not permit a complete explanation of “trick or treat” and other degenerate and weird customs, but many secular sources can provide the details for us. (p. 1.)

Regardless of one's opinion regarding trick or treating it must be said that it is not begging. Rather it is a long established custom that most people have long since learned to expect on Halloween. It is not begging.

Also Turgeon's accusation that young people who do not get a treat are inclined to commit vandalism sounds so narrow minded. It is denigrating to the vast majority of people who do no such thing.

Turgeon then uses this article condemning Halloween to denigrate the entire world outside of PCG as false Christians. He even accuses those who celebrate Halloween as somehow "honoring Satan".

It is common knowledge to many that Halloween is pagan, but most do not fear God, though they profess to worship Him. It does matter to Him how we worship Him and any honest person can see that Halloween’s symbolism is based on darkness, not light, honoring Satan and his demons. (p.1.)

This is an absurd accusation designed to compel the readers to not celebrate Halloween. Those who celebrate Halloween do no such thing.

Turgeon says that Halloween promotes the immortality of the soul in order to denigrate mainstream Christians as false and to insinuate that PCG members are the only true Christians on Earth.

Turgeon insists that it comes from paganism and insists it is therefore forbidden for PCG members to celebrate Halloween. This same accusation is used to forbid followers from celebrating Christmas, Easter, New Year's Day and St. Valentine's Day. PCG's ban against other mainstream holidays are alluded to in this article.

(Past articles on other holidays such as Christmas, New Year’s, etc. are also available upon request.) (p. 1.)

These holidays and other are banned by PCG and other COG groups. HWA imposed these bans upon his followers imitating the Jehovah's Witnesses. These bans have the effect of isolating his followers from mainstream society and making the followers socially dependent upon the group, in this instance PCG. These tactics are strategy to isolate and control the member.

Turgeon ends his article with a call to PCG members to celebrate the holidays HWA imposed his followers in the Radio/Worldwide Church of God.

God has His own set of holy, sanctified days that we are commanded to keep. What could be better—for both adults and children—than restoring the observance of God’s holy days? Kept according to His instructions, God’s holy days, such as the Feast of Tabernacles, are much better than all of these other humanly devised (Satan-inspired) false substitutes put together! (p. 1.)

There is no need for a Christian to celebrate those holy days. HWA perverted those beautiful feasts to denigrate every Christian church that does not celebrate those days. While it was an attractive marketing tactic to attract new converts it exploited those holy days to condemn all Christians outside of the COGs. The Jews never asked HWA to do this to the feasts they celebrate. Armstrongism has perverted those beautiful feasts.

And so we see that PCG once again condemns a popular celebration in order to socially isolate their followers from mainstream society to make them socially dependent upon the group.

Reading PCG's Article, The Origin of Easter (1997)

Let us now read PCG's 1996 article, "The Origin of Easter" by David Todd with Stephen Flurry. Here Todd and Stephen Flurry uses Alexander Hyslop's ideas about Nimrod and Semiramis as the originators of the Babylonian religion to demonize Easter. This is done in order to condemn the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches as false and abhorred by PCG's God in order to compel the reader to join PCG. (And once one joins PCG he or she is required to pay three tithes and extra offerings to PCG for life.)

This article first appeared in the August 1997 issue of PCG's recruitment magazine, The Philadelphia Trumpet. It was later made available as a reprint article.

(For simplicity's sake I shall hereafter refer to Todd alone as the author of this article.)

At first Todd begins his article recounting how he celebrated Easter as a child in a Protestant church.

Todd complains about getting up early that day to perform in an Easter play.

What I didn’t like about Easter was having to get up hours before daylight to go to church and get our costumes on, so we could perform the play for all those who came. Most of them never attended church at any other time. (p. 1.)

It sounds strange to mention in print that one did not like to wake up early in order to perform in a play. That sounds like an activity one can be happy about and look back with satisfaction.

Todd then mentions going on a Easter egg hunt.

A prize awaited the child who found the most eggs. If you found the silver egg, you received an even better prize. But the best prize of all was reserved for the one who found the golden egg. That was the egg everyone wanted. To find the silver or golden egg was a real accomplishment. You had to be careful though. If you spotted the golden egg at the same time a bigger kid did, you might get clobbered trying to pick it up! (p. 1.)

Todd later adds a punch line to this anecdote on page 3 in order to demonize Easter.

