Monday, January 15, 2018

Herbert W. Armstrong: Racist?



Today is Martin Luther King Day here in the United States.  There can be no better time to repost an article from the Painful Truth and Gavin Rumney's old page about racism in the Church of God.


Herbert W. Armstrong: Racist

By M.A.M.

In the June-July 1981 issue of The Good News, there is an article titled “After 50 Years – Christ’s Apostle Still Ahead of His Time!” Like just about everything else published by the Worldwide Church of God about Herbert W. Armstrong, this is a lie. Herbert W. Armstrong was a man whose feet were firmly planted in the past. Within his church, Armstrong tried to re-create the world of his youth. 
We can see the theme arise again and again in his writings. In Mystery of the Ages, Armstrong wrote, “I have lived through the horse and buggy age, the automobile and industrial age, the air age, the nuclear age and now into the space age. I have seen America live through the agrarian age when farmers walked behind their horse-drawn ploughs singing happily, and into the urban age when Midwest American farmers are groaning and fighting for more government subsidies to prevent the extinction of farm life. (page vii).” For farmers at least, the past was better than the present. 
Armstrong’s love for the past surfaced again shortly after the murder of John Lennon. “In disgust, I left TV, but at 10 p.m., I tuned in for the LOCAL news. It was all eulogizing the ‘rock’ ‘musician.’ A local Tucson crowd of 2,000 had flocked to Reid Park bandshell to leave roses, and mourn for their dead idol. The local station had a lot about the ‘man and his “music.”’ (I had never thought of it as music, but a loud raucous SQUAWK and SCREAM with a fast beat - just an irritating noise.) 
“Pardon me, please! Perhaps I never had any musical education, although I have played the piano since 8 years old. I must have been terribly misled, for I supposed that the singing of a Caruso or a Galli-Curci of my father's time or a Pavarotti or Beverly Sills or an Arthur Rubinstein of our day produced music. I guess I'm terribly out-of-date. I have heard roosters make a loud raucous squawk when being captured for a Sunday dinner when I was a boy, but I just never had been ‘educated’ to call that ‘music.’ 
“When as a boy I worked one summer in a flour mill, to the constant ‘beat’ of the machinery till it nearly drove me crazy, I somehow never realized that was ‘music.’ 
“Please bear with me in my ignorance.” I'll try, but it isn't easy. At least here he was being truthful. Armstrong was ignorant of popular music. A strong beat has been a characteristic of popular music since the rise of jazz, right after the first world war. Apparently, Armstrong was unaware of anything that occurred outside of the opera house since Caruso's time. 
“I do remember, when I was in England at the college just before the mid-'60's, the Beatles were breaking into public notice. The had a new ‘way-out’ style, with an idiotic mop-topped hairstyle, with hair covering the forehead to the eyebrows, the ears and longer hair in the back of the head. The forehead is the seat of intellect - the mark of intelligence instead of animal nonintelligence. They started the style of male hairdo to turn evolution into reverse - man was becoming a dumb brute animal.” 
The new music was just “a loud raucous SQUAWK and SCREAM with a fast beat - just an irritating noise.” The new hair style “turn[ed] evolution into reverse - man was becoming a dumb brute animal (The Worldwide News, “How The Beatles Changed The Culture of the Western World,” December 22, 1980, page 1).” These were not the reasoned words of an open-minded, enlightened man. They were the belittling comments of someone who refused to accept the present. If Armstrong did not like the way a person combed his hair, he resorted to name-calling and insults, even equating him to an animal. 
On page 158 of The Missing Dimension in Sex, Armstrong again belittles modern popular music: “WHO determines what is ‘popular music’ today? The ‘teens.’ Even the radio stations who do not go to rock and disco music, in the main, play what is called ‘popular’ music. But is it MUSIC? Or is it a moan, a groan, a wail, a dirge, and a screech?” 
Anyone who was single in the Worldwide Church of God would be aware of the courtship rituals enforced by the ministry. These were based on the dating “procedures” (See The Missing Dimension in Sex, page 154) Herbert Armstrong practiced in his youth. After all, if God’s Apostle followed certain “procedures,” they were God ordained and all should follow them. We’ve all heard them: date in groups, date in order to develop friendships, don’t date for the purpose of finding a mate, don’t be alone with a person of the opposite sex, don’t date outside the church, date widely. In theory, these practices would prevent one from marrying the wrong person or committing fornication. They would expose you to a wide variety of people, and develop your interpersonal skills. In practice, they made dating unnecessarily difficult, and made it much harder to find a mate by erecting all sorts of artificial obstacles. It also put you under a microscope because if you followed the prohibition against being alone with a member of the opposite sex, you had no privacy. In addition, the church was full of people who refused to mind their own business, and asked prying questions. If you were seen together at church services, rumors would sweep through the congregation. Last, but not least, you had ministers watching you, enforcing Herbert’s will on the dating question. Ministerial meddling was common.  All of those I know who were single in the church had at least one serious relationship ended by ministerial diktat. 
When Armstrong was a child, back in eighteen-ninety-whatever, women didn't wear make-up. Naturally, it follows that he wouldn't let women wear make-up in his church. To Armstrong, make-up was “physical colored dirt” that deceitful women wore. In his classic booklet The Truth About Make-Up, Armstrong wrote, “Its modern, popular and almost universal use today originated with the harlots of Paris. From there it traveled to the old redlight districts of San Francisco, Denver, New Orleans, Chicago, New York and other American cities. Then it was used by the streetwalker prostitutes to attract and seduce men. 
“My wife remembered an incident that occurred when she was a little girl nine years old. Her father ran a small town general store. In the store she found two small packages of face powder, one white, the other red. She began to apply some of the colored powder to her face. Her mother saw her, and quickly took the powder away from her.
“‘No, no! Loma,’ said her mother. ‘You mustn't ever put that on your face. Only the bad women use that!’” 
Apparently, Loma found this incident so traumatic that years later, she was psychologically unable to confront her husband about his incestuous relationship with their daughter. 
