Observations of a Spin-doctor

Listen up, class!  It's time for an ancient history lesson!

A long, long time ago in a land far away, when I was a boy growing up in Liverpool, England, I came to be an expert spin-doctor.  Every evening and weekend during the summers, my friends and I would meet at the North Park in Bootle where there was a wonderful playground, which featured all the equipment an active youngster could ever need: banana slides, monkey bars, a Witch's Hat, a rocking horse, a Wedding Cake, see-saws and, of course, lots of swings.

In the comparative safety of the nineteen-fifties, we would spend many hours there, showing off to the girls – yes, even after Kenny Dyson fell off a swing and broke both of his wrists!  My expertise was not on the swings (neither was Kenny's!), but was rather on the Witch's Hat and the Wedding Cake.  These were roundabouts shaped like their respective namesakes.  I cannot claim that I was proficient at very much at that young age, but I did have the unique ability to get those machines spinning so fast that the girls would be just a-screaming.  Oh, sublime happiness!

The Wedding Cake, especially, was a very interesting piece of equipment and I, being so very studious like most eleven-year-old boys, learnt some elementary laws of physics from it.  The faster it spun, the greater was the force to eject the kids who were holding on for dear life.   The closer the kids were to the outside perimeter of the Wedding Cake, the greater was the force to throw them off – much greater than if they had dragged themselves closer to the centre.  This was the result of a phenomenon called "centrifugal force."

Our ancient history lesson is over and now it's time for a science lesson!  Here is Webster's definition of centrifugal force:

1. The force that tends to impel a thing or parts of a thing outward from a center of rotation.

2. The force that an object moving along a circular path exerts on the body constraining the object and that acts outwardly away from the center of rotation.

Boring stuff, eh?  Well no, it really is quite interesting!  Centrifugal force is incredibly powerful; almost limitless!  Scientists and engineers have invented machines called "centrifuges," which take advantage of its principles.  Here are some excerpts from the Funk and Wagnall's Encyclopedia article on the Centrifuge:

As mentioned in the above excerpt, the most common use of a centrifuge is to separate substances.  To repeat one of the article's examples, a spin dryer separates water from clothes.

Some readers may not enjoy the topic of science, but please bear with me for just a little longer.   Isaac Newton's third law of motion (which is, of course, really God's law of motion!) states that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."  The equal and opposite reaction to centrifugal force is called "centripetal force," which tends to pull a spinning object in towards its centre of rotation.  

Is your head spinning with all this?  To get your mind around this concept, please think about the world spinning around on its axis.  The earth's surface is moving quite fast (about 1,000 miles per hour at the equator) and the strong centrifugal force generated by this spin would like to separate you and me from our beloved terra firma and throw us out into space!  But along to the rescue comes the centripetal force of gravity, which pulls us down to earth again.  Notice, by the way, that our Creator designed the size and spin speed of the earth so that, all across its surface, the centrifugal force and the gravitational pull are perfectly balanced.  A slight imbalance in favour of centrifugal force and we would all be space walkers.  A slight imbalance in favour of gravity and we would all be crushed into the earth.

Threshing, winnowing and mill-grinding

Let us now, as we move into our subject's spiritual symbolism, drop in briefly on our school's agriculture class.  The Bible frequently uses the symbols of the agricultural processes of threshing, winnowing and mill-grinding to picture God's punishment, removal, separation and perfecting of various peoples.  Here are some examples:

Historically, rotary devices have been used in all three of these processes.  Rotary winnowing machines, which use the principle of centrifugal forces, were in use by the Chinese as early as 40 BC.  The English rediscovered them in the eighteenth century.  Here is an interesting excerpt from the Lindesmith family history web-site (http://mjgen.com/lindesmith/2joseph.html):

After having read the above quotes, here are some questions to consider:  Has not God's church been threshed, beaten, separated and scattered?  In today's tiny congregations, does it not sometimes feel as though we have been ground to powder, or as though we have had heavy cartwheels rolled over us?  Are there perhaps two levels in the threshing and winnowing of God's people?:

Some more interesting questions.  Will our threshing and winnowing take place all at once at the return of Jesus Christ... perhaps when all our physical chaff is removed and burnt in the fire?  Or are these processes gradual?  Do they come gradually with increased physical and spiritual maturity?  Does the mill-grinding process symbolize God grinding His useful wheat grain into useful flour to be made into useful loaves of bread –  perhaps in order for each of us to be increasingly identical to the true Bread of Life – our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ (John 6:35, 48)?

