You know how they say history is written by the victors? Well here’s a version of history the CoG7 pretty much vehemently denies. That’s right folks, it’s Youth Educational Services’ Youth Bible Lesson, Level 9, Lesson 11, “The History of God’s Church Part 3″. The preceding two parts covered, respectively, the old and new testaments. Fast-forward 1900 years later, and what do we have?

ABOUT OUR COVER . . .

God’s Church came to America in 1671 when a congregation was founded in Newport, Rhode Island. Photo by John Halford.

God’s Church began on the day of Pentecost in A.D. 31. It has survived through centuries of persecution. Remember, Jesus Christ said, “I will build my church; and the gates of hell [the grave] shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18)

Note the interjected “translation” in brackets. “hell” here was re-translated by Armstrong as “the grave”, because WCG did not believe in hell, it was the Lake of Fire and the second death in the Third Resurrection you had to try and avoid.

Of course, now that they’re shiny happy clappy Jebus bible-beaters, we’re all gonna fry in eternal torment. Something tells me they should at least have kept the less intimidating version, instead, but that wouldn’t have been toeing the party line with their criminially “christian” brothers like Hank (”the postal fraudster”) Hanegraaf. But I digress.

There would never be a time when God did not have His people on the earth. But Jesus also said that His Church would be a “little flock” (Luke 12:32). It was not to be large, but it has survived.

Oh yes, gawd’s troo church, the special chosen elect of gawd. Otherwise known as milieu control.

In our last lesson we traced the history of God’s Church to the Middle Ages, in what the Bible calls the Thyatira era. In this lesson we will learn how God continued to preserve His true Church, and how the Church developed in Britain and later America.

GOD’S CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Perhaps at no other time in history was the Church of God more persecuted than in the Middle Ages—from the A.D. 400s until the A.D. 1400s. No one knows how many people were killed just because they were not members of the official state religion.

Same thing with WCG. No one knows how many people were killed, just because they adhered to the healing doctrine.

God’s people lived in small villages in the mountains of southeastern Europe for much of the sixth to ninth centuries. Then persecution drove them into the heartland of Europe. Small groups of true believers lived in northern Italy, Switzerland and the south of France.

Bzzzzzzt! But thank you for playing Revisionist History 101. I’ll take False Church Doctrine for $200, Alex.

Through the A.D. 1100s, the true Gospel was preached by men such as Peter of Bruys, Henri of Laussane and Arnold of Bresca. One of the most influential men of the true Church who began to preach the gospel was Peter Waldo.

Bzzzzzzt! Where’s Waldo?

Members of the Church of God were sometimes known by the names of men who were their leaders.

Which is why remaining Church of God splinter groups are known today as “Armstrongists”. Don’t ever say that within earshot of one though. Take it from me.

When you study Church history, you will often discover more about these people by looking up titles such as Petrobrusians, Henricians, Arnoldists, and Waldenses.

Throughout the 1100s, various religious groups grew. This growth was so great that in the early A.D. 1200s, Innocent III began an attack against them. The purpose of this attack was to find those who followed any way other than the state religion.

Bzzzzzzzt!! Can you say “the great whore of babylon” fear-mongering boys and girls?

To believe differently was considered “heresy”.

However, there’s a scripture, something about a splinter and a beam, that they left out at this juncture.

People who believed differently were punished by being put in prison, having their property taken and even being beaten to death.

You know, I always wondered why Herbie didn’t take the opportunity to have Basil lovingly render the Spanish Inquisition. If we weren’t already fear-mongered enough of the bad old RCC, that would have nailed the lid on the coffin, right there.

These were trying times for anyone in God’s Church. But God continued to preserve and protect His people. They hid in the valleys and in the mountains, waiting for a time of peace and happiness. Their ultimate goal was not this world, but the wonderful World Tomorrow.

Yup. Always look ahead, never look around you, and before you know it your life will be over. Unfortunately for the true believers, there’s nothing beyond this life, and there’s doubly-certain no kingdom coming, so all the years you wasted waiting for one are just that, wasted.

Try and use what little time you have left to make amends, why don’t you?

THE CHANGING TIMES

Many changes occurred in the 15th century. God was coming to prepare the world for the Work of his Church.

