I had to take a while to cool off before I wrote this post. I am just going to parrot Felix Taylor and spare you the angry rant that I would very much love to cut loose with right now.
I checked Felix's blog, Life After WCG And More Abundantly, and he linked to a letter on Exit and Support Network about a 17-year old girl who told her parents that she no longer wished to attend Gerald Flurry's Armstrongist splinter-church, the Philadelphia Church of God. Well, given the opportunity to follow Jesus' example and love her unconditionally with forgiveness and hope, her parents chose to abandon her to the streets.
!!ABANDON HER TO THE STREETS!!
Here is a link to the article so you can read for yourself.
(I TIM. 5: 8) But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Likely this poor girls' life, if it ever recovers, will have little room for Jesus Christ, since the horrific version of Christ she was abused with should turn any sane being away in disgust. What have her parents done?
Gerald Flurry, you _______!
This is no joke. And people wonder why we do what we do in the ex-COG blogosphere.
WELCOME TO ARMSTRONGISM!
(MAT. 23: 23-33) 23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 24 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ 31 “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt.
33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?
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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; ) Acts 17:11
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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; ) Acts 17:11
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Holy cow, speaking of behavior similar to Muslims; also that bit about Wade Cox giving the Koran credibility is interesting. I've frequently refereed to Ron Weinland's beliefs to be very Islamic similar.
ReplyDeleteHate to say this, but I'm not at all surprised; in fact, this was the modus operandi, in BC, for "rebellious teens" who "left the church". I know of at least two who ended up on the streets, and a third whom I suspect did (although it's a pretty thin thread I'm using as a clue).
ReplyDeleteOne of the girls was dumped out of the family home because she'd fallen pregnant.
In the meantime, one of the "upstanding" super-deacons' teenagers had gotten pregnant (by a much, much, older man), there was a shotgun wedding, and the deacon and deaconess were the proud, doting, grandparents, as their kid went on to pop out a "quiver-full of arrows such as these".
Unconditional love? I never, ever, witnessed one single shred of unconditional love towards their children by the parents in my congregation(s). All the love was supposed to be for Almighty God and Mr Armstrong (barf), after all.
Not that it was their fault, you understand; that's part of Lifton's thought-reform model: Doctrine over person. Goldberg also had a paper, about the effects of cults on children, where it was stated that the parents became little more than children and child-like themselves, bowing to the parental authority of the church, and the leader, leaving the children to largely raise themselves.
My parents certainly did that, and I know I'm not in the minority. This story should be shocking, and appalling, and seven million kinds of wrong; unfortunately for the Armstrongist splinters, it's par for the course, and to be expected.
I hate to say that you're right, PH, but I believe you're right.
ReplyDeleteNot that I don't want you personally to be right, mind you. I just don't want what you're so very right about to be true.
I wish people would wake up and see what they're doing. There literally is no excuse for this.
Just another example of how messed up the church system is. How can your minister be more important than your children. Ministers are concerned with blind obedience and money. Most of all is the grovelling respect of obedience required by these blind guides.
ReplyDeleteArmstrongism is disgusting, inhumane behaviour.