There's a New Minister In This Here Town....

Minister simply didn't mean “Minister” in the church.

The name “Minister” - in the best way possible – meant “Sheriff”.

The fact that the minister was referred to as a “Sheriff” was mentioned many times from the pulpit in the church's later days. The church was repeatedly told that the church pastors needed to be shephards, not sheriffs. Many ministers took the position of a sheriff – acting as the gestapo, at the worst – or as a law enforcement officer, at the best. I'm not saying that they did anything inherently illegal – although some of their actions have caused some to committ illegal activities in Armstrongism in some few cases, it's been said. The ministry acted in harsh and in cruel manners to maintain the order and discipline of the church – even to teenagers.

I can remember reading a story of one particular teenager who was suspended in church for one reason or another, and decided to go back to her church before she was told, just to be harshly escorted out and berated for daring to come to church before she was supposed to. 

 

In short, ministers acted in the means of law enforcement and harsh discipline instead of acting in the manners of love. In every way, fear, discipline, and power was used as a tool for control instead of love, kindness, and mercy. Those elements of emotion were seen as “girly” or “pansy” compared to the power of the “rod of iron”, said symbolically.

While the lay member was forced in church-induced dung-piles of impoverished living, the minister enjoyed the best that life had to offer. Not only did ministers not have to pay second tithe out of their income, their car and housing were taken care of. For a time, even their utilities were covered and paid with their expense account. They lived the life of Riley while the members struggled with daily living. Of course, most ministers graduated from Ambassador College and were only trained for church ministry – so the fear that they might become disfellowshipped themselves made them subject to every command the church gave them – because they weren't good at (so they were told) anything else but ministry. If they left the church, they were told they might be “reduced” to mere manual labor – working with their hands – a type of work despised by Herbert Armstrong himself. That fear caused many ministers to become “yes-men” to their superiors, and dictators to their congregations. Their own job was on the line – along with all their perks and benefits – if he somehow messed up. 

 

The minister coming over to the house for visitation was always a dreadful thing – for if the minister came over, it was nearly certain that bad news was about to happpen. Perhaps he was told something by another member he wanted to talk over. Perhaps he saw something he didn't approve of. Perhaps he wanted to talk to you about your marriage, or your job. Maybe your child was out of line, and you were being told to take care of that better. Maybe you were being told not to talk to your extended unconverted family any more – or maybe you were told to shun your child who just left the church and became “worldly”.

Just make sure your house was perfect, and everything was in order. Make sure you hid any medicines you took in the medicine cabinet, because chances are if they went to the bathroom, they might just open up your medicine cabinet and check to see if you “had enough faith”. Make sure your magazines are put away – you wouldn't want them wondering why you subscribed to a more “worldly” type of magazine, like Fortune – you might be judged as being greedy. And hope to your God that they never came over unexpectedly – your entire perception might be changed by that one visit at not-so-good of a time.

Ministers were not ministers in the church – they were enforcement officers, and to me, appeared ready to condemn and to pounce. You did everything you could not to “tick them off” - because if you did, your chances of salvation were going downhill – and your chances of being thrown into that awful lake of fire in the future were much more “real” then you could have imagined. 

 

In fact, fear became a staple of the church. Fear of not only being disfellowshiped – but constant fear of the supernatural based on what we were taught. Fear of the devil and demons – fear of the other religions because we were taught 'every' other religion, of course besides ours, was steeped in paganism and demonism. Fear of being too close to “worldly people”. Fear of doing something wrong in the church that would “tick off” the minister. The entire concept of Armstrongism is based and rooted in control and in fear – and this was pounded on the head of mambers like a hydraulic wrecking ball hammers bricks in delapidated buildings. Coincidentally, many members, knowingly or not, became exactly that – delapidated – by the wrecking ball of the minister's ego and pride of being an all-powerful representative of the god that we served.

The one place most would never want to be in if he was angry.

Ego. Hubris. These men who were ministers really thought that they were the representatives of Jesus Christ on Earth. They weren't humble about it – they loved every second of it.

They always made sure they got the more comfortable chairs at the Feast. They always made sure that they were “roped off” from the general membership at church functions. As the general membership was set apart from the world, it seemed that the ministers viewed themselves as “set apart” from the congregation. At best, the higher in rank they were, the more unapproachable they became, it seemed.

At their college, they had their own separate faculty dining room, which, of course, was far more luxurious then the regular student dining rooms. At the Feast, they had their own ministerial luncheons – which regular members were never to attend with. Ministers were elite – and superior – and they had the massive egos to prove it. I'm not saying everyone didn't have egos – most everyone did. Yet, with a few exceptions – ministers were like an extra-strength version compared to a regular version of “Ego-nol.”

I'm not saying that there weren't a few good ministers in the group. There were. But that was the exception, and not the rule. A few were decent, and actually exemplified the role of minister. However, most were too concerned with their rule of law then they were of making lives better for their members – actually ministering to serve instead of ministering to be served, like many were accustomed to.

Truthfully, my opinion of the majority of them were ego-centered, hubris-filled, manipulative, self-absorbed jerks. That's what my opinion was – and that's how most of them acted.