In the mid 1400s, Johann Gutenberg, a German printer, invented a printing press with movable type. Information could now be spread to a greater number of people. The world would begin to change rapidly.

After three hundred years or so, once literacy actually became widespread.

In the early 1500s, Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation. He was followed by John Calvin in Switzerland and John Knox in Scotland. Also, King Henry VIII began the Protestant Church of England.

Don’t know how accurate any of that is. Sounds like it was lifted from the Compendium of World History, if you ask me. Oh, and it’s “the Anglican Church”, not “the Protestant Church of England”. They get a little funny around the ears when you call it that……

Persecuted Christians in Europe sought religious freedom in America in the early 1600s.

Anybody seen the M. Night Shyamalan movie The Village??

The early pilgrims who settled in New England, and the Quakers who came to Pennsylvania, paved the way for God’s Church to become established in the New World.

Mystical manipulation anyone? Just because Herbie was born into a Quaker family, doesn’t mean the Quakers had anything to do with his little cash-cow enterprise. Oh, and by the way, the early Armstrongs were “Holiness Quakers” — the Pentecostal kind. And I don’t mean just the kind who refused to see doctors, I mean the “Toronto Blessing” kind of Pentecostal Quakers. Yeah, I didn’t know they existed, either.

INFLUENTIAL REFORMERS

In the mid 1300s, a man named John Wycliffe made a great impact on the Christian world. He was one of the leading scholars at Oxford University. Although part of the official state religion, Wycliffe saw the need to reform certain practices of that church.

Like the witch hunts for example?

One of his greatest contributions was a translation of the Bible into English. The earliest manuscripts of the Bible were in the Hebrew and Greek languages.

The earliest manuscripts accepted by the Nicene Council were. The very earliest-known manuscripts of the christian texts are in Coptic, and they are known today as the Nag Hammadi library.

What’s that? The church never taught us about the Nag Hammadi? That’s strange, considering that the Systematic Theology Project from the ’70s referred to the epistle of Barnabas extensively.

Oh, but the STP was never supposed to be read by lay-members anyway, and it was waaaaaaaay too lenient.

The Bible had also been translated into Latin, which was the officially accepted version in the state church. Wycliffe’s translation would allow the Bible to be understood by the common people who only knew English.

These early Wycliffe Bibles were used by the Puritans.

THE REFORMS OF MARTIN LUTHER

Martin Luther, a Catholic scholar, became disillusioned with certain practices of the Catholic priesthood. …. Luther’s beliefs eventually led to the establishment of the churches now called Lutheran.

John Calvin led a reform movement in Switzerland. The Protestant movement he founded became the Presbyterian and Reform churches. Presbyterianism was also established in Scotland in the mid 1500s by John Knox. The Church of England was established during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. It is also called the Anglican Church. In America it is also called the Episcopal church.

That was the in 80s. Apparently there is now a split between the Anglicans and the Episcopalians. But that’s not the key thing to take away from this passage. These few short paragraphs are, near the end of the YES Youth Bible Lessons curriculum, the ONLY comparative religion studies that were provided to children of the church. Other than Alexander Hislop’s “Two Babylons” bunk, of course.

That’s right, we didn’t know which end was up. I’ve tried doing some comparative reading on the various christian religious branches out there in the world today, but my head just swims. Talk about swallowing a camel. At least studying different religious systems is easier, you can mostly keep them all straight.

After the Reformation, the Christian world was much different than it had been. God’s true Church, however, was not a part of the Protestant Reformation.

As the Church Lady would say, “How conVEEEEEENient.”

God’s people were never a part of the Roman church, and they were not among those who had broken away from that church.

Bzzzzzzzzzzt!! Revisionist History 101 revisited yet again. The Church of God 7th Day, which was the unfortunate progenitor of Herbie’s demon-spawn money-maker, as well as the Seventh-Day Adventists, WERE breakaway sects from a descendant of “the Roman church”, the Methodists. I’ll take False Church History for $800, Alex.

THE CHURCH IN HOLLAND AND ENGLAND

Near the end of the Thyatira era, the fourth era of God’s Church, a Waldensian preacher named Walter went to Holland, and later to England, preaching the Gospel. This was in the early 1300s. Walter became known as Walter the Lollard—later shortened to Walter Lollard. The name Lollard later became associated with the people of God’s Church.

