Spanish JW Headquarters Removed

Here's a story which will resonate with many disappointed WCG members.

In Spain the Watchtower has decided to dismantle their headquarters and printing facilities in Spain. The Spanish Witnesses are very unhappy with this.

At the time, expansion at the head­quar­ters in New York left the Watch Tower cor­po­ra­tion with­out the finances to build offices and a print­ing facil­ity in Spain and so the Span­ish Wit­nesses were solicited to fol­low the exam­ple of the Israelites in bring­ing their gold, sil­ver, and valu­able items to Moses in order to build the Taber­na­cle. (Exo­dus 35:5–9) The 1983 Year­book of Jehovah’s Wit­nesses, reports the gen­er­ous way that the Span­ish Wit­nesses responded to this appeal.:

At the close of the con­ven­tions, peo­ple were lin­ing up to con­tribute their jew­els, gold and sil­ver rings and bracelets, so that these could be turned into cash to finance the new project. At the con­ven­tion in San Sebastián in the Basque coun­try, an elderly sis­ter handed over a heavy gold bracelet. When asked if she was sure that she wanted to donate such a valu­able item, she answered: “Brother, it is going to do far more good pay­ing for a new Bethel than it will on my wrist!”

With the unspar­ing finan­cial sup­port of the Span­ish Wit­nesses a new branch office and print­ing facil­ity was later con­structed in Madrid. Being financed within the coun­try, this new Bethel was a source of pride for the Span­ish Wit­nesses. Many would make spe­cial trips just to tour the facil­ity. Now some are hurt to watch as the print­ing presses that they gave their pre­cious heir­looms to buy are shipped to Ger­many and the Bethel that they sac­ri­ficed their sav­ings to build is antic­i­pated to be sold, with the pro­ceeds of the sale return­ing back to the US Watch Tower cor­po­ra­tion that was orig­i­nally unable to finance its con­struc­tion.

At the end of this blog he writes,

Cur­rently the dis­con­tent among the reli­gion are orga­niz­ing and mak­ing their case that any funds com­ing from the sale of the Bethel facil­ity should be go back to the ones that financed it the first place. They sug­gest that such money could be used in a char­i­ta­ble way, such as pro­vid­ing a retire­ment facil­ity for those in their ranks that are now aging, with­out pro­vi­sion, hav­ing giv­ing their life in ser­vice of the reli­gion.

This situation reminds me of many WCG members' justified disappointment at WCG's selling of the Ambassador College properties without giving anything back to those who had paid for their construction.

On other news the Watchtower will soon be moving their world headquarters to Warwick, New York.

Thanks to Watchtower News for providing me with these news.

Weinland's Sick Sermon

To my horror and disgust Ronald Weinland told his eternally abused flock to pray for catastrophes to occur. This is from Mike's blog, Pressed Upon, and he is discussing a sermon Weinland gave on January 31, 2009. In it "Ron talked about how the members were to pray for an increase in the thunders".

Here are some of the damning quotes taken from Weinland.

Can we grasp what it’s going to take to bring them to repentance? … So hat does it take? Suffering. To think that you would pray for the suffering of some, for the death of some. So that others could live. … So again, what is the purpose of our prayers, petitions and fasting before God?

Later he says,

The majority is about our desire for the thunders … and pray about them that they be released with far greater power.

Later Weinland says,

Are you comfortable about praying for massive earthquakes? You need to think about this because your asking for the death of others. Because that’s what happens with a massive earthquake. That’s what happens with a massive tsunami. Or when a volcano goes off. People die.

This is disgusting. I am truly appalled and sickened by these words.

When I was an Armstrongite I never recall being told that we should pray for these disasters to occur. We were told that these things are going to happen. We were told to pray 'let your kingdom' come but not to pray for those catastrophes to occur. They were in God's hands, not ours. The coming disasters were the result of sin and the resultant penalty for it. We had nothing to do with them.

Even when I was an Armstrongite, in all those long eight years (2000-8) the thought of actually praying for these horrifying catastrophes to occur never occurred to me. They were going to happen anyway. We were told to pray that people will 'wake up' and become like us and thus escape from them.

I find that development within Weinlandism to be sick and very disturbing.

It further exposes, as though we needed any more proofs, the utter moral bankruptcy of this Insane Lying False Prophet Ronald Weinland.

Murder of Christians in Mosul, Iraq

Here's a sad article from McClatchy 'Iraq's Christians under attack again as elections approach,' which details a campaign of murder being directed against Christians in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. This has been happening in the last two weeks.

