Revising The CGGC Brand: "Incoherence" Becomes "Organized Hypocrisy"

Friends,

As you know, I've been working on a description of the CGGC brand for some time now.  The project was inspired by a comment in an eNews article in early 2013 that a future project for CGGC leaders would be to define their own notion of the CGGC brand. 

Knowing how this sort of thing goes in the CGGC in the 2010s, considering the radical Mission Statement that doesn't describe the mission we live out and the 2013 "Statement of Faith" which doesn't describe a belief system consistent with our actions, I have decided to be honest about my own perceptions of what the CGGC brand really is.  This has been a useful exercise for me.

My description has gone through several drafts and is now the point of tweaking.  I believe that what I have published is essentially what I see.  However, I do think that I am still able to polish the wording of my take on the CGGC brand.

I have been most dissatisfied with the last of the thirteen characteristics that I identify.  The last of the characteristics is this in its latest form:

13. Incoherence. There is illogic and outright contradiction among the things the CGGC claims to be true about itself.  There is also lack of consistency between what it says and what it does.

The word 'incoherence' is highfalutin (as is the word highfalutin).  It doesn't say well what I see in the CGGC.  So, I have decided to rework the entire last item in my thirteen characteristics of the CGGC brand thusly:

13.  Organized Hypocrisy.  There is illogic and outright contradiction among the things the CGGC claims to be true about itself.  This illogic and contradiction is, in reality, deeply rooted, highly intentional and carefully executed.  A hypocrite is an actor: "...a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings."  It is a positive and essential value of the CGGC to speak one message and to, without qualm, act out another that is entirely disconnected from that avowed principle.

As one example, consider the fact that our General Conference leadership worked for nearly six years to convince the General Conference delegates in session to adopt a new We Believe and the 2013 Statement of Faith which both claim that the Bible in our "only" "rule" and that, having succeeded in that, they immediately began to promote the unbiblical practice of observing Lent.

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As offensive as the things I write and say are to many in the CGGC, there are several words I have not yet found the courage, nor the faith in the Lord, to write or speak.  Several of these are the words that derive from the word hypocrite.

But, I think the time has come for me either to publish the words or to consider myself a false prophet.

Jesus regularly used the hypocrite words to describe the Scribes and Pharisees--the religious institutionalists--of His own day.

I now summon them to describe, at the very least, the CGGC's institutional values and practices.  Not to do so would be to confess to being faithless to my calling.