Of "God Families" and "end-time witnesses"

Thursday,April 17th came and went and I don't recall hearing the sound of the First Trumpet when the Seventh Seal was opened....and the world began to end.

"What?" I hear you say? See my previous blog post.

Pastor Ronald Weinland, leader of one of the American "Church of God" sects, now claims he and his wife Laura are the two end-time witnesses and a new "God family", akin to Abraham and Sarah, of Old Testament fame. A 'god family' is a family God has supposedly chosen to work through for a purpose. In this case, the establishment of a 1,000 year age of God's rule. Family will be important in the new age. The age of man's self-rule is now ended, says Weinland.

After nothing happened on Thursday, Pastor Weinland now says:

.......

" From the beginning, God has revealed His plan for His Family—Elohim. God worked in and through a family as He began to reveal more about his purpose and plan for all mankind. That family consisted of Abraham and Sarah. At this end-time, we have come back to that greater purpose God is working out for mankind by bringing a close to man’s age and ushering in His age with the following 1,000 years, when the focus of Elohim—the God Family will be everywhere on this earth. He is working through a family once again, as God wants mankind to begin to focus on the importance of family on a physical and a spiritual plane.

Having said that, more will be said in the months to come, but now is the time to publicly reveal the name of the second end-time witness. It is my wife Laura. We are a family through whom God will be working to bring an end to this age and setting the stage (and much more) for the age to follow. Many will mock and ridicule, but as we go forward, this time God will place fear in those who mock Him and His servants. Power has been given to make this so.

The glory and the honor is to God Almighty and His Son, Jesus Christ. And His Kingdom is almost here."

I can understand Weinland being a little sensitive as absolutely nothing happened on April 17th. If I read this right, God is going to make us all very frightened for laughing at Mr. Weinland when nothing happened on the day he said it would. That was predictable. We're the bad people because he's talking rubbish.

Nothing happened. Except it did actually happen according to Mr. Weinland, in the full article linked to. He is absolutely clear on the event he refers to having actually happened despite nothing happening. It's just that no one but him knows it. If you laugh, God will get you.

Oh.

I'm sure this will get a lot more silly as time goes on and the pathetic Pastor Weinland works out his delusions in whatever public arena he is able to gain access to. I'm just hoping he doesn't hurt himself or anyone else.

I think this episode has captured my imagination because even among the sillier claims some religious folk make, this one stands out. People who are fanatical about their religion - of any type - are also potentially dangerous in their absolute certainty about matters for which there isn't a skerrick of proof and no rational basis for even tentative belief, never mind absolute, unshakeable certainty. Bush invaded Iraq based on no evidence and an unshakeable belief he was right and that God was guiding him. He has said as much. Others do things like fly jets into tall buildings and don't care that they are killing thousands of people. WHATEVER they do, to them, is just part of "God's Plan" and they are God's instruments...etc...etc....and it is all OK. No guilt. No remorse. No responsibility.

Weinland's particular set of claims and train of events is at one and the same time boringly familiar as a product of religious delusion.....and yet not. This guy is out there.

It reminds me of the time my friend Rick called me (in Toronto) from Vancouver and said he had had a revelation. God had spoken to him and Rick was the new Christ, the Second Coming, and Vancouver was the New Jerusalem. A few weeks later he cut his guts open and disembowelled himself with a kitchen knife to let out the Holy Spirit and save the world from nuclear disaster. Maybe it worked. He didn't die, luckily. A neighbour saw him crawling down the hall of his apartment building trailing his intestines behind him and called an ambulance. They stabilized him and put him on the first plane back to Ontario. Apparently, the people who made that decision didn't realise who they were dealing with. They just didn't want British Columbia taxpayers to have to fund his convalescence and ongoing treatment.

Rick and I talked a fair bit about his new status as the Messiah. But I don't ever remember Rick, Son of God in the New Jerusalem, saying anything about Ronald Weinland. You'd think the Son of God would have mentioned it to me if it was important. Did I mention that Rick appointed me King of Australia and New Zealand back in 1980? It's true.

All bow down. Or God will make you very afraid. :-)