When the apostle John wrote the book of Revelation, Babylon, as a city, had long been destroyed and left in ruins, just as the Old Testament prophets foretold. (p. 1.)

This is wrong. Babylon still existed as a city in the time the New Testament was written. But later it fell into ruin because other cities captured Babylon's markets and ran Babylon out of business.

Todd then recites the Armstrongite dogma  that Nimrod and his wife Semiramis founded the Babylonian religion from which all the pagan religions supposedly sprang from. HWA took this idea from Alexander Hyslop's book The Two Babylons, an anti-Catholic polemic which dates from the 1850s. It insists that the Catholic religion is essentially the Babylonian religion recreated. It is nonsense.

Todd even mentions Hyslop. It was Hyslop, a 19th Century Presbyterian minister of Scotland, who, for the most part, concocted this modern day myth in an anti-Catholic polemic. HWA merely took these ideas from Hyslop's book and used them to justify banning Easter and Christmas in order to demonize Catholicism and Protestantism. (Ironically it appears Hyslop never banned Easter or Christmas among his parishioners. He concocted this myth to condemn Catholicism, not to prop up his own following.)

Basing his conclusions on information that has come from history, legend, and mythology, Alexander Hislop has written in detail of how the Babylonian religion developed around traditions concerning Nimrod and his mother-wife Semiramis. When Nimrod died, according to the old stories, his body was cut into pieces, burned, and sent to various areas. Following his death, which was greatly mourned by the people of Babylon, his wife Semiramis claimed he was the sun god. Nimrod became a counterfeit “savior.” Semiramis, being Nimrod’s wife, labeled herself the “Queen of Heaven”. (p. 2.)

Todd also mentions Herman Hoeh and his ludicrous Compendium of World History.

Baal, like Nimrod, is referred to as the sun god. That is because they are one and the same. When the nations divided after the tower of Babel, they developed their own distinct gods with different names, but all originating in Babylon (see Genesis 11:9). Notice this quote by Dr. Herman Hoeh, in his Compendium on World History (page 48): “The Egyptian god Osiris was the Baal of the Phoenicians, the Marduk of the Babylonians, the Tammuz of the Semites, the Nimrod of the Bible.” All of those gods originated from the very foundation of man’s governments—Nimrod and Babylon. (p. 2.)

It is worth mentioning here that Hoeh was imitating Hyslop in that discredited book.

And who was the wife of Nimrod? None other than his own mother—Semiramis. It is from Nimrod and Semiramis that all of these pagan gods trace their roots. (p. 3.)

This seemingly Biblical idea actually comes from Hyslop. And Hyslop's writings about Nimrod and Semiramis was very confused as noted by one blogger.

One example is in that Hislop in various pages of his book [The Two Babylons] referred to Semiramis as being Nimrod’s wife, and again his daughter, and again his mother, and again that Nimrod had two mothers, and again nine mothers. And this is history? Woodrow counters with evidence that Semiramis and Nimrod did not even live in the same century together! (Source.)

It appears to have been HWA who tried to (partly) explain away Hyslop's confused writing on this topic by insisting that Semiramis was Nimrod's mother.

Todd then cites a 1981 book by Ralph Woodrow, Babylon Mystery Religion, which happened to be largely based on Hyslop's book.

Here is what Ralph Woodrow asked in his book, Babylon Mystery Religion: “From where, then, did Easter observance come? Did the early Christians dye Easter eggs? Did Peter or Paul ever conduct an Easter sunrise service? The answers are, of course obvious.”

The origin and meaning of Easter has no connection with the first-century Church. Woodrow continues, “The word [Easter] comes from the name of a pagan goddess—the goddess of the rising light of day and spring. ‘Easter’ is but a more modern form of Eostre, Ostera, Astarte, or Ishtar, the latter, according to Hislop, being pronounced as we pronounce ‘Easter’ today.” (p. 3.)

Woodrow is cited at length in this article on pages 3 and 5.

Woodrow later concluded that Hyslop's book was nonsense. Woodrow proceeded to explain this fact in his book The Babylon Connection? It was published in March 1997 several months before Todd's article was published. At much financial cost Woodrow renounced his 1981 book Babylon Mystery Religion. The reader of Todd's article would never know of Woodrow's renunciation of Hyslop's ideas. Why is it that so long after Woodrow exposed Hyslop's words as nonsense that PCG continues to promote this article using Woodrow's 1981 book?

