The ministers of the Armstrong Churches of God put a whole lot of energy into trying to convince their members that anyone who criticizes them is trying to pull God's sheep away from God's truth. In other words, "if you accept what they're saying about us, you won't make it into God's Kingdom!" Don't think so? Here are just a few recent examples from two ministers of the Church of God International: Remaining Christian in An Evil World and Beware Lest Any Man Spoil You.
It's an old tried-and-true trick that they've employed in the battle against their critics for many years now (stretching all the way back to the Herbert Armstrong days of the movement). This way, instead of actually acknowledging and answering their critics, all they have to do is threaten their members with the fires of Gehenna! The logic goes something like this: "You've already proven the truth of our doctrines from your Bible, so anything that contradicts those teachings must be wrong (and designed to lead you away from God and his truth)." They've learned too, over the years, that the tactic is pretty damn effective! The corollary, of course, is that "you shouldn't have been listening to/reading that stuff anyway!"
Hence, the poor little lamb under their control not only sees the fires yawning before them - they also feel guilty for even entertaining criticism of God's ministers and church! It's a double whammy! And, as I've already pointed out, the church doesn't even have to address the criticism - no additional research, reasoning, no additional effort of any kind required from "God's servants!"
In this connection, they love to equate themselves with the Apostle Paul and quote extensively from his warnings about false teachers and heretical teachings. Never mind that those passages are actually much more applicable to them and what they're teaching! They also love to quote Christ's Parable of the Seeds and Soils. From their perspective, the critics are obviously represented by any of the things which keep the seed from taking root and producing fruit! "Critics are the servants of the evil one."
For these folks, "growing in grace and knowledge" means immersing themselves in ACOG doctrines - reinforcing and repeating the same things over and over again! It could NEVER mean that they might have more to learn about something, or HEAVEN FORBID - relearn something that they didn't get right the first time around! When I hear these kinds of messages from these folks, I always think about that passage from the book of Revelation: "You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked." (Revelation 3:17)
First, let me say that I agree with Miller’s analysis. I like to write on minority issues, however, and will do this now. Rather than follow the central issue, I prefer to take a midrashic approach to the concerns that orbit the central issue. I will add that I know very little about the denominations mentioned. I am writing in broad terms that would encompass conditions found in many denominations of all sorts.
ReplyDeleteIf someone has beliefs that are all messed up and follows them with dedication that is both bad and good. It is bad because bad beliefs morph into bad actions, but belief is good because it is a harbinger of salvation. During this season of Advent when we are contemplating the Incarnation and the consequent salvation, I would like to address the latter.
I don’t really know what happens to people who believe a falsehood and teach it to others. But, from my perspective, many of the Rupertist-Armstrongist preachers fall into this category – they actually believe what they are teaching. I think the same of HWA. They are really seeking Good but they are unable to understand Good and how to acquire it. The fact that we have an inherent proclivity to seek Good is, in fact, a created human property that permits God to lead us to salvation. Many people who do evil are actually in search of something that in their distorted view is Good. Only God can remove the distortion. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (NRSV)
C.S. Lewis believed that Hell is a prison locked from the inside. He believed that those people who are in Hell choose to be in Hell. (q.v. The Great Divorce) Though I have a high regard for Clive, I respectfully believe that he is wrong on this point. I believe that nobody in a rational state of mind would ever choose Hell. Hence, for those who die without saving knowledge (either no knowledge or distorted knowledge) of God and unshriven will be accommodated by God in some way. Perhaps, through post-mortem rehabilitation and purgation – that is to say, a restoration of rationality. I do not believe that God abandons them to themselves. In the Eschaton all will be well. There is much to say here but that is sufficient for this argument.
So the Eschaton aside, for the present there is a profound pathos in preachers engaging in Orwellian strategies to control their congregants - preachers whose values represent not the Kingdom of God but a grim dystopia. The pathos is even more profound if the preachers are fully cognizant of the wrongness of their propagandizing. If it were not for the grace shown us in the Advent, I could get really morose over this. I don’t think any of us want to be enslaved to Spin Masters. That is why our human response to God should be an echo of the response of Jesus who said the truth will make you free. Truth is a priority.
You note: "The logic goes something like this: "You've already proven the truth of our doctrines from your Bible, so anything that contradicts those teachings must be wrong (and designed to lead you away from God and his truth)." They've learned too, over the years, that the tactic is pretty damn effective! The corollary, of course, is that "you shouldn't have been listening to/reading that stuff anyway!"
ReplyDeleteHow is this observation any different from how the Apostle Paul viewed dissent or disagreement with him on his version of the Gospel?
Galatians 1: 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!
...11 I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
This is exactly the same way or responding to criticism that the Apostle Paul used. As we know, HWA quoted it often in his own defense. Paul himself hides behind, "because I said so, is why" He does not explain what it was about him that was off putting. He did note that "all those in Asia have deserted me"... He does not say why
Galatians 2: 4 This matter arose because some false believers (Jewish Christians under Peter, James and John) had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5 We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
6" As for those who were held in high esteem—( I.e the Jerusalem Apostles, Peter, James and John) whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message."
