Okay.. being serious now.... about end time predictions & Ron.

[w]

anyways, if I hear more I will post again, but for now goodbye.

[Mike (Ekimks)]

"W", you might check out the AsBereansDo blog No I haven't written anything on it, and the author has an approach probably more in tune with your thinking.  Particularly check out this post.

[Marie]

PH - you may have it right with your two theories - one of the other could very well be the case. Every time I think this whole saga cannot get any weirder - it does!! And definately you are right - something is going down behind the scenes in the church. It won't take long for the lid to blow off...

And "w" I wish you well - but - be careful. Stay true to your red line.

[PurpleHymnal]

I too wish "w" well and I commend their compassion for those who have been financially abused by the church.

[Poor Richard]

This is certainly some interesting stuff.  Thanks, w, for posting.

I just wanted to assure you, Ron Weinland has this forum all wrong.  Sure, all of us have gotten caught up in mocking at one point or the other, but not because we're malicious.  We are deeply interested in analyzing what Ron says in case he turns out to be a false prophet.  If he does, we will expose that.  (I say 'if' in consideration of your views.)  But even that doesn't adequately explain why most of us are here.  We want to ensure there is help for the people in COG-PKG.  Most of us have been there before, and we know what it's like.  That help could be accurate info, that could be encouragement, that could be getting people in touch with others - whatever.  He would have everyone avoid us because all we do is mock him.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.
And I would have you know your information, how ever large or small, is a help - not to us only, but to everyone in COG-PKG.  And we appreciate it.

[PurpleHymnal]

Richard said it quite well. Although I find my desire to mock has returned, due in large part to the church's "escape hatch" plan. Look at it this way:

If the church REALLY was so dead-set certain (especially if Weinland is so dead-set certain) that Weinland and wife are the two witnesses, there would absolutely NOT be "an escape plan" (there never was in '75, at least not one that was widely-discussed I don't believe).

The fact that there is one, and that it is being discussed with "a select few" is very suspicious. Regardless of whether the source of the plan is Weinland himself, or if it is from the poison pen of one of the evangelists, getting ready to overthrow the two witlesses and install a triple monarchy.

[Poor Richard]

Now, didn't I say, a lllooonngg time ago, that a 'Plan B' would surface?  I just read the 'Plan B'.  Very interesting.

Ron never seriously planned to renounce himself, in my opinion.  But I think he was planning on riding out a wave of unrelated events (like the earthquake or market instability) as long as he could while bilking the members for tithe money.  How he figured he'd get out of it in the end is anybody's guess.  "The best laid plans of mice and men go often awry."

Even if he did renounce himself, he planned one of two things: to retain control of the organization from the shadows so the money would keep flowing in (at least Wrozack has proven himself seriously devoted to Ron) -OR- to cause a split in that organization and take a few seed believers to a new organization where he will preach and keep getting paid (he's done that twice before).

IF he knew he was a con, he is banking on exactly what has happened in history to come around again.  He'll give a wonderfully emotional excuse, people will forgive him, he'll continue on for the good of the members, yada yada yada.  (Someone else here said "Remember Garner Ted?"  You betcha!  I also remember Jimmy Swaggart.) 
However, on the distant chance that he is delusional, or outright possessed, then he needs serious help.  Hospitalization, that sort of thing.  Cause I think he should be put on suicide watch.

[Sunny]

Thanks "W" for your information.

I think "back up plans" are only made when the "original plans" have serious probabilities of failure...

[katie]

Poor Richard, I may be giving RW too much credit, but I think he actually BELIEVES everything he has stated.  I don't think he's trying to con people... I think he's sick in the head and he really believes what he's telling them.  I really do picture him standing on top of his hotel room in Jerusalem, arms waving at the sky, thinking he's going to make it rain.  I REALLY do.  And he lies to himself when he's wrong so that he can continue in this delusion.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I know in my Baptist heritage, these people REALLY DO BELIEVE that everyone else is going to hell.  Never be offended with a Baptist who tries to "convert" you.  They believe in the core of thier being that they are saving you from flesh eating worms, fire, and eternal torment.  If they didn't care for your eternal soul, they wouldn't bother.  Take it from a former evangelical. 

[PurpleHymnal]

I too lean more heavily towards the theory that Weinland really is drinking his own Kool-Aid and, based on the 19th April sermon plus this, he may be the only one (amongst the ministry) left who does so.

I had wondered exactly why there were so many elders and so many ministers in the church. It is looking now like that was the only way Weinland could keep them in---by making them exempt from tithing, and giving them kickbacks of their own.

My earlier estimates of five hundred to a thousand members was overly-generous; new information suggests that globally, the church may be between three hundred and four hundred members strong. With an attrition rate of between one and four members weekly.

[Poor Richard]

Don't get me wrong, I do believe he's completely self-deluded - or was until recently.  I was waffling a bit earlier based on some additional info that I had read, but after thinking about it i just don't see how that info could be accurate.

  The real question in my head is "can he be BOTH a con and deluded?"  I don't think so.  Any opinions on this??

