The Two Ways Of HWA

By Bruce Renehan

 

Long before his death Herbert Armstrong became fixated on one theme. He gave the same sermon every time he spoke to the church, whether it was on the worldwide satellite transmission during the Feast of Tabernacles or speaking in Ambassador Auditorium to the PM church. He droned this repetitive and simplistic message like the proverbial guru on top of the mountain. Armstrong knew that his pedantic lesson irritated many people. He would often stop midstream, peer out over the congregation and shout, "Some people ask me why I always give this same sermon, over and over again." Then, like an erupting volcano, his head would wag and his jowls would shake and his fists would pound, as he bellowed, "It's because you JUST DON'T GET IT!"

What was it that we just didn't get? Well, the message was a simple one based upon the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Armstrong found particular interest in the metaphor of the two trees in the midst of the garden. The two trees: one representing eternal life given to those who simply believe and obey authority, the other representing having the knowledge of good and evil with the consequence of death. I find that this is indeed an interesting and appropriate analogy of two ways of understanding the world we live in. Did we not get it when Armstrong told us there were only two choices for individuals? We could either obey without question or we could accept the prerogative of thinking for ourselves.

It really is amazing if you think about it, but in life, you either learn to make your own choices or let someone else make your choices for you. There is a word for being independent and self-ruling--the word is "autonomy." Autonomy has no place in the Christian world. Ironically, even those early Christians who fled to America in search of religious freedom, were themselves intolerant of individuality. In 1634 Anne Hutchinson was "put on trial and sentenced to banishment from the Massachusetts Bay colony and excommunication from her church--next to death, the two worst punishments that could befall a Puritan in the New World" (Wheeler and Becker, p. 28). The reason this happened was that Anne had begun to think independently about the Bible and shared her thoughts with the other Puritan women in her home. This was intolerable to the church authorities.

Autonomy has its own place in history. Throughout the Dark Ages people were required to yield to the authorities of monarchs and priests. There was a tremendous lack of knowledge in Europe. Very few people could read or think for themselves. Consequently, though, choosing the way of blind obedience and ignorance led to misery and death much more than happiness and life. People rarely lived past 40 and until the beginning of this century it was common for families to bear as many children as possible because of the high rate of infant mortality. So how does blind obedience equate to the tree of life?

For the past couple of centuries, superstition and popular opinion has been challenged by the empirical method. The modern empirical method is how all of the sciences determine which theories are most plausible to explain what is observed in the world. Scientific answers are based upon theories. The concept of theories is not always easy for the layperson to understand because it implies that scientists never understand anything completely. Unlike religious authorities who change the meaning of truth at will, scientists and researchers never do claim to have all of the answers about anything. A theory is considered the most plausible explanation to any observed phenomenon. Further, a theory must be backed by experimentation and be replicated by others before it is considered valid. Many theories have been disproved simply because they could not be replicated by another team of researchers. And despite the fact that creationists like to claim that there is something called the "theory of creation," since creation the bible way cannot be replicated, the "theory" cannot be substantiated. Again, paradoxically, the method of gaining knowledge has not led to death, like the story about Adam and Eve implies. The choice in the last couple of centuries to rely on science rather than faith has led to a doubling of the human lifespan, cures for many diseases, and the near creation of life through the cloning of human embryos and artificial insemination.

Psychologists in this century have coined words like self-actualization and individuation to describe a state of reaching one's maximum human potential. To do so one must take ownership of one's own life and mind. Decades ago, Abraham Maslow inspired other psychologists like Carl Rogers to stress the importance of human potentiation. Maslow, noticing that a small proportion of humanity rises to achieve great goals and contribute to the improvement of the world around them, wondered why this happened so rarely. Those who do great things are certainly in the minority. Most people on earth at this moment are only concerned about having sufficient food to live for one more day. All of the rest of us fall somewhere in between starvation and being benevolent benefactors. So, Maslow graphed out the human population in the shape of a pyramid, the majority of people never progressing beyond mental and physical poverty and the minority achieving complete maturity.

People who live within belief systems submit to the rules of their authorities. In the Worldwide Church of God, people were told whether or not they could eat white bread, wear make-up, marry outside of their race, go to college, buy a car, and so on. When people leave such authoritarian systems they feel as though they are in a vacuum. "Where do we go? Who do we follow now?" they ask. This is why we see so many people leave the Worldwide Church of God and go on to be entrapped by the Global, International, United, and so on. They just cannot rise above submission to authority. If one does not challenge his or her own mind, one cannot gain autonomy.

If we study the human condition, we see that it is all about gaining autonomy. Humans, above all other living things, take the longest time gaining their independence. It takes humans a very long period of time, compared to other mammals, to simply learn how to walk. Humans stay dependent upon their parents for nearly two decades. Is it any wonder then that some of us just never truly grow up? But, those who do have great potential.

Many people are jealous of those who stay in a state of dependency well into adulthood. There is a general myth in America that welfare families have the best of both worlds. They get a check and food stamps every month for being couch potatoes. But the reality is that these people are near the bottom of Maslow's pyramid and would love to feel independent enough to pay their own way in society if they only could. Sometimes it's something as simple as lack of self-esteem that keeps people like them trapped in poverty. Freud said that there are two things that make a person happy--good love and good work. Anyone, who has ever been lonely or unemployed knows what this empty feeling is. Poverty and ignorance are not bliss.

Humans are inherently goal oriented. It is a false notion to believe that we can remain in a state of non-growth and be happy. We grow from the time of birth to the time of death. There comes a time in our lives where we no longer need to be dependent upon our parents. If we continue to grow, there comes a time in our lives where we no longer need to depend on others to tell us how to live and think because we have gained a degree our own autonomy. Aren't we happy that those few fully autonomous individuals have lived in our world? Those historical figures who made nation leading statements like, "Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it" (Abraham Lincoln). "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender" (Winston Churchill). "If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it" (Earnest Hemingway, "For Whom The Bell Tolls"). "The only thing that we have to fear is fear itself" (Franklin Delano Roosevelt). "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth" (John Kennedy, 1961). "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood" (Martin Luther King). "The world's democracies do have their problems but we have never had to build a wall to keep our citizens in" (John Kennedy at the Berlin Wall, 3 months before his assassination). These were visionaries whose words changed the course history. I submit that the same calling and purpose is held out to each and every one of us. Our potential is not to dependently follow but to gain our own identity and purpose.

Perhaps there are only two ways: the way of following authorities or the way of following your own heart. I remember being shocked by a statement that Herbert Armstrong made once during one of his sermons in Pasadena. "Some church members think that they have been called to gain salvation. That's not true. You've been called to support this work with your tithes and offerings!" Armstrong was right. We didn't get it. Submitting to his and his predecessors' authorities was what being in the Worldwide Church of God was all about. To truly escape the cult people must trust in their own potential to become autonomous.

 

Source cited for the story of Anne Hutchinson:

 

Wheeler, W. B. and Becker, S. (1990) "The Threat of Anne Hutchinson." Discovering the American past: a look at the evidence. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.

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