Carl Franklin's Bad History on WCG's Government

I am very sorry to report that there has still been no response. But at least we can have the satisfaction of knowing that they must know what sort of organization LCG is.

But the show must go on. There are other things that will need to be discussed.

Recently I had an encounter with a blast from my COG past and discovered some disturbing things about it.

Around 2000 after seeing a horrific news report of a murderous cult that happened to be descended from WCG I went exploring on the Internet to found out more about Herbert W. Armstrong and his Worldwide Church of God. Alas I was hopelessly sucked in already and nothing I saw helped me to get out of it.

First I ran into an anti-Armstrongism page, then I discovered a paper produced by the Christian Biblical Church of God, Fred Coulter's sect. The Rise of a Ministerial Hierarchy in the Church of God by Carl Franklin.

This 50 page paper argues that the church is supposed to elect ministers, there is to be no hierarchy within the church, and it blames Stanley Rader for the introduction of dictatorial rule within WCG.

Specifically it asserts that the Radio Church of God was not a hierarchy until 1956-7 and charges Rader as implementing this change in order to comply with unstated IRS regulations defining the nature of a tax exempt church (pp. 10-16).

Truth be told I find it very difficult to believe that Rader was responsible for that. Franklin presents it as though before 1955 all was well and implies that the church was being properly run and not as a dictatorship.

However this ignores the fact that HWA's doctrine of Government was developed before Rader's meeting with the IRS. It insists that before early 1957 RCG was not dictatorial. On p. 4 there is this section heading, "Hierarchical Church Government Condemned in 1955". Then he quotes a 1955 Hoeh article which condemns the Catholic Church for creating a dictatorial form of government.

On pp. 7-10 Carl Franklin quotes an article by Hoeh, entitled 'GOVERNMENT in Our Church,' from the June-July, 1958 Good News (pp. 3-5), and presents this as evidence that a drastic change had occurred in RCG's approach to government since 1955 and they had adopted a hierarchical form of government.

One problem: that article, cited as evidence of a drastic transformation in government since 1955, is actually a reprint of an article which first appeared in August, 1953 Good News, pp. 3-4, 7-8.

IT'S THE SAME ARTICLE! It was published three years before Rader supposedly changed RCG into a hierarchical institution.

This is what Hoeh was saying in the 1953 article, p. 7, column 3, paragraph 3:

"The members do not elect and dismiss elders, nor do they vote on doctrines which the elders are to preach. Rather elders are to be chosen by the apostle, or as he directs and authorizes, by an evangelist, according to the qualifications given in the letters to Timothy and Titus."

These very words are quoted in Franklin's paper on p. 8, paragraph 4.

But they are presented as being made in 1958.

(You may also find these words in the 1958 article at p. 5, column 1, paragraph 4)

This completely destroys Carl Franklin's argument that Rader and the IRS were somehow responsible for WCG's dictatorial system. Hoeh was already teaching this doctrine in August, 1953, three and a half years before Rader came along!

Another piece of evidence that must be discussed. In HWA's co-worker letter of May 24, 1974 he justifies his style of government by appealing to articles written in 1952-3.

"We published an article revealing new truth about church organization in The GOOD NEWS, November, 1952, and again in August, 1953, "GOVERNMENT in Our Church," and in November, 1953, "JUDGING and DISCIPLINE in God's Church.""

If the dictatorship was set up in early 1957 as Franklin charges, why did HWA justify his dictatorship with articles written when RCG was supposedly not a dictatorial organization?

How can this Carl Franklin do this to us whether by ignorance or willfully?

If you really want to know how WCG became the dictatorship we all know you would be far better served reading this article by John Robinson. Here he mentions many others things that contributed to the dictatorship. The adulation followers reserved for HWA, the consensus that top down government was the way to operate. This was further enforced with the unveiling in 1953 of the Prophecy of 1972-5 and constant demands via co-worker letters for more money which engineered a permanent sense of crisis within the organization in which any reluctance to obey orders meant you were (somehow) siding with the enemy (who must be Satan!).

The emergence of the dictatorial hierarchy had nothing to do with fulfilling some vague regulatory demands by the IRS in early 1957.

