A Letter About Christmas

Exit and Support Network has just released this informative and touching letter concerning what HWA & Co. told us about Christmas.

A Thought About Cults' Devaluing of Jesus

I was wondering around and I this audio lecture entitled Marks of the Cults, by an ex-Mormon, at this conservative, rightist web site, Summit Ministries.

Part of the blurb says this describing the nature of cults:

They add to the Word of God, subtract from the deity of Christ, multiply the terms of salvation and divide loyalties.

(He seems to be using the word 'cult' in the sense of the Christian anti-cult movement.)

I highlight this as this is an objection often directed against the false prophet of 1975, HWA. He is often criticized by Christian ex-COGers for downplaying Jesus by emphasizing legalistic observance of the Law at the expense of grace, or for how he portrayed Jesus as mainly a messenger, as Kelly Marshall points out in this Critical Review of Mystery of the Ages.

Another useful resource is Bill Hohmann's critique of Which Day is the Christian Sabbath by HWA.

On the Necessity of American Health Care Reform

Here is president Obama on the necessity of Health Care reform in America. These words may be found from 4:45 of this news video:

A lot of the critics of this entire process fail to note what happens when nothing gets done, and the American people have to be very clear about this. If we don‘t get this done your premiums are guaranteed to go up. If this does not get done more employers are going to drop coverage because they can’t afford it. If this does not get done it is guaranteed that Medicare and Medicaid will blow a hole through our budget. Those things are guaranteed. That is the status quo. That is the trajectory we are now on. I don’t intend to have that happen.

I have seen this tendency in how some opponents of health care reform used the word 'death panels' as though Obama wanted to institute the regularization of euthanasia, but it is clear to me that that is not what the president, or those pushing for this reform, are seeking.

They warn that this is going to 'ration' health care yet ignoring that health care is already severely rationed in the USA. These reforms are an attempt to alleviate the terrible private rationing of health care that is now the case in the USA.

Here's a video which demonstrates starkly the present day private rationing of health care that is with us today.



This video is so terrible that when I first saw this on TV I honestly thought it was just a prank. It was only when I saw a TV news report about this very segment that I realized that this is what far too many people in the USA are forced to deal with. I am very sorry that I doubted at first.

That is why I hope reform will be able to find a way to alleviate this terrible problem in America.

Persecution in Eritrea

In Eritrea only four religions are allowed to operate. "In 2002 the Eritrean regime outlawed religious activity except that of the Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran or Muslim religions." (Source) Consequently any other religious activity faces severe persecution.

Here's one recent example of this persecution.

"On 5 December Eritrean authorities arrested 30 mostly elderly Christian women who were praying together in a house in the capital, Asmara. According to International Christian Concern, most of the detainees are members of Faith Mission Church, an evangelical church with a Methodist background. It had been active in evangelism and development activities in Eritrea for over five decades until 2002 when it was forced to go underground." (Source.)

This article states elsewhere that about 3000 Christians are imprisoned in Eritrea.

At least nine of them are known to have died in prison, including one Yemane Kahasay Andom on June 23. More of these tragic deaths are recorded here.

The Washington Times and HWA

I am indebted to Scoobie Davis for this information.

The Washington Times, a newspaper founded and owned by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, is now undergoing drastic cut backs with 40% of staff being laid off. This development is discussed by Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America in this column.

Here he describes how Sum Myung Moon used this paper in ways similar to how HWA used his magazine. Bolding mine.

The messianic Moon, who has referred to himself as "humanity's Savior," never cared about journalism in the traditional, American, free-marketplace sense of the word. Yes, he launched a product that looked like a newspaper, but [The Washington Times'] central goal was never really to inform its readers. Its goal seemed more often to misinform and to enhance Moon's reputation outside the United States. Moon and Unification Church leaders used the newspaper as a symbol, most often in Asia, to suggest that Moon moved freely among world leaders.

