What To Expect When You're Escaping Armstrongism

Continuing on the theme of helping people to exit, I wanted to write a "what to expect" kind of post, built from my own lessons learned, for people who are exiting an Armstrongist Church of God splinter group.

Bear in mind, there are no one size fits all answers in this sort of topic. The variables are endless. If you think of something you would like to discuss, feel free to reach out. Leave a comment or send me an email.

It's Not Going To Be Simple

Let's rip this band aid off right now, shall we - it's not going to be simple. 

You might be at the start of your exit, flush with joy like a kid out of school and ready for the next adventure. That will level off. Or, maybe you leave somewhat unwillingly. Perhaps you know you need to go, but you don't really want to, and you are filled with uncertainty. I can relate. I didn't really want to leave, either. Or, perhaps you might need to leave in a hurry because you've been abused in some way. My deepest sympathies, and I hope you find support and peace. (Look over to the side of the blog, in the Support section, where I have put some resources for you.)

It doesn't matter why you're leaving, you are in uncharted waters and the sea is choppy. You are about to learn some things about yourself you didn't even know.

In some ways, this is going to hurt. In many ways, this is going to be confusing. Don't be afraid! It's nothing you can't handle.

As I wrote in the past, you are at a crossroads and you have four options. You can turn around and go backwards into the familiar (I've seen people do that). You can let it beat you, and end up in a bad way. You can give up and be an atheist. That's an easy road, and there are lots of people ready to help you walk it. We don't call Armstrongism "the atheist-making machine" for nothing! Or, you can insist on Jesus Christ and go into grace.
Choose Jesus and go into grace!

You are about to go from one faith tradition into, hopefully, another faith tradition. Consider this a life altering event somewhat akin to divorce. The familiar becomes the strange and the strange familiar. This will be difficult in ways you didn't anticipate. It's difficult every time it happens for anyone. For example, going from Methodist to Catholic can be quite a culture shock. Harder yet is converting to a tradition such as Orthodoxy. I visited a Greek Orthodox church a few times and I was completely lost. Armstrongism is so different than the mainstream, it is almost guaranteed you're about to experience culture shock. What really hit me when I first went to a mainstream church was, I didn't know any of their songs. I never considered that.

You can expect such things as, but not limited to:

• Change in schedule.
• Completely different "feel" to church.
• Different order to services.
• Different songs.
• Different imagery.
• Different doctrines.
• Different view of God.
• Different view of grace.
• Different holidays.
• Different terms and phrases.
• Different history.
• Different expectations for lay people.
  
• Different views on Old Covenant, end times, etc etc.
• Curious questions from your new connections.
• Possible lack of support from family.
• Loss of prior church friends.
  And, ultimately...
• Different you!

You have been in a church that has everything laid out and decided already. People gathered there and stayed there because they all agreed (mostly) on the system. You are about to go into a new church with a completely different system. There is no way for me to tell you everything. All I can say is, it will be different.

Most people lose church friends when they leave. The loss of former church friends will give you a painful sense of abandonment. That will pass as you make new connections. Maybe you will be blessed to keep some of your old connections. You might find some people in your COG genuinely cared about you. Who knows! But people do tend to drift away once that common interest is gone. Such is life!

Your prior experience will affect your comfort level with the changes you are about to go through. If you used to go to another church and now you're going back, good. You're past experience will be a benefit. However, if you have spent your entire life in Armstrongism, or most of your life, then your familiarity with other churches will be quite low, and past experience will be of little use. Do you have family already in another faith tradition who can support you? Reach out to them. Experience will be your teacher from here on.

Contact the new church. Really talk to them and let them know your concerns, and they will do their best to make the transition as easy as possible for you. When a person enters an Armstrongist church, they need to be vetted by the Minister. People don't just show up to a COG. They need permission. That isn't the way it works in the mainstream. Strangers just show up all the time. Healthy churches don't need to interview you. So, when I say reach out to them, I don't mean to ask permission to attend, but to give them a chance to help you. Be honest with them. Say, "I am new at this and I have absolutely no idea what to do. Can you help me?" People will respect your vulnerability.

The best advice I can give you here is to stay positive, and trust that you will acclimate in less time than you think. Is it easy for a baby to be born? No. But they do it all the time. And I'm glad they do. In a few months you'll feel like you've been there for years.

It's Not Satan

Armstrongism is often called "legalistic" not because of the belief on Old Covenant law so much, but because 1) it sees the rules as more important than the person, and 2) it teaches law-keeping merits us something with God.
If you have been in the system long enough and remember the good old days of the Worldwide Church of God prior to 1990, or if you are in one of the more rigid groups like the Philadelphia Church of God, then you can practically map out your experience according to Lifton's 8 criteria for thought control.

As the story goes, once you leave the safety of the church, Satan will steal the truth from you. Well, guess what... Hogwash!

You absolutely, positively are not here at this blog reading this post right now because Satan is stealing the truth from you. You are not finding out the church's view on prophecy and doctrine are questionable at best because Satan is stealing the truth from you. You are not noticing the church's material is factually inaccurate because Satan is stealing the truth from you. You are not running out the door of an abusive situation because Satan is stealing the truth from you. That entire line is manipulative and designed to prevent you from doing what you're doing right now - thinking. Especially thinking about not sending them any more of your money. And you absolutely, positively are not headed towards the second resurrection just because you have given yourself permission to ask hard questions and seek the truth. God's truth!

That's not to say there aren't bad churches out there. There are! They didn't write the book "Churches That Abuse" for nothing! Caveat emptur! But my point is, realizing you've been lied to and walking away from that to seek after God is not a Satanic lie. The lie is what they told you to keep you in the lie.

My advice for you is to surrender your faith to Jesus Christ, and think rationally. Remember why you're leaving.

Liturgy

In my bulleted list above, I said "Different terms and phrases". Here's one. Let's talk a second about Liturgy. The word liturgy refers to your church service. Any church service. There are basically two kinds: high and low.

In a high liturgy, church services are very structured and ornate and symbolic. You will find high liturgies in all the oldest churches. Catholics and all branches of Orthodoxy are high liturgy. The oldest Protestant traditions are, too. Lutherans and Anglicans/Episcopalians are, for example.

In a low liturgy, church services are not very structured or ornate or symbolic. You will find low liturgies in most Evangelical denominations. Even in Armstrongism, what you have been used to is a low liturgy.

Some places have both at different times. I know several Methodist and Lutheran churches that have a high liturgy option and a low liturgy option. Attend at the appropriate hour. More and more lately, churches have an extra-casual service later on Sundays. There's a Catholic church in my area where the last Mass on Sunday is hardly different than a casual Protestant worship service.

Both groups can get rather picky. The high liturgy people don't like anything being messed with. They argue with each other about minutiae. They argue with each other over where your hands should be during prayer. The low liturgy people don't have a lot of spirituality in their liturgy, so music tends to be their spirituality. They tend to have more music, they are more into it, and they don't like it messed with. They argue with each other over hymns vs inspirational songs.

You have been used to an intense Bible study at church. That isn't how most other places do it. Church is for worship. You go to Wednesday prayer group, or "small group", or a designated Bible study for the intense Bible study. If you have a more intellectual relationship with God (like I do) it can be tricky at first. Join a small group. If you find one you don't quite like, don't feel bad about changing to a different one.

Which liturgy do you prefer? Not sure? My advice is to try them both out. I think you'll fall in love with the high liturgy. It's beautiful and really treats God like a god! Or, maybe you will feel better in the familiarity of the low liturgy. It can be quite emotionally inspiring.

My advice is to remember you're free now. You can go where you want.

Trinity

Yes, it's the dreaded T word. You don't believe it, I'll wager. Most everyone else does. The mainstream view of God and their relationship with God is quite different from what the COGs teach. What are you going to do about that?

Bear in mind what you were told in Armstrongism about the Trinity is both incomplete and incorrect. They aren't going to teach you about a doctrine they reject. So, even if you think you've studied this, toss that all out the window and just accept that you're going to have to start over. In the meantime, you're Switzerland about it. Neutral.

Are you required to accept it? No. Not unless you're going to be Catholic or Orthodox. Actually, even then you aren't expected to accept things right away. You will be afforded time to learn as you are able.

My advice is take your time to handle the lower hanging fruit first. The nature of God is important, but huge! It can wait until later. Being free in this way is another thing you're going to have to get used to.

Oh! And don't get all clever and go in the direction of Modalism, please. It's a natural direction for you to want to go in. It's a dead end. Trust me on this one. Keep that in your pocket until you're ready.

Temptations

You're free now! Free to roam and move about the cabin. Praise the Lord!

You have been in a very structured and controlling environment. Don't try to make excuses that you were in a kinder, gentler COG. Even if you were (I was) you will eventually come to see it was more structured and controlling than you realized, and quite a bit more than most mainstream churches. (If it's as good as you think, why are you sneaking around here? We'll never tell!) Accepting this now will make it easier.

Be aware of this! Any time a human being is given freedom after being in a structured and controlling environment, we are confronted with the temptation to turn liberty into vice. Take any teenager for example. Once they get old enough to have their freedom out on their own, masters of all they survey, that's when the troubles really start. The world is a very delectable oyster indeed.

Ever hear of how Amish teenagers do Rumspringa? That's you. Remember this - just because there is no a set of Old Covenant laws for you to struggle and fail to keep doesn't mean there are no standards for righteousness. You're "free in Christ" not "free in vice".

My advice is to ask yourself if what you're thinking about doing is something the Holy Spirit is leading you to do.

Try not to over do it, eh? *wink*

Authority Issues

Your COG leaders have let you down. This is going to affect the way you relate to authority. Either you are going to deeply distrust - and in some cases reject - any authority, or you are going to want to cling to what you perceive as a more worthy authority figure.

Reject. Cling. Either direction has its risks. 

If you reject all authority, you can become "unchurched" which means you are faithful but choose to be on your own. That isn't a position of strength with a lion roaming around seeking whom he may devour. If you search for a better authority to surrender all to, which will you choose? Choose wisely, or your next crisis might lead you to reject Jesus. You gave everything to them and they let you down. Why would God let you do that? Must mean there is no God. (Think I'm joking?? I've seen this happen. More than once.)
There are two ditches you can crash into. Try to stay on the road between the two.

