Occluded Vision

Hulme

It seems to be official. The Hulmerous publication Vision - the pet project of David Hulme - is no more. At least in print form.

The latest issue, Winter 2016, is available, but only online as a collection of web articles.

Even then, with no further postage and printing costs, Dave pleads poverty: "Our quarterly online journal Vision is free of charge, but resources are limited."

Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

Money is tight brethren and costs need to be slashed. How many people do you think have been bumped off the payroll?

Weirdly, there isn't as much as a PDF magazine facsimile, or a flipping book version - the sort of thing COGWA do with their bimonthly Discern publication. Apparently it's all too hard.

Perhaps Dave, a onetime World Tomorrow presenter and founding president of the United Church of God (which he subsequently abandoned) has taken a drop in salary to go with the new austerity drive? That seems unlikely.

So is there a future for Hulme's secretive COGAIC? We know that a lot of its ministerial talent has, like rats, jumped ship. How its membership is holding up in the wake of all that trauma is hard to tell, COGAIC was never famous for its transparency. It is hard to imagine that the Hulmerous brethren will be elated by the media retrenchment, though.

Sixteen years after its launch Vision has been gutted and another ambitious COG splinter seems headed for the rocks.

Forgotten History: 1976 - Fools' Quest

1976, and the Worldwide Church of God was anticipating a great leap forward with the launch of the glossy magazine Quest/77 under the auspices of the AICF (Ambassador International Cultural Foundation). It was an expensive PR effort designed to gain credibility among the shakers and movers, the kind of people who wouldn't give The Plain Truth a second glance. The acquisition of Everest House Publishers followed, with offices in New York; a further vanity project that quickly proved prohibitively expensive.

The following article and accompanying photograph appeared in New York magazine, August 2, 1976.

Forty years on (has it really been 40 years?) and nothing remains. Quest magazine was short-lived, Everest House is long forgotten, Ted was to be ousted the year following Quest's launch, and even the Hall of Ad has now gone... in a cloud of demolition dust earlier this year.

Which leads one to wonder about the durability of the various vanity projects among the competing sects of COGdom today.

Donald Trump in Prophecy, or Here Come the Germans

It takes a Don to know a Don and Don Billingsley seems to think he has the prophetic 'real oil' on Donald Trump. You might even say that the latest issue of his Philadelphia Remnant mag is "the Trump issue". Trump is - according to Billingsley - playing into the winds of prophecy.

Yeah, right.

There's also a lot of huff and puff about those darn Germans coming to put your loved ones in concentration camps, with more of the same promised for the next issue. Can't wait. Don even writes of "the inherent nature of the average German".

German agents are currently active within the United States as they were before World War II! They are operating behind the scenes in many ways without anyone realizing their mission! Consider and seriously think about the recent massive riots in Chicago against Donald Trump with the foregoing writings of this book in mind; people used, such as George Soros a renegade Jew; instruments used by the unseen underground power players in Germany. 

With all this in mind, we would do well to remember the promise of Germany that is yet ongoing and will soon be realized: “One day we shall come back. Until then, A’ bientot (= goodbye A’ Soon)” (p. 41)

Looking at the cover you might think that you've seen it before. You have. Billingsley, one-time college chauffeur, keeps things simple by using the same cover art over and over again. Not a particularly smart strategy, but as you can see that's nothing compared to the contents.

Don has kindly provided access to his ravings in flipping book format (so that should render it almost completely unreadable to most folk.)  Dig around and you'll find you can download it as a PDF, but you'd be best advised - for sanity's sake - to avoid doing so. Be advised that there are formatting errors throughout the publication. Not a professional look.

As for "prophecy", all these years and Don has learned... nothing. What a waste. Just regurgitating nonsense he heard from Herb and swallowed whole back in the 1950s.

Isn't it a bit ironic that with all the inane drum beating over Germany and a return to Naziism, the real Nazis - authoritarian leaders in the "government of God"-type COGs - get a free ride. How many times was the CAD referred to as the Gestapo?

It's undoubtedly true that Don is an embarrassment to many good, thinking people involved in more moderate COG fellowships. And yet it's also true that such profoundly stupid extremist views were once mainline in Radio Church of God/WCG days, and that a bitter aftertaste remains even in the more respectable bodies. Would it be too much, for example, to expect that the more balanced COG groups should explicitly reject this perverse mixture of racism, cultural myopia, exceptionalism and twisted prophecy?

