Whether Lawrence Stager, Eric Cline or James Strange had any idea exactly who was asking the questions is unknown, but archaeologists seldom pass up a chance to talk about their work, so probably not. Regardless of that issue, all three provided brief interviews for Vision, and all three are worth viewing if you have an interest in history and the Bible. Last year I posted a couple of brief items about Cline's book (which debunks Ten Tribes theories such as BI) here and here. Interesting that COG-AIC didn't quiz the professor about that part of his work.
The videos are available on Peter Nathan's First Followers blog.
On the subject of COG-AIC (Church of God - An International Community) David Hulme has contributed a chapter to a volume called What Makes Us Human?
According to the blurb: " In What Makes Us Human? some of the world's most brilliant thinkers offer their answers to this perennial puzzle..."Uhhhhh...
32 comments:
My sense of David Hulme, and I could be mistaken, is that he has always suspected and known a lot more about Biblical origins and tales than he lets on.
I believe Dr. Strange was the same who conducted tours of Sepphoris and Meggido when I was there for a dig in the 90's along with Israel Finkelstein. Trust me, these men know what they are talking about and aren't kidding around with their research.
I sat one evening, alone in Israel, with a very well known archaeologist while he drank enough to get loopy and the more loopy he got the more he spoke of just how concocted and exaggerated the OT was on the history of Israel.
You'd be surprised what Israel's brightest and finest archaeologists really think about the history of their country as expressed in the OT
What makes us human?
The unique ability to create distorted drivel out of fantasy to build completely dysfunctional environments. No animal can do that.
And so within nature, or more accurately, the defiance of it, we have CoG-AIC, UCG-IA, ICG, WCG, CCg, GCG, PCG, LCG, RCG, BI, Islam, Dianetics and the fiction of Israel's History.
The perennial puzzle is how in the heck humanity managed to last this long while living in complete denial of the Universe around us.
"What makes us human?"
Being willing to wake up, be authentic and willing to pay the price, along with an occasional "how I can help you?" and not care who you're talking to.
Actually, the "history of Ancient Israel" as reflected in the Old Testament, is, in reality, the middle part of a collected history of a particular sub-strata of the Egyptian gods and their world-myth.
Hulme's sect troubles me, both in its numbers, and its absolute closed-mouth secrecy (on the Internet). Rotten Ronnie Weinland at least does us the favour of posting his madness publicly, and proclaiming it loudly on the airwaves and in print, so that we may more effectively point and warn.
Hulme's splinter is xenophobic to the point of almost complete paranoia, at least according to the uninformative website they have up.
(You are expected to contact the ministers of misery, for an accurate screening of both how pliable you will be, and how deep your pocketbook is.)
Of course, expecting those same members to pony up $65 for his own version of Mystery of the Ages, I'd say what Hulme has figured out about the bible is that he can use it as his own personal get-rich-and-stay-rich system, and is therefore as much a clever Gerry or Packatollah as the rest.
"Mr. Hulme's sect", as it is often referred to, is not secret at all, and your "concern" is based on lack of knowledge of how it operates.
You will find no "madness" about it. We are simply a group of believers who try our very best to live according to God's instructions. We do not recruit, or "go for numbers". Neither will you find any end time speculation coming from the group.
We simply preach the gospel. God controls who responds.
As for the $65 price tag on the text book, anyone familiar with that segment of the publishing industry will know that Mr. Hulme has no control over it. He has to buy his own copies if he wishes to have them in the published form.
Considering what comes out of the COGs, it's no surprise that we are also viewed with suspicion, and that's ok. Just look at the madness that comes out of some of the mainstream christianity churches, yet some of the calmer organizations are quite respected.
What makes us human?
Choice
""Mr. Hulme's sect", as it is often referred to, is not secret at all, and your "concern" is based on lack of knowledge of how it operates."
The lack of knowledge is your own doing since there is very little on websites other than videos being hawked.
Unlike several other organizations such as UCG, LCG or even Pack's and Weinland's strange crew there are no messages available to the general public.
A little bit of accessability would go a long way.
I was once going to be an archaeologist and spent some time in college studying in this field. I found anthropologists and archaeologists to be some of the most inflexible people alive, other than Islamic fundamentalists. The literature contains many examples of people who attempted to inject new findings into the archaeological canon and found themselves crucified. Read about the influence of Ales Hrdlicka and his influence on North American archaeology.