I should clarify that I no longer believe that he is in it for the cash.  I think he feels the money that comes in is his by fiat.  To accept tithes is perfectly legal, so is taking a cut of it.  I cannot reconcile what he is doing on the radio and in print with a simple pursuit of more cash.  I know that Purple Hymnal tends towards the idea that all churches are cash-cows, and in so many cases he's right on, but I think I can see how Ron appeared to start that way but it wasn't about the money at all.  If it were, there would be an end-game.  I thought this 'Plan B' was just that.  Now I don't think so anymore because when I read it about a hundred times it actually doesn't give him any out except to face the music.  No con would do that.  Plus, I keep forgetting that his game is CONTROL.  It's not the money that intoxicated him, it's control!  Money schmoney - so long as he controls it.

I don't believe his elders are conspiring against him either.  Especially not Wrozack.  Terry has been with Ron like a liver spot for over a decade.  Purple Hymnal knows what kind of stunts he's pulled for Ron.  To betray Ron now would make no sense at all.  Nor do I believe his daughter is cooking the books.  I'll believe that when I see it.  It makes more sense to me, and I could be wrong, that he's beginning to see how wrong he was.  He never thought he'd actually have to renounce himself because he was so deluded.  Now when it comes to it, he's making preparations for the group he gathered to be led after he's out of the picture.

And it all leads me to think he should be on suicide watch.

[Poor Richard]

The truth is, he's old man Witherspoon from the amusement park, and he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for us meddlin' kids!

[w]

Well, for those who thinks Ron is in it for the money are wrong based on the reasons I stated yesterday.  Tithes and offerings on annual high/holy days are the beliefs of the cog-pkg church.  As the church membership, the number estimates I can produce is about 500 Feast of Tabernacles 2007, and probably around or over 500 baptized members between early October 2007 and this April 2008.  So you deduct the members who have passed away since October the total membership total is around 1,000.  I do not see the elders as setting any sort of coup(referring to the e-mail message to the select few from three days ago) because Weinland's e-mail was on the address book list within the e-mail message itself.  Right now, I don't have any new information on the e-mail message.

[PurpleHymnal]

The thing about Weinland believing his own patter AND having an escape hatch is this: He can't eat his cake and have it too. Either he is seriously deluded, or he is a strategic con artist. He cannot be both. The reason he may have no conscience about the tithes, or the people sucked in by the church (other than the numbers, and information is coming out now that the church may have been playing a numbers racket), because he just isn't capable of it.

He cannot be deluded and a con at the same time. I 100% agree with that assessment. It suggests that either the ministry is conning the sheep, and using Weinland's mental illness to do so, or they are trying to cover themselves, now that Weinland has shown how deeply delusional he may actually be, and some of the ministry is either having doubts, OR, they are the con men just trying to salvage what they can of the gravy train before it completely derails. I do not agree with "w"'s assertion that the ministry believes Weinland and the books 100%. That's impossible. Why would the three stooges be jockeying for positions of power, the first time Weinland shows weakness?

I also agree that, in the beginning, Weinland looked like he was just another CoG shill, with a particularly unique twist to draw the tithe-payers in. The last three weeks have unequivocally demonstrated that this is unfortunately not the case. There is no end game, and "plan B" as it has come to not-so-affectionately be known, is either a money-run by the remaining ministry, or an a$$et-covering last-ditch attempt to save the Titanic, on the part of Harrell, Wrozeck, and Matthews. Also add to this the fact that "plan B" REMOVES the reins of power from Weinland's hands, and it looks more and more unlikely that this is a plan that would have Ronnie's seal of approval.

As regards Wrozeck, I have heard some other things that suggest he may want to pull a Weinland "mini-me" stunt. Maybe not so far as false prophecy is concerned, but at least as far as becoming the king of the hill. He is rumoured to be Weinland's favoured son, and may feel rightfully that he deserves the baton (or one part of it) to be passed along to him, once it all really hits the fan.

It has been confirmed that the daughter is the business manager of the corporation. Perhaps she is the one who dreamt up "plan B"? She is the church's first line of defense for monitoring the blogs and the Internet chatter, after all.

As for Weinland's frame of mind at this moment in time, it's hard to tell. If he actually listened to the words of In Thy Loving Kindness Lord, as he belted them out on Passover, even someone as far gone as he obviously was in the sermon on the 19th, should have been given pause by the message therein. Especially the last two lines. It is the most depressing song in the Purple Joy Killer, and it is not for nothing that it was so often sung on Passover.

If, however, the ministry still believes in Weinland (as "w" asserted they do), they won't have him under any kind of watch at all. I really can't see Weinland harming himself though; he is far too narcissistic, and way too much of a control freak, to go down that road, in my opinion.

Oh, and I see "w" has posted another reply. Given "w"'s incorrect membership information (the actual membership totals are closer to three hundred and fifty), I would say that this makes "the leaked email" look suspect as well.

[PurpleHymnal]

So you deduct the members who have passed away since October the total membership total is around 1,000.

These numbers are incorrect. The church's membership was stable at 300 for a number of years, up until last year this time. While there may have been a hundred or so baptisms between now and then, the church does NOT give information on its attrition rate, which is between one and four members weekly. That puts the membership totals closer to between three hundred to five hundred, and on the lower end of that scale, in my opinion.