Apparently it is. If UCG or CGI (for example) were serious about presenting their message in a meaningful way, they'd long since have publically washed their hands - no weasel words - of this hogwash. The cost, though, would involve lost tithe-payers. The benefit? Some modicum of credibility.

The PDF is available to download

The FB format is available here

The not-so International News

Those of us who are sufficiently long in the tooth may remember the days when Ted Armstrong struck out defiantly from his father's dominion, and the heady sense of  "a new beginning" in East Texas. The good (and not so good) and the great (sometimes just grating) gathered to the new ensign. Guest preachers in Tyler included Al Portune, Wayne Cole and David Antion bearing the 1978 equivalent of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Ron Dart became second in command. The Church of God, International was launched with high hopes and tasteful offices on the shores of Lake Palestine.

Ted knew the power of publishing as well as radio and TV, and moved quickly to create a stock of new booklets, and a rival for The Plain Truth was launched, Twentieth Century Watch, under the guidance of Alan Heath.

It wasn't to last. Ted had a blow-up with Heath, leaving the magazine project in jeopardy. It's fair to say that it never recovered. Portune, Cole and Antion distanced themselves, and Ted settled down to his old dark habits. All now ancient history. A seedling of the sect in New Zealand withered quickly. Jim Bennett, who was instrumental in beginning the process of setting up CGI in the country returned from a trip to Texas disillusioned. The little group (of which I was, if I remember correctly, secretary), quickly folded.

So what happened to CGI? Ron Dart walked, Ted was finally given the order of the boot and, having snatched back his toys, started all over again with the wonderfully-named Intercontinental Church of God. CGI continued in downsized and understated mode. Today it continues to publish The International News which, unsurprisingly, began under Ted as a clone of WCG's Worldwide News.

All of which is merely a tiresomely long introduction to the current issue of the IN, now reduced to a quarterly tabloid. As someone who still has a copy of one of the early issues in his files, volume 1, number 1 no less, I have to admit to a degree of sadness. But enough of the history. Grumpy old men love to recount rambling tales from olden times, and when we get started it's best to just nod and think of today's shopping list.

This issue (Vol. 37, no. 1) is 16 pages long, overseen by Vance Stinson. It features articles by Bill Watson, Adrian Davis, Lloyd Cary, Ian Boyne, Robert Giovi and a lengthy series of obituaries. A bit like a block of cooking chocolate, solid but hardly exciting.

The PDF is available to download.

The Midnight Cringe

What happens when a branch of the Church of God, one that's been led by a single autocratic figure, suddenly loses its leader. That's what recently happened to the Church of God's Faithful, a South Carolina-based PCG splinter (see last month's article). Robert Ardis has gone to whatever eternal reward awaits him.

You'll be relieved to know that the sect magazine, The Midnight Cry, has continued to be published. There's obviously a new editor. Who can it be? One Jon Ardis. Could this be the anointed son? CGF apparently continues "all in the family". Gerry and Stephen over in PCG; Robert and Jon in CGF. Nepotism? Oh my goodness, gracious no. How could you even think it?

Prophetically (!) this issue's cover is emblazoned with the words, The Writing Is on the Wall. That could well be true, but possibly not in the intended sense. Ardis the Younger has penned a fairly bland editorial. Kiwi writer Wally Lawton draws on his vast knowledge of the Bible to pen an article on Iran/Persia and prophecy. Reuben Lister warns us all that national slavery awaits.

Sad to say, these prophecies are about to become a reality and it’s hard to accept that Great Britain, America, and the nation we call Israel will all be reduced to insignificance. All will go down together, ending in slavery and utter despair.

He's right about one thing, it is hard to accept. Impossible, in fact, fanciful misrepresentations of Deuteronomy 28:64-68 notwithstanding. Have these geniuses ever considered the logistics of such an undertaking?

So will the tithe-payers continue supporting CGF, or will there be a general wising up? It appears that Jon is paddling hard and the team is standing by with buckets ready to bail as necessary.

Whether that will be enough remains to be seen.

The PDF is available to download.

