If You're Interested in Christ or the Gospel, CGI Is NOT for You!

The latest offerings from the Church of God International may be of interest to ultra-conservative Americans, but folks who are interested in hearing about Jesus and his message will be very disappointed! I can hear it now: "There goes Lonnie and his sour grapes again!" "Hasn't he got anything better to do?" "Why must he persist in ATTACKING Bill Watson and Adrian Davis?" "Those guys are living rent-free in his head!" "Why is he ATTACKING his family's religion?" "He is an accuser of the brethren!" "Satan is using him to ATTACK God's Church!" The responses are so predictable, because this is the way that Armstrongites have ALWAYS reacted to criticism. Since the days of Herbie, they can run traditional Christians and their beliefs into the ground; but you let anyone criticize what they're doing, and the howls of "persecution" are deafening!

In the latest edition of The International News, there aren't ANY articles wholly devoted to Jesus, his message, or salvation through him. Instead, we find there the following articles: Were the Ten Commandments in Force Before Moses? by Mike James, What Is Mankind's Option for Survival? by Bill Watson, Kung Fu Fighting by Jeff Flanick, A Brief Review of "Thin Again" by Michelle Algarra, What is an Abortion? by W. Adam Boyd, Enroute to the Kingdom by George Roper (at least George mentions Jesus and his teachings), Questions and Answers by Vance Stinson (What about imprecatory prayers? and Is cremation an acceptable option?), Male and Female He Created Them by Mike James, Feast of Tabernacles 2022 in Poughkeepsie, New York, an obituary for Kenneth Bounds, Why Baptize? by Robert Onsando, and Four Baptized in Sheridan, Wyoming.

In his article, Bill Watson wrote: "Consider for a moment the fact that the United States has just appointed a female Supreme Court Justice that cannot define what a women is!" <I think he meant "woman"> "How is that kind of nonsense acceptable? It is also now confirmed that the disgusting information coming out from Hunter Biden’s laptop and the revelation of his business and salacious shenanigans are legitimate and unlike originally portrayed as 'conspiracy,' is now shocking most of us that this is real! Why hasn’t he been arrested and indicted?" He continued: "Compound that with Ghislaine Maxwell’s disclosure of names and mountains of video evidence revealing 'highly influential' men and women participating in and guilty of statutory rape—and shockingly, not one of these powerful and famous political or business leaders, movie stars, or educators have been arrested, indicted, and convicted! How does this happen? Where is the outrage? Who is protecting these people? And what is really behind the 'curtain' that these leaders and elitists don’t want us, the people, to know about them? What evil has been perpetrated? It’s obvious: if the truth were to come out, as it has about Mr. Hunter Biden, Anthony Weiner, Bernie Madoff, and so many others, this would be extremely embarrassing and ruin their images and positions of influence, as was done to some of the above mentioned men—and now, most recently, Prince Andrew. Frankly, it should lead to the conviction and incarceration of ALL those participants!" Of course, there isn't any mention of Donald Trump or his possible crimes!

Not convinced that Mr. Watson's article is too focused on the current political culture in the United States? Bill continued: "Presently, the United States is agonizing and languishing from misappropriated policies that are igniting inflation, interest rates, energy co-dependence, and the dilution of American culture due to immigration policies that are weak in managing restriction and restraint!" Still not convinced? Watson noted: "Never in our lifetime have we seen such negligence of law enforcement. The conditions surrounding the borders of the United States are now being characterized as an INVASION! The smuggling of fentanyl, meth, and other drugs is out of control. And much of this is due to the Cartel dominating the human trafficking, drug, and weapons smuggling industry! In the meantime, government policies are weaponizing specific segments of the government, to reduce the rule of law—and the increasing crime rate substantiates this fact—“blood touches blood”—random violence is now common in many of the western cities of the USA, Britain, and Europe, due to the lack of law enforcement!" To be fair, he does go on to say that Christ is going to return someday and establish God's Kingdom on this earth.

