Post-WCG Life and Theology ARCHIVES

For your consideration, a former minister had this to say about the Winnipeg, Canada situation. ........................................................
The report from Winnipeg is tragic but not unexpected. I am an ex-lay pastor who was removed from the WCG ministry in my area because of my refusal to participate in this kind of process. I attend regularly (Sunday) at an evangelical mainstream church where I now serve in several leadership roles.
The totalitarian nature of the WCG indicates that Alan Redmond felt he had the support if not the encouragement from his superiors to force this change in Winnipeg, Canada. If the Canadian WCG administration really believes that congregations have the Christian freedom to choose their worship then Gary Moore the national director for Canada would reverse this decision and reprimand Alan Redmond for acting in such a manner.
Pastor Redmond’s action of phoning members instead of doing a congregational survey makes his decision especially suspect. It gives the appearance that he knew the congregation as a whole would reject a move to Sunday. He was aware that the previous year’s survey was overwhelmingly 87% in favour of Saturday. Therefore he did his own secret poll which he says showed that 71% supported his decision.
If his results are valid then there is nothing to fear from holding an open survey subject to public scrutiny. After all what does it matter if the Sunday move is delayed a few weeks in order for the congregation to discuss and decide in a manner similar to last year. Such a process would give confidence in the subsequent decision.
Surely his phone poll’s 71% in support of the move is an accurate reflection of the congregation’s will. If it isn’t accurate than surely a survey is even more necessary to avoid alienating 87% of the congregation assuming that last years results are still a valid representation.
In examining the WCG it can be difficult to focus on what has gone so drastically wrong after the “historic doctrinal changes”. The official acceptance of orthodox Christian doctrine coupled with the WCG’s ministry’s affirmations of being Christ centred should have led to stabilization if not growth but it didn’t. Why?
After all the WCG that attracted me in the early 70’s was a loving community in which I found people who really cared for each other. They loved God with all of their being so much so that they endured decades of abuse and doctrinal changes. Surely, a more gracious and Christ centred church should have generated results opposite to what we have been witnessing over these past 9 years.
Pastor General Tkach would like to blame the doctrinal changes and no doubt Alan Redmond will do the same as his church continues to accelerate its spiral downward. Personally I find that this excuse after 9 years is wearing quite thin especially since it was never true in the first place other than for the 30,000 lost to UCG, GCG and PCG.
In 1998, the Pastor General announced that 40,000 had left and gone no where. Given the continued exodus since that time that 40,000 is no doubt much, much higher perhaps as high as 60,000 by this time. The Pastor General told the EMNR Board in 1998, that these people refuse to attend any Christian church. So rather than leading people to Christ we see massive numbers of people turned off of God.
There is a book called Hitler’s Cross by Erwin Lutzor that speaks to a similar situation that occurred among the Jewish people after the Holocaust:
“WHERE WAS THE CHURCH?
Today many Jews are atheists because of the Holocaust. If there was a God, they reason, He would not have stood by without stopping the brutal injustice. Unfortunately, the church did not, for the most part, come to the aid of those who were ostracized or sent to the death camps. In fact, some joined in the persecutions.” ( Hitler’s Cross, pg. 99)
I believe there are strong parallels between how the WCG has treated its members and these ex-members’ rejection of organized Christianity if not God Himself. They look at the unloving conduct of a ministry that inflicts actions that cause emotional abuse upon its long time members and wonder where is God in this?
Consider the children who broke into tears after witnessing their father or mother’s tears as reported from Winnipeg. How will these children remember their church experience?
Yet there is an even greater sin at work in all this. The same kind of sin that existed under Hitler’s cross. A sin that paralysed the European church and vast numbers of individual Christians as graphically recounted by a German Christian of the Nazi era in Lutzor’s book:
“I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. We heard stories of what was happening to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it, because, what could anyone do to stop it?
A railroad track ran behind our small church and each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance and then the wheels coming over the tracks. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by. We realized it was carrying Jews like cattle in the cars!
Week after week the whistle would blow. We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew we would hear the cries of the Jews en route to a death camp. Their screams tormented us.
We knew the time the train was coming and when we heard the whistle blow we began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church we were singing at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more.
Years have passed and no one talks about it anymore. But I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. God forgive me; forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians yet did nothing to intervene.” (Hitler’s Cross, pgs. 99,100)
Regret is one of the worst emotional experiences a Christian can have. Our choices carry with them eternal consequences.
Germany, the heart of the Reformation, failed its test when it allowed the dictator Hitler to assume God’s place. They allowed him to determine right and wrong. He was permitted to be their conscience. Lutzor puts it this way:
“Unfortunately, only a few German Christians saw the Jews as their brothers and sisters; only a few saw them as Christ; only a few stood against ...” (ibid, pg. 100)
I find two faults at work in the continued destruction of these little ones in Christ.
The first is that of the Pastor General and his administration for allowing personal baggage to drag them into this sin against the Lord. Regardless of their intention they have allowed the central doctrine of Armstrongism’s absolute and unaccountable Pastor General as God’s voice on earth to stand. It’s corrupting influence is cancerous to them and the WCG. Armstrong’s doctrine must be destroyed.
Second, I find fault with the people of every rank and especially the members of the WCG. How can people come before the Lord of love singing praise choruses and putting on dramas about God’s love & grace while Jesus is marked for elimination from their fellowship because He looks Jewish.
How often under Armstrong did we watch WCG ministers expel those who stood up for the truth? How often did we listen to the WCG slander against those who saw Christ in Christmas? Will we now listen to slander against those who see Jesus in the festivals?
You know that these people who are upset and crying in your fellowship have always believed that Jesus is the head of the church, they accepted Him as their personal Lord and Saviour at baptism. They received the gift of the Holy Spirit and they are crying in our fellowship and we do nothing but sing and even worse allow others to berate them.
The church is the people. It is not just Pasadena. It is not just Dr. Tkach. It is not just Pastor Alan Redmond.
The church is that person who is in tears and upset. It is you, I and them because of Christ in us.