It's one of the assured results of the disintegration of Armstrongism: Humpty Dumpty can never be put together again. Yet Paul Kieffer reminds us that it ain't necessarily so. Extraordinary times bring forth extraordinary developments.
So lets do a little intemperate speculating...
Fact: Roderick C. "Spanky" Meredith isn't going to be around much longer. He is the center of gravity for his LCG sect, and when he "passes on" the rubber bands will snap and his sect will disintegrate under pressure.
Fact: Things are not good at the moment for the income of the COGs. In the wider Christian community things are very tight, and now is surely the time the COGs can boast of how tithing pays back the faithful tither. Except it doesn't. Income is down, and duplication of resources is inexpedient.
Fact: COG brethren are connected by ties of family across the artificial boundaries. Kieffer's forum posting is an excellent example. Hardliners like Bob Thiel may puff and pout, but many members would be delighted to see the paper walls come down.
A cynic might suggest that Kieffer is trying to position UCG to conduct a mop-up operation when LCG self-destructs. After all, a significant number of Global Church of God refugees - both ministers and members - came over to UCG after Spanky decided to take back his toys last time. But we shouldn't factor out a naive altruism either. Should we?
Could history be about to repeat itself? Maybe. The breakup and reunite script was played out decades ago in COG7, with minor splinters then splitting off in both directions. A united UCG/LCG is not an impossibility once the Presiding Egotist is safely planted under the turf. Even if only 70% of both memberships went with the merger, the gains would be huge.
The new magazine title: maybe The Good News of Tomorrow's World (UCG does the better job here.)
The new TV title: The Good News of Tomorrow's World (LCG has the glitzier studio and more lurid production.)
Who knows, maybe the rat-tag remnants of CGI might buy into the package too.
But what on earth would they call the newly united United church?
16 comments:
" ..rag tag remnants of CGI .." excuse me we "rag taggers" may not be more than the United / Living gang but many of us will never "buy into" much from the WW 80`s rulers.
Never under estimate the rag taggers from CGI. We may have to like it and lump it in these groups but we NEVER will forget the 70`s and 80`s.
I suggest: the "Conglomerated Church of God"
Has kind of a heavy, headquarters, ring to it.
The new magazine title: maybe The Good News of Tomorrow's World
Now that wouldn't be new, it would be copying another of Herbie's publications.
Hmm.
Are the scattered churches about to be sheparded into COG-PKG under the Two Witnesses?
Hmm.
Ron said (snicker) he has some announcements to make, maybe in his sermon on The Last Great Day?
Hmm.
Dill Weed
(ducks and covers! Quack!)
It seems most likely that the much anticipated soon-coming death of RCM will be another opportunity for various LCG wolves to arise speaking even more perverse things to try to draw away followers and money after themselves. I doubt that many people expect anything other than more disasters to strike. A possible exception might be some UCG types eagerly hoping to feast on the remains of the LCG after its head is dead.
The UCG is itself already at least half dead. They are just taking a longer route back into the world to ease the transition for those who thought JWT did it too swiftly in the WCG. They pretend to have the laws of God while not actually obeying them in their lives. The same ministerial bums who helped JWT to destroy the WCG are now leading the UCG down a similar path.
"The UCG is itself already at least half dead. They are just taking a longer route back into the world to ease the transition for those who thought JWT did it too swiftly in the WCG. They pretend to have the laws of God while not actually obeying them in their lives. The same ministerial bums who helped JWT to destroy the WCG are now leading the UCG down a similar path."
Anonymous 3:37, what kind of drugs are you on?!
Their sermon archive clearly proves that you are absolutely delusional, if you think United is in any way, shape or form, "liberal". Here's a taste test, if you don't know where to start.
But really, if you pick ANY sermon at random from the list, you're going to get a full-strength, no-holds-barred dosage of absolutely pure-grade Armstrongism, undiluted by any "liberal" tendencies whatsoever.
Also, if you read the GCE minutes closely enough, you'll see they still kow-tow and ass-kiss to Kilough, who appears to still have things firmly in hand. (He's not "in charge", but Kilough offers opinions that are passed as resolutions, and deferred to as the end of any discussion. Yeah THAT'S not "god's government on earth" AT ALL........)
