Post-WCG Life and Theology ARCHIVES

Good News April 21/07 Romans 7:7-25

You have heard me say before that the Christian life is a battle. And I believe that each and every one of us knows that, whether we would use those words or not. What I mean is that we experience it every day as we do battle against the temptations the world throws at us, as we struggle and agonize in the face of the injustices that are a part of this fallen world, as we try to cope with our own personal failures and shortcomings. While we might wish that the Christian life was all sweetness and light, triumph and victory, it is not. There is a great deal in this life that pushes the envelope pretty hard. We live in a world, for example, where an angry student can buy hand guns and indiscriminately murder innocent people in a senseless shooting rampage.

What scripture tells us is that there is a battle going on in our world and in our lives, between good and evil, God and the devil, if you will. The Apostle Paul made reference to this when he wrote to the church at Ephesus, “Put on the whole armour of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” The suggestion here is that the true battle is not against one another, but in resisting the forces of evil in a battle that is being waged on a more cosmic level. It appears that just as love and goodness are spiritual influences in our lives, so too hatred and violence seek to influence us.

In this passage in Romans, Paul speaks to us of the human condition that every one of us should be able to identify with – at least any of us who have ever tried to live righteously. He writes, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not what I want, but I do the very thing I hate….I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” I don’t know about you, but I can certainly identify with what he is sharing. I’ve had lots of experiences of agonizing before God, aware that I’ve blown it – again – put my foot in it – again – done the very thing I didn’t want to do – again – hurt someone I cared about – again!

I expect that most if not all of us can identify with what Paul is sharing. But I want you to notice how Paul explains it. I especially want you to notice how he personifies “sin.” He writes, “But sin, seizing an opportunity, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. “Sin, seizing an opportunity, deceived me.” “It was sin, working death in me.” Paul portrays sin as if it had a personality – as if it were alive – as if it had a mind of its own – as if it were actively plotting against us. And then in verse 17, Paul makes a very daring and potentially controversial statement to explain his tendency to do the very things he does not want to do. He writes, “In fact, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.” Listen again, “It is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.”
Now doesn’t that sound like a cop-out? Doesn’t that sound as if Paul is refusing to take personal responsibility for his choices and instead blames it on sin, as if sin had the power to force him to disobey? It reminds me of the words of a comedian that will date me: Flip Wilson. Some of you will remember his routine, and his phrase, “The devil made me do it!” That sounds exactly like what Paul is saying. And if it is true, if the devil did make me do it, then I am absolved from responsibility – it’s not my fault. And that is an attractive option. In fact, humans have been trying to avoid personal accountability from the beginning. You may remember that when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and got caught by God, dam blamed Eve and even blamed God for creating Eve in the first place – “The woman you gave to be with me.” And Eve blamed the serpent.

But it’s important to note that the temptation to sin did not originate in either Adam or Eve – it came from an outside source – an outside source with a vested interest in trying to turn Adam and Eve against God. The desire to sin did not originate within Adam and Eve. It came from outside. And this is very important to understand. When God created us in God’s image, we were created with free will – the capacity to choose – the capacity to choose to follow God’s leading or not. God did not want our love or obedience unless it was freely offered, for love is not love unless it is offered freely and willing. If it is forced or coerced, it is not love. So God took an eternal risk by giving us free will. Our hearts, at the very start, were created by God, and they were good – indeed, they were designed for goodness – they rejoiced in God’s presence, they rejoiced in and respected God’s creation, they rejoiced in their relationship with God and each other. But because of the gift and curse of free choice, they gave in to temptation and gave sin a foothold. And we have been dealing with the consequence of that ever since. Once we allow sin to gain a foothold in us – it exerts its influence. Now that does not excuse us when we choose to act in ways that are not honouring to God or respectful of our neighbour. We are responsible for our actions. But it reminds us that we are not creating or inventing these temptations ourselves.

We might rather that God had organized the universe a bit better, removing the influence of evil, so that we would never experience temptation. Or we might wish that once we have made a commitment to Christ, God would shield us from temptation. But God did not. God does not. God did not shield Jesus from temptation – we see examples of that in scripture. And the author of Hebrews wrote, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are.” Jesus can identify with what we go through, because he too was tempted and he too struggled to overcome temptation. He was able to, because he was one with the Father. And we can debate until we’re blue in the face, why God did it the way God did, but it will not change the fact that this indeed is the way the world works – good and evil exist in this life and they are engaged in a battle for our hearts.

