Armstrongism

[Ransom]

I think some sneaky people are trying to infiltrate my church. Well, that's what happens when it's big.

In the men's room this morning, I found a slip of paper on the counter. It read:

THE RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST IS NEAR !

[Web address redacted]

LE RETOUR DE  JESUS-CHRIST EST PROCHE !

[le site web censuré]​

It turns out the site belongs to the Living Church of God, one of the many splinter groups that formed after the death of Herbert W. Armstrong and the doctrinal shift of the original Worldwide Church of God. They're Armstrongite purists: anti-Trinitarianism, Sabbatarianism, The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy, the whole nine yards.

I suspected as much at the time, so I "liberated" the piece of paper. Heretics have no right to advertise their teachings in the restrooms at my church, anyway. The fact that they would do so doesn't surprise me - as I said, we're a big church, and in the past we've had folks like Mormon missionaries and even neo-Nazis just walk in and try to evangelize people.

What surprised me more, in fact, was that Armstrongism still has a following, as I had figured it died the death of a thousand papercuts when the WWCG fractured.

Anyone else see something similar in their neighbourhood?

 

[rsc2a]

Live strong!

 

[Castor Muscular]

Frequently missed line in the Marx Brothers Duck Soup:

"My father was a little headstrong, my mother was a little armstrong. The Headstrongs married the Armstrongs, and that's why darkies were born."

Which is itself a reference to a song "That's why darkies were born", made popular by Kate Smith in 1931. 

And now you know....  the rest of the story.

 

[Torrent v.3]

I think some sneaky people are trying to infiltrate my church. Well, that's what happens when it's big.

In the men's room this morning, I found a slip of paper on the counter. It read:

THE RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST IS NEAR !

[Web address redacted]

LE RETOUR DE  JESUS-CHRIST EST PROCHE !

[le site web censuré]​

It turns out the site belongs to the Living Church of God, one of the many splinter groups that formed after the death of Herbert W. Armstrong and the doctrinal shift of the original Worldwide Church of God. They're Armstrongite purists: anti-Trinitarianism, Sabbatarianism, The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy, the whole nine yards.

I suspected as much at the time, so I "liberated" the piece of paper. Heretics have no right to advertise their teachings in the restrooms at my church, anyway. The fact that they would do so doesn't surprise me - as I said, we're a big church, and in the past we've had folks like Mormon missionaries and even neo-Nazis just walk in and try to evangelize people.

What surprised me more, in fact, was that Armstrongism still has a following, as I had figured it died the death of a thousand papercuts when the WWCG fractured.

Anyone else see something similar in their neighbourhood?

Not my neighborhood anymore, but this happened. I was filling a pulpit for a guy who is well known on the old FFF.  I had never been there.  Well, he tells me that Sunday evenings he askes for testimonies.  So I did. And this guy stands up in the back and starts talking in language that was a little vague. Then he goes into hie spiel, and I realized he was a Mormon.  And eventually he says "Yes, I am a prophet of the church of Jesus Christ."  And I gently asked him to be seated. He wouldn't. Well, this brother had trained his deacons well, because they started to walk back there and this guy bolted.  Everyone laughed.  They said he had showed up once before, several years ago and the pastor engaged him and tried to win him.