Painful Truth message board poster "wooho74" gives Joe Jr. and his boys a piece of her mind. You go again girl!
This is long -- be warned.
After my husband and I were married, we were involved in an inner-city mission to needy kids in the St. Louis area. The WCG pastor at my congregation in Indiana who came after I left -- actually a good guy -- kind and didn't make members feel bad -- he may be the only one -- got in contact with me to see if I would be willing to come and speak to the congregation about it.
I was floored because I am a woman and he wanted me to speak about it on the Sabbath. My husband went with me. I talked about our program and how it affected children and their families, focusing on keeping single parent families in tact. I also asked people to take time to reach out to people that were no longer with the congregation -- people who were no longer there. Maybe they had differences of opinion, but that there was just too much history not to be friends.
It was a really good service. Until the tape. Then there was a taped sermon from Joe Tkach, Jr. This was in 1998, so you can guess what it was about. I was floored because I had been away from it for six years and the tone was so very different. And yet, the people in the congregation seemed depressed and detached during my talk and during the tape from Pasadena.
When the pastor called later and asked me what I thought of the changes. I told him that I was stunned. He asked me what I thought of the people. I told him that I thought that they were all really depressed. He got really quiet. He didn't say much more, but he invited me to come back any time. I wonder now if I was used to say, "Here's one of our kids. She didn't commit suicide. She's a Christian. She's willing to talk to us. Now, see, we're okay!!!" I would hate to think that it was that calculated. The minister that I mentioned was actually a nice guy, and he did a few funerals for friends that were no longer members. He actually seemed to care about people, cried with them, brought food and supplies to their houses. Like I said, he wasn't cut from the same cloth as the idiots that I had been raised with.
It was about six months later that I found the Painful Truth. And then I realized what was happening. Joe Jr. claimed to have changed and was now embracing grace. The problems were major and two-fold. First, the same people who were administering "the changes" were the same people who had abused members. It was like having a sex offender minister to the children that he had raped.
Second, the mind control techniques were still fully in place. Joe Jr. was still a "pastor general," messages still disseminated from "headquarters," and people were being blamed for not embracing changes that up until this point, they had always thought were pagan and contrary to God.
So I made my statement and it continues to this day. If Joe Jr. and Mike Feazell and Greg Albrecht really wanted to embrace grace, they would issue an apology for the way that people had been treated. They would painstakingly go through member profiles and determine how much people had given over the years, and they would tally that by a percentage. They would then, in an attempt to pay back all that was stolen, sell everything and give the money back to the people who gave it, regardless of what those people thought or how they worshipped. The time that was stolen cannot be redeemed, but the money can be.
They would go and get real jobs instead of continuing to use mind control techniques to get money out of unsuspecting people. They would dissolve the corporations. Then they would approach cult counselors about providing services to their flocks, explaining to them exactly what happened to them and how to heal. They would willingly face whatever music people brought in terms of class action lawsuits or whatever. They would provide apologies to the publishers of the Ambassador Report for slandering them and would pay John Trechak's widow for a hard bound copy for each member and former member.
Then and only then would I be willing to listen to their newly-found theology, because the proof would be in the pudding. Most Christian groups were so floored by the changes in doctrine by the WCG that many were willing to embrace their orthodoxy as orthopraxy. The WCG was willing to go to great lengths to fool a lot of people, and they have no more right to be ministers of God than a Hare Krishna or a member of the Children of God or Jim Jones or David Koresh.
Our dads might go to their graves believing that Herbie was the end-time Elijah. I hope not. I am hoping that they find peace and solace in the real truth. And yet, sometimes I think that it would kill my dad to know that he slaved for an organization that was a complete fraud. I know that I feel a loss at my 18 years in the group -- I can't imagine what he would feel after swallowing a steady diet of 34 years of theological bullshit.
I also try to find things for my kids to do. I spend way too much money on them, but oh well. It's just money. We don't give them a lot of stuff, but we make sure that they have lots and lots of great experiences. I love them so much. Just let some evil bastard tell me not to give them medicine when they need it. Just let them try it.
And I say a hearty "Amen!" Love the righteous, fight the wicked!