Church authority is real, though. If you read the New Testament at all, you can see for yourself there are ordinations, and those ordained offices are tasked with maintaining orthodoxy and protecting the flock. If you're going to be alive, you are going to be in contact with some form of authority. What will you do about that? 

My advice is to be patient and think rationally, not emotionally, about this. Take yourself out of your own equation. How would you give advice to someone else in this situation? Recognize being fresh out of Armstrongism is not the best time to make hard commitments. You don't even know yourself at this point (read my "Escaping Armstrongism - part II" post).

Money Issues

You've been (quite improperly) forced to surrender your money in tithes and offerings. This is completely unbiblical, but you didn't know that at the time. Much of what you were told to do was specifically designed to keep you paying while the top brass bought mansions and jets and meetings with world leaders and the Czar's golden flatware and Steuben crystal and $2,500 bottles of Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac in the special baccarat decanter. No, I'm not joking! Herbert Armstrong did all of that, and more. And that is why you see so many end-time Elijahs and Elishas today competing to replace him. That lifestyle is what they want so badly, and they need your money to get it. Unfortunately, that love of money exists outside the COGs, too. (Looking at you, Creflo Dollar.) Be cautious, dear reader.

One of the beauties of the New Covenant is that giving is optional. It comes from the heart, not the law. If you are compelled then it isn't a gift, is it? No.

You are likely to develop a healthy distaste for anyone or anything that asks you for money. Don't let those greedy wolves steal your inner charity form you. Charity is at the root of Christianity.

My advice is to understand that if you are going to go to a church (I recommend you do), or listen to an online ministry, then you should contribute something. At least help pay for the resources you've consumed. You did use resources after all and it's only fair. All that costs something. But be wise! You are under no obligation to pay for those extras. And please pray about it. You're going to want the help of the Holy Spirit to keep your heart in the right place.

Doctrinal Disputes

Where there are people, there are disagreements. Christianity has been around for longer after Christ than Judaism was around before Christ. We're as far from Jesus as Abraham was. We've had time to think about things and to disagree about things.

There are tons of doctrinal disputes available for you to participate in (whether you want to or not). Traditionalist Catholics vs Modernist Catholics, Arminianism vs Calvinism, real presence in the Eucharist vs symbolic presence only, oneness of God vs threeness of God, Creeds or no Creeds, high liturgy or low, Filioque, KJV-only, speaking in tongues, iconoclasm, Rapture, Female ordination ... it's an endless smorgasbord of dispute options! Just name the topic, there's sure to be some dispute about it.

It doesn't matter where you go, there will be some form of dispute going on behind the scenes. Might as well get used to the idea. Don't let it tarnish your view of your faith or your church. There were disputes in Armstrongism, too. Maybe a short string of tired cliches will help! Christianity is a hospital for the sick not a museum for saints. It it what it is. Such is life. We are fallen humans. The world's an imperfect place.

My advice is to rise above it all. Make your default position a neutral middle ground position. The truth is almost always between the two extremes. Nobody loves a moderate, but it's the wise choice. Listen carefully to both sides before making any decisions. Not everything needs to be a hill to die on.

Jewelry and Icons

Guess what you're free to do? Go to Christian book stores and shop for whatever you want, even crosses and images of Jesus! Yes, even statuettes.
You are going to feel conflicted. Part of you will still be motivated by the iconoclasm of Armstrongism, and you might think images are a bridge too far. That's perfectly fine. Move at your own pace. Don't go overboard.

Having a cross on your clothes or jewelry, or an image of Jesus in your home, is not a magic talisman. It has no power. It can neither help you nor harm you. Listen to your inner voice on that. After I was out a year, I got a cross necklace and one of those "This shirt is illegal in 53 countries" shirts. I did it to make a statement. The statement I was making was to myself. I wasn't going to be controlled by fear anymore. I did it because I could, and that's all. I wore the shirt twice and have no idea what became of it. I still have the necklace. I don't wear it all that often. Its intended purpose is fulfilled.

My advice is to limit yourself to one or two things. Maybe get a cross necklace; an affordable one. Most mainstream Christians seem to have one. It will help you feel like you fit in a little better.

Don't Have A Home Anywhere

This potential (but not guaranteed) outcome is a painful and frustrating one, to be sure. I am referring to the sense that you have no home anywhere.

One downside to having your unique background and experience in a COG is that you see things in a very different way than anyone else who did not go through it. Too differently, in fact. Pair that with other factors that cause you to keep everyone at a distance and you have the recipe for becoming an "unchurched". More extreme cases absolutely refuse to have anything to do with organized religion ever again.

If you try, you will always be able to find something you just don't like. You don't want a Priest or Minister in authority over you. The sermon touched a nerve. You wish there was more substance and less sappy fluff. You don't like feeling pressured to give money. Pastor doesn't get the Old Covenant like you do. There is no Rapture. Etc etc etc.....
So long as they aren't lording it over you, is it really that big of a deal? What, you think you had it so good before? You just left a doomsday cult for crying out loud.

I have seen this so very many times. ALL the authors here at As Bereans Did have experienced it, including yours truly. I really struggle sometimes.

There is only one way that I know of to defeat this - humility. Know that you don't know so much as you think you do, and so don't expect others to either. Lower your expectations. Let yourself be wrong and let others, too. You will never experience perfection in this life. Churches aren't perfect, and neither are you. Maybe 10% wrong is 90% right, and that's an A in my book. These people have to put up with you, too, so return the favor.
Find a place with people you like and opportunities to serve, who tolerate each others' differences, and just be content.

Understand these are mostly fear responses talking. You hyper-fixate on the problems because you are afraid of something, maybe of being fooled again. Know thy self.

Side Show Attraction

Be ready to be a bit of a celebrity at first. Your new connections will ask you about your history and conversion ...a thousand times. You might like the attention at first. You might be annoyed half to death later on. It'll stop after a little while all on its own. You might even come to find you miss it.

Some people might get jealous of the attention you're getting. Some people might thoughtlessly say things that hurt your feelings. It's unfortunate, but it happens. They don't understand. Frankly, you don't have their experiences, either, so you don't understand them any more than they understand you. It's somewhat of a two-way street. Patience is necessary.

My advice is try to understand their natural curiosity isn't meant to be malicious or a bother to you. Don't let it get to you. The truth is, they are happy for you and they find your testimony inspiring. Control the conversation. Don't overshare. The best thing you can do is find some way to use your testimony to inspire and uplift.

Cliques and Politics

How I wish I didn't have to add this one. Nothing disappoints me more than this. After attending that welcoming new church for a while, you may find it has cliques and self-imposed hierarchies. Maybe half the church is related, but not to you. Maybe the people of means sit in front every week while those without sit in the rear. Maybe people who are very traditional don't like to sit near people who are less traditional.

It's human nature. Jesus talked about it. They have this in every COG. They will have it in your new church to one degree or another. I truly wish it wasn't so. But that is our lot in this life. We are still on the journey to overcoming.

My best advice here is not to fight too hard against it. That isn't the way to go about things. Only makes it worse. If it's truly toxic, move on. There are some great places out there.

Apathy

You have been through quite an experience. It was a long road out. You care about it. Doctrines matter to you.
Unfortunately, that might not be the case with the people you're about to meet.

In Armstrongism and out, there are people who coast. They take things for granted and go along to get along. They aren't interested in doctrine so much. They just do what they've always done. They might not even understand exactly why they do what they do. Maybe they were born into this. Maybe church is a tradition for their family. I am lumping this under the term "apathy".

Why do you always have to deal with people who don't care about their own doctrines? Gah!

Truth is, a deep understanding of doctrines is not required for Christianity. Most Christians who have ever lived didn't really understand their own religion very well. What is required is simply a loyal, saving faith. If it really becomes a problem, you might have to consider leaving. Before you go, consider your own part in this. Did you just leave Armstrongism because you mastered Christianity? Are you certain there are zero issue in your heart?

My advice is to employ generous amounts of good ol' Christian charity.

Dark Night Of The Soul

Last  but not least, let's talk about that prolonged feeling of having a dead faith and wanting to give up. It's coming! Better you know about it now than have it catch you unawares.

The time comes on us all when we don't feel that presence of God in our lives like we used to. Our prayers go unanswered. Life takes a downturn. We try yet nothing comes of it. We get sad. We get frustrated. We get angry. We want to walk away from it all. This condition is called "the dark night of the soul" for reasons obvious to anyone who's experienced it.

Remember how Elijah was so sad he went to live in a cave. Remember the Parable of the Virgins in Matthew 25. ALL of them were asleep. Jesus' advice to us all was to keep a spare stash of the Holy Spirit handy. You might wonder where you can buy a jar of Holy Spirit. Not at Costco. It's a parable. It's not meant to be taken literally. There are times when the best you can do is continue to pray.

The dark night of the soul passes eventually. If you seek, you will find.

I am going to say something here that some people will take as blaming the victim, even though that's not what my intention is. The hidden, inner truth about why some people experience the dark night of the soul is because they have something in their life they need to repent of. Something is affecting their relationship with God in a negative way. Ongoing willful sin? Uncharitable heart? Stubborn, inflexible pride? Unproductive laziness? God knows. If that's your case, find it and change it. If that's someone else's case, pray for them and encourage them - never judge them. Dark night of the soul isn't always because of something like this. I am only saying it can be because of something like this.

My advice is to never stop praying. Insist on it, no matter what! Even if all you can get out is, "God, I praise you and thank you for who and what You are."
Try to think back on those times in your life when God was with you powerfully. Maybe you witnessed a legitimate miracle. Maybe you felt His presence. Maybe you had an event that moved you to a deep thankfulness. Remember those times. Hold on to them!

I think that's quite enough for today. No amount of my writing will ever prepare you fully. I think this gets the point across that it's not going to be simple. Good news is, it will be worth it.

