Drama and Horror

Greetings Brethren!

I have found poetry in the words of our Brother Douglas Becker. I'm not sure if this qualifies as Haiku, but it certainly cuts to the quick:

You Spiritual Moron:

What unbelievable blind arrogant blasphemy.
Someone should sue you for rank incompetence.

Actually, now that I look at it, it could be in the form of a letter. Send it to your favorite Armstrongist cult leader and sign it. It so incredibly applies to all of them. For those of you who haven't caught Brother Becker's latest `Death Threats' please take the time and do so.

I thought Brother Becker went a little too far by stating that God was issuing death threats to Wade, but given that WEC LITERALLY does WORSHIP SATAN no call to repent can be too overt.

Such lives of petty drama and horror these people live.

To clear up a mystery for all of you crime fans out there, it seems as if Port Austin is owned by that infamous master villain, EXIDE BATTERY MAN.

For those of you unfamiliar with our soap opera so far....

Once upon a time there was a Vice President of the Exide Battery corporation, who in collusion with a purchasing agent from Sears, designed a scheme to sell car batteries filled with water to unsuspecting Sears Autocare shoppers. They were, shock of shocks, caught. Thousands of useless batteries were sold. And Exide's reputation was so badly damaged that the firm eventually filed for bankruptcy, resulting in the loss of hundreds of jobs and considerable damage to the owners of Exide.

But this did not stop EXIDE BATTERY MAN. The former Vice President not only fully repented of his sins, but, wonder of wonders, found our lord Jesus and through such was given the mantle of self-ordained leadership of an unspecified not-for-profit religious organization. Working through intermediaries, (read: his wife and brother in law) this organization was able to lay a claim to develop an unprofitable piece of decommissioned WWII era military property known as Port Austin.

This claim, which consists of a proposal, some pictures, and an incorporation statement—and little else, was used as a prop to provide funding for this fantastic and largely fictional non profit land development enterprise. In some round about way that is a joy to lawyers seeking employment everywhere, this proposal enjoined Norman Edwards (and some other people who should not be trusted with the conduct of their own affairs) to sublet land from the fictional non profit. With this money, the fictional non profit was able to establish some claim of development on the otherwise destitute future cow pasture known as Port Austin.

In fact and effect, the fictional non profit now has sort of a squatter's claim on Port Austin. This is a heck of a trick since the entity in questions is headed by a convicted Federal prisoner who has no money of his own and who will not be getting out of jail anytime soon. It is the funds of Edwards (people whom Edwards in turn rooked), along with their sweat equity, which comprise the entirety of the entity's claim. Sadly, Edwards and the rubes have no claim whatsoever.

Just to make matters more fun, Edwards and his rubes are fighting amongst each other.

The powers that be are waiting for Edwards to go broke so that all of the ensuing legal crap will evaporate. There is no urgency on the court's part since, in point of fact, there are no other takers for Port Austin… because it is worthless.

Such lives of petty drama and horror these people live.

Speaking of which, a frequent... correspondent to this fine web venture of love has poised the question of which Armstrongist cult master is the most degenerate, reprobate, unwise and lacking of the mercy of Christ. The candidates as posed were David C. Pack and Wade Ewart Cox.

What a Special Olympics this is! With about 40 [to 80] followers each, they are clearly in the same weight class. Not only are Pack's Restored Church of God and Cox's Christian Churches of God splinters from the Armstrongist Worldwide Church of God, but they are both splinters of Dr. Meredith's Global Church of God. Both churches were started as reform movements—and for the same reasons:

a) accountability of leadership and
b) slacking of tithes rules.

Both churches have essentially a web presence and little else. Both churches attract recycled members of the WCG exclusively. From a funding perspective, both churches live and die for the Feast. (Basically, in both cases, what you have is a demented travel agency with church-like trappings.) Both churches publish vast amounts of unreadable material penned by one man. Both make weird claims of growth, sole possession of the revealed truth and have oddball weekly prognostications/updates as to the church's coming persecution. Without a handy-dandy score card, it would be near impossible to sort the dogma of one from the other. (In fairness, Pack can write. Cox is at war with the English language.) Finally, weirdly, both churches have gone spectacularly wrong for identical reasons.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT WHAT IS AT STAKE.

Wade Cox--not the water ski slalom champion David Pack--not the musician Each committed Armstrongist is worth $3000.00 per year in income to his church. At 10 members, you have a gig. At 20 members, you have an enterprise. At 40 members you have close to a quarter of a million dollars tax free and clear after expenses per year. Over time, what it is these churches actually do has become less expensive and thus their profitability has increased dramatically.

And we wonder why there are so many splinters?

In the real world, a church with 40 members would have no paid staff whatsoever and may have an expense income of $15,000.00 per year. A conventional church of 400 may have a pastor and staff, but expense income of $150,000.00 per year would be considered somewhat extravagant. In Armstrong-Land, Mark Armstrong's Intercontinental Church of God, with 400 members, provides a conservative two million dollars per year to him, his mother and his deaf brothers. It pays to be the king.

To put it in perspective, CCG and RCG would be worth about 4 million dollars each if they were small businesses. That's two 7-11s or a Walgreen's or a Dental Practice or an established HVAC business. Not bad cotton-candy. [Editor's note: CCG income for 2004-2005 was actually $131,656.30]

7-11 is probably the best analogy since both CCG and RCG are essentially franchises. Both have slurpee machines and beef jerky. HWA has essentially done all of their marketing for them. Unfortunately, HWA is long out of business and his successors in interest have sold off the slurpee mixture to White Castle. This leaves CCG and RCG in the same bind that Arthur Treacher and Chicken Unlimited and Howard Johnson franchisees have had to face. Either changing or remaining the same will take effort and imagination.

