False Prophet Ronald Weinland

False Prophet Ronald Weinland was in Richmond VA today.  His regional elder Dave Conley gave the opening prayer and Ron again imported Ralph Dowd from Cincinnati to give the closing.

Ron has put up a few of his older sermons relating to his first multi-colored booklet Time is Running Out.  He also repeated his promise to put up his old Newswatch issues from 1998 through 2002.  But you don’t have to wait any longer, as I have the complete collection of Newswatch in text-searchable PDFs (follow this link and scroll to the bottom of the page).

Ron has posted plans to travel to Australia and New Zealand for Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread.  It’s curious that he mentioned these holy days but did not mention the trips.  He also has posted plans to go to Europe as usual for Pentecost this year.  I wonder if the IRS is closing in on Ron and whether one of these trips will be a little bit longer than usual

Ron spent a good part of the sermon dangling carrots.  All the new people who would be coming into the church and the hundreds and thousands each could help into the new age.  His sermon was personally useful as it put me to sleep for a much-needed nap.

But not the permanent nap with which he cursed me 61 weeks ago.

Al, who is one of False Prophet Ronald Weinland’s Cincinnati area elders, is undergoing a personal great tribulation.  He is currently being sued twice — one of the lawsuits is for a foreclosure against his business property.  His 18-year-old business owns a co-located vehicle body repair shop with a house usable as an office which is on the market for $269,900.  Hopefully he will be able to close a sale on it before the judge bangs his gavel and sends the sheriff to put him on the street.

During the fall of 2007, Weinland asked his members to show Total Resolve for his prophecies.  In his November 3, 2007 sermon, Weinland mentioned his own $381,000 house and stated:

And I think of all that equity in there, it’s not going to serve anybody any good whatsoever.  Serve the church in a very powerful way.  The more we can do as a group, those of us who are running down together, those of us who are part of the 144000.   If we have the means and the ability …  Don’t do it right now either.  Someone asked me this last week here, “If I withdraw a certain amount right now, I’m going to be penalized, by taxes and so forth.”  But see when January or February come around you’re not going to be penalized. (snorts) The following year you don’t have to worry about it too much, do you?

Al is old enough to have a WCG background and would thus being eligible in 2008 to be sealed (Feb 2) and resealed (Sept 30)  as part of the 144,000. Weinland often mentioned the example of Gideon and his army of 300 that sneaked up on the Midianite camp and defeated them, and described them as “running down the hill” (which they didn’t do, they crept quietly) and “breaking their pitchers” as a metaphor for what his members were to do, by cashing in their 401Ks and the equity in their homes.  Since the US was going to be down the tubes by 2009, not even being able to inaugurate a new president, the IRS wouldn’t be around to collect taxes.  Too bad for Weinland that the IRS is not cooperating with his prophecy even through they probably know all about it.

In his May 3, 2008 sermon, Weinland stated:

So if anyone who gave above and beyond – I just want to add this too, so you can examine your place and what you did.  Because I know how the human mind is, I know that some gave offerings that aren’t normal.  I hope that if there are some that are regretting that, having second doubts about that, I want to say something right now, real clear to you.  Ok .  I’ll return it.  Those of you who have given 10 thousand, 20 thousand, 50 thousand, 80 thousand, 100 thousand, and more because there are those of you who fit in those categories. Above and beyond normal tithes and offerings. But you need to let me know before Pentecost. Thought I’d give a week, I thought “no” I’ll just say it “’til Pentecost”.    Otherwise, to understand,  you are saying that you’re in full agreement of those monies being used fully to whatever I deem necessary.  Because we’re going to continue moving forward, putting everything into what we’re doing.

In a later sermon, he stated that the only request came for refund of tithes and offerings from an ex-member.  At another point in the 5/3/08 sermon:

We hit over a million dollars at one point. But we’re way below that right now. We’re not there any longer because of all the monies we’re throwing into Google, and everything else we’ve been doing. But for a small group like us to be able to do something like this, like we’ve been able to do on the Internet, to be out there, for people to be able to do a search and here we pop up, being this small?

And yet at another point in his May 3, 2008 sermon:

So if you didn’t believe that you have any mortgage payments after April the 17th, or you didn’t have to pay off your credit card, then you made a mistake! You know. You can’t blame me! I don’t know how long some of this is going to take place. Live life wisely.

This statement was only a few weeks after prophesying “nukular” explosions within 45 to 90 days after April 17, 2008.  Indicators are that Weinland did not throw down his own pitcher as did his members–he’s still paying the property tax on his $381,000 house directly to the county instead of through a mortgage company.  I expect that if he’d refinanced the equity from his house that the mortgage company would require him to pay into escrow.

Weinland, as he often does, has shifted all of the blame to the member for whatever happens to them as a result of throwing down their pitcher.  So I wonder how expensive the pitcher was that this elder threw down to light the torch of Google advertising for Ron’s fictional book “2008 God’s Final Witness”.   It’s sad that he’s losing this modest family business which was also the employment for another of Weinland’s elders, Tom, who has the same last name.  While Weinland blames the economy, and I expect that played a role in this situation, I also expect that pitcher-breaking also had a lot to do with it.  I wonder how many other PKG members are similarly suffering, but I doubt that Ron and Laura are among them.