God bless you in your journey and guide you as you step into the New Covenant. Enjoy the ride!

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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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Escaping Armstrongism - part II

A few weeks ago, I asked how we could help you, our esteemed readers. The answer I got is, people want to know more about what it is like to exit. Having done that once, I believe I can oblige.

This request turns out to be more complicated than I anticipated. There are so many variables. What is the best way to approach things? I decided to approach it in more than one way. In my last post, I started this effort by telling the story of how I left. My hope is that someone will find hidden in there some nugget of help; something to relate to.

This time, I am going to tell the story of how life went after I left.

OUTSET

It was late summer 2008. It had been a highly traumatic roller coaster of a year. I had just exited Armstrongism after three decades. The exit process took 6 years, starting in 2002. My life was upside down and backward. My beloved prophecy was gone, the bedrock of doctrine was gone, the Apostle himself was gone, and even the weekly Sabbath was gone - all victims of what would become what I like to jokingly refer to as "the patented As Bereans Did gauntlet". By this, I mean a whole new process of studying to allow the truth to be what it is - where we take as neutral an approach as possible, weighing all the evidence to see what holds up and what gets destroyed in the process. The cons far outweighed the pros for those items. They had to go.

I was afraid and excited at the same time. Everything seemed to be in extremes. Both north and south, but with no equator. I was blogging to try to make sense of it all. The world was filled with options, but I didn't know which way to go. It was like being in a large and energetic city ...watching your ride drive off and leave you there.

The only thing I was still sure about was Jesus and the paganism inherent in mainstream Christianity.
Rather, the only thing I was consciously aware I was still sure about was Jesus and the paganism inherent in mainstream Christianity. I had been in Armstrongism for so long, I didn't realize there was more baggage.

When you exit, you don't leave everything behind. I would guess you don't even leave half of everything behind. You might think you have, but it's hiding inside you. It's invisible until we run into situations that make us aware. That isn't necessarily bad, but it can be. I wrote a post called "How To Move Forward" where I write about the dangers. 

Learning about myself would be a recurring theme for the next several years of my life.

HALFWAY HOUSE

I was clearly going to need a new church. It was going to have to be something without all those unsightly pagan elements. It was going to have to be less authoritarian and not at all personality-centered. No more "God's appointed Apostle on earth" stuff. Catholicism was right out. Pentecostals? No way was I speaking in tongues. Out! Apostolic is basically the same as Pentecostal. Out. JW's was 100% out. Seventh Day Adventism seemed too personality-centered with their founder, so out. Not on your life was I about to go with some fringe Sacred Names cult, either. Totally the wrong direction. OUT! I needed to rethink this entire thing.

What I needed was something like Armstrongism, but not at all like Armstrongism. A place to avoid culture shock and buy some time while I wrapped my head around mainstream Christianity. A step-down detox. The only choice left in my area was the Church of God (Seventh Day). About whom I knew next to nothing save they kept the Sabbath and fired Herbert Armstrong.

I made a call to the local COG7 Minister. I was invited to attend the very next Sabbath. There was no interview, no home visit, no background check, no need to read material first, no correspondence course, none of that. Just show up and ...

... I honestly didn't know what.

The realization hit me. I had been doing 3 songs, opening prayer, sermonette, song, sermon, song, closing prayer, pot luck for so long, it had just become secondhand nature. I took it completely for granted until this situation made me aware.

What do other churches do? Is there going to be a sermon? Will there be a pot luck? Will there be a sacrifice and golden calf? Will there be singing?
Oh no! Singing!!
I didn't know anyone else's songs! You want to feel like a stranger and an outsider in a church, try not knowing their songs. And nobody there knew "Blessed And Happy Is The Man".

You see where this is going? I will spare you the details about every time this happened. Let's just say my first service was very uncomfortable.
And then came the sermon.

It started out mild enough. Familiar language with familiar Biblical principals about goodness and virtue. I started hearing a word I wasn't accustomed to: Jesus. For some unknowable reason, we in Armstrongism always call Him "Christ" or sometimes "Jesus Christ". You will rarely ever hear Him called just "Jesus". Yet, there was that name. Do you know what that Minister said next? (Of course you don't, I haven't told you yet.) He said it didn't matter to the COG7 what denomination people went to, they are our brothers in Christ if they have faith in Jesus. Then he said we just need to share our faith in Jesus with everyone.
The what? So, I'm not supposed to condemn people who think differently than me? I'm in a church that is nice to other churches? Share my faith? Does not compute! (More hidden baggage.)
Then he said, "Jesus Christ is the most amazing gift you could possibly receive. How could you keep such a gift to yourself? Share that gift with others. Share Christ!"

And that, my dear reader, was the first time in my entire life I recall hearing the Gospel. I had to go to the COG7, to the Sardis church of all places, to hear the Gospel.

That joy cranked up to 11. I felt it crashing like waves. I had to fight to maintain my composure because I was about to start crying like a baby right there in front of these people and my kids and the heavenly host and everyone. (There is a little dust in my eye right now just thinking about it.) I really could have that direct relationship with Jesus, just as my friend said. Jesus was trying to love me. If only I would let Him. He was trying to give a relationship to me. All I had to do was accept it. I had been too busy trying to earn it all this time. How could this have been there all along?

I spoke to the Minister later that week and told him how his words affected me. He was happy to help. We talked about my past and about the differences between the COG7 and Armstrongism. It was nice.

Piece by piece, the New Covenant in the finished work of Jesus Christ was coming in and it was pushing out the deprecated Old Covenant that never applied to Gentiles in the first place.
Yeah, it was going to be a hard day when I left this place. I only wanted a halfway house until I could acclimate to being on the outside. If it wasn't for those remnants of the Old Covenant they kept, I would just stay put.

INSERT PURPOSE HERE

I found myself at somewhat of a crossroads. I had a blog, I had an inexhaustible topic, and I had a choice. What should I do with it?

I was blogging to make sense of everything I had been through. That started to change into blogging about the flaws of the old system. I put up posts about prophetic failures, and I had in my pocket several posts about tithing and meats so those started going up too. Then there were the posts about Ron Weinland. It was the heyday of the latest prophet in all of history. I knew Weinland, you see. He performed my wedding. He once made the congregation take a written test. He allowed people to stay or kicked them out based on the answers. He had pre-printed letters ready to go for the people he expected to evict. I was one of two men passing them out, so I handed mine to myself. I was out. He was trying to gain sole control of the church's money. He needed to get the church corporation to vote him that control, so he was rigging it to where only loyalists would be there to vote. He called me later to tell me he made a mistake and I was back in. Oh, thank you, m'Lord! Thank you! I knew what a snake he really is. He wasn't fooling me at all. I had so much material to work with!

Was that really what I wanted to do? Write blog posts about former Armstrong things? There were quite a few other former Armstrongist blogs already. Aside from the ones I mentioned in my last post, there was Seeker's blog, James Pate's blog, Red Fox's blog, Felix's blogs, Mike DDTFA's site, Purple Hymnal's many sites, just to name a few. All of them were speaking out. Most of these blogs worked together. Felix even gave me the broken chain icon I still use. And it was nice to see regular commentors on the blog, like Third Witness, Henrik Blunck, Biker Bob, Bill Hohmann, Corky, and Doug Becker, among others. Perhaps this was a new community for me to join? That would be nice. I could use a community of people who understand what I went through. Maybe even understand what I was about to go through.
But what kind of blog would I have? There were blogs that focused on one thing, blogs that focused on many things, blogs that were light, blogs that were deep, blogs from people who were in Pasadena and saw how the sausage was made, blogs from people who had never been to Pasadena in their lives, blogs from atheists, blogs from Christians, and even a blog from a Marxist. All formers. All working in their niche.

I kept up on my studies on topics of interest. It wasn't hard to find things to study. Topics practically walked up to me and introduced themselves. Every day there was some new discovery. I was reading books like "Sabbath in Christ" by Dale Ratzlaff, God rest his soul, and "Difficult Scriptures" by David Albert. Clearly, I wasn't by any means the only one to see what I was seeing. Every time I opened my Bible study software, I would notice new things. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was that the entire book of Galatians, which I had read for decades, was surgically removed from every Bible on earth and replaced by an entirely different book. It was called Galatians, sure enough, but it was filled with this stuff about grace. It wasn't law-centered at all. In fact, it's against legalism. I suppose that's why we only read a couple verses at a time back in the old church.

We were woefully prepared by our Church of God teachers. "Poorly catechized" is how Catholics would say it. We were told precisely what to think, but never how to think, or how to study, or what good source material is versus bad. (That was by design.) I remember abusing Strong's Concordance to get my will out of the Bible. You open it, find your target word, pick the best fit from the list of options to achieve the desired result, then off you go to demonstrate how the Bible translators were wrong. I am sorry, dear reader, that is not how Strong's or the Bible or even how language itself works. Translators might not always agree with one another, but Hebrew and Greek are particularly structured languages. It only works in certain ways. Strong's has instructions right at the front. We ignored them. I for one never even read the instructions until this point. We only wanted what we wanted, so proof-texting and cherry-picking was a way of life. I needed to exorcise that demon. Why not help others to do the same! 

I saw my niche. Someone needed to investigate the doctrines of the system, from a Christ-centered perspective. Investigate them, verify them, expose them if necessary. Showing my work step by step. I would help people by giving them access to different perspectives about the doctrines themselves, apart from the personalities. If Herbert Armstrong had only known how to study, per chance none of this would have ever happened in the first place. Oh, I might kneecap Weinland from time to time, or Meredith, or Flurry (they deserved it) but it wouldn't be about that. I wouldn't rely on the low road of Herbert Armstrong's personal failings. I would take the harder path of doctrine because I knew it could be done. Ratzlaff and Albert had proved it.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I admit I did wonder what the people in my old congregation would think. I could tell one or two of them were visiting the blog. I didn't want them to hate me. I was already called a deceiver by one of my best friends (the guy from the truck incident). That didn't feel very good. It's nothing at all to brush off when some stranger shows up and starts running their mouth off because they have nothing of value to contribute. But these people were like family. Well, they used to be. I hadn't heard a single word from most of them in months. They didn't call. They didn't email. They didn't send a hello through an intermediary. I talked to one of them every day because I worked with him. They could have sent a message through him, but they didn't. I made certain to send email from time to time to my one friend who knew what I was up to at Pentecost. Otherwise, nothing.