Willie's World

One of the enduring characters on the fringe of Armstrongism over the decades has been William F. Dankenbring. The one-time Plain Truth writer launched a publishing operation in the 1970s featuring his own work, but also that of Raymond McNair (Ascent to Greatness) and Ivor Fletcher (The Incredible History of God's True Church). Basil Wolverton provided original artwork for his The Keys to Radiant Health, and Herman Hoeh agreed to write the foreword to his creationist tome, The First Genesis. Somewhere along the path, though, Dankenbring "jumped the shark" and became a date-setter with few peers. For many years now he has produced a periodical called Prophecy Flash! to promote his predictions.

Anyone who has read Dankenbring's guff in recent years knows just how much he loathes President Obama. We all have our personal political views - that's the foundation of a democracy - but Dankenbring drapes his biases in lurid biblical fantasy. The current Flash (March-April) is no exception. Some of the headings from the 'Prophecy Briefs' section.

President Obama wants to rule the world
Obama aspires to be King of the world
Obama wants to be UN chief
Fecklessness has its rewards: Barack Obama will be the next UN Secretary General

Dankenbring date setting from 2008

And...

Move over, Benedict Arnold, there's a new traitor in town - Barack Obama!

And how about this:

Earlier this year and also last year I wrote about the signals that some thought Obama was emitting to be the Muslim Caliphate, that is, the Islamic leader of all the world's Muslims. He might indeed be acceptable for that position. 

To keep your disgust fresh, the current issue is available as a PDF download, but be aware that there may be a significant mental health risk involved.

The Strumpet

The Living Armstrongism blog has a review of the latest issue of PCG's The Trumpet. The cover speaks for itself. "The issue contains an inflammatory cover made by Gary Dorning trying to stir up resentment and fear of President Obama. PCG leans far to the right in regards to politics so they wish Obama was not president." (Redfox).

American politics; sheesh. Bear in mind that traditionally the COGs have pretended to be politically neutral, discouraging their members from voting. The reality is somewhat different. Herbert Armstrong's political views were well known, and church publications leaned heavily in advocacy journalism. That is even more apparent in the squabbling sects today.

The latest Trumpet Weekly apparently beats the same drum. The cover is supplied by a reader in the States, and features another political piece by heir presumptive, daddy's pride and joy, Stephen Flurry.

More interesting is the question of how many COG members ignore the non-voting advice. I can say, hand on heart, that I voted throughout the years of my WCG membership with a clear conscience (and I'm darn sure I didn't vote the way the ministry would have supported). Anecdotally one suspects that a substantial part of the COG demographic does indeed turn up to cast a ballot though most wouldn't admit it.

For the full baloney rundown on this issue (baloney as in the mag, not the review), hit the link above.

What to do till Kingdom Come?

Bob's been a busy prophet, producing the latest issue of his Bible News Prophecy mag. Included in this issue.

• Palestine & Gaza in Thielian Prophecy (by Bob)
• Did early Christians keep the Spring holy days? (by Bob)
• What to do till "Kingdom Come"? (lifted from a 1975 Good News)
• Dressing for church (by Bob)
• A quiz on the magic millennium (by Bob, adapted from the old Bible Correspondence Course)

The cover shows Bob's New Zealand following. Based in Auckland, these folk (apart from being mainly female) are predominantly made up of Pasifika members rather than Pakeha (Caucasian), which is interesting given Bob's position on BI. They seem to be frequently featured, which leads one to wonder whether this is the largest gathering of Thielians (I count nine here, excluding Bob and Joyce) the latter-day prophet can readily produce to front for a camera.

What to do till "kingdom come"? Clearly, read Bob's stuff. There's no end to that either.

The PDF is available for download.

The Philadelphia Ruminator

In thumbing through the various COG magazines on offer it's easy to overlook some of the minor entries. Publishing a bi-monthly magazine is still seen as one of the received traditions in the Churches of God. The Plain Truth may have morphed into an empty Albrecht echo chamber, but the work of publishing the Gospel must go on, verily.

The Philadelphia Remnant is another of the lesser-known contenders. Produced by Don Billingsley, famous in COG history as the driver of the vehicle which killed passenger Richard David Armstrong, the 42-page January-March issue oozes with references to Herb, the late lamented all-wise one.

The feature article has been disinterred from a 1957 Good News, Why America is Cursed! by (who else?) the high and herbal one himself. Don's long editorial notes the thirtieth anniversary of Herb's death and announces that he was the Third Elijah (the other two were John the Baptist and, fairly obviously, Elijah himself). Lots of pictures of the End Time Elijah too.

