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Halford's Hypocrisy
John Halford, chief 'guru' for the Worldwide Church of God
in the British Isles, perpetuates the traditional image of hypocritical church leaders. Here's his latest.
The WCG Money (and Power) Motive
Writing to Plain Truth subscribers in November 1997 (for a more recent update,
see footnote at end), John Halford, Regional Director for the Worldwide Church of God
(WCG) in Europe, portrays himself as a nice guy. He woos his readership with flattering
compliments: "I don't think of you as just a reader. You are a valued partner."
That would be nice to believe. But is he sincere? Are you really a valued partner? Am
I? Or is his flattery merely part of a manipulative tactic to get your money?
Right after these words he continues: "Some of my colleagues feel I should be a
bit more insistent about making the financial needs of the Plain Truth known."
Well, apparently you are a valued partner if you don't see his true
colours, and if you
donate enough into the coffers of the church! But he doesn't want to make that too
obvious. After all, asking for money never goes down well with the cynical, selfish,
money-conscious English. So, he has to tread carefully.
The Cause of the WCG Dilemma
His words betray the dilemma facing him in his WCG capacity. The church is short of
money!
It has gone from a state of near opulence over a decade ago, to near destitution today.
There have been widespread defections from its ranks. Many ministers and members have left
to form or join other church organisations. Many of those with wealth have taken it
elsewhere.
And with good reason! They cannot, in good conscience, give their tithes to a church
which they know is heading in the wrong direction, hypocritically trying to appear good
while it is promoting evil.
To those who know the Word of God, it should not be hard to see why the WCG is
floundering. Long before the present demise, its fate was prophesied:
Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear to dull to hear. But
your iniquities have separated you from your God (Is 59:1,2).
O, My people, your guides lead you astray; they turn you from the path.... the Lord
enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of His people: 'It is you who have
ruined My vineyard...' (Is 3:12,14).
How have they ruined it? "... by crushing My people and grinding the faces of
the poor..." (Is 3:15). In haughtiness (v 16). Arrogance in church leaders is a
prime factor in demise. It must be crushed out of those who breed it. WCG leadership has
been a hotbed of arrogance! But relatively few perceive it.
In their arrogance, they do not fear to tamper with the Word of God and wrest it to
their own destruction.
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light
for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter... (Is 5:20) who acquit the
guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent (Is 5:23). Therefore, as tongues of
fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay
and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty
and spurned the Word of the Holy One of Israel (Is 5:24).
Worldwide attrition is identified! You don't have to be ignorant about why it is
falling apart.
The apostasy in the WCG has gone hand in hand with its repudiation of the prophets. God
has warned of its satanically wrong direction, but church leaders march blindly forward,
ignominiously blundering along from one crisis to the next. They ignore the cause of their
malady, and even compound it with cant.
Hypocrisy and Arrogance!
They cover up their
misdemeanours, arrogantly calling their newly-promoted heresies
"truth". The truth is actually the reverse! The Plain Truth is no
longer what it is claimed to be. But, arrogance is one of the last traits to die. John
Halford arrogantly asserts:
"When people find themselves adrift spiritually [asserting that he is not adrift]
they will cling to anything, however flimsy, that seems to promise some support [that
describes the Plain Truth today]. Unfortunately, there is a lot of "junk
food" around today [implying that WCG spiritual food is not junk]. It isn't the
truth, or at least it isn't enough of the truth to really nourish and sustain spiritual
health. And some of it is poison."
Those last words are a fitting description of HIS spiritual teaching! For it is cloaked
with guile, laced with sweeteners, but sure to dull the spiritual senses of those who
swallow it.
The WCG has left the straight and narrow to follow a course of subtle antinomianism. It
is sheer cant to call it New Covenant theology. Their moral lassitude has no place in the
New Covenant. Obedience to God has been replaced by insidiously subtle disobedience!
And he dares to point the finger at all outside the WCG as those who are peddling
poison, while he represents the only church which has the low-down on truth.
WCG arrogance has not changed one bit!
This was why they were rightly branded a cult by so many outsiders. They arrogantly set
themselves up as the only purveyors of "truth". Now they are still doing so.
It's just that they have become more clever with their disguise. But the heart has not
changed.
A City Under Siege!
Now, there will be those who will reject my words as "unfair criticism", or
who will be so prejudiced by WCG loyalty to even give me a hearing. Then, there is also a
large proportion of WCG membership who have been polarised against me by the politically
motivated slander that has emanated from WCG pulpits and grapevines. Mud has been thrown,
and that mud has stuck. It is extremely difficult removing it after it has caked hard over
several years!
I was expelled from the WCG in 1990 by a minister who lied to get rid of me and my
wife! [This is more fully explained in following articles, and especially An Open
Letter to the Worldwide Church of God.] He lied through his back teeth – to put
it in the vernacular. And instead of seeking restitution of wrongs, Halford acquitted the
guilty and denied justice to the innocent.
The instigators of the crimes of injustice and false witness moved on, out of the war
zone. But the axe was never laid to the tree's root.
It was hoped that by ignoring the problem they had caused, the problem would just go
away. It was silly of church leaders to think that I would lie down and die quietly. You
don't incarcerate a man for years for a crime he hasn't done and expect him to lie down
and take it. He will protest his innocence until the day he is released! His very
protestations are evidence of his innocence, and church leaders know that is true in our
case. But, they think that if they can somehow silence us, they can save face. It is too
embarrassing for them to have to openly admit to the church that they committed a massive
bloomer when they falsely accused us and threw us out of their company on trumped up
charges.