Spiritual roundabout

I believe that the people of God's church are being threshed and winnowed right now.  I believe that we are spinning on a spiritual centrifuge or roundabout, and that vast forces are still being exerted to separate us and to throw us out of our circles of fellowship.  Once upon a time, through the power of God's Holy Spirit, we enjoyed a fair level of unity within the church.  Generally, having little in the way of common interest outside the church, we would have had fellowship with very few of those who became our church friends.  Our main bond was formed through the power of God's Holy Spirit:

     Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  (Ephesians 4:3)

After the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) began to move toward what their leaders now term "orthodox evangelical theology," many members and their families began to leave – to spin out, as it were – in different directions and for different reasons.   Some who left WCG actually loved that organization's “new direction” – but thought that the church was not changing fast or radically enough and, consequently, moved over to other Protestant churches.  Some abandoned religion altogether and returned to the world.   Some became so mistrustful of corporate churches that they decided to worship God alone at home.  Here we see the spirit of separation and fragmentation at work.  A spiritual centrifugal force!

Other church members resisted this urge to fly apart.  So that they could continue to worship and fellowship in the truth of God with people of like mind, they joined other branches of the church of God.  Some formed new branches.  Here we see the spirit of unity at work.  A spiritual centripetal force!

But all was not well, even for this latter group.  Members were leaving the parent church at different times and in different areas.  In many – if not most – cases,  the location and time that an individual or group left the Worldwide Church of God seems to have largely determined which new church group they joined.  As the months and years progressed, some of the members who had joined these new groups came to disagree with some of their practices, policies or teachings, and then suffered the added heartbreak of a second separation.  Some then joined or formed yet other church groups and some, being disillusioned by their recent disappointments and experiences, rejected corporate churches altogether and, to this day, remain alone or in tiny "living room" church groups.  This cycle and seemingly downward spiral of the scattering of God's church continues as some members become intolerant and mistrustful of even the slightest doctrinal, procedural, or personal differences with their fellows.

Jesus said that not one stone of the temple would be left upon another (Matthew 24:2).  We have come to see that this prophecy might refer just as much to God's spiritual temple – His church (Ephesians 2:19-21; II Corinthians 6:16; I Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19) – as to the physical temple that was still standing during the time of Jesus' human sojourn on earth.  From this astonishing possibility, more questions arise: How far will the dismantling of God's spiritual temple go?  How much more must God's people be scattered and separated?  What constitutes a "stone" of God's spiritual temple?   One congregation?  One church family?  One church member (I Peter 2:4-8)?  I only list the questions here. I do not claim to have all the answers.

Many have blamed Satan for the scattering of God's church.  Others have blamed the church leaders and the field ministers.  Some leaders and ministers have put the burden of responsibility on the members.  Although all of these may have been used as tools in the process, we have come to understand that this scattering of the church is really God's doing; that it is His corrective punishment upon His church as a whole, and that it is a second fulfillment of His many prophetic warnings that He would scatter His people if they continued in sin and idolatry.  Space does not allow the reproduction of even a small fraction of the many scriptures that detail these warnings and the first fulfillment of the scattering of God's people.  Here is just one of the earliest of His warnings from way back in the time of Moses:

God was very patient with His Old Testament "church."  He bore with Israel’s disobedience and idolatry for hundreds of years before He finally scattered them.  God does not try to hide the fact and has no reason to be ashamed of the fact that it is He who punishes His children by scattering when they continue in sin.   It is He who has the ultimate authority and control over what happens to His church – Old Testament and New.

At first, this came as a shock to many.  "Why would God punish us?" one might ask.  "After all, are not we the ones who rejected WCG's new direction?"  These questions crossed my mind too.  But once we come to see the love, logic and justice behind the corrective punishments administered by our loving Father, there are a few even more critical questions we need to ask ourselves: If the scattering of the church is God's doing, is it then wrong for us to resist the forces that seem to be pushing us toward even further separation?  Or should we just give in to these forces and let them take their natural course?

