RedFox, of Living Armstrongism, wrote a post called "Letters To ESN on Wade Cox' Armstrongite Group, Christian Churches of God". In this post, he mentions a letter submitted to ESN, that was written by a lady who had recently left the CCG.
If you go to ESN and read this letter, dated September 29, 2010, titled "Abused and Slandered by Christian Churches of God", you will get an eyeball full. Here is a quote:
"I have written proof of these abuses and revealing mindset at work from the General Coordinator and founder of the church [Wade Cox] and his inner circle. ... If there was anything on the Internet that could show the true character of this group and its officials, it may be helpful in informing people of their actions before they are immersed in this cult."
[**ABD does not claim to know if these allegations are true; neither supporting or denying their veracity - God knows. We just report what we have seen on other sites for your consideration.]
To the abused and slandered author of that letter, you did the right thing in contacting ESN! We support you!
But this isn't all that we've seen from Wade Cox.
For the two years ABD has been around, we've pretty much ignored Wade Cox, dismissing his group because in our opinion they appeared to be yet another splinter aberration with yet another cult-leader in the tiresome line of cult-leaders who thinks he's more powerful and grand than all the other cult-leaders (while they are all thinking the same about themselves). We've known some of the unusual things that the CCG teaches, and we've said a word or two about it, but we haven't had the time nor inclination to follow up. We've been busy enough with the likes of the real master of the Armstrong universe - Ron Weinland.
I forget now precisely what we've written. Well, no matter. Things have recently come up that have caught our attention.
We've recently received an anonymous tip. This anonymous tipster told us to go and look on Facebook and we'll see all the Wade Cox we can stomach. They told us where to look, and even gave us some quotes from Wade. The hook was bated, and we bit.
Here's what we've found.
What I'm about to post are direct quotes copied word for word earlier this morning - November 4th, 2010 - from a public discussion board on Facebook where all content is public. (You do not need to join the group to see the content; you only need join to engage in the discussion.)
I am not going to edit any more than it takes to remove a few unimportant sentences here and there. These are direct quotes from Wade Cox. So, as far as we know at the time of this writing, all of these things are true. [Red highlighting mine throughout. Words in blue are my own editorial.]
Group: Former Worldwide Church of God and Other COG Groups
Discussion: Antinomian Apostates
Date: Saturday, October 30, 2010Discussion: Third Resurrection
Wade Cox
"I see that the intellectual vacuums have come across to this site to reduce the levels of discussion to the same abysmal level that they enjoy on the WCG Survivors site."
Date: Monday, November 1, 2010
Wade Cox
"You will learn when Messiah returns.
If you believe as you say you now do you have an obligation to return to the Catholic faith and apologise to them.
You and all these Antomiansn who believe as you do or worse will find themselvwes in the Second Resurrection and if you do not keep the law of God you will die the Secodn death.
If you are alive at the Coming of ther Messiah you will keep the laws of God or you will die"
Date: Monday, November 1, 2010Discussion: Synagogue of Satan
[**Note: the following comment was made to a person who recently decided to part company with the CCG and its teachings, preferring to step into the New Covenant.**]
Wade Cox
"If you cannot understand the basis of what is being posted and how it demonstrates that these people you now have allowed to ruin this site are operating through false claims and downright lies and false accusation then I am afraid there is no help for you or this site. You seem to have no committment to any intellectual integrity."
Date: early September, 2010Discussion: Attacks On the Law of God
Wade Cox
"Our worst persecution was within the WCG from among our own so-called brethren.
They will be made to bow down and worship us. They left the faith for Trinitarianism and Binitarian/Ditheism and they will be punished. They keep the wrong Calendar as do the Jews of modern Judaism and they will be brought to account before us soon."
Wade Cox
"The churches of God have those people who also fall into that category simply because, as you have said, they do not keep the correct calendar and their Holy Days are off due to their calendar and the postponements. They do not keep all the Sabbaths, New Moons and Holy Days on the correct days and they hold to the traditions of men. They says they are Jews but lie."
Wade Cox
"The Babylonian system has penetrated everything from Judaism and the Trinitarian system to the WCG and the Offshoots and the COG (SD) Denver and the sDAs and SDBs in the US and whatever. They all keep the Babylonian Calendar with its system of intercalations as set in the Hillel Calendar which many of the white churches of god keep. There is no excuse for it.
How can one keep a calendar which uses the Babylonian intercalations and the Babylonian date system with this year as 5711 and keep Atonement on Saturday a day late this year and the Holy Days a day late also and not be part of the synagogue of Satan.
