{"id":5153,"date":"2010-10-31T06:33:12","date_gmt":"2010-10-31T14:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/?p=5153"},"modified":"2010-10-31T06:33:12","modified_gmt":"2010-10-31T14:33:12","slug":"ucgs-carmack-hints-of-a-split","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/cog-news\/ucgs-carmack-hints-of-a-split\/","title":{"rendered":"UCG&#8217;s Carmack Hints of a Split"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/556.gif\" alt=\"Laodicea\" width=\"307\" height=\"230\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Ancient Laodicea<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/cogwriter.htm\">COGwriter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>John D. Carmack is a <a href=\"\/ucg.htm\">UCG<\/a> supporter with a blog titled <em>Church of God Perspective<\/em>.\u00a0 In his <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.cogperspective.org\/2010\/10\/commentary-on-ucgs-dennis-lukers-latest.html#more\">latest post<\/a>, he includes the following:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>After Dennis Luker became President, he stated that it was about  governance.\u00a0 At the time, it was presented that they were holding fast  to the model developed 15 years ago in Indianapolis.\u00a0 He stated more  than once that it was not about changing doctrine.\u00a0 He even stated that  the Sabbath and holy days were not being changed.\u00a0 Once, he even stated  it was not about a particular family in Latin America.<\/p>\n<p>This all came to a head originally when Clyde Kilough wanted to present a paper about doing a study on governance to the GCE.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Then, we were told it was about governance \u2013 that of keeping the governing structure we had.<\/li>\n<li>Then, a paper about the Sabbath and a particular family was put out, in effect changing doctrine while stating the contrary.<\/li>\n<li>Then, more were fired.<\/li>\n<li>Then, the regional pastor position was removed, in effect changing government while stating the contrary.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Do  the actions match the words?\u00a0 First, it was not about the Sabbath, then  the Sabbath paper.\u00a0 It was not about a certain family in Latin America,  but then the Sabbath controversy seemed to revolve around a certain  family in Latin America.\u00a0 First, it was about governance, ousting  someone who wanted a study on governance, firing another who resisted  governance, and it was about keeping the current form of government, yet  then it was about changing the hierarchy of ministers.\u00a0 Do the actions  match the words?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>John Carmack offered his suggestions to UCG&#8217;s leadership, then concluded by stating:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;if the membership and elders of UCG do not start getting <strong>concrete<\/strong> proof that the Sabbath and holy days are not changing and that the  firing and relieving of ministerial positions have come to an end, then a  church split is probably inevitable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In his <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.cogperspective.org\/2010\/10\/missing-ucg-crisis-thread.html#more\">post last Monday<\/a>, John Carmack also wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Why the trail of bodies?  At very least, the entire thing is starting  to seem pretty heavy-handed and ruthless.  It appears to be lacking in  Christian love.<br \/>\nI\u2019ve been trying to figure out if this is  all just plain incompetence or something more sinister.  It has the  appearance of a consolidation of power, and the lack of any announcement  to the membership at this critical time only reinforces that idea&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Incompetence?  Grabbing for power?  I simply don\u2019t know any more.  The firing <em>removal<\/em> of the <em>office of the<\/em> regional pastors without any field input and without any announcement  certainly makes it look like a consolidation of power.  The question is  if it even matters any longer which it is.<\/p>\n<p>It ain\u2019t looking good.<\/p>\n<p>If  there any elders left in May, they should seriously consider forcing a  vote to clean house.  It only takes 25% to get an issue on the ballot.   It is obvious that this administration has lost touch with its  membership and will continue to erode confidence the longer it is in  power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>UCG has had governance problems since the beginning, and various splits (though most of the splits have been fairly small).<\/p>\n<p>Why cite John Carmack here?\u00a0 Because, by and large, he has been a staunch supporter of UCG&#8211;and when staunch supporters raise these types of points, this could signal deep problems for an organization.<\/p>\n<p>I do not pretend to try to know what the motives for all the moves UCG&#8217;s leaders have made in the current crisis.\u00a0 However, I consider that rejection of proper church governance is both a lack of humility and a lack of faith issue.<\/p>\n<p>I had problems with how UCG originally established its form of governance in 1995.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because doing so meant that its leadership was abandoning a doctrine (governance) that all of the leadership had publicly backed prior to that time.\u00a0 I also felt, and stated publicly, that the governance issue would affect UCG&#8217;s ability and willingness to proclaim the gospel to the world as a witness.