Ron, when you respond to this by accusing me of lying, twisting and distorting, be specific.  Be very specific.  And no twisting and distorting of your own.

Over on his As Bereans Did blog, xHWA has compiled a number of Ron Weinland’s words about himself.  Click on over and take a read, and leave a comment there as well.

False Prophet Ronald Weinland stated that he has cut back on advertising. Quantcast and Alexa, two websites that track Internet traffic to websites, agree with that statement.

This graph of traffic to the-end.com goes back nearly 3 years.  Right after the Feast of Tabernacles in 2007, Ron began spending increasing amounts of money on Google advertising, resulting in a significant increase of traffic early in 2008 based on various apocalyptic key words.  The advertising budget was cut after the failure of the first timeline and the announcement of the 50th truth.  Keyword advertising on Google and Yahoo rebegan with the second timeline in October of 2008.

This graph of web traffic to the-end.com from Alexa goes back only two years and is consistent with a bit more detail.  The sharp drop-off in traffic early in 2009 coincides with the 2-day fast at the end of January last year during which PKG members were to pray for an increase in the Thunders to humble people.   It also shows the traffic dropped of dramatically just before the Feast of Tabernacles last year and then picked up again right after.  Ron stated that he was going to leverage the apocalyptic movie “2012″ that was released back in November, and traffic did increase about that time but has tapered off.

This graph from Google Trends shows the search for the keyword “2012″.  Searches increased just prior to the release of the movie but have tapered off since, similar to the drop-off in traffic to the-end.com.  It appears that this keyword has been removed from their ad program as searches on “2012″ no longer serve up a sponsored link.

The reduced traffic to the-end.com will result in fewer people willing to ignore the lack of evidence and join Ron’s church.  It seems that Ron was able to handle most of the baptisms as he traveled around the country, so I’m not sure what his current flock of elders do.  Questions to an elder are likely to be referred to the FAQ page on the church website, and failing that to Ron himself.  After the first rush of excitement of the 59 new ordainees and their trip to Cincinnati next month, how are they going to handle the lack of opportunity to practice their new eldering skills?

Ron is dangling the carrot that hordes of people will be drawn to his church when the great tribulation finally hits.  But he was claiming as far back as 2004 that disasters would make advertising unnecessary. And they’re still waiting.

Today marks the end of the second 19-year time cycle since the end of Herbert Armstrong’s two prophetic 19-year time cycles.  January 7, 1934 was the first of Herbie’s radio broadcasts.  January 7, 1953 was his first broadcast in Europe at the end of HWA’s first 19-year time cycle.  The end of the second 19-year time cycle, January 7, 1972, was to mark the beginning of the 3 1/2 year Great Tribulation leading to the return of Jesus Christ on Trumpets of 1975.  Each of these January 7′s was Tevet 20 on the Jewish calendar, but this year Tevet 20 is today, January 6, 38 years later on the Jewish holy calendar.  While the sun, moon, and earth are supposedly on a perfect 19-year time cycle, Wikipedia explains that while that’s pretty close there’s actually a two-hour difference.

When the Great Tribulation did not manifest in 1972 and the Worldwide Church of God did not flee to Petra, Herbert Armstrong back-pedaled in a “personal” in his “Tomorrow’s World” publication, claiming that he was not a prophet.  The evidence contradicts this as indicated on this website with over 200 prophecies by Armstrong and his minions.  The book “Matches in the Gas Tank” also says differently. As described in that book, Herbert Armstrong spoke on the Feast of Trumpets 1967, and opened with:

Herbert W. Armstrong walked to the podium and stood before the mike. He was middle-aged, prosperously rotund, and clothed in a fine wool suit. His full gray hair was combed straight back; his cold stare pierced rimless glasses. His bearing was regal; he radiated authority. His voice exuded charisma: a beautiful baritone with the timbre of a finely-tuned instrument. Each word was delivered with absolute conviction because, as he told us, God had given him extraordinary intelligence and speaking ability so he could serve as His emissary on earth.

“Eight years from today, Jesus Christ will return,” Mr. Armstrong thundered, holding his Bible in the air.

Jesus Christ did not return 8 years later, on Trumpets of 1975.  Despite his claim that he was not a prophet, Herbert Armstrong continued to issue prophecies that turned out to be false. Herbert Armstrong claimed to be God’s apostle speaking in his name, and issued prophecies. To claim that Herbie was not a prophet is just so much jailhouse lawyering. Try this one on the judge: stick up a 7-11 and when you get caught, base your defense on “I didn’t claim to be an armed robber”.

This is year 5770 on the Jewish calendar.  Herbie and his wannabee imitators use the Jewish calendar to set the days on which to observe the Holy days.  Weinland emphasizes this in his 20th “Truth”. Yet despite their claims that God allotted 6000 years for mankind to figure it out on our own, False Prophet Ronald Weinland claims that Jesus Christ’s return is imminent despite 230 years remaining according to the Jewish calendar.  Pentecost of 2012 will be pretty much the same as Trumpets of 1975.  Ron has a lot of revisions left to accomplish.