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The Open Letter to the WCG

In December 1991, a comprehensive letter of some 19 pages was written and circulated to about 500 addresses of members of the Worldwide Church of God in the UK and abroad. It was written because my wife and I were thrown out of the church a year earlier without being given the benefit of a tribunal or other form of fair hearing. The dictatorial WCG hierarchy unilaterally expelled us without independent or unbiased witnesses, and on the unreliable testimony of a false minister, who – we now see with the benefit of hindsight – clearly expelled us out of evil motives.

What this open letter contained was more than just details to do with our personal case of mistreatment. It listed 12 basic and specific points of teaching and practice on which the church was apostatising. God used that vehicle to warn the leadership of the WCG that if they didn’t repent, He would remove their lampstand from its place, just as He warned the churches in John’s Apocalypse.

God Writes Through a Prophet

The Letter began:

Dear Friend,

You are probably aware that Malcolm and Helena Heap were disfellowshipped from the Worldwide Church of God..... Many church members have wondered why they were put out. Those who knew this couple best have been perplexed.

Some have asked why such loyal members, who have been pillars in the church, should be so suddenly expelled from it. They were (to those who really knew them) God-fearing people who not only believed the tenets of Christianity, but who lived by them as well. They showed love and outgoing concern for others in whatever way they could. Many have benefited from the love of God that flowed through them – often in small kindnesses, but kindnesses nonetheless that demonstrated that the love of God dwelt in them richly (Col 3:16).

Why then, were they so suddenly excommunicated? What did they do to warrant such dictatorial treatment?

Church members have not been told the reasons why, which according to scripture, they ought to be. The most obvious case of church discipline recorded in the New Testament is in I Cor. 5, and it is significant that the membership knew why the man so disciplined had been suspended from meeting with them. His sin of incest was common knowledge to most. And in order that such gross moral misconduct was not condoned, he was publicly disciplined.

The purpose of this letter is to clarify just why the Heaps were disfellowshipped, so no one is in any doubt. Gossip and rumour breeds on insufficient accurate information. The following are the true facts behind the Heaps’ excommunication and should help to allay any false rumours and gossip circulating about them.

The issues involved in their disfellowshipment directly affect all of us. All members of the Worldwide Church of God need to be made aware of what is going on behind the scenes. For what is occurring behind closed doors of the offices of Elstree House directly affects you if you believe that the church should be a tool in the Hands of Jesus Christ. What has been transpiring threatens the viability of the Worldwide Church of God as an effective instrument for the work of God.

The relevant issues even determine whether God can use this church any longer! For these reasons you need to be informed of the truth.

THIS MATTER IS SERIOUS; DEADLY SERIOUS!

In a nutshell, it boils down to whether the church is following God or whether it is not. IF YOU LOVE GOD, IF YOU LOVE HIS TRUTH, IF YOU LOVE HIS CHURCH, then read on. If you don’t, then don’t bother.

Christ commands you to love Him, “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your MIND!” (Mark 12:30.) If you close your mind and refuse to read the following information you are not worshipping God with all your mind. If you decide to “wash your hands” of any direct involvement yourself preferring instead to hand this information over to your local ‘pastor’ to deal with, you will not be using your mind and your free moral agency that God expects you to use in such circumstances. You will not be worshipping your Creator if you do such a cowardly, mindless thing. [But that is just what the membership did. They didn’t take any notice. Since then apostasy has deepened further.]

No minister or pastor is going to get you into God’s Kingdom. You have to do what is necessary to be there to receive God’s gift. And God is not going to give it to those who do nothing (Luke 19:20-27).

You have to use your mind and thereby worship Him.

So, you should read the following, think deeply about the principles it contains, study the Bible references in it, and pray about it. If you do these things, allowing Christ to lead your thinking (Rom 8:14) to do the right thing, then your conscience can be clear before God.

You must decide who is right and who is wrong and whom to follow, whether God or man. It is your life, no one can live it for you.

