Friday, April 13, 2007

The Perils of Pentecostalism

Well, the controversy here at Brewton Parker of my harsh comment regarding pentecostalism has reached it's maximum. I even have some people who will not even look me in the eye and speak to me. Though that hurts, I am not through. Although, I will not go on a raid in public at this point, lest I be stoned, I am taking this a step further by going to speak to our church relations director. The official church of God website says:


Realizing the futility of reforming their own churches, they established a new church whose objective would be to restore sound scriptural doctrines of the Bible, encourage deeper consecration and promote evangelism and Christian service.

Basically, they are admitting that sound doctrine had been lost for centuries. It is interesting that groups who have broken off of them openly admit that they believe themself to be the "true" church, and that their group is the fulfillment of prohesy in Isaiah. Thanks to my friend Rhett, I have done some research and I believe I have enough grounds to have this organization removed from our campus. When someone claims to have "restored" sound doctrine, as if the reformation didn't do anything, then we have serious problems. When people claim to be the only "true" church, excluding any other group, then we might have a cult. Here are some of the radical "denominations" I have found:

Church of God of North Carolina
Church of God of Charleston, TN
Church of God in Divine Order

These three, and perhaps more, claim to be the "true" church. Please visit these websites and check out their history. You will be surprised.

4 comments:

Machine Gun Kelley said...

Yep... Each of the groups you listed splintered off of my old denomination: the Church of God of Prophecy, which itself splintered from Church of God (Cleveland, TN) back in 1923.

In it's foundation, the Church of God movement wanted to be "free of all man-made creeds and confessions."

I have some Church of God of Prophecy books that you might find very interesting... Books where they claim to be the only true church!

Joshua A. Hitchcock said...

I wonder if there are any church of God books that claim that....The Church of God or Prophesy does have their "flag" on their website, so that somewhat should throw up a "red flag." (Pun intended).

Machine Gun Kelley said...

The Church of God (Charleston TN)sued the COGOP over the flag. The COGOP won so the other guys redesigned their flag a bit...

The COGOP flag didn't come into being until it was "inspired by the Holy Spirit" in the 50's or 60's...

Church of God (Cleveland TN) -or COG- seems to have distanced themselves from the true history of their movement.

There have been some efforts to reconcile the COGOP and COG. I suspect they may merge in the future.

Most, but not all, of the wackos left the COGOP and joined one of the groups you listed above.

I need to let you see that old COGOP study course I have. You'd freak out. 100% cultic.

Machine Gun Kelley said...

Btw, Realizing the futility of *Reforming* the COGOP is part of why I'm a Southern Baptist now!! ;)