Post-WCG Life and Theology ARCHIVES

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