When you leave a legalist church, you get marked. All communication stops. It isn't some gradual losing touch, it's fairly immediate. Jarring. Only the people who don't yet know what happened will still communicate, and only until they find out what happened. Then they call you a deceiver and never talk to you again. Even when you message them your condolences on the death of their wife, they still won't respond. It's quite devastating to some people where the church constitutes their entire social order. I knew a guy who got marked and couldn't find a character reference for his resume.

Not me, though. I had a family outside the church, a blog, a job, and a new church. I was going to be ok. Was I marked? Probably not officially. I was in a kinder, gentler group - but none the less legalist. Well, we would have only drifted apart anyway.

Could I blame them? If they left and I stayed, I wouldn't accept their new ideas. How could I expect them to accept mine? Especially now that I was actively disassembling theirs! I understood and accepted their distance. I hoped using the name xHWA would help obfuscate things and protect us from each other. Plus, I tried not to write anything that would give it away (in a way, I'm still doing that right now). 

I'LL GET TO THAT LATER

Certain topics were too much for me to bear, and worst of them all was (ugh!) holidays. The shadow of days loomed large on my mind as the year drew on. I still wanted to hate them.

The COG7 does not keep annual holy days. They don't see them as being directly tied to the Ten Commandments at all, and therefore were a novel introduction by Herbert Armstrong. It was one of the many reasons he was fired. No holy days? No starving at Atonement? No unleavened bread (I'm still eating bread of affliction, though). No second tithe for Tabernacles, at the place where the Lord places His name down the road from the go kart track? I was onboard with that!
Yet, they don't observe holidays either. How odd. No special days at all. Sounded .. bland.

Halloween came around again. It had been my tradition that, annually, when October 31st at 5:50 PM arrived, I would turn all the lights off and head to the grocery store to shop slowly for an hour and a half. I wasn't ready for all that trick or treating. I had not studied Halloween at all. It was too soon. Too Samhain-ey. Too much else going on. And clearly, I was still terrified from the years of indoctrination. I didn't realize it, but I brought with me from Armstrongism the notion of "once pagan always pagan". In a word - fear. I brought fear with me. (More baggage.) That's what going to the store on Halloween is, you see. It's fear. And I had a bad case of it.
Maybe some other time, guys. I need some canned goods.

Seemed like a proper time to dig up my copy of Ralph Woodrow's book. I never finished reading it from earlier. Time to change that.

Ralph Woodrow was a hero of sorts to us Armstrongists. To know Ralph Woodrow, you need to know Alexander Hislop. Herbert Armstrong and his lackeys, like Herman Hoeh, relied heavily on the work of Alexander Hislop. If there was a saint outside of the system, it was Hislop. His word was taken for truth. Ralph Woodrow wrote his own book supporting everything Hislop said. That earned Woodrow the status of a venerable sub-saint. Not a demi-god, exactly. More like a "hero of old" status, like Hercules. He was not a Hislop, but he was quite highly respected. Well, Woodrow had since recanted everything he ever wrote in support of Hislop. He wrote a new book called "The Babylon Connection", pointing out quite clearly the extraordinary level of nonsense that was Hislop's "The Two Babylons". Hislop's material was industrial strength, weapons grade, laboratory-pure bovine scatology. All of it.

So, you're telling me, Mr. Woodrow, that not only are there entire swaths of the Bible that I've never seen before that disprove half of everything I held dear for most of my life, but there are books out there which have been available to me and the ministry which disprove the other half of everything I held dear for most of my life?    Yes.

Ouch!!

Christmas was fast approaching. I had learned a little about myself from Halloween. I recognized now my fear of "once pagan always pagan" meant I was still indoctrinated. I wasn't sure what to do about that. By this point, I was distanced enough from regular attendance in Armstrongism that I was feeling a bit cheeky. Maybe taking a liberty would help. I went out and bought some decorations. It was only some silver candles and a couple faux-crystal snowflakes (the snowflakes are on my mantle right this minute). Norman Rockwell it was not. But at the time it felt bold! Here is what I wrote about Christmas in my post "God Is Love":

"Next week is Christmas 2008. I have been out of Armstrongism for about 4 months. I suppose this is as good a time of year as any to do some introspection. I don't personally keep Christmas (but I no longer fear it). Perhaps it's the years of indoctrination speaking. Or maybe I *gulp* agree with Armstrong on the origins of the day and it really does bother me. If my conscience is bothered by something, then I shouldn't do it. I know that in the COG7, Christmas is frowned upon. I support them in every way. God bless them and prosper them. But I will have my own relationship with my Savior, thank you. (Nor have they ever tried to dictate to me. It's really not like Armstrongism there!)"

In that quote, you might see a bold, free, self-aware man being reasonable and level-headed about Christmas, blazing his own path in life. The truth is, inside I was highly conflicted. Notice how I had read through Woodrow yet still wondered if I agreed with Armstrong. How? Such is the way of the Armstrongist mindset. I would like to introduce myself. My name is cognitive dissonance.
Healing was clearly going to take time, courage, and effort.
Some other time, though. Not today.

I went to my mother's house and helped her set up her Christmas tree. It was such a bonding moment. I loved it! Made me feel like a kid again. But, when I went home, I was afraid. It was one thing to share memories at another person's house. It was another thing entirely to have that at my house. I was wondering if it was wrong of me to have those two faux-crystal snowflakes. WWJD? I was getting cold feet. Sometimes healing is two steps forward and one step back.

Seven years after this, a very good Armstrongist friend of mine called me. One of the Heretics Club guys. He hadn't contacted me in, oh, about seven years. I didn't even recognize his voice anymore. He said he loves me and supports me and believes in his heart I am a faithful and genuine Christian even still ...but please, whatever I do, just don't keep Christmas.
The important message that motivated this man (who loved me and whom I love to this very minute) to call me after so much time was, "Whatever you do, please just don't start keeping Christmas."
THAT is the power of our indoctrination against Christmas.
I appreciated his call for what it was. I knew it meant he cared. He genuinely meant well, and I thanked him for it. Haven't talked to him since.

That sentiment reflected who I was seven years earlier. In 2008, Christmas couldn't leave soon enough. I let it pass with barely a notice. Problem is, this was just delaying the inevitable. Other holidays were coming.

SPRINGTIME OF MY LIFE

I spent the winter pretty much the same way as I did the autumn - absorbing information, keeping an eye on who the latest 'Elijah for to come' was, and giving thanks for grace. I still had so much to learn. Aside from holidays, I hadn't tackled huge ideas like Trinity, church government, sanctification, soul sleep, the millennium, eucharist and transubstantiation, "true history of the true church", religious icons like the crucifix, how exactly to relate to the Old Covenant, etc. etc. etc. There were even mundane things to work through, like which Bible version I like best. Was the NIV really a cursed version written in the blood of sacrificed goats by a coven of pagans?
Another detail I needed to work through is precisely what is the real nature of Armstrongism. Is it a (come in close and I'll whisper this word into your ear) cult (gasp!) or not? I was heading toward a solid yes, based on what I was reading in a book about thought control by Lifton. That was a mighty big pill to swallow.

There are many things to endure when one makes such a large switch in religions like I was. As I said, you just don't realize until later. "My yoke is easy and my burden is light," still felt pretty good, don't get me wrong, but there comes a time when the high of conversion wears off and you begin to circle back around to the details once again. So many details!

The novelty of the COG7 was also wearing off. I would still recommend it to this day for people who are exiting Armstrongism! If you're leaving, consider going there. But it felt lacking. In my town, there is only a small congregation who were all related to one another and most of them were over 60. I actually started skipping services. I felt bad about that. I had a feeling my time there was coming to a close. But where was I going to go? I couldn't make up my mind.
No speaking in tongues, tho! Nope. Still can't get that movie "Cape Fear" out of my mind. Every time I think of speaking in tongues, I hear Robert DeNero yelling, "Counsellor!"

Meanwhile, I was building up a good friendship with Seeker from the As Bereans Did blog. We both seemed to have a healthy dislike of the Spokesman of the Two Witlesses. We discussed how we might partner our blogs to be more effective. We wanted to build a partnership with other blogs. We eventually changed our plan to having me come over and write for her at As Bereans Did. We would invite others to write with us.

I finished up my series on tithes and meats, said a few other words, and just like that, the era of having my own blog was over. My last post at Escaping Armstrongism and my first post here (entitled "Hello World" as a little computer programming joke) was March 16, 2009.

Easter was coming. I didn't like Cadbury cream eggs. I hated bunnies and eggs and pastels. I don't hate them anymore, but I still don't like them. OK! I still hate pastels. How many more times would I have to avoid these holidays? Yet, if I wasn't going to keep Passover like the Armstrongists do, remembering the Exodus, then what was I going to do? I was learning more about what the Gospel really is. I know there is no New Covenant requirement to keep any day. Yet I felt like it would be nice to do something. I could attend with the COG7 I suppose. I spoke to my brother. He is an Evangelical. He was attending a small non-denominational Christian Fellowship church at the time. He invited me to attend Easter services with him. I figured why not. I'm free to go wherever I want. I had never stepped foot in a Protestant church before, save for one wedding ceremony, so this was a good opportunity to see what it was like. And I'll get to learn more about Easter.

Remember all that stress I had over attending the COG7 for the first time? Multiply that. I chose COG7 because they were distantly related to Armstrongism. Evangelicalism was absolutely not. These were completely uncharted waters. Being with family was the only thing saving me.

What songs were these? Again, no "Blessed and Happy Is The Man". People were singing enthusiastically! We never did that. No burgundy hymnal, either. All the lyrics were on a big screen. Why do some people have their hands in the air? That really happens? I thought that was just for television. Why were some people randomly shouting 'amen' during the sermon? My hands are staying DOWN and I am NOT shouting amen under any circumstances.
It was so foreign. No, I was so foreign. This was their land. Yet, beyond all reason, something felt nice.

