Worldwide Church of God: Horror Stories page Five

I know there are a lot of Worldwide Church of God horror stories out there. If you would like to share them anonymously or under your name, please send them to me at:
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As an Ambassador College graduate and former WWCG member, I also have my share of painful dealings with the ministry and their autocratic wielding of power. Most of this happened around my very painful separation and divorce. Both my wife and I had graduated from AC, under extremely trying conditions, first as single students, and then as married students with a new baby. We returned home broke and exhausted and set out to start a new life.

With the double whammy of being unavailable to work Saturdays and a depressed economy, times were very tough. We bought a small parcel of land in the country with a mobile home on it. During the next few years, we were building our dream home while living in the back. I didn't know it, but my wife had been having a long term affair with my sister's ex-boyfriend. She would invite him over when I was sent out of town for work. This lasted until she became pregnant by him. When she had a miscarriage, she was convinced it was God's judgment on her. She didn't see him again for several years, and then a chance meeting started it all over again. This time, I found out and was extremely hurt. I gave her as much time to decide which way she wanted to go-with me or him. Finally, she decided to stay with me, although our life was cold and distant. On one occasion , she moved out of the bedroom to the far end of the house and put a lock on the door. This lasted for almost nine months.

In the meantime , we borrowed money from my father to buy a plumbing service business. We thought that this would allow my wife to stay at home, and work out of one of the spare bedrooms as an office and do the bookkeeping and the dispatching. I would run the outside service work with the other guys.

I became suspicious about my wife's chummy relationship with one of the employees. He would show up at the house and stay, for hours at a time when I was not there. When I would come home, he would immediately leave. The final straw fell when my wife and Sean announced that they were going to paint and fix up the mobile home in the back. I wasn't invited to help. On the final night, I found them in the back at 2:00 in the morning either dancing or something. They had both been drinking heavily and were rowdy and abusive. When I told Sean that he would have to leave, he became verbally abusive. I put my head down and waited for him to leave. When I looked up, my wife had left with him and had taken our son. That was the last time that we were living together in the same house.

The separation was devastating and the days apart became weeks and finally months. When my church attendance began wavering, the minister called and demanded for me to give account of why I was missing services. He wasn't at all sympathetic or helpful but made it clear regardless of my problems I was expected to have my butt in a chair. End of story.

In the mean time, trying to get him to help to reconcile our marriage was a frustrating episode of self recrimination and blame. When I asked for help for the church to "encourage" my wife to honor her marriage vows, I was told that they didn't force couples to get back together.

The most telling blows happened on two separate occasions. I had been living alone for most of a year, and the wife of my tenant in the back had a female friend of hers that had also been left by her spouse. We met and along with several of her other friends, began to meet at my house for a kind of mutual support group. We called ourselves the "Dumpees club".

When "Dana" found out that I was a member of the WWCG she asked if she could attend services some time. I said sure, but had been told that I should call the minister first. When I called, the minister became quite irate and wanted to know what I was doing worrying about "some woman". He wasn't interested that she wanted to attend services. He then informed me that I had no business associating with anyone who wasn't in the church. He said that if my wife were not present, I could associate with married couples in the church or single men. Under no circumstances could I have any friends that I was close to who were not church members. When I became angry and said that I found that idea "obscene" he became very angry and shouted ,"Obscene? Obscene! Is that the word that you want to use? Because if it is then you are on very thin ice." He then barred me from attending church services and said that I would not be allowed to attend Passover services in a few weeks. It was as though everything had turned to shades of gray.