We know that there are times when we give in to temptation – when we sin. Paul wants us to know that when we do sin, it is in response to the actions of the evil one. One of the ploys of the enemy, you see, is to convince us that we’re no good – we’ve never been good – we’ll never be any good – so there’s no point in even trying. And our experience can easily confirm that kind of logic. Even when we try to live according to God’s standards, we mess up and fall short and seem to be particularly prone to repeating our mistakes. And we can beat ourselves up about it – convince ourselves that we’re hopeless cases – doomed to disobedience. In fact, if we do too much of that, we can convince ourselves that we’re beyond God’s forgiveness. And that’s exactly what the enemy wants us to think! That’s sin’s goal – to get us to give up on ourselves, so that we’ll take that next logical step and give up on God.

Paul is not trying to defend his poor choices or refuse to take responsibility for his actions or give us an easy out. He is trying to help us understand the human condition and the very real influence that sin has in our life. Sin has a life of its own – it is an active force seeking to ensnare us – it dwells in our flesh and it seeks to twist us and deceive us and steer us away from God. When Paul writes, “It is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me,” he is trying to explain his experience of doing things he doesn’t want to do, which feels like some other force at work in him. And isn’t that our experience? When we mess up, aren’t there times when you wonder if it was someone else controlling us? Sometimes we cat in ways that feel totally contradictory to who we know we really are! It’s not for lack of trying or wanting that we are unable to be perfect. It’s not that we are all terrible, horrible, very bad people, always looking for some sin to commit! In fact, I expect that for most of not all of us we’re trying to do exactly the opposite! But like Paul we find that far too often, we end up doing some of the very things we don’t want to do.

When I was a brand new Christian, working on a ranch in Alberta, I struggled mightily with sin in my life. I don’t mean that I was sinning more then I did before I committed my life to Christ. Actually I’m sure I did less than before – God worked a pretty impressive miracle in me, given my previously colourful behaviours. But I was more aware of my sin than ever before, and in particular, in my marriage. There were serious problems and I seemed to be incapable of fixing them – I felt incapable of being the husband I wanted to be – and I wanted to be a loving husband, believe me! It seemed no matter how hard I tried, I kept doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, acting in ways I didn’t want to act. And it was driving me crazy – time after time, after some unfortunate “episode,” I would repent in tears before God, prayed for God to change me, resolve to never do it again, whatever the “it” was. And yet I still made the same mistakes. One day, after a particularly unfortunate “episode,” I remember running out of our “Little House on the Prairie” in total despair. I had messed up again and I concluded that I was a lost cause, that it was hopeless and I actually contemplated ending my life. I seriously thought about getting a rope, looping it around the beam in the garage and hanging myself. Fortunately, I was never able to get my knot-tying badge in cub scouts, so I wasn’t much of a threat to myself. But I knew a despair that was rooted in my belief that I was wrong, I was sick, I was twisted, I was beyond hope. And for a number of years I agonized over my inability to avoid sin. I identified with Paul’s cry, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

I realize as I look back, that I was a Christian living under the law, rather than living under the grace of Jesus Christ. I was evaluating my faith life according to my ability to eliminate temptation and to be completely free from sin. It wasn’t working. It wasn’t working, because it doesn’t work that way. Sin is real and it is a part of our life this side of heaven and it will plague us as long as we draw breath. I was assuming it came out of me – it was my fault – I was to blame. And to a degree, I was to blame, because I did choose to act wrongly. But I have a different take on things now. I’ve tried to learn from Paul. And one of the things I believe he is trying to help us to understand is that we’re not evil – we’re assailed by evil. We’re not “bad,” we’re tempted to do bad things. Our hearts are not evil – they were made good by God – but there is a battle going on for who will rule in our hearts. We can’t stop temptation from happening – indeed, the very fact that we being tempted is an indication that God is in us and we are therefore a threat to the powers that seek to draw us into the darkness.

