4. The Evidence of Poison
4.1. Killing Bible Study
Closely allied with its hatred and suspicion of creative activity is its severe censorship. Creation and communication are vital components of freedom and individuality, but these are states the organization wishes to discourage. Members are forbidden to discuss religious subjects, which is seen as "preaching" or "holding a private Bible Study," a serious usurpation of the ministry's role. Thus, the pleasure of sharing things with your peers, comparing experiences or texts, or discussing new discoveries are all put under the cloud of "heresy," a word of warning heard repeatedly on members' lips. This fear cuts the member off from one of the ways that Bible study can be kept interesting--the sharing of new insights on accepted ideas.
Inch by inch, the Worldwide Church of God begins to kill the member's individuality and his genuine religious experience. Bible study goes from being a joy to a burden, by making it a duty whose insights cannot be shared--indeed, by putting a fear of heresy into a member's mind, the organization makes him afraid of making any new discoveries: after all, heresies can exist also in your own mind.
This is less honest than my own mother's upbringing: as a Catholic, in those days, she was forbidden to look at or own a Bible, because of the danger of reading and misinterpreting something best left to the priest. Opening her first Bible, as a grown woman, was an act of great moment for her. The Worldwide Church of God, however, extols personal Bible study, then begins to create a dread of it in the members' minds. This puts the member into a double-bind, or dilemma: he's damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't. All of the WWCOG teachings which have hidden opposites set people up in this no-win situation. This is useful to the organization, because, as in this case, once the member begins avoiding Bible study, he develops a guilt he can be manipulated by.
4.2. Killing Prayer
Prayer is another area slowly eroded by the atmosphere of the church. Since the overriding emphasis is on reaching God through the medium of the church, private prayer begins to feel somehow disloyal to the church, and God begins to seem farther and farther away, and less and less real. Many times, the honest member will want to talk to God about what is happening to him, what the church is doing to him. He feels too paralyzed with guilt to do so.
If the agonies of his heart are off-limits in prayer, because God is on the organization's side (isn't He on the Organization Chart?) what Advocate can a member have--or what hope? Is it any wonder that the fruits of the spirit of the Worldwide Church of God are fear, dread, and despair, rather than the fruits of the spirit of God, which are love, joy, and peace? St. John tells us that "perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment" (I John 4:18); he also says that those who hate their brothers and claim to love God are liars (v.20), which ought to give this organization serious pause.
4.3. Killing the Sabbath
The member has now been robbed of the joy of Bible study, and the comfort of prayer: he is consumed with guilt because he is not praying or studying like he used to, he doesn't understand why, and fear of the Lake of Fire begins to insinuate itself into his daily thoughts. On top of this, in order to keep the spirit of the Sabbath, the member must not only refrain from unnecessary work, but devote himself to those two things he has learned to dread. He now has the third sin of Sabbath-breaking on his conscience, and with each mark against him he becomes ever more vulnerable to the molding of the organization: after all, aren't they telling him repeatedly to do those things he is neglecting?
It must be his own sin. Of course, it is easy to lose interest in something once the first flush has worn off, but this is where the organization's history clarifies the situation. If all this were merely the flagging of interest after the first conversion experience, why did this vicious cycle of guilt followed by inability to pray or study, uncommon enough before 1979, become epidemic in that year when, due to the Receivership on the church, the organization was starting the first of several purges to come? At that time I saw fear, doubt, and despair replace the earlier interest and joy. Certainly so many hundreds of people did not lose the first flush of conversion in one year!
Most members did not connect the two. They were afraid of being purged, and tried their best to get right with the organization, in the belief that this was the way to a place in God's own heart. Meanwhile, their spiritual life began to wither rapidly, the more they believed and identified with the terror tactics of the organization.