There are warnings contained herein. Warnings from God. If you reject them, then God will reject you (Prov. 1:24-32). But if you heed them, God will be with you (v. 33). The choice is yours. No one else can make it for you.

It is not just your right, but your RESPONSIBILITY also.

You must choose. Your choice and your actions will help determine the path the church takes from now on.

Through this letter, written by a prophet of God, the WCG leadership and members were warned of coming collapse. But no one heeded. The leaders only really cared about ‘political’ control over the people. And the only loyalty the members showed was in compliance with leadership controls. They were duped by WCG leadership, and held captive to demonic reasoning. (We would call that psychological conditioning today.) 

Prophesying of Apostasy

In the ensuing years, the WCG fell prey to satanic delusions. It rejected truth in favour of error, and continued to deny justice.

In this letter, the writer prophesied of the coming apostasy, which has now come to pass:

You are being prepared to accept CHANGES from HQ. Change of itself is not wrong, so long as the changes represent GROWING in grace and knowledge. If changes are based on truth from God’s word that is fine. But if they constitute a watering down of Christ’s teachings, leaning towards human rationalism and liberalism, however subtle, they represent a DEVIATION from the “simplicity that is in Christ” (I Cor. 11:3), a corruption of the pure Word of God (Pr. 30:5) and an erosion of time-honoured biblical traditions.

Why do you hear sermons or comments frequently reminding or forewarning you of coming changes? Why don’t you hear of the changes themselves? Why do you have to be brainwashed and ‘prepared’ before the actual changes themselves are announced? Because the administration know that a lot of people would not accept the changes without being ‘softened up’ first!

That is not being honest with God’s people....

The most marked changes inside the WCG occurred from 1995 on, when they threw out the biblical basis for keeping the fourth commandment and substituted it with clever human rationalism, dishonestly using parts of the Word of God to justify their rebellion. They called it ‘New Covenant Theology’. [Much more about that is covered in later chapters.]

This letter concluded with the admonition to let the Spirit of Christ lead, something which the WCG has NEVER done correctly in all its history:

Let God lead you, not men. Then the Gospel will go out into all the world for a witness to all.

One man who hasn’t been a member of the Worldwide Church of God for several years now, (following a disagreement with the hierarchy over authority), recently gave witness to the Gospel and the Holy Days of God by a letter which was read out in full, on a radio programme discussing the reasons why fewer people now attend church. The radio station even offered to make copies of his letter available to all those who wrote in for it.

This totally disproves the pompous statement in the recent [WCG] booklet, “Why You Should be Baptised", (Pg. 10-11) “If there were no organised Church of God with zealous members and co-workers joined together, Christ’s message to the world would not be proclaimed...”. [An evidence of the blindness of those in the Church of God organisation to what IS happening in evangelism worldwide!]

Christ said, “Do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matt. 3:9-10).

If you come out Christ promises you that, “he that overcomes will I make a pillar in the Temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.” (Rev. 3:12).

The choice is yours. Choose wisely.

Sincerely, in deep love,

Christ’s messenger.

Looking Back in 1998

Since the publication of this letter in December 1991, the Worldwide Church of God has made many further changes. But, it has NOT properly addressed the core abuse within the system which led to these changes. As a result, their apostasy has reached a climax. There is no way back, now.

In 1998, one writer confessed:

Malcolm and Helena Heap were thrown out of the WCG without a fair trial (as were many other well-meaning folk). They were expected to ‘bow down’ to illicit demands made upon them, limiting their legitimate spiritual freedoms. This abuse was practised in the name of religion. It was claimed it was “submission to the authority God has placed in the Church”. However, nowhere does the Bible say we must obey men when they make unscriptural demands upon us. It says the exact opposite. We are to obey God, not man (Acts 5:29).

