And now a message from Yahweh

Dateline Rio: Oh strike! Jesus gets zapped from on high. Here's a link to the Daily Mail.

And while we're dealing with the topic of wrath, why not take a Meredithesque moment to reflect on the godly benefits of spanking. Here in New Zealand the practice was recently made illegal, but the conservative "Christian" types have been whining and moaning, gibbering and wailing ever since about their "right" to "discipline" their kids. It's doubtful even this story in USA Today would convince them otherwise.

On a different tangent, Felix Taylor reveals the existence of a brand of ex-WCG member I'd despaired of ever finding: a liberal Catholic. Conservative Catholic converts aren't uncommon, as witnessed by Jared Olar's occasional informative comments, but Janice is somethin' else, and a breath of fresh incense! Check out Felix's blog.

Ekklesia

One of the earliest and best information sites on WCG has been updated. Bill Ferguson's Ekklesia was hugely influential at the time of "the changes", and Bill advises: "I've cleaned up all the broken links (at least the ones I've found so far) and will be reconfiguring the site to be the new home of the ekklesia mailing list."

In the mid-90s Ekklesia was one of the first WCG-related websites I discovered as I got up to speed with Internet technology. Others around at that time were Mark Tabladillo's site, the Painful Truth, and Dee-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's Exit and Support monstrosity. The original Ambassador Watch and Missing Dimension sites (now defunct) owed an awful lot to Bill's inspiration.

Bill is one of the good guys, and there's a lot of value on offer at Ekklesia. Definitely worth bookmarking!

In the News

Thanks to those who've emailed through these links.

Uncertainty over Ambassador Campus (Pasadena Star News) - Nuthin' is ever simple!

Basil Wolverton mentioned (NYT Book Review) - The Michelangelo of the Radio Church of God.

Then there's a Daily Kos opinion piece that begins:

The first great prophet of the 20th century was Herbert W. Armstrong, a former advertising copywriter who dispensed his dispensationalism by way of a radio program called World of Tomorrow [sic], a monthly newsletter [sic] entitled Plain Truth, and the occasional booklet, and whose second career as a harbinger of doom spanned more than fifty years. Like most advertising copywriters of that period, Armstrong had nothing but contempt for the written form of the English language. In his popular 1956 pamphlet entitled 1975 in Prophecy!, Armstrong's jihad against subdued English communication begins on the title page and continues without pause; let the reader be warned that this is only the first of many inappropriate exclamation points used therein. More to the point, Armstrong here pioneers the art of modern eschatology and serves as a shining example for those would come later, largely by being wrong.

Sesquicentennial

150 years ago, in the wake of the Great Disappointment, Gilbert Cranmer began what was to become the Church of God (Seventh Day). A group of Adventist Christians, estranged from the charismatic figure of Ellen White (prophetess of Seventh-day Adventism), set out on a resolutely independent path; one that leads - over much stony ground - to every single one of the Churches of God in the Armstrong tradition.

It's worth remembering that the Church of God (Seventh Day) is still out there, and still publishing the Bible Advocate, the periodical that once featured Herbert Armstrong's by-line on the front cover. Looking at the sad record of subsequent schisms, COG7 clearly had something the Armstrong clones didn't: staying power.

Remember the Twentieth Century Church of God, the Biblical Church of God, the Associated Churches of God? How about the Global Church of God or the Church of God - a Christian Fellowship? Our history is littered with failed splinter groups, almost always centered around one man, with soon-to-be-dashed delusions of adequacy. In that, at least, they were true to Herbert Armstrong.

When today's crop of sects are footnotes in history, will COG7 endure? I'd like to think so. Part of the reason lies simply in the collaborative way things are run. No overbearing hierarchy, no defensive hyper-congregationalism, just a practical General Conference system that keeps people together while providing for diversity. The people Armstrong dismissively referred to as the "Sardis Era" have outlasted the upstart ad-man and most of his imitators.

May the next 150 years also be kind to them.

Journal & BAR online

The latest issue of The Journal has hit the presses, and a free download of front and back covers is available.

