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17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Worth reading but reader, beware., February 20, 2002
The very first thing I would like to say about this book is that I will not fault Mr. Feazell his opinion. On the other hand, it's just that -- an opinion. At certain points in the book, his opinion is much closer to reality than at other points.To give two opposing examples, Mr. Feazell states on page 98, "I will go so far as to say that Sabbatarianism prevents anyone who believes in it from coming fully to the freedom of the gospel." His reasoning for this is that, based on his experience, everyone who keeps the seventh-day Sabbath believes that Sabbath-keeping is a salvation issue. Fortunately, there ARE Sabbatarians who do not believe that way. One of the largest of such groups is called "Messianic Judaism," which believes that God has called Israelites and Gentiles to different roles. (See Acts 21:17-25, Rom. 3:1-2, 1 Cor. 7:18 and Col. 2:16-17 in particular.) It's true that most if not all of the membership of the WCG felt that way however, and in that, I agree with Mr. Feazell. On the other hand, Feazell states that Armstrong's understanding of biblical healing came from an experience he had in his early years. He then proceeded to base his entire doctrine on healing on that one experience. Just from my own reading of the bible, there were three examples of Jesus healing blindness in the bible, and He did it in three DIFFERENT ways. If each of the people who had been healed by Jesus had gone and started their own denominations based on their one experience, we might have seen something similar to what happened with Herbert Armstrong and the WCG. Yes, the understanding of biblical healing was a legitimate problem that the WCG had. Mr. Feazell was unfortunately not smart enough to understand what the WCG was all about. I do not mean to criticize him -- I'm simply stating it as a fact. Most people, whether within our outside the WCG, never understood it. I'll give one simple example to illustrate my point. There was a great amount of criticism, by both members and non-members, of the "opulent lifestyle" of Mr. Armstrong. Unfortunately, what they didn't grasp is that he believed the Kingdom of God to be an earthly kingdom that would be established at some point in the future, in which all of the riches of this world could not compare. If one could not learn to appreciate physical blessings and learn to be responsible with wealth here and now, it would be all the more difficult in the Kingdom. Whether Armstrong was correct in his understanding of the Kingdom or not (and I happen to agree with him), HARDLY ANYONE UNDERSTOOD THIS PREMISE. Although the finances of WCG weren't "squeaky clean" and the wealth WAS abused by some in the ministry, the accumulation of wealth by the WCG wasn't entirely wrong. In the exact same way, if one goes to some of the towns of western Europe where the houses are plain and simple, the town church is often highly extravagant and ornate. The townspeople contributed, over generations, to creating a beautiful place to worship which they felt glorified God. The final problem with Mr. Feazell's analysis -- and, frankly, most of Christianity -- is that they have a great deal of trouble grasping the principle that there can be more than one right way to interpret the bible. To give a simple example, the Worldwide Church of God was well-known for preaching that we are NOT "born again now," but that this spiritual birth takes place when Jesus Christ returns and our bodies are changed from flesh to spirit. A proper reading of John 3:8 supports this interpretation. However, 1 Peter 1:3 and other, similar verses make it clear that being "born again" is something that happens during this lifetime. BOTH INTERPRETATIONS ARE CORRECT. (By the way, the doctrine that the Kingdom of God exists now and the doctrine that it is yet in the future is another example of two correct interpretations.) If Christianity -- including the WCG splits that still believe and practice a majority of the old WCG doctrines -- would realize that a lot of their doctrinal differences are the result of having different but equally correct interpretations, there would be a lot more peace and unity within the body of Christ. In the final analysis, the WCG's migration from cult to "mainstream" status could have been handled much more effectively than it was. On pages 115-117, Mr. Feazell explains the reasoning as to why the church leadership tried its best to hide the process of change from the laity, citing the cult mentality of the laity as THE barrier to effective change. To that, I say two things: first, no lie is of the Truth -- and they LIED to the laity in telling them that nothing was being changed -- and secondly, if the cult mentality is the problem, then change the cult mentality BEFORE changing any doctrines! In my opinion, the changes that took place in the WCG constitute the biggest religious disaster in years. There are still hundreds of splits from the WCG that hold nearly the same doctrines as before the changes. They have not been healed or bound up, so to speak (quoting Isaiah 61:1-2). Everyone seems to be focusing instead on the "miracle" of the mainstreaming of the "stump" of the eviscerated tree. The leadership of the WCG did not have the tools to make effective change, either. Because the entire organization was infected with an attitude of negativity and judgmentalism, THAT needed to be cured first, and the leadership just didn't know how to do that. Trust should have been won first, rather than changing doctrines. Secondly, the same goes for the WCG leadership as what I said concerning Mr. Feazell. They just weren't smart enough to discern between what WAS true and correct -- even though it was almost unique to the WCG -- what teachings had to be modified, and what had to go. Again, I'm not criticizing them, I'm just stating the facts. There are lessons to be learned from what happened with the WCG -- both in what went right and what went wrong. This is where I feel that this book has its greatest strength, although the reader must beware that the author himself makes mistakes in determining what went right or wrong. If one were to approach another "cult" organization with a similar agenda, then one had better beware of making the same mistakes and ultimately leaving the walking wounded in the wake of the "miracle" of doctrinal healing.
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