4.4. Killing Your Spirit
The Worldwide Church of God is a fear religion. It may not always have been so, or it may be only during the 1970's that this edge was softened, but for every fearmongering tactic their publications decry in other religions, they have a match, or go one better. Other churches' Hell is the WWCOG's Lake of Fire: the difference is that the Lake of Fire is for Satan, his angels, and--fallen-away WWCOG members. Because they emphasize performance so strongly, they incite fear in anyone who cannot measure up to their rigorous standards. I do not mean the usual, difficult enough, Judeo-Christian standards of morality, or love towards God, but the measure of hours in prayer, frequency of fasting, dollars given to the church, hours of free labour given in the service of the organization: the Worldwide Church of God operates not only on Fear, but on Works.
One of the works--which include tithing, distributing church literature, and devoting time to the church--is fasting. Fasting used to be recommended once a month: at the time I left, the standard was supposed to be once a week, with encouragement to do this more often, or for longer periods than a day, bolstered by case stories of long, heroic fasts.
The insidious thing about fasting in the Worldwide Church of God is that it involves going not only without solid food, but without water. Thus, what is in many religions a good method of clearing the mind and sharpening the perception is perverted by this single alteration into a useless experience of wretchedness. It is not only difficult to pray when you have gone without water so long, it is difficult to think, read, or even sit up long enough to attempt either. Rather than sharpened mental acuity which can lead to insight, you experience mental confusion and even delirium.
This sort of fasting is also physically dangerous, particularly for longer periods. The experience itself is such a torture that it acts as a kind of self-induced aversion therapy--not only to fasting itself, but to the activities associated with it, Bible study and prayer. Again, this gives grounds for the member to feel an even guiltier failure. This is without even considering the potential brainwashing value this deprivation would have on the average member.
Into this spiritual vacuum enters the obsessive pursuit of activity for its own sake--preferably church-oriented. If you can keep busy enough, you can escape your wounded conscience, and maybe--you just dare to hope--show through action the faith you have become unable to show in any other way.
4.5. Killing Natural Affection
The first victim sacrificed on the altar of The Work (as the church calls itself) is the member's individuality: his family will soon follow. The member has rejected his own rationality as a danger that might lead him into heresy; he has learned to ignore his own feelings through the constant onslaught against his senses; he has become cut off from his spiritual brothers by mutual fear and suspicion; he has stifled any appreciation of beauty by a growing philosophy of Utilitarianism; he has subjected himself to a military standard of obedience, out of fear; he has lost his joy in God through indoctrination that has inflamed his sense of guilt--is it any wonder, then, that to survive, he becomes as cold as ice?
St. Paul told Timothy that one of the horrors of the future would be people "without natural affection" (2 Tim. 3:3), and the Worldwide Church of God has a program for creating them. While all these assaults on the member's emotional, intellectual, and spiritual life are going on, he is also being tried in his career, his finances, and his relationships. The wonder is not that so many people become what they do, but that some do not succumb, and manage to keep themselves human, and draw closer to God. In the WWCOG, no good deed goes unpunished, so these people have their own special trials.
Although the Worldwide Church of God believes that each child is born without original sin, and is eventually compromised through error and evil influences, the organization acts as though it believes in the idea of Utter Depravity, the idea that, through Original Sin, all man's natural impulses and senses are evil and lead him astray. This is not a theory of temptation, but the idea that even the instinct for good is itself wrong and evil. That conscience may be inadequate and in need of nurture, discipline, and education is one thing; that your own best judgement is wholly unreliable is quite another, and is certainly not the apostolic view: "does not nature itself teach..." (Rom. 2:4; 1 Cor. 11:14) the apostle Paul says, appealing to the innate sense of fitness in every human being. Denying this faculty altogether is another way the church cuts a person off from himself, so his mind is easier to control.
We have seen that the Worldwide Church of God operates as if Utilitarianism, Collectivism, Anti-Rationalism, Censorship, Fearmongering, Asceticism, and the doctrine of Utter Depravity were the ultimate expressions of the human potential. After all this, it takes only the external assault on the member's life outside the church to finish the job.
The major hook in the apple of the Worldwide Church of God is its global control over every area of a member's life: friendships, family, career, and spare time--which effectively isolates him from meaningful contact with the outside world. This makes him severely vulnerable to being "disfellowshipped," or excommunicated: in the light of recurrent shufflings of church policy and periodic purges, this is a very real threat.