The Sardis and Laodicean systems are part of the synagogue of Satan and they will bow down and worship the Phildelphian era but so will the others including rabbinical Judaism no matter what their lineage."
[Name Witheld #1]
1Ti 1:3 As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, 1Ti 1:4 nor to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the divine training that is in faith; 1Ti 1:5 whereas the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith. 1Ti 1:6 Certain persons by swerving from these have wandered away into vain discussion, 1Ti 1:7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions. 1Ti 1:8 Now we know that the law is good, if any one uses it lawfully, 1Ti 1:9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 1Ti 1:10 immoral persons, sodomites, kidnapers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, 1Ti 1:11 in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
[**Note-- Ms "Name Witheld #1" ONLY quoted scripture. Here comes Wade's response.**]
Wade Cox
Ms [Name Witheld #1]
You know nothing and I have no desire to comunicate with you.
[Name Witheld #2]
"You know nothing and I have no desire to comunicate with you." - IF she knows nothing Wade isn't she the one you should be trying to reach the most?
Wade Cox
I have no desire to discuss this matter [Name Witheld #2].
[Name Witheld #2]
Why not?
Wade Cox
it a legal matter.
[**Note: A "legal matter"?????? You can't preach to the needy because of a "legal matter"??? That's his take on Christ???**]
Date: Late October, 2010Discussion: Agenda of the Idol Shepherds
Wade Cox
Antinomianism has been infliltrating the Churches of God for millennia.
You have a very short time to go. You views and corrupt beliefs will die very soon along with the people who believe it.
Every person on this planet by the Millennium under Christ will keep the Sabbaths and New Moons or they will die (Isa 66:23). They will also keep the Feasts and send their representatives to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles or they will die of starvation and thirst or the Plagues of Egypt (Zech. 14:16-19).
There is no negotiation and you will do as you are told or you will die."
Wade Cox
"This cry of: 'Oh God will guide me is bunk.'"
Wade Cox
"I will explain the 613 Mitzvot again as Wikipedia is written in these texts by Jews who don't understand what is meant by it all."
Wade Cox
"The Sunday worshipping Trinitarians assert this nonsese so as to eliminate the Sabbaths, New Moons and Feasts which they cannot do. As stated previously those who do not keep the Sabbaths and New Moons will die and those who do not keep the feasts and send their representatives to Jerusalem will also die"
Date: Late October, 2010Discussion: New Moons
Wade Cox
"CCG is not an offshoot of WCG. It is far greater than WCG and the vast majority of its members have never seen the inside of WCG."
Date: Early September, 2010Discussion: Hitler Was A Jew
Wade Cox
"The determination of the month has nothing to do with a clown standing in Jerusalem and an entire nation of people suspending judgment when they could and did calculate it precisely from before the flood.
These Karaites try to make God's calendar appear dependent upon a group of idiots grubbbing around the field of Jerusalem when God has devised the greatest time machine which is the universe itself.
Spare us this insanity."
Date: early Saptember, 2010Discussion: Elijah and the boot lickers of the WCG system.
Wade Cox
"We have now the full facts that Hitler was a full blooded jew."
Date: early September, 2010
Wade Cox
"Many of the people of the WCG system are brainwashed and some are brain dead.
There are forums that believe and proclaim that Herbert Armstrong was Elijah and they kick you off their forum if you ask for a demonstration as to what he did that was required to be done by Elijah.
What did he do that Elijah was supposed to do. What prophecy did he ever get right. No one has ever successfully claimed our reward for a correct prophecy yet.
What justifies this brain dead behaviour on the part of the US people?"
Wade Cox
"When we say US people we mean mean those people in the WCG and offshoot system that are totally incapable of independent thought and of not following a man in the insane cult of the personality that permeates the US religious and political system."
"Let us hold these bootlickers up to the examination and criticism they all so richly deserve."
Wade Cox
"The Modrn Jewish Calendar was not in existence at the time of Christ.
The Calendar that the WCG and the offshoots keep did not come into existence until 358 CE and is based on the postpionementes."
"Show me one Holy Day other than Pentecost that the offshoots keep that is different to the Holy Days the Jews keep. I say and the facts are that they cannot do so because it is the same calendar and anyone who says it is not is a liar."
Wade Cox
"If you do not keep the Day of Atonement on the corrrect day your punishment is to be cut off from God's people."
[**Note: this "cut off" includes the Jews. He is saying the Jews are not God's people.**]
Discussion: Fear
Wade Cox
"I will repeat again that any person who claims that the calendar kept by the WCG offshoots is the calendar kept by Christ is an unmitigated liar and unfit to be a minister of God."
Wade Cox
"The rabbis themselves admit it did not come into use until 358 CE and that it is hoplessly inaccurate. They state they will have to wait for Messiah to come to fix it.
Messiah has already come and he did not keep this abomination. The church has never kept it until Armstrong. How can you postpone the Passover for heavens sake how can you postpone the Day of Atonement. You cannot do so. These people have no fear of God."
Date: early September, 2010Discussion: Why was WCG destroyed.
Wade Cox
"When Messiah returns to take over the world, as we are told he will, the elect of the First Resurrection will take over from the demons in assisting Christ to rule the world."
Date: August, 2010Discussion: Satan's Powers
Wade Cox
"The WCG had no chance of survival from the beginningn because thery did not understand the history of the churches of God and nor did they understand how the Second century churches were undermined. That was even though they were told what was to happen and what the doctrine of Antichrist was."
[**Note: this came right after telling someone that wanting to learn the Biblical truth was "not enough". So, Biblical truth plus second century history is key. Gotcha.**]
Date: August, 2010Discussion: WHO IS THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT?
Wade Cox
"The elohim [**Note: by this Wade means angels, not God**] had the power of creation after the God created the world (Job. 38:4-7).
(Let us make man in our image etc)
God placed Satan in command of the world as the elohim or theos of this world (Isa. 14; Ezekiel 28; 2 Cor. 4:5)."
Date: August, 2010
Wade Cox
"It is Armstrongite heresy to suggest that Christ was the God of the OT. What you are saying on this forum Ms. Petty is a lie.
The OT is abolutely clear that God the Father or Eloah was the singular one true God of the OT."
Wade Cox
"This is the One True God of the Bible. The name admits of NO plurality whatsoever and is used only of the One True God the Father of the entire Creation including Christ. Christ is the subordinate elohim of Israel whose father is Eloah, The Elyon or the Most High."
[**Note: Wade teaches Christ is a created being; an angel for all practical purposes.**]
We posted these quotes so that you could be more informed on what's going on in the greater sphere of Armstrongism and hopefully form your own opinion on this. But if you want our opinion.....
These quotes are, in our opinion, a shocking string of arrogant, heartless, demeaning, deceptive, and ungodly-vile filth. And, for a man who appears to want everyone to believe he's so very intelligent, he sure has some terrible spelling and grammar.
Wade appears to believe that HWA was an Apostle, but at the same time a false-prophet and a deceived liar (on the last two points, we are happy to agree with Wade). How can you mix Apostle and deceived false-prophet, though? He seems to say that the nature of God is wrong, the nature of Christ is wrong, the nature of Satan and the angels is wrong, the calendar is wrong, the holy days are kept wrong, the resurrections are wrong, the law is wrong, history is wrong, the Jews are wrong, and just about everything else under the sun is wrong ... EXCEPT (conveniently enough) what he believes on all of these matters. He appears to believe that is correct. What proof does he offer of all these things? We saw very, very little if any. [We'll come back to that.]
What we have witnessed appeared to us to be anti-Christ. What we witnessed appeared to us to be outright condemnation of Armstrongism. It appeared to us to be outright condemnation of the Jews. It appeared to us to be outright condemnation of all Catholics and all Protestants. Who is left? I don't know what you think "There is no negotiation and you will do as you are told or you will die" means, or what you think "You have a very short time to go. You [sic] views and corrupt beliefs will die very soon along with the people who believe it" means, but to us it means pretty much what it looks like it means - death!
I think you can see for yourself what kind of man this is and what quality this CCG must be to "elect" a leader who speaks like this. Unfortunately, the people we found in this discussion group who appeared to be members of the CCG were, in our opinion from what we read, almost as dismissive and cruel as Wade Cox.
They appeared, in our opinion from what we read, to be brainwashed - as there are manifold examples of long screeds, line after line of quotations from Wade Cox's writings, as if Wade Cox is the only source necessary to answer any matter under the sun. The people on this forum seemed to have several discussions back and forth over how Wade Cox even quotes himself as his reference material, so the group is obviously aware of it.
I took the initiative to check a few of Mr. Cox' links to his material for myself, and - whadda ya know - what I found contained even more links to his own material, but few if any references to what the world at large might call credible source material; just assertion after definitive assertion - all apparently based on his own writings.
One of the people on the forum asked if this abuse is what people are looking for in a church. Indeed!