There was an "old rugged cross" at the front of the hall, draped in white. There was a singular focus in the messaging on Jesus and what He did for us. I didn't feel guilt. No one was bashing other religions as pagan, or arguing over 14th v 15th, or emphasizing how days start at sundown. Nothing in the message was designed to make me feel guilty. I didn't have to drum up a sense of sadness. There was no focus on Moses and the Israelites. This day was about victory and overcoming and glory and life. This day was about the Lord who lived and died and lives again. This was the culmination of everything the Old Testament hoped for. This was an expression of the grace and the Gospel I was coming to know.

It was about Jesus from start to finish. This is how Christianity should be. The entire world felt like springtime. Who would have thought a holiday I was told is pagan could bring me to the foot of cross. I took it all in, and it brought me nearly to tears again.

I gave myself permission to question Armstrong's prophecy and I was rewarded. I gave myself permission to question doctrine and I was rewarded. I asked God for the truth, HIS truth, and I was rewarded. I gave myself permission to participate in a religious holiday and I was rewarded. I found just as much value in it as I did in any of the holy days I kept in Armstrongism. And not a single rabbit or egg or Asherah Pole was involved. No weeping for Tammuz. I didn't gyrate even once. No one went outside to face the sun. Nobody baked cakes for the Queen of Heaven. Total silence on Nimrod.

The halfway house had done its job. I was finally free! I found a good home church. I could go anywhere I wanted, and I wanted to go to this church again next week.

The As Bereans Did team had one year to study Easter. I needed to get that gauntlet greased up. This was going to be a very big job.

CONCLUSION

I had been in one church for most of my life. The very prophecy that sucked me in was what helped set me on the path out. I learned to give myself permission to question. Turns out the prison had no walls. I had to abandon everything familiar and step out into the unknown. I got a blog. I spent several months in a rehab church. Now I was a Gentile Christian with freedom to go wherever I want and worship the Lord in Spirit and truth. I was finally free!

I still had much to wrestle with.

Why did God let this happen to me? Was I punished for some crime committed as a child? No, this was all my dad's fault. I was angry at him! My life was nothing like it would have been if only he had avoided this mess. How could he do this to his family? He was supposed to be wiser than this! Seeing large flaws in a parent can be traumatic. Wait. I did the same to my kids. It wasn't about my dad or his intelligence. Far smarter, richer, more powerful, more experienced, and more travelled people than I were sucked in. Tens of thousands of people were sucked in. It was indoctrination. The deceived don't know they are deceived. I could forgive my dad.

But why did God let this happen to me? Wait. Was there no good that came from it? Let's imagine I hadn't gone through this, I would have been a nominal Christian at best. Uninspired and uninspiring. Now I had a roller coaster ride of a life to tell about. I had a perspective you couldn't buy from Harvard. I had an in-depth knowledge of cult mindsets, the Old Testament, and best of all a deep appreciation for grace. I could really use this to help people. Using my powers for good instead of evil. I think that life gives all of us lemons. I would have had tribulations no matter what. "Pick your hard" as they say. This was mine. So, I made lemonade to give to weary people in the system. For free! And a few of those lemons I froze so I could throw them at the likes of Weinland and Flurry.

Here is what I wrote in my article "How To Move Forward":

"I advise you to take this with you - God allowed you to have the COG experience you did for a reason. What is that reason? Find the good, and be thankful to God for it. You can be miserable, or bitter, or fearful, or thankful. Be thankful! God has never abandoned you and it wasn't all for naught."

I had many paths to choose from. I could do nothing. I could turn around and go backwards into the familiar (I've seen people do that). I could let it beat me, and end up dead or insane. I could give up and be an atheist. That's an easy road, and there are lots of people ready to help you walk it. We don't call Armstrongism the atheist-making machine for nothing! Or, I could insist on Jesus Christ and go into grace.

I insisted on Jesus Christ and pushed forward into grace.

And here you are, reading about some of the things you can expect if you're going through what I went through. Your experience will be different than mine in many ways. Hey! We're all unique. My hope in writing this is you would recognize some familiarity hidden in here somewhere and find some nugget of value in my story that might be of help to you. I don't know what that nugget will be. I don't know what help it will bring. Maybe it's just the knowledge that you're not all alone in this. I have a gut feeling that telling my story will help somebody move forward some day. I have learned over the past 15 years to follow that gut feeling. Whoever you are, you're welcome.

As for the rest of those 15 years, you can read about my progress in the many posts here on As Bereans Did. God bless you, dear reader! May He guide you and guard you. May your path ultimately lead to Him. May you step into the New Covenant and find the freedom of the finished work of Jesus Christ!

The Road goes ever on and on,

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can...

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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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Escaping Armstrongism - part I

A few weeks ago, I asked how we could help you, our esteemed readers. The answer came back, people want to know more about what it is like to exit. Having done that once, I believe I can oblige.

There are several ways to approach this. Where to start? I have a sinking feeling this is going to take more than one post.
Nothing to it but to do it.

Maybe it would be helpful to start by telling you how I left. I've told parts of it here and there, but never really plotted it out. Not that you care about me, or that I hope to get you to care about my tale, but maybe there will be a helpful nugget in my story that you can relate to.

This is the highly abridged version of how I left.

In today's post, I am going to take you through the major events that led to my initial exit from thirty years of following Herbert Armstrong. In my next post, I will go over my experiences after I made my escape.

WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS

One thing I've learned over the years is that everyone's exit has to be personal. Nobody leaves for an empty reason. No one leaves for someone else's reason. My reason to leave, like my reason for joining in the first place, was deeply personal, and it starts with prophecy.

I was big into prophecy when I was a young boy. Prophecy is what got me interested in Herbert Armstrong in the first place. My father was a tithe-paying Armstrongist in good standing. He was a stern man, and I wanted to make him proud. My mother was not an Armstrongist at all. So, my father was never allowed to force anything religious on his children. He spoke to the Ministry in the Worldwide Church of God, and they said to just let it play out on its own. The church was always odd that way. Regular people were actively discouraged from evangelizing. I suspect it had something to do with money. My father would talk to me about the church and prophecy, and I would eat that up. He had all the written material and watched The World Tomorrow regularly, so I ate that up, too. It was prophecy that got me into other topics, like Easter for example, and the Sabbath. The hook being set, I was reeled in like a fish. And like a fish, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

As I got older, I would read through everything I could get my hands on (approved material only, of course). I wanted to crack that nut. I needed to fully understand prophecy. I could understand Revelation, I just knew it! That led me to gravitate towards others in the church who loved prophecy. Funny thing about prophecy nuts - none of us agree about much. And some of us didn't agree with Herbert Armstrong.

I was at the Feast of Tabernacles in 2002, in Pensacola, Florida. Hurricane Isadore was taking a tour of the Gulf of Mexico. A room full of friends had gathered to chat about nothing in particular. In my circle, the topic turned to ... yes, prophecy. Doesn't it always at the Feast, though? A friend of mine asked me if God could lie. (That was his ice breaker this year. He asked a lot of people that as a conversation starter.) Of course not! Why would He want to? We investigated it a while. He eventually asked if I believed the church could be wrong on prophecy. I didn't know how to answer that. Was this some kind of trick? I responded 'no'. How could the true church be wrong on prophecy? It was no trick. He pointed out how he disagreed with a few things. Minor things. But minor or not, the idea that the church could legitimately be wrong on prophecy was major. That was the first crack in the dam.

Fast forward a few years. I was at the Feast in Phoenix, Arizona in 2007. When they say "dry heat" it doesn't mean it's not hot. It a lot hotter, only dry. Which makes 113F/45C and full sun better in precisely no way at all. A group of friends from all over the country had arranged to gather there. We would sneak off in the early morning hours before sunrise, with our Bibles and some coffee in hand, to discuss ... yes, prophecy. We jokingly called it "The Heretics Club". We would discuss our disagreements with official views on prophecy, and each other's. It was mostly peaceful. The key to being a prophecy nut and having friends was to disagree with other people gently. Some guys just don't get that. We tried to get along. There we were, gathered in secret to disagree with each other and discuss secrets. Secrets about why the church was wrong. And why shouldn't we? There were sermons and articles piling up about why Herbert Armstrong was wrong. Every minister I knew about was either saying he was off the mark, or insufficient, or that they were even greater than he (they're still doing it). How was that acceptable but what we were doing was wrong? Wrong, no. Effective, yes. For some reason, what we were doing affected me. Here is the difference - we gave ourselves permission. What felt so risky wasn't the disagreeing so much, it was the permission to disagree. That was the second crack in the dam.

We were careful to keep our disagreements solely on prophecy. We weren't real heretics. That was just a fun little name. We saw ourselves as protecting the truth, not undermining it. I remember walking out of a session one morning, looking at the vast horizon, wondering in awe at the natural beauty and grandeur of God's creation. What force would it take to create all that waste? As I looked out at the mesas, I felt small, exposed. It's in moments like that (and, oddly, in the shower) when I do my best thinking. Maybe it's because I get myself out of the way. Then it dawned on me - if the church was so wrong about prophecy, what's to say they aren't wrong on doctrine too? I ducked into a stairwell and looked around to make sure no one saw me have that thought. I kept my mouth shut tight about that! If I breathed out a whisper about it, I'd be exiled for certain. But, like prophecy, articles and sermons littered the floor about why the church was wrong on doctrinal issues. We were wrong on government, evangelism, the role of prophecy, the centrality of Christ, the calendar, the Last Great Day of Tabernacles, race relations, the list goes on and on. Everyone I knew expressed some sort of dissatisfaction with how things were done in the past. Why couldn't I? My novel contribution was simply to put these smaller bites together to see the whole meal. Since no one was going to allow me to question, I needed to give myself permission to question. As providence would have it, Harold Smith's sermon that morning was his attempt to get ahead of all the doctrinal drift and force everyone back on point. It was a real stinker of an obvious attempt to manipulate everyone. Coincidence? I think not. It seemed there might be something to this doctrine idea after all. That was the third crack in the dam.