THE SAME, BUT BETTER.

This is the way both CCG and RCG started off—as reform movements. The same can be said of Associated, United, Global and even Philadelphia. CCG and RCG, having been made up of refugees from Global, got off to later and similarly rocky starts. [Editor's Note: The CCG claims a unique heritage from true Sabbath keeping Christians and claims it never came from the WCG under Herbert Armstrong or the offshoots, even though it did, but not from Global.]

NO TITHES, NO AUTOCRATS.

RRCG and CCG were founded with the idea that the laity would have full control of association. In short, no more disfellowship, no more outright stealing, no more whimsical one man rule. The constitutions of both churches are largely identical in intent. Cox goes it a lot further than Pack did, by spelling out the specifics of the form and function of servant leadership.

Pack was clearly just paying lip service to the whole idea of servant leadership. Once Pack had everything up and running at RCG, he methodically FIRED, abused or HAD ARRESTED everyone who had anything like an iota of power over his organ. Cox, by contrast, spent much of his early organizational time legislating against the CCG having anything more than an ad hoc infrastructure—and then became an autocrat.

PROS & PIKERS.

Today the RCG occupies an entire floor of a small Ohio office building where David C. Pack lords over a staff of temps. He has weekly Sabbath services and, at whim, publishes and makes broadcasts over the internet. The RCG saves somewhat on expenses by sharing its office space with an attorney who doubles as Pack's church counsel and occasional co-author. (The attorney's latest manual deals with the lofty subject of how to leave the RCG your estate.) Cox, by contrast, operates CCG out of his den and numerous post office boxes.

GGiven that Cox is operating a bit more lean and mean than Pack, and that both churches are of equal size, one would think that Cox is clearing more. That Cox is probably clearing less and is in more danger of having his organ die is due to a distinction in style. Both Pack and Cox are dim-witted, mean-spirited, autocratic blow hards. But Pack is a pro. Cox has spent a comparatively small fortune to create his clunky, amateurish and still not done web presence. Pack has a state of the art web site, publishing and broadcast arm that he has effectively paid no money to set up and which plugs in his content professionally and at whim. Mr. Pack, you see, knows how to steal. Cox, by contrast, has invested money and effort in subverting the web sites of others.

Neither RCG or CCG are long for this world. In the case of RCG, its lack of longevity has more to do with demographics than anything else. Pack is pushing 70 and his followers are of a similar vintage. There is no real plan to continue the enterprise and in if Pack should become incapacitated, RCG will fold shop. The entire purpose of RCG is to get Pack out of the house for 40 hours a week. Which may not be the least noble purpose in the world, but you would have to ask Mrs. Pack, who stays as far away from the church as she can. Cox, who is much younger, is imploding due to being spendthrift and unfocused.

TRANS-ARMSTRONGISM:

AAll Armstrongist Churches today practice Trans-Armstrongism, which was founded in doctrine by HWA himself. It is revisionist history that discounts mistakes made in the past by saying that they did not happen, or if they did happen, it was not our fault. Now let us go on with being a force for change today. It was through this process that America's End Time Apostle was able to transform himself from a flake ball, curious radio preacher and head of a college to a traveling cultural ambassador for peace under a centralized world government. What was that about the Pope being Satan and the coming invasion of the EU and great tribulation? Huh? That was another Herbert W. Armstrong. He had no real time to explain that everything he had once said or stood for was demonstrably false. And for his last trick, he wrote Mystery of The Ages, wherein he was right all the time. Hell of a trick.

People who blame Joe Sr. for the disintegration of the WCG are misplacing their anger. The seeds of its destruction can be placed squarely at the feet of its cruel, uncaring and weird founder. It is like a religious order founded by Rasputin the Monk. Say what you want about the son of a bitch, but he had stamina. The blinding grandness of his achievements are only overshadowed by how dubious it was at all levels. It was a shrine to his ego built on the backs of people Dr. Meredith described as "the cream of the scum of the earth" and whom HWA reportedly called "dumb sheep". That a ministry of 50 years should not produce, even by accident, one single humanitarian good work is incredible. That no one else can recreate it in scale or function is justice. Or maybe HWA's curse.

SCREW HAVING AN ACTUAL CHURCH.

Armstrongists are unfortunately used to not having real fellowship. At its height, what went on in the rented halls miles from home was not anything anyone on the outside would call a church service. Three plus hours of vitriol and `get the point'. For drama, we have disfellowship spin the bottle and gossip from the pulpit. Reducing church services to one [to three] feast meeting[s] a year is probably a relief more than anything else. How badly can you be abused in a conference call or over the internet? Like many Trans-Armstrongist peddlers, RCG and CCG have abandoned all church functions other than the publishing of dogma, collecting of tithes and, of course, the all important making of Feast arrangements. Without knowing the people involved, I sincerely doubt anyone attending the feasts at either would be able to tell the difference....

Until Mr. Cox opens his mouth. All Trans-Armstrongists have their own gimmick. Dr. Meredith has never left the World Tomorrow--and is ready to kick out all the homos and blacks when they get there. Gerry Flurry is God. David C. Pack is the watchman. Mark Armstrong can read the exit sign without assistance. But Mr. Cox takes the cake.

Wicca-Islam.

Day by day, Mr. Cox seems to need an audience less and less. I would say that the Christian Churches of God is headed for a hotel room near the Santa Anita Race Track, but that place already has a Church of God. It's the hotel with the red sign. Ask the desk clerk for God and he will send you right up.

--Mark Lax