In a first for The Journal there's a feature on the COG fascination with the Two Witnesses by former WCG pastor Dennis Diehl - a name more than slightly familiar to AW readers ;-)

A report on the Big Sandy schism is extremely brief, but with the promise of more to come in the next issue. The suggestion is that John Warren's expulsion centered on COG-BS's sponsorship of the East Texas Women's Conference. Forget doctrine and scandal, this seems to be all about parish pump prima donnas. The 17 page (!) Connections advertising section features the usual bunch of wackos along with an occasional sane person. COGgism? Gotta love it!

Once you've cruised The Journal, you might like to cast an eye over the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, which has provided free online access to all major content in its March-April Issue.

Everything is Okey Dokey in Edmond

You might imagine that the editors at The Oklahoman might be able to distinguish between real journalism - concerns around a highly controlling local sect for example - and patsy PR pieces.

Apparently not.

Ummmmmm

I think it's in everyone's best interests I turn off the comments option on this one...

Jordan Maxwell asks an interesting question. Scroll down to question 10 on the link.

Yes, well, ummmmmm....

Maybe church spires weren't so bad after all...

BS Lemming Drive

Big Sandy is without doubt entitled to be regarded as the Lake Wobegon of COGism. The recently departed splinter group there (see earlier item) are apparently calling themselves Texas Fellowship (not to be confused with this Texas Fellowship.) Attracted as moths to the flame have been a number of big to middlin' speakers from days of yore: Wayne Cole, David Antion, Jim Ussery.

No Board will be elected to reign over these independently-minded Texans. Anyone want to give them more than 12 months before the first big stampede?

Men In Black

Bob Thiel, bless him, reveals exciting new details about the Two Witnesses.

"Did you know that the Bible teaches that the two witnesses will wear at least some black?"

Gasp! No Bob, I'd always read straight past that. And no wonder! Here's the Thielien logic:

Rev.11:13 says the Twosome will eschew suits for sackcloth - quite a fashion statement in 2008.

Next Bob flips over it Isaiah 50:3 where the blackness of heaven is compared to - wait for it - sackcloth!

The clincher for Bob comes in Rev.6:12 where the sun becomes black as... well, you'll be way ahead of me.

Exegesis of this quality is remarkable enough, but Bob is not a man to rest when there's yet more light and truth to break forth. Stirred into this potent brew is a quotation from someone named Ellen G. Wh... no, hang on, correction... Anne Catherine Emmerich, a 19th century Augustinian nun, stigmatic, mystic, visionary and ecstatic, who speaks of "the little black man in Rome" and "the new black church."

Being less perspicacious about such things than Bob, I have no idea how he connects Emmerich's racist fantasies with his own fantastic COG scenarios, but alas, this is surely just density and blindness on my part.

But I do have a suggestion of my own about the identity to the Men In Black. Indeed, it's possible to go one better than Bob's helpful visual aid (reproduced above.) Bear in mind that Bob's previous post flailed against Martin Luther for using dynamic equivalence when translating the Bible. Now, remember how Satan mimics truth, then note the cover of the latest Australian Lutheran showing a religious professional garbed in black and astride a beast. Coincidence? I think not. Yes brethren, the Two Witnesses will be bikers in leathers!

And not even Ronnie Weinland knows that.

How to Read the Bible

Every so often along comes a book that resets the agenda and signals a weather change in the way people view their world. James Kugel's How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now may be just such a book.

Kugel is an effective writer, and his book is mercifully approachable by the non-specialist. But more than this, he is an intelligent and informed writer, not out to score cheap apologetic points. Kugel writes out of his own struggle with the Bible, as both an Orthodox Jew and a scholar. This is a book that will both challenge and appeal to people of faith and those who have moved away from biblical faith... and those in between.

How to Read the Bible begins with a potted history of the way people down through history have viewed the scriptures - with particular focus on the Old Testament. On the cusp of change we meet a remarkable American Presbyterian called Charles Briggs, convicted of heresy a hundred years ago.

From there Kugel begins a kind of survey of the Hebrew Bible viewed with the twin lenses of received wisdom and dogma on one hand (the "ancient interpreters"), and the fruit of modern biblical scholarship on the other. From the first section on the Creation, Adam and Eve, it's clear this is a journey of discovery even for those old hands who thought they already knew it all. Expect to find a few overturned apple-carts along the way.

For anyone fascinated or conflicted by the Bible (the two reactions aren't mutually exclusive!) this is a brilliant and utterly riveting read.