A member is not to have any friends outside the church, is to limit contact with nonmember relatives outside his nuclear family, or, if he is single, is to date no one but baptized WWCOG members, and, of course, he must marry in the church. Any disfellowshipped person is not to be spoken to, and the congregation is itself constantly reminded of the danger of leaving the church. Ex-members who have fallen on hard times (which for members is called "going through a trial") are used as examples of how God curses those who have rejected Him; ex-members who experience good fortune ("God's blessings" for members) have the sinister advantage of being "blessed by Satan" for going over to his side. That a church would routinely speak of God's curses and Satan's blessings speaks for itself.
This is spiritual terrorism, as well as social blackmail: stay in the church where you have family and friends and hope of salvation, or leave, and lose all that is dear to you, and earn your place in the Lake of Fire at the resurrection. It is interesting to note that the amount of space and time devoted to examining this "worst-case scenario" of leaving the church increases dramatically with every tightening of church rule or policy. What was once an almost unheard-of topic, tantamount to doubting God's ability to keep you safe from danger, suddenly became the hottest topic for sermons and articles. When the congregation finds itself almost obsessed by trying not to leave the church, something is wrong.
4.6. Killing Your Career
Artists and writers were not the only ones who found their vocations under suspicion or attack: many jobs or careers were either forbidden or became next-to-impossible for a church member to maintain. Butchers had to quit, as they were forbidden to handle pork; cosmeticians and beauticians also had to quit, as makeup, hair dyes and perms became suddenly forbidden one day, and were no longer a legitimate means of livelihood. Of course, there was no place for the military, the police, or armed guards in the church, as its stance was strictly pacifist. Nor could a church member belong to any political group or hold any elected office (members were not even supposed to vote). To my knowledge, the organization was silent on whether or not it was acceptable for a member to be a doctor or other kind of health care worker, considering the church's doctrine on faith healing, but much publicity was given to renowned heart surgeon Christiaan Bernard's connection to the church.
Most teachers in the organization were really ex-teachers, since, after a two-month vacation, most school boards were loath to allow another eight days off early in the fall for religious observance. Those who had not lost their jobs over this were often underemployed as substitute teachers to avoid the inevitable confrontation. Labourers, retail sales people, and shift-workers, like nurses, often lost their jobs because they could not work on the Sabbath (Friday sunset to Saturday sunset), while office workers and others often lost their jobs over the fall holy days. That this involves unacceptable religious discrimination in the workplace is obvious; that people would put their livelihood on the line for a religious principle is admirable; but that the Worldwide Church of God did not then rally round its heroic unemployed is despicable.
People in the congregation were often unemployed or underemployed, even in good economic times: those who could manage, somehow, to make it through their first year on a job, and schedule their annual vacation for fall, could often make it from there. For many others, a job would last only until the next holy days, which quickly gave them an undesirable job history. While lip service was paid to those losing jobs for their faith, the general practice of the church was to denounce from the pulpit those who were unemployed or on welfare as useless parasites and a shame to their church. This lack of moral support drove many people deeper into the depression common to those out of work, making it even harder for them to face a hostile, alien outside world, and try to find jobs again.
4.7. Killing Your Finances
Another challenge to the member comes with tithing. Tithing plays a very large role in the average member's life, affecting not only his finances, but his entire way of looking at himself and judging his spiritual growth. The Worldwide Church of God teaches that tithes are monies owed to God, and they also maintain that tithing teaches prudent budgeting and self-discipline; second tithe is supposed to enable even the poor to experience the challenge of wealth; third tithe is to enable the member to help someone in greater need than himself, which sounds very idealistic and appealing.
While the Worldwide Church of God's controversial and much-denounced teachings on tithing can be defended as having biblical roots, it is the way they use these teachings that is most important.
The potential convert is not at first aware of the way tithing will be used as a tool against him, to diminish his self-confidence by creating anxiety, desperation, and a sense of inadequacy through a manufactured poverty and an impossible, never-satisfied financial demand. This alone is often enough to systematically wear down his defenses and make him more easily manipulated by the organization.