“My mother - before she died - remembered that she used to apply a little powder on her cheeks but didn't seem to remember at what time this custom started. But she did distinctly remember that her mother never once applied powder, paint, or any kind of cosmetics whatsoever to her face. She was a very virtuous and religious woman, and in her time "only the bad women" put paint or powder on their faces. My own mother very emphatically declared that no lipstick ever touched her lips - a fact in which she took great satisfaction.” Yes, only harlots wore make-up, while the spiritually pure kept their faces free of the colored dirt. If it was true, as Armstrong claimed, that in his youth only prostitutes wore make-up, it was true of all times and places. 
With his adoration for the past, it is no surprise that Armstrong’s views on race relations remained unchanged from his youth. Segregation, bans on interracial dating and marriage, and the inferiority of the “Negro” race were things he took for granted. As his article in the October, 1963 Plain Truth demonstrated, Armstrong cloaked the racial prejudice practiced in the Jim Crow south with Biblical garb. His attempt to make racism Biblical is truly astonishing. 
Armstrong went to his grave without changing his opinions on race. In Mystery of the Ages, Armstrong lays out his racial theories in a book published just a few months before his death. Support for segregation, a distaste for interracial marriage, and a belief in black inferiority are all on display in his final book: 
“The subject matter of the chapter [Genesis 6] is the generations ancestry of Noah. Exceeding wickedness had developed through those generations, by Noah's generation reaching a climactic crisis that ended that world. 
“What was this universal evil and corruption? Jesus described that universal, corrupt evil as ‘eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage’ (Matt. 24:38). Eating food and drinking is not evil. Marrying is not evil in itself. There had to be wrong use and excess in eating, drinking and marrying - the evil was in the manner, and in the extent of eating, drinking and marrying.
“It could only be eating improper food, drinking excessively of alcoholic drinks, revelings (Gal. 5:21), rioting, violence. Marrying, to be evil, had to be as in Genesis 6:2, when men ‘took them wives of all which they chose.’ There was rampant and universal interracial marriage - so exceedingly universal that Noah, only, was unblemished or perfect in his generations - his ancestry. He was of the original white strain.
“It is amply evident that by the time of Noah there were at least the three primary or major racial strains on earth, the white, yellow and black, although interracial marriage produced many racial mixtures.
“God does not reveal in the Bible the precise origin of the different races. It is evident that Adam and Eve were created white. God's chosen nation Israel was white. Jesus was white. But it is a fair conjecture that in mother Eve were created ovaries containing the yellow and black genes, as well as white, so that some of the children of Adam and Eve gave rise to black, yellow, as well as white.
“The one man God chose to PRESERVE the human race alive after the Flood was perfect in his generations - all his ancestry back to Adam was of the one strain, and undoubtedly that happened to be white - not that white is in any sense superior.” So Armstrong says. But you’ll notice that he believes that Adam and Eve were white, and so was Noah and Jesus and the twelve apostles. Armstrong tries to convince us that the white race is not superior in his eyes, but he strongly implies that it is preferred in God's eyes.
“If you are a livestock breeder, planning to enter your prize animals in a livestock show - perhaps at a state or county fair - you will be sure to enter only thoroughbred or pedigreed stock! Mixing the breed alters the characteristics.
“God originally set the bounds of national borders, intending nations to be SEPARATED to prevent interracial marriage. Notice, "When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance [speaking of land or geographical boundaries], when he separated, [notice - he separated] the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people..." (Deut. 32:8).
“But people wanted to intermarry - until there would be only ONE RACE!
“That desire seems still inherent in human nature today!
“Noah was of perfect lineage in his generations. His wife and three sons were of that same white strain. But Japheth evidently had married an Oriental woman, and Ham a black.
“We know little more than stated above about civilized development prior to the Flood. (Pages 147-149, emphasis his throughout.)”
Where he developed this theory, I don’t know. There is no Biblical support for this point of view. One can only conclude that these were the opinions with which Armstrong started, and he interpreted the Bible to conform to his opinions. 
Incredibly, Armstrong predicted that the Kingdom of God would be segregated. God would appoint the resurrected Noah as his Minister of Racial Purity to supervise the separation of the races. 
“Since Noah lived first, we now take a look at Noah. In Noah's day, the chief cause of the violence and chaos of world conditions was racial hatreds, interracial marriages, and racial violence caused by man's efforts toward integration and amalgamation of races, contrary to God's laws. God had set the boundary lines for the nations and the races at the beginning (Deut. 32:8-9; Acts 17:26). But men had refused to remain in the lands to which God had assigned them. That was the cause of the corruption and violence that ended that world. For 120 years Noah had preached God's ways to the people - but they didn't heed.
“At that time, even as today, that world faced a population explosion. It was when ‘men began to multiply on the face of the earth’ (Gen. 6:1). Jesus said, of our time, right now, ‘But as the days of Noe [Noah] were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be’ (Matt. 24:37) - or, as in Luke 17:26, ‘And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.’ That is, the days just before Christ returns. Today race wars, race hatreds, race riots and race problems are among the world's greatest social troubles.
“Noah merely preached to people in his human lifetime. But Noah, in the resurrection, immortal, in power and glory, will be given the power to enforce God's ways in regard to race.
“It seems evident that the resurrected Noah will head a vast project of the relocation of the races and nations, within the boundaries God has set for their own best good, happiness and richest blessings. This will be a tremendous operation. It will require great and vast organization, reinforced with power to move whole nations and races. This time, peoples and nations will move where God has planned for them, and no defiance will be tolerated.
“What a paradox. People are going to be forced to be happy, to have peace, to find abundant and joyful living! (Pages 341-342.)”
How would they be made happy? By not having to associate with those of other races. Armstrong blamed many of the world’s problems on the integration of the races. The cure would be the re-institution of segregation. The world’s problems would be solved by apartheid. In this and many other areas, Herbert was a man behind the times. He either couldn’t or wouldn’t change. Although he claimed to be God’s Apostle, when it came to race he was more like the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.