It is intriguing how Todd cites Hyslop, HWA, Hoeh and Woodrow to insist that Nimrod and Semiramis founded the Babylonian religion. But in fact all of these persons are citing Hyslop. It is Hyslop who devised this modern myth about Nimrod and Semiramis. No one else.

The sun was considered to be the “golden egg” by the ancient Egyptians. (p. 3.)

This ties in with Todd's recounting of his childhood Easter egg hunt. What rank fear mongering.

Mr. Armstrong then concludes by asking the question, “Then why should you do it today?” Good question! (p. 4.)

Banning Easter is a tool that PCG (and the other COGs groups) use to make people socially dependent on them. This attempt to demonize Easter and make it utterly abhorrent to the reader is an attempt to isolate and control the reader. Those who join PCG are required to pay three tithes and are even ordered not to contact ex-members or the members of the other COG groups.

We can begin to see how this pagan custom celebrating the resurrection of Tammuz infiltrated its way in the “Christian” world under the guise of Jesus’ 40-day fast. Like so many of the customs of this world, no matter where they originate, people assume them to be of God as long as someone along the way stamps “Christian” on them. Yet God tells us not to trust man (Jeremiah 17:5). If God says to observe it, you can be sure it will be found somewhere in His inspired word—the Holy Bible. (p. 5.)

Everything is interpreted in a hostile and paranoid manner. Instead of seeing that using Lent to focus upon Jesus' devotion would be most useful in keeping people focused on the Christian religion it is condemned as a sinister infiltration. 

"Yet God tells us not to trust man" is loaded language that really means, Believe what PCG tells you. All else is wrong.

For those who might doubt these ancient pagan origins, ask yourself, where in the Bible does it teach us to abstain from meat on Friday and to instead eat fish? These traditions and customs are not of God. (p. 5.)

And, considering that Todd comes from a Protestant church in Oklahoma, why is he here fixated upon these Catholic customs? Because Todd is mimicking Hyslop's original purpose in concocting this Nimrod-Semiramis myth: to condemn Catholicism.

Near the end Todd gets to the point: He uses his demonization of Easter to condemn all other churches as false, Catholic and Protestant.

It is true that Jesus came and established the true Church. But as we have already seen, Satan has his pagan customs and beliefs. And he also has his church and false Christs . Few people realize that the Bible actually prophesies of two churches—one great false church and one small, persecuted true Church of God.

The great false church is pictured by the woman riding the scarlet beast of Revelation 17. On her forehead is written, “Mystery, Babylon the great.” Yes, the ancient city of Babylon has long been destroyed. But the pagan customs and traditions originating there have continued in Satan’s false churches. This false church is labeled the mother of harlots. She has many daughter churches that have come out of her in protest, calling themselves Protestant. The very name Babylon means confusion! Certainly, the hundreds of different denominations, sects and religions of this world point to nothing but confusion. God is not the author of confusion .... Satan is! (p. 6.)

How hypocritical it is for PCG to mock the hundreds of Protestant churches while Armstrongism itself has also splintered apart into hundreds of competing groups. PCG is but one of them.

These days of Lent, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas and other pagan holidays the world holds sacred, are an abomination to God. (p. 7.)

The demonization of Easter by PCG is an attempt to isolate the reader from mainstream society in order to control him or her by compelling the reader to join PCG and pay three tithes for the rest of his or her life.

Fortunately, God has recorded which days and observances are actually holy and sacred to Him! They are the annual holy days and His weekly Sabbath. These days do not originate in Babylon with Nimrod and Semiramis. They began with the God of this universe! Rather, they keep us in remembrance of God’s great master plan for mankind. Together, God’s holy days reveal the incredible human potential—the fact that God is a Family and that man, who has been created in the very image of God, has the opportunity to be born into that Family. Now that is exciting! (p. 7.)

This refers to the God Family doctrine which, unfortunately for those who believe in it, happens to be completely non-biblical. It is a doctrine concocted by HWA very likely taken from another source, possibly the Mormons or early teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses. (Also is the God Family doctrine really that much different from pantheism?)

Todd's article ends with a section condemning hot cross buns as originating outside (PCG's version of) Christianity and also accursed by (PCG's) God. It seems odd to stick this section at the very end when the previous section seemed stylistically more fitting as the end. Perhaps it was an insert in the original magazine issue.

And so this article which demonizes Easter to get more tithes paying converts for PCG comes to an end. Too bad the reader has little idea of the extreme things PCG members are historically known to commit such as refusing medical treatment or shunning family members.