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The Philadelphia Trumpet
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The