27 comments:

RSK said...

I have read rumors on the internet that HWA was at one point involved with the Klan during their heyday. He certainly was of age around the right time and probably saw many things we'd shudder at today (like the old Coon Chicken Inn not far from his home in Portland - today its a Trader Joes). But I have never seen any evidence to bear that out.

Of course, that doesn't mean that he didn't still absorb and retain the racist attitudes of his time. Whether he was consciously or subconsciously racist is a question I cant answer, as I never knew or worked alongside the man.

Anonymous said...

Armstrong and King were both plagiarists. King copied 45% of the first half of his PhD divinity thesis from other sources. He copied 21% of the second half. Some Christian. Some minister. Armstrong copied British Israelism from John H. Allen.

The list of crooked deeds of King goes on and on. He also admitted to being a Marxist. Nothing wrong with that I guess, but why do so few people seem to know he was a Marxist? Why is that information suppressed. I could go on but I doubt if this site would even it be published.

Byker Bob said...

The most convincing evidence that HWA was a racist lies in the fact that as a researcher, he was at the bottom of the food chain, because he was a known “proof-texter” who scurried about trying to find any “evidence” which supported his conclusions. The conclusions (teachings of HWA) that are catalogued above in Myra’s article are patently racist. The scriptures and history he cites were simply cobbled together to support his racism.

