Did you happen to check out the part of Painful Truth's website about the suicides? Apparently, there wash a rash of teen age and young adult suicides in the Bethlehem/Wilkes Barr, PA area. What do you, or your parents, know about that, if anything?
I remembered one of them in Bethlehem, which was our congregation; another two in Wilkes Barre happened after I was attending church in Philadelphia, but I vaguely remembered those involved from YOU. The remainder I remembered after having my memory jogged by the old friend from my congregation who first wrote to me.
I'm not sure what to think about the role of the church. You were encouraged to go to the ministry for counseling of any kind, as you no doubt recall; however, there were people who also went to reputable, trained psychiatrists. Some may have had family and mental health problems that were unrelated to their involvement in the church.
What I can say is that after the suicide I'd remembered unaided, when we had our next YOU Bible study our pastor (an ignoramus about human nature at the best of times) berated those who had been close to the girl who'd killed herself. She was no longer attending church at that point, I don't think, and the implication was that she'd fallen away from God, so presumably the righteous thing to do was to cut her off dead and let her stew in her depression, or something.
Wow. How sad. I've enjoyed your postings referring to WWCG. I also enjoyed checking out Painful Truth. Did you see the section, "You know you grew up in the Worldwide Church of God if..." One of my favorites was: "You know you grew up in the WWCG if you realize that the 8th law of success is how to convince 100,000 people to give you 10% of their gross income."
I was also fortunate. I don't know if anyone told my mother she had to divorce my father because he wasn't in the church. If someone did, she didn't listen to them--thank goodness! Reading PT, it sounds like not all children of WWCG members were so lucky. In some ways, I was lucky I didn't have both parents in the church. And, I'm sure my life would have been different if Dad was in and Mom wasn't, since he was the sole breadwinner of the family. From reading a lot of the postings, I also realized that I was lucky to get the ministers that I did. It appears that people have had a wide spectrum of experiences, depending upon location, which era of the church they grew up in, and how devout their parents were.
I'm glad the sites exist for those who need the catharsis of venting their pain. Too bad they didn't exist while I was at Ambassador College...oh, yeah, that's right, that was WWCG's school. ;-) I need a site to vent about AC...
I have one other recent interesting observation I've made that I want to share with you and your readers, to help them understand the sharp professional persuasive videos that we would see at the FOT about the church's work and Mr. Armstrong's worldwide activities. One thing's for sure, the WWCG was a master at mass communication. Anyway, I just recently saw the video, not really by choice, for Pat Boone's song, Thank You Billy Graham. It's a tribute song with Kenny Rogers, Bono, et al. (Ok, I don't normally see those names together, either). So, I'm watching this video and it's like watching those videos of Mr. Armstrong visiting the Queen of Thailand, the uppity ups in Jordan, the leaders in Sri Lanka, etc., except it's not Mr. Armstrong in the fast moving layered photos, it's Billy Graham. Now I never saw any black and white footage of HWA with John F. Kennedy, so Billy Graham's got one up on him there. :-) On the surface, what is the difference?! It's all a matter of who and what you want to believe.
Maria, you remember by best friend at AC, of course. (He used to post comments here occasionally under the name "il principe," so I assume he doesn't want his real name mentioned.) Anyway, once during the Feast at St. Petersburg, we were watching the usual yearly movie about HWA's fast-paced life of glitter and prophecy-dispensing, and during one of those cliché shots of the jet taking off, he turned to me and whispered, "As one of my friends says, 'This is where your money goes!'" I practically had to bite through my lip to avoid erupting into gales of unwholesome laughter.
BTW, a tribute to Billy Graham sung by Pat Boone and featuring Kenny Rogers and Bono sounds like something you'd make using a Build Your Own Musical Hell kit. Yeesh.
Did you happen to check out the part of Painful Truth's website about the suicides? Apparently, there wash a rash of teen age and young adult suicides in the Bethlehem/Wilkes Barr, PA area. What do you, or your parents, know about that, if anything?
I'm not sure what to think about the role of the church. You were encouraged to go to the ministry for counseling of any kind, as you no doubt recall; however, there were people who also went to reputable, trained psychiatrists. Some may have had family and mental health problems that were unrelated to their involvement in the church.
What I can say is that after the suicide I'd remembered unaided, when we had our next YOU Bible study our pastor (an ignoramus about human nature at the best of times) berated those who had been close to the girl who'd killed herself. She was no longer attending church at that point, I don't think, and the implication was that she'd fallen away from God, so presumably the righteous thing to do was to cut her off dead and let her stew in her depression, or something.
I was also fortunate. I don't know if anyone told my mother she had to divorce my father because he wasn't in the church. If someone did, she didn't listen to them--thank goodness! Reading PT, it sounds like not all children of WWCG members were so lucky. In some ways, I was lucky I didn't have both parents in the church. And, I'm sure my life would have been different if Dad was in and Mom wasn't, since he was the sole breadwinner of the family. From reading a lot of the postings, I also realized that I was lucky to get the ministers that I did. It appears that people have had a wide spectrum of experiences, depending upon location, which era of the church they grew up in, and how devout their parents were.
I'm glad the sites exist for those who need the catharsis of venting their pain. Too bad they didn't exist while I was at Ambassador College...oh, yeah, that's right, that was WWCG's school. ;-) I need a site to vent about AC...
I have one other recent interesting observation I've made that I want to share with you and your readers, to help them understand the sharp professional persuasive videos that we would see at the FOT about the church's work and Mr. Armstrong's worldwide activities. One thing's for sure, the WWCG was a master at mass communication. Anyway, I just recently saw the video, not really by choice, for Pat Boone's song, Thank You Billy Graham. It's a tribute song with Kenny Rogers, Bono, et al. (Ok, I don't normally see those names together, either). So, I'm watching this video and it's like watching those videos of Mr. Armstrong visiting the Queen of Thailand, the uppity ups in Jordan, the leaders in Sri Lanka, etc., except it's not Mr. Armstrong in the fast moving layered photos, it's Billy Graham. Now I never saw any black and white footage of HWA with John F. Kennedy, so Billy Graham's got one up on him there. :-) On the surface, what is the difference?! It's all a matter of who and what you want to believe.
BTW, a tribute to Billy Graham sung by Pat Boone and featuring Kenny Rogers and Bono sounds like something you'd make using a Build Your Own Musical Hell kit. Yeesh.