MORE CLAPTRAP FROM ANOTHER ARMSTRONG (Garner Ted's son, Mark)
by Miller Jones
Mark Armstrong writes:
Greetings from Tyler,
We've just returned from a very well-attended and successful Feast of Tabernacles. But one major tragedy occurred in Galveston, TX where Minister and Area Coordinator Frank Scherich was struck and killed by an automobile as he tried to save his beloved dog, Buddy out of traffic. Buddy survived with only a broken leg. Frank was a dear friend, beloved by many, survived by three sons, three daughters, seventeen grandchildren and six great grandchildren. He was one of two professional pilots who flew the Falcon business jet with my Dad, Garner Ted Armstrong. His funeral is scheduled for Sunday, October 11, at 12:30 PM
This is about the only portion of this letter that is not offensive. What a testimony to the man's character that he died trying to save his dog - that is a tragedy. May God bless and comfort his family and friends.
Since we left for the Feast, a mere two weeks ago, several noteworthy events have transpired. The pope visited the United States, and was virtually worshiped by several news networks whose anchors and reporters didn't hesitate to refer to him blasphemously as “holy father” or “his holiness.” The messages contained in his halting speeches never invoked God or His Laws. He warned against the dangers of “polarization,” meaning a discrepancy of opinion or argument.
The news media has never been noted for its spirituality or religiosity. In fact, if we are going to make any generalizations about them in this regard, I believe that we would have to describe them as irreverent. It is interesting that many of them used the titles that Catholics use to refer to Francis. In my opinion, they did this out of respect for the man. In other words, Francis' behavior since his elevation to the position of leader of the world's largest group of Christians has earned the respect of many of these highly jaded and secular journalists. Indeed, his humility and kindness have engendered respect from many quarters outside of the Roman Catholic world (even among some notable atheists). Can you imagine Herbert or Garner Ted Armstrong ever having said "who am I to judge?"?
Isn't that interesting? We live in an environment where our foundational values are being torn down and trampled, and the pope advises us not to disagree! We've been conditioned to be run over by “modern” sentiments, to include the sanctity of homosexuality, “global warming,” socialist seizure and redistribution of things earned, and compassion for supposed “refugees.” Consequently, the United States of America is being OVERRUN by each and every one of these. The pope lectured us to get on board with each of these philosophies, with the possible exception of queer marriage.
Foundational values - really? Aren't things like freedom, equality before the law, tolerance, compromise, helping the disadvantaged among us, compassion for immigrants and care and respect for the natural environment traditional American values? Although there is a great deal of evidence for the existence of the kind of sentiments that Mark expresses here in the story of America (hatred, intolerance, bigotry, exploitation and scapegoating), I also see much evidence for the values that I just mentioned.
Yes, part of our foundational values included things like slavery, mistreatment of Native Americans, industrial/commercial exploitation of our natural resources, suppression of voting rights, religious and ethnic intolerance (witness the past treatment of Catholics, Mormons and Irish, Italian immigrants). Our history also contains much evidence of the other thread: The belief "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The women's suffrage movement and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are also part of our history. The creation of the Department of the Interior, National Forest Service, National Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency are also important milestones in our story. Abraham Lincoln said that it was our responsibility as a nation "to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan." Theodore Roosevelt said that it was the responsibility of government to regulate the "malefactors of great wealth" so as to protect the interests of the average citizen against them. Franklin Roosevelt established the Social Security Administration to protect the elderly. What about the words of an AMERICAN poet engraved on the plaque below the Statue of Liberty?
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
The damage done to the United States over just the approximate two week period that we were observing God's commanded Feast is staggering. Forty years of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East was delivered a fatal blow by standing aside and allowing Russia to establish a military airbase in Syria. Initially, the move was welcomed under the belief that Putin would help stamp out ISIS. Instead, his warplanes were directed at CIA trained and supplied militias fighting the Assad regime. Further, a Russian diplomat appeared at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to demand that U.S. aircraft steer clear so as to avoid contact with Russian fighter jets. So John Kerry, our Secretary of State pads around mouthing this unknown word, “deconfliction,” hoping there won't be an incident between U.S. and Russian fighter jets. What an embarrassment!