But Pastor Watson's article for The International News was NOTHING compared to the sermon he delivered this past Sabbath at Medina! He insisted that the United States has an ethnicity problem, not a racism problem. He suggested that someone might have a problem if they married a "black lady, brown lady, or an Asian lady." He went on to complain about our modern usage of the word "gay." Apparently, Bill yearns for the good ole days when that word meant "happy." From there he launched into another diatribe about the "CCP" Virus (for those of you who may not be familiar with this terminology in referring to Covid-19, it stands for the Chinese Communist Party Virus). Bill insisted that the Chinese "seeded" the world with the virus. He noted that all of this used to be regarded as a conspiracy theory, but that now we know it's a "fact." He went on to say that Doctors Birx and Fauci have changed their minds again and are now saying that natural immunity is just as good as being vaccinated. Before finishing, he also mentioned the "87,000" new IRS agents, the Chinese threat to Taiwan, and the outrageously high gas prices (although they've recently dropped, I share his discomfort with those gas prices). He did, however, return to a semi-religious theme to conclude his message - He encouraged everyone to attend the Feast of Tabernacles to experience a foretaste of God's Kingdom!

Even so, Bill's sermon was mild compared to Pastor Adrian Davis' sermon just last month! The HOUR AND A HALF long sermon was a diatribe against the Biden Administration. He called his sermon "Build Bad Better" - you know, a not-so-subtle dig at Biden's "Build Back Better" slogan. Once again, one has to wonder why a Canadian pastor is so obsessed with the political culture in the United States! Then, like Bill, he returned to one of his favorite targets - the government's efforts to curtail the spread of the Covid-19 Virus. He said that government restrictions on large assemblies had directly contradicted the command in Scripture to assemble for worship on a regular basis! He even went on to suggest that a SWAT team would have descended on anyone who had tried to hold church services during that period! If that wasn't bad enough, he went on to talk in very graphic terms about the Monkey Pox virus. One has to hope that there weren't any children in his audience as he launched into a talk about how most of the current outbreak could be attributed to "men sharing their genitals with other men!" When he finally got back around to "Build Back Better," Davis claimed that "you will own nothing, but you will be happy!" And, just in case that wasn't explicit enough, he went on to say that it was really a return to communism and feudalism! Talk about over the top and inflammatory rhetoric! He went on to declare that "the American system of honoring the individual is dead!" Ironically, at times, it seemed like Pastor Davis was quoting Yuval Harari more than he was the Bible! At one point, he even challenged anyone to offer just one decision that the Biden Administration has made that makes America better. According to Pastor Davis, every decision that the current President of the United States has made has been calculated by him to DESTROY the nation he leads!

Whether or not you agree with these POLITICAL opinions is immaterial to the point this post is making - It is CLEARLY NOT the job of ANY minister of Jesus Christ to be offering such opinions from the pulpit! Most of us attend Church for spiritual enrichment, nourishment and fellowship. If we want to listen to MAGA talking points, we can turn on our television sets and go to the FOX News channel or any one of a number of other conservative media outlets! A Christian Church should be preaching about the life, teachings, death, resurrection and messaging of Jesus of Nazareth - period! You can't even call this stuff prophecy - it's just PURE politics!

And, just to cut my critics off at the pass, I have raised these concerns privately with Bill Watson, Vance Stinson, Mike James, Jeff Reed, Wynn Skelton and others within the Church of God International's leadership team. You can clearly see from my latest report just how effective those contacts were! To be fair, CGI's leadership did make a feeble attempt to rein in Bill's and Adrian's messaging about Covid-19, but (once again) you can see just how much good that did! Also, please note, that I have used their own words - written and spoken - to criticize their messaging. I have NOT attacked personalities. My criticisms are focused on the messaging of these men.

In conclusion, for those Armstrongites who may be looking for a more reasonable, less political, and more spiritually focused organization with which to fellowship, the Church of God International is NOT that church! Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry and Bob Thiel got NOTHING on these folks!