The Church of God Organizations


Introductory

 This file is a personal analysis by one who feels entitled
to speak out after investing a quarter century and some tens of
thousands of dollars in the Church of God organizations.  I have
done my time, and I have paid my dues.

 The term "cult" as generally used is so vague as not to be very
useful.  In general it is used to mean a relatively small religion
whose doctrinal tenets are at variance with mainstream Christianity.
This is not much of a description.  The word is almost an epithet
to be branded upon any small religious system one happens to disagree
with.  A cult may be viewed as any small religion liable to suffer
adverse criticism and persecution at the hands of other religions or
of government.  One remembers the SDA Branch Davidians burned out by
the federal government.  Truth is the proper corrective for error, and
all religions may profit more from liberal dosages of it than from
hate and persecution.  How much easier it is to brand them cults and
seek to eliminate them.  I use the term cult to mean any small re-
ligion.  This would include Sabbath-keeping Christian groups, who are
in the minority, even though they are correct and the mainstream
Christian religions wrong, as may be shown by a careful appreciation
of the Scriptures.  This definition then would include the Seventh
Day Adventist Church, although it has a membership of nearly ten
million worldwide.  It also includes the Sabbath-keeping Churches of
God that have proliferated in the Twentieth Century.  They are of
primary interest in this paper.  I will refer to them as the CCG's,
the  Cultic Churches of God, not in a pejorative sense, but as a matter
of convenient reference.  My apprenticeship, so to speak, was served
under these religious organizations.


Analysis

 The Church of God cults seem to have split away from or to have
been associated with the Seventh Day Adventists during the Nineteenth
and early Twentieth Centuries.  Such CCG's seem to arise when men
perceive that a corner on the truth may be exploited as an avenue to
personal prestige, power, and wealth.  The classic example for the
Twentieth Century was Herbert W. Armstrong.  To understand how a man
accomplishes this end, one should read Mr. Armstrong's writings in-
cluding his autobiography, and also the writings of his critics, es-
pecially those who were members of his religion, the Worldwide Church
of God, and thus privy to its inner workings.

 The paradox in the modus operandi of such men as HWA, is that
they employ the truth of the Bible to attain personal ends.  The ends
are personal advantage, power, and wealth; the means--the preaching
of the Gospel truth, subtly intermixed with half-truth and error.
These men engage in a process which operates as a sort of cultic
blitzkrieg that takes in prospective acolytes by a storm of biblical
doctrine, much of which happens to be true and recognizable as such
by many nominal Christians.  HWA and his spiritual successors employ
the truth of the Bible for the purpose of deception--whether inten-
tionally or not is not mine to judge.  One might expect at least that
at some point these vaunted, self-proclaimed religious experts would
become conscious of the errors they perpetrate, and boldly begin to
make the indicated corrections.  Realistically, however, there is no
way any of these religious corporations are going to forego the doc-
trine of Balaam they have perversely incorporated into their core
beliefs and teachings (re: the associated file on Balaam and on the
Nicolaitanes).  To do so would be to put themselves out of business.

 Although the CCG's are usually maligned by their enemies as cults
that have departed in some measure from sound biblical doctrine, the
reverse is often the case.  The Protestant Reformation stopped short
of making all the corrections it might have to the abuses of Catholi-
cism.  The various Protestant Churches are halfway houses between
Scholastic Catholicism and original Bible doctrine.  The Reformation,
and the Counter-reformation as well, made many needed corrections to
pre-Lutheran Catholicism, but neither turned back again to "primitive"
Christianity as presented in the New Testament.  The most glaring evi-
dence of this is their retention of Sunday as their day of worship.
The CCG's purport to return to New Testament Christanity, and to some
extent, they do.

 The typical cultic blitzkreig artist siezes upon a number of
sound, and some not so sound, biblical doctrines that are not taught,
or not emphasized, by the mainstream religions.  These selected be-
beliefs become the core of the cultic religious blitz.  Some of the
doctrines may be outlined in a statement of beliefs, but crucial doc-
trines are suppressed.  To spell these out would jeopardize the well-
being, and perhaps the continued existence, of the Church.  Some of
these subjects are addressed in other files in this series.  Clarif-
ication of these omitted doctrines, notably on ordination of elders
and on tithing, would bear unfavorably upon the modus operandi of the
cultic leadership and its organization.  It would not do to call into
question the very legitimacy of "the Work" itself or the manner in
in which it perpetuates itself.  These things have to appear plausible
and self-evident to the laity without reference to the more embarassing
scriptural facts.  Tithes and offerings, contributions and donations,
need to be kept coming in to the corporate P.O. Box number in order
sustain "the Work."  One suspects that the cultic leadership is well
aware of these problems but disinclined for obvious reasons to dwell
upon them, a disingenuous position, to say the least.