The answer to both questions, I believe, is "No."  I believe that, as a result of His course of punishment, God wants His people to repent, and to follow up that repentance by striving to pull together.  I do not believe that He wants His children to slide to the edge of the roundabout where we would be in danger of being thrown off altogether:

God wants us to endeavour to maintain unity with our brethren.  Yes, to endeavour.  To work at it.  To push against this spiritual centrifugal force of further separation and scattering.  Such effort is not an attempt to thwart God's punishment, but rather may be compared to an ongoing spiritual exercise that is imperative for our spiritual health.  Our heavenly Father wants His children to ultimately enjoy the same level of unity He has with Jesus Christ.  Although impossible now because of our human weakness, one day those who overcome will have this same level of unity:

Please notice, in the above passage from John 17, Jesus' repetition of the tiny Greek word "o," which is translated as the English, "may be."  This term implies that, although ultimate unity within the family of God is a real possibility, it is also a conditional possibility for each Christian. Until the time for this ultimate unity comes, we must do the best we can to work hard, using the God-given power of His Holy Spirit, to maintain and increase church unity.  It is not easy.  It will not be easy. It is not meant to be.  Nothing precious and worthwhile ever is.

Even within our local congregations and groups, we do not all think exactly alike in every doctrinal and personal area.  With the varied backgrounds and experiences that have individually shaped us, thinking exactly the same on every single topic is impossible at this time.  Remember the centrifuge article?  It stated that "the smaller the diameter of a centrifuge, the greater the forces and accelerations exerted on the contents."  It is the same with God's church.  When we were in our larger congregations, it was comparatively easy for a member, when confronted by differences (doctrinal or otherwise) with another, to simply avoid him or her and to go seeking the friendship of other members – others who held ideas and viewpoints closer to his own.  This does not work so well in the tiny groups we have today.  There are often only two choices for the members of our small groups: Either love 'em or leave 'em!  Faced with differences (in many cases, minor ones) of doctrinal or personal opinions, some church members have taken the leave 'em option – the separation option – and now sit alone each Sabbath Day.

We must face the fact that, until Jesus Christ returns and sweeps away every doctrinal uncertainty, there are a few areas of scripture that will remain subject to a certain degree of human interpretation.  Until that time comes, we need to be loving, patient and tolerant toward those who do not think exactly as we do on certain points.  Please allow me to repeat, from Ephesians 4:1-3:

In saying this I am not, of course, proposing that we all return to the Worldwide Church of God.  Neither am I advocating that organization's slide towards Protestantism.  Nor am I suggesting that we should at this time put all of our efforts and resources into attempts to unite the various branches of the church of God.  No matter hard we might try to do this (as some have), it will not happen until it is God's time to do it.   That may not be until the time of the Place of Safety.  It may not be until the time of Christ's return.  In Mark 10:9, Jesus says, "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."  We might turn this around and say,  "What therefore God hath put asunder, let not man attempt to join together." 

What I am saying is that we should all be trying hard now to find common ground with our brothers and sisters inside the groups God has provided for us and, as natural and appropriate opportunities (not artificial or forced ones!) arise, with those in other church of God groups.  Let us not be throwing rocks at other church of God groups because they may have different priorities and leadership styles, or because they have slightly different teachings on certain matters than we do.  God knows who and where His people are.  He is the Judge in these matters, not you or I.

Finally, there is one effect of the action of a centrifuge that we have not yet mentioned. When all the spinning and separation is complete, the compositions of the component substances are left denser and more concentrated than before.  Likewise, if each church member makes every effort to respond appropriately to God's correction, our congregations will become closer and more unified than ever.

Please be patient with one another's differences.  Do not major in the minors.  We seem to be spinning faster and faster as the end of the age gets closer and our groups get smaller.  Get away from the outside edge.  Drag yourself to the centre.  Don't expect it to be easy.  It will not be.  Hold on for dear life!

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This page last updated: February 29, 2012