Russia has achieved something never allowed under any previous U.S. president. A firmly planted military footprint in the Middle East. Putin has allied himself with Assad of Syria, and Assad is allied with Iran. The American president, through the State Department just made every imaginable concession to Iran and its nuclear program, and despite all kinds of criticism and rhetoric about stopping the “deal” from the House of Representatives and Senate, it appears, once again that nobody will have the guts to stand up for the protection of the State of Israel or the United States.
What a bunch of jingoistic nonsense! "Blessed are the peacemakers." Who said that? Didn't Jesus Christ also urge his followers to quickly reconcile with their brethren? Didn't he also encourage his followers to turn the other cheek? Didn't Paul encourage Christians not to hold on to anger, offense and resentment? Does Mark want the United States to be complicit or acquiescent in the initiation of yet another war? Is he advocating a return to the Cold War era?
Encouraged by the pope's insistence that we be compassionate toward third-world refugees, we've seen our Department of State say that we'll be accepting 10,000, then 100,000, now 200,000 Syrian refugees. Except 80% of the refugees flooding Europe are not Syrian. They're from all over the Muslim Middle East. And most probably are not even refugees. They are opportunists taking advantage of the crisis in Syria and responding to the ill-advised statements of Angela Merkel of Germany that they would be welcomed.
Perhaps Mark has more insight into this matter than those who are observing the phenomenon as it happens. I don't think that anyone is in a position to identify the precise point(s) of origin for all of the flood of refugees currently pouring into Europe. Nevertheless, there is a large body of both real and circumstantial evidence to suggest that large numbers of people have fled the country of Syria to escape the horrific civil war there. And we have all witnessed the anecdotal evidence provided by our own news media that women and children have been a significant part of that mix.
If they're refugees, where are the old men and women and children? They've obviously been left behind to fend for themselves in whatever cursed lands these potential jihadists came from. Oh, but we must take them in, find them a place and support them.
That goes for the drug cartels, the human smugglers, the gang members of El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico as well.
Since, in all his anti-American wisdom, the president saw fit to make buddies with the Castros of Cuba, we now have a massive influx of Cubans into the United States as well. And we learn that there are some forty or fifty new “sanctuary cities” within our borders over the past three months. The feds refuse to prosecute the crimes of illegal aliens. Cities refuse to incarcerate them at local expense. They're being let out after they're caught committing crimes that would send a citizen away for years. But illegals? They're back on the street to take advantage of American citizens as easy prey.
What we're seeing at every level is the desecration of all that we hold dear. According to the philosophy that has taken hold at the very top of U.S. government, God's Laws and His blessings to the descendants of Biblical Israel have been unfair to the heathen nations. And Obama's on the job to straighten the whole thing out. He's letting thousands of drug dealers out of prison in the next month or so, and plans to let another fifty thousand out sometime next year! They're “non-violent” offenders, and their prison sentences were unfair.
Mark shows his true colors here. This is at the heart of much of the criticism of our current president. Instead of focusing on differences over policy (which is legitimate), his detractors have charged that he is un-American or anti-American. He's not one of us - He's one of them - those NASTY FOREIGNERS! He's simply not one of us; because he's not a WHITE, FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN, CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN. News flash, there are plenty of loyal and patriotic Americans who don't fit that profile!
And yes, once again, British Israelism is inherently racist in its nature. The Bible makes clear that Israel was only special in the sense that they were intended to be an example for the other nations/peoples of the world. If God is God, then He is the God of everyone. God is no respecter of persons. "There is neither Jew nor Greek...for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." The New Testament makes clear in many places that anyone (Gentiles included) who accepts Jesus Christ as his/her Savior is automatically made one of Abraham's descendants and thereby becomes an heir to the promises made to him.
There is now almost universal agreement (even among most Republicans) that our prison system is broken. We have a greater percentage of our population incarcerated than any other industrialized nation on the face of the earth! Moreover, many of us think that it is highly illogical to devote so much attention and resources to a drug (marijuana) that should probably be legal anyway (what's the justification for our current treatment of this drug relative to how we handle alcohol and tobacco?). I wonder if we've devoted so much energy and resources to the persecution of pot smokers to divert our attention from having a REAL "war on drugs?" (against truly destructive things like heroin, crystal meth, cocaine and LSD).