 As the cultic leadership builds up a body of faithful followers,
it establishes a "Work" that employs radio, television, and digital and
print communications, to preach its tailored version of the Gospel of
Christ to the world.  Typically this gospel will include Sabbath keeping
with area members; observance of the Levitical holy days at designated
sites; observance of the Ten Commandments; exclusivity to some degree,
the CCG seen as the "True Church"; the tithing principle as encumbent
upon the laity; authoritative Church government emanating from a central
headquarters, often based on that of Israel in the wilderness; spirit-
ual rulership over the laity by the cultic leadership, often by means
of a heirarchical organization of dependent officials or elders who
must be ordained by the Church leadership; and often some form of the
idea of the British-Israel interpretation of history, as well as many
doctrines provable from the Scriptures.  In practice the upper echelons
of the Church organization draw six-figure salaries out of the tithe
and offering money contributed by the laity, often at great sacrifice
to themselves and to their families.  This is, of course, the object
of the entire exercise in the first place.  The higher up the organiza-
tion a Church elder can work his way, the more remunerative his pos-
ition becomes, and the less likely he is to rock the boat by the preach-
ing of unfortunate biblical doctrines contrary to those dictated by
Church headquarters.  These men are bought and paid for by the Church
leadership, whores in effect, who do nothing to jeopardize their posi-
tions and salaries.  The cultic blitz is designed not only to lock mem-
bers into the CCG, but to lock officials and elders into its adminis-
tration.

 The cultic blitzkreig is a spiritual assault upon a prospective
convert's current system of beliefs.  He is led to suspect that he has
been heretofore deceived by ministers of Satan the devil, but has now
been given opportunity to turn to the real truth, the plain truth, as
taught by God's "True Church."  As god of this world, the devil is said
to be the real power behind the Christian Churches--all except one--
which of course turns out to be the CCG formenting the blitz.  Should
one have had faith in God previously to one's coming in contact with the
CCG, it didn't count.  Without proper guidance one would have failed to
have properly interpreted and to have adequately understood biblical
doctrine.  Had one previously undergone baptism, even by immersion, it
too would have been invalid, not having been properly performed by a
representative of the CCG--it would have been merely a dunking.  One
could not have received the Holy Spirit from another Church, since it
was transferable only by the laying on of the hands of a CCG represen-
tative who had received it in a line of direct unbroken succession
from the hands of the original apostles themselves.  After entering
into the CCG, the convert's eternal salvation resided in the hands of
an exclusive mystical priesthood, as it were, who had power not only
to effect the bestowal of the Holy Spirit upon one by the laying on
of their hands, but also the power to revoke it by means of disfellow-
shipment or excommunication, should the convert incur their displeasure.

 The process of conversion as practiced in a CCG invariably in-
cludes instruction in regard to the necessity of tithing one's income
to the Church in order not to become guilty of robbing God, which they
construe to mean withholding solicited tithes and offerings from the
CCG concerned.  In line with the deception they practice, they all,
without exception, purport to be churches of God--never synagogues of
Satan.  The diabolical facility with which extensive bodies of bib-
lically sound doctrine are subtly corrupted by the admixture of self-
serving error in these Church organizations is little short of amazing.
The object seems to be that the laity become so pre-occupied with the
wonderful truths of the Bible that they fail to notice the perverse
error that is incorporated therein by a self-serving ministry.  In a
larger view, it would appear that all religions, the COG's included,
are founded upon bodies of truth afflicted by the cancer of error.
A dynamic Christian faith has to be continually combatting and free-
ing itself from error, particularly the error of Balaam that seeks its
reward at others' detriment and expense.

 It is the writer's conviction that real Christianity is a process
that occurs in an individual's mind, essentially without regard to the
outward trappings of religion.  Basically an educational process, one's
faith should be continually changing and growing rather than being
frozen in place by an incomplete creed or statement of beliefs.  The
Bible states our beliefs, our task is to come to a proper understanding
of the Scriptures.  The Christian, as defined in Romans eight, has no
need for a cultic priesthood to mediate for him with God as formalized
religions need him to assume.  He needs no Roman Catholic priesthood,
no Protestant clergy, no CCG hierarchy to oversee his practice of
his personal religious convictions.  All he needs is his own Bible and
his own informed conscience.  If he has a group of likeminded brethren
to meet with, so much the better, but even then, such a group should
conduct their own affairs democratically, without submission to any
attempted religious organizational control over them.

