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Ron Weinland and His Prophecies: January 2, 2008
Ronald Weinland (another offshoot of HWA's WCG) is claiming to be one of
the two witnesses of Revelation. He has stated the tribulation is to
start in February, but has also claimed that the two "TV presenters"
will die early on, which as far as I can tell, should have
already happened or should happen very soon. I would take him to refer
to one as being Gerald Flurry. He's the only one I know of from the
churches of God that's on TV on our cable system that would be in
competition with Weinland. Reply: Yes, we are aware of Weinland and how he claims he will be one of the two witnesses. It appears that he thinks the TV presenters who will die are in LCG. Notice the following from his book 2008--God's Final Witness:
Weinland (born in 1949) was disfellowshipped from WCG in 1996 and joined UCG where he was a minister for two years. In 1997 he founded the Church of God, Inc. In 2000 the congregation split and the name was changed to The Church of God-PKG (Preparing for the Kingdom of God), which is presently located in Cincinnati, Ohio. He proclaims that COG-PKG is the only one out of all the WCG offshoots that has "continued as God's true church." He believes HWA "restored God's truths," was the "prophesied Elijah to come" and was "God's last apostle." He states we "are in the final stages of the last era" and has declared himself a prophet and one of the two witnesses. He places "death curses" on those who mock him. He claims to be an "Apostle and End-time Prophet," yet has issued many false prophecies as did Herbert Armstrong. COG-PKG is an apocalyptic, authoritarian, controlling organization. For more info regarding such groups and the methods they use, see our articles under Understanding Mind Control and Exploitive Groups. Update: In December 2009 Weinland claimed himself to be an apostle and that he would "fulfill the prophecies of the Elijah to come and of Zerubbabel." Robert Ardis and Church of God's Faithful: January 4, 2008 I used to be a member of the
WCG from 1984 to 1991, and then from 1991 to 2001 Reply:
One person who is very familiar with Robert G. Ardis told us that he is another false prophet with some ridiculous ideas and who gives
speculative ideas about prophecy. CGF claims to "have more new understanding than any other Church" and is now saying they have have "75 new truths that were unknown in Mr. Armstrong's
time." More info on Ardis and Church of God's Faithful can be found on Articles on
Offshoots and Splinter Groups of Worldwide Church of God. Childhood Hell Began at Imperial School: January 5, 2008 I'm a survivor of Imperial School, and WCG, in Pasadena. My mother started listening to HWA's radio broadcasts when I was little. She was determined to make her pilgrimage to HWA, and so we moved to southern California when I was 5. She put my brother and I on a wait list to get into Imperial School. Meanwhile, we started to attend services. After I was officially enrolled at Imperial, my real childhood hell began. I have memories of spiritual, emotional, and sexually abusive experiences within the classroom that haunt me even today. I broke free in 1971, but
my family remained involved in the WCG until things fell apart. Hard to Shed the Image of Herbert Armstrong: February 4, 2008 It is hard to shed the image of HWA. But when we think about it, what did we really know about him? Only what we were told. And those who did know the truth, turned around and told us a different story. It was difficult for me to believe that he could be so evil, so perverted. But then one only needs to look at his son Garner Ted and see that something wasn't right about his upbringing. If HWA were truly a godly father, then GTA would have turned out a godly man, and this was certainly not the case. It's hard to "look at the fruits" of HWA and reconcile his deeds with the "image" that we were fed. When I first came into the WCG, I remember being told to "Prove All Things..." and that asking questions was welcomed. That's one of the things that "sold me" to the WCG. But after being in for awhile, we were told that "questioning authority was evil"--it was like "questioning God Himself" and we didn't dare do that! So in reality, we didn't dare "prove all things"--what they really meant was that we had to "prove that all things that Herbert Armstrong said was right" (that comes after the "...."). --L. B., former WCG member Could No Longer Ignore We Were Victimized by WCG: February 7, 2008 There are many people who feel they were never victimized by the WCG. When I first exited, I firmly believed that we hadn't been. We had wonderful times in the WCG, we had many friends, we never went hungry, and we were always well liked by our ministers. I did not exit on the grounds of abuse, but on grounds of HWA's conduct, and on grounds of the group being unbiblical and a cult. It would take me a long time to see the true motives of the organization, the lies that the leaders told, and that they really weren't sincere. It took me awhile to realize that the hard-earned money that we sent in was not used in the way that they claimed. This is abuse, like it or not. Covering up for HWA is lying, and this is abuse. They talked down to us during the changes, and shamed and intimidated us into adopting the new doctrines. This is abuse, but I didn't see it at the time. I felt only good things about the WCG and only thought good thoughts about the ministers and HQ's leaders. I believed they weren't capable of doing anything evil, and I believed that I should forgive them, because "they, too, had been duped." But after reading a lot of research and hearing testimonies, I could no longer ignore that these things were not done for our benefit, but for theirs. Many in WCG today are burying their head in the sand. Maybe they didn't suffer as much, maybe they were a minister's kid or an elder's kid, but they grew up in a system that was highly abusive, like it or not. Many people who come from dysfunctional families don't realize they're dysfunctional until it's pointed out to them, and then they will still deny it. People in WCG were manipulated by mind control techniques so long that they don't even realize they have been abused. These people are in denial, and are a willing participant. There's not much anyone can do about that.