Of course, when there is a hazy line between whether it is God or men who are making such demands upon us, it is easy to be deceived. When the distinction is made even hazier by deliberately confused teaching from the church, it is understandable why many Worldwiders fall into the trap of obeying men who have usurped Christ’s role in the Church.

The cultic operations of psychological conditioning within the WCG have not changed. Satan has managed to pull the wool over many eyes by making it look like the WCG has changed. But, while it has altered much of its teaching to comply with majority evangelical viewpoints, it has not reformed its cultic manipulation within, nor has it deprogrammed its members from their cultic dependency upon the church.

The WCG has just become more devious!

If the WCG had truly changed, Malcolm and Helena would have been exonerated long ago! But, because they have now been actively involved in an independent ministry, producing many publications of spiritual worth – some of which are designed to expose the corruption and errors in the past and present WCG – the church hierarchy refuses to concede to any investigation of their mistreatment, or reverse the character assassination they were subjected to.

WCG leaders are not honest. They prefer to ignore Malcolm and Helena and hope they will just go away. What a farce!

A church which claims to have reformed, to have left its cultic abuse behind, and moved on “in the love of God", cannot even offer an apology to those it formerly abused! A church which professes new covenant theology – the central tenet of which is clemency and forgiveness in love – has no love to extend to those it falsely accused!

Like the Pharisees of the past, the WCG leaders don’t practice what they preach. It is too embarrassing for them to have to admit to past failure – worse still, to have to admit that things have not really changed. The bed linen is still soiled from its paramours with the devil!

So, Malcolm and Helena are falsely accused and further maligned! That deflects the blame from guilty church leaders onto the victims of their heinous abuse. It preserves the status quo in the church, and maintains a safe environment to ‘protect’ members’ minds from being ‘contaminated’ by the truth which the Heaps dare to declare about WCG leadership misdemeanours.

False Ministers Protected Within!

What the foregoing letter brings to light is the danger posed by false ministers in the WCG (and in any church, for that matter). The ministers who falsely accused the Heaps were clearly motivated by the devil. One of these men has since left and joined United Church of God. The other is still on the payroll of the WCG in the UK.

It is entirely unethical, unbiblical and irresponsible for such a situation to be perpetuated within a church which claims charitable status and which claims to be a Christian church. By its inaction, it denies the tenets of Christianity and acts against the interests of its members. On both counts, it is condemned.

Forgiveness and understanding were not extended to Malcolm and Helena when they were ‘tried’ and cast out of the WCG in 1990. Why should the church expect preferential treatment? But it does! It is part of the cultic expectation to be easy on the church, while being hard on the ‘dissident’ who says unsavoury things about it.

But few, if any, even question why the appellant has made the unsavoury remarks or claims against his former association.

Malcolm made the astute observation that certain men “had crept in unawares” and were abusing ministerial privileges at the expense of the members.

To put it plainly, Malcolm warned that false ministers were ruling the roost in the WCG. He tried to alert others in the organisation to this debacle, but no one listened. He was accused of ‘treason’. Such accusations are rarely, if ever, entertained seriously in the organisation. After all, it was “God’s Church", so why should its members take such threats for real?

The fact remains, the church never exposes false ministers in its employ. But the Bible says they are there! So, why the cover-up?

It ought to be obvious to the spiritually-minded!

You, as a WCG member, have had the wool cleverly pulled over your eyes! You have been hoodwinked, deluded, mocked and betrayed. You have sold out to the devil!

The WCG will not change for real. Many loyal members have stayed on, hoping and waiting for the church administration to reform. Others are deluded by the lie that the church will be brought back from the precipice by God; that He will not let “His Church” go seriously astray. Those souls are dreadfully blind! The WCG has seriously gone astray.

If you stay within a corrupt system, you will be corrupted further by it. You, as a Worldwide member, have already been corrupted and you will be blind to it. NOW is the time to WAKE UP! NOW is the time to GET OUT! I hope you will. Time is up for playing church. [6]

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