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| Photoshopped image of former NZ Labour Party leader |
British-Israelism is the dead rat that many COG insiders have decided must be swallowed. A significant number of both ministers and lay members in the less fanatical sects long ago realised that BI is just plain wrong. They'd like to see it go, but the resulting furore would be hugely damaging and divisive.
Witness David Hulme's group. Dave, a man with intellectual pretensions, reportedly tried to excise BI. The result? His micro-COG hit the rocks.
Witness a certain administrator at LCG's Living University. One day he's debunking BI, next moment there's a job offer with status and lots of moolah on offer - an easy path to a super-comfy retirement. Suddenly BI is back on the menu, a dead rat served with a garnish of parsley. His response? Pass the condiments.
The real issue, however, is that the COGs have taught BI for so long and with such uncompromising devotion that they've painted themselves into a corner. It's seen as a core belief. You have to suspect that "de-emphasis" has been suggested as a strategy more than once around the council table, but the stupider pastors won't have a bar of it. The dead rat stays!
You can't really blame the good folk in the pews either. They've been conditioned to resist "liberalism" (whatever they think that means) and shun Laodicean tendencies on pain of losing their salvation. Moreover, they've been browbeaten into thinking that the ministry knows best.
There are lots of people - a disproportionate number of them in positions of responsibility - who are fully aware that BI is horribly wrong. And yes, there are names here we'd all recognize. The effort to get rid of it is not worth the hassle, though. BI is wedded to a misplaced confidence that the movement has the inside track on understanding prophecy.
Which it doesn't.
If BI goes, the game - so, it is feared - is up.
So pass the dead rat. Perhaps it'll be more palatable with a nice jus and a side salad.
6 comments:
So true about British Israelism. It is complete nonsense but HWA and his imitators have so indoctrinated their followers into believing it that they cannot imagine maintaining their religious identity followers of any particular COG group without it.
Pack has it listed as #1 - first booklet!
But UCG has it down at #52 of 53 - next stop the dustbin!
Perhaps an argument "could" be made that the United States is a kind of Israel in the sense of a "Manifest Destiny". A Christian country that has been the biggest producer of Bibles , religious liberty and the like.
HOWEVER, it would not be because of a RACIAL Israel, but rather a mixed multitude of many branches grafted in, as the NT advocates. Even then, this thought requires many stretches and assumptions as well to make it function.
The idea of BI is a racial superiority one, and a Nationalistic superiority one is just a couple of steps behind it.
People have been attracted to Armstrongism for a variety of reasons or needs. There is a class of people who came to Armstrongism because they were already racists and the WCG essentially told them that their racism was justified by God in the pages of the Bible and History. These people will never let go of BI.
In the Old South, slavery was considered by Protestant churches to be supported by the Bible because Ham and Canaan were identified with Sub-Saharan Africans. This viewpoint still exists among Armstrongites. That is why African-Americans are profoundly distrusted in the ranks of Armstrongites. African-Americans are always to be in the status of slaves even when they are freed. The truth is that African-Americans are not Canaanites. The Canaanites were a Semitic people who now live in Lebanon (and other places where they migrated) and are genetically indistinguishable from the ancient Palestinean Jews. But do you think people with a sick racist mentality would ever accept this scientific fact and relinquish divine and Biblical leverage?
History was re-written by Herman Hoeh to give pseudo-historical and supposed Biblical support to the Whites-only RCG and WCG. Minorities could play a bit part but that's all.
There are people who sit in the pews of the various COGs who have a sick need for this self-exaltation through racism. You know the old adage "When God's Church finds that it is wrong, it repents." The BI issue will be the issue that will disqualify these COGs from being "God's Church."
So if UCG's B.I. booklet is its 2nd most de-emphasized - #52 of 53, what is their most embarrassing booklet at #53? It is "Who is the Antichrist?" Does this booklet deserve to be one notch under the odious British-Israelism book? I had to read it! It is actually worse!
The Bible predicts the Antichrist will be thrown into the Abyss.
I predict "Who is the Antichrist?"will be thrown into the Abyss.
Followed closely by "The U.S. and Britain in Bible Prophecy"
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