There's an article about Lake Erie and how we'll all have clean water in the world tomorrow, and another about school violence (illustrated with a black kid holding a gun, hewing to the stereotypes).

Don's rag doesn't advertise its circulation, but we're probably on very safe grounds assuming it doesn't have one as there doesn't seem to actually be a hard copy option. Oh well, no matter, a virtual magazine apparently still ticks all the boxes; and Don is in good company here (notably COGWA's Discern.)

The PDF is available to download.

"Urgent Understanding"

The Midnight Cry calls itself "a magazine of urgent understanding". Not so urgent in that not a single issue appeared last year. But wait, 2016 has kicked off with an overdue reappearance.

Cry is published by the Church of God's Faithful, a breakaway from PCG, led by Robert Ardis. Though it has a low profile among the splinters, it manages to operate mailing addresses in England and New Zealand as well as its main office in South Carolina.

Ardis obviously believes that he is a key figure in the great scheme of things.

I have stated quite a few times that I believe we of the CGF have as much or even MORE faith than many of the righteous characters of the Old and New Testaments! (p.3)

I have not seen God or heard His voice. But I have, on many occasions, felt His presence and have been directly guided by His Spirit to certain verses of Scripture that He wanted me to apply in my life. The CGF is God’s true Church, and we use the Holy Bible, through which Christ speaks to us. (p.3)

 And wouldn't you know it, CGF is mentioned in Bible prophecy.

Gerald Flurry was raised up to lead the Laodicean work of Jesus Christ and to reveal the apostasy in the WCG. But, as predicted in Revelation 3:14-20, the Philadelphia Church of God (PCG) became a lukewarm church doing Mr. Flurry’s work instead of the work of God.

However, God had reserved a few faithful brethren to carry on the Philadelphia work of the sixth candlestick of Revelation 3:7-13. And they were ready (although they did not know it) for the Day of the Lord and the secret coming of Jesus Christ as “a thief in the night” (II Pet. 3:10). This happened 12 years after Mr. Armstrong gave his final message to the WCG at the Feast of Trumpets 1985! The Gospel of the Kingdom of God had been successfully proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations. Now it was time for the message, “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” to go out in power!

On the Feast of Trumpets 1997, the Day of the Lord came as a thief in the night, and the living Christ came suddenly to His Temple (Mal. 3:1). A new 19-year time cycle also began on that date on the sacred Hebrew Calendar and we have now come to the 19[th] year of this time cycle. Has God given us this one 19-year period to get the bride of Christ ready for her Husband? If He has, we have much work to do. (p.3)

Yes, those 19-year time cycles are back.

This is a sure thing. Revelation 3:9 will be fulfilled, and I still wonder whether we have only a little less than two years to complete our work of preparing the bride! (p.4)

 Ardis relates a personal testimony to his faith.

I am a sick, old man and it is difficult even to write this article... I look forward to the healing that God is going to do for me soon, and for all of us in the CGF... I have been afflicted with cancer of the bone marrow for seven years. It has been a “thorn in my flesh”! (p.4)

So here's the reason for the blip in publishing. Yet Ardis' health issues don't seem to have led him to secure a smooth transition for his church. Nor has he taken the tough option of reconsidering the prophetic speculation that led him to create CGF. Once he passes from the scene, as we all must ultimately, his work will be forgotten. The hosts of heaven are not coming to his rescue at the end of any imaginary 19-year time cycle. "Urgent understanding" is required, but seems in limited supply.

 I wonder whether this will be one of the last issues - if not the very last - of The Midnight Cry.

Somehow it all seems a bit sad and pathetic.

The PDF is available for download.

Update: Robert Ardis passed away less than a week ago on St Patrick's Day, March 17, according to correspondence on the Exit & Support Network. He was aged 84. Thanks to Redfox for passing on the information.

Making Bob look good

You've got to admire John Hickey, the Continuing Church of God's man on the ground in New Zealand. This guy has one unenviable job, making his master - accidental Prophet and Doctor-of-Theology-on-the-cheap Bob Thiel (pronounced teel) - look good in print.

John is proof-reader for Bob's magazine Bible News Prophecy. BNP is one of the rags in the 'also ran' category of COG evangelistic publications. And get this; every single word in the 36-page January-March issue is written by the Prophet.