We can’t resist sin all by ourselves. We can’t overcome temptation by sheer determination. But it can make a difference when we are able to identify the source and recognize that it’s not us. So when temptation comes, we can recognize it for what it is – something from the outside, over which we do have some measure of choice. When we are tempted to sin, we can remind ourselves that this is not us talking, it is sin talking and we don’t have to listen. Indeed, we can remind ourselves that our hearts are not made for sin, but for righteousness. If we assume that sin springs from our hearts, then we are lost and truly wretched. But sin springs from the one who would seek to have us give up on ourselves and give up on God. And we are not going to do that! Why not? Because Jesus didn’t give up on us, but determined we were worth saving. Sin does not have the last word, God in Christ does. Thanks be to God

Where was this article when I and many others needed it the most back when we were teenagers in the historic WCG?!! Michael Spencer of the called blog, Internet Monk hits the nail on the head again with his article called "How Religious Parents Royally Screw Up Their Children". It is sooo true and should not be refuted! It is a sad thing that usually religious parents lack a lot of common sense in raising their children.

Read Michael Spencer's explanation here at http://www.internetmonk.com/articles/M/messup.html

Actually this website at http://www.bible.ca/neo-sadduceeism.htm argues that Armstrongism is a form of Neo-Sadduceeism. Very interesting read.

1. I am a mainline Protestant, believing in our freedom from authoritarian religion.
2. I am an Evangelical, believing in the Bible and the Gospel.
3. I am a theological liberal, believing that Christ's love ought to be spread liberally.
4. I am a post-evangelical, believing that the next move of the Holy Spirit is the right direction.
5. I am a fundamentalist, believing that what Christ taught ought to be the most important fundamentals of our faith.
6. I am a charismatic...believing that all of the gifts of the Spirit are for today, even though they are often faked.
7. I am a catholic (small c), believing in the universality of the church.
8. I am an orthodox (small o), believing that what the Holy Spirit has led the church to believe for 2,000 years is not to be flippantly dismissed by we who are Protestants.

Another blog describing the Armstrongite experience has arrived. It is called Shadows of WCG by J. This bright and intelligent person is a splendid writer describing aptly of how the historic WCG was. No whitewashing, no excusing. The way it really was. For those who want to live in an irresponsible dreamworld of that it "wasn't that all bad", this blogsite is strictly not for you and you can go other XCG sites that live in denial and that live in a dangerous dreamworld. For those who are interested in one person's view and experience go to http://shadowsofwcg.blogspot.com/ for some talented writing skills. May this blog be around for years, perhaps decades to come to make life for the die-hard Armstrongites a little more uncomfortable.

There is a spirit that connects all fundamentalists together. It is the spirit of being a bully. This attitude is easy to find among evangelicals and Armstrongites. What these fundamentalist use to bully others is Biblical scripture. They talk about Hell, the Tribulation and the End of the Age with great energy and enthusiasm. And through fear they hope to capture and enslave the hearers. What I find to be revealing is that seldom have I ever detected a spirit of love in these declarations of present or impending diaster. I find, instead, a spirit of resentment and a desire to harm. I believe that Armstrongites view with glee the misery recounted daily by the news media. The attitude of the bully actually permeated Armstrongism. I have been around many of the leading men in the WCG who were at Big Sandy in the Seventies. The word "bully" describes them accurately. They were people who fully leveraged themselves using the hierarchical structure of command. Another phrase that comes to mind is "loveless". When interacting with these people I never got a sense that they motivated by love. While this is an extradinarily strong proof that Armstrongism is a non-Christian cult, it is also a very personal experience that does not serve well to inform everybody. You had to be there. While the mouth is the principal weapon among these people, I am not surprised that Dart would reach for a shooting iron. It is all in the same spirit. And besides, Armstrongites have advocated the exermination of Native Americans, Maoris and other indigenous peoples for years. While they would probably not lift a finger to accomplish it, the spirit of murder is still present.

If Jesus Christ came today in human form and preached to the COG's, the results would be no different than they were 2000 years ago. Some few would listen to Him and heed His words. But most would envy His wisdom and power and would resent His indictments of their hypocrisy. They would crucify Him yet again, just as their Pharisee forefathers did.And they would do it for exactly the same reasons: they would see His teaching as a challenge to their authority.