I held my cards tight to my chest. No one needed to know what I was going through. Not fully, anyway. I had a friend in my local congregation who was a black sheep if ever there was one. Intelligent and searching, that man. God rest his soul. He wasn't afraid at all to disagree openly. He was a thorn in everyone's side and I enjoyed that about him. We would share ideas, and he loved to do that, so long as your ideas were his ideas. He would not hesitate to disagree otherwise. Hey, at least I always knew where he stood. Harold Smith once made a cross-country trip to visit my congregation. I watched as my friend openly defied him right in front of everyone. It was a sight to behold! I couldn't decide which one I thought was correct, since they both made good points, but I definitely admired my friend for his gumption. He had a soft and friendly face that made you want to forgive him, or else I'm sure he would have been put out of the church years before. Upsetting the powers that be so many times has a way of changing one's perspective. It made him see himself as having a direct relationship with Jesus. No man could come between him and God (or put him out of the church). What a novel idea. I couldn't tell if it was true or arrogant, but it felt nice. Can I have a direct relationship with God, too? No Minister between us? Scary! But a key idea. That was his contribution to my exit.

One average day, I was studying an average topic - the Sabbath and how it was magnified in the New Covenant - preparing for an average sermonette, when, all at once, I "got it". An incredible torrent of joy washed over me. Jesus Christ really did magnify all things! Our flaw was that we had defined "magnify" as "made harder". That was wrong. The Sabbath was magnified just like sacrifices were. Joy was unusual and strange. Armstrongists don't have joy. We feel best when we're given a right good beating in the sermon. But this wasn't guilt, it was joy! And I didn't trust it one bit. I studied late into the night, trying to see if what I thought was real or some elaborate emotional deception. Was I falling away? Was this Satan? Other sinful things feel pretty good, so joy wasn't necessarily proof. I buried my face in church material. By the time I went to bed, I had managed to quench that joy and go back into believing Armstrong. Whew! A close call! That was the fourth crack in the dam.

I could bury that incident, but I couldn't forget it. I needed to know if we were right or wrong. Really know. I decided to do a little trial. I was going to take a doctrinal topic and put it to the test. Just like questioning prophecy, I gave myself permission to question doctrine.

I hated tithing. Nobody loves tithing. That would be my topic. I was going to study tithing every bit as hard as I studied prophecy, but I was going to be critical and try to poke holes in it. Devil's advocate. I think that is where the prototype As Bereans Did doctrinal gauntlet was first constructed. I would see for myself if the church was solid on doctrine. The doctrine of tithing went in, and wreckage came out. Did you know there's a difference between 10% and one-in-ten? Neither did I until that study. We were doing tithing very, very wrong. Highlights of that study are in the ten articles on tithing over at the old Escaping Armstrongism blog. Trust me, you wouldn't want to read the original study I made. It was 27 pages! Condensing it into 10 pages made it easier to digest.
That winter, I showed it to some close and respected friends from the Heretics Club. Try as they might, they couldn't disprove my thesis. It brought one of them to tears. He had sacrificed so much over the years. Tithing was his thing; his hill to die on. The thought of all that sacrifice being for nothing was too much for him to bear. He told me I was right, then apologized and said he could never read it again. Remember when I said 'nobody loves tithing'? Nobody but him. I loved that man. I still love that man, God rest his soul. If he needed to bury this, then I say bury it. Burn it! But as for me, the church could be wrong on doctrine after all. That was the fifth crack in the dam.

What if it was only tithing? Logic dictates I had to try one more topic. One could be a fluke, but two is evidence. I had to know! I chose clean/unclean meats.

I hated tithing, but I quite liked the meats laws. Pork made me feel sick when I ate it. I always knew when some found its way into my food at a restaurant. I thought this would be a fair choice. Certain of my inevitable defeat and confidently awaiting my comfortable return to orthodox Armstrongism, I fired up the doctrinal gauntlet. Much to my disappointment and confusion, the doctrine went in and wreckage came out. Did you know God gave Noah every creeping thing to eat, and that includes lizards? Neither did I until that study. Highlights of that study are in the eleven articles on food laws over at Escaping Armstrongism. You wouldn't want to read the full study of that one, either. It was 50 pages! That was the sixth crack in the dam.

This studying business was getting uncomfortable. During my search for information, I found the Painful Truth, IronWolf, Ambassador Watch and other websites with counter-information. Who knew an entire universe of information already existed? I wasn't quite ready for it all, but there I went all the same. I kept studying and I kept finding. Did you know we are commanded to travel three times a year to the place where the Lord places His name, not just once? We were even doing holy days wrong. So many flaws! How could the one true church have been so wrong?

Understand, I still believed it was the one true church. We had lots of doctrines that I thought were unique to us (because I hadn't yet found out they weren't unique to us), so we had to be one true. When I decided to interact on the anti-Armstrong websites, I always fiercely defended the church. We were one true, so if I was unable to defend my position it was no big deal. I was just unprepared was all. Better answers were out there. Because we were one true.

I was so sure of it, I tried convincing a co-worker of this foundational truth.
A long series of discussions culminated in him agreeing to read "The Incredible Human Potential" by Herbert Armstrong. I gave him my copy. I hadn't read it in several years anyway, so when he converted to the one true church and kept my copy, I wouldn't miss it. He didn't say anything about it for several days. I asked how he was doing. He mildly responded that he had certain disagreements with the material. I was flabbergasted. How can a person read this material and come away with disagreements? I found the book online and read it that very night. My review: what a complete load of steaming Holstein!
How did I ever find that book to be convincing?? The next conversation I had with my co-worker went very differently than the last. I never gave him "Mystery of the Ages" like I planned. Turns out that was pretty bad, too. That was the seventh crack in the dam. A big one!

I travelled to Illinois to spend the Spring holy days with some very dear friends. It didn't hurt that the lady of the house, God rest her soul, made this wonderful stuff called "bread of affliction", which was unleavened (technically). It used egg whites to add air. Affliction never tasted so good! We were all later told by Harold Smith that this was cheating and we were not to whip air into unleavened bread. That served to highlight the way our teachings were rooted in the Bible yet still highly opinion-based. Many people disagreed with him. I went on enjoying bread of affliction. On the last day of Unleavened Bread, my friend and I drove to church together in a beat up old pickup truck. The drive was a bit long, so I took the opportunity to mention some of what I had learned about holy days. I specifically mentioned the laws that required travelling to the place where the Lord places His name three times in the year. My friend told me about how, in the beginning, Herbert Armstrong taught travel three times in the year, but he later changed it when things proved too difficult and expensive. That certainly was news to me. I chewed on that a little and responded it was necessary because it is the law. He didn't agree that was necessary. There's that Bible-based opinion again. But it was the law, I complained. (The law! The law! Just not THAT law!) That was when he said the words I will never forget, "Herbert Armstrong changed the law out of necessity."

        And at that very second, the dam broke.

STOP THE WORLD, I WANT TO GET OFF

Something snapped. No, snapped isn't the right word. Shattered! Yes, something shattered. It was the strangest sensation. One second everything was normal, the next second everything - everything - was different. Do you know what a Dolly Zoom is? Google it. I imagine in the camera of my life, it looked like a Dolly Zoom. Complete with musical score. A switch was flipped. I was in the same truck with the same person, but it was as if it were an entirely different truck and an entirely different person. The friend who I loved so dearly was a stranger to me. Where I had felt comfortable, now I felt trapped. I was taking a cab to a place I didn't want to go.

To understand why that phrase shattered my worldview, you need to understand all it entailed. It meant we didn't really care about law. Armstrong made everything up as he went, and changed what he liked. All that talk about the law being eternal and "not one jot or one tittle" was all just propaganda.

All the prophecies, all the holy days, all the magazines, booklets, and shows, all the sermons given or received, all the discussions, all the studies and debates, all the stands taken over the Sabbath, all the meals skipped because of meats, all the jobs lost, all the opportunities missed, all the ridicule endured, all the sacrifices, all the poverty suffered from tithes, all the years up until then, and all the reasons for being at the Spring holy days (where I was at the time), were all at once shattered by those eight words. I felt cold. I felt trapped. I needed out of that truck, out of that state, right the heck now!

It was everything I could do to keep my mouth from hanging open. I felt like a man trying to stay calm after a life-threatening injury. The building was on fire and I needed the wherewithal to carefully walk toward the exit. I tried my best to act like nothing happened. It's fine. Everything's fine. They must not suspect a thing. I went to church and I did the motions on auto pilot. I no longer felt like I was inside the story. I was outside looking in. Like a near death experience, I watched events from a third person perspective, somewhere removed just off screen. Packed into a meeting room at a hotel with a crowd of strangers I knew and loved. My seat safely in the back close to the exit door. I didn't sing. I had no idea what the sermon was about, I only knew it lasted an eternity. When services finished, I walked outside to the sight of the most beautiful Redbud trees I had ever seen. A purple so vibrant it almost hurt. That little touch of God's beauty helped ground me. I went to lunch afterward, deeply contemplating the laws against having someone work for you on the Sabbath. Herbert changed that law out of necessity, too. We were hypocrites. All of us! Not that day only, but always. I even stayed the night. But I no longer saw the point.
The church was wrong on doctrine. My brain had finally accepted it was all made up as we went along. This entire time, we all were just saying whatever we thought sounded good at the moment.

AFTERSHOCKS

I went home and studied as hard as I had ever studied before. I was fairly down and needed something positive to happen.

I did a lot of looking into the holy days, since I had to give the sermon at Pentecost. My message was about how wrong we were about the holy days, but I stated it in a way that sounded like I was agreeing with everyone. They all said it was the best Pentecost sermon they had ever heard! All but one man. He knew. He came up to me afterward with a glint in his eye and a smile hidden in the corner of his mouth. Oh, he knew exactly what I'd just done. He was genuinely one of the most intelligent human beings I had ever known. He shook my hand with a wink and said it was a good message. We talked very briefly about how nobody else realized. I asked him if he'd thought about leaving. He said yes, but he was going to stay. That's where all his friends were. I thought that was a good reason for a man like him. That was it. Lord, do I ever miss that man!

