HWA's 1955 Sermon on Makeup

Here's a sermon HWA gave in which, I assume, he condemns makeup and forbids women from wearing it.

Church Government & Make Up (FOT Oct 7,1955)- Herbert W Armstrong.

I am in no mood to listen to such women hating drivel at the moment, but if anyone finds this useful I present it here.

HWA used his makeup ban to purge WCG members for his convenience and get more money by making WCG members to not spend money on makeup.

I remember once hearing a female radio announcer say women tended to spend more money then men because of two reasons: 1) they buy makeup, 2) they visit doctors more than men. I do not believe it is coincidence that HWA banned these two things for his followers. He was trying to get more money from his followers.

The Legalistic Insanity of James Malm

I saw this Banned by HWA post which exposes several things about James Malm, that he commands Christians are to be circumcised, he bizarrely says circumsicion symbolizes the last great day, and he spreads baseless anti-vaccine rumors.

James Malm says Christians are commended to

How can James Malm, who claims to be a Christian, contradict what is written in Acts 15 and insist that male children must be circumcised on the eighth day?

According to Acts 15 the early Christians argued over whether male gentile converts needed to be circumcised. The church leadership said they did not have to.

James Malm is plainly contradicting what the Apostolic church did. He claims to be a Christian who understands the Bible but he has willfully chosen to ignore it on this issue.

How can he then say, "We are commanded to circumcise our sons on the eighth day of their life."

Christians are not so commanded. Malm is completely wrong on this matter.

Second:

Circumcision pictures the Eighth Day Feast

Does not! Malm is just making stuff up now. He might be sincere but he is totally wrong.

Third:

One should never allow the child to be artificially immunized by physicians since this is known to cause autism and a variety of other issues like SIDS

That is nonsense. Dangerous nonsense. Two children in Britain died of measles recently because their parents were scared due to this sort of fear mongering.

Malm cites an article which perpetuates the false claims, judged fraudulent by the British Medical Journal, started up by one Andrew Wakefield who published a paper claiming MMR vaccine caused autism. Subsequent research showed he was wrong.

But tragically it caused vaccine rates to plummet in Britain with two confirmed deaths caused by measles because of the scaremongers.

Notice what else is written in the wikipedia article.

In Japan, the MMR vaccination has been discontinued, with single vaccines being used for each disease. Rates of autism diagnosis have continued to increase, showing no correlation with the change.

Once again showing that the rumor is total nonsense.

So many people have suffered and even died because of Herbert W. Armstrong's anti-medicine superstition. Children will, not might will, suffer needlessly because of Malm's bizarre superstitions.

When HWA Brought an £11,000 Rolls-Royce in 1962

I have read all too often of how WCG members sacrificed and gave so much money to HWA because they thought they were serving God and saving themselves from the invading Germans.

While they sacrificed HWA did this.

The most costly nonspecialty automobile is the Rolls-Royce. In early 1962 I bought one in London. I was spending probably more time in England then, because of the English campus of Ambassador College, than at Pasadena.

I paid £11,000 for it. Extravagance? Perhaps some thought so, but it was the least expensive car I ever owned. Now, after using it for nearly 20 years, I sold it for £14,000.

Most people seem to think whatever costs less is the better value. That is not true of material goods, nor of spiritual values. I have always believed in conscientious quality, whether in material commodities or character values. 

This is from HWA's article, Most Costly is Cheapest.

Of course this is the real reason HWA devised his own religion. He was making money. That is what WCG was, a big money making scheme designed to make money for one Herbert W. Armstrong. That is why he gets the Rolls-Royce, while lowly WCG members are left with nothing but a trail of broken dreams.

Later HWA uses the article to justify building Ambassador Auditorium. Left unstated is that his extravagant spending in building Ambassador Auditorium and in visiting world leaders was a major reason for the turmoils of the 1970s. HWA and his ilk blamed a bunch of 'liberals', claiming they were trying to water down doctrine and that their presence within WCG was an offense to God and the cause of their problems. That is nonsense. That is crass scapegoating.

HWA's corruption was the problem. The so-called 'Liberals' were trying to solve these problems but incurred HWA's vindictive and cruel wrath by being disfellowshipped. 

Oh! How good it is to be free.

PCG Says Race War is Coming and Blames African Americans

PCG's Joel Hilliker has written an article, Battle Cry for a Race War, which, quite disturbingly to me, seems to be telling to white people to be scared of black men.

Let me show you what I mean.

First he cites two instances of black men murdering whites and then says...

these murders are only the tiniest taste of the racial violence about to flood America. This reality became more ominously believable with another report this week—in many ways more chilling than those two murders.

What could be worse two separate murders?

Joel Hilliker then spends most of the article discussing Ayo Kimathi, a man with extremist views, who uses wild and hateful rhetoric denouncing whites and calling upon blacks to rise up in a race war.