Unfortunately, I must edit Richard Ames’ statement to more accurately reflect the truth.

It should read as follows: “From Brookfield to Kosovo, and from Blacksburg to Baghdad, our world is mired in violence, pain, and suffering. We wish we had the answers, brethren, but events of the recent past prove that we don’t know any more than the people to whom we condescendingly refer as ‘the world.’

At the risk of sounding somewhat twisted, I must also ask, what if the grim reaper, when he was deciding that a bunch of people needed to die at VT, had picked a disgruntled and depressed teenager from Flurry’s or Pack’s congregations to do the deeds, rather than a Korean immigrant? Would it cause any soul searching, and maybe some reforms to get rid of some of the anachronistic, disfunctional teachings of the ACOGs? I had begun to think that Brookfield might be reponsible some of the recent liberalization and reform at LCG, but on the heels of Ames’ quotation, obviously not!

Well yes, when families are grieving, it’s meaningless and a waste of time to comfort them and shed tears with them. It’s so much better to tell them about the eagerly-anticipated great tribulation and seven last plagues and second coming of Christ and second resurrection.
It just shows you how out of touch these Armstrongist mouthpieces are with reality, and how hard and stone-cold-dead their hearts are: in times of horror and pain, if you started mouthing words about the great tribulation and whatnot, you can be sure that the mourners will stare at you in utter disbelief, wondering just what it was that caused you to go off your nut. It’s your words that they’d regard as meaningless, not the caring words of comfort they receive.
Even more, right after a mentally ill person has murdered your loved ones, the last thing you want is to be accosted by someone intent on sharing his waaaaay-out-of-the-mainstream religious beliefs with you. You’d surely wonder if all the crazies were coming out of the woodwork just to make your life a living hell.
Only someone whose natural human feelings were severely atrophied could make such a comment as meaningless words of “healing”.
Another observation: contrary to the Flurryites, good child rearing is important, but it’s no sure protection against mental illness, which often has nothing to do with how a child is raised.
Well, these reactions to the massacre are just appalling for their opportunism and cruel, uncharitable, uncaring utter cluelessness.

Ruling over sinful thoughts is tough work.
The usual mind-control diatribe: if bad things happen, it’s all your fault because you don’t pray enough, don’t fast enough, don’t tithe enough, don’t study enough, and don’t work hard enough to banish “sinful thoughts”.... It is impossible to be in control of your thoughts if you have a chemical imbalance or are otherwise mentally afflicted.
The sick thinking of just one individual can bring tragedy to a multitude of people. Therefore, we each have an enormous responsibility to rule over and subdue our own sinful thoughts.
I love how UCG tries to scare us by implying we are all capable of slipping up (by not “subduing” sinful thoughts) and will thereby cause us to wreak the same kind of havoc as a mentally deranged individual with a clear history of troubles.

---John

...The problem is that they think that prayer will solve the problem. Some of the xcg’s probably think the man was demon possessed- and not mentally ill.
Their advice to someone that has asked for healing and hasn’t received it is to re-examine oneself and continue to pray about it. It doesn’t occur to them that the answer was no and that the individual should seek out competent healthcare.
With regard to the individual at Virginia Tech, it looks like the system failed to help him. The warning signs were all there, he was referred to counseling, and even the police were involved with him at one point for stalking. At one of those points he should have been sent to the loony bin for treatment. Now there are 30+ young lives snuffed out and a Holocaust survivor as well. The families and friends of those people need consolation, not false propoganda about The World Tomorrow, or to hear about how observing the sabbath, tithing, and prayer will spare them from a similar fate in the Great Tribulation.

