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Click Here for the COGwriter Home Page which has articles on various sabbatarian Churches of God (COGs) and articles supporting beliefs of the Philadelphia portion of the Church of God.
02/22/06 a.m. CEM's Ron Dart wrote:
It is more than odd that anti-Semitism has been such a strong force in history. The Jews have been accused of unspeakable crimes of which they are no more guilty that the run of humanity, perhaps less. And yet there is no comparable anti-Islamicism in spite of the crimes done in the name of Islam. It calls to mind the prophecy, "They hated me without a cause," and Jesus' statement that they hated him because they hated God. It may be that the real roots of anti-Semitism lie in the hatred of God.
And he is correct.
Samuele Bacchiocchi noted that the change to Easter-Sunday and to a weekly Sunday was due to antisemetic persecution (the new Gentile hierarchy he is referring to below are Greek bishops in Jerusalem, which took over after the rebellion was crushed):
The actual introduction of Easter-Sunday appears to have occurred earlier in Palestine after Emperor Hadrian ruthlessly crushed the Barkokeba revolt (A.D. 132-135)...
The fact that the Passover controversy arose when Emperor Hadrian adopted new repressive measures against Jewish religious practices suggests that such measures influenced the new Gentile hierarchy to change the date of Passover from Nisan 14 to the following Sunday (Easter-Sunday) in order to show separation and differentiation from the Jews and the Jewish Christians...
A whole body of Against the Jews literature was produced by leading Fathers who defamed the Jews as a people and emptied their religious beliefs and practices of any historical value. Two major causalities of the anti-Jewish campaign were Sabbath and Passover. The Sabbath was changed to Sunday and Passover was transferred to Easter-Sunday.
Scholars usually recognize the anti-Judaic motivation for the repudiation of the Jewish reckoning of Passover and adoption of Easter-Sunday instead. Joachim Jeremias attributes such a development to "the inclination to break away from Judaism." In a similar vein, J.B. Lightfoot explains that Rome and Alexandria adopted Easter-Sunday to avoid "even the semblance of Judaism" (Bacchiocchi S. God's Festival in Scripture and History. Biblical Perspectives. Befriend Springs (MI), 1995, pp. 101,102,103).
Antisemetism is, sadly, on the rise again.
Speaking of things on the rise, the Vatican announced:
Feb. 20 (CWNews.com) - The world's Catholic population-- just over 1 billion-- increased by 1.1% in the latest year for which full statistics are available.
The 2006 edition of the Annuario Pontificio, the official Vatican yearbook, shows 1,098,000,000 Catholics in the world. The volume shows figures compiled by the Church's central statistical bureau, headed by Mgr. Vittorio Formenti. The new edition, formally presented to Pope Benedict XVI on February 18, shows statistics through the end of the year 2004.
The complete story is available at http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=42515
02/21/06 a.m. In an ad in the Connections' section in the Jan 2006 edition of The Journal, SCG writes:
What did Mr. Armstrong really stress to us in the Church dur- ing those last few years of his life?...
What is this deeper understanding we received? It was this; those who are called in the Church age were called to qualify for a position in the Kingdom of God. He said the Church is God’s college for teachers, for our training to be kings and priests, preparing us to teach and rule with Jesus Christ in the Kingdom of God. He also taught that we are supposed to be in training to become a team, learning teamwork
and applying God’s law in our everyday lives and submitting to His government...Prior to the 1980’s, it was believed the only reason for our calling was to get behind God’s
apostle and support the Work of God of preach- ing the gospel with our tithes and offerings along
with our prayers. This concept is still held today by some minis- ters and members, not having fully understood what Mr. Armstrong was trying to get across to us. That’s why he said many times: “Brethren, I don’t think you get it!” He included the min- istry in his statements.
Okay, SCG is saying that when HWA taught restored truths, he did not feel that the gospel preaching work was important?
Sadly, it is SCG who does not seem to get it.
HWA, on December 17, 1983 listed the restored truths and what the mission of the Philadelphia portion of the Church of God was:
Greetings, everybody! This afternoon I want to speak on the mission of the Philadelphia Era of the Church, this Church today in comparison to the first era of the Church, the Ephesus Era of the Church. It's been seeming more and more to me, as the years go by, that the Bible was written primarily for the Philadelphia Era of the Church...Today's mission of the Church you will find in Matthew 24:14. And this gospel of the kingdom…that is the same gospel that Jesus preached…shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
Notice that HWA said today's mission was still to proclaim the gospel work. This is not a pre-1980s mission. The truths and many quotes from that sermon are in the article Did You Know What the First Changes the Tkach Administration Made?
Two related articles of interest may be Should the Church Still Try to Place its Top Priority on Proclaiming the Gospel or Did Herbert Armstrong Change that Priority for the Work? or It's Not Stedfast.
ACD also has an ad that states:
Members of the Worldwide Church of God founded by Herbert Armstrong were unfortunately offered a
very misleading teaching about who God is.
ACD denies the pre-existence of Christ--they are in error. Historical and biblical information on who God is can be found in the article Binitarian View.