I spent the summer studying and debating what I had learned online. I read "Churches That Abuse" by Ronald Enroth. That book hurt! I started to read "The Babylon Connection" by Ralph Woodrow, but that took a back seat to another matter. I happened across the infamous story of Herbert Armstrong's personal failings. (You know what I mean. We never go into detail about that here. That's for other websites. But it's all true!)

I was not actively looking for information on Armstrong, specifically. I was just reading everything I could find. I found out about his reliance on the ravings of G. G. Rupert, how he borrowed doctrines from the SDA, the COG7, and the Mormons, and would read the JW's Watchtower magazine to get ideas, how he read "Mein Kampf" and was a Communist sympathizer, how a woman offering him a stack of wood caused him to believe he was chosen by God, how he was fired from the Church of God (Seventh Day), how he predicted Jesus would return by 1936, how he was a plagiarist, how he let his wife die of a simple bowel obstruction but had a suitcase full of pills for himself, how he used to teach Pentecost was on a Monday but then changed his mind, how he was remarried to a woman young enough to be his granddaughter, and how he almost lost the Worldwide Church of God to the State of California in a receivership debacle in the 1970s. He was the test I never wanted. He needed to endure the gauntlet. He failed spectacularly. It was a thing of grotesque beauty. Like watching the Bismarck sink. This was the Apostle?! (Those who see you will gaze at you, and consider you, saying: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms'?) Could this get any worse??

Once again, I was crushed. I recalled Armstrong's words, "The deceived don't know they are deceived." Finally, I knew I had not just been wrong. Yes, things could get worse.. I had been deceived. There was a marked difference between the church being wrong and me being deceived. There is no way for me to write to you about how that felt. I promise you, it was as if the very gravity that held me to the earth could not be trusted anymore, and I could possibly float away at any moment. Nothing was worthy of my trust. The only thing I was sure about at that point were the Ten Commandments. What else was hiding out there, waiting for me? I was about to find out.

Enter Justin Martyr.

For some reason I cannot explain, for about the past year or so by this point I suspected answers were hiding in the writings of the early church. I didn't know the first thing about these early church writers. We were always told to stay away from them. I forced myself to read them and become familiar. There were quite a few, so it took a long time. And, to be honest, they were confusing to me. I couldn't relate because I was coming from such a different place. They were saying things that weren't Armstrong's message at all. Like, at all. Not even a little. All of them did this. The natural proclivity of an Armstrongist mindset is to try and force everything into our worldview box, to protect it and keep it true. I couldn't do that with these "Church Fathers". Normally, when something defies every attempt to fit it into the box, it gets dismissed as deception from Satan, and condemned. I wasn't about to do that to them, though. The point was to understand them as they are, and get answers. Yet, to be even more honest, since we were told not to trust them, I didn't seriously trust them. I was afraid of this "lost century" thing. If you aren't familiar, Armstrong told us the true church was forced underground before the end of the first century and all the writings from about 90 AD and onward were nothing but evil Catholic propaganda. Of course it was. All of it disagreed with us! "Lost history" referred to the true church being nowhere to be found, even though it endured, secretly. Maybe in some valley in the French Alps. We don't know. They were lost. You can't prove it, so it must be true! Was any of that really true? No. Not at all. But we believed it was true. Long story short, it took me a long time to get through any of the writings from that period.

One average night as I sat on my couch, I came across a second century document written by a man named Justin. They call him Justin Martyr, for obvious reasons. Justin is the earliest extant Christian apologist. One of his writings is about a discussion he had with a Jew named Trypho. Among other things, Justin described to Trypho how Christians no longer observe the Sabbath. It was nowhere near as simple as, "We don't keep the Sabbath because the Pope changed it to Sunday." No. He went into detail about it. He debated a Sabbath keeper about it from the guy's own scriptures. I will never forget sitting there, realizing the church was wrong on the Sabbath, too. Not the Sabbath! Yes, the Sabbath.

Do you remember when I said I was shocked when I felt an inexplicable joy come over me as I contemplated the New Covenant? And how I said I was shocked when my friend said, "Herbert Armstrong changed the law out of necessity"? This was another of those times. Like earthquakes and aftershocks, they just kept coming. But this one was good!

It all made sense all at once. Armstrong was wrong! The early church were not Sabbatarians, and it was for completely Biblical reasons. There was no lost history. Jesus is our Sabbath! 
I sat on that couch, mouth agape, reading and re-reading Justin's words. I tried to explain it to the person sitting next to me, but I was so energized I stumbled and fumbled over my words. My mind was going faster than my mouth could keep up.

No wonder why we weren't allowed to read that stuff!!

The next day, I prayed about it. I kid you not, I laid face down on the living room floor like the men of old, and I prayed my heart out. I wanted the truth - GOD'S truth. I didn't care what the consequences were, so long as I knew the truth. And just like that, the joy I felt that one night retuned. It was one of the best feelings I'd ever experienced.
Something inside me knew the joy was temporary. This world can't keep joy like that. It was only a down payment; a foretaste. It would dissipate, but I was going to ride that wave as long as I could.

OUTRO

After services one Sabbath shortly thereafter, I asked my Minister to step aside and speak to me privately. He was an honorable man. Not at all like the rest. I told him I was having issues with what I had learned about Armstrong's behavior. He asked if I thought the Holy Spirit came through Armstrong. I considered it for a moment then responded, no. If the Holy Spirit comes at all, it comes directly to us through Christ. I assured him I wasn't questioning his ordination. Realizing that wasn't all there was to it, he probed for more. I responded I could not tell him more, because if I did, he would have to answer the same questions I was, and either he would have to agree with me or lie to himself.
He needed that place, he needed those people, and it wasn't right for me to take it away. It was clear I had to escape Armstrongism. I couldn't stay, like my friend would. I had to go. I was a threat to the group. All I could do any longer is cause division. For their sake and mine, I had to go.

A few days later, a Minister from another area called to ask if I would speak at his Feast of Tabernacles in Panama City, Florida that year. A great honor, which I had to politely decline. I didn't tell him I was leaving. I just said I couldn't attend that year. It was true enough.

Prophecy, gone. Doctrine, gone. Armstrong, God's appointed Apostle, gone. Sabbath, gone.
This is how I described my last day in my post "Welcome To Escaping Armstrongsm" on the old blog:

"I left my splinter group on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008.
I had followed Herbert Armstrong for 30 years.
I insisted on going to services in order to see everyone one last time. I arrived dressed in my best. I made sure to give out as many hugs and hardy handshakes as possible. I got a cup of coffee and settled in for the sermon. When the coffee was gone, so was I. Quietly, I sneaked out the back door, and I am not going to return.
These were the people who were there when I was a child. They were at my wedding. They saw my wife and I through our pregnancies. Everyone was invited to my wife's baptism. They were grandma and grandpa to our children. We went through agonizing church splits together. They loved us like their own. They were a closer family than my physical family. And I never wanted to have to go."

Three decades of my life dedicated primarily to one thing. All gone. All except for Jesus and a belief that mainstream Christianity was steeped in pagan ideas.

I bet my life and my future on the inerrancy of the church Herbert Armstrong founded. I lost that bet. This was supposed to have been the one true church sent from God to tell us the astounding truth! God's truth!!

I knew I had one last bit of unfinished business that I would not enjoy in the least.
... [deep breath]...
I went to my mother's house to humiliate myself and admit my failures. She was right that whole time, and I was wrong. I didn't listen, and I should have. I put her through so much for nothing. She took it well.

I started the Escaping Armstrongism blog that same month. I was still escaping. That's also when I came up with the name xHWA. In other words, ex Herbert W Armstrong believer. Seemed fitting. And sounded better than Silence DoGood.

I hope you found some nugget of value in my story. God willing, in the next post, I will tell you about how I went from recovering Armstrongist to mainstream Christian. See you then!

 

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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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How To Move Forward

I left Armstrongism in August of 2008. I remember that day like it was yesterday. What I've learned in these twelve years I cannot even begin to describe. Many of the things I learned I put here in this blog, but even more are not here. Let me tell you, there is a lot to learn. I want to share a couple summary ideas with you.

The thing I want to emphasize most is something that should be obvious and go without saying, but so help me I see people making mistakes here all the time. That is:

Un-learn everything you have learned in the COGs.

Yes, un-learn everything you have learned in the COGs. To explain why, let's do a brief re-cap of the history of the COGs. 

In 1843, the false prophet William Miller started preaching the return of Christ. It didn't happen, and is called "The Great Disappointment." He doubled down and failed again. Some of his many followers refused to un-learn what they had learned. Instead they tripled-down. They adopted the Sabbath doctrine from the Seventh Day Baptists and eventually named themselves the Seventh Day Adventists. Thus began one of the most ridiculous episodes in modern history - the life and times of Ellen G White. If you are not emotionally invested in her, and approach her writings with honesty, you will see how this woman must have been demon influenced. Many of the most outrageous cults in the last 150 years are directly descended from this Adventist movement. Some Adventists refused her leadership and split off to form the Church of God - 7th Day (COG7). This is the group who hired Herbert W (the W doesn't stand for anything) Armstrong, a down on his luck detergent salesman, as a Minister. HWA saw dollar signs and used his sales experience to reach more people over the radio. His new angle was a deep reliance on end-time prophecy. HWA split off and formed his own church, the Radio Church of God, which later renamed as the Worldwide Church of God. In 1933, HWA began to repeat the mistakes of William Miller from exactly a century earlier.

"...19 years after the first seige, or 585 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar made his final siege, drove out all the Jews, took complete possession of the land, and the Times of the Gentiles came fully in. And 2520 years later, or 1936 A.D., the Times of the Gentiles will have completely ENDED. As nearly as we can calculate from the dates of ancient history, the year 1936 will see the END of the Times of the Gentiles. Those "Times" have not been completely fulfilled until that year."

