Hear any good rumors lately?
It is sometimes good to go over the “blog basics”, so to speak. Readers will come and go over a blog’s lifetime for various reasons. New blog readers aren’t necessarily going to dig into past archives to see what’s going on, and even the best of long readers will occasionally forget.
First and foremost, this is a Christian blog written from the Church of God (COG) perspective (see header). Most of the COG organizations descended through the Church of God 7th Day (COG7), then through the Radio/Worldwide Church of God.
Various organizations split off from the WCG during its lifetime, but the largest splits occurred after the death of Herbert W Armstrong in 1986 up until 1995 when WCG officially changed its doctrinal position on almost all of the unique COG doctrines. The largest surviving organizations from those splits are the United Church of God an International Association (UCG, or UCGia), Living Church of God (LCG), Philadelphia Church of God (PCG), Church of God International (CGI) and the Intercontinental Church of God (ICG). Note that the latter 2 were the result of earlier splits involving Garner Ted Armstrong.
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am a member in good standing with a current COG organization. It probably wouldn’t be too difficult to figure out which one. No, I am not an official spokesman for that organization (or any other COG, for that matter).
Yes, this blog is somewhat organization-neutral. Yes, this neutrality does leave me free to critique my own organization, and I have on a couple of occasions. In my opinion, this sets this blog apart from Robert Thiel’s more established COG Writer blog. While he has a fine blog (which I do read), he makes it pretty clear that he is an unofficial apologetic for the LCG. I’m not faulting him for that, either, as I think that type of blog has its place. The COG Perspective, on the other hand, does not owe its existence or allegiance to a particular organization, which gives it quite a different flavor.
I ask that you feel free to leave comments. All you need is either a Gmail or OpenID account to leave a comment. Comments were broken for a short while when the template was changed, but they seem to be working now. I’ve placed a new About Me box in the upper left-hand corner so you can lookup my profile and send me emails if comments are not working (click on the “March Hare” to go to the profile). Just be respectful, please. Don’t use the comments space for “Armstrong bashing”, bashing of your host and other guests, use profanity or break the 3rd Commandment (including proper capitalization), and we will likely get along quite well.
And, don’t start rumors. That’s not nice, either.