Is this the kind of church you are looking for?? We sure aren't!! Caveat emptor!
Dear reader, we've heard many other additional allegations that we didn't post here. These other as of yet unconfirmed allegations are just as bad as the ones we did post, or worse! We have heard of alleged "stalking" of people who submit info and letters that are critical of Wade Cox to websites such ESN (like the letter we quoted above). [UPDATE: We have had some documents come in that appear to suggest that there is some stalking going on. No proof, though! Just some suspicious activity that might be harmless but could be confirmation. We'll keep you updated.] We have heard that Wade Cox once tried to sue the Painful Truth website to have it shut down after they posted information critical of Wade Cox. IF these allegations are true, they would be pretty damning, but without concrete evidence to prove those things we think what we have posted is going to have to be good enough for us to write about.
Perhaps if someone out there has some credible info, they could send it to us or put it in the comments.
If you are someone who is attending the CCG or is thinking of attending the CCG, PLEASE consider carefully what you're doing. If you know someone who is attending, or is thinking of attending the CCG, PLEASE get them to this post and have them read these quotes. And please keep them in your prayers.
RedFox, are you going to investigate and write more about this group? We sure hope so!
**UPDATE: We have done a follow-up post. You can read it here.**
We are thankful to see some have left the grip of Wade Cox, so they are living proof that it can be done! It seems that they face abuse and isolation, like we at ABD did when we left Armstrongism. It seems like they found it all worth it. Perhaps that will leave you, after such a disturbing post as this, with some encouragement and hope.
I have just been informed that there is a good chance that Wade Cox will delete his comments once he learns that we have quoted them here.
ReplyDeleteGood thing the people on that discussion board would be credible witnesses to the authenticity of these quotes.
WOO HOO! Name with held #2 *Fist Pump*
ReplyDeleteyea I hope Red Fox does. I wish there was a site like the False Witness one that follows Ronny - I think one similar for Wade would be great.
More likely he will contact Google and try to have your site shut down. He's done that sort of thing in the past.
ReplyDeleteNot to worry. I've got backups of the content. I'll whip up a server and my own Wordpress blog, and be back up in a jiffy.
ReplyDeleteWell, it would appear that Wade Cox took the dishonorable way out. He had one of his followers installed as an Admin on this Facebook group, he then used that person to kick anyone out of the group who was critical of him, then he immediately deleted any posts that could incriminate him... including the ones recorded here.
ReplyDeleteGood thing we have records of a good chunk of the material he deleted.
Back in 2005 there was quite a lot of info available, including online court records showing evaluations by a military psychiatrist.
ReplyDeleteMembership went from 98 worldwide to about 15. The Canadians went from 40 at the height of the membership down to exactly 1 left.
You may note the ads in The Journal claiming that there are going to be churches established in Saudi Arabia and that there are thousands of members in Africa.
Saudi Arabia might allow him in because he claims on his website, "the Koran is equal to the epistles of the apostles". Thus, he has cast himself as about the only Sabbath Keeping Feast Keeping Church of God Cultmeister Moslem. I guess. It's confusing.
An examination of the website will reveal that the author doesn't seem to have read Hebrews or the book of Jude.
As far as I'm concerned, anyone who falls prey to this preditor hasn't paid much attention to the Bible and, thus, is going to learn by what they suffer.
Thank you for your input, Douglas. That is quite interesting!
ReplyDeleteI would like to know more about the membership of the CCG - specifically how many there are and in what areas. If anyone has more info, please let us know.
I would recommend against learning about anything connected with the church which only has a box office... in another country. You will regret it.
ReplyDeleteWhen 90% of the people left in 2005, they formed their own church with all the nutty doctrines, minus the cultmeister one man show:
www.assemblyofeloah.org
That's the trick you know, find a substitute drug where you won't feel loss.
It is indeed a pity that this site administrator is devoid of understanding. You all do your research on the quoted pieces and see the truth for what it is. if you cannot see it then it is not for you to know at this time or vice versa if we are cultists as you say we are. the lord God knows those who are his.
ReplyDeleteI'll decide for myself whether or not you all are cultists at this time, thank you. And my readers will decide for themselves about Wade.
ReplyDeleteThe words of Wade Cox quoted here, which are unaltered from the original source, speak for themselves. As will your attitude speak for my point. Thank you for adding fuel to this fire.
I see this has been ongoing for quite some years. Closed mindedness doesn't get anyone anywhere but down. Closed hearted ness becomes dark as there is no room for openness and the Light of God.
ReplyDelete