No, not that hymnal, this hymnal. I got out of the WCG immediately after Senior’s “sermon from the mount”, otherwise known as “the changes”. Tkach Sr. wanted the sheeple to “wake up”: Unfortunately I was one of the forty thousand members who “woke up” on the wrong side of the bed, and foreswore all religion afterwards.
Having been out quite a good many years now (over a decade), I find myself at a place in my life where I have the free time (maybe not a good thing) and inclination to re-examine some of what happened to me, way back when.
Part of that re-examination includes re-visiting some of the beliefs I held when I was a child. I was born into the church, in 1976. Fortunately for me, the doctrines on healing and doctors were loosened, otherwise I would not be alive today.
I have been through my share of the XCG sites, and I come down firmly on the non-believer’s side of the XCoG membership, and likely always will. Part of remaining on the non-believer’s side includes critically examining the brainwashing techniques we were exposed to, from the time we were old enough to be blanket-trained.
A large (very large) part of the brainwashing included the hymns that we sang. Created by HWA’s brother Dwight, a critical examination of the songs and their wording, combined with the fact that we usually sang anywhere from five to ten of them at a go, in one Sabbath services, it is all too easy to see how the programming was inculcated.
I will be taking the reader of this hymnal through the most popular songs that were sung in the WCG, and that are still being sung, in some of the splinter CoGs, and explaining how the words were designed to manipulate and control those who sang them, week after week, Feast after Feast, year after year.
Another, more selfish reason for this blog, is the thought that this hymnal reflects a specific time-period (1974 – 1996), in which only a very small amount of the populace participated. There is a little bit of the “Kilroy was here” mentality to this blog; a footnote on the history of the CoG movement, an objective introspection of the songs that were sung, but will never be sung again.
Most congregations, at the time these songs were being sung, were in excess of 200 strong, as members often travelled long distances to attend, a congregation “near” them.
At the annual Feasts, especially the Feast of Tabernacles, satellite transmissions were employed, so that all hundred and fifty thousand members of “the church” were singing in unison, all around the world.
The sense of belonging and unity this created, combined with the xenophobic isolationatism from “worldly” things and people, was a powerful brainwashing tactic that, for a long period of time, and a relatively large number of people, worked extremely effectively.
The chorale version of these songs, as well as the piano version, is available on the Internet, but if you want them, you’ll just have to find them for yourself. I do not endorse any CoG site, nor do I recommend visiting any CoG site for any reason whatsoever. I will be posting the pages from the hymnal, of the songs I wish to “de-construct”, but this in no way implies any copyright infringement on my part, or desire to infringe upon copyright. The material under consideration is no longer in use in the form I am posting, and I am not deriving any monetary benefit from the posting of same.
Welcome, brethren, to way things used to be, in the Worldwide Church of God, 1974 – 1996.
Tags: introduction