The fact that this Ayo Kimathi, one man, is employed by the Department of Homeland Security is cynically used by Joel Hilliker to make PCG members fearful of the DHS and implies there is some sort of wicked conspiracy within the DHS. He seems uncertain whether it is run by blacks or whites.

Wouldn’t a God-given mandate to establish black supremacy by murdering whites [which Ayo Kimathi advocates] be a conflict of interest for a DHS employee?
 
Why would such an individual even seek out a job in Homeland Security? What is his real intent? 

And why would DHS employ someone who thinks this way, and pretend like such incitement is acceptable? Is this simply a matter of political correctness run amok—officials who have come to accept the notion that “black racism” is an oxymoron? Or is there something more sinister at play?

What is Joel Hilliker implying? Who knows? Joel Hilliker seems to be implying there is some sort of conspiracy within the DHS. Is it black extremists? It is black extremists working with politically correct white leftists? Does he even care whether the conspiracy is run by blacks or whites?

It is easy to mock such vague rhetoric but these fearful statement are cynically used to make PCG members fearful and keep them isolated from society.

This Ayo Kimathi obviously holds some crazy and delusional views. But how is this "more chilling" then actual murders? I fail to see why this is. I am sure if one looked at any governmental department closely enough you would find people with crazy views everywhere.

I remember when reading about the Civil Rights Movement they would often say the police officers often worked hand in hand with white supremacists like the Ku Klux Klan to suppress African Americans' attempt to gain equality.

Joel Hilliker then ends with this "comforting" thought.

As evidence like this mounts, the inevitability of devastating racial violence engulfing the nation becomes more plain.

Race war is coming, PCG seems to be saying.

I am disturbed by how Hilliker makes no attempt in this article to say that only a very few African Americans hold extremists views. He does mention that Ayo Kimathi's website has very few viewers but he then immediately argues that we should be scared and implies this extremist individual is evidence "devastating racial violence" is about to "flood America".

This is no appeal to people to not live in fear.

There is also no mention about how the severe and terrible historical injustices African Americans have been forced to endure in the past has caused a very few number of them to adopt these destructive views and the vast majority do not share these terrible views.

Of course he wants PCG members scared the DHS are coming after them so that they will be unable to band together and resist the tyranny of PCG's so called ministers.

Dave Pack's Prophecy Fails

For months Dave Pack has been blasting out his message that God will kill three major COG leaders and this will cause the other COGs to disintegrate and thousands of their members will rally to Pack's banner and "God's Church" will be reunified under Dave Pack.

This prophecy has failed, as everyone outside of Dave Pack's information bubble knew would be the case.

For this occasion and in the hope that readers will find this useful here is Pam Dewey's article When Prophecy Fails which discusses what many RCG members are probably feeling at the moment. 

PCG Whines that Catholic Church Calls Itself "Church of God"

PCG's Ron Fraser the mental health science hater, has just posted an article denouncing the Papacy for calling the Roman Catholic Church the "Church of God" in its rite of baptism.

Pope Benedict’s textual change to the Roman Catholic rite of baptism clearly is in direct line with his assertion that the Roman Catholic Church is the only one true church as founded by Jesus Christ. 

How dare the Great Whore of Babylon refer to herself with the same name that God gave to "God's Church", this Ron Fraser whines.

HWA taught that the true church had a name, the "Church of God", and true Christians would always refer to themselves with this name. 

Recently I read Bruce Renehan's book Daughter of Babylon and I mentioned that one of its findings was that Catholic authors in the Middle Ages often referred to themselves as the "Church of God".

Mr. Renehan also discovered that the name Church of God was only adopted in 1884 by the Church of God (Seventh Day) during a democratic conference. Before then they used other names.

Ron Fraser is merely seeking to continue HWA's work of deception by inciting resentment among PCG members that the Roman Catholic Church is stealing "their" name.

HWA's Alleged Conspiracy Against the Family

HWA wrote an article entitled, The Conspiracy Against the Family.

It is a very short article alleging that...

Unrealized by most, there is a widespread and aggressive conspiracy to destroy the institution of marriage.

He is quite vague as to who is behind this conspiracy.

The conspiracy consists of a two-pronged attack: 1) a well-organized movement to subtly influence college students to prefer alternatives to marriage, and 2) an attempt to influence the general public by newspaper and magazine articles, television programs, the lecture platform, the women’s lib movement and student or former student rebels of the "New Left." How much of all this propaganda has been planted in the minds of the psychologists, professors, writers, publishers, women’s lib crusaders and others by trained propagandists can only be estimated.

There are publishers that seek out writers and authors to supply them with material offering alternatives to marriage - such as homosexuality, group marriages, sex outside of marriage, communal families - ...

Who are these "propagandists"? This article is very confusing and vague.

HWA naturally takes a pot shot at "higher education" for helping to cause this crisis.