I went into a depressive spiral and became almost totally withdrawn. I cleaned the garage out and drove my MG Midget inside-a project car I had been rebuilding for three years. With the keys in my hand, I sat in that closed garage trying to decide what to do. I thank God that I still had sense enough to call Dana who realized that something was terribly wrong. Out of all of the "friends" in the church, only the one person outside of the church cared enough to race over and take my keys away. After that, I began a slow and painful path to a life outside of the Worldwide Church of God.
On one of the final contacts that I had with the ministry, a minister and deacon from another congregation came over to my house to "visit" with my brother-in-law and me. My brother-in-law was also separated from his wife about the same time as I was, and had moved in with me when she had the court bar him from his house. The meeting was tense and "very proper" meaning that it was following all of the rules to hang us by, if that should arise. We were told that if our wives had left, then it was our faults and that "we weren't right" with Jesus Christ. We were informed, in most pious terms, that women, by their very design, couldn't help to follow a man who was following in the footsteps of Christ. When I pointed out that the Bible clearly stated that if an unbelieving mate would depart, the Christian was not bound to be married to them. When I stated, quite categorically, that my wife's actions showed that she was not acting as a Christian, I was told that that made no difference. If she chose not to live as my wife, then I was bound to her. The only alternative was to appeal to a board of elders in writing, along with the minister, and my wife and they would decided "if the marriage was bound in the eyes of God." since my wife and I were still members of the church. I could hardly believe my ears. After being separated for an entire year and a half, with absolutely no possible reconciliation in mind, I was still "married". in the eyes of the church. And that my life after a church sanctioned separation would be solitary and celibate to the end of my days.

Shortly thereafter, while sitting in back at a holyday service, the minister who I had dared question his pronouncement saw me out of the corner of his eye. At the end of the service, he and another minister ushered me into a back room and demanded to know what I was doing at services. When I said that I wanted to attend the service, I was told that I was to be barred from either attending the Feast of Tabernacles or any further Sabbath services. That until I had my "road to Damascus" revelation and repented of my attitude I was not welcome. I took that to heart. That was the last time I attended any Sabbath service or any other kind of church service by the worldwide church. The memory is still painful to this day.

I filed for divorce shortly thereafter, and after a long and nasty period in which my ex tried to financially ruin both me and the business we ran, I was granted a divorce. It cost me my house, my job, my business, and the church I attended faithfully for almost all of my adult life. I have since remarried a truly wonderful, beautiful woman and our marriage is one of the happiest times I have ever known. She stood by me while shoveling out all of the mess left by my ex and the tyrants in the church. With her, I truly understand the idea of total love I sought in the worldwide Church of God. When I look back on all of the hollow, empty souls that so desperately tried to find answers in the church, I shudder. Looking back down an long and rocky path, I am amazed that I so completely and deliberately deluded myself. The whole memory of the church was about ritual and appearance and adherence to mindless doctrine. And while I believe that many of the ministers were sincere, I believe they are sincerely wrong and that they followed a myth and not Jesus Christ. I find no comfort in the fact that the minister who threw me out, was himself disfellowshipped not a few years later. The other minister also left the ministry for "personal" reasons. It seems that Christ himself leveled his harshest criticisms at the self righteous Pharisees who were like whitewashed tombs but inside were full of dead men's bones and all manner of filth.

Many thanks to the owners of this website for exposing those farces otherwise known as The World Wide Church of God and its clone The United Church of God.

First off, let me confirm that those bastards the Armstrongs, their cronies, WCG and UCG ministries are indeed abominations and mutants whose equal is found in the Taleban and Al-Quida terrorists. Other countries target nuclear weapons at us partially because we harbor scum like WCG and UCG. Their world wide reputation is that of a cult, of brainwashing, of mind raping, of a pestilence, of decay, of deceit - a cesspool of immorality, the scourge of humanity. Imagine WWG or their splinter groups ever gaining control of weapons of mass destruction. That's partially why the US is in the nuclear crosshairs of other country's nuclear weapon focus. They wish to keep the following scenario from happening to their own people, to their countries, to their fabric of society and yes, to their children - their future.

My brother, Ed, turned demented when he started listening to the WCG radio broadcasts in the late 60s. It sterilized his personality, emptied his brain of thought, dimmed his morality. Of course he only had friends who were "in the church." One of these friend's expansive vocabulary comprised of three words, "sure appreciate it." That's all. They were eerily, quiet and spooky, as though their souls had been sucked out of them.

In addition to the weird behavior was an underlying current of hostility directed toward my hard working, educated middle class parents, my mother a chemistry and library science major, my father a purple heart recipient World War II veteran, physicist, patented inventor, (solar cells), and teacher. My other brother and I, who were also not part of this cult as were my parents, were tolerated. My sister, Dottie, however, joined this cult.

Included in the aberrant behavior was the fanatical rejecting of Christmas gifts, the holing up in their rooms for hours on end reading the garbage these bastards excreted, the refusing to do any activity on Saturday, even if it meant not taking jobs. Their personalities continued to degenerate, especially while attending the Armstrong's mind control concentration camp otherwise known as Ambassador College, in Texas.

It wasn't until 1986 or so that my brother finally left this cult, but not before exposing his son to the damning effects this was eventually to play out on his young mind. His son tried to commit suicide at least once, has been in jail and on drugs. My brother's mind is still dull, demented, as though he had been a herione addict to this day, thanks to this cult even though he is not in it. He talks slowly if and when he does speak. He rarely calls my parents or me.

My sister, two years younger than this brother, ran away from home at 18, influenced by a subsequently convicted felon, a deliberate liar, a wife beater, (she married him after running away only to endure 12 years of beatings and other brutalities). "God has raised his sword to cut the family ties," this WCG member told my father during the phone call after kidnapping my sister and hustled her to another part of the state so many years ago

Taught by the WCG elders, this individual, named Clayton, succeeded in swindling $50,000 from Michael Douglas, the actor, when he and my sister worked as hired help for him in Santa Barbara, CA. This thieve, like the Armstrongs, was adroit at targeting elderly people from whom he stole 10s of thousands of dollars. He and my sister traveled to Europe and Africa on stolen money. Eventually, the law caught up with him. Before going to jail, this convicted felon jumped off a cliff and killed himself.

It would be interesting to get Michael Douglas's comments on all of this. I am sending a copy of this letter to him.

My sister went on to marry another cult member in UCG. They now live in Bend, OR, where she collects disability and welfare under the guise of having Multiple Sclerosis. The doctor here in Pennsylvania would not commit this diagnosis to paper, but apparently, someone in Oregon did. They are swindling money from the taxes of hard working people and using to sit at home. They have three girls whose fate and very lives are in dire straits unless these parents and UCG are brought to justice. They desperately need to see a psychiatrist.

Please email me at topfer@epix.net should you wish to help which is desperately needed. I look forward to hearing from you.

I worked for AC from '66-''74 in both the mail dept. & then the security dept. I was the campus mailman for 3 years or so & thus knew just about everybody on campus ( this would probably identify me to a lot of people--but that's OK). I worked under John Wilson, Steve Grey & Eric Shaw: all good people. But around the beginning of '70 Mr. Wilson thought I should transfer to the security dept. I didn't like the idea but I thought I better do as I was asked.

As I was employed at the college in Sept. '66 I asked my wife to be to marry me. We had planned a June '67 wedding. Then came the sleeping giant. I had what was never a legal marriage when I was 17 years old and you guessed it (I think). I was BOUND! That meant I had to become a D&R case. So for 6 years I was in limbo after writing up the paperwork necessary to be judged "single" & not bound.

I had to go into graphic detail as to my ex wife's sex life with previous partners including her step-dad. Most of these things I embellished out of desperation. I couldn't imagine living as a eunuch for the rest of my life. We had been separated for over 5 years at this time and sense we were under age & married in Mexico it had never been legal in the U.S. But the church came to the conclusion it was a binding union.

During these 6 years at AC I had begun working in security and worked many different shifts around campus and then was put in charge of security at SEP, Orr, Minnesota. In my second summer at SEP I started writing my wife-to-be that I had stopped seeing during these years. We had both studied enough scripture over this time to figure out there was no reason for me to be bound. We started to make tentative plans in a clandestine fashion. When I came back to Pasadena I was put on the graveyard shift patrolling the campus.

Finally after 6 years of waiting for Rod Meredith's crew of Clint Zimmerman & Wilbur Berg to come to a final decision it seemed to be close. I succumbed to the power I had with my "Z" key ( a master key). I found their office, unlocked the door and almost died from the fear of what I was doing. So I started in looking for my case on the desks & in the file cabinets. Night after night I filtered through some of the most disgusting details of other D&R cases that I found. It was very difficult not to break down & cry. I'm sorry but I really can't tell you the particulars of the individual cases I read. It's too sickening & heart rending. No one should ever be made to share these things with people that don't really want to help. But when you are desperate for a chance at a normal life you'll do most anything. I was a lucky one. I just wanted to get married. Many of these folks wanted to get back to being a family again like they were before they came to the one true church. The bound people were always last on the list of priorities.

After several nights of looking I found my file. I couldn't find the conclusion. I looked & looked but no conclusion. I finally tried the dictating tape machine..................**BOUND**.........I had to run out & vomit. They had taken two obscure old testament scriptures in Leviticus (context of instructions on war & disciplining your child) to keep me bound.

That was it. I started doing what I had learned to do best during this time. When I got off work I got good & drunk. That's a whole new item I can write about at a later date since I'm now a member of AA & will be forever, a day at a time, GOD willing. When I told my wife-to-be we agreed we were going to get married anyway. We were scared to death but we stepped out in shaky faith. We just celebrated our 28th year of marriage & love each other more every day. A success story in spite of the efforts of the evil ones.

If this gets posted maybe it will make others feel freer to share their own hell. It could be cathartic for them. It has been that for me. Thanks for taking the time to read this. In the future, as I have the time, I will discuss alcoholism. Today my spiritual life revolves around my recovery & my helping others in sobriety.

I would sign my name but until I let my wife know that I've written this I'd better wait. I fear no man any more...

Though I wanted to write earlier, busy schedule at work kept me away from it. At this time I shall write about another suicide of a WCG member, Michael ******.

Michael was the brother of Joe ******. Joe enrolled in AC in '86 and came back to India as a Minister in '90-'91.(In fact Joe was pushed into enrollment by William Sidney, a Minister.) He was stationed in Hyderabad and then later in Madras, (Madras is now renamed as Chennai).

Michael lived alone in Bombay, (now renamed as Mumbai), after Joe and his family left for AC. Michael visited with his sister weekends. Because Michael was WCG member and his sister was not, there was strain in their relationship. Michael earnestly desired to marry but couldn't because of the prohibition imposed by the WCG. Michael did have a nice job with a good income.

Michael lived alone. He developed a medical problem of the eye. It was after '87, when Tkach had sanctioned medical help. Michael went to another city, Ahmedabad, to seek medical aid for the one eye. The reason why he did not avail himself of the superior medical treatment in Bombay was that he had not wanted any of the WCG members in Bombay to visit with him. He would later write in his suicide note that there was no real genuine sympathy or concern for one another in the WCG, Bombay. This was one of the reasons why he went to another city. A less important reason was that being single he did not want to jeopardize his chances of finding a mate. Revealing the health problem would distance the single ladies away from him, so he had felt.

The surgery was a failure, partly due to inferior medical help. He became blind in one eye. He hid this fact from everyone, including me. Michael and I used to meet each other nearly every weekend.

Three or four years passed by. Then he committed suicide by consuming poison. The doctor had informed him that his one good eye would gradually lose sight. So he committed suicide. I think the year was 1992.Michael was a little over forty years of age.

On the surface it seems that he bears full responsibility for his decision. Who would think that WCG also has a greater share of the blame? WCG is also to be blamed.

Normally in India a young man would marry after 25. When Michael was that age it was quite easy for him to find a bride. But the WCG strictly taught that marriage outside the church was not permissible. She taught that it would amount to disobeying God. She further taught that God would select a spouse for members of WCG. We now know that this is not true. WCG claimed it derived its teachings from the Bible. As far as I know such teaching and promise is not found in the NT or the Bible. By teaching error and by subtle intimidation WCG psychologically ruined Michael. WCG is thus responsible for the death of Michael.

Michael had been wrongly taught by the unscrupulous, self-seeking, impostors (ministers) of WCG that God stood willing to heal his people readily. If that teaching were true, why did Michael take his own life? Michael was devastated, found no real help from any source. How can a single man in his forties, living alone, blind in both eyes, get by in life, in a hugely-populated cut-throat city of Bombay? Such a pathetic situation was brought upon Michael by the teachings of WCG. Had Michael married in his twenties, his wife and children would look after him well with care and sympathy during his remaining years as a blind man.

It was primarily due to lack of care and concern--or to use the oft-used word of WCG, lack of love--that Michael decided to end his life. WCG taught error for money and prestige. WCG ruined many lives, including mine.

WCG was never the instrument of God that it passionately claimed to be. WCG taught about the devil and his works. The works of WCG are the works of the devil that WCG taught about. The work of WCG and the work of the devil that WCG taught about coincide. It comes down to this: WCG unwittingly proclaimed her (WCG's) own work. The work of WCG was not good, but the work of WCG was evil--evil as we know it. Evil is that which causes hurt, pain, ruin, death as we know it. The work of WCG has been exposed in the consequences that have come upon many of her members. These members hurt today. This is one proof that the works of WCG are evil.

There was a kindly old couple in my church...a black couple. They were what some would label "the salt of the earth." She worked all the bake sales, set ups, the usual. He worked and worked...doing anything that needed to be done. They were both in the choir.

After I got to know them, the lady confided to me that she and the man were not married anymore, though they had been for years and years. Awhile back, when the church got zealous about D&R, the minister called this couple in and proceeded to let them have it because he had been married briefly in his younger days.

To make a long, painful story short, they split. They divorced by decree of the church. She kept the kids and the house, he moved out and continued to support them best he could.

A few years later, he found he was having too much pain at being with his Ex-wife at services, dinners, holydays...and he missed his kids. So, he decided to move to another state. If he couldn't BE with her as her husband, he needed to have some distance.

This went on for many years. The kids grew up, started college...and then he moved back.

He still felt a deep love for her...but she had changed. As many would, she grew independent and self-reliant...she HAD to, in order to be both mom and dad to her kids!

She told me that, when the furnace needed fixing, SHE got down on her old knees and worked on it...now why on earth would she have some man who was practically a stranger do it for her?!

Well, the new minister...McCrady...studied up on everyone and found out he was back in town and going to dinner (gasp!) at her house.

He called them into his office...and told them that D&R had changed, AGAIN, and they were, in the eyes of GAWWDD, legally married...and they should make it official.

She didn't want to have any part of this...her kids were all gone, with the exception of the youngest, who was half-way out the door...and she had her life settled and organized. He, on the other hand, was tickled pink!

So...after wearing on her for a couple of months, she gave in and they had a little ceremony at services...guess so the congregation could be a witness to an error being corrected (!)

Not long after that, they found the love they had back in the early years...and it was a thing to behold! She positively glowed! And he had a sparkle in his eye.

When I asked her what was wrong, she said that her husband had cancer. He only had a short time...and now, she felt she was losing him for the second time.

And she was alone again...and the "welfare" of the church helped her to live a meager, poverty-level existence...yeah for them.

I'd love to get my hands on those {men} who tore up these two precious lives. I am a peace-loving person, but I think I could do some serious damage to them and love every minute of it. I am still deeply angry over this injustice.

Sure, they could have just said NO. But we all know how that word wasn't in our vocabulary then.

Well...I've run on...and I'll get to the other horror story another time. Someone might think, "Why is she telling us this? To make us feel worse?" No. Only to have others know what happened and shed more light on the dealings and horrors that have been done. And, so these two lovely people will be on the minds of others...for what that's worth...so it doesn't go unnoticed.

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