Bob must spend long hours each day pounding away on his word processor. In February alone he clocked up 90 separate posts on his main news page alone, and we're talking long posts (I noted one recently in excess of 6,000 words). He's able to provide commentary on everything from Trump to tropical cyclones then, for light relief, film himself imparting prophetic insight for his YouTube channel. Moreover, you can now tune into Dr Bob's very own personal radio station (yes, his intro is indeed "greetings friends around the world"!) Now you need never go without Bob's expert knowledge about Bible prophecy. A heavily scripted John Hickey features too, Kiwi accent and all.

Of course, if you're going to more or less single-handedly produce, write and edit a magazine you need to display a modicum of skill with basic grammar and punctuation. That's without considering those garden variety typos which we all make. The key here is to fix them quick smart, something that busy Bob doesn't seem to be bothered with overmuch. Which is where John comes in. He's obviously a patient man.

So what literary treats await you in this issue? Bob on Islam, Bob on New Years Day, Bob on natural disasters and Bob on prayer tips.

The PDF is available to download.

Is this the Worst COG Magazine?

Stuck away in my files are the two earliest issues of Twentieth Century Watch, the preview issue and vol. 1, no. 1. (May/June 1980). It was supposed to become a credible rival to The Plain Truth. The publisher is listed as the Church of God, International, and the staff box includes names like Brian Knowles, Ronald Dart, David Antion, Mark Kellner, James McBride and, naturally, members of the holy family; GTA (Editor-in-Chief), Mark (News Bureau), Matthew (Graphics) and David (Photography).

At some stage, Ted apparently wised up and the ownership of the magazine was transferred to the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association, a separate entity. When Ted was finally booted from CGI, the magazine went with him. These days the title is Twenty-first Century Watch, and it's still churned out four times a year under the direction of Mark Armstrong. Any attempt at balance seems to have been abandoned long ago, and the strident right-wing rhetoric more than matches the extremes of The Philadelphia Trumpet. Mark Armstrong clearly wears his politics on his sleeve and feels that bilious venting is somehow his religious duty.

Politically skewed articles in this issue concern the Iran deal, the Black Lives Matter movement, the 'myth' of the moderate Moslem and climate change. No surprises there. More conventional articles deal with the Sabbath (regurgitated from an old Ted Armstrong article) and Bible Study.

The circulation isn't stated, presumably this magazine has a very limited influence compared to those of the larger COGs. The amateur nature of operations at the GTAEA is indicated by the back page on the PDF where someone simply took a heavy black marker to a mailing label.

The PDF is available to download

Discern for March - the "sort of" magazine

Every self-respecting church needs a promotional magazine (except Joe Tkach's GCI apparently), so it's no surprise that the UCG malcontents who formed COGWA (Church of God, a Worldwide Association) have put a good deal of thought into their own flagship publication, Discern.

But is it really a magazine when the only way you can read it is as a PDF? Granted, it's a frugal game plan. No postage costs, no left-over copies gathering dust. Whether people actually read PDFs in the same way they read hard copy is a moot point. There's a certain pleasure in sitting back in an armchair, turning real pages at your leisure that you simply don't get staring at a screen. All of COGWA's 'literature' seems to be available in this form, and only in this form. Time will tell whether it's an effective strategy for the long haul.

If this were a mainline church publication, you'd say it had an Easter theme, with a crown of thorns on the cover. Open it up (so to speak) and the graphics and layout are quite impressive. The first major feature you hit is a lengthy article by Clyde Kilough on Passover. That's followed by one in a similar vein by Jim Franks. Keeping on message is He is Risen! Now What? by Jeremy Lallier. Obviously, COGWA wants to proclaim its message "in due season".

Rick Avent moves to other matters with Does God Exist? He's up to Proof 3: The Origin of Life. I couldn't bear to invest time reading this, life is so short, and I have a copy of New Scientist that's higher on the priority list. Do you think Rick reads New Scientist?

Mike Bennett writes under the intriguing title, 5 Foolish Things we do to Foul Up our Future. Reading virtual COG magazines isn't on the list. Becky Sweat writes on The Loneliness Epidemic. Neal Hogberg beats the drum on ISIS with An Apocalyptic Crisis.