Glenn:

I think you suffer somewhat from coming into the COG world at a late date. If I recall from another post, you had some contact with WCG in the '80's, then faded away, then got serious in the mid '90's right about the time things started falling apart.
The problem with the ACOG's is that they've pretty much always done what you describe, only in the past it was easier to hide and there was no other place to run. Gerald Waterhouse would proclaim in sermons that Harmstrong had the right to take the members tithes and set fire to it in the middle of the Sydney Harbor bridge. GTA said that he was too important to the work, ergo, God overlooks his marital infidelities. Tkach Sr. writes himself a check out of third tithe in order to not pass up a rare investment opportunity. Jet fuel for the airplane gets paid out of the widow and distressed fund (third tithe).
Every year at the FOT the ministry received a subsidy to attend (since they didn't have to tithe, being "Levites"), driving their corporate cars, staying in the finest hotels - and all this after haranguing the members about not spending their second tithe properly. Mis-spending would include things that lasted beyond the term of the FOT, such as clothing, tires, etc. No matter that between taxes and tithes most WCG members were living off of less than half their gross income.
It should be no surprise that the self proclaimed heirs of Harmstrong should wish to continue in their ways of privilege, but unfortunately for them everyone received a dose of NC theology and the concepts it brings, whether they ended up believing it or not. Besides, if one group gets to be too annoying, you can leave and attend somewhere else. The lake of fire is not longer the only option.
The other systemic problem the ACOG's have is an over infatuation with the law and with ruling. The law was emphasized, and grace was not. Fresh college grads were sent out to tell their local members how to live: out with white sugar, out with bleached flour, don't buy red cars. Of course, they don't say those things anymore, but no one has given up the authority to do just that if they please.
But law and ruling also resulted in a bent understanding of our relationship with God. In a time when Jesus said that the Comforter would lead us into all truth, the ACOG's place their ministry between us and Christ. In a time of grace, they preached law and wages of sin. Are you truly picsed off at God? Perhaps he never really said that he was to be your butler.
That's one thing I had to wrestle with. I was a good cult boy, followed the law as best I could, certainly better than the heathen around me because I tithed, I kept the sabbath and Holy Days, and prayed diligently for the work and Harmstrong. Why did not God bless me like that man in Psalms 1? In other words, howcome my butler didn't do what he was supposed to do?
The trouble was my thinking was still colored by an overbearance of law, not grace. Paul tells us we are saved by grace - are we then so inconsistent to think that God rewards us according to law?
Just before his crucifixtion, Jesus called his disciples his friends, and we are his friends if we follow his command to love one another. Consider the blessings in your own life - does your wife love you because you so perfectly keep the law? Certainly your care and love for your children has no basis in law keeping, but is a grace you extend to them. Certainly you have rules of how everyone is to behave in your home, but do you love each other less when they are broken from time to time? I think not.
I didn't mean to preach, so I'll stop with that and just recommend to you any of Philip Yancey's books. I think I have about half a dozen of them or so now, and Where is God when it hurts may be one that you'd find helpful now. If I remember correctly, he contrasts two people with severe injuries: one party stayed bedridden and prayed diligently every day for healing, being very confident that one day tha healing would come. Another party learned to live with injury, getting about in a wheelchair and leading a productive life. I can't make judgements here about who had the greater faith - but one party sought only one answer, while the other looked for other answers to how life is to be lived.
When I left WCG, I felt that my church had already left me. One or two people may have called from the local group, but most left off contact when I stopped attending. I don't fault them, as they were only doing what had been taught for years, and apparently still lives on today. When I tried talking about these things with friends that stayed in WCG I got a response that it was "an emotional subject", as if everyone had been given some talking points. JLF was a place where we could all freely talk, even if it did get raucous in the early days.
If you can bear a suggestion, I recommended taking another look at what God is really like. After all, friends are not your butler.

KMS

This guy makes a lot of sense. He said, "If anyone says they are an Apostle---run away from him as far as you can!" Too bad you can't put this guy in a time machine and tell us in the historic WCG to run away from HWA as far as you can! Oh well! If I see this guy in person, I am buying him a Molson Canadian! Enjoy!

We (really including Christianity as a whole) have lost far too much sight of Jesus. Instead we worry far too much about keeping the "bad, evil people away" to keep ourselves "unspotted" somehow---yet, Jesus would condemn us as soundly as he condemned the Pharisees for mouths like the rottenness of graves and being full of decay.My hope is that there actually IS an "emerging" church, that sees the problems that modernity brought onto Christianity. It is time for reformation throughout the body of Christ...