BB

BB

Darren C. said...

Here is a list of racist quotes I compiled in 2007 from Mystery of the Ages alone:

There was rampant and universal interracial marriage -- so exceedingly universal that Noah, only, was unblemished or perfect in his generations -- his ancestry. He was of the original white strain. . . .

It is evident that Adam and Eve were created white. God's chosen nation Israel was white. Jesus was white. . . .

The one man God chose to PRESERVE the human race alive after the Flood was perfect in his generations -- all his ancestry back to Adam was of the one strain, and undoubtedly that happened to be white -- not that white is in any sense superior. . . .

God intended to prevent racial intermarriages. But man has always wanted to violate God's laws, intentions and ways. . . . As mentioned before, God had set the bounds of the races, providing for geographical segregation, in peace and harmony but without discrimination. . . .

God had intended geographical segregation, not integration of the races. . . .

The probability is that these people [the ancient Hebrew nation] were all -- or nearly all -- of the white racial strain, unchanged since creation. . . .

Undoubtedly, one reason [one purpose for choosing Israel] was to preserve the original physical racial strain. . . .

God had chosen a nation of almost perfect original strain in its generations -- its ancestry. Also they had the quality heredity of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel). . . .

Here was a people of almost clear racial strain, and the God believing heredity of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. . . .

God started his chosen nation off -- even though brought out of slavery -- with all the natural advantages of a superior heredity. God pulled them out of slavery and gave them a new and fresh start. One might say they had everything God-given going for them. . . .

The nation Israel under Moses was ONE RACE -- very little interracial marriage had marred their racial nationality. . . .

The Promised Land was then called Canaan. Canaanites, racially dark, had settled in the land. . . .

GOD INTENDED TO KEEP THEM PHYSICALLY SEPARATE from other nations -- both nationally (racially) and religiously. . . .

Jesus Christ was born of the tribe of Judah, and it was necessary that HE be of the original pure racial strain, even as Noah was.

It seems evident that the resurrected Noah will head a vast project of the relocation of the races and nations, within the boundaries God has set, for their own best good, happiness and richest blessings. This will be a tremendous operation. It will require great and vast organization, reinforced with power to move whole nations and races. This time, peoples and nations will move where God has planned for them, and no defiance will be tolerated. . . .

Anonymous said...

I couldn't help noticing Herbs marketing, mental manipulation skills in this post.
Hence the relocation of races is associated with "best good, happiness, richest blessings, peace, abundant and joyful living."
Who could disagree with any plan associated with such nice, heart warming words.

Likewise, any idea that commie Herb disagreed with such as self interest, he smeared by association with words such as "greed, selfishness, lust, self seeking, the get way, heartlessness, etc."
Who can possibly pursue their hopes and dreams guilt-free after hearing such constant word associations.

It's worth noting that such deception is at a emotional rather than a intellectual level. Herb knew that he couldn't win a intellectual debate with questions such as "but aren't you motivated by self interest? Don't you use gold/silver dinner ware?"

RSK said...

Next you'll be telling us water is wet, Anon 4:38.

RSK said...

"The nation Israel under Moses was ONE RACE -- very little interracial marriage had marred their racial nationality. . . ."

Oh yeah, under that guy who married a Midianite and/or an Ethiopian. Geez.

Anonymous said...

"Here is a list of racist quotes I compiled in 2007 from Mystery of the Ages alone:"

By that standard saying that blacks are black is racist.

Anonymous said...

King was a woman beater and a womanizer. At least GTA didn't beat women. GTA was a saint by comparison.

Byker Bob said...

Interestingly, RSK, Manasseh and Ephraim’s mommy was Egyptian. Now we don’t know what particular type of Egyptian she might have been. She might well have been a Nubian Egyptian. Imagine the implications that might have on Herb’s pet theories!

BB

Anonymous said...

The facts show that in racially homogeneous countries people are more happy and far less alienated. There is less conflict. Diversity always increases conflict.

Byker Bob said...

If you were attempting to obtain justice and parity in living conditions for a people who had been deeply involved in the building of a nation, but historically deprived, 4:38, then the idea of equally distributing wealth might appeal to you also. Many students of political science don’t go beyond what Marxism appears to be on paper. Obviously, Stalinist purges were not part of the conceptualization of hippie communes, or the Jewish kibbutzim. Neither was the proscription of belief.