It is hard to see abuse when you've only
had good times in the WCG. But the way HQ implemented the changes was
very confusing and downright abusive. Nobody was "saved" or even
invited to a relationship with Jesus Christ. We were told what to do,
what to believe, and were pushed and guilted into compliance. We were
told to send money to them because of "dwindling finances" and then
Tkach Jr. gave himself a pay raise. Without a democratic government in
place, it would be easy to get away with something like that. Those in
WCG put a lot of faith in the "government" (as I did) and believed
that HQ had their best interest in mind. When one comes to understand
that this is not so, and that everything boiled down to damage
control, then you begin to understand that we were only valued because
of the money. --R. M.
Jesus Didn't Condone Changing a Cult From Within: February 11, 2008 I
just watched a film called "Called to Be Free" [read ESN's critique of this film], and I didn't realize it when I began watching it, but by
the time I was finished, it seemed to simply be an advertisement for
the WCG and how it's a safe organization now. I'm a pastor and have no
intentions on joining them. Comment: Good question. Why didn't Tkach just write a letter of resignation? For thoughts on why WCG would find it advantageous to mainstream, see this part in OIU Newsletter #2 and read: Was God Behind the Worldwide Church of God Changes? Made A Clean Break From God's Church, Worldwide: February 16, 2008 I have been reading all the material on your site and others for about three weeks. It has been a tremendous help to me in trying to understand why I got sucked into "God's Church, Worldwide." There had been red flags waving at me from the very beginning, but I have finally made a clean break with them and am out of it for good. In order to be baptized one has to agree to discredit all other churches as the synagogues of satan. There is too much doom and gloom prophecies and I was getting caught up in the fear and intimidation theme. Awhile back, there was a major split and as a result many people left. I feel very sorry for all the young people, the children in this church, who have no one to date, or be very close with, since they are allowed only to associated with church members. I am still very embarrassed to have been a part of it, and to have been so duped by the tall tales of doom and gloom days ahead. I have a ways to go still, but at least I have seen the truth about this group. --Exiter of GCW Comment: God's Church, Worldwide, located in Sorrento, Florida, describes themselves as "Holding Fast to The Herbert W. Armstrong Foundation." It was founded by Robert J. Elliot, a WCG pastor who was disfellowshipped in 1995. In June 2006 he died of cancer. His successor, Richard Bickel died in 2007. The present pastor is David Moore. GCW states that the end time began January 16, 1986 (the date HWA died) and the Church of God fell away from the truth at that time except for a small Philadelphian remnant. They believe HWA was the final Elijah--a bona-fide servant of God--who "restored the truths" that the church lost, and the job of taking the gospel to the world as a witness and a warning is now complete. They believe they are called to be part of the 144,000 and that there will be a place of safety during the tribulation (probably Petra), but that some will be have to endure the tribulation due to "lukewarm attitudes" and because they "forgot who Herbert Armstrong was." GCW is a very controlling, authoritarian group which focuses on end time prophecies. Greedy, Abusive Criminals Running a Scam: February 16, 2008 I grew up in the Tucson, Arizona WCG in the late 1950's and finally stopped going around 1978 after my family moved when I was 18. I will never know the amount of money my parents sent the Armstrongs to sustain their lifestyle of greed and decadence, but after reading the articles regarding tithing on your website, I now understand why we were always struggling for money.
These leaders were not "men of God." They were greedy, abusive
criminals running a scam on people looking for comfort, and their
teachings were further attempts to control their "flock" into
submission with fear and manipulation.
They really are sociopaths with no
sense of remorse and a huge sense of entitlement, otherwise they would
not have done those things in the first place. Therefore, they are
never going to acknowledge any of us who were damaged by their greed.