I don't see how " "You've already proven the truth of our doctrines from your Bible, so anything that contradicts those teachings must be wrong (and designed to lead you away from God and his truth)." ... is any different than how the Apostle Paul also handled those who were his critics or who did not go along with his view of the Gospel, which was far different from that of Peter, James and John evidently and subject to the kind of criticism that got him rejected by many.
As an aside, I also believe it may have been Paul the "Jesus of Revelation" was congratulating the Ephesians for showing him not to be a real Apostle and rejecting him. After all, no one they knew ordained him to any position in the Church and going from Church persecutor to Apostle and skipping any and all steps in between was not difficult to question or having a hard time accepting.
Just an observation. WCG was not good at getting anything in Galatians correct including just who the Apostle Paul was in relations to the Jerusalem Apostles who actually walked and talked with Gospel Jesus, if the story is authentic. As we should know, Paul's Christ was both hallucinatory and the story played out in the heavens. He never met Gospel Jesus and never quoted him ever.
I think that it is very presumptuous of any modern Christian to insert him/herself into Scripture, and it is not logically consistent with their fundamentalist claims about those books (e.g. the notion that the canon is closed and flawless). The chief difference is that Paul has been almost universally accepted by Christians as an author of Scripture and one of the founders of the Christian Church.
DeleteWhile I have a great deal of respect for the scholarship of James Tabor and company, it appears that you have swallowed their narrative about Paul and the Jerusalem apostles hook, line, and sinker! I believe that the suggestion that there was open and irreconcilable conflict between Paul and the Jerusalem apostles is NOT consistent with the evidence available to us. While I think that it is clear that a great deal of friction existed between these men (and the respective Gentile and Jewish factions of the Church which they represented), the writings attributed to them and included in the canon suggest that they were all very careful NOT to excommunicate or disassociate themselves from each other (those are the developments of a later time).
Moreover, the suggestion that Paul's writings don't contain any allusions to the historical Jesus (or his teachings) is also NOT supported by a careful review of them (e.g. his numerous references to the crucifixion, his emphasis on love, and what he had to say to the saints of Corinth about the Eucharist to name a few). Incidentally, that outline of the symbols of the Eucharist for the Corinthians contradicts Paul's own assertion that he didn't receive anything from those who were apostles before him.
If you're interested, I have a few posts on this blog that directly address the issues you raised in your comment in considerably more detail than I have provided here. As you know, I am NOT a Fundamentalist, Apologist, or an Evangelical. Hence, while our perspectives are obviously different, my views are susceptible to the same kinds of evidence and speculations alluded to in your comments.
"This way, instead of actually acknowledging and answering their critics, all they have to do is threaten their members with the fires of Gehenna!"
ReplyDeleteJust so. Hell has been the foundation for church administration in some infernalist denominations. In Rupertism-Armstrongism the brand of hell in use is annihilationism. I believe that when a denomination relies on Hell to control members, there is an inclination to embellish Hell - make it vivid and very easy to fall into. It acquires the nature of a trap - set by God.
And that is the problem. A statement about Hell is really a statement about God. Is God love as he claims? Or is he the Big Trapper? And does the pulpit alone have the key to preventing you from being trapped?
If we were to imagine the Hell that would be implemented by a loving and gracious God, what would it be like? I don't think most of us would imagine a place where people fry in the fire infinitely for a finite collection of sins. Nor do I think that one would imagine an eternal state of non-existence called death. Most of us would think in terms of rehabilitation. A hospital not a torture chamber or oven. But that is the problem. You are not supposed to be able to think of a God that is better than the one you have if that God is the ultimate Good. And most of us would expect our God to be the ultimate. Not a flawed character that would permit us to easily imagine someone better.
So let me stir up some good trouble. Jesus said there would be those who go “into eternal punishment. In Greek this is “eis kolasin aionion” or, transliterated, “into punishment eternal.” The word kolasin refers to kolasis. Kolasis is not a word for destructive punishment but for corrective or rehabilitative punishment. It comes from the idea of pruning a tree to make it more productive. The word aionion comes from aioinios which refers to an eon or age – a finite period of time. In fact, it seldom is used in ancient sources to mean eternity and even then, it is ambiguous. It typically means an Age. So “eis kolasin aionion” can be validly translated as something like “into a lengthy but finite period of rehabilitative correction.” But the King James translators, no doubt influenced by the church’s Augustinianism, brought political considerations to their work and we have the traditional infernalist translation of these words in our Bibles. I do not want to soft-pedal Hell. Jesus made it clear that you really want to avoid it. But this should be enough to cast reasonable doubt on the infernalist doctrine because of the Augustinian suppositions and the machinations of translators.
But the pulpit that wants to influence public policy and politics would not want Hell to be a finite period of rehabilitative punishment. An in-law of mine was told from the pulpit in a large church in the South that if she voted Democratic, she would go to Hell. She got up, marched out the front doors and joined another denomination. That right-wing evangelical pulpit would not want a rehabilitative Hell. They would want a Hell that is as grisly a possible because that is their leverage in influencing the vote. So, there is political momentum, whether national or congregational, behind the Augustinian Hell and always has been.