So, it is easier to accuse us of being motivated by various wrong attitudes. I am
accused of resentment, bitterness, unrighteous anger, hostility, and other malicious
motives. The accusations are all false, but they sound reasonable enough to unsuspecting
ears.
While the WCG continues to heap venom upon me for reacting with justified anger, it is
adding further insult to injury. It has not bound up the wounds evil men have created.
...the Lord has spoken: 'I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled
against Me... a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to
corruption. They have forsaken the Lord; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and
turned their backs on Him... From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is
no soundness – only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or
soothed with oil... The daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut
in a field of melons, like a city under siege (Is 1:2,4,6,8).
The prophets hold the reasons for the church's present demise, but the leaders don't
want to hear. They turn away from hearing the truth. They are bent on deluding their
members for popularity and pecuniary gain. Their ends are selfish.
Maintaining Power and Control
I asked at the outset, "Am I a valued subscriber?" Halford wants to give the
impression that he values you, if you are a Plain Truth reader or WCG member. But what if
you are not? What if you are among the despised, like us?
Unfortunately, Christian principles go out of the window, then. We are outside his
range of concern. Why? Because I dare to label him for what he is – a hypocrite!
Since I was falsely accused over seven years ago by a minister of the church, not given
a fair hearing to ascertain my 'guilt' or prove my innocence, I have had the 'audacity' to
protest my innocence and pin the blame where it belongs. For that I am castigated by the
WCG.
Then, to add further to my 'guilt', I began to do a work for God alone – something
of which the Worldwide Church of God doesn't really approve, despite their feigned noises
to the contrary. For that, I certainly should be repudiated! And so I am – by all who
are under the dominion of WCG demons.
In 1995, I invited Halford to give my wife and me a fair hearing before the church to
put to rest the prejudices and pain of the past, and to heal the wounds Worldwide
ministers inflicted from 1990-95. But he never even met with us. Instead of seeking
justice through a fair and unbiased tribunal, he merely asked already polarised members of
the church who hated our guts, whether they thought we had been fairly treated — and
like loyal lemmings, they all agreed the church had dispensed fair discipline by
ostracising us.
Members never heard the true facts of our dismissal, of what we were accused, or the
details of our defence. All that was immaterial. What mattered was not us, not even
whether we had been lied about and had our characters assassinated by evil men. All that
mattered was that the WCG should get on with its own business without others shouting
about unrectified abuses. It does not seek truth or justice.
To seek truth in this instance undermines power and control. And there is nothing more
sacrosanct to Halford and his cronies than the maintenance of that!
Malcolm B Heap,
February 1998
More Rank Hypocrisy!
In the October/November 1998 issue of the Plain Truth, European edition, an
article appears under the title Onward Christians Sailors. Written by Brenda
Plonis, it describes the aims and work of Mercy Ships, a Christian organisation whose
ships ply the seas and take Christian aid and teaching to the poorer countries of the
world.
Loren Cunningham of Mercy Ships
Although the article did not specifically mention him, one director of Mercy Ships has
been Loren Cunningham. A few years ago he was invited by the Elim Pentecostal Churches in
the UK to speak at their annual convention in Bognor Regis. In his message, he recounted
his own call from God, a crisis point in his ministry when his wife died in a car crash,
and the subsequent years in Jesus' service. He summarised the global scope of Mercy Ships'
endeavours and how they have taken the gospel to all corners of the world. (Something
which, in the not too distant past, the WCG arrogantly claimed it had done exclusively!)
Videos Distributed by Us
In 1997, we distributed a sizeable number of videos of Loren Cunningham's excellent
message to many members of the Worldwide Church of God, including some of John Halford's
ministerial colleagues. The only response we received as a result of this mailing (all at
our expense) was hostile and close-minded. We had videos returned unopened. Some were
defaced before being returned. Some were opened but not viewed, and returned with
aggressive notes saying that the recipient would not accept unsolicited mail from us. All
in all, it was a very disappointing display of resentment, animosity and religious
bigotry.
It was not the only video we distributed to try and open WCG members' minds to the fact
that God has worked powerfully through many Christian organisations, and that the WCG's
exclusive claims were untrue. But for trying to educate blind friends in the church, we
were persecuted and maligned.
Not only that, in one of the local WCG congregations where we sent these videos, they
were collected, wiped of their contents, and the blanked videos were then given to some
charity.
WCG Humbug!
Now, the very organisation which treated our input so despicably, has on the front
cover of its magazine, a picture of a Mercy Ship, pointing readers to the lead article.
What humbug! Does the WCG now really accept "other Christians"?
If it does, are we not owed an apology from its leaders who formerly maligned us for
our stand? We were ostracised 7 or 8 years ago for pointing out that God is strongly at
work in the lives of countless other believers outside the WCG. If the WCG is no longer a
cult, and if its leadership has repented of its cultic modus operandi and
behaviour, they would now be willing to welcome us with mercy and forgiveness, don't you
think? They would have remorse over the way they victimised us, lied about us and threw us
out of their company in 1990 for 'daring' to say such things which undermined their
credibility. Or do they care more about their credibility than doing what is right before
God?
Well. I have yet to receive any apology to this effect. Mercy certainly makes a good
story for the PT, but it doesn't go down well with the shysters who lead the
WCG! They're
not interested in living the truth – merely writing or talking about
it.
Like the religious leaders in Jesus' time, they want to appear good, but doing good...
well, they leave that to true Christians. That's not for WCG leaders!
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