I think that many now know that I was once part of what is now often abbreviated as the 'WCG.' My wife and I were members in that organisation for a number of years (frankly, before we knew better!) Oh, for any that don't know, that abbreviation refers to the "Worldwide Church of God."
It is now eighteen years since we left that legalist group and it seems like a lifetime away! Since then, I have successfully taken a theology degree and I am now a conservative evangelical Bible teacher who writes something like 70 articles per year. Much of the thrust of my ministry (certainly, not all of it) is concerned with helping others who have been ensnared by groups such as the WCG. By and through the grace of God, we have had some success with helping such people.
Recently a good friend who still has some association with the WCG, because they are now "reformed" and teach justification by faith and reject their Armstrongist roots, asked me how the evangelical world at large now considers the WCG. He approached the question in a somewhat tentative and embarrassed manner, obviously a little concerned as to what my response might be (we never normally discuss this subject).
I told him that the Christian world out there is a very, very big place with many, many concerns and that - to be frank - the "reformed" WCG doesn't even figure on the radar. Why? Because the group is now tiny; most of the true, hard-line Armstrongists have long since left the WCG and gone into many, tiny extremist groups which are battling to keep Armstrongism going. The WCG itself, meanwhile, are now a group of confused identity and confused theology. Some within only want to be considered 'Christian,' others want to be considered 'evangelical,' some want to teach the 'rapture,' others want to avoid that, some want to switch entirely to Sunday as a day of worship, but others strongly protest against that, wishing to keep to "sabbath" (Saturday) observance, some... well, it goes on and on. Numerically, they are now tiny (a fact which they will almost never admit). So, in terms of the general Christian, or evangelical world, this is why I told my friend that they don't even figure on the radar. I was not trying to be spiteful, but to give my friend an honest assessment.What one might call the 'Protestant evangelical world at large' now has many many concerns and areas of current discussion and these relate to areas which affect thousands of believers; being now numerically so tiny, the reformed principle armstrongist organisation of 'The Worldwide Church of God' (Europe-based) just don't figure on the radar. That is to be perfectly blunt and honest.
As to how deep their evangelical 'reformation' went, I have to say that the evangelical Christian world remains very sceptical, adopting a 'tongue-in-cheek' approach to their changes in teaching. Frankly, many evangelicals can no longer see any reason for the WCG's existence. When the UK-based WCG (which, strangely, continues to resist adopting the new name of the US-centre of WCG operations: "Grace Communion International") gloat over their membership of the British 'Evangelical Alliance,' many British evangelicals will quietly smile. Why? Because too many very odd charismatic teachers have now been allowed in to the 'E.A.,' and, rather than a clamour to join it, several bone fide ministries are wondering if they want to remain associated with the 'E.A.'
Unlike the very 'go-ahead' US-based 'Grace Communion International,' which has illustrated such a refreshing willingness to move away from their dubious past, the UK operation has become a group which no longer appears to answer e mails or want to seriously engage with the British evangelical community, so one could seriously ask whether they are lapsing back into the mentality of a secretive and exclusivist cult. I am also informed that founder Herbert W. Armstrong is still held in great respect by several senior figures in the UK grouping. The belief is that this is the main reason why they refuse to adopt the new name, that is, because they remain proud of their past.
A number of months ago, I respectfully approached the UK WCG for what I considered to be vital information - one evangelical ministry to another - but they refused to respond. One of their former ministers behaved very badly towards the widow of a former WCG member just before this man's funeral. I was outraged! I wanted to confirm that this man was no longer in their employ, since he had behaved in an intolerable fashion; one might think that the WCG would be only too quick to confirm that the 'minister' in question was no longer part of their system, but - in fact - they refused to confirm or deny this man's status. That - I would suggest - is pretty much the behaviour of a cult. Why the secrecy? Through other sources I was later able to confirm that this man was no longer a WCG elder, but such strange and difficult behaviour coming from a former cult "which now fully embraces biblical Christianity," is always going to raise questions.
Robin A. Brace, February, 2010.
UK Apologetics
Museltof Countercult and Apologetics
Just a reminder that we are adding anything from 5 to 15 new articles to our group of websites every single month and if you have become a regular visitor to our Apologetics and Countercult ministry it is best to join our E Letter List system (just ONE E Letter per month and our list is ABSOLUTELY PRIVATE and available to nobody else).
You can put yourself on our E Letter List HERE.
PLEASE NOTE: Other E Mails also go through this e mail system so PLEASE make it CLEAR that you want to go on our E Letter List system and make it clear which e mail address you want us to send your e mails to. .
SITES WE NO LONGER USE:
Since some have inquired about this, let me make it plain that our main work is now heavily concentrated on three sites, and WE NO LONGER USE our MSN, TopCities, Jesus.Net, Freewebs.com, Bravenet, I PowerHosts, Brinkster or SP Hosting sites (too many ads, too many technical problems or too many unexplained page deletions on those sites - you may wish to be warned!), also our Museltof's Smorgasbord site is discontinued from late June 2006 because there was really no need to keep that site going. However, we are not happy about the way the 'smorgasbord' actually finished. After being promised a continual free site our homepage was suddenly shut down with absolutely no warning; I'm afraid that this is typical of those "free web sites" - please don't trust them!
UPDATE: From May, 2008 we are starting to discontinue our old My Christian World site. This has been a great little site with no ads or problems of any kind and it came free from our ISP (at the time, NTL, later being taken over by Virgin Media), but we simply no longer need that site to continue. We are phasing the site out gradually from April, 2008 but it could still last another 10 months or so.
So our main work is now on these sites:
Museltof Countercult and Apologetics (www.museltof.org.uk/)
We are happy to say that from Autumn 2006 this site is no longer on OurChurch.com web space but on our own puchased web space - this frees this site from the sometimes dreadful "Christian ads" which marred its pages at times. In the end, it just was not acceptable that a site warning of cults sometimes carried ads purchased by such cults!! However, we remain grateful to OurChurch.com for giving us a great start.
UK Apologetics(www.ukapologetics.net/)
A new site which we started developing from March, 2005. We have purchased this site space and this is now our main site. Even by April, 2006 this huge site contains almost 500 articles! (Update: In May, 2008 our site articles are closing-in on 900!) This has also become the top Apologetics resource in Europe in view of both its size and its huge number of 'hits.'
Witness to the Word (www.ukapologetics.net/witnessindex.htm) .
'Witness to the Word' is now included under our 'UK Apologetics' hosting server situation. The search engine on our UK Apologetics homepage also finds articles on this site.
Your Brother in Christ,
Robin A. Brace
Please don't forget to consider going on our E-Letter list. We send out just ONE E-Letter per month which announces the articles for the new month. So around the middle of each month, we announce our articles for the upcoming month. PUT YOURSELF ON OUR LIST HERE!