Today virtually every college and university in the United States offers numerous courses in psychology and sociology. These courses often make required reading of certain books and articles that picture marriage as now outdated and soon to become a relic of the past.

Wow! How horrifying! Teachers trying to get their students to investigate and study a wide range of opinions and viewpoints so that they will reach their own conclusions.

Of course students should only be told what they are supposed to think and feel as decided by "God's Church".

One would expect HWA to blame Satan at some point but he does not do so in the short article. No doubt he would say that elsewhere.

What a superficial and useless article. That was not very enlightening, except to see how bad a writer HWA could be at times.

Also the name of HWA's article is very similar to PCG's little booklet, Conspiracy Against Fatherhood, first published in 1999 and written by PCG's leader, Gerald Flurry.

At first glance you may think this booklet denounces the high rate of divorce among Western societies, but actually it goes all over the place, denouncing evolution, then using that to discredit academic authorities as deceived by Satan, then says they are doomed to endure the Great Tribulation for their sins, and in contrast Flurry then presents HWA's doctrine of the God Family as the great truth the world is blind to. (The God Family doctrine is quite similar to Mormonism.)

 But Flurry's booklet is still vague and confusing like HWA.

HWA's Governmental Structure Pictured

Look at this:

And this:

From Congress of Leading Ministers Hears Defined and Reemphasized Spiritual Organization of Church by HWA, (March 1981).

Note how only HWA is worthy of being mentioned by name.

What an authoritarian system!

This governmental system was very effectively used by HWA and his collaborators to impose a savage system of exploitative oppression upon lowly WCG members.

This abusive pattern of behavior is faithfully maintained in most COGs today, such as LCG, PCG, RCG, COG-PKG and others.

HWA Demonizes "Modern Education" as Invention of Pagans, Catholics, Rationalists and Big Business

Here is what HWA thought about any educational system he did not control, which he labeled "modern education" as may be seen in his article, The Surprising Origin of Modern Education.

The most ancient of records reveal that educational institutions, from dimmest antiquity, were organized and maintained by religions. As early as the 10th century B.C. we find the record of schools for the training of pagan priesthoods. On the other hand, the prophet Elijah, at the turn of the ninth century, established three colleges for the prophets of God.

HWA is comparing himself to Elijah here. He often liked to say that Elijah ran a college as he himself did.

HWA continues:

Pagan Schools for Christians

At the beginning of the Christian era, pagan schools, on the Plato model, dotted the Roman Empire. No Christian schools existed.

Printing had not yet been invented. Textbooks had to be prepared, laboriously, entirely by hand, one at a time. All textbooks were pagan.

All leaders in the first five centuries of the Christian world were, of necessity, the pupils of this pagan education.

Then the barbaric invasion swept away these schools. Through these years the only education in the Western world was pagan. Pagan philosophers and religious beliefs and customs were instilled automatically into growing children. Observance of pagan holidays was a regular part of school life - as, surprising though it may seem, it continues to be today!

Education was instilled as a system of memory training. It was "spoon-fed," literally funneled into immature and growing minds. Children were taught to accept without question, assume without proof, believe and memorize whatever was taught. This method, too, persists today. Children are seldom taught to THINK - but to be followers, not leaders. Few know why they believe the things they do. Through all those years, all literature in the Western world was pagan.

Beginning the sixth century, the only schools were the monastic schools, for the training of monks, and the cathedral schools, for the training of priests. These evolved into the universities of Salerno, Bologna, Reggio, Padua, Modena, Vercelli and others.

The first university of our modern pattern was the University of Paris, beginning in the 12th century.
English students, sent to the University of Paris, later (1167-68) founded Oxford University. Oxford alumni founded Cambridge. Graduates of these universities founded Harvard in 1636, William and Mary in 1693, Yale in 1701 and Princeton came later in 1746.

It was Thomas Jefferson who founded the first state university - the University of Virginia - in 1819. His motive was to divorce education from religion. This started the present materialistic trend in American education. There was great public protest at the time. His new state university was termed "shocking" and "irreligious." 

He could have just said, I don't want you going to my competitors at other Universities that actually have accreditation, I want you to come to my Ambassador College.

HWA Visits World Court: "Last Chance for Peace?" HWA Gets it Wrong Again

This article, I Visit the World Court: Last Chance for Peace?, written in the mid-1970s, HWA speculates that the world faces a "last chance for peace". He cunningly adds a question mark so that he has plausible deniability to claim he is not claiming Christ's return is around the corner, when that is exactly what he is doing.

HWA had a long and shameful history of peddling false prophecies in order to scare people into following him and to become a member of WCG and submit to all kinds of exploitative behavior for his benefit. Even in the 1980s after he wrote this article he was still teaching that Christ's return was just around the corner, as may be seen here and here.

"Last chance for peace?" Over thirty years later we are still here. The Cold War is over. And the prospects for a World War III are much more distant than was the case during the Cold War.

HWA got it wrong again.