I found some old computer disks that had some save messages from the old WCGnet that was a great source of information for following the train wreck that was the Worldwide Church of God through all of the changes. I don't know who the author was.
Can you guess the name of this church
based on the following clues?
* It was founded by a businessman who had been raised in another religion and who had little formal education.
* He moved from the mid-West to southern California and became established in the Los Angeles area.
* He claimed to have new insights into scriptural truths for the present age.
* The church was Sabbatarian, millenarian, authoritarian and legalistic.
* The church heavily emphasized predictive prophecy and the imminent return of Christ to establish David's Kingdom in Palestine.
* Members and others who did not measure up to legalistic standards or display adequate zeal were term 'Laodicean'.
* The leader thought of himself as The Elijah and that his role was to restore all things before the return of Christ.
* The church obeyed the dietary laws of Leviticus.
* The church leadership had predicted the return of Christ for a certain date but was wrong.
* The church observed the Old Testament Festivals of Leviticus 23. In fact, they thought they were very close to primitive, first century Christianity because of this.
* They believed they were the only true church. The members believed they were the first fruits and would play a special role in serving God and the nations when Christ returned.
* They published a monthly magazine advocating their beliefs.
* They had a rigid, top down, pyramidal governmental structure.
* Members were required to follow a rigid agenda of Bible study and prayer.
* The young men in the church were conscientious objectors.
* In recent times the heir-apparent, a young man of musical gifts, was involved in sexual scandals involving women in the congregation.
* None of its leaders had acquired any theological education from mainstream Christian colleges.
* They established a church facility in Texas, including a school, near a lake and had an uneasy relationship with the surrounding community.
* Membership was international, multi-ethnic and multi-racial.
* They believed deeply that they lived in the time of The End and their preaching and spiritual concerns focused on this. They referred to the secular world as Babylon and were strongly anti-Catholic.
* They believe they could identify the people of the United States as descendants of patriarchs mentioned in Genesis.
This list might go on but the church involved is known as the Branch Davidians, theologically, our first cousins, if not our brothers. Their lineage may be traced, like the WCG's, to the Millerite Adventist Movement in the Nineteenth Century. They were at one time known as the Davidian
Seventh-Day Adventist Association. They differ from us on the last point above in that they believed that the USA was Assyria rather than Manasseh.
I have compiled this list for several reasons:
1. There is a mystique that attaches to the WCG in the minds of many of its members that is a carry-over from the days that we believed that we were the one and only true church. This is to demonstrate that we were really just another Millerite Adventist group. Recent articles in the WWN
confirm HWA's foundation in Millerite teaching and the third angels message. Mrs. HWA dream or vision about the return of Christ and the work that needed to be done (see The Autobiography) is virtually an Adventist cliche in the spirit of Ellen White. We are not special; we are rather commonplace.
2. We would all readily admit that the Branch Davidians were a cult but somehow, the WCG was not a cult. How can this be?
3. People cite the fact that the Davidians hoarded weapons and had a shoot out with the ATF and true non-violent church members would not do that. But what would members of the WCG had done if a leader had risen up and said that it was time to go to the place of safety. Everyone should sell
what they have and buy airline tickets to Jerusalem and with your surplus funds buy tickets for those who cannot afford it. Might we not have done some extreme things under the circumstances? The Davidians were traditionally conscientious objectors until they were staring into what they believed was the Apocalypse. Does anybody remember the account of one of our leaders resorting to fists in the State of California occupation in the late Seventies?
4. We should all be filled with joy that a man, Joseph Tkach, Sr., while riding this train to whatever destruction it might have met, suddenly awakened in his seat, realized what was happening and pulled the emergency brake. Many bewildered passengers got off and had to look for a new train.
But the tragedy is that many stayed on the old train and, like the Davidians, will meet whatever their destiny will be.