But not all Lollards were a part of the Church of God. The name Lollard was also applied to the followers of John Wycliffe.

Where’s Walter? Lollardy, from Wikipedia:“It taught the concept of the “Church of the Saved”, meaning that Christ’s true Church was the community of the faithful, which overlapped with but was not the same as the official Church of Rome. It taught a form of predestination. It advocated apostolic poverty and taxation of Church properties. It also denied transubstantiation in favour of consubstantiation.”

It “overlapped with…the official Church of Rome”?!? Good ol’ boy Herman must have overlooked that bit of research, when he slapped the Lollards into the Compendium of World History According to Doctorless Hoeh. I wouldn’t have wanted to admit too loudly I was related to the Lollards when I was in the church, that’s for sure! But then, I wouldn’t have been doing any independent reading about the Lollards anyway, so it’s a moot point.

The Waldenses, Lollards, and some other groups of the 15th century were sometimes known by the name Anabaptist. Anabaptist means “one who is rebaptized.” This came from their practice of rebaptizing adults who had been baptized as infants. This is one doctrine that we find throughout the centuries in the Church of God—the practice of baptizing only mature adults who understand the meaning of repentance.

And if you didn’t, six months of ministerial counselling would have it browbeaten into your head.

Another name associated with the Church of God during this time is Sabbatarians. This comes from the fact that the Church of God observed the seventh-day Sabbath. But those who were part of God’s Church called themselves the Church of God.

In English. Again, how convenient.

After the development of various Protestant groups in Europe, God’s people were able to more safely establish congregations. There are records of at least 11 Sabbatarian Churches of God in England during the early part of the 1600s. Three of these were in London.

Yup. Splits, splinters, and “the one trooooooo church” is built-in to the closed high-demand religious system from the get-go!

In 1611, during the reign of King James I, the Bible was translated into another English version. This is the most commonly used translation of the Bible today. We call it the Authorized or King James Bible.

This was the ’80s, as I say, so long before the “KJV-Only” lunacy started rearing its ugly head.

Even though tensions were lessened because of the Reformation, God’s people continued to be persecuted by others, including the Protestants. There was also persecution of other religious groups such as French Huguenots, Quakers, and Puritans. These all suffered because of their religious beliefs.

Then there were the Muslims, the Hindus, and the Buddhists, who were pretty much colonized, overthrown, and attempted to be wiped out. And don’t even get me started on the aboriginal indigenous peoples who were nearly obliterated (along with their animistic worldviews) thanks to “the Enlightenment”.

But you won’t find any of that in Hoopla Hoeh’s grand opus.

THE CHURCH OF GOD IN AMERICA

It is difficult to place exact dates on the eras of the Church of God as they are revealed in the second and third chapters of Revelation.

Funny Herbie, that never stopped you from placing exact dates on the eras of the Church of God as they are revealed in the second and third chapters of Revelation before. This YES lesson is revisionist history of course. “We never set dates brethren!” Yeah right.

We do know that the apostles lived during the Ephesian era. During the time of the Ebionites, covered in a previous lesson, it was probably the Smyrna era. And in the days of the Paulicians and the Bogomils, the Pergamos era. When Peter of Bruys, Peter Waldo, Walter Lollard and others preached the truth, it was the era of Thyatira.

From the mid 1500s to the early 1600s, we make a transition into the next era of God’s Church. Shortly before the Church of God came to America, we enter the time symbolized in the third chapter of Revelation as the Sardis era.

“And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that livest, and art dead.” (Revelation 3:1).

In the early 1600s, one major hope seemed possible—religious freedom in the New World.

Many of those who came to the New World were seeking freedom from religious oppression in England and Europe.

And seeking to impose their own oppression on their hapless members. But let us continue with the revisionist history shall we?

Not only Puritans and Quakers, but Methodists, Baptists, Anabaptists and even Catholics came to America seeking religious freedom.

The influence of the English translation of the Bible and the Protestant Reformation also helped produce a new era of religious freedom.

Among those seeking religious freedom in the New World were small groups of Sabbath keepers. In 1664, a Sabbath keeper named Stephen Mumford arrived in Rhode Island. He founded a congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1671. That’s the earliest record we have of the establishment of the Church of God in America.