BB

You are blinded in your own way said...

I notice a lot of whining because Herbert Armstrong held racial beliefs common to his day especially among churchmen who were against homosexuality, race-mixing, and liberalism. Herbert's followers likewise had much the same attitudes.

I myself think that those days were far better for most people and see nothing wrong with Herbert's teaching -- common to its time -- on segregation and against race-mixing.

Now most of the writers and commenters don't like Herbert Armstrong but they want to judge him by their standards, not those of a bygone age. This is unfair and biased in its own way. No one was forced to attend the Worldwide Church of God if they did not agree with its religious and thus political values. If you didn't like it there was always the road.

Herbert's way or the highway. I chose the highway. Nothing against the good People of the WWCoG but I didn't much appreciate Herbert or Herbert's Hollow Baal-Priests. That said, I didn't have any problem with Herbert Armstrong's racial separation teachings or in thinking that Jesus Christ was White.

I think the blog owner lets his hatred of Herbert Armstrong blind himself to the good portions of the Worldwide Church of God.

Anonymous said...

10.33 PM
I believe that the argument of judging people by the standard of their age has some merit. But only to a point since people are aware of the ten commandments or similar. But Christian Herb was supposed to live by every word of God rather than the standard of the day. God holds bible literates to a higher standard.

Where people forced to attend the WWCG? The answer is yes since once people were baptised, they believed that it was neccessary for their eternal salvation. They were trapped in a mental cage. Some are strong enough to be stay at home Christians, but most aren't. Many are still trapped.
I believe compassion rather than condemnation should be extended to these members.

nck said...

RSK

HWA was not involved with KKK.
To understand HWA one should also include his Quaker background. Any analysis without the Quaker input makes it really hard to understand on what points HWA and WCG culture DID differ from his contemporary Fundamentalists. (regarding military service, utopia, liberation of man and slave etc)

In the past I wrote lengthy posting that I will now admit were based on the research of Pam Dewey of Meetmyth America. Although the debate on "racism" in people from the Victorian age or fundamentalist contemporaries can go on forever, at least Pam Dewey made an extremely well researched attemt to describe the Oregonian context in which (midwestern HWA) operated. Oregon being "the Promised Land" the Golden land out West.

But to the Southern racists Oregon lay as the bible said "NORTH WEST".

This ALL WHITE state has a startling history and I would recommend the meetmythamerica article only after a good breakfast or if you really don't mind getting depressed for a day.

On the other hand it gives far more context to how and where "new found religion, quaker raised boy turned business man" was operating the church from in its early inception phase.
Perhaps it can even be claimed that the COG perhaps was the only grouping not involved in blatant racism at the time and HWA joining that group in 1928 rather speaks to his favor.

nck

RSK said...

Ehh, I dunno, King had fame, but not the authority clout of being The Mouthpiece of The Only True Church to his play partners.

RSK said...

Yup. And they probably weren't the only ones.
Of course, in the American South, every other white person claims some sort of Native ancestry. Never heard HWA speak about that "intermixing" either.

Byker Bob said...

In a way, you are right. Herbert did impose the standards of the day upon his church. What you neglected to point out was that he applied the standards of the day of Alabama and Mississippi, certainly not those of most of the USA. Pasadena, California is and was a racially diverse city. Before much of it was removed for the freeway, the area just across the railroad tracks from Imperial Schools was a black area of town. There was a little black-owned restaurant/stand called “The Green Buck” which was patronized by members of the AC gardening crew during daily work breaks, and a black-owned liquor store up the street from AC Press, where press employees would often purchase beverages at lunch time. Sabbath Services might have been held in the Imperial Gym on Saturdays, but on Sundays there was a black church about a block away, where if we were working overtime on Sundays we got to hear some awesome gospel music through their open windows. The press was actually situated in a black neighborhood.

I can assure you that HWA was most certainly not applying the standards of the day of Pasadena California to his church and college. Obviously, the college catalogue depicted millionaire’s row as reflecting the surrounding neighborhood, but the area on the eastern border of the church and college was very much a black neighborhood.

The students and workers at Ambassador College were instantly recognizable through attire and mannerisms as being radically different from the general public. Campus Security had no problem recognizing people from outside the college when they came on campus, even for a peaceful walk. Impromptu visitors would be intercepted and asked to either leave, or make an appointment for an escorted campus tour. We were an insular, sequestered community, in no way typical of the rest of the city or the community standards of the day.

