One Brave Mormon

Okay, so AW doesn't "do" the Mormon thing. To each their own, but take a look at this clip anyway. Compared to the old-time WCG it's pretty tame I guess. Remember the punch up in the Ambassador Auditorium when Spanky C. Meredith - to cries of "shame, shame!" - physically stopped Wayne Cole from speaking at the onset of the receivership crisis? In our own delightful tradition, the pastor, confronted with a member exhibiting public integrity, would have motioned a couple of burly deacons to sic 'em without delay. Of course the "bishop" does put a directing hand on the speaker's shoulder, but then settles for the mic off-switch. One the hapless brother has finished, the gestapo do indeed escort him out of the building.

Greg's Great Leap Backward

In the same begging letter cited in the last blog entry, Greg pulls a classic "herbie."

In an effort to do more with less and in order to maintain the high quality of service God has allowed us to provide, we have decided to print fewer issues next year, while increasing the size of each issue. By mailing almost the same number of pages each year, but doing so less frequently, we believe we can make the best use of the donations God provides.

You have received a free one-year PT subscription (thanks to many who have provided the necessary funding). Future issues of the PT are provided as a benefit for ongoing PTM contributors.

If you have not yet donated, or if you are not regularly and consistently supporting this ongoing work, we now ask you to carefully consider the ministry we provide and prayerfully consider providing financial help to PTM.

Those who are receiving their initial, free PT subscription (thanks to the generosity of our friends and supporters!) as well as ongoing PTM contributors will receive their first quarterly issue (Winter 2009) of the new, 48-page Plain Truth shortly after Thanksgiving.

Greg also asks a highly pertinent question (emphasis here, and elsewhere in the quotes, is in the original.)

If you have not yet contributed to PTM, what are you waiting for?

Please Greg, ask me, ask me... I'm waiting for pigs to fly.

Now, let's see if we can "translate" all of this into plain English.

• The Plain Truth is now only going out quarterly.
• The Plain Truth is now only going out to regular supporters - no free subs.

Quite an accomplishment! Yes folks, it can't have been easy, but Greg has effectively killed off the goose that laid the golden eggs.

The Plain Truth is, to all intents and purposes, dead.

Greg knocks... with the sound of a mighty wind

Oh dear, oh dear. The Lord is withholding his blessings from Greg P.T.M. Albrecht...

September 2009

Dear Friend,

This has been a challenging year for PTM, and based on your letters, phone calls and emails, it has been for most of you as well. We have discovered that PTM doesn’t have as much income as we used to, and, neither do many of you!

One of the things my wife and I have done at our house is to eat more beans. I know, it sounds like I’m going to tell a joke. No, it’s the truth! My wife and I have started to eat more green, red, black and pinto beans. Ironically, we’ve discovered that eating more beans and less meat and chicken is actually beneficial to our health!

Eating pinto beans for the evening meal (as the main course) takes me back to my childhood in Texas when "supper" in my family consisted of pinto beans and cornbread about 90% of the time. Tightening our belts, literally and figuratively, is not always a bad thing – there can be unexpected benefits!

My purpose of this letter is to let you know how PTM is squeezing every dime and pinching every penny, while still proclaiming God’s grace as powerfully and effectively as we can. Never, ever forget that lives are being changed by this ministry!

We at PTM are committed, by God’s grace, to continue to do what we can to minister to you, and many, many others. In order to continue this work, we believe that God expects us to make our needs known to you.

A) We believe that we need to “knock on your door” (Matthew 7:7-8) so that you will know and understand the needs PTM faces.

B) We believe that God wants PTM to make wise and prudent decisions about how we continue to proclaim his grace.

C) We also believe that we need to make those we are blessed to be able to serve aware of how we are pinching pennies.

What is PTM doing to pinch pennies? PTM is…

REDUCING EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION: Our diligent, hard working staff understands that we must reduce their compensation, as a necessary step in continuing to make this ministry available. We pray this is only a temporary measure…..

Oh the travail, the pain! Greg, onetime Herbal evangelist, reduced to beans. And we all know the effect beans have. Brethren, I implore you to go down on your knees and pray that the Eternal deliver Greg, Monte and the loyal staff of PTM from the perils of spiritual flatulence! Greg already has a problem with long-windedness, as we all know. This could push the poor man over the edge completely! And then there's the issue of increased carbon emissions over Duarte. This is a crisis brethren! Send Greg no money... but a love-offering of Alka-Seltzer may well be appreciated.

Nostradumbass

Rumors are circulating that Big Dave Pack, High Poobah of the RCG (which I think stands for the Retarded Church of God, but I gotta check that) is due to appear on a History Channel "doco" series called The Nostradamus Effect (source). Good grief!

In separate news, this announcement from herbertwarmstrongvideo.net

Well the time has come to close the doors on a venture that lasted almost five years. The crew and I has tired of the project and the time to move on has arrived. I starting making videos before YOUTUBE was born. Back then you called it V-bloging if I recall correctly.

This project was hatched when I came upon the idea of telling stories in a way that people could relate to without spending an enormous amount of time reading and relating and losing their attention span. Originally the idea was to make three videos which I did with the help of others. Then a fourth when Terry Ratzmann went on his rampage. Sometime after that I saw that Feast film where the apostate apostle Herbert was surrounded with millions of dollars of expensive stuff supplied by the sheep. From that point on, the "Birthday Bash" series was born! That put us on a roll for another four years!