And if Stephen Mumford had never come to Rhode Island and set up the CoG7, Loma wouldn’t have gotten sucked in, and Herbie wouldn’t have seen dollar signs, and none of us would be sitting where we are today, as children of the church.

Somebody want to ring Dr. Who? We could really use a TARDIS right about now. “The Assassination of Mr. Mumford.” It would be foolproof!

Sorry. Where was I?

Several other Sabbath-keeping congregations were raised up in the colonies of the New World. They were basically along the eastern coast until after the American Revolution in 1776.

By the mid 1800s, Sabbath keepers sent missionaries throughout the world. Sabbath-keeping congregations were raised up in the Phillipines, Mexico, Central and South America, India, Indonesia and China. Most of these congregations were small, but there was an attempt to preach the Gospel to the world.

In the early 1800s, various disputes arose among the Sabbath-keeping groups. Some did not want to be called Sabbatarians or follow the teachings of the Church. They decided to officially organize under a different name. In 1818, one group adopted the name Seventh-Day Baptist. However, the Sabbath-keepers who did not join the Seventh-Day Baptist movement continued to use the name Church of God.

You see? It’s a long-standing tradition for Churches of God to squabble and bicker and fight and splinter and split amongst themselves. ‘94 wasn’t the first time, and I’m sure 2008 won’t be the last. (What, it’s LCG that’s threatening to split again now isn’t it?)

THE ADVENTISTS

One belief of the Church of God is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Another word for “coming’ is advent. Because of that belief, some Sabbath-keeping churches began using the name Church of God (Adventist).

In the 1840s, a man named William Miller had become convinced the Sabbath was God’s day of worship. But in his studies of prophecy, he mistakenly thought the world was going to end in 1844. He based this on a misunderstanding of the prophecy in Daniel 8 about the 2,300 morning and evening sacrifices.

“In the 1930s, a man named Herbert W. Armstrong had become convinced the Sabbath was God’s day of worship. But in his studies of prophecy, he mistakenly thought the world was going to end in 1975. He based this misunderstanding on the prophecy in Daniel 12 about the “time, times, and half a time”, or the one thousand, three hundred and thirty five days.”

There, fixed that passage.

Christ did not come in 1844 and the world did not end. By this time William Miller had been joined by James and Ellen White. They still believed in the coming or advent of Jesus Christ,  but they could not agree with other principles of the Church of God.

In the 1860s, the followers of William Miller and the Whites officially called themselves Seventh-Day Adventists. Ellen G. White was regarded as a prophetess of the church. In the course of time, the Seventh-Day Adventist church has become one of the largest Sabbath-keeping churches in North America.

But neither the Seventh-Day Adventists nor the Seventh-Day Baptists continued in all the true teachings of God. Throughout this time the members of the true Church continued to call themselves the Church of God.

This is as close as an explanation as you’re ever going to get, as to why the splinters insist on retaining “CoG” in their wacky names.

THE CHURCH OF GOD (SEVENTH DAY)

About the time the Seventh-Day Adventist church was established in the early 1860s, the Church of God began to publish a paper that later was called The Bible Advocate. It was produced at a small publishing house in Battle Creek, Michigan. The publishing operations were later moved to Marion, Iowa, and in the late 1880s to Stanberry, Missouri.

The BAR was heretic material, and banned for reading, by members of gawd’s troooo church. Quite a few ex-members read it now, though I can’t imagine why they would want to.

During the pioneering days of America, as peoples moved west, Sabbath-keeping congregations were raised up in Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and on westward.

In the early 1900s, the Church of God was headquartered at Stanberry, Missouri. One of the leading ministers in the Church at this time was Andrew N. Dugger. He had become editor of the Church’s paper, The Bible Advocate. Andrew Dugger wanted to have an educated ministry and hoped to start a college in Stanberry. But because of World War I, plans were set aside. Later, a school was established in Stanberry, but Dugger’s plans of having a college never came about.

He fomented the idea for Herbie though, unfortunately enough.

The 1920s were growth years for the Church of God. Congregations were established all the way to the West Coast. Sabbath-keeping congregations were being established in other parts of the world.