Also compare this, and this. Without knowing who the authors are, and their respective "church eras", can you tell which one is from the "get the church back on TRACK" era??
Also, for those defending United on the other post, and saying they're not misappropriating funds, I refer you to news of their post-GCE "retreat", which they attended here.
If Anonymous 3:37 wishes to continue to persist in their delusion that United is any way NOT "god's true church", I refer you to World News and Prophecy. A brief skim of the sidebar offers up tractates on tithing, the end-times, and British-Israelism, with a little bit of that old-time religion thrown in, for good measure.
Also a pro-life article. Abortion was never discussed much when I was in, but that was the late '70s to mid-90s. It was something that was Just Not Done. Although I do recall, dimly, being instructed from the pulpit that abortion was a "fulfillment" of the prophecy of the babies being ripped from their mothers' wombs, so yeah, there's that I guess.
In conclusion, Anon 3:37, I see absolutely no difference whatsoever, between the United Church of God, and the church I grew up in. I feel sorry for you, that you can't see it either.
Anon said,
"The same ministerial bums who helped JWT to destroy the WCG are now leading the UCG down a similar path."
Sorry, but the WCG hasn't been destroyed any more than a caterpillar appears to be dead when it is wrapped in a cocoon.
Let's dub the new church the "United Living and United Church of God"
Purple Hymnal said...
In conclusion, Anon 3:37, I see absolutely no difference whatsoever, between the United Church of God, and the church I grew up in. I feel sorry for you, that you can't see it either.
Purple,
You just don't really know what all HWA taught in the past. Like so many former chair warmers, you remember only a few things. I feel sorry for you....
What appears to be a merger is the Laodeceans coming together to establish the Laodecean Church. We are in the Laodecean era but the church has not come together as a unit yet, there're laodeceans in all the groups. When the Philadelphians are taken away then the laodeceans will come into play.
I suggest that they integrate under the banner of God's true church.
"Church of God Industries."
The name says it all.....
"You just don't really know what all HWA taught in the past. Like so many former chair warmers, you remember only a few things. I feel sorry for you...."
Actually, I don't feel sorry for myself, that's good to know. I would rather have forgotten most of it, since the bits that ARE still stuck in my head STILL have me permanently scarred for life.
Dill Weed reports Ron as saying,
"How long can you wait for the
Second Trumpet?"
Oops,Ron,we have a problem here.
Dear Gerry Flurry has copyrighted the First Trumpet and will have a say when it is sounded though some might argue Gerry is already sounding it.The lewder fellows of a baser sort might argue,also,that Gerry has the Strumpet( or should that be crumpet).This is all so confusing.
Gerry may have all the other trumpets copyrighted too,so Ron is out on his ear before he even starts.
To be succinct,Ron ain't got a show.
Cheers,
Jorgheinz
Larry wrote,
"Sorry, but the WCG hasn't been destroyed any more than a caterpillar appears to be dead when it is wrapped in a cocoon."
Interesting.
Larry means that the WCG will emerge like a butterfly?
Let's just make silk shirts out of the cocoon, and shoot the WCG-Mothra when it escapes and tries to fly away.
Here is a picture, but you have to imagine Mothra being very tiny, and only tiny-GI-Joe sized BB-guns shooting at it.
Anonymous said: «We are in the Laodecean era»
How can we be in the Laodecean era when all churches coexisted on the mail route at the time the letters were sent? If we lived then, we could have ridden our camels between each one! The letters were delivered one one day, the Day of the Lord; and all of the churches and all of the angels and all of the lampstands were there at one time (Rev. 1:4, 9, 19).
Doesn't anyone ever read all of the words on the page in the context in which it's presented? Or are we still swallowing hook, line and sinker what HWA told us it said and spouting it back?
"The letters were delivered on one day, the Day of the Lord; and all of the churches and all of the angels and all of the lampstands were there at one time (Rev. 1:4, 9, 19)."
That courier must have had one hell of a fast donkey!!
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