Cartwright’s Journal Out: Gavin Rumney’s Death, Ken Westby’s death, UCG & Guardian FOT attendance, and an AC reunion

The latest issue (says #190, print date December 31 2016) of The Journal: News of the Churches of God was sent out electronically and just received.

There was information regarding deaths of Gavin Rumney & Ken Westby, UCG & Guardian Ministries Festival attendance,

Gavin Rumney was once in the old Worldwide Church of God and turned against the Bible and Church of God doctrine. Information about his death was covered earlier on this news page: Gavin Rumney dead from cancer.

Here is some of what Dixon Cartwright wrote about Ken Westby:

Kenneth B. “Ken” Westby of Auburn, Wash., a widely known elder and evangelist in the Church of God movement, died Dec. 8, 2016, of complications from a heart condition and diabetes. From 2002 through 2015 Mr. Westby played host to 13 annual One God Seminars.

A photo of Ken Westby is in a post shown last month on this news page: of that: Ken Westby died.

Ken Westby was a unitarian, who in my view, did not properly revere scriptures. More about the Godhead subjects are in the articles Was Unitarianism the Teaching of the Bible or Early Church? and Binitarianism: One God, Two Beings Before the Beginning. And a recent sermon from the CCOG was: Trinity: Fundamental to Christianity or Something Else?

The Journal also reported that Ken Westby was involved in a governmental rebellion against the old Worldwide Church of God in 1974. For more about proper church governance, please see the article The Bible, Peter, Paul, John, Polycarp, Herbert W. Armstrong, Roderick C. Meredith, and Bob Thiel on Church Government.

The front page of The Journal also reported the following about attendance of the Feast of Tabernacles in the United Church of God (UCG).

Back in 1995 when the UCG started, high hopes were that it wouldn’t be long until the membership statistics topped 20,000. For various reasons that hasn’t happened. But the attendance for the Feast of Tabernacles in 2016 reached 13,868, according to the United News report.

UCG has had several splits, hence that is a major reason its festival attendance was higher in the past. That being said, UCG had the highest Feast of Tabernacles attendance of any claimed COG group I know about in 2016.

The Journal also reported that Guardian’s David Antion’s Church of God, Southern California had 175 attend with it for the Feast of Tabernacles in 2016.

The top five groups, in order of likely festival attendance in 2016, probably were UCG, LCG, COGWA (which split from UCG), PCG, and CCOG. There is also a Portuguese-speaking group in Angola that may be in the top five, but no direct statistics have been seen.

The Journal once again (this is the third time) had an advertisement related to Living University of the Living Church of God.

There was also this item on the back page of The Journal:

Countdown 70 days

ALTADENA, Calif.—As of the print date for this issue of THE JOURNAL, it’s 70 days until the big AC reunion in Las Vegas.

“We all very much look forward to seeing you in Las vegas on March 12,” said one of the organizers, Bob Gerringer (bob@acpasadenareunion.com).

More than 200 alumni and family members are signed up to attend. “It will be a casual four-day celebration with plenty of time to just sit, relax and visit with your college classmates from many decades ago,” Mr. Gerringer said. T

o register write Jean Ehlert (jean@acpasadenareunion.com) if you went to Pasadena or Bricket Wood. If you went to Big Sandy register at ambassadorbigsandyalumni. com). To reserve rooms at The Orleans, click on the “Hotel Info— 2017 Reunion” link on the Pasadena site. Discounted rooms are available only until Feb. 8, 2017. Room registrations can be canceled up to 48 hours before check-in.

Although my wife Joyce and I never attended Ambassador College (and hence will not plan to go to the reunion), we were married on the Pasadena campus of the college. We visited it a last Summer, and Joyce took photographs. To see some of how it once looked and how it now looks, go to the following: Joyce’s Pictures of the Pasadena Campus of Ambassador College and the former Headquarters of the old Worldwide Church of God.

As far as The Journal goes, it also had the usual letters to the editor and other advertisements, various comments, and opinion articles. The advertisements mainly seem to be from possibly Laodicean groups and/or individuals (not all seem to be COG) who seem to think that the ads are somehow doing the work of God. More of the real work that the COGs should be doing are in the article The Final Phase of the Work.

The Journal itself is available by paid subscription (though Dixon Cartwright says some subscriptions are free to those who cannot afford it). It tends to have a non-Philadelphian approach to many, but not all, matters.