So, here they come. The Syrians, the Afghanis, the Iraqis, the Yemenis, the Somalis, the Cubans, the El Salvadorans, the Guatemalans, the Mexicans, the prison gangs, and they can do no wrong. If they commit crimes, they're back on the street. They are this president's and his party's constituents. Upon the pope's departure from the U.S., the president was speaking before the green marble wall at the United Nations. I heard him say, “I will not hesitate to protect the American people,” just before finding the red button on the remote. Say what? It's a little late to be making a statement like that. American citizens have been punished severely, and will continue to be punished, regulated, abused and overrun by heathens from all over the world who know nothing of our customs, our values or our laws.
The foreigners and heathens are taking over - run for the hills! What a bunch of baloney! The United States has always been a mixture of different cultures. The United States has always been changing, evolving and becoming. As a serious student of our history, I see a steady march toward more freedom, liberty and tolerance. This republic is built on the foundation of those ideas expressed in our Declaration of Independence. A devotion to those ideas/principles have always been the only thing that has really united us. In the past, our laws and customs have not always been in sync with those values; but I believe that an objective review of our history indicates a steady march toward the fulfillment of those ideals. We're not there yet, but we are on our way!
Some say the country had it coming, for having turned its back on God, and that may be right. But it's not over yet. It's already ugly, and the next year and a half may well see civility, if not civilization itself break apart. Right now the president is in Oregon to exploit the massacre of helpless students trapped in a gun-free zone by a well-armed madman. He says he can't wait for duly passed laws to make their way through our Constitutional system. He apparently wants us all defenseless against the crime-wave he's unleashing upon us.
The President went to Oregon to express the nation's grief over that community's loss and our support for them as a people. Mark may not like it, but Barack Obama currently represents the people of the United States as OUR president. As such, he is responsible for expressing our collective sentiments to individuals and making commitments of support on our behalf. He is Commander-in-Chief and Comforter-in-Chief. Anyone who occupied that office should have been in Oregon carrying out those responsibilities. Indeed, he would have been the subject of legitimate criticism if he had failed to do so.
Moreover, as someone who has served in the Armed Forces of this country and is a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, I fail to see how confining gun ownership to those who are sane and free of criminal involvement is a significant infringement on the right to bear arms. While the vast majority of our citizens are responsible gun owners, there are clearly some individuals who should NEVER be allowed to have a gun in their hands!
It is a desecration of our heritage that a heathen of Obama's extraction should ever have had the chance to demean the Office of the Presidency as he has persistently done. But no one in the House or Senate will do their constitutionally ordained job. Maybe they're all compromised in some way, it's sure is starting to seem that way. Divine intervention may be our only hope, but if it comes in the way of the end-time scenario, it's going to be very painful for all concerned. May God's will be done.
Mark Armstrong
Once again, Mark shows his true colors. The President has repeatedly expressed his devotion to Christianity. Oops, I almost forgot - anyone who doesn't accept Armstrongism is a heathen. This is the same kind of underhanded swipe at the President's background and heritage that we've heard from other quarters - the implication that he's somehow not one of us - that he's really not one of us in his heart of hearts - that he doesn't share our values. To be sure, President Obama is one of the most liberal men to have ever occupied the Oval Office; but he appears to be a decent, Christian man who is devoted to the principles outlined in our Declaration of Independence.
God's unemployed professional moocher answers back with this. As usual it is the policy of the god he claims to follow instead of has poor biblical interpretations. Apparently still stung by his wife divorcing him, he has to lash out at all women to force them into submission.
It's amazing how the god of Armstrongism is eternally pissed at everyone and everything. The uneducated wannabe biblical scholars in the Churches of God have created a god that matches the domineering patriarchal attitudes of its leaders. Their anger permeates their sermons, booklets, and web postings. Malm sets himself up as the most unhappy man that the Church of God has ever had as a member. When law trumps grace, joy and happiness cannot be found.