The latest issue of The Journal: News of the Churches of God has been released, and can be downloaded without charge, courtesy of editor Dixon Cartwright, in PDF format.And in the news:
Bob “Continuing” Thiel has released a new hymnal for his micro-sect. Only one guess allowed for what he’s called it. Hint: the first word is Bible and the second is Hymnal.
Don Billingsley is convinced he’s the only one “who continues to uphold all the doctrinal teachings, including the true government of God, that Jesus Christ used Mr. Armstrong to restore within His church.”
Art Mokarow has bought three pages to inform us all about God’s Wife. Astarte I hear you ask? Nope. The church? Apparently not. “The Wife of God [capitalisation in the original], as Scripture proves, is the Holy Spirit of God.” Wow, what amazing new truth - thanks Art, you da man.
Somewhere in something called the “Illinois Republic” (zip code exempt) there’s another something boasting the rather grand title Church of God, The Most High God. Your generous donation is unfortunately not tax deductible.
If you’re ancient enough to remember 1974, Ken Westby reminisces about the “rebellion” among ministers in that year, in which he played a significant role.
In the letters section Robert Engelhart of Zion, Ill. wonders why COG folk wouldn’t be stocking up for “cyclical solar flares, comet-mass ejections, electromagnetic storms this summer, fall and spring?” (Frankly Robert, I’m more worried at the distant prospect in San Francisco of Oracle clawing back the America’s Cup from the Team New Zealand challenger. A comet-mass ejection barely competes with that prospect.)
Adding to the mix is a re-edit of the multi-part review of David Barrett’s Fragmentation of a Sect that originally appeared right here on Otagosh.
And that’s only a selection.
One thing is certain. If you want to understand something of the diversity that characterises the post-Armstrong tribes calling themselves the Churches of God, and you have a robust sense of humour, you can’t much improve on The Journal as a window on this rapidly evolving (or perhaps devolving) movement.
Seems like they should be more concerned about Adam's first wife, "Lilith". Astarte, Asherah, Esther, Easter is old news...in Jeremiah she is just called "the queen of heaven", so everybody knows about her.
ReplyDeleteLilith is more important, since she wasn't sentenced to the same suffering as Eve and Lilith didn't put up with Adam's BS domination and got out before God had a chance to punish her.
lilith
ReplyDelete"Interestingly, Barrett finds not a lot
ReplyDeleteof difference with more-mainstream
“evangelical” services and compares
the tone of a COG sermon with some-
thing you might hear at “any Christian tent crusade"
Yup, all tared with the same brush.
LOGIC:
- The world's most successful religion was invented by the world's smartest people (the Jews)-
Most economical explanation: It was created by Man (Occam's Razor)
Corky, as usual, your comment makes no sense at all.
ReplyDeleteWas this your comment? Or, do you know something about Lilith that I don't know?
DeleteJournal now free?
ReplyDelete- thanks to heavy advertising by multiplying splinter and fragment leaders?
Including those Wacko full page Ads.
More Flakes than a Kellogg's factory.
Desperate competition for the 25,000 or so vestigial high quality core conservative tithers who now, more than ever, switch between the spontaneously generating, slightly mutated iterations.
Dozens of "Intellectuals" like Mokarow, Westby, Dankenbring, Hulme ... often achieve a higher 'electron orbit' but remain forever bound to the powerful atomic attraction of the nuclear beliefs.
Comet Mass Ejection? Are you serious? What is that, do pray tell?!
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is, maybe, a mistaken notion of Coronal Mass Ejection (CME).
But I guess no one at The Journal, including Dixon Cartwrite would understand that, because it's science.
Doug, it prolly depends which scientists you choose to listen to, LOL.
DeleteYes, they need to have graduated from Ambassador College.
DeleteNot a trustworthy source of degrees for scientists (the real test is if they can get prestigious jobs with high pay with their unaccredited degree from an academic institution which no longer exists).
An Ambassador College bachelors degree in science - now THERE'S an oxymoron.
Delete