Sunday, January 11, 2015

"What Herbert Armstrong Did Not Know" by Homer Kizer



I received the following from Carolyn Smith-Kizer regarding an article her husband wrote about his observations on Herbert Armstrong's understanding of prophecy.

I am posting it for those interested in his premise.  I have had previous contact with Homer Kizer in 2012 which was not presented in a favorable light.  Homer responded to my first article with his own comments which I posted unedited.

Unrepentant Firstborn Will Firstborn Will Be Slaughtered On Passover (Again)
Homer Kizer Responds

I don't agree with a lot most of what Homer has to say - BUT - he does offer tidbits and observations into the thinking of Herbert Armstrong that some may never thought of.


What Herbert Armstrong Didn’t Know

Argument: As a self-educated theologian, Herbert W. Armstrong as the Pastor-General of the former Radio Church of God and Worldwide Church of God, never understood the basic construction of Hebraic poetics, that the visible, physical things of this world reveal and precede the invisible spiritual things of God, with outwardly circumcised Israel forming the chiral (or left hand) image of circumcised of heart Israel, the assembly of inner selves born of spirit through the indwelling of Christ Jesus. Because Armstrong never understood theological chirality, Armstrong placed importance on the surfaces of things and people; importance on appearances, gender, skin color, and genealogy. He therefore prevented himself from understanding the mysteries of God, and was and remained a spiritual novice throughout his ministry that extended from 1934 to 1986

Some of his comments are:

Twenty-nine years have passed since members of the former Worldwide Church of God (WCG) learned their Pastor General died shortly before 6:00 a.m. PST, January 16, 1986 … in the summer of 1985, I was visited by a long time WCG member, Jack Etsel, who, during dinner conversation, said, Mr. Armstrong preaches that time is short because time is short for him. I was mildly shocked by what I heard; by what Jack said. I believed that the end of the age was or nearly was upon humanity. And without then responding to what Jack said, I nevertheless remembered his words—
 When Jack Etsel said what he did about the senior Armstrong, I didn’t know Jack all that well. I had, the previous fall, killed a moose on a hunt with Jack. Otherwise, I knew Jack as a two year Washington (Seattle area) transplant to Alaska. Of course, I was an Oregon transplant from eleven years earlier. I knew other members of the Anchorage and Kenai WCG congregations better than I knew Jack.
        I, too, was a WCG member, attending services since 1972, baptized prior to Passover 1973, journeying north to Alaska spring 1974, opening a chainsaw-outboard dealership on Poppy Lane just off K-Beach Road in late 1976. So what I will write about Herbert Armstrong doesn’t come from the perspective of an outsider, but from having heard what was preached from pulpits and having read what was written in Co-Worker letters during the 1970s and 1980s. However, I was then busy making a living, trying to get a woefully under-capitalized business operational; so though I heard what was preached and what wasn’t, I didn’t spend time worrying about whether chicanery was occurring in Pasadena. Armstrong’s racism troubled me less than it should have. And how tithe moneys were spent was between the administration and Christ Jesus (my responsibility for my tithe ended when I put the check in the mail).
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The senior Armstrong during the initial Advanced Prophecy Seminar session told his evangelists that all wasn’t known, that the Church had prophecy wrong, 
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So before proceeding, let it be understood that Herbert W. Armstrong knew he had prophecy wrong four years after the Treaty of Rome was signed March 1957: the European Union wasn’t coming together as Armstrong had prophesied. Events were happening much more slowly than he expected, and were going in a direction he hadn’t anticipated. He realized what he had said throughout the 1950s, and as far back as 1934, was wrong.

Why, then, did he continue to proclaim the same prophetic message throughout the 1960s and to his death in January 1986? And could a multi-million dollar a year ministry based on a particular understanding of biblical prophecy really admit it had prophecy wrong all along and still economically survive? No, it could not.
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The entirety of Armstrong’s ministry was built not on Sabbath observance or believing the writings of Moses, but on Armstrong’s understanding of biblical prophecy that caused him to write in a 1948 Co-Worker letter the following:

December 8, 1947

Dear Family of Co-Workers' in God's Service:

GREETINGS! in Jesus' name: TIME is running out! This world is moving swiftly to its destruction! Yet there is still time---and just barely enough time---to finish the work of God for this present age. THERE IS NO TIME TO LOSE. But the work of God is progressing on schedule---amid handicaps, thru obstacles and trials that try our souls, our patience, and our faith to the limit---under the divine direction of God, and as a result of MIRACLES performed by him in our behalf.

