Hey John.....

This coming spring semester I'm teaching a course on "Theology of the Cults."

1996 was the last time I taught such a course....so...since you are the resident expert....let me throw a couple of questions out to you.

First, what is the current status of things with the "Worldwide Church of God?" I understand a few years back a number of them "repented" and joined mainline evangelical Christianity. Was Garner Ted one of them or is he still holding out?? Is the church still a "force" as far as religious cultism?

Second, is Martin's book, "Kingdom of the Cults" still in print?? Any other recommended reading??

Third.....web sites?? Do you have one?? Know of any good ones on "religious cultism" that I can refer my students to?

Thanks for your help.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2000

Answers

John....

In light of the above revelation....it appears to me then....a discussion of "Armstrongism" in a college level cults class would be unnecessary.

What do you think??

-- Anonymous, November 05, 2000

Garner Ted went off and founded his own branch, after a disagreement with his father. And there are about 150 split-offs that refused to accept the repentance of the leaders of the cult. But the official body now accepts orthodox beliefs and has rejected all of its previous false doctrines (British-Israelism, Jewish feasts and dietary laws, Sabbath keeping, etc.) and one of them is a friend of mine :)

Kingdom of the Cults is still in print I think, but it is horribly out-dated. I will get back to you on current books/websites as I am not at home as I write this.

-- Anonymous, November 05, 2000

Danny,

I came across some websites a year or so ago that dealt with some of the changes (and non-changes) within Armstrongism - I'll try to track them down again for you.

A discussion of Armstrong might still be a profittable endevour as kind of a post-mortum of a Cult.....showing that all is not lost when it comes to dealing with them.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2000

I agree, especially since there are still a whole lot of Armstrongian offshoots out there. And a discussion of British-Israelism would also be beneficial, as Mark Hillyard amply proved in this forum, as both the WWCOG splitoffs and the racist Christian Identity movement hold to this theory.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 2000

www.saintsalive.com is a good place to find tracts, info and links on Mormonism, Masons, and other cults ....

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2001

One of the elders of a church I used to go to had grown up in the WWCOG denomination. He said he was in there several years back ministering as a pastor when the denomination repented. he said it was like a light clicked on for him as he began to finally see answers to things. I think he'd been questioning things for years. He eats pork now, doesn't keep the feasts, and seems to be completely out of that type of mindset.

I can probably dig up his email address if you are interested.

Instead of focusing on Armstrong, maybe you could consider dealing with the false teachings of Arnold Murray (not the late Andrew Murray, of course.) Murray has a sattelite TV program, which also plays on the web. He is the 'pastor' of Shepherd's Chapel.

Murray reads verse by verse through the Bible, condescendingly refers to those who disagree with his misinterpretations as 'Biblically illiterate' and teaches all kind of awful stuff. He plays with Greek and Herbew and using the bare bits of definitions from the Strongs concordance to create arguments for his bizaar doctrines.

he believes that the serpent had sex with Eve, and that Cain was Satan's physical offspring. Since the word 'Kenite' means Cainite, he's coem up with an elaborate theory that the Kenites are physical descendants of Satan.

The Kenites are a group with some ties to Moses who lived somewhere around Midian maybe, and a group of them settled in Judah. God commended some Kenites for their faithfulness to their ancestors commandment not to farm.

Murray turns it all around. He says they are descendants of Cain and Satan. He says that, since the Bible shows that some Kenites were scribes, that Kenites became scribes. So he argues that the scribes and Pharisees who were of their father the Devil were descendants of Satan, physically, through Cain.

Some of the Kenites were scribes, he argues, and scribes did things like keep books and handle money. The Jacobites wouldn't farm, so he says you'd never see the Kenites farming. It sounds like subtle Neo- Nazi rhetoric. The only thing missing is to identify all Jews as supposed Kenites and to come right out and say they are inthe banking idustry. This guys stuff is shocking and it's trash. But the amazsing thing is that people are gubbible enough to follow his 6th grade arguments. You can take a concordance and a Bible and see the flows in his arguments.

His arguments from Greek and Herbew seem to fit with the Strong's dictionary (or glossary), but disagree with better dictionaries.

Anyway, an overall summary of Anglo Israelitism with a special focus on this guy might do the trick. How about Gene Scott? I don't know much about him, but I hear that he teaches something about British Israelitism as well.

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2001

Hi, Try www.carm.org for some great resources.

IHS, Barry www.coonrapidschristian.org

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001