A correspondent who is both cautious and reliable writes:
Way back in 1995 someone in UCG [circulated] the transcript of an interview with Rod Meredith by [Ewin] H Barnett & Sue Ann Pomicter, which includes this great quote:
One young smart aleck... one of their leaders, he said, “Mr Armstrong gave the whole Church a bucket of lies!”... When I realised that was their attitude, that those changes were heading in a total opposite direction from everything we had proved was the truth, then I knew it was time to leave.
The intro says the interview was done at the FOT at the Lake of the Ozarks, October 15th 1995, and "The first distribution of this interview will be on CompuServe, America Online and at least one of the Internet listservers. It may later appear in print."
I've never seen it online. It has some fairly hard-hitting (and fore-sighted) questions, including "What happens if Global is liquidated or changes ownership? Who inherits Global, so to speak?", "Some have noted that the Church Board is packed with your friends and relatives...", and the wonderful "Are you as rotten as people say you are?" Rod's reply includes "I have mellowed as I've gotten older." It's a great interview. I've searched online, but it's just not there.
That's all news to me! Anyone know anything about this interview or either of the named interviewers?
8 comments:
Wow! You mean there's a piece of COG-related history you didn't know about, Gavin?
I'm surprised the interview's not online -- I looked, too. Ewin's '96 interview with Larry Salyer is still on the Painful Truth, though.
I remember the Meredith interview when it came out. CompuServe's Religion forum had a little corner just for WCG and offshoots back then, and either Ewin or Sue Ann uploaded the file to the library.
Remember that CompuServe was the choice of the Global ministry at the time. The internet was just opening up to the general public, and was accessible mostly through command-line Unix programs such as Gopher, FTP, and primitive email programs. By contrast, networks such as Compuserve, AOL, GEnie, and so forth had been available since the 80's, had Windows interfaces, and were much better for sending email to friends and associates.
It was possible to get an email from AOL to Compuserve, but it required jumping through hoops. Attachments had to be manually encoded and decoded so the bits wouldn't lose cohesion as they passed into the gloamy realm between the networks -- and quite often, Aunt Edna's email from AOL was buried within lines and lines of gibberish by the time it got to you. So it was just easier for most Global ministers to have CompuServe addresses. A lot of members did too. Hey, it beat AOL to pieces. (Ick.)
If memory serves, Ewin (not Edwin) was a freelance writer at the time. I met him at a Feast once. His name has appeared in The Journal a number of times. I don't recall what he's done since Meredith split off from Global.
Sue Ann and her husband Brian are currently with LCG -- they've been with Meredith's group(s) since he left WCG in '93. I believe Brian is a local elder these days.
I know the Meredith interview is hiding somewhere on my old desktop -- the 33 MHz clunker hasn't been turned on in years. Might also be on a floppy somewhere. You know, a floppy -- what we all used before CD-ROMs and USB sticks. So it's buried.
Libro
(If I ever run across it, I'll remember you wanted a copy...)
Yes Gavin, I distinctly remember reading through that 1995 interview with Rod Meredith conducted in a hotel room at one of his Global festival sites.
My sense now, as it was then, was that the only reason he would have submitted to such impudent (as he most likely would have perceived it), straight-from-the-shoulder type of questioning is that he saw in it an opportunity amid the chaos and confusion then extent within the WCG to glean away a large number of potential tithe-payers.
Recall that his relatively new "Global" Church of God (formed only a few years before in the early '90's), had not drawn as many WCGer's (irrate with all the new changes) that he and his followers had anticipated. I learned this from insiders within "Global" at the time. They were simply dumbfounded, especially after UCG formed around Passover of 1995, that most of these WCG members flocked to United rather than Global, and couldn't recognize the Almighty's obvious choice of Rod as the one and only legitimate leader of the one and only true Church of God. What I understand from those who knew him personally is that Rod always envisioned himself as the savior (under Christ of course) of the Church from "the Liberals," as he would distainfully refer to them as.
This was around the time Rod began to claim that he was the very first evangelist ordained by HWA, along with several others at the same ordination ceremony, and thus reasoned that because of this he obviously should be the Church's next legitimate leader. Apparently it was a real blow to Rod's perception of himself, that most WCG members didn't quite see it the way he and God saw it.
Maybe I'm mistaken here, but it seems to me that this interview may have been conducted by someone who was involved with the newspaper "In Transition" - later to be renamed "The Journal." Anyway, for some reason I have this recollection. Perhaps contacting the publishers of "The Journal" would yield further information.
I was long gone by the time that God began to divide and confuse the tongue of Armstrongism, splintering it into the eventual state of meaninglessness and invisibility that it now occupies.
However, I believe the quote excerpted pretty much tells it all. Dr. Meredith's comments are typical of anyone who believes that they've already been exposed to the deepest and ultimate research and truths. Such people tend to lock out any new input, regardless of the thoroughness of the research leading to that input.
"Truth" needs to be constantly tested and refined, and that with an open mind. There is no need for fear, denial, or willful ignorance. If something is true, it will stand up to the most intense dissection and examination. Still, this is not a precept that sets well with those entangled in denominationalism. Often people attribute the same importance to their denominational bias as they do to the biblical canon. That is why revering HWA as an apostle, Flurry a prophet, and Weinland one of the two witnesses is so dangerous. If authoritarianism is injected into truth, it inevitably corrupts and constricts truth, along with any possible purity or personalized meaning in the individual's life.
