Articles for the Benefit of Members and Ex-Members of the WCG

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WCG: Don't Trust Your Leaders
Part 3

Members of the Worldwide Church of God and its splits should not trust their leaders. False ministers are present alongside the true. Can you tell the difference? Your calling is from above, not according to men.

I related in Part 2, how church organisations which expect loyalty to them are tainted with the blasphemous mark of the beast. A very subtle transition takes place. Loyalty and submission to God is replaced by loyalty and submission to man.

Conflicts often arise between church leaders who expect allegiance to them, and brethren who will not compromise their rightful allegiance to Christ. Allegiance to church leaders is actually illicit, but few realise it!

Church Leaders' Illicit Control

Let me relate a personal example. Back in the eighties, Helena and I read quite a bit of information about certain forms of radiation that are harmful to health. One in particular is known in various circles as inducing geopathic stress. Although the electromagnetic frequencies which induce this condition are detectable by magnetometers, they are somewhat elusive to identify and describe - even for many physicists!

Some scientists explain them as emissions which result from distortions of earth's magnetic fields. (You may be aware that there is a close correlation between electrical charge, current and magnetic force.) For convenience they are simply explained as a form of EM (electromagnetic) radiation. If a person is subjected to lengthy exposure to these EM forces, they can develop symptoms of sickness. The more intense the emissions and the longer the length of exposure to them, the greater are the physiological maladies that may result.

Comparatively little was known by the general populace (and even many scientists) about the harm such invisible EM rays could produce in people (also animals and many plants) until relatively recently.

Some of the earliest research was conducted by a German baron, Gustav Freiherr von Pohl, in the late 1920s, but he mysteriously disappeared a few years later. I wonder whether he became a victim of Hitler's insane purges in the 1930s. He wrote an account of his unique research in this field which was later published and translated into English. (Earth Currents: Causative Factor of Cancer and Other Diseases, Frech-Verlag, Stuttgart, 1983.) Von Pohl was able through electrical earthing devices to isolate whole areas, even a village, by using metal cable attached to a control switch in his basement. He could prevent electrical thunderstorms from occurring over the area he had isolated. And he also demonstrated how a marked improvement in people's health could be achieved similarly. His research was probably the first to show how people who slept over severe bands of these vertical EM currents would develop stress symptoms and ultimately serious diseases. Some died from various cancers as a result of intense and prolonged exposure.

Other researchers thirty and more years later confirmed his findings. But one aspect of this research which always caused consternation in ignorant and prejudiced minds was that these EM emissions were frequently found by a human operator through dowsing.

The majority have been inculcated with the false concept that dowsing is an activity influenced by evil spirits. Ask them where they get that belief from and they don't know, but it is so ingrained that to shift it is as hard as moving the Matterhorn! Most of those same people wouldn't consider a magnetometer to be influenced by evil spirits, but it does not seem to have occurred to them that the same EM impulses which influence that device also influence the dowser with his crude dowsing rod. They overlook the fact that a trained dowser is merely reacting to force fields to which the magnetometer is sensitive also. But most are still close-minded, highly opinionated and prejudiced against it.

So, it was with "the men from the WCG ministry". Paul Suckling was the first to pick up the gauntlet and go on a witch-hunt against us for "getting involved in" dowsing. He passed on his opinions to Harry Sullivan, who followed up his superior's dislike of our involvement in this art. They both brought pressure to bear upon us to desist.

One other thing they took exception to was a device invented by the Dulwich Health Society in London which 'neutralises' these harmful frequencies. Called a Raditech, this "subtle energy device" emits certain subtle frequencies that the human metabolism finds beneficial and which help it counter the harmful influences of geopathic emissions. Helena and I bought a number of these Raditechs and gave or loaned them to friends in the church. Some friends were open-minded enough to utilise them and benefited from having them. The device is simply plugged into the mains circuit in the home and utilises the ring main as an aerial to draw earth currents towards it (or something to that effect). It enhances the EM charge within the perimeter of the circuit, bringing frequencies into the range that the human body finds tolerable.

All this, however, is rather esoteric, if not weird, to an unscientific mind. And we discovered to our chagrin that Paul Suckling and Harry Sullivan were not going to develop that sort of broadmindedness. Instead they attacked us for believing such "superstition".

On 9th September 1989, Suckling appeared in the Dunstable congregation of the WCG to address this matter. He "preached" a two hour lecture on the "dangers" of fringe medicine in all its "wacky" forms, and belaboured his uninformed and superstitious viewpoint that dowsing is a dangerous occult activity.

Perhaps such a lecture would have gone down well in the Middle Ages, but for 1989, he was sorely out of touch. Since then, TV programmes have appeared about this very phenomenon, substantiating that it is not a figment of an overactive imagination, that it is not superstition, nor occult activity.