Fundamentalism is objectionable in any form, whether "Christian" or atheistic or archaelogical.
-- Neo
Annonymous wrote:
"Mr. Hulme's sect", as it is often referred to, is not secret at all, and your "concern" is based on lack of knowledge of how it operates."
MY RESPONSE: Not secretive?? Their FOT sites are closed to "members only" (no visitors from other COGs allowed). Hulme has spoken the edict of "no dating or marriage outside our church", (again including other COGs), also incidentally after he had already conveniently remarried a young girl in her early 20s who was some 35 years his junior!
His member site newsletter etc. used to be available to the public via the internet, but is now required to be accessed via password only. What's so special to be hidden? Even Tkach's WCG lets anyone look at its member "Together/WCG News".
Hulme members do not post on forums, do not contribute to the Journal, and to my knowledge, I have never seen one of them visiting any other COG, and I live in Southern California, a strong Hulme hamlet.
So again I ask, is it because of secretiveness or is it simply a matter of arrogance??
Bill Lussenheide, Menifee, CA USA
Neo said:
"Read about the influence of Ales Hrdlicka and his influence on North American archaeology."
That's exactly right. Hrdlicka could ruin a career at will in his quest to debunk Clovis man in America over 12,000 years ago.
However, he was eventually run over by good science and evidence of Clovis man from Washington State to Florida (I have three very nice fluted Clovis points sitting right here) The same is happening and will happen on many topics Bible literalists hold so dear as "knowledge increases"
Knowledge increasing IS a sign of the end of an age, but not quite as we had once thought :)
"The unique ability to create distorted drivel out of fantasy to build completely dysfunctional environments."
Or deities.
Paul
"Of course, expecting those same members to pony up $65 for his own version of Mystery of the Ages,..."
Actually, the $65 book is a rather dry academic monograph on the Middle East. It's the dissertation that earned him a PhD in international relations at USC.
Something to hide, unwilling to risk exposure of wrong doing and beliefs or both.
Is Hulme extremely toxic, like Gerald Flurry and David Pack? Or is he benign toxic, like UCG?
Not trying to be obtuse here, it's just that since I left WCG in '75, I'd never heard of David Hulme until subscribing to the internet and discovering all of the WCG related sites and forums.
Just as a general rule of thumb, I don't believe there is any such thing as a good ACOG splinter. Too much extra-biblical stuff and outright error. The "new" WCG hold no appeal, either.
BB
anonymous said...
""Mr. Hulme's sect", as it is often referred to, is not secret at all, and your "concern" is based on lack of knowledge of how it operates."
I realized some time ago that there is no sense in trying to defend anyone or any organization on these forums.....as a general rule, the regulars at these places have no interest in anything that contradicts their view. (and I'm ok with that)
So just let them be.....besides, the reading can be interesting here at times.
Hulme's Sect is basically remnants of various UCG churches from that split. The majority of their membership is over 60 and some of them are very nice people...others are downright weird. Hulme is living his dream right at the moment. He has a few thousand people to fund his lifestyle, research, globe-trotting, and keep his young wife in nice clothes, homes, and cars. What do the tithe-payers get for their buck? A nice looking periodical, sharp front man for the cameras and the occasional DVD. They still think the end is near although I don't believe they spend a great deal of time on prophecy, just reflecting on how corrupt the world is...It doens't take a profit to figure that last part out though. I agree with Dennis Diehl's assessment of David Hulme which is posted earlier in this thread.
/-- Not trying to be obtuse here, it's just that since I left WCG in '75, I'd never heard of David Hulme until subscribing to the internet and discovering all of the WCG related sites and forums. --/
Actually, that's kind of neat. You missed out on Herbert Armstrong's last decade, but you're only behind on one or two names!
As a kid, I don't recall David Hulme being mentioned much before '86. He would occasionally travel with the Apostle, but that's about it. I think he spent some time in Japan to help fill the gap Rader and Gotoh left behind.
When Armstrong died, Tkach didn't take over the TV show. Instead, he gave it to three presenters: David Hulme, Dave Albert, and Richard Ames. All three were uncomfortable in front of the camera that first year, but Ames seemed to get used to it first. Albert had the ability to take even important topics and make them boring. And Hulme was a hoot -- my folks and I would watch just to see that next really bad hand gesture. It was especially side-splitting when we hit the fast-forward button on the VCR.