Is this another conspiracy theory? Are they just trying to blame a Jew? I honestly hope that such is not the case, but their disturbing willingness to accommodate anti-Semitic world conspiracy theories has been noted earlier. (I do not care if only a few, wealthy powerful 'Zionist' Jews are part of the conspiracy. It is still anti-Semitic. And absurd as well.)

So this charge that Rader and the IRS caused RCG to become a dictatorship is found seriously wanting.

Want to do Something about LCG?-Update

So far there has been no response to my appeal to Parents magazine.

If you have not done so I greatly encourage you to sent an email to info@parents.co.ke and tell them your feelings about LCG and Armstrongism heard and call upon them not to associate themselves with this organzation.

Want to do Something About LCG?

Recently I sent an email to Parents magazine in Kenya. Their email address is info@parents.co.ke.

It looks like a really fascinating magazine but that is not the point here.

LCG is trying to get into this magazine. So I sent them this email.

Dear Parents magazine,


I beg you not to associate your magazine with Rod King or his organization, the Living Church of God which produces Tomorrow's World.

I read at the LCG's website (http://cogl.org/cgi-bin/cogl/weeklyupdates/cogl-wkupdates.cgi?category=WeeklyUpdate1&item=1264896047) that in mid-February a representative of yours will be meeting with Rod King, a minister of LCG, in order to negotiate running an article and an ad for a marriage booklet LCG produces.

Rod King wrote this in the link:

• I will be leaving for a trip to Kenya in mid-February, where I will meet with a representative from Parents magazine. We plan to run an article and advertisement for our marriage booklet.

I beg you not to associate your magazine with this man or this organization.

LCG is a dictatorial organization that has no democracy within its hierarchy.

LCG is very controlling of members' lives.

LCG follows a brand of Christianity called Armstrongism. That religion was begun by Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986) self proclaimed Apostle, and leader of his authoritarian Worldwide Church of God. He plagiarized doctrines from various sources (Jehovah's Witnesses, British-Israelism, Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventists, etc,) to produce his own distinctive religion. He made 200 false prophecies. LCG is an offshoot of WCG which continues many practices of WCG.

He and LCG teach that God is not a Trinity but a family of beings presently composed of the Father and the Son (and not the Holy Spirit) into which human beings may be born into. (Similar to Mormonism.)

Members are required to give three tithes to LCG. This is a tremendous financial burden imposed upon all members. Furthermore members are expected to give more then this, the minimum, in order to please God, they are told. LCG cleverly hides this from potential converts. They do not mention Second or Third Tithes in any of their tithing booklets.

Members are forbidden to celebrate birthdays, Christmas, Easter, St. Valentine's Day, etc because they are viewed as 'pagan.' This is a terrible isolating mechanism that causes members to loosen and neglect personal bonds with non-members. (This is very similar to Jehovah's Witnesses.)

This church is an apocalyptic cult. In their so called Bible Study Course they forecasted that Jesus Christ 'could' return in 2017. They constantly keep members in a state of fear about the future. This has always been the case with Armstrongism. Armstrongites have asserted that Jesus Christ would return in 1936, after World War II, 1975, by 2005, 2017. It just never stops. LCG's publications are filled with lurid and crude warnings that nuclear World War III will destroy everything they hold dear. This cause members to view their links with the outside world as worthless because it will soon be destroyed and they spend all their energies on this cult. Those who join this church live in ever present (false) fear that World War III will begin according to their elaborate false prophecies.

Members are forbidden from marrying outside of their particular and rather small church. There is such little hope for members to find a spouse that they have Singles Weekends in which singles desperately try to find a mate. A personal testimony to the dreadful situation of singles in LCG's parent organization may be seen here: (http://www.exitsupportnetwork.com/dee/back/single.htm). Things have not changed. They still hold singles weekends as may be seen at the first link above.

Also interracial marriage is forbidden, as though Jim Crow is still in force. This was taught in Herbert W. Armstrong's book, Mystery of the Ages, chapters three and four.

If you publish that article of theirs and run that ad for them you could very well cause some person to get into this organization. I ask you again not to publish their materials. They know how to say fine words but it is just a trick.

Please do not do this.