Thank you for giving us a safe place to express ourselves. For each
one of us who writes, I am sure there are lots more who cannot find
the courage to do so, but still receive the gift of knowing they are
not alone. --Rebecca Gharis (WCG child survivor)
Hopeful That I Will Find My Authentic Self: May 12, 2008 I really want to thank you for the resources on your site once again. I had told my therapist about being involved in a cult a few months ago, but I did not know that this was the big problem that needed to be resolved until I researched Herbert W. Armstrong last week and then your site. I didn't know, or I refused to acknowledge, what a fraud Armstrong was. I had thought he was delusional when I left the WCG, but now I believe he was in it just for the money and power. Was I ever mind controlled! I have grieved for the past week and went to see my therapist today. I explained everything to him--and we both know that we have our work cut out for us. I'm going to begin cognitive therapy this week and am very hopeful that, after so many unhappy years of depression, anxiety, phobias, etc., that I will finally find my authentic self and learn how to think positively (not the way I was taught for all those years in the "church"). I want to finally be free in our Lord Jesus Christ and His grace and be a positive person, wife and mother. --Child survivor of WCG Carn Catherwood and His Petra Sermon: May 27, 2008 Regarding the quotes from Carn Catherwood's Petra sermon (the "Anti-Place of Safety Bias"), thanks for furnishing more quotes. The sermon was given before 1984 (that's when we were allowed to attend, even though I had been reading the literature for 6 months already). I do not recall it and I know I would have remembered it, as I ate up stuff like this. I don't even think it was in the tape library because I took out a lot old tapes to listen to them. So my guess is that it had to be sometime close to the time that GTA broke off, and after the Jonestown massacre [ESN Note: Catherwood mentioned "Jonestown" and said when they get ready to flee, the media will compare them to Jonestown and "it will be embarrassing"], but also during a time when they still heavily taught members that they were going to Petra.
There was an interesting video online
that showed Petra. A long time ago (about 50 years or so), native
desert people used to live in Petra, but the government made them
leave and they turned it into a tourist attraction. Nobody
is allowed to live there today, and the vendors have to pack up
and leave at the end of each day (there are no permanent "street
vendor" stalls that stay there and vendors must return to set up
their street shops daily). So this idea of Catherwood saying that
"Christian businessmen placed food in the caves" may be bogus. If
food had been stashed there by Christian businessmen, what was the purpose
of it? [Catherwood wanted members to believe
the food was going to be for them when they arrived.] If natives
had been living there, it would have been scavenged. Once again,
like the others in the organization, all he does is "hint" at
things, and then let our imaginations run wild. No doubt he's in
cahoots with all of them. He's just another
Gerald Waterhouse, only more
civilized. Comment: This person is referring to statements of Carn Catherwood where he told how "Christian businessmen" had already put food in the caves in Petra and "tracts in Hebrew bearing witness of Jesus Christ." Then Catherwood went on to say, "Well, we'll make bonfire out of those tracts!" Read other words of Catherwood at the end of the article, "Memories of Petra." [Note: Carn Catherwood stayed with WCG until he retired in 2005, but continued as "a member of the council of elders."] Thank You For Your Article on the So-Called Lost Tribes of Israel: June 14, 2008
My wife and I are former
members of WCG. I can remember reading Herman Hoeh's "historical"
writings from my time in WCG. I have an MA in Modern History, but I've
read deeply into ancient, Mediaeval and Renaissance, history &c., and
that of Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism and of Europe and
America--and have done so for most of my adult life (I'll be 59 in
September). So I had serious doubts about Herman Hoeh's and Herbert
Armstrong's views on British-Israelism.
As a Scot who can read and speak
a fair bit of Gaelic, the Dun for Dan thing just struck me as plain
daft. Dun is merely an Anglicized form of A'Dhuin (pronounced
a-ghoo-in) and, so doesn't even sound anything like Dan in the
original. It has two meanings in Gaelic--viz., "fortress" and
"hill"--not Dan! Interesting, too, that neither HWA or Hoeh ever
mentioned that there are a fair number of place names in Wales which
actually begin with Dan per se. But again Wales didn't fit
the theory of Dan. Anyway even Dan in Welsh does not mean Dan.
And according to HWA in his The U. S. and Britain in
Prophecy, the Irish surname Dunn means Judge. Dunn, though, is an
English name, not Irish. And there are three words for "judge" in
Irish (and for that matter Scottish) Gaelic and none of them are Dun
or Dan. HWA must have assumed that because there is only one word for
judge in English, whether the verb or the noun or the related
adjective, it was the same in "Irish" (Gaelic). Not so.