 The CCG cultic blitzes are mixtures of sound, provable biblical
doctrines and erroneous teachings purported to be biblically sound.
These religions teach Sabbath-keeping, observing the Ten Commandments,
observing of the annual Sabbaths, and usually a variant of British
Israelism, as well as many other biblical truths.  Along with these
they preach erroneous doctrines such as their own exclusivity as God's
true church, and especially their duty to garner tithes and offerings
from the laity in order to carry on "the Work."  These and other self-
serving errors are so closely intertwined with true doctrines, and so
often reiterated in weekly sermons, that the cultic convert takes them
as points of sound basic doctrine.  He is in effect indoctrinated, and
submits his thought processes and his wallet to the work, content that
he has at last found God's true church.  Once so hooked, a convert
dare not leave the CCG lest his eternal salvation become forfeit upon
his subsequent disfellowshipment.  As a critic has well said in summar-
izing the CCG's, the believer's expected role is to stay, pay, pray,
and obey, and he will do exactly that unless and until his eyes are
opened by an often painful and somewhat traumatic experience, such as
learning unfortunate, disquieting truths or becoming disfellowshipped
from the Church.  The psychic trauma arises from the fear that, upon
separation from the cult, one becomes thereby deprived of one's eternal
salvation.


The Way Out

 Having come through both the Protestant and CCG mills, the
writer's present conviction is that ministers who solicit tithe money
are invariably untrustworthy.  The most blatant examples may be the
televangelists who have been caught practicing adultery or sex
perversions, or even outright fraud for which they have gone to jail.
They fooled a lot of people for a lot of years, but in the end their
fruits have made them known as Jesus said they would, Mat 7:15-20.
But one may not have to wait until their fruits make them known in
order to figure out who they are.  If they solicit one's tithes and
offerings, they are ipso facto, false ministers.  They are described
in Jude and II Peter 2.  Other files in this series lend added
credence to the allegations put forward here.

 The thesis of these files is that the scattered membership of
the church of God, the true body of Christ, has had a stumblingblock
cast before it, causing it to sin.  That stumblingblock is idol wor-
ship.  We have engaged in a cultic worship of corporate religious
idols that have been erected by false teachers and ministers, who are
a modern counterpart of the ancient sect of the Nicolaitanes, who
promote the age-old doctrine of Balaam in modern guise.  Why else
would Jesus single these out in Revelation 2?  And why do Peter and
Jude inveigh so eloquently against them?  The manner in which they
have made merchandise of us is spelled out in the associated files,
and so need not be reiterated here.  The Cultic Churches of God, on
this view, are so many corporate idols, creatures of the synagogue of
Satan, that have been reared up in the place of the true God--and how
reluctant we are to give up our idols!

  The WCG corporate idol has been broken.  We often hear that
somewhere along the way the WCG ceased to be the true church of God.
The true church must have moved somewhere else, we think.  It has
moved from Pasadena to Tyler, to Edmond, to San Diego, to Arcadia, or
to some other remote location.  God has now apparantly decided that
He must work through a different corporate entity rather than the
WCG.  We tend to feel that we must by all means find the "right" reli-
gious corporation, in effect a new idol to serve.  When our old idol
gets smashed, we scurry about to find a new one to replace it.  We
become acutely uncomfortable without a reassuring religious corporation
to which we may yield ourselves docile subjects.

 We must give up our idols, our CCG's.  We need to realize that
God works in individual minds and hearts as we yield to Him, and not
in religious corporate entities that seek ascendency over God's people.
The reader is requested to prayerfully consider these files, accept-
ing such truth as is presented, and honestly refuting any suspected
error.

