The piece was salted with clips from Called to be Free, the PR DVD that advertises the church's "transformation". Herb shook his jowls on screen once again, and the smug mug of Mike Feazell briefly graced prime-time screens across Australia.
There are those who say "get over it!" In my experience, those who say that are the ones who haven't followed their own advice, or they wouldn't be, in effect, protecting the church, or failing to share their experience so others could avoid the pitfalls. My only criticism of the ACA item was that it was so short, and didn't provide much if any depth. But if the publicity means more people read Mitchell's book ("based on a true story") then it won't have been in vain.
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The Last Great Day
Ben Mitchell is appealing and certainly is the very person to be able to carry this message forward.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Armstrongism is that it is insidious: People don't realize what damage it does internally to those who adopt it. Lives and minds are changed permanently. Distorted perceptions mapped on minds result in damaged thinking, in some cases resulting in life long PTSD.
The WCG and its cronies created a venue of virtual terrorism, replete with devastating debilitating dystopian future scenarios more horrifying than could be sustained by a mere "R" rating, if it were a movie. Ghastly tales of Laodocean Christians hanging from meat hooks through their guts being told as if future fact to audiences with little children in them playing on their blanket on the floor has had an invisible impact. So many have grown up with nightmares of themselves living into the Great Tribulation with horrors of hell reenacted in their dreams.
This is awful stuff and it's good Ben Mitchell is telling it, but the exposure is always too brief.
The most insulting thing is that this entire "Empire" was built as a tribute to Herbert Armstrong's ego and lust: It was and always will be totally unnecessary in the scheme of things. It was built for a rotund little man as big around as he was tall, wanting to be praised by world leaders at photo ops, upon whom he squandered the blood money of self sacrificing cult members who could ill afford to sacrifice their lives and their children to the ugly Baal of Herbert Armstrong. Even today, in most of the Armstrongist churches, they have an idol of him in their headquarters / home office with a picture of his image as an homage to their evil wicked God as God is God.
Those who do not learn from the lessons of history will be doomed to continue to be enslaved to British Israelism and the fraud fabricated history of an ersatz church.
There are those who say "get over it!" In my experience, those who say that are the ones who haven't followed their own advice, or they wouldn't be, in effect, protecting the church, or failing to share their experience so others could avoid the pitfalls.
ReplyDeleteWell said!
The problem with Armstrongism is that it is insidious: People don't realize what damage it does internally to those who adopt it. Lives and minds are changed permanently. Distorted perceptions mapped on minds result in damaged thinking, in some cases resulting in life long PTSD.
Another well said! And, for once, I'm speechless...