That tithing is a biblical principle is not in dispute. Most churches believe in this practice, which extends to other groups, such as feminists, who often tithe to their movement to show their support. However, in this, as in so many areas, the Worldwide Church of God takes an essentially moral act and, making it a matter of anxiety, dread, and compulsion, effectively ensures that it does not lead to further spiritual growth and individual responsibility, but to increasing passivity and dependence.
A member of the Worldwide Church of God pays the church ten percent of his "increase," which is either profit or salary (first tithe), saves a second ten percent (second tithe) to spend at the annual fall holy day observance (ten percent of this, or 1% of the annual income, is given to the church at that time, and is called "tithe-of-the-tithe"), and the third and sixth year in every seven, he gives ten percent to the church to benefit poor members (third tithe). These tithes are mentioned in the Bible, but a great deal of interpretation is required in order to translate them from principles for a theocratic nation of farmers to wage-earners in a secular society; the Worldwide Church of God claims to have settled all these questions for the believer.
It is not clear how the biblical form of tithing can be made applicable to the wage-earner: what is "increase," for example? Earlier teachings of the Worldwide Church of God were less dogmatic on this, allowing the poor to tithe on the "increase" they actually saw, that is, their take-home pay, while the wealthier were encouraged to tithe on their gross pay, as many were proud to be able to do. There were also acknowledged to be "borderline cases" of poverty, on the brink of requiring third tithe assistance themselves, where tithing was not recommended, as it would cause the family to become a burden on the church. When this was later changed so one had to tithe on gross pay, and the concept of "borderline poor" vanished, the burden on these people became far greater than was just. It is a subtle blasphemy, making God a kind of ruthless extortionist, mercilessly squeezing out the poor man's last penny (or taking bread out of the mouths of the fatherless children whose working mothers are not only not being helped, but are being taxed by the church). There are sacrifices more valuable to God than dollars and cents (Ps. 51:17), and to make everything a matter of money leaves the poor in a precarious position.
The second tithe makes for a year of stringent self-denial, ending in an intense spending binge: in eight days, ten percent of one's gross income must be spent on consumables like food, drink, and accommodation (nothing may be bought and taken home, like clothes, books, or gifts, and the remainder is forfeit to the church). This often creates a case of "the bends," financially, where money is tossed to and fro on every indulgence. After this, normal prudent budgeting is difficult, and irresponsible spending often continues for weeks or months afterwards, leading to financial problems, especially for the poor. This is a problem that is simply ignored or denied.
4.8. Killing the Good Samaritan
In addition, the Worldwide Church of God judges so few of the poor truly deserving of its financial help that it becomes hard for someone actually paying third tithe to do so with any conviction, sense of charity, or generosity. Sermons and church magazine articles compound this by not dwelling on the social justice aspect of third tithe, but instead focus on the many financial blessings God will bestow on those paying it.
While the Bible's description of the third tithe is that it should generously supply "the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow," so that they "shall eat and be satisfied" (Deut. 14:29), this principle, too, is negated by its actual administration in the Worldwide Church of God. The ministry boasts that the system of church welfare is far and away superior to that of the state, but, particularly where single-parent families are concerned, this is patently false.
A female member, after being told she is breaking God's law by leaving her children to go out to work, will be told to do just that if she has no husband. Sermon after sermon will tell her what harm she is doing to her children, while she will be offered no help to do what she is told is the only right thing. If she insists on staying with her children, she will be told to apply for state welfare. The church will then give her only the dollar amount the secular welfare authorities will allow her to keep (which was $75 a month at one time).
Thus, far from assuring that the fatherless can "eat and be satisfied," the church ties itself to the same harsh and inadequate state welfare system which has caused the need for food banks to ensure that those being "cared for" by the state do not go hungry. It is scarcely an encouragement for a church member to go without that third ten percent of this income, when he knows the needy will only be barely helped by it, and not enough to "be satisfied," which is the Bible's generous standard. The church also frowns on giving money to any charity outside the church, so third tithe is the only opportunity members have of giving to the poor.