You get the impression that Discern requires a better standard of journalism of its in-house writers than, say, Tomorrow's World. Faint praise given the standard over at TW. That said, it's the same message you'll find in other COG periodicals. The articles in one are interchangeable with another.

The PDF is available to download.

(If you're interested in what's in the latest PCG mag, The Trumpet, you might like to check out Redfox's Living Armstrongism blog where he's got a detailed outline.)

A Parallel Universe: the March BA

The Bible Advocate is unlike any of the Armstrong COG publications. Rarely, if ever, is there an article featuring prophetic speculation. No BI. No inane punditry on the hidden meaning of world news. It's clearly not in the DNA of its publishers, the Denver-based Church of God (Seventh Day).

CoG7 is a fundamentalist Adventist body, no question, but it seems to avoid the tabloid apocalyptic speculation that goes hand-in-glove with its two larger relatives, the sibling SDA church, and its ratbag pack of daughters in the Worldwide Church of God tradition. When Herbert separated in the 1930s (they must have thrown a party!) CoG7 was left to follow its own course of development. It currently has churches established in forty countries (p.30).

Back to the magazine. The March issue is themed around baptism. But where, you might ask, are the proliferating exclamation marks! the CAPS, the frequent use of italics? And the lads at UCG's Beyond Today take note, just look at all the names of female writers and staff.

Many hardline Armstrongites would scoff, searching in vain for the heady blend of speculation, pontification and stupidity-on-steroids that they're addicted to. There's absolutely nothing Meredithesque here. Bland by comparison? Yes, but living off a diet of Rocky Road has health consequences. By contrast, a low-key, conversational tone has its own appeal. Not that I'm even faintly endorsing CoG7, just noting that it's one of the healthier options on the lard-laden COG smorgasbord.

The BA has been around a long time (this issue is Vol. 150, No. 2). It's already burned off The Plain Truth (unless you count the invisible Albrecht magazine), The Good News (both versions), GCI's Christian Odyssey, Meredith's The World Ahead, and I daresay it'll burn off the current crop of splinter mags as well.

The PDF is available to download.

Tomorrow's World - March issue

After yesterday's look through the latest Beyond Today, what can be said about the March/April issue of it's leading competition, LCG's Tomorrow's World?

On the surface, it looks like a news magazine, which is a different strategy from the slightly New Age mountaintop sunrise on the cover of Beyond Today. If it's news journalism you're expecting, though, you're bound to be disappointed.

Rod Meredith editorialises about "Make Each Day Count!" Carpe diem huh? How so? Rod exhorts us:

"We in this Work of the living God hope and pray that all of you will truly “check up” on us. We sincerely want you to prove what you believe and why. Do not believe what I am telling you just because I am telling it to you. Check it out in your own Bible."

Where have we heard that before? "Check up" means read the carefully curated proof texts all the way up the garden path.

Rod also has a long article called "The Answer." Eight rambling pages salted with the usual pitch for BI.

'Truly, the spoiled and arrogant descendants of the so-called “Lost Ten Tribes” of Israel are today found among the American and British-descended peoples, and the peace-loving nations of northwestern Europe.'  

Germanic folk should ignore that, sorry.

Adam West (probably not the much-loved Batman actor) in an article about "The Year of Shakespeare" seems to be saying that the Bard's works should be cleaned up - literally bowdlerised.

Bowdler’s cleansing of Shakespeare’s work was ridiculed as tampering and censorship; however, the time is coming when God will seek to clean and purify all language, and therefore thought, enabling humanity better to praise Him apart from the “blemishes” of perverted words and concepts, double meanings, and pagan references so common to all languages today.

Yup, bring out those blue pencils. Why should the Taliban have all the fun?

The feature article by John Meakin is on migration into Europe. Meakin paints as dark a picture as he possibly can then concludes, not unexpectedly, that there is an "Unprecedented World Crisis Ahead!" and the only solution is "Thy Kingdom Come!" (Yes, the exclamation marks are his.)

You've got to give Wally Smith credit for his one-page article on Easter. First, he actually limited himself to one page - perhaps he could pass on some tips to Rod. Second, he takes a fresh approach to the well-worn 'Easter is pagan' line.

I believe in the risen Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior of mankind. I believe that after His crucifixion on Passover, He was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth—as He said He would be. I believe He was then resurrected by His Father, restored to the glory He had with His Father before the world was.

