Post-WCG Life and Theology ARCHIVES

Coming home from a good hard days work and I found out that Gavin Rumney's Ambassador Watch was closing down on Mark Tabladillo's Jesus Loves Fellowship message board. I was shocked and surprised (and a little upset) to find out, only thinking it would shut down for the holidays, only to come again with new news in January. Gavin had other plans. The over 20 hours of research and information gathering had taken a personal toll on him. It was and still is my wish to see Ambassador Watch in the hands of those who have the time, energy and effort to monitor, scrutinize and yes, criticize the splinters of the Worldwide Church of God (even the WCG itself). As I mentioned on the JLF message board, I am afraid that the old saying will come into effect, "When the cat is gone, the mice will go out and play." It is my firm belief that Armstrongism is a wicked religion and I believe it is dutybound for anyone seeing evil run rampant is to love the righteous and fight the wicked. Gavin Rumney did just that. Some people accused him with having an axe to grind. I didn't see it. I thought he was fair and balanced as possible. He just had little patience for fundamentalist way of thinking which showed in his writings. Some accused him of no longer taking the Bible seriously. That statement got me riled too and I will dare say it is simply a gross and sloppy misrepresentation. He is spiritual man who does take the Bible seriously but never felt compelled to micromanage it in a simplistic hyper-literal way and to beat people over the head if they didn't agree with it. The Ambassador Watch e-zine was all about making the WCG and all the splinters accountable. It was not there "to be nice" as some demanded it to be (Gavin just simply believed that "good is good and bad is bad" and will call it as he sees it) and it was not there "to show love", which was another "nice" way saying just to roll over and playing dead in the face of incompetence, injustice, inequality,greed, deception, manipulation, hatred, fanaticism, religious bullyism and lust for power and domination that was rampantly wild in the XCG's. Ambassador Watch was not there to "forgive and forget" which really was the royal roaring raging demand of the religious bullies to excuse and deny what happened or "Shut up you unloving poor example of a Christian!!! Just get over it and move on! God will kill you if you don't smile!" Gavin Rumney decided he will have none of it! Truly Ambassador Watch had a good run while it lasted. Instead of this forbidden access to the website, Gavin should consider opening it up for archival purposes because I am sure there are many people want to do scholarly research on the XCG's during the turn of the 21st century and Ambassador Watch just does the trick. I personally wish Gavin well on his new endevours whatever they may be but I hope that this is not last time we have heard from him. Gavin: Good night and good luck!