Regards,
Redfox712

Perhaps you would like to make your voice heard by sending your own email on this matter, (or cut and paste mine) and make it absolutely clear to them that LCG is not worth associating with. Perhaps add in your two cents worth to them so they clearly understand what sort of organization they are dealing with.

There is a lot of justified anger at what these Armstrongite organizations have done to us. Let us use it in a constructive, non-violent fashion.

Let us tell them the truth about Armstrongism.

We need to stop this.

HWA Did Not Name Us!

Why didn't HWA give his followers a name?

The Mormons got a snappy name, Mormon, because that's what Joseph Smith's first book was called. Or they prefer to be called Latter Day Saints.

Rutherford bestowed the name Jehovah's Witnesses upon his followers. They have good sounding names.

I am reminded of this relevant quote from Felix Taylor's blog.

But self proclaimed Apostle Herbert W. Armstrong, who knew enough to come up with snappy booklets and even books which drew us into his mad and crazy world, never gave his movement a distinctive name. Just 'Church of God.' He taught that God had called the church 'Church of God' and that was the divinely bestowed name.

Now I know how true believers in the COGs will interpret this. "HWA taught that Church of God was the name of the church that God gave the church. We were taught that God names things for what they are and we are the Church of God. That is what we are. So it is a good name."

"How can you complain against the name that God has given us? The Devil must be influencing you to reject that which God has given us. The Devil has blinded you into forgetting what was actually taught."

I know very well that HWA did give his church a name. But Church of God, although it expresses the beautiful idea of being a community of believers dedicated to God, because of its vague nature it was inevitable that some kind of distinctive name would be placed upon this movement unless HWA gave such a distinctive name. This would happen regardless of whatever name God placed on His church.

HWA failed his followers in neglecting to give a good distinctive name. When his organization was incorporated with the State of California in 1946 he incorporated it as the Radio Church of God. Then in 1968 he renamed it the Worldwide Church of God.

Both of these names do not help give one a proper sense of identity. In that sense both names are terrible.

Worldwide, Worldwider, that's not a name. When I first heard of that name in the letters for the first Tomorrow's World issue I immediately thought that was a bad name. Why Worldwide? That does not have any bearing on who you are. That is just an arrogant boast. 'Look at me, Herbert W. Armstrong. My church is now worldwide.'

Neither Radio or Worldwide were good names. HWA failed his followers.

And because HWA failed to give his followers a distinctive name 'the world' gave us one whether we liked or not. Armstrongite.

HWA's failure to give us a good name is yet another one of the many failings that false prophet inflicted us with. I regard this as yet another painful insult HWA inflicted upon his eternally abused flock. He should have given his followers a better name. The fact that he did not is just another of his failures towards those he convinced to follow him.

Tanaka Memorial and More

If you look at the Wikipedia article for the Tanaka Memorial you will see a mention of Herbert W. Armstrong and how he mentioned it in the first Plain Truth magazine. It is a document said to be the Japanese Empire's plan for world domination.

Also Ambassador Reports has a blog up on PCG acquiring some bronze letters for their Armstrong Auditorium white elephant and the renovations the new owners of Ambassador Auditorium have done to it.

Is Gerald Flurry 'That Prophet'?

Exit and Support Network has mentioned this website which analyzes Gerald Flurry's claim to be 'That Prophet.'

A Website Analysing Armstrongism

Here is Mr. Henrik V. Bluck's hub page on Armstrongism.

Living Armstrongism's Sponsored Link to RCG

I've just noticed Dave Pack's Restored Church of God have a sponsored Google link when you type 'living Armstrongism.'

Gerald L. K. Smith: Lust for Money, Anti-Semitism, 'Back to Africa' and 'Christian Identity'

Gerald L. K. Smith (1898-1976) was a notorious anti-Semite and racist who had remarkable speaking abilities which were used to promote fascist movements and goals in America. He was well known for throwing hate speech at Jews, African-Americans and very often associated with extremist movements.

I frst heard of him when reading Michael Barkun's Religion and the Racist Right, an analysis of the origins of 'Christian Identity.' He mentioned him as a man who caused many racists within America to get in contact with each other, thus helping the early teachers of 'Christian Identity' to have access to a receptive audience for their message of hate. Although he himself was probably not a follower of 'Christian Identity,' he played a vital role in helping like minded people to get in contact wth each other.