The "Big Four" diplomats are locked in an uncompromisable duel between East and West---between Russia and the United States---between Communism and Democracy---between Atheism and professed Christianity. At the London conference, the nations merely lock horns and fight, and quarrel, and deadlock, in their efforts to restore the peace of Europe and the world.

The United States announces the invention and production of horrible, terrifying new atomic weapons---without giving the public any hint as to the nature of those weapons. The Russians give out hints that they, too, either HAVE the atomic bomb, or have its secret and are now preparing to actually produce it.

The United Nations recommend the partitioning of Palestine, and actual setting up, at last, of a new Jewish NATION in the holy land. This sets off the Palestine powder-keg. The Moslem nations, 300 million strong and solidly ORGANIZED these past three years, have announced they will never permit it---they spring to action---fighting and violence is intensified in the holy land, and terror reigns.

Europe faces its hardest winter, and the United States, with diminishing food supplies, sets out to try to feed the world to save it from chaos and communism and starvation.

Yes, this world is being hurled rapidly TOWARD UTTER DESTRUCTION---we approach the END OF THE WORLD!---which means the end of this AGE!

The WORLD TOMORROW will soon dawn, bringing peace, prosperity, happiness and joy at last;---and in the short time that remains our calling and sole important mission in life is to SHOUT THIS GOOD NEWS (the true Gospel of Jesus Christ) TO THE WORLD! It must go, not only to America and Canada, as it is now going, it must go to ALL NATIONS, in ALL LANGUAGES! To this end, AMBASSADOR COLLEGE is now operating in sober earnest---instructing consecrated, eager young men and women in the true Message, training them in speaking foreign languages.

THE OUTLOOK, at the moment, is for six or seven more years of PROSPERITY here in America---(even tho it is an artificial, unsound and inflated "prosperity")---while meantime the world moves relentlessly toward WORLD WAR III and final DESTRUCTION!

YOU, dear Co-Worker, are not going to be permitted to enjoy your home, your freedom, your present privileges and pursuits, many more years. Just a few more years---perhaps six or seven---perhaps twelve or fifteen---and a re-united Fascist-Nazi Europe will STRIKE---America's great cities will be blown out of existence in one night without warning---we shall see such tremendous atomic destruction as the world has never even dreamed ---more than 40 MILLION Americans will perish in the horrifying blasts! At the same time drought and famine will strike dead another THIRD of our entire population---men, women, and children ---thru starvation and disease! And our second great commission ---our divine calling from Almighty God---is to WARN our beloved nation, and other Israelitish nations, before it is too late! Every individual who HEEDS this warning, turns to God, is WATCHING and PRAYING ALWAYS, being filled with God's Spirit, living by every Word of God, with a life consecrated to Him, will be given special divine protection---taken beforehand to a place of SAFETY--- preserved thru the final horrifying tribulation, time of plagues and human anguish soon to visit this earth!

But if we to whom God has revealed this terrible future thru His divine prophecies fail to heed it---if we fail to each play his or her full part in WARNING this nation and the world, now, while we may---then God says we shall not escape, but He will require the blood of this entire people at our hands!

All emphasis is that of Armstrong … the letter goes on, but enough is here presented for the tone and tenor of the message Armstrong proclaimed to be grasped—
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An issue that cannot be avoided is the racism, sexism of Herbert Armstrong, who was a product of his age, not a new creature in Christ Jesus … in ancient Israel (and in modern fundamentalist Islam), women were chattel, property analogous to a circumcised man’s house: “‘You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's’” (Ex 20:17). 


United Church of God In All Its Awesome Glory....



The Church of God splinter group based in Cincinnati Ohio loves to present itself as a dynamic growing church that is bringing in untold masses of new members who have never heard of Herbert Armstrong.  Expensive advertising campaigns are promoted as "spreading the gospel message" to the world that is an outstanding success.

The picture below is of one of those enormous congregations.  The person who posted this says: 
 "This is a real photo of a UCG meeting place. A UCG member says "Such an inspirational meeting hall, from the carpet upward."

Double click to enlarge to all of its awesome glory!

Um....since when did carpets become inspirational? Somehow I do not see anything about this picture as "inspirational."  Am I missing something????  Depressing and sad is more like it!