02/20/06 a.m. The Jan 2006 edition of The Journal is finally out. Its front page article contains the following about PCG:
The founder and leader of the Philadelphia Church of God, one of the larger of many splits from the Worldwide Church of God of the last decades of the 20th century, emphasized during a Sabbath service
in Edmond, Okla., Dec. 3 that members of his church must shun “disfellowshipped” and “Laodicean” church members.In an hour-long sermon before the headquarters congregation of the PCG, Pastor General Gerald Flurry,
70, expanded church policy to prohibit any kind of fellowship with former PCG members and all “Laodiceans,” even if they are members of a church member’s immediate family.PCG members may no longer associate with their own children, parents or siblings if their children, parents or siblings are disfellowshipped PCG members or members of the WCG or any of
its splinter groups other than the PCG...Mr. Flurry, in some of their writings and speeches, characterize Laodiceans as not much different
from and no better than nonbelievers. Indeed, Mr. Flurry, along with several other modern-day Church of God leaders, seems to see Laodiceans as worse than abject heathens. PCG members are permitted to have friendly contact with supposed heathens—those who have never been Sabbath-keeping Christians, including members of Sunday- observant churches—but not with their fellow Church of God members
whom the PCG judges to be Laodiceans...“As long as they [unbaptized or invalidly baptized former church attendees] were unconverted, we can have a relationship there,” Mr. Flurry said...
Mr. Flurry noted that he explained this principle in an article in The Philadelphia News of May-June 1998.
“I wrote . . . that we avoid certain ones in love,” he said. Shunning, disfellowshipping, marking
and avoiding Laodiceans serve the higher purpose, said the PCG leader, of sending an important message. “Avoiding these people . . . get[s] a message across to them that they are influenced by the devil and we don’t want to have anything to do with them.” (Cartwight D. PCG clarifies disfellowship policy, gives main purpose of church: the need to expose Satan. The Journal: News of the Churches of God. January 31, 2006, p. 1,20).
Apparently, Gerald Flurry (who claims to be following the teachings of HWA) forgets that HWA never taught that fellowship with people of other Church eras was not prohibited. To the contrary, he encouraged members to attend CG7 if there was no WCG church available in their area, or while traveling. This is just another "extra-biblical" requirement that PCG has made.
And this is a requirement that truly has upset relatives of PCG members, if emails I have received on this, the past few months, are accurate.
I would presume PCG does not want people to come to the COGwriter website either. I would like to mention that my article, Teachings Unique to PCG, which mentions several of PCG's "extra-biblical" requirements, has long been fairly popular.
On a lighter note, my son Michael found the following:
Solomon's Temple This is a a 5 minute animated film that shows one artist's understanding of the details about Solomon's temple.
So, if you have a few time for a few quiet minutes, you may wish to watch this.
02/19/06 a.m. LCG's Wayne Pyle reported:
“We are experiencing another superb week for TV responses.” Responses to the re-run of the program “Lessons of History” are tracking closely the responses to the first broadcast of only four weeks ago—with about 3,200 responses for the second program. The total response-count since 1999 for the booklet offered on the program, The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy, is over 44,000—making it the third most-requested booklet after Fourteen Signs Announcing Christ’s Return (72,000) and The Beast of Revelation (51,000).
02/18/06 a.m. Yesterday, UCG posted this from a commentary by Cecil E. Maranville:
Unless you have been living in a cave for the past few weeks, you undoubtedly have heard of the cartoon riots. Come to think of it, even those fellows hiding in caves probably have heard of this. Who would believe that a dozen rather unimpressive caricatures of a religious figure would ignite riots around the world?...
In reaction, Muslims have protested the caricatures in Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Canada, the Netherlands, Bosnia, Germany, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Syria, Algeria, Iran, India, the UK, Iraq, New Zealand, the U.S., Lebanon, Malaysia, Kenya, Afghanistan, South Africa, France, Ghana and Austria. Most of the protests in Western countries have been peaceful. Most of them in Muslim countries have been violent, resulting in property damage (to churches and embassies) and in death. So far, Denmark's small town newspaper has cost that country alone hundreds of millions of dollars in cancelled trade with Muslim countries. Other countries are feeling the pinch economically, as well.
This is not a laughing matter.
Sympathetic people have heard that it is against the Islamic faith—forbidden by the Koran to portray Mohammed in any manner, favorable or unfavorable and that therefore, the publication of the caricatures amounts to a grievous sacrilege.
"Not so!" wrote Amir Taheri in a Wall Street Journal Online editorial, "Bonfire of the Pieties," February 8th. He catalogued numerous paintings of Mohammed, which are currently on display in museums throughout the Muslim world, as well as in Europe. He points out that Mohammed is carved into the relief on the wall of the U.S. Supreme Court that depicts noted lawgivers. Taheri said in a follow-up television interview that after his editorial ran, several people contacted him to remind him of many more works of art featuring the Islamic prophet.
Well, it's not right to use satire or humor when speaking of religion, then. So, that's what made people angry. Again, Taheri says, "Not so!" "The truth is that Islam has always had a sense of humor and has never called for chopping heads [radical clerics are calling for the hands of the publishers of the caricatures to be chopped off!] as the answer to satirists. Mohammed himself pardoned a famous Meccan poet who had lampooned [which is what a caricature does] him for more than a decade" (ibid.)...
Something is obviously stoking the controversy. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been pointing an accusing finger directly at Syria and Iran for seizing upon this as a ready tool for inflaming Islamic rage.
Hypocrisy has been an issue for thousands of years (Jesus, for one, condemned it).
Also yesterday, was this news announcement at http://www.eni.ch/:
Porto Alegre (ENI). A top Vatican official says it is urgent for churches around the world to find a common date on which to celebrate Easter, noting this would mark an enormous step forward in promoting Christian unity. "Especially for churches in Muslim countries it is a scandal if Christians cannot celebrate together," Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told a media conference during the 14-23 February assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
This is sort of silly as it was the Roman Church that changed the original date in the first place. We in the COGs believe that not only the proper date be universally observed (Nisan 14), but also the proper name (Passover), and the proper way (without pagan elements). Here is some information about how the date became a controversy: