Eh, we (ex-members) have had this discussion before. I think it all depends on whether or not one has had exposure to Christianity as well as Armstrongism, or if they haven’t. Obviously, I fall in the latter category. As I’ve said before and elsewhere, when I was in, and whenever I was asked, “Are you a Christian?” I always felt uncomfortable. Not because I didn’t think I was a Christian, obviously, I thought I was part of “the firstfruits” who were “the only true Christians”; but the questioner nearly always meant it in the context of Sunday-keeping, trinitarian-believing, bible-beating Christians, which I very viscerally identified myself as the exact OPPOSITE of.

So, in one sense, while we SAID we were “the only true ‘Christians’, we really had little to nothing to do with actually ‘Christianity’ at all. Neither our theology nor our practices were in any way, recognizably ‘Christian’, with the exception of the practices that have survived the church as Messianic Judaism. (Which is up for debate as to whether or not it’s ‘Christian’ too, BTW, on both sides.)

I do believe this viewpoint all depends on whether or not one has had any exposure to Christianity; where I didn’t, I do believe very strongly that there are literally no parallels (from what I can see) between ‘pagan professing Christianity’ (as the church used to put it), and the ‘firstfruits of God/only true Christians’ that Armstrongism claims to be. (Still, to this day, LCG and even parts of UCG claims this, as do any number of the 700+ splinter groups.)

How do you figure the WCG, in its hey day, was not even a mere sliver of Christianity?
I understand your descriptions of Messianic Judaism by way of the 7-day Adventists, but the WCG did proclaim God in the highest and Jesus as the son of God did it not?
That would make it Christian in nature. Of the numbers of Christians in the world, when the WCG hit its high-water mark, the WCG was a minor player, a mere “sliver” if you will, of that cake.
I would think the 7-dayers, the Mormons, and the Quakers are all Christians for believing in God and Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?
My point being that the WCG was a mere trinket in the full regalia of Christianity and Rons PKG is a mere twinkle of a trinket… almost a nothing in the game of numbers.

Yeeeeeah, NO.

At its “greatest”, we were closest in scope to what is known today by the term Messianic Judaism, by way of the Seventh-Day Adventists. With a little bit of Mormonism and Quakerism thrown in, for good measure.

All in all, the little ad-man from Detroit did make up a fairly interesting-tasting soup, I will give him that.