But fun aside, Hulme was one of the voices of the World Tomorrow. He was one of the instruments God was using to preach the gospel to the world! So while we laughed whenever it looked like he was getting frustrated with the teleprompter for being too slow, we also admired him. And of course, as time went on, his delivery improved. During his tenure as presenter, he took us to interesting places -- I remember particularly a tour of the ruins of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, and all the rest. Thanks to his British accent, he was able to come across as "scholarly" to us Americans.
Fast-forward to '95. Joe Tkach Sr. gave his wonderful sermon telling everyone that no, God wasn't going to fix WCG and put everything back to the way it was. This was Tkach's church, and if you didn't like it, don't let the door smack you in the behind on the way out. Now that the people knew that, a bunch of ministers could walk out and start UCG.
Hulme was United's first president. Remember, he was one of the faces of the World Tomorrow, so everyone figured he would be respected by people who were trying to choose between UCG, LCG, PCG, and all the rest.
But Hulme wasn't happy being president of a church he couldn't control. Besides, he missed being in front of the camera. So he spent a million bucks or so on a TV special that was supposed to be the start of UCG's effort to preach the gospel. And then the film sat in the can while everyone argued over it.
In the end, Hulme was blamed for putting the church in debt. He was also very much against moving the UCG Home Office (that's HO, not HQ!) from southern California to Cincinnati, despite his lip service to the UCG way of making decisions. Relations worsened between Hulme and the rest of the Council of Elders, and they decided to remove him from the presidency.
So he picked up his toys and left. Now he has COG-AIC. UCG obviously decided they didn't want to air his super-duper TV special, so they gave it to him. It's been on cable once or twice.
And that's the story -- at least up to where Charlie and Bill picked up.
Libro
Libro,
Thanks for filling in the gap for me also. I left in 1976, and had never heard of David Hulme.
Richard
David Hulme was indeed the face of The World Tomorrow in the 80s, and was the only TV we were allowed to watch "on the Sabbath".
Either I wasn't discerning enough at that age, or Hulme had mastered his delivery style by that time, because I never noticed any of the laughabilities posted earlier upthread. I just recall being absolutely positively bored by the let's-visit-the-middle-east segments.
The history of the COG-AIC is interesting, and is far more accessible, as someone pointed out earlier, than what is available on the Internet from the group itself.
The fact that he married someone thirty-five years his junior is disgusting, but considering the political environment he came out of, hardly surprising.
Nice to know they're not lining themselves up for a Kool-Aid moment in the spotlight, like Weinland has planned for the end of April, however.
Someone wrote:
"Mr. Hulme's sect, as it is often referred to, is not secret at all, and your concern is based on lack of knowledge of how it operates."
The "lack of knowledge" about the group is because of the secretiveness.
Another little "special knowledge" group.
Isn't that special?
Going back to archaeology, or at least a related topic, it seems that mainstream Christian churches share one problem with the ACOGs: Many of the young people leave almost immediately following graduation from high school.
The mainstream churches blame this on the effectiveness of high school science classes in neutralizing the Old Testament. There's actually an internet ministry dedicated to strengthening creation science to counteract the mass exodus of young Christians.
In the New Testament, Jesus validates such Old Testament figures as Moses, Elijah, and King David, and Paul refers to Adam. The weakest link of the Bible is probably Genesis, as science, archaeology, and history have all been used to successfully attack it. If the kids buy into that, in their minds the NT seemingly falls right along with it.
I'd have to wonder if the same phenomenon happens amongst Catholics and Jews, both of whom have incredible internal records substantiating their belief systems.
BB
Byker Bob,
I think that most churches hemmorage young people during their college years and mid-twenties. My experience with the Presbyterian and Catholic denominations is that in their late twenties / early thirties, as they get married, settle down and have children, many of them come back to church. I don't remember very many returning to the COG's...I know I didn't.
"I'd have to wonder if the same phenomenon happens amongst Catholics and Jews, both of whom have incredible internal records substantiating their belief systems."
I can't really comment on the Catholic side of things (beyond the stuff I've already said about Constantine which I won't babble on about anymore), but from what (admittedly little) I've seen, read, and researched about the Judaic system, for all their legalism, they seem far more open than most.
