Redfox has an article up today on his Living Armstrongism blog concerning the latest Gerald Flurry nonsense that is in print by the Philadelphia Church of God. I have to had it to Red. I don't know how he has the patience to read through all the blatant bullshit these guys write. It gets tiresome to me to read the pseudo-intellectual bullshit these uneducated men try pass off as "sound wisdom." None of these men have a real education but brag about being 'trained at the feet of Herbert Armstrong." What kind of an education can you get from a man who mocked higher education and of which there is no evidence he even graduated from high school!
Neil Earle writes about the anti-intellectualism of HWA and those who went through his system:
In Stage Four, “life must first be school life,” writes Erikson, “whether school is field or jungle or classroom.” 17 One cannot, of course, censure Herbert Armstrong for not choosing a college education in 1910. That career choice is an understandable pattern given the times, as was Frank Armstrong’s admiration of corporate leaders. This was the Production Era of America’s economic advance, a time when Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller were in their heyday. 18 The lasting significance is this: All his life, Herbert Armstrong would be quick study. As a young man he claimed to study incessantly on his own outside the classroom. Tellingly, the evidence is unclear from his writings as to whether he graduated from high school. This is important, for, as Joseph Hopkins notes, Armstrong’s studies did have consequences for his later mass audiences. This anti-intellectual reaction formation is a major thrust in his development process. It is important to remember Erikson’s insistence that Stage Four is when the child’s exuberant imagination is “tamed and harnessed.” As Erikson says: “Many a child’s development is disrupted when family life has failed to prepare him for school life, or when school life fails to sustain the promises of earlier stages.” 19 Freud labeled this the latency stage, the lull before puberty. By his own accounts, Herbert Armstrong loafed and lounged in school. The botany teacher called him a sponge: “Herbert Armstrong, you are just like a sponge. You never study your lesson, you never contribute or give out anything in class. You just sit there and soak up what the other pupils recite, and then, when final exams come along, you always get close to 100%.” 20
Back to Gerald Flurry's uneducated nonsense:
In Chapter 10 of his book, The Former Prophets: How to Become a King, Gerald Flurry speculates that about 10,000 PCG members will get to flee to the Place of Safety, which is often said to be Petra, Jordan. Here is what he says.
A couple of biblical prophecies refer to 10,000 saints being in a place of safety in the end time. (You can read about this in Chapter Five of my free booklet No Freedom Without Law.) Deuteronomy 33:1-2 speak of “ten thousands of saints” coming with Christ from mount Paran, which is located in Petra, Jordan. The Apostle Jude referred to this in an end-time context as well (Jude 14).God clearly says there will be 10,000 members in a place of safety. It has to mean that. He is going to come back with those 10,000. So maybe we’ll convert, say, 500 of our teenagers in the place of safety, and between now and then. And maybe we will pick up between 2,000 and 2,500 from the world and from the Laodicean churches.Reaching that number might take a little more time than what we have thought, but I would hasten to add that so much is happening in this world, and it is disintegrating so fast, there is no guarantee it will take long at all. (Gerald Flurry, The Former Prophets: How to Become a King, 2014, Chapter 10, p. 226.)Actually PCG members have already been waiting about thirteen years already to get 10,000 members.
Gerald Flurry's personality cult has been losing numbers for many years now. He is not even close to 10,000 persons being with him in Petra. Even if every single youth in his personalty cult converted over night he still could not reach his goal of 10,000 members. How does he think he will accomplish this when God's greatest COG evvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvver, David C Pack, has been unable to do the same thing for the last three years. No one is flocking to Dave Pack just as no one is flocking to Gerald Flurry.
People in the various Church of God's are starting to wake up to the abuse they have been subjected to over the decades. Every group is losing members now. No new members are coming from the public to these groups. Even United Church of God couldn't draw in members after a $70,000+ recent media debacle in the Cincinnati area.
Anti-intellectualism is a hold over from the formation of fundamentalism from 1900-1930's here in the United States. That is right around the time Herbert Armstrong was gaining his foothold in ripping apart the Church of God 7th day when he separated to start his own personalty cult.
Read Redfox's take on Flurry's silliness: Gerald Flurry Repeats 13 Year Old Bizarre Prophecy of 10,000 PCG Members Going to Place of Safety