BB

RSK said...

Ah, yes, the Friends, who had once been among the earliest pushers of abolitionism. Yet by the time Armstrong was old enough to start absorbing their teaching, Reconstruction was over and the swing of the pendulum was plunging the nation into a seriously low point in racialism. So low that even our university texts often skip over that ugly period. How influenced by the times were Herbert's somewhat-removed Iowa Quaker "stock"? After all, the COGs didnt invent cognitive dissonance.

nck said...

RSK

Good thing you have knowledge on that particular time frame within the swing of the pendulum.

In the past I posted lengthy postings on the political shaping of the nation and the groups and ideas that evolved to be the two party system we re in now. But literature mirrors those times aswell.

Influence.
Well, at least EVERY communication from HWA started and ended by greeting his "FRIENDS" around the world.

Ironic, we are discussing a 1968 event, while today on the day HWA died another icon died who in 1968 rose to prominence by bursting out OH Happy Day.

Until next time, good bye. :-) (I couldnt help myself.)

nck

Byker Bob said...

As a false prophet, HWA was a quacker. Walked like a duck, talked like a duck.

BB

Anonymous said...

Lest we all forget, Herbert Armstrong ordained a black evangelist in the 1930s. Harold Jackson stayed loyal to WCG all the way to the end.

nck said...

7:55 Yes. So many examples of black leaders. Stan Bass I recall etc etc.

I do sympathize with the real experiences a people share.

From a theoretical viewpoint almost non of the arguments used by dissenters fly.

So yes I have acknowledged that people suffered by redneck minister abuse or cultural prejudice.
So far non of the Kenyan people have chimed in here, probably because there are no rednecks in Kenya and culture makes it hard to discriminate a black person. Perhaps we should ask the former Rhodesian White members if they suffered abuse.

I met so many "culturally challenged" people during my Cold War stint in WCG.

nck

nck said...

7:55 Yes. So many examples of black leaders. Stan Bass I recall etc etc.

I do sympathize with the real experiences a people share.

From a theoretical viewpoint almost non of the arguments used by dissenters fly.

So yes I have acknowledged that people suffered by redneck minister abuse or cultural prejudice.
So far non of the Kenyan people have chimed in here, probably because there are no rednecks in Kenya and culture makes it hard to discriminate a black person. Perhaps we should ask the former Rhodesian White members if they suffered abuse.

I met so many "culturally challenged" people during my Cold War stint in WCG.

nck

Byker Bob said...

Nck, most of us who comment here actually do live in the USA. Our culture, and to a certain extent, the corporate culture of the WCG are our experience, and the benchmark for our criticisms of HWA/WCG. While I am certain there are many fine people in the countries you constantly cite and use in rebuttal to our comments, their experiences do not modify or mitigate the evil and bad experiences which most of us endured under HWA. Obviously, there are people in some nations whose perspective is one of looking forward to an apocalypse as God pushing the reset button so that their basic needs can finally be met, and they can at last be happy. That is not the attitude of most Americans. We view an apocalypse as being the end of such a good thing. Fortunately, HWA was not able to pull off his apocalypse!

BB

nck said...

BB

I am speaking about HWA as a 20th century phenomenon rising to prominence in a particular cold war rise of the american empire time frame.

You talk about hwa as a personal religious figure.

I focus on the universality of the message under particular circumstance since there were many hwa s over time.

You on the time stamped message.

Ronald Reagan believed in apocalypse. At least that is what the kgb understood and based negotiatons on.

Christian culture sees the end as a new beginning.

HWA resonated differently to boys receiving daily abuse or to Greek elites faced to make a decision wether to join the EC or not.

The decisions of the elites are never givens but can be nudged as we see who invited hwa to speak to who.

We might have paid the dinners for diplomats but we certainly did not invite ourselves. There were politicians in Japan and Greece and Egypt etc who thought his message relevant to the decision makers of the day. One could loose face you know even as a government official.

The benchmark is how a message is receiced and perceived. I agree Americans might not have fully understood the wcg or international diplomacy in general as the Middle Eastern mess testifies to an extent.

Nck

nck said...

When you have a leader who is abroad for 340 days a year in an organization called worldwide, ones valid but american experiences cannot be the sole benchmark.

A black mans exoerience in the south is different from the members in liberia and nigeria (in wcg) no doubt!

Nck