(When Responding to Former Worldwide Church of God Members)
Many exiters have learned through hard experience that the Worldwide Church of God leadership has had its spin control artists–those trained in propaganda and who are experts in sophisticated thought reform techniques and disinfo tactics.
In the past, a former WCG member attempted to correspond with WCG minister Neil Earle1, in order to furnish him with many pertinent details and facts (which, no doubt, Earle, a long time minister, was already aware of) and to ask why he didn’t come out and let others know the entire ugly truth about Herbert W. Armstrong.
Below we have listed at least 25 phrases, picked up from Earle’s replies to this exiter, which show how he avoided the issue. If Earle is skilled in using disinformation tactics when necessary, how much more do you think the WCG leaders over him understand it and know how to use it?
Following are the phrases that Earle used to justify Herbert Armstrong and to write off his opponent (all repeats are his):
- “scattergun of charges”
- “ludicrous charges”
- “wildest accusations”
- “want someone (?) to attack or dump upon”
- “HWA certainly made his share of mistakes”
- “more wild rumors”
- “wild stuff”
- “really weird”
- “wild accusations”
- “our cadre of competent, well-trained professionals”
- “wild fire claims”
- “one Gene Michel interview is worth a 100 wild fire accusations”
- “unethical illegality”
- “the way this personality type2 [HWA’s] operates”
- “brilliant Jewish research said, ‘We were never a cult2 but some people wanted us to be.’ “
- “some people wanted to believe all these things”
- “people often read what they wanted to read into HWA”
- “his [HWA’s] particular ‘sanguine’ leadership style2 was to blame for much of the distortions done in his name”
- “Armstrong haters who have helped cloud his reputation”
- “more than 1001 distortions that are extant” [did he count all of them?]
- “plagiarism [in HWA’s day]…was not the crime it is today”
- “such nonsense”
- “where do people get this stuff?”
- “make sure you check your sources”
- “a more balanced side” [regarding what Earle says we need regarding HWA
By AJW
Exit & Support Network™
March 27, 2012
Update: Neil Earle died December 23, 2021 of heart failure at age 74. His full name was Karl McNeil “Neil” Earle.
NOTICE: Worldwide Church of God changed their name in April 2009 in the United States to Grace Communion International.
Footnotes:
1 Neil Earle is the pastor of New Fellowship Church in Glendora, California (Glendora is WCG’s new headquarters). He retired in December 2016. In 1998 he graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary (where most of the “church growth movement” can be traced back to, and which houses the extensive archive of David J. DuPlessis, “father of American Pentecostalism” [See OIU 6, pt. 6 under “Fuller Theological Seminary”)
2 Read: Identifying Marks of an Exploitive, Abusive Group in order to make the assessment of whether or not WCG could have ever been classified as a “cult.”
Related Articles:
Neil Earle Whitewashes Herbert Armstrong
Twenty-Five Ways To Suppress Truth: The Rules of Disinformation (Includes The 8 Traits of A Disinformationalist)
Scroll down on page for the 25 rules. [offsite link]
Herbert W. Armstrong (was he who he said he was?)