This is a poignant example of that. While an honest debate with the "young smart aleck" might have been the most fruitful way to test and flesh out the truth, and might have resulted in better unity, such was just not possible in a "my way or the highway" environment. So, two sets of minds remain closed until this very day, and nothing positive was learned. As the King of Siam often quipped, "That is most unscientific!"
BB
Gavin
Politics will never change and it will never change any country but God is going to send His government to restore all things very soon.This is the good news.Aren't you glad?
Leonardo wrote: "Maybe I'm mistaken here, but it seems to me that this interview may have been conducted by someone who was involved with the newspaper 'In Transition' - later to be renamed 'The Journal.' Anyway, for some reason I have this recollection. Perhaps contacting the publishers of 'The Journal' would yield further information."
An article, based on the interview and with "Ewin H. Barnett and Sue Ann Pomicter" listed as the writers, appeared in John Robinson's In Transition issue dated Dec. 18, 1995, under the headline "Global Head Fields Questions in Internet-Published Interview."
Another Rod Meredith interview had appeared under my byline in the IT issue dated Oct. 30, 1995: "Global Views: IT Interviews Dr. Meredith."
Ewin, who lives in Missouri, has written for my newspaper, The Journal, several times.
For the record, The Journal is not In Transition renamed. I tried to talk my friend John out of shutting down In Transition. He ended it in January 1997. I began The Journal the next month. It is, of course, quite accurate to say that In Transition inspired the founding of The Journal.
BB said...
"Truth" needs to be constantly tested and refined, and that with an open mind. There is no need for fear, denial, or willful ignorance. If something is true, it will stand up to the most intense dissection and examination. Still, this is not a precept that sets well with those entangled in denominationalism.
In most circles that's called the scientific method. And we all know how opposed to that method HWA was! The sad thing is he got that mindset from a story about a talking snake in a garden.
Perhaps "truth" is best spoken of as "conventional wisdom"?
Truth has a certain binary quality to it that doesn't take into account shades of understanding or even the ability to understand it.
While its true that scientists aren't above having their own holy wars over their own theories, they will ultimately accept change to "conventional wisdom" when proven wrong. And they eventually honor their heretics.
Its a shame that religion doesn't subject its own doctrines to such rigors.
Anonymous 9:24 wrote:
"Politics will never change and it will never change any country but God is going to send His government to restore all things very soon.This is the good news.Aren't you glad?"
My first instinctive response to this comment is what possible world are you living in? And is it the same one I'm living in?
Politics is constantly changing, both in bad AND good directions - and in so doing does indeed CHANGE many countries, often very profoundly. Lay down your COG publications and pick up and read some legitimate history books, open up your eyes to what is happening all over the world and witness the many changes (often quite positive in nature) that have taken place as a result of changing political and ideological views throughout history.
You talk of God's government to be restored "very SOON" - but exactly how would you define that term, soon? People have mistakenly believed that for multiple centuries now. The WCG under HWA made many documented proclamations regarding the "soon" return of Christ, often including very specific time frames - and what have been the actual results?
Absolutely nothing.
To cite just one example, here's a quote from HWA published on page 47 of the February 1967 issue of The Plain Truth:
"The 'Day of the Eternal' - a time foretold in more than thirty prophecies - is going to strike between 5 and 10 years from now!... I am not writing foolishly, but very soberly, on authority of the living Christ!"
And here we are now in 2008!
Sorry, but the factual record clearly and without doubt demonstrates HWA was proved time and again to indeed have been "writing foolishly" - VERY foolishly - in spite of his assertion to the contrary! The self-proclaimed "Apostle" made MANY such predictions - and NONE of them ever came to pass as he said they would "on authority of the living Christ!"
These are the undisputed FACTS - and didn't HWA teach us to always "get the facts?"
What really bothers me with the many well-meaning people who pin all their hopes on the "soon" return of Christ (and lets face it, ALL the COG's are based on this particular belief) is that it tends to make them divert and waste so much of their energies and resources ("burying their talents" as it were) that could be more profitably spent actually accomplishing something of value with their lives, solving problems in their immediate realm of influence, etc., and in so doing gain valuable experience, and develop solid, stable, right-thinking character in the process.
But I've often observed that those who buy into this belief in the "soon" return of Christ fall victim to it in a most destructive way: that in reality it produces a most pernicious effect in their everyday practical lives, closing their minds to new and potentially mind-expanding information, and causing them to fearfully retreat ever further into the darkness of their fundamentalists caves to passively wait for the "soon" return of Christ, clutching onto this idea like a terrified child tightly holding onto a well-worn security blanket.
I've witnessed this sad dynamic over and over and over again repeatedly within the WCG, and have regretfully seen large numbers of members stupefied in this way, and end up completely wasting their lives.
But is this the fruit "true religion" is intended to produce in human lives?
"But I've often observed that those who buy into this belief in the "soon" return of Christ fall victim to it in a most destructive way: that in reality it produces a most pernicious effect in their everyday practical lives, closing their minds to new and potentially mind-expanding information, and causing them to fearfully retreat ever further into the darkness of their fundamentalists caves to passively wait for the "soon" return of Christ, clutching onto this idea like a terrified child tightly holding onto a well-worn security blanket."
The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon:
17:10 They died for fear, denying that they saw the air, which could of no side be avoided.
17:11 For Wickedness, condemned by Her own witness, is very timorous, and being pressed with conscience, always forecasteth grievous things.
17:12 For fear is nothing else but a betraying of the succours which reason offereth.
17:20 For the whole world shined with clear light, and none were hindered in their labour:
17:21 Over them only was spread an heavy night, an image of that darkness which should afterward receive them: but yet were they unto themselves more grievous than the darkness.
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