He was the perfect Passover Lamb. He also became the perfect wave-sheaf offering, accepted by His Father as the first of the firstfruits. In His resurrection, I see confirmation of the promise made to all those who truly follow Him that they, too, will one day be resurrected, to live forever as He now does.

Consequently, I do not keep Easter.

Had me going for a minute. Bonus points for originality.

Doug Winnail has an article entitled "Five Books that Changed the World." What? Four more than Doug's annotated, leather-bound wide margin KJV? Well, no. It's a bit of a cheat because the reference is to the Pentateuch, the five books ascribed to Moses.

The five books of Moses, also called the Pentateuch—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy—are part of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) and claim to be the inspired words of God (Exodus 3:4–6; 2 Timothy 3:16). In striking contrast to other “holy” books, the Bible—including these five most ancient books—contains unique, internal self-authenticating evidence in the form of nearly two thousand prophecies that confirm its divine inspiration. No other text than the Bible—not the Quran, not the Upanishads, not the Tao Te Ching—can rightly claim to contain such specific prophecies that correctly foretell future events.

Doug wants to prove the inspiration of the Bible by day-dreaming about the non-existent predictive prophecies he thinks are in it? Good luck with that Doug.

There's more, but you know the saying about too much of a good thing...

The PDF is available to download.

Beyond Today - Issue 2

The lads at the United Church of God have just released the second issue of their relaunched flagship magazine Beyond Today.

A major theme is the UCG's position on Passover (vs. Easter); "The Biblical Alternative to Easter" and an untitled follow-on by Jerold Aust. There's a hurry-up article encouraging the waverers to get baptised ("Are You Putting Off Your Salvation?"), and Peter Eddington asks "Was Jesus Really Resurrected?" The quality of Eddington's discourse might be judged by this quote: "Some of the New Testament books were written by eyewitnesses only a couple [of] decades after the purported events. If the whole story was made up, how credible would that have been?"

Defying any speculation about UCG's abandonment of British-Israelism, Darris McNeely has a predictable rant based on American exceptionalism. He asks (rhetorically) "Will America Be Great Again?", with an accompanying plug for the BI booklet. (Any old timers out there remember GTA pontificating on how, after Korea, "America has won its last war!"?)

How's this for a jingoistically myopic introduction?

I have on my desk a copy of Andrew Roberts’ A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900. The 2008 book shows the positive impact of America and Great Britain and others in the world since the turn of the 20th century. From the defeat of communism and Nazi aggression to the invention of vaccines and new crop strains that saved millions of lives, the story is one of the most remarkable in history.

The author states at the book’s conclusion that the English-speaking nations are “the last, best hope for mankind.” He goes on to say that, according to the lessons of history, the time of dominance of these peoples will fade and other powers like China or one yet to appear will rise and exert a “global sway.” Roberts concludes with a note of prophetic inevitability in saying that when the time of the English-speaking peoples fades, “the human race will come to mourn the passing of this most decent, honest, generous, fairminded and self-sacrificing imperium” (pp. 647-648). 

Should go down well with the BI brigade. Later he states:

America and the English-speaking nations have forgotten who made them great. These nations created the greatest expansion of wealth in the history of the world. But how? Because the God of Abraham was faithful in His promise to bless that patriarch’s descendants in the modern age. Yes, America and Britain are the foremost nations among them. Sadly, we don’t know this—as Isaiah said, we “do not consider.” Because we do not know this, we have turned to false religion and moral sin.

A nation like America cannot be replicated in this world. If it could, it would’ve already happened through all the foreign aid, intervention and nation-building. There is only one America. God placed this land and its people here for a divine purpose. It has grown large and great and free because the God of heaven made a promise to a man named Abraham. God has fulfilled that promise in history, and because He has, He will fulfill the spiritual promise of the offer of eternal salvation to all peoples. 

Where are the women?

Sounds to me like BI is alive, well and pulsing through the veins in UCG.

Scooping the unintended irony award is the anonymous writer of "False Predictions: How to Separate Truth from Counterfeits." There's also heavy promotion of the "America the Time is Now" presentations which, from all reports, have been wildly unsuccessful so far.

A closing observation. When the lads at UCG are referred to as "the lads", that's pretty much the literal truth. Women staff members, writers, even copy editors? Nope. Might as well be the 1950s.

The PDF is available to download.