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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, November 28, 1979
Page 5
Of course, it is always necessary for a politician on "the make" to have
a theme and the Attorney General is strictly a sloganeer. "Use a gun, go
to jail," brought him to the Office of Attorney General from the bowels of
the State Assembly. Now an attack on "cults" appears to him to be a
plain, simple, unadorned theme--perfect to confuse the ignorant, suffi
cient to even confuse the courts and the usually well-informed.
It would not be the first time in our history, lest we forget, that the
confusions of honest people are picked up by a few bad and dishonest
people and orchestrated into an opera of public disorder, staged and sung
as though by inmates in an insane asylum.
We are in the vanguard of all those who are fighting for political and
religious freedom because they are one and the same thing. The First
Amendment to the Constitution is also a guarantee of political freedom-
not simply the guarantee to exercise one's religious beliefs in a church,
or a temple, or in the privacy of one's home or mind.
To have religious freedom means to have the right to act upon one's
religious beliefs or to refrain from acting in accordance with one's
religious beliefs. To have religious freedom means to be able to act or
refrain from acting, not just as an individual, but as part of a group,
or part of an association, or a spiritual body, or a body politic.
We are in essence a body politic. Our members are part of this body
politic, but not in opposition to the State or to the Federal Government.
Nonetheless, we are not in consonance with it on matters of fundamental
importance because we believe that we are not "of this world," for we
are told not to be by the Bible. We are told to obey God's laws and for
that obedience we are promised His blessing.
We do not believe that the President, the Senate, the House of Represen
tatives, the Governor, or even the Attorney General of the State of
California can cure this world's ills, nor do we believe this world's
ills will be cured by man, or any combination of men, now living or yet
to be born. Rather, we know that this government will surely fail as
have all governments which have been designed by men, and which the
Living God has permitted man to design for six thousand years--the six
thousand years during which man has been cut off from God (except for
those few who have been drawn to Him because the Father has called them)
We know that the only salvation for all mankind is Christ's intervention.
He will come again during this end time to rule in the Kingdom of God
under the government of God--under the laws of God.
We know that when Christ comes and ushers in the World Tomorrow, we who
have been called will rule under Him. And those who have not heeded the
announcement as promulgated by Herbert W. Armstrong will not.
Hence we are being persecuted and maligned, and our leader's will more
than likely be prosecuted and condemned. As they killed ·Christ, as they
killed the Apostles, as they killed all those who had believed in what
He said, so they will seek to kill our leaders!
This is what we must now convey to the world--boldly, openly, dramatically.