-Herbert Armstrong, Plain Truth, June/July 1934, pp.4-5

The date came and went. And exactly like William Miller, HWA doubled down. No, he more than doubled down. HWA spent the rest of his life preaching the immediate return of Christ. Over and over and over his prophecies failed. The grandest of all was in 1972. We have articles detailing all of this. Did his followers un-learn what they had learned? No. They did exactly as the Adventists before them.

When HWA died in 1986, his lieutenants peeled away to start their own church groups and promoted themselves to the rank of leader. So, you get what you have here today. Did they learn anything from the past 150 years (other than starting a church is a great way to make some easy money)? No. Here we are, with one tiny little splinter group after another competing for the spotlight, and the tithe dollar of the remaining members. Still teaching the same end-time scenarios that false prophet William Miller invented, still preaching the same Sabbath message that false prophet Ellen G White borrowed from the Seventh Day Baptists, still passing on the same garbage Alexander Hislop penned which has been proven false more times than I care to count, still holding to the doctrines and practices of false prophet Herbert W Armstrong. What are the results? False prophecy after false prophecy after false prophecy. Confusion upon confusion. Can you expect fresh water from this well?

It's not just the prophecy that you must un-learn, it's everything. Un-learn it all. "But, xHWA," you may exclaim to me, "certainly not everything! I would have to un-learn Jesus Himself." Yes, everything. "Blasphemy!" No. I tell you that God is on His throne and Jesus is His only begotten Son. But what you have learned about both the Father and the Son is both flawed as well as nowhere near the whole story.  

There is a great deal more to learn about the Father and the Son that I cannot even begin to scratch the surface here. Un-learn the overly-simplified version of God that you have in your mind or else when you hear the rest of the story you will certainly be so confounded that you might even turn away from God. Think I'm crazy? There is a reason we say, "Armstrongism is an atheist-making machine."

Hundreds and hundreds of people who have left the COGs have gotten so confused and so frustrated that they gave it all up and abandoned their faith. Why? There are many reasons. No one can say it's this one or maybe two things. But I can tell you that in my experience the theme underlying it all is that people leave Armsrtongism but take half of it with them. It was that half that was incompatible with their way forward and unable to handle the challenges.

You have to un-learn even the simple things that you take for granted. Let me give you just a hint of a list here:

The COG's teachings are not unique to the COGs. COG doctrine is a lot like Catholic doctrine. The Catholic Church is not the Whore of Babylon. Protestantism is not the Daughters of the Whore. The Trinity is not an un-Biblical and unfathomable contradiction. Christmas and Easter are not pagan.There is no dark period after the first century where Christianity was completely changed. Apocalyptic literature is highly symbolic and never meant to be taken literally. The United States is not modern day Israel. The Bible does have a few issues (no, that isn't a deal breaker!). Moses didn't write every word of the Pentateuch. The Bible sometimes does contain elements found in other cultures that are older than the Bible. The understanding, world view, and context of ancient Israel is VERY different from yours today. Israel was not the first people to worship Yahweh (not even close) (yes, this is absolutely compatible with our faith). Many elements in Jewish worship are borrowed from paganism. "Once pagan always pagan" is a lie.

None of those things above, and there are a whole lot more than these I promise you, are deal breakers. God is on His throne. It all fits into the Biblical narrative. It's not the Biblical narrative that is flawed, it's your approach to it. I tell you, if you approach mainstream Christianity from a COG perspective, you will be hard pressed to accept them and will be more likely to give up your faith. How then can you handle the things that are even more difficult truths than the ones I've said above? I'll bet some of those things are a shock to you, yet they are demonstrably true. If you leave the COG and hold on to half of what they taught you, you are in danger. You need to be flexible. Bend, or you will break.

It's not just the factual aspects, but even the very approach itself that you should leave behind. 

No, you don't have to have every I dotted and T crossed. No, you don't need to have all the answers. You don't need to fit everything into a tidy little box. Humanity is messy, and God has chosen to work through us, so faith is by necessity a messy thing. The Bible is messy because God inspired humans to write it. Not just that but humans then edited it and translated it. If you leave the COGs yet maintain this trait of having to have everything figured out, you will break yourself. I am not saying give up study, just to change your approach.

Do you want the answer to what the "thorn in the flesh" was that Paul had? Here is the answer:
     We don't know.
And that's OK. We don't need to know. And we won't know until we ask him ourselves. Saying we don't know is the most honest, most relieving thing we can say. Just takes some getting used to.

Un-learn what you have learned in the COGs and bring yourself back to the one, simple, and foundational idea of faith. Faith. It's a simple, one-syllable word. Yet it is as profound as the universe itself.

If you can wipe the slate clean, clear your mind, let go, and possess nothing whatsoever in this life but belief that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, then you have everything else already. He possesses all things. In Him you possess all things. Faith is literally all you need and all He demands of you. Contemplate this. Revel in this. Revel in Him. It's all about Him! Because Jesus accomplished His goals, and you are one with Him in faith, then in Him all your goals are already accomplished. He did it. Accept His gift. Accept it, and never let go.

Soon the wheel will turn and you will start looking more deeply into things again. This is how it goes. We start with a basic faith, we get interested in a detail, which leads to other details, which eventually complicates the entire business and makes amok of everything, then we do a reset and come back to the simplicity of a basic faith again. The wheel forever turns.

Eventually you will want to investigate some matter more deeply. Do it! Only do it without the COG baggage. You may be tempted to say, "I need no man to teach me; I am not going to trust in anything other people say or write." I say to you, this is a clear indicator that you have not left behind your COG indoctrination. You are still caught up in black and white thinking. You thought that to leave the COGs behind you must now do the opposite? No! Doing the opposite is just falling into the other ditch. It's not black and white. The world is not just filled with shades of grey, but a 16 million colors besides. If you step out to take on the world like a teenager out of school, you will soon learn the world is far more ready for you than you are for it. When you have this kind of approach, you will fall into the same old ditches that millions before you have fallen into. Don't reject what people have written, just don't be naive about it. Some of it should be rejected because it's garbage, but don't reject it all - and especially not just to spite your past. There is an ocean of information out there which you haven't even been exposed to yet. It's not all false! There are also 2,000 years of lessons and debates in the Christian experience you probably haven't read. "In the multitude of counselors there is safety." You don't need to make the same mistakes. You don't need to reject it all, or reinvent the wheel, or become a scholar so you can review every little thing for yourself. There are some excellent resources out there already. Use the excellent ones and reject the rest. This requires a certain flexibility.
Want to know a secret? You will eventually find that not everything the COGs teach is false!

You might not understand why I tell you to let go of the COG now and you will eventually circle back to some few parts of it later. When you get to where I am now, at that time you will understand. But I digress.

Challenges to your faith will come. Meet them head on! The truth will take care of itself. I can give you this advice - draw on your past experiences of the presence of God in your life. 

When the "dark night of the soul" comes upon you - as it will (and not just one time only) - recall those times in your past when you felt the presence of God and saw His hand at work in your life. Don't discount your past experiences. Don't discount the experiences of others, either. The Bible is the past experiences of people who dealt with God. You will come to a crossroads. I tell you now, when you stand there it isn't going to be as simple as you might think. You will have a choice to make. In fact there are three paths at any crossroad, not just two! The three roads are these: 1) you can remain in faith, 2) you can go into faithlessness, or 3) you can sit on a fence and waffle back and forth. Set your mind to believe that God is real and His only Son is Jesus Christ, because that is your life experience and it matters, and this decision will make the rest of your life a whole lot simpler.

To those who went down road #2, what I just said sounds like a cop out. No, it isn't. I promise you that faith isn't just a blind thing. God has given and still yet gives evidence. Evidence is a rational thing. Therefore, faith is a rational thing. So is the decision to remain in faith. We are rational beings.

The entire book of Revelation is far less about some future events and more about how you approach life RIGHT NOW. We've had the book for nearly 2,000 years. Everyone who has read it has waited for the fulfillment but had to apply its lessons to their lives in their time. What does it say to us?

(REV 1: 3) Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. [Even today! Every day!]

Hear it and take it to heart. Look past the apocalyptic imagery, stop trying to figure out the who and the when, and see the big picture of what it is really saying. Learn the lessons and make the conscious decision to incorporate the lessons into your life. What lessons? Does I Peter 4: 17 not tell us to "obey the Gospel of God"? What do you mean "obey the Gospel"? If the Gospel is the good news, what is there to obey? Faith! Faith is the lesson!

We obey by maintaining faith in the truth of it. Jesus is Lord. He did die on the cross and on the third day rose again and ascend into Heaven. He is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do. He will come again to judge the living and the dead. His Kingdom will have no end. All else are wolves and imposters. There are imposters but there is the true. There are upheavals but there is a reward. And this very faith, which we choose and upon which we insist, will guide our lives ...if we let it. This is the understanding of the Book of Revelation. Faith. In our regular and every day lives.

Is it not obvious, even axiomatic, that this is a conscious, rational decision for us to make? Then why wonder when I say to consciously, rationally make the decision? When you stand at that crossroads, recall your experiences and the experiences of others and make the conscious decision to be a Christian. That decision is the very purpose of the crossroads metaphor in the first place.  

"I have experienced God in my life. I have seen God at work in my life and the lives of many others. I will not discount these experiences. I am having doubts and am very confused, but I know this is for a purpose that I will eventually come to understand. I will not throw it all away. I will not sit on a fence. Lord Jesus, you are my Lord, and I choose to side with you. Help my unbelief!"

And then, to the faith in our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, hold fast!

So to sum up, the best advice I can give you today, when you leave your COG and step out into a wider world, are these two things:

1) Un-learn what you have learned.
2) Insist on faith.

That said, I advise you to take this with you - God allowed you to have the COG experience you did for a reason. What is that reason? Find the good, and be thankful to God for it. You can be miserable, or bitter, or fearful, or thankful. Be thankful! God has never abandoned you and it wasn't all for naught.

God bless you and keep you and may the Spirit of Holiness go with you and guide you always. Thank you for having visited this blog.

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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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