Apparently the murderers' aim is to intimidate Christians to not participate in the upcoming elections. Many Christians, perhaps two-thirds of those in Iraq, have already been compelled to flee their homes in Iraq and become refugees due to the turmoil of the Iraq War.

Weinland, Tkach and 40 Weeks

I recall that the Insane Lying False Prophet Ronald Weinland claimed there were forty weeks from the December 17, 1994 sermon till his death on September 23, 1995.

He teach that Tkach, Sr. died forty Sabbaths after he delivered his sermon that renounced Armstrongism on December 17, 1994.

"So from exactly forty Sabbaths from the day he gave that sermon back in December 1994. He gave that srmon on a Sabbath and forty Sabbaths later to the very hour he died." This is what he is recorded to have said in a Weinlandite video.

When I first saw that idea being taught by Weinland I instantly remembered reading this.

And, just as a little leaven leavens the whole lump over time, so to has the apostasy in the Worldwide Church spread and grown from that one scholar, until now they have faculty members from a worldly university “instructing” the new church leadership under Joe Tkach, Jr. What an abomination! They have exchanged wholesale God’s truth for the lies of this world that the people in God’s church had learned were not true! And the leadership won’t pay attention to God, either, even when He makes it plain He does not approve. Exactly 40 weeks before his sudden death, Joe Sr. said that he believed God had inspired and was inspiring the changes. He said that if God didn’t agree, He could strike him down. exactly 40 weeks later he was dead! But did the church leadership and the brethren pay attention? No! They still go down the same path! In fact, I was kicked off of all discussion groups even among former members for suggesting that such a connection existed and that God had struck Joe down! Well, GOD DID STRIKE HIM DOWN, AND THE PRESENT MEMBERSHIP AND LEADERSHIP HAD BETTER TAKE INSTRUCTION AND WARNING FROM THE EXPERIENCE, LEST IT IS REPEATED!

No, it's not Weinland. This is by M. John Allen, leader of the COG sect, Restoration Ministries, in his work, The Plain Truth About Church Government (1994, 1997).

More information on this COG splinter sect based in Costa Rica may be seen here on this blog.

The Watchtower's Shameful Concealment of Sexual Abusers

One Bethelite (an employee at the Watchtower world headquarters in New York City) named Barbara Anderson discovered that the Watchtower Society follow horrendous policies concerning sexual abusers among their leaders which made it practically impossible for them to be brought to justice and ensured many of them are able to remain undetected within the Watchtower Cult leadership.

These disturbing revelations may be read here.

The Roman Catholic Church has at least admitted that such things have occurred under them and have taken measures, however inadequate they may be, to address this deeply painful issue. The Watchtower Society have not yet even done that much.

Louis Farrakhan's Continuing Anti-Semitism

Recently the Nation of Islam has had their annual Saviour's Day celebration. It's like their big yearly celebration.

During it their leader, Louis Farrakhan made anti-Semitic allegations that the Jews control Washington, blah, blah, blah.

Claimed the 'white right' are trying to murder President Obama in order to further demonize white people.

The Nation of Islam teaches that white peoples are devils created by a breeding program engineered by a mad scientist 6000 years ago on Patmos.

Louis Farrakhan has had a long history of making anti-Semitic and racist comments. He has never changed.

A New COG Blog

Gavin Rumney has introduced a new COG blog, cbmilne33's Sabbatarian Watch.

He has an informative chart showing how many of the Adventist movements are linked together by a common ancestry with the Millerites of the 1830s-1840s. You can see it in all its glory here.

I'm a bit jealous. I wanted to do something similar myself but I could not be bothered to learn how to do something like that. But I must say it is far better than what I would have produced.

Michael Jackson and Jehovah's Witnesses

Michael Jackson has been mentioned before upon his tragic and premature passing away. But he was also a Jehovah's Witness, a religion from which Herbert W. Armstrong plagiarized many of his ideas.

So here's an account of his life as a Jehovah's Witness and the troubles he had with the dictatorial hierarchy.

Courtesy of JWFacts.com.

A Journey into American Health Care

Here's very interesting article on why health insurance costs so much in some places in the USA. The Cost Conundrum.

Here one reporter goes to McAllen, Texas, which has one the most expensive rates for health insurance in the country and tries to grasp why it happens to be that way.

I hear there is a renewed push among Democratic Senators to get the Public Option passed using reconciliation. I hope that initiative works.

On Herman Hoeh

For anyone interested here's a little profile of Herman Hoeh readers may be interested in Spiritus-Temporis.com.

It also features some discussion on the infamous time cycle belief.

Introduction.

Ministry and Writings of Herman Hoeh.

Creator of Time Cycle belief.