{"id":1506,"date":"2009-04-25T09:37:06","date_gmt":"2009-04-25T17:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/?p=1506"},"modified":"2009-04-25T09:37:06","modified_gmt":"2009-04-25T17:37:06","slug":"report-on-wcgs-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wcg-news\/report-on-wcgs-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"Report on WCG&#8217;s Changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center; padding-left: 30px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 457px; height: 275px;\" title=\"Worldwide Church of God Transformed from Truth to Fairy Tales\" src=\"\/tkach-transformed-from-truth.gif\" alt=\"Worldwide Church of God Transformed from Truth to Fairy Tales\" width=\"457\" height=\"275\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/cogwriter.htm\"><span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">COGwriter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>WCG&#8217;s recent name change (reported here the day it happened on this page, see <a title=\"WCG Changes Name to GCI!\" rel=\"bookmark\" href=\"\/news\/wcg-news\/wcg-changes-name-to-gci\/\">WCG Changes Name to GCI!<\/a>) has been picked up by another religious news source:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Worldwide Church of God Changes Name to Signal Inner  Change<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Religion News Service reports that the Worldwide Church of God, which  re-examined and later rebuked the teachings of founder Herbert W. Armstrong  after his death in 1986, has changed its name to Grace Communion International.  &#8220;We are a church that God radically transformed,&#8221; said church president Joseph  W. Tkach, who is a board member of the National Association of Evangelicals.  &#8220;Our new name is consistent with the transformation and aptly describes what God  has made of our fellowship.&#8221; Armstrong denied the Christian belief in the  Trinity and took Old Testament law to heart and encouraged works of  righteousness to earn salvation. The church lost half its members, 95 percent of  its 1,000-person staff, millions of magazine readers and its college in  Pasadena, Calif., when it officially repudiated Armstrong&#8217;s teachings and  &#8220;prophetic speculation&#8221; in the mid 1990s. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crosswalk.com\/news\/religiontoday\/11602619\/\">http:\/\/www.crosswalk.com\/news\/religiontoday\/11602619\/<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, while we in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/ylcg.htm\">LCG <\/a>believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we would not agree that the Greco-Roman Trinity that WCG, now GCI, adopted is a proper &#8220;Christian&#8221; doctrine.\u00a0 We also strongly deny that the old WCG taught that any can earn salvation through our own works of righteousness.\u00a0 It is only by grace that one is saved, through faith.<\/p>\n<p>We in the Living Church of God truly believe the following:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:8-10).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The reader who sent me the link to this news item wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div>the interesting thing to me is the quote &#8220;The church lost half its members,  and 95 percent of its 1,000-person staff&#8221;\u00a0 and the people who\u00a0report on  that\u00a0write as though it is a good thing?\u00a0Of course they never mention where the  lost souls went to?<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And of course, that is also a good point.<\/p>\n<p><em>Some articles of possibly related interest may include:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/two.htm\">Binitarian View: One God, Two Beings Before the Beginning<\/a> Is binitarianism the correct position? What about unitarianism or trinitarianism?\u00a0 Is there a threeness in the Godhead?<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/holyspirit.htm\">Did Early Christians Think the Holy Spirit Was A Separate Person in a Trinity?<\/a> Or did they have a different view?<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/trinity.htm\">Did the True Church Ever Teach the Modern Trinity?<\/a> Most act like this is so, but is it?\u00a0 Did they have a different viewthan the one adopted by Theodosius&#8217; Council?<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/unitarian.htm\">Was Unitarianism the Teaching of the Bible or Early Church?<\/a> Many, including Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, claim it was, but was it?<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/news\/doctrine\/r-ames-are-you-saved-do-you-love-jesus\/\">Are You Saved?<\/a> Do You Love Jesus? What is a True Christian? What is the Gospel? Evangelist Richard Ames answers those important questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COGwriter WCG&#8217;s recent name change (reported here the day it happened on this page, see WCG Changes Name to GCI!) has been picked up by another religious news source: Worldwide Church of God Changes Name to Signal Inner Change Religion News Service reports that the Worldwide Church of God, which re-examined and later rebuked the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wcg-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1507,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions\/1507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}