<\/p>\n<p>That is why I could not become a member of UCG and part of why I am a member of <a href=\"\/ylcg.htm\">LCG<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Laodicea is made up of two Greek words that basically mean \u201cpeople     decide\u201d\u2013the implication is that they decide that their own criteria are    more important than those in the Bible.\u00a0 Because of this, I believe that Laodiceans reason   around placing the proper emphasis on the public proclamation portion  of  the work of God.<\/p>\n<p>As far as public proclamation, UCG announced the following &#8220;record&#8221; last week:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>After airing programs for just 15 weeks on WGN, 10,285 telephone and Internet responses have been generated&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And while it is commendable that UCG is lately making more of a public proclamation effort, the <a href=\"\/ylcg.htm\">Living Church of God<\/a> received approximately 60,000 responses to its telecast for the same period.\u00a0 We will see how long UCG will decide it can afford to be on WGN.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus taught:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them. (Matthew 7:20)<\/p>\n<p>33 &#8220;Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.\u00a0 (Matthew 12:33-34)<\/p>\n<p>14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14)<\/p>\n<p>14 &#8220;And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write,\u00a0 &#8216;These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God:\u00a0 15 &#8220;I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot.\u00a0 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. (Revelation 3:14-16)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I do not believe that the fruits of UCG&#8217;s governance have been particularly good, nor have the fruits always been bad.\u00a0 Others may disagree, but UCG simply has not had the fruits from its telecast that LCG has had.\u00a0 In UCG&#8217;s entire 15 1\/2 years it has gotten about the same number of respondents to its telecast as LCG gets every three or four months.<\/p>\n<p>What about you?\u00a0 Do you believe that you should support the fulfilling of Matthew 24:14 in proclaiming the gospel of the world as a witness or a form of governance that has been relatively ineffective in that mission?<\/p>\n<p>Will you follow the criteria of   the  Bible or your own?<\/p>\n<p><em>Some articles of possibly related interest may include:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/church_governance.htm\">Polycarp, Herbert W. Armstrong, and Roderick C. Meredith on Church Government<\/a> What form of governance did the early church have? Was it hierarchical?            Which form of governance would one expect to have in the         Philadelphia       remnant? The people decide and\/or committee forms,         odd dictatorships,  or   the same type that the Philadelphia era         itself      had?<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/unity.htm\">Unity: Which COG for You?<\/a> Why so many groups? Why is there lack of unity in the Churches of God?     Has it always been this way? What can\/should be done about it?<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/ucg.htm\">Differences between the           Living Church of God and United Church of God<\/a> This article    provides          quotes information from the two   largest groups which    had their         origins      in WCG as well as   commentary.<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/ylcg.htm\">There are Many COGs: Why        Support the Living Church of God?<\/a> This is an article for those  who          wish to more easily sort out   the different COGs. It really   should   be    a          MUST READ  for  current and former WCG\/GCI   members or  any        interested     in     supporting the faithful   church. It also   explains a       lot  of  what   the   COGs   are all   about.<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/work.htm\">Should the Church Still Try        to Place its Top Priority on Proclaiming the Gospel or Did Herbert          W.     Armstrong Change that Priority for the Work?<\/a> Some  say   the       Church     should mainly feed the flock now as that is  what   Herbert  W.       Armstrong    reportedly said.  Is that what he  said?    Is that  what    the    Bible says?   What did <a href=\"\/paul.htm\">Paul<\/a> and <a href=\"\/herbertwarmstrong.htm\">Herbert W. Armstrong<\/a> expect from evangelists?<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/laodiceachurch.htm\">The Laodicean  Church Era <\/a>has been predominant circa 1986 A.D. to present. These are non-Philadelphians who mainly descended from the old WCG.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ancient Laodicea COGwriter John D. Carmack is a UCG supporter with a blog titled Church of God Perspective.\u00a0 In his latest post, he includes the following: After Dennis Luker became President, he stated that it was about governance.\u00a0 At the time, it was presented that they were holding fast to the model developed 15 years [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cog-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153","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=5153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5154,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153\/revisions\/5154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogwriter.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}