We have received a whole lot of positive comments from former church members and plenty of the negative ones from those who still wear the veil before their eyes. (The shortest and most hated video was “Herbert W. Armstrong in Hell.”) I personally want to thank all those who supported HWA Video over the years and wish to thank all those who shared their stories in the creation of these videos. These are the stories of the former members of the WCG. Your blood, your sweat, your tears, and dashed hopes.

The videos produced by HWA Video, known also as "Church of God Industries," will still be available on a server known as a “Large Scale Data Repository” or Petabox. The YOUTUBE videos will be deleted except for the few I wish to continue on with. We will be updating an achieve web page in the next few months, along with a page that displays most of the graphics used on the site in past years. The achieve page can be found at: http://ia331411.us.archive.org/0/items/HwaVideo/. The graphics page is still in development and will follow shortly. A link at that time will be provided on the page listed above. Sometime this month, when you go over to herbertwarmstrongvideo.net website, you will see a short “sign off” video. Hope you like it.

Denis Michael Rohan - "The Lion King" - Forty Years On

Denis Rohan, an Australian shearer and follower of Herbert Armstrong's Radio Church of God, entered the history books forty years ago when he attempted to burn down the Al Aqsa mosque. ABC Radio has brought together a variety of television clips from 1969, and supporting materials (including a PDF of the October issue of The Plain Truth from that year) to accompany a 50 minute anniversary documentary. For one brief, fleeting moment, Rohan became the face of Armstrongism: a development that brought on passionate rejection from the church. Rohan himself, who was deported back to Australia in the mid-70s, last reportedly attended a WCG service just four years ago.

You can access the ABC web page through Australian blogger Vridar's latest entry, or directly. For those with an academic bent, Scott Lupo's paper on The Wonderful World Tomorrow is well worth reading.

Willie on Tap

Oh joy! Willie Dankenbring is now recording his prophetic shtick on YouTube!

- Is Barack Obama the Coming Antichrist?
- How about those kinky Nephilim?

Willie has the inside word on these issues and more on his very own "Overcoming the World" channel. Click across to appreciate the tasteful and understated page design. Relish in the deep scholarship. Hear the technical guy grunt in agreement off camera at critical moments.

Oh hey, what is that thing around Willie's shoulders? (a) A clerical stole, or (b) a bath towel? Either way, nice sartorial touch!

Quick, someone hold me down before I reach for the check book...

Remove this cult's tax exempt status!

Just listen to the screams from certain quarters when religious organizations are perceived as meddling in the political arena. So why is the Flurry cult getting a free ride? Why are donations to PCG, which fund this blatant play on political partisanship, tax exempt?

'umbled be I

Over on Otagosh, my other less known blog, I recently took a sideswipe at Dr Jim West's disdain for inclusive biblical language. I wouldn't write that here, full-well knowing that 94.2% of readers (including the godless atheists - and you know who you are) would reach for a KJV, NKJV or (ick!) NIV if forced to source a proof text, whether for weal or woe. For some reason, unknown to me, Jim (who manages to be both a Southern Baptist pastor and a biblical minimalist at the same time) is one of the five people in the world who actually reads my alternate blog. This is a huge compliment in that Jim's blog (unlike Otagosh) is read widely. Very widely. In fact - as Jim never tires in reminding his readers - his is the leading biblioblog in the world, with a current Alexa ranking of 113,476.

So to find that Jim West is now quoting a section of that Otagosh posting in his sidebar as an endorsement is 'umbling in the extreme; to play Joe the plumber to West's McCain! I, being but a mere mortal, can only wallow in the reflected glory of it all.

Record Month

Hard to say why, perhaps something to do with UCG's administrative travail, but AW had a very good month in August with a twelve month record: close to 19,000 visits. Which makes it all the harder to pull the plug at the end of the year. "Snarky but authentic" is the way you might describe the tone of this blog, but the question is whether it (or I) have reached a "used by date" for that approach. Hopefully there will be some ideas to share at the end of September.

You're Precluded

... which is, I think, a better title for Mike Feazell's little fireside chats than "You're Included." Included would mean member empowerment, a voice in church decision-making, a vote on who sits in the presidential chair. Theologically it would mean a commitment to the priesthood of all believers, and releasing the death grip the current leadership has over the organization it supposedly serves. It would mean accountability downward, to the people who make up the church, in the spirit of Jesus' example.

But, there I go again; rambling. Mike, if you're out there, the blue coffee mugs with the white logo are cool, so I guess that makes it all right after all.

And now, at last, the new Web address has been released: www.graceci.org. At the moment it just points to dowdy, grimy old wcg.org, but ultimately I guess this will be the new, clean, no-bad-associations URL.

But back to telegenic VP Mike, who has launched another monthly online chat show to supplement You're Prec... I mean You're Included. This one is entitled A Word from Our Sponsor. There's a "kewl" introductory graphicy thingy (though notice that Mike is still styled WCG VP, not GCI veep!), and then you can sit back and enjoy a full thirteen-minute Mike monologue. Oh hey, that's without even mentioning unelected, nepotism-beneficiary PG Joe's wonderful weekly Speaking of Life videos. What an awesome blessing. Outstanding!