Furthermore, there have been TV documentaries which have exposed the harmful relationship between living close to overhead high voltage electrical cables, pylons, and electricity sub-stations. The invisible EM fields from these apparatus can have extremely damaging effects on health due to the way they adversely influence the earth's natural magnetic fields. The similarity between geopathic radiation and that from overhead high voltage cables is inescapable.

But Suckling and Sullivan apparently couldn't see anything other than the "fact" that we had become "misled" and were delving into "suspect" spiritual areas!

So, they exerted their control to try and stop us. The "sermon" had great effect! It angered me intensely! It was unscientific, unfactual and irresponsible! It polarised WCG members, who knew of our involvement in this field, against us. And it confused others who hadn't got a grounding in the subjects being attacked.

It was not a discussion. It was a bigoted attack on our views, without us being allowed a defence. What was worse, it was an open assault against our opinions. Suckling expected church members to automatically side with the views he was proposing from the lectern and to discount ours without further investigation. It was a blatant psychological manipulative tactic. But it was not in the interests of all concerned. It was coercive, and its effect was stultifying.

It didn't matter to Suckling that he may have deterred some from finding physiological help for themselves. Nor did it seem to occur to him that we had a right to hold different views. But, in line with traditional church policy, we had no right to contest what he said.

The next day I wrote a ten page letter of rebuttal to Paul Suckling. He promised to reply to the objections I raised, but he never did! I wrote to Frank Brown to seek redress, but after an exchange of correspondence between us, he shelved the matter too.

It seemed that all that was important to these men was to maintain the prestigious status of the WCG ministry in the eyes of members - not correcting any mistakes or errors publicly stated! I was incredulous at their woeful disregard for accuracy, truth and equity.

So I took the matter higher. Next on the list was Larry Salyer, then in charge of Church Administration in Pasadena. I got no joy from him. He simply passed the buck back to Frank Brown, Regional Director of the WCG in Britain. So I wrote to Joseph Tkach senior. I got no reply from him, despite sending telegrams, letters and making international phone calls! Randall Dick replied briefly on his behalf. The replies were totally unsatisfactory. They addressed nothing, except to infer that I was "out of order" for daring to contest a minister!

The replies were arrogant, insensitive and inept!

Finally, to cut a long story short, Sullivan had me and my wife thrown out of the church. Although no reasons were given, "dissent" was obviously their view of our "aberrant" behaviour in seeking truth and equity!

Trusting in God

When Joseph was thrust out of his family by his brothers, ironically it was for their sakes that he was wrongfully treated and sold as a slave into Egypt. After God had worked out His purpose despite (and even because of) his brothers' abuses, Joseph became their deliverer when catastrophe struck them. It's amazing how God engineers circumstances, and even when He seems not to be doing so, He is allowing things to transpire for the ultimate good of those who fear Him.

Somehow Helena and I knew when we were thrust out of the WCG that God had something special in mind. Our faith didn't collapse. We still trusted God. In fact, we trusted Him more. We knew He was working out His purposes, although we didn't see what they were specifically at that time. Little by little He has unfolded those before our eyes as we needed to know.

Follow The Leader

To return to the matter of illicit church leadership. You are not called to follow men in ministerial capacities. You are called to follow Jesus Christ who will lead you by His Spirit if you are open to His leading. Very few are, because most church members don't realise how this occurs. This knowledge has been kept from them by the arch-deceiver who wants to suppress the truth and retard your spiritual growth.

Men in leadership capacities in churches are Satan's most effective weapon to prevent you, as a part of the body of Christ, moving forward spiritually.

It is a rare church which actually grants members full spiritual rights and privileges which are yours through Christ. In one way or another, churches deprive you of your full inheritance. The authority of the individual believer is a little understood subject in many sectors of the Church (although, not in the 'charismatic' sector). It has been replaced with a counterfeit - the 'authority' of the church leadership. This is an illicit reign. It was never authorised by Jesus (Matt 20:25,26; Mark 10:42,43; Luke 22:26).

What the above texts explain is that human lordship should never exist in the Church. It ought to have been replaced by spiritual service. Jesus never sanctioned the 'fleshly' abuses that we witness today in many ecclesiastical quarters, especially in the cults where people place implicit trust in their leaders.

Your Leader is meant to be Jesus Christ, and only insofar as men comply with His conduct and teachings should you follow them (1 Cor 11:1). Otherwise you could go off following a false minister and pay homage to Satan, because churches are riddled with false ministers alongside the true.

As a child of God you need to take a crash course in spiritual discernment. You need to understand how to recognise false ministers! (Explained in Apostasy in God's Church, Beware of False Prophets, & Testing the Spirits).

To be continued.

Malcolm B Heap, 13 March 1998

For further understanding, read:
Divination and Dowsing – What Does the Bible Really Say? and The Mystery of the Invisible (116 page book) available from Midnight Ministries.