While I was in WCG, I often wondered why some of the people were there. Jesus stated that we would know people by their fruits (Matthew 7:16, 20), and this is without being judgmental. Their fruits, the products of their (and our) lives reveal who we really are. It was most clear that the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22, 23) were not evident in the lives of a significant number of people who were there. Some showed obvious works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19, 20) in their lives. It wasn’t a matter of being judgmental. Conversion was either there or it wasn’t there. We could easily see there were some real Christians there, some of who were Christians before being dunked.
I’ve often pondered about Christians being in Worldwide Church of God and I’ve been of the opinion some were in there. Since I accepted that it wasn’t really God’s church, the strange or bad behavior by many of the members are easier to understand. Through the years I had difficulty understanding bad behavior and kooks being in “God’s church.” I saw many things that went much further than people being imperfect Christians. Some of these were clearly bad people and really had no place within what we thought was a “Christian” organization. I have no doubt others noticed similar things.
The fact that some were unconverted bothered me because I had taken in hook, line and sinker that WCG was the “one and only true Church of God.” I came to consider we were witnessing the wheat and tares parable Jesus talked about. In his later years I saw and heard, at the Feast of Tabernacles, Herbert Armstrong say that about half of the members were converted. I saw and heard him say this several times. I took what he said at face value and from what I could see I believed this was the case. When it became evident to me that WCG was not what it claimed to be and that HWA was not an apostle of God, all this began to make sense to me.
What I never reconciled while I was in WCG was that some people could get away with most anything while others seemed to catch the wrath of the ministry over the most trivial matters. This seemed weird to me, especially with there being some rather profound examples of this. Maybe in some cases these were larger donors than I might have suspected.
I experienced conversion at about 13 years old in the Christian church I was reared in. I fully believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and as my Savior. I believe that today.
After I went into WCG, I noticed that Jesus was not emphasized as a loving Savior. He was largely seen only as giving power and authority to the church, which happened to be WCG. His life on earth and His teachings while on earth were given no attention at all. This really meant that HWA and his ministers had all this power and authority over the membership.
By Will