Cartwright’s Journal out: Ray Wooten’s replacement, CGI/CEM women’s conference, Mac Overterton on soup comments, and more from the late David Jon Hill

The latest issue (says #179, print date December 31 2015) of The Journal was sent out electronically and received. This was one of the shortest editions of The Journal in a while.

Items covered included information on Ray Wooten’s replacement, a CEM/CGI conference, Mac Overton’s comments about soup comments, and more from the late David Jon Hill.

Here is information related to Ray Wooten:

Friends of Ray Wooten are doing their best to reboot the ministry he founded in 1995, United Christian Ministries (UCM). However, the new effort is operating under a slightly different name, the United Christian Church of God (UCCG). Mr. Wooten died in 2014 at age 80. Not long after his passing, members of the Wooten family announced UCM would discontinue. But recently, in December 2015, friends and associates of Mr. Wooten in and near Birmingham, Ala., sent out a letter announcing the intention to carry on in the UCM tradition. UCM began in 1995 in Birmingham. Later in life Mr. Wooten and his wife, Peggy, moved to Fort Wayne, Ind. After Mr. Wooten died, Mrs. Wooten moved to Perry, Mich. …

David Duff of Tuscaloosa, Ala., spoke with a JOURNAL writer about the organization of the UCCG and what it hopes to accomplish. …

“After the death of Ray we still felt there was a message there that a lot of churches and organizations weren’t really sharing.” And what might that message be? “As Ray put it, the message of grace and truth. Some churches have grace, some have truth, but most of them don’t have both. But Jesus was full of grace and truth.

Ray Wooten was an original founding member of the United Church of God, but had issues with its governance and administration and was among the earliest leaders to leave it and found his own group. What remains of it is small and gospel proclamation to the world as a witness is not something that it seems to consider its priority as it has not had much fruit related to that (consider also Should the Church Still Try to Place its Top Priority on Proclaiming the Gospel or Did Herbert W. Armstrong Change that Priority for the Work?).

The Journal announced the following:

BIG SANDY, Texas—Christian Educational Ministries (CEM) and the Church of God International (CGI), with support from other area ministries, plan a women’s conference for April 2016. The conference will take place April 9-10 at Timberline Baptist Camp in Lindale, Texas, 20 miles from Big Sandy. The conference is titled “The New Church Lady: This Ain’t Your Grandma’s Church Lady.”

Ron Dart, the currently ill founder of CEM was a founding member of CGI decades ago. As far as the role of women in the COG, consider the article Women and the New Testament Church.

Journal writer Mac Overton shared some of his dismay about how he was treated related to a Campbell’s soup ad:

A friend had posted on Facebook about a Campbell’s soup ad about two men, obviously a couple, taking turns giving their “son” spoonfuls of soup. The posting was from a group of parents objecting to the apparent promotion of the “gay” agenda. The group wanted a boycott of Campbell’s soup and its many other products, such as V8 juice.

Emphasize quality

I went to Campbell’s Facebook site and wrote something like this: “I object to this commercial. Campbell’s ads should emphasize the quality of its products, not comment on social issues.” I had no sooner typed the last letter than the first of many ad-hominem statements were posted questioning my ancestry, my progeny and my right to exist. I was accused of being one of the vilest people imaginable by people who had never met me. This was all because I posted a mild objection to a social-engineering ad. I did not join in the call for a boycott and in fact have had Campbell’s soup and V8 juice since I made that posting.

Dropping jaw

Still, one after another, people called me names. Being a calm individual, I made one further comment, asking why the commenters didn’t argue logically about the substance of my statement, pointing out fallacies and shortcomings in it, if there are any. This generated more vitriol.

Expect more hate from those who hold dearly to the LGBT agenda. They want to force everyone to believe that they have a laudable lifestyle that they believe should be encouraged. They have those who will tell them the Bible does not condemn it and that those who think otherwise are bigots, etc. For more on their agenda and what the Bible teaches, check out the article The Bible Condemns Homosexuality. A related video sermon is titled: What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

The Journal re-ran an article from David Jon Hill who died November 23, 2003, that he had written for The Journal in 2003:

Herbert W. Armstrong was the founder of the WCG. Garner Ted Armstrong was his son and the one who carried most of the broadcasting in his time as the leader of the second generation (of which I am a part). …

I would often brainstorm with Ted on articles, sermons and broadcast ideas. By the summer of ’61, as a foursome, we had the opportunity of making a six-week tour of Europe. We embarked on the Queen Mary, first class, and had a marvelous time for the five days of the crossing before beginning our tour. …

Cold War became real

The highlight of our trip, importwise, was a visit to the just-constructed Berlin Wall. Ted and I took a taxi to East Berlin. The girls didn’t want to go. This was 15 years after the close of World War II (third generation, please look this up in your history books). West Berlin and all of West Germany was bustling, rebuilt, showy. East Berlin was a mess. The streets were still full of rubble. The world-famous Adler Hotel had one wall missing, and you could still see into the rooms, a ghostly sight. Armed soldiers stood at every intersection of the streets on which we were allowed. We saw very little traf- fic, few people on the street. Those we did see appeared dejected.

The Cold War became real to us as well as the possibility of nuclear war on our own soil perpetrated by the same powers that had made these people’s lives so miserable. We sensed that our cities could be even more devastated, turning not just into rubble but into radioactive pools of total waste.

The late Garner Ted Armstrong was the first COG minister I ever heard speak. He later left/was put out of WCG and formed CGI until they asked him to leave for reasons of impropriety. He then started ICG, which still exists under the leadership of his son Mark.

Getting back to David Jon Hill’s final comment, much associated with war is horrific and wasteful (consider also reading Military Service and the Churches of God: Do Real Christians Participate in Carnal Warfare or Encourage Violence?). As far as David Jon Hill himself goes, he did a lot of research on Catholic private prophecies and how some of them will be used to mislead people in the end times. Two of his articles related to that were published by the old Radio Church of God. Here are links to both of them: Christ or Antichrist? and Will You Be Deceived by Antichrist? He also wrote about how to study the Bible: How to Study the Bible.

Additionally, The Journal 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. More of the real work 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 matters.