In 1923, at a general conference of the Church of God in Stanberry, a decision was made to use a single name for the Church of God. There had been a variety of titles attached to the name of God’s Church.

“Cult”. “Closed high demand religious group”. “Legalists”. “Repressive authoritarian tin-plated despotic little dictators”. Oh, sorry, you meant organizational names? What was I thinking?

The most commonly known name had been Church of God (Adventist).

The general conference in 1923 decided to officially adopt the name Church of God (Seventh Day). Also, there was an unsuccessful attempt to unite the Church of God (Seventh Day) with the Seventh-Day Baptists.

Good thing too, or the church might have been clap-happy hand-waving Pentecostals a full three generations earlier than it turned out to be!

In 1924, an official California conference of the Church of God (Seventh Day) was organized. Then later, in the 1920s, the Church of God (Seventh Day) established congregations with ministers in the state of Oregon.

And things only went downhill from there…….

AN IMPORTANT BIRTH

Several years before the Church of God congregations were established in Oregon, a significant birth took place in the summer of 1892.

Well, as significant as an incipient pontiff without portfolio could be considered to be…..

In Des Moines, Iowa, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Armstrong became parents for the first time. They named their son Herbert.

Herbert Armstrong grew up with a reasonably normal childhood. He had the normal education of any young boy growing up in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His family attended the Quaker church.

The Holiness Quakers was what Armstrong lifted the Holy Spirit as a power, a generative force, breath, wind, etcetera, from.

At age 18, Mr. Armstrong conducted a self-analysis survey from a book he read in the public library called Choosing a Vocation. His study showed that he would be most successful in the profession of journalism and advertising.

I note that this turn-of-the-last-century “What Colour is Your Parachute” did NOT tell Herbie that he would be most successful in the profession of false prophecy and oppressive religious fear-mongering. But that would have probably been a little too prescient.

For many years Mr. Armstrong gained valuable experience in the field of advertising and journalism. Little did he realize that this experience would later be used by God.

“Little did he realize that he could later use the concept of God to parlay this experience into a money-making machine that would last him right up until he died.”

In January of 1917, Mr. Armstrong met Loma Dillon. They were married in July of that same year and lived happily together until Mrs. Armstrong died just a few weeks before their 50th wedding anniversary.

She died due to her husband refusing her adequate medical care. Immediately afterwards, Armstrong then sent out a plea to his church, claiming they had basically killed her (because they hadn’t prayed hard enough, not because he had refused to let her be treated by a doctor), and urged them to send those tithes in, to make up for their murder.

But you won’t find that in the YES lessons. That’s too gory for even Basil to illustrate.

Through the next several years, Mr. Armstrong worked in a variety of businesses, mostly in advertising. After a series of successes came a string of failures. God was humbling him.

Unfortunately ol’ Herbie never quite got humbled enough. More the opposite, I would say.

PROVING THE SABBATH

During the summer of 1924, Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong loaded up a Model-T Ford and headed west to Oregon.

The beginning of the apocalypse that was to be all of our lives.

Mr. Armstrong continued in the field of advertising and began to build accounts in Oregon and Washington.

In Oregon, Mrs. Armstrong befriended a neighbor lady who encouraged her to more actively study the Bible. To her amazement, Mrs. Armstrong discovered God’s Sabbath day was not Sunday as she had believed.

In other words, poor, dumb Loma, got sucked in by the cult of the CoG7, without which none of what followed would have happened as it did. Where the FUCK is that TARDIS?!?! “Neighbor lady” and her CoG7 congregation needs a visit from the Daleks!

She excitedly hurried home to tell her husband. But Mr. Armstrong did not meet this news with great joy. He thought his wife had gone into religious fanaticism.

She had. Unfortunately, Herbie eventually did see the light, and decided to milk Loma’s newfound cult connections for every penny he could get.

Mr. Armstrong then reasoned that all churches who kept Sunday couldn’t be wrong. Shocked and angered, Mr. Armstrong set out to prove his wife’s newfound fanaticism wrong.

If only Herbie had managed to cobble up a proof-text that proved Sunday instead. Maybe then he would have stuck to failing at various businesses, until he died in obscurity.