 The giving up of its corporate idolatry by the church of God
scattered abroad need not mean that it engage in no collective activity
at all.  It may indeed do a voluntary collective educational work,
but a work stripped of the abusive practices of the present CCG's.
Locally autonomous churches could, on this view, band together to do a
regional work on a voluntary basis, with a stipulation that any such
work make do with no more than one percent of the income of its mem-
bership, as the Aaronic priesthood in the Old Testament had to do.
Employees of such a work would be hired at competitive wages and ex-
ercise no authority over local churches.  Any such centralized entity
would be run by a body of representatives, elected by and respon-
sible to the local congregations who sponsored them.  The object of
such an association would be to further the Great Commission that
Christ gave His church by means of free and open communication among
all parties concerned.  Such regional entities would be called asso-
ciations and not churches.  They would not be empowered to make any
decree or assessment binding upon any local congregation or member,
since God has given freedom to individuals only and not to collective
entities.  Any collective association formed by a group of churches is
by its nature the creature of those churches, and is entitled to no
authority over them.  My feeling is that, among modern churches, the
Seventh Day Baptists [SDB, I am not a member] most nearly approach the
the New Testament ideal.  Meanwhile, one may do well to remain a low
profile member of the somewhat obscure and rigorously independent
"Ethiopian Church of God," the ECG!

Accountability

 What a far cry such a utopian vision is from the travesty we have
had to witness, for instance, at every stage of the formation of the
UCG, which has gotten everything exactly backwards and one hundred and
eighty degrees out of phase, as it put together its nightmare vision of
what the WCG should have become!  What a masterful job these associated
false ministers have done of ensuring their own financial well-being
at the expense of a confused and gullible, abused "laity"!  How is it
that these united ministers were able to clandestinely put together
their self-serving C-Y-A operation at the same time they were drawing
down paychecks from WCG?  How is it that they were content to sit by
in the WCG, presumably supporting the newfound trinitarain system of
false doctrines discovered by the Church administration, rather than
vociferously protesting them on behalf of the scattered flock they were
ostensibly serving?  Will Jesus hold them accountable at His return?
You bet He will!  They may reinforce each other now, but then each of
them will stand alone (Rom 2:11; 14:10; II Cor 5:10).  To them, and to
other hired shepherds who populate other similar COG hierarchies,
one may well say, "The handwriting is on the wall, boys! If I, a mere
isolated and lonely 'lay person' in the church of God, can deduce the
conclusions I have drawn in these files from the word of God, so can
any Spirit-led member who applies himself or herself to the task--you
boys had best be looking for legitimate work..."

In Perspective

 The Bible calls man's society Satan's present evil world with
good reason (Gal 1:4).  Our entire society is characterized by error--
not only our religions.  The deception extends to education, politics,
and economics as well.  Mankind has indeed been "had" by the Master De-
ceiver, who deceives the whole world (Rev 12:9).  He works through our
collective social systems as currently constituted and practiced.

 Education is a system of teaching that presents established in-
tellectual mythology as though it were truth.  Religious education is
a sub-species of this system.  Politics is a system of legalism that
forges chains of servitude in the name of liberty.  It formulates
policies enforcable by its State police.  Economics is a system of
monetary fraud whereby tokens of value are counterfeited in federal
banks as money.  It is a system of usury that exhausts itself in in-
flation.  Religion is a system of monetary fraud perpetrated by char-
latans purporting to be servants of God.  Formal religions are in
reality systems of idolatry.  All these systems are run by perhaps
well-meaning but deceived "professionals" who have their respective
servile "laities" to lord it over.

 Arriving at an understanding of these things is not a matter of
intellect per se, since the most capable of minds continue to sub-
scribe to these systems--especially professionals who have vested
interests in the status quo.  If a man lack wisdom, says James, let
him ask of God who has it to give, otherwise he will not receive it
(Jas 1:5).  Wisdom comes from God, but our society has dismissed God
from its schools and its secular affairs, as well as its religious
affairs.

 To grow in wisdom, one must formulate honest questions to the
best of one's intellectual ability, in Spirit and in truth, submit
them before God on His terms, and expect answers to come as one sets
one's hand again to the pursuit of genuine enlightenment in regard
to reality as it truly is.  This is the process of true education.
Society, however, having cut itself off from instruction by God, is
adrift on a sea of confusion and pseudo-intellectualism that passes
for knowledge.  As members of society we must necessarily experience
the collective social deceptions that presently prevail before we
may transcend them.  But transcend them we can, according to Jesus,
who says to us, "...If ye continue in my word, then are ye my dis-
ciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make
you free" (John 8:31-32).  We may break through to a spiritual un-
derstanding of these satanic deceptions, but of course we still have
to live with them on an everyday basis.  When Jesus ushers in the
millennial Kingdom of God all these deceptions will be corrected in
a society that will be squarely based on reality and truth.  Thy
Kingdom come!