But when I was a member of WCG,
I would not dared to have uttered this knowledge. In fact, I was so
indoctrinated by HWA that I thought my thoughts on these things were
nigh on blasphemous. It astonishes me now to think of how duped I was
and how I once thought while I was a member of WCG. But I felt that
HWA being "God's only end-time apostle" must be correct and that the
scholars and historians and etymologists must be deceived by Satan! I
really could not imagine for a moment that a man who was so wrapped up
in Scripture and in God could possibly be a deceiver.
Anyway, not all the ministers were such megalomaniacs as the HWAs and the Flurrys (Flurries?) of this world. There were several really nice ones. And teachable ones at that. When the "Changes" were taking place and Joe Senior was at the helm, one minister actually asked my opinion on an Ambassador College MA history thesis he asked me to look at. (This was a particularly really nice minister who had real humility and treated the brethren as equals. He asked me to keep our "study" confidential.) When I read the thesis, I realized that, judging by the thing itself, Ambassador College was dishing out degrees not worth the paper they were printed on. I wrote so much refuting not only the historical points of this so-called thesis but, if my memory serves me well, the logic also.
I ended on the frank note that
had the writer written such nonsense for an MA at a British university
the examiners would demand he return his O and A levels!
Anyway, I want to thank you for the article on the so-called Lost Tribes. Not only was it scholarly and logical but it really made me laugh. I really enjoyed the humorous comments, albeit that they were factual and accurate.
You guys are doing a really
great work. May God bless you in helping to free others. Though my
wife and I left WCG about eight or nine years ago, I would
occasionally get the "what ifs" regarding HWA's teachings. Yes, even
though I know all the Scriptures that contradict his heresies. But if
that ever happens again I'll just go back to your messages which
really expose HWA for the fraud he was. As to
Gerald Flurry: he is only a
clone of HWA. Had there not been a HWA there would not have been a
Flurry. We ought to be thankful that neither of these men were world
leaders!
God bless your ministry. Thanks again. --Martin Horan
(former WCG member)
(Reply to above
email from author of
Where Are the Tribes
of Israel Located?)
I can truly relate to the things
Mr. Horan was saying. For instance, I am a Russian linguist, and I, too,
saw some things in HWA's literature that weren't correct (the argument
about the word "paracletos" being a "neuter" word proved that the Holy
Spirit was not a "he" is all wrong. In Russian, a drinking "glass" (sta-kan)
is male gendered, but that does not mean the glass is male. So the
argument is incorrect. Many languages (except the English language)
assigns a "gender" to most of their nouns (male, female, neuter) so the
"gender" of verb (and modifiers) agrees. If you have an automobile
(which is "female" in Russian) then your verbs, adjectives, and adverbs
must have a female ending so you know it relates to the female noun.
Here's an example: I truly enjoyed hearing Mr. Horan's descriptions of the Dan/Dun words. It's always nice to follow the logic of another linguist who can explain a fallacy clearly.
I did not look up any of the
claims of Hoeh while I was a member. I simply believed him on the
grounds that he was "Dr. Hoeh, God's chosen Historical Scholar." But in
2005 when I decided to finally do this research on the Lost Ten Tribes,
I realized how simple it was to pick up any kind of basic reference
materials (even outdated ones) and quickly debunk Hoeh's claims. I am happy Mr. Horan can see the fallacies built up by men--the very men who made merchandise of us all! But we are free, and hopefully we will continue for as long as we can, to help free others while the Lord wills. --Kelly Marshall, former WCG member and author of several articles on ESN's site.
Two of My
Daughters Were Molested in WCG: I See a Lot of Hope For My Whole Family: August 18, 2008 Thank you again for the work you are
doing with your web site. He asked about the local church that my wife attends and next thing I knew we all attended with her and our neighbor friends yesterday. Amazingly, the message was about not
giving up on God, or blaming God, when things in this world do not make
sense. The minister went over James 1:1-21. I felt like this was
directed towards me and my shaken faith, faith shaken by finding out
the truth about Herbert Armstrong
and Gerald Flurry. Thanks again, [name withheld] All That's Left of the Mt. Pocono
Feast Site: I haven't posted in years but it is
September. Is anyone ready to head to the Mt. Pocono Feast site and keep
the feast? You may have a difficult time.
Child in United Church of God Attempted Suicide Twice: November 21, 2008 Hello: Nobody Knew How to Counter What I Was Being Told: November 27, 2008 I wish I had had people like you way back when I got recruited into WCG. Nobody knew how to counter what I was being told. All they could say back then was HWA was after my money, but they could not prove what he was saying was bogus. I wish I had known all the false prophecies he had made in the 1930's and 40's! None of that was ever mentioned in the group! --Former member of WCG & PCG |