I called for that TARDIS an hour ago, and it still hasn’t shown up. Well can’t rely on the Doctor, anyway. Probably not even the Master could take Herbie out.

In the fall of 1926, Mr. Armstrong set out to study the Bible in depth [as proof-texted by the CoG7] for the first time in his life. As he began his studies, Mr. Armstrong asked the most basic questions of all. Does God exist? Is the Bible the true and inspired Word of God? These questions led to a thorough study of the theory of the evolution and the inspiration of the Bible [through the theological blinders of the CoG7].

Weeks went by, then months. Mr. Armstrong, to his amazement, kept finding things he had never heard before. [Until Loma talked about the thought-reform the CoG7 was doing on her.] He searched in vain to find authority for keeping Sunday as the day of Christian worship. Instead, he proved that Saturday was the Sabbath day. He also proved the existence of God and that the Bible was His inspired Word.

Now if only Herbie had done a little extra-biblical reading, instead of confining himself to the one book, he would have come to a different conclusion. But that wasn’t to be.

God had now brought Mr. Armstrong to a point in his life where he was broken in spirit, broken down.

All pause for the sound of catcalls and raucous laughter. Rather, Armstrong, was starting to see dollar signs, and the possibility that he might just be able to get on as a minister with the CoG7, and solve some of his job security and income stability issues. And keep the little woman happy while he was at it.

And in the course of his studies, Mr. Armstrong discovered the necessity to be baptized.

But where was God’s true Church?

FINDING THE CHURCH OF GOD

We now bring the two parts of our story together. The life and preparation of Mr. Armstrong brought him in contact with those few people of the Church of God who were keeping God’s commandments.

Mr. Armstrong found a small group [of suckers] who called themselves the Church of God, with their publishing house at Stanberry, Missouri. He began to fellowship with [groom for poaching] some of their scattered members in the Willamette Valley, near Eugene, Oregon.

Several articles were published in The Bible Advocate.

But in the summer of 1928, filled with enthusiasm over discovering the Sabbath covenant, he spoke to [began to lust after the tithes of] the small congregation with whom they were fellowshipping.

MR. ARMSTRONG IS ORDAINED

Because of his work and service in the Church [and because they didn't realize he was a ticking bomb, waiting to go off], in 1931 Mr. Armstrong was ordained by the Oregon conference of the Church of God. This was 1900 years from the date Christ founded his Church through the New Testament apostles in A.D. 31.

Apparently Herbie was one of a half-dozen or so ordained at the same conference. What about the rest of them? Never saw the filthy lucre potential in the charlatan business, I guess.

A transition was now taking place in the Church of God. God was beginning to reveal truths to Mr. Armstrong from His Word. But the Sardis era was fading.

Funnily enough, the “Sardisian” Church of God (Seventh Day) is still going fairly strong, right up to the present day. Which is more than can be said for our pontiff without portfolio’s schizophrenic splinters, splits and schisms, now isn’t it?

Mr. Armstrong began to hold new campaigns not far from Eugene, Oregon. At the end of these campaigns, a small Church was raised up, and the Philadelphia era of the Church of God had begun.

Then there’s a bunch of isn’t-it-miraculous, the broadcast and the PT started up history.

A COLLEGE FOUNDED

Mr. Armstrong discovered after holding successful campaigns that those who were called and converted need a  minister to guide them [to send the money in]. But there was no trained ministry.

That’s the official story, and that Armstrong “stepped out in faith” buying the property in Pasadena. The real truth of the matter is, his earlier predictions of Armageddon coming about after or as a result of, WWII, never came to pass, and things were getting a little hot for him in OR. So he hied up and away to the sunny shores of California. Anyway, there are a few more paragraphs about the great and wonderful AC, &c., &c.

The fascinating and exciting story of Church history shows how God has directed and guided His people throughout time to do the Work He has called them to do. For many centuries, the Work of the Church of God was to preserve the name and truth of God.

We have been given a great commission, not only to preserve the truth of God, but to publish a warning message throughout the world. That Work is now being done through the leaders God has chosen, and their supporters who make up the Worldwide Church of God.

BIBLE MEMORY

Psalm 1:1-6

(See also Blessed and Happy is the Man.)

Now where in the flying fucking hell is that TARDIS?!