I.e., there seems to be no instant ostracization or "You're gonna be a crispy critter!" if you say you don't believe in god, or if you choose to follow some of the rules and not all of them, after a certain point. It seems like there is an allowance made, for an extremely wide spectrum of observance, as well as belief, under this giant umbrella that is Judaism.
Which is another thing that sends the evangelicals up the wall: "You have a religion but you don't control and browbeat people and carry a great big stick at all times?! You pagan devils!!!!"
(That's a summary of the "bible study" that was in the most recent issue of Northern Light, the Canadian WCG's propaganda organ, by the way.)
The Catholics, on the other hand, were so extremely demonized by the WCG because they were Herbie's only competition. You think our brainwashing was bad? Objectively examined, the RCC's brainwashing is worse.
The adverse effects, however, are not nearly as bad, nor nearly as toxic, in the RCC as they were in the WCG.
Not that I'm becoming an apologetic for the RCC; the pictures of the insides of their churches still wig me out.
Not that I'm becoming an apologetic (sic) for the RCC
Yeah, that's MY job!
:-D
Ooooooops sorry, didn't mean to offend with the comment about the RCC churches..... :O
Purplehymnal said: "Not that I'm becoming an apologetic for the RCC; the pictures of the insides of their churches still wig me out."
What wigs you out? They are some of the most beautiful churches I have ever been in. Not that I think it is necessarily the best way to spend the church's money but they do tend to get centuries of use out of their buildings, whereas the WCG only got a few decades.
I am a presbyterian and our sanctuaries tend to be very plain, but pleasing at the same time. IT is fairly rare to see stained glass in a presbyterian church although the one in my town as well as the one I attend both have stained glass. My particular building was built in 1826 but I think the building will be standing long after the demise of my denomination, which if the direction of the presbytery is any indication, won't be too long from now.
Charlie,
If I could explain exactly what wigs me out, I would be farther along in dealing with it. Not being religious, nor having any desire to be so, my ecclesiophobia doesn't unduly impact my daily life and therefore will probably remain untreated. ;)
As for my reaction, it is a purely hind-brain response; the particularly gothic-looking churches (high anglican ones do the same thing to me it's an ecumenical kind of phobia that way), just generate a flood of memories and recalls.
I mean, google "gothic church interiors" and you will see what I mean (or at least where I'm coming from). The ornate altars at the front, the stained glass windows, the statues that are life-like or larger, they just feel (subjectively and instinctively) like the end of the world.
The Armageddon and apocalypse, the great whore of babylon, the seven- and ten-headed beasts, the fire-and-brimstone invective rained down weekly from the pulpit about them there eeeeebul catholics, I look at those churches and it's stuck on permanent loop in my head.
I'm a sucker for history and museums and old buildings, and intellectually I can appreciate that the cathedrals were in all likelihood built by stonemasons who didn't even subscribe to the religion practiced in the monuments they were erecting. I would like nothing better than to be able to completely appreciate the great art inherent in these buildings that, in some cases, predate the country itself.
Emotionally is another matter entirely, unfortunately, and it's one of the few vestiges of the cult programming that remains entrenched.
"Not trying to be obtuse here, it's just that since I left WCG in '75, I'd never heard of David Hulme until subscribing to the internet and discovering all of the WCG related sites and forums."
Actually, COG-AIC is very benign compared to the other COGs. However, like all other splinters, they have an aging membership with the young ones leaving in large numbers.
Ugh. Nuff said.
We're starting a Tales from the Cult series at our blog. Stop by when you get the time.
I realize this post is a bit late, but my sense is that D. Hulme is a relatively private, reserved person and this is reflected in the decisions to keep much of the COGaIC things out of the public eye.
From what I understand, his book is his doctoral thesis for a degree relating to Mid-east history/international relations. It's easy to take potshots at the various characters in the acogs, especially those who do say and outrageous things but in the case of his book it is not just shoot from the hip self-proclaimed scholarly work.
So what you are saying is that Hulme is trying to pay his tuition for the doctorate by making church members pony up $65/copy in addition to grabbing their first, second, and third tithes, not to mention whatever special offerings they are called to give, in order to "finance the work".
Yeah there's no problem there.
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