I have been reading this 1953 report on Gerald L. K. Smith produced by the American Jewish Committee. There are some facinating things in there that have relevance for us as former or current members of the Churches of God.

(Please note: the writing is quite bad in this file so I strongly recommend you read it in as large a font as possible. Expand the size to 130% or more, as much as you can, to make it easier to read.)

In this report Gerald L. K. Smith is portrayed as a man who often claims to be agitating for great and noble causes but in fact it is all just a scam for his personal enrichment.

The report begins in this manner, "ever since 1933...the constant pattern of Gerald Smith's activities has consisted of a deliberate exploitation of the prejudices and fears of the people for his own personal profit. Anti-semitism or any other "ism" is merely the vehicle through which he operates his highly profitable ventures in demagoguery....

"Smith's operations have always been conducted as a "one man proposition." Despite his use of over thirty impressive, high-sounding "front" names, he has never had any actual organization or movement. An actual organization presupposes a board of trustees, treasurer, an official depositary, financial reports to the membership body. Smith wants none of these. He receives and controls all donations personally. He accounts to no one." (p. 2. All page numbers are PDF page numbers.)

This sounds a lot like HWA and the dictatorial manner in which he ran WCG and gained wealth for his eternaly abused flock.

Unlike HWA and most COGs (Fred Coulter's Christian Biblical Church of God seems to be an exception, I wish I could say otherwise) Gerald L. K. Smith was a virulent anti-Semite who hated Jews. He unleashed "thinly veiled attacks on Jews under the "code" of the lunatic fringe, using the phrase "international bankers" as a synonym for Jews." (p. 12.)

Here's another example of the evil anti-Semitic hatred that his organization threw at Jews, delivered just a few years after the Holocaust, "the oratorical efforts [at 'Christian Nationalist Crusade' meetings, a Gerald L. K. Smith front] consisted of attacks on Jews, on the Government as being completely under "Jewish-Communist" domination." (p. 27.)

He also hated African-Americans, even giving some eerily familiar advice.

"In addition his Detroit activities gave him a knowlege of the anti-Negro [sic] feeling prevalent there, which lost no time in exploiting. One of the chief points in his program still being to ship all Negroes [sic] back to Africa." (p. 12.)

Doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't that sound like Herman Hoeh's insistence that the race problem could have been solved if only African-Americans went back to Africa as mentioned previously?

On page 28 Wesley Swift is mentioned as attending a meeting of the Christian Nationalist Crusade, one of the many front organizations of Gerald L. K. Smith. Wesley Swift would later become one of the founders of "Christian Identity," a virulently racist and anti-Semitic movement which is related to Armstrongism by its common belief in British-Israelism.

Wesley Swift appears again on p. 30: "Smith's long standing affinity for Los Angeles and the West Coast may be explained by the fact that together with Wesley T. Swift, local leader of a an Anglo-Saxon religious-racialist movement, Smith is able to muster his largest audiences. Swift in effect "lends" his following to the Smith meetings, so that with the aid of these numbers, Smith "rallies" often have aggregate attendence of as many as 800-1200."

Very scary man. The stuff he says is absolutely hateful and profoundly disgusting.

Richard Ames Appointed Successor For LCG

Roderick Meredith has appointed Richard Ames to be his successor once he dies.

This is from Roderick C. Meredith's January 13, 2010 Co-Worker Letter.

Before I close, dear brethren and co-workers, I want to be sure all of you know that I have appointed our other leading minister, Mr. Richard Ames, the First Vice President of the Living Church of God parent organization in the U.S., as my successor over the whole Work. In fact he has been in this position of First Vice President working right here with me for some time now and has proved himself to be one of the most dedicated, balanced and loyal servants of God on earth. With that in mind, and with my increased age, I will be asking him to write these co-worker messages and other letters from time to time in the future. So I hope you will welcome his participation, and that you will pray for him that God will guide him, protect him and use him increasingly.

I am indebted to LCG apologist Bob Theil for this information.