Personal perspective on the state of the COG's I originally started writing this message as a private e-mail, but as I got into it I decided it would be appropriate to instead post it publicly. Basically it's a broad "state of the COG's" overview from my perspective. Up front I want to make it clear that I'm not "picking on" the COG's. I'm well aware that many of the problems I relate here are not unique to the COG's and can in fact be found in religions and political systems around the world and that such things have been happening for thousands of years - as Solomon noted, there's nothing new under the sun. I single out the COG's here only because that is my background, not because I believe they have a monopoly on such problems.As I indicated in previous messages on JLF, my current spiritual state is pretty much nil. I still believe more or less the same things I have for years but I'm very much disillusioned with religion in general and the COG's in particular - not so much for their core teachings, but for their way of doing things. The WCG and its spin off's - or ACOG's (Armstrong COG's) as some prefer to call them - always seem to find a way to do the wrong thing no matter how many opportunities they have to get it right. As many have told me over the years, an apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The practices and policies of Herbert Armstrong continue to influence everything these Churches do.On the left you have the current WCG. It may have thrown out much of Armstrong's doctrine, but it definitely retains his abusive "government" and cultic style of "leadership". On the right you have the HWA purists like Gerald Flurry's PCG and David Pack's RCG who have finely honed that abusive government into little gulags. These are instruments of finely crafted deception, expertly tuned to attract anyone who has ever been caught up in the personality cult surrounding Herbert Armstrong.In between these extremes you have groups like UCG and LCG who are schizophrenically trying to both embrace and distance themselves from HWA. And sprinkled throughout are all the "splinters" and "slivers" (as David Pack calls them - as if he and his group stood apart from and above all the rest). These range in size from a small handful meeting in a living room to a few hundred meeting in tiny groups around the world.To one degree or another all of them compete for a rapidly shrinking pool of aging tithe payers - generally current or former WCG members. A few of them have outreach programs to try to gain new converts, but such efforts are only marginally effective. Truly "new" members (people who never heard of Herbert Armstrong) are few and far between.As competitors many of them routinely "betray and hate one another" - like so many predators fighting over a carcass. And to the degree they practice HWA's "government" they also betray and routinely demonstrate hate towards their own members like a predator eating its own children. Thus there is a steady stream of dazed, confused and disillusioned members either moving from one "fellowship" to another or dropping out of the COG's altogether.It's not all bad. There are some groups which appear to be more or less benign and have not become addicted to power and lording it over others. And all of these groups (even the most extreme) have members, deacons, elders, ministers, etc who love God and are genuinely trying to serve and give and do what is right.But in many cases these people are fighting a losing battle against an irresistible tide. There is tremendous pressure on them to compromise and betray their own principles. They are told to "be a team player" and "get with the program" and to stop being "self willed". It's all too easy for even the most honest and upright servants to cave into such pressures, soil their garments, and begin to beat their fellow servants and drink with the drunkards.Most ironically, such people are often "disfellowshipped" or "marked" for doing *PRECISELY* what their Church teaches and claims to practice. As if by magic, "truth" apparently loses its validity when applied to a "minister" or to a favored lap dog or upper bracket tithe payer. Iniquity abounds, and the love of many is fiercely and mercilessly driven to become cold.Am I being overly harsh? I don't think so. I say all these things based not only on my own experiences but on the experiences of *MANY* others as well. Through e-mails, phone calls, internet forums etc, the stories are all a little different, and yet nauseatingly familiar. Early on I tended to ignore such accounts, writing them off as "a root of bitterness"... until I experienced first hand things I had been warned would probably occur. The Bible says in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses a matter is established. In the mouths of a great many such witnesses it is beyond any shadow of any doubt.I know and count as friends many individuals in these groups - people who have proven themselves over time to be truly "of God". But as a whole, I cannot believe most of these Churches are truly "of God" as their names all claim them to be. Taken as a whole, if these groups truly have the love of God shed abroad in their hearts then I'm not sure I want to know such a God. Jesus said his disciples would be known by the love they have towards one another. What can then be said about a bunch of competing, backstabbing, spiteful little groups trying to destroy one another and all the while claiming an exclusive franchise on God? What an ungodly and unholy mess! No wonder people are so confused.