This is very similar to how HWA used his visits to world leaders, which were highlighted in The Plain Truth and in the intro of his World Tomorrow program in order to enhance his reputation among his followers and to overawe potential recruits.

However the paper itself was not very impressive. It never made any profit and was always run essentially on the Unification Church's charity.

That the newspaper in 2009 had a modest circulation roughly matching that of the Chattanooga Times Free Press was irrelevant to the paper's publishers, although the newspaper's evaporating readership probably was not lost on the Times' shrinking band of local advertisers.

It's circulation is also rather low. According to Wikipedia it's average circulation in the period October 2008-March 2009 was 83,511. Even LCG's Tomorrow's World has a higher circulation. In February 2008 LCG apologist Bob Theil reported that LCG produced 361,000 of the March 2008 issue.

The Unification Church teaches many doctrines contrary to Christianity and is widely regarded as a cult, both theologically and behaviorally. A fascinating outline of some of their beliefs may be found here from Steven Hassan's Freedom of Mind Center.

The way Sun Myung Moon used this newspaper to enhance his prestige is very similar to HWA's visits with world leaders. I find it intriguing to find such parallels with HWA.

Visual Racial Stereotypes in HWA's Early Days

Recently I found this fascinating documentary, The Distorted Image, about cartoons that employed racial stereotypes in the period 1850-1922. It is from the website of the Anti-Defamation League. Here are the links for it: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

While watching this the thought occurred to me that this was the world in which HWA was born in and grew up in. Alas, he never got over the racialist thinking that was so pervasive in his younger days.

Some Miracles I Have Read

Mr. Russell Miller has renounced atheism and has embraced a different worldview.

This has made think of some stories of miraculous incidents that I have read. I'm not trying to convince any skeptics out there. I am simply relating how common it is for naturalistically unexplainable events to be reported or stated in print.

In My Forbidden Face by Latifa, a memoir of one woman's life under the Taliban in Kabul, she relates how one day she was at an Islamic shrine, the tomb of Ali if I recall correctly, and saw a man become miraculously healed there.

In The Autobiography of Malcolm X he relates how once one night while he was in prison he was lying in his bunk. Then he saw a man who should not have been there. They looked at each other and then he disappeared. Later Malcolm X became persuaded that he was W. D. Fard (pronounced far-RAD), a man who is held by the Nation of Islam to be God himself. Fard started up the Nation of Islam in the early 1930s. Later after some legal troubles he left town and mysteriously disappeared in 1934. I have written about this peculiar religion previously on this blog.

Among Muslim converts to Christianity some of them report having dreams of a man in white who is later identify as the Christian Jesus Christ. Examples may be found in the Why They Converted section of AnsweringIslam.org and the Dreams and Visions section of IsaAlMasih.net.

No doubt many of you have run into many others.

British Israelism and 'Christian' Identity

Here's an article discussing British Israelism from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

This is the movement from which HWA plagiarized the doctrine that Anglo-Saxons are descended from Israel. He did not just get it by reading the Bible.

This article also shows how British Israelism was used by racists in America to produce the 'Christian' Identity movement. SPLC also profiles some of the leaders of this virulently racist movement and disturbing activities that some of them commit.

A Post on PCG

(Update 12.11.13: Both links appear to be dead.)

Just found this thread discussing PCG from Worthy Christian Forums.com.

This thread also mentions this 'Christian' Identity group called Shepard's Chapel, led by one Arnold Murray. Here's a scary blog discussing Murray's cultic beliefs.

PCG Still Watching Stoiber

PCG still devotes articles to Edmund Stoiber. In their new Philadelphia Trumpet magazine they have made an article about him entitled 'German Youth Celebrate Edmund Stoiber.'

They still seem to be hoping that he might be 'the Beast' in the hope that 'That (failed) Prophet's' failed speculation that Edmund Stoiber could win the 2002 German elections and become the Beast will be proven right.