the painful truth about the worldwide church of god

Personal Email From Drew Corrigan to William Ferguson

 

November 1994

Hi Bill,

> Back in 1985 an evangelist made US$80,000.  I doubt Global has enough to pay that yet.


Maybe that's why they keep begging (so I am told by some friends who are on Co-Worker list but no members) for more money. There's ministers who'd like to go over but Global can't afford them.

> Global is trying to get him kicked out of the Worldwide Church of God, and probably will succeed. That tells you how many sympathizers there are in the Worldwide Church of God ministry.
 I am not familiar with Brian Orchard, is he in Australia?

The last I knew he was in Pasadena. When he came out in July he was "advising" disenchanted people to move to Global. He was originally from Oz - very right wing - got moved to USA and is still there. His wife Gillian is sister to David Hume's wife. Both are daughters of Colin Sutcliffe who (the last I heard) is PCG's "Regional Director" for Oz/NZ.

I think Global would simply love to have another minister down here but the economics don't work out. All up they have about 200 people. 50+% of their income goes to support Bruce Tyler (my ex-pastor who left for Global) and the rest goes to their magazine or back to the USA.

> Global has been sending out Earl Williams tapes in an effort to prove how bad off the Worldwide Church of God has become.  They have been mailing out Earl Williams series of sermons on the "How, What and Why of Christianity".

It is funny how Global likes to portray itself as "squeaky clean" and not stooping to mud-slinging like PCG etc., but it is also engaged in its own little political campaign. Terribly childish and not Christ-like IMO.

> People are finding grace liberating!

Yes, it is, once you start to understand it. Took us some time. I still have relapses back into "I'll never be good enough for God" thinking. We heard that for 5-years running, non-stop, form Bruce Tyler prior to leaving. A while back I went through some old sermon notes before tossing them out. "God's Government" could be found as a theme or point in nearly 50% of them. Some pastors were worse than others.

> he expects to be fired this week)

Why is he going to be fired? I do not understand. Surely he is simply teaching what Pasadena is teaching ... grace etc. ... though maybe a step or two ahead. (I'm out of touch with what is current Worldwide Church of God thinking as I said earlier.) Is he just a scape-goat to please the conservatives? If so, there must be a pretty big power struggle going on.

> He foresees a culture war in the USA and he wants to do everything he can to stop that from happening. I think he is right about the culture war, personalities like Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchannan are making people more militant towards those of other races, creeds, beliefs.

Wow - a culture war! Without trying to be offensive to you, I simply do not understand the USA way of viewing things. Although we have problems here and a bit of racial bigotry, by and large, Australia is a well integrated multi-cultural society and I think most people value the diversity. We are even finally addressing the mistreatment of our Aborigines. People like Rush L. (from what others have told me about him) disturb me ... I am grateful we don't have anyone like that here.

Oz is a pretty liberal society in most areas. We do have a few vocal religious politicians - who, on some issues have good points to make, but on others, seem to be one-eyed - but the general non-religious nature of most Australians acts as something of a damper to their vocalness.

> I think this is probably garbage.  I used to work with the salary files in data processing and if this were true everyone would know it.  Plus it would have to be reported in the annual financial statement for the directors of the corporation.

Thanks for the info squashing this rumor.

Take care. Oh, and BTW, if you could re-send me Chapter 5 of Brimsmead in text it would be appreciated. Thanks,

Drew.

This note is courtesy Drew Corrigan's backup tapes at Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.


If you have anything you would like to
submit to this site, or any comments,
email me at:
CLICK HERE FOR EMAIL ADDRESS.
send me email

Back to "Painful Truth" menu


 

Copyright
The content of this site, including but not limited to the text and images herein and their arrangement, are copyright © 1997-2000 by The Painful Truth. All rights reserved.

Do not duplicate, copy or redistribute in any form without prior written consent.

Disclaimer