Time Magazine and 'Christian Identity'

Here's an article from Time magazine concerning our embarrassing racist cousins, so-called 'Christian Identity.'

It even mentions us!

The COGs are intellectually related to 'Christian Identity' by their common use of the historically and genetically inaccurate doctrine of British Israelism.

The Kingdom of Matthias

This is a re-posting of a previous blog. I wanted to add an image to it to make it better.



One book that those interested in Armstrongism may find intriguing is the history book The Kingdom of Matthias (1995) by Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz. It is the tale of another false prophet, Robert Matthews, who started up a little community of brainwashed followers in the 1830s, and who claimed to be a reincarnation of the Apostle Matthias. I read it a few months ago and I found it a superbly written history book, very easy to read. It reads like a novel and you can really visualize it all.

Now without spoiling the story the reason why I wish to highlight it here is that this particular prophet, like HWA, adopted various Judaic practices, such as Sabbath observance, observing Old Testament meat laws. Those details do not impact upon the story in any major way. He also shared some other disturbing similarities with HWA's WCG. But I will not go into them here lest I spoil the story.

I am not suggesting that there is any connection between the two men but it is curious that they should have such similarities. This book is not about Armstrongism at all. It just so happens that this false prophet shared some doctrinal similarities with HWA.

HWA's Lie about Scriptural Support for the Trinity

I have already mentioned this before but I feel compelled to bring it up again.

One of the more brazen accusations Herbert W. Armstrong hurls from his last book, Mystery of the Ages, is that arguments for the Trinity are mainly based on the Johannine Comma, a piece of spurious writing placed within 1 John 5:7-8.

This false teaching is propagated through M. John Allen's book, Restoration of Truth, when he quotes these words from Mystery of the Ages in Chapter 1. (Emphasis added.)

“There is only one small passage in the Authorized Version of the Bible that is generally used by Trinity adherents to support the Trinity doctrine.

Is this accusation true? Before we address that let us observe further what HWA has to say.

This passage is found in I John 5:7-8, and is bracketed in the following quotation: ‘For there are three that bear record [in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth], the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.’ The bracketed words were added by editors to the Latin Vulgate translation probably in the early fourth century. They do not appear in any of the older Greek manuscripts nor in other modern English translation. They were added to the Latin Vulgate during the heat of the controversy between Rome and Dr. Arias and God's people.

“Bible commentaries explain that these words were never written in the apostle John's manuscript or any existing early copies of it. The apostle John in his three epistles and the Revelation speaks of "the Father, and... Son" (I John 1:3), but never of ‘the Father and the Word,’ except in this uninspired part of I John 5:7-8.

This is totally untrue. There are other Scriptures which can be used to justify this teaching. That is what I discovered after reading Walter Martin's Kingdom of the Cults.

Here's one argument from Mr. Kevin Quick. (Italics mine.):

John 16:13-15-"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak of his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine [Jesus'] and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."

How can the Holy Spirit "guide" someone into "all the truth" unless He is a person?

How can the Holy Spirit "speak" unless He is a person?

How can the Holy Spirit "hear" unless He is a person?

How can the Holy Spirit "declare to you [Jesus' disciples] the things that are to come" unless He is a person?

Thus it can be seen that HWA's accusation that, "There is only one small passage in the Authorized Version of the Bible that is generally used by Trinity adherents to support the Trinity doctrine" is just a LIE!

That is just a vicious lie. And, whether knowingly or unknowingly, M. John Allen is continuing to perpetuate that vicious lie in his book.

M. John Allen and Restoration Ministries

I have mentioned this particular COG before but recently I went back and tried to understand this COG sect better.

After I began exploring the web for information on the COGs in late 2000 one website that caught my attention was that of the Restoration Church of God (now Restoration Ministries), led by one M. John Allen.

It had quite a selection of HWA's works. However my allegiance was firmly with LCG and I had little idea of what this organization was, so I paid little attention to any original works by this Restoration Ministries. I went there simply to read its archive of WCG materials.

I was vaguely aware that he disapproved of HWA's doctrine on government. Truth be told, at the time I had little understanding what that doctrine was. From my perspective, being a lone man reading COG materials, it was very difficult to see what was the doctrine of government anyway, as it is a topic not generally discussed in recruitment literature to potential recruits. It is a topic discussed among seasoned COG followers, which is not discussed by the COGs when they are trying to convert people.

He began to associate with WCG in 1977. According to his own account from the start of his association with WCG he had misgiving about the spiritual state of it.

Mr. Armstrong, because of his huge ego, simply could have never accepted the fact that the church he was used to found could be SPIRITUALLY DEAD. THIS CONDITION OF SPIRITUAL DEADNESS, THOUGH, I RECOGNIZED ALMOST FROM THE BEGINNING OF MY ASSOCIATION WITH THAT CHURCH, STARTING IN 1977! (M. John Allen, Restoration of Truth, Chapter 3.)

M. John Allen went to Ambassador College in 1980. He also heard HWA's last sermon.

I listened to Mr. Armstrong's sermons in person over a period of about five years. In fact, I was privileged to hear the very last sermon he gave, which was on the Day of Atonement, 1985. Even though sick and weak, Mr. Armstrong felt that it was HIS DUTY TO PERSONALLY TEACH GOD'S PEOPLE AS MUCH AS HE WAS ABLE. (Restoration of Truth, Chapter 3.)

He left WCG in 1992, disgusted at the transformation Tkach had unleashed upon WCG. In that year he also released a book entitled The Restoration of Truth. It is essentially a rewrite of Mystery of the Ages, with a few personal changes to HWA's teachings, notably on government.

Another intriguing innovation here is his spin on the church era doctrine. M. John Allen identifies Thyatira as the Seventh Day Adventists and the Church of God (Seventh Day). Sardis is WCG under both HWA and Tkach. And Philadelphia is today, which includes his sect, unsurprisingly.

Presently M. John Allen is situated in Costa Rica. He seems to have been there for quite awhile.

In the late 1990s he shared through the Internet his dreams of creating an online University called Destiny University. It seems to have gone nowhere.

Another innovation I recall from my first encounter with this sect is his contention that the process of disfellowshipment should by done by the entire assembly and not just the church hierarchy.

Do not be fooled by any of these criticisms of HWA's Armstrongism, he still regards this false prophet as being a man used by God.

What is this sect's position on healing?

I cannot say for sure but among the works of HWA available is his murderous and damnable 'healing' booklet.

He seems to have several interlinking organizations.

It seems to be a very small sect. LCG apologist Bob Thiel in his COG Links page states that this sect only has one or two congregations.

And that is Restoration Ministries, led by M. John Allen, a sect which I had some encounter with in my early days with Armstrongism. I cannot recommend it to my readers as it continues to propagate the grievous errors of Armstrongism.

The True Young Ambassadors

J over at Shadows of WCG has just written that the Young Ambassadors might be a rip off of the Young Ambassadors from Brigham Young University.

Another rip off from Mormonism?

An Article on Getting Out of a Cult

Here's an anonymously written article, How I helped my Family Leave Jehovah's Witnesses, which some readers may find helpful.

Courtesy of Freeminds.org.

Reasoning with Jehovah's Witnesses by Kevin Quick

Here's an online book some may find helpful. Reasoning with Jehovah's Witnesses by Kevin Quick.

Was the Radio Church of God Democratic Before 1957?

Carl Franklin argues that before 1957 the Radio Church of God was not a hierarchical organization. The way he portrays it all was fine and well with RCG before 1957 when it was radically changed by Rader in order to comply with IRS regulations to gain tax exemption.

I do not find this argument very convincing.

Further evidence that such was not the case may be found in Raymond Cole's Open Letter.

Raymond Cole was one of the first five Evangelists ordained by HWA in 1952. He left WCG in 1974 because of disagreement with the changes of 1974, which affected the doctrine of Divorce and Remarriage and changed WCG from observing a Monday Pentecost to a Sunday Pentecost. He then founded his own COG sect, the Church of God, the Eternal, which he led until his death.

He reveals that there was great turmoil over the proper date of Pentecost in what he called "the traumatic years of 1948 and 1949."

Does this reveal that the Radio Church of God was somehow democratic before 1957?

Although the subject of Pentecost had become sensitive and divisive even in the 1940s the intensity of the subject was growing in the latter '40s and was also geographically spreading. Unrest had developed in as diverse areas as San Antonio, Texas; Wichita, Kansas; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; as well as Eugene, Oregon. Satan was intensely at work. He hated the real truth about Pentecost. An alarming effort was made to destroy the fledgling church before trained and loyal ministers could be sent to the growing number of areas across the United States where the Truth was taking root. For a number of reasons, I was chosen by Mr. Armstrong, even before ordination, to go out to these troubled areas and quell the unrest about Pentecost. These defensive measures took me to Portland, Oregon for a year—prior to graduation. My matriculation from college was postponed for one year. These assignments necessitated my understanding the arguments being advanced as well as the premise of divine revelation and the proofs for a Monday Pentecost the church had taught over the years.

I see no evidence to suggest that RCG operated in a democratic spirit here. It seems that even in 1948 RCG had its dictatorial spirit.

This further shows that Carl Franklin's assertion that Rader changed the government in the RCG in 1957 to comply with IRS regulations to be untenable. Personally I find it unbelievable.

More on Carl Franklin's Bad History

A fundamental part of Carl Franklin's thesis in his paper is that Rader and the IRS caused the Radio Church of God to switch from a collegial system (which is left extremely vague and is never really explained) into a ministerial hierarchy.

Here is where he argues that Rader discussing the nature of RCG with the IRS was actually what caused RCG to become a dictatorship.

The following is a quote from Stanley Rader's book, Against the Gates of Hell, Chapter 4, as quoted in Franklin's paper. Words in brackets are Franklin's, words in green are mine.

"It soon was apparent to me that much of the problem was caused by a misapprehension on the government's side of the very NATURE OF THE ORGANIZATION known then as the Radio Church of God, and of its operations in general. The government had obviously confused Herbert Armstrong with the likes of Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry, or on the other hand, with A.A. Allen, a well-known radio evangelist with whom the government had been at war for some time.

"Thus I knew how to solve the problem. I explained in detail what the Radio Church of God was, what it taught, how it promulgated its message, and, indeed, everything relevant and material about the organization and its operations that I had learned from several weeks of intensive study of the facts. The Internal Revenue Service has developed a list of fourteen characteristics that it uses in determining whether an organization qualifies as a church. [These qualifications were patterned after the organization of the Catholic Church.] [What are these fourteen characterizations precisely and how are they related to the Catholic Church? These questions are never addressed in this paper.] I simply demonstrated how the Radio Church of God satisfied these requirements. [At that time it actually did not.] (Carl Franklin's paper, p. 14.)

How on earth does Carl Franklin know these regulations were based on the Catholic Church? This is just an assertion he makes which he does not back up with any evidence.

He says RCG did not fulfill the IRS's requirements. What were they? He does not tell us except to say that in some mysterious way it caused them to become some sort of hierarchy.

The best he can come up with on page 15 is to say that RCG happened to be rather small at the time. That could not be helped and changing RCG into a hierarchical organization (whatever he means by that!) was not going to change that, so I do not understand why Franklin focuses on this topic to feebly support his contention that Rader and the IRS were responsible for WCG's dictatorial nature.

Let us meditate again on just what Carl Franklin is asking us to believe. There is a difference between a) Rader explaining the operations of RCG to some officials and b) conducting a radical reform of RCG's government. Franklin presents evidence for a) and acts as though this helps to prove that Rader committed b).

He also presents some RCG articles in such a way as to make it appear that there was a radical change in RCG's approach to government in 1956-7. Even though one of the 1958 hierarchy supporting articles is actually a reprint of a 1953 article, as was seen in the last entry.

Let us think meditate again on just what Carl Franklin is asking us to believe. He is asking us to believe that some stranger who goes to Washington on behalf of RCG went back and convinced HWA to radically change the form of government in the RCG.

Again I have to say that Carl Franklin's evidence that Rader and the IRS caused RCG to adopt a hierarchical government simply does not withstand scrutiny. The establishment of dictatorship in RCG occurred before Rader came onto the scene and he had nothing to do with its initial establishment.

More Things We Can Do

Here is a post from xHWA I would like to share with you.

I would like to also ask that everyone also send an email to Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily (jfarah@wnd.com) and ask him to yank the videos from Richard Rives.

Here is a sample video:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=125274

Here is at least one of Mr. Rives' websites:
http://www.toolong.com/

Here is a quote from that website:
"THERE ARE SEVERE PENALTIES FOR DISOBEYING THE SABBATH COMMANDMENT."

And another:
"History reveals that all the known nations during the first century A.D. rested on the Sabbath day, Saturday."

Mr. Rives is not telling the truth. Whether he knows it or not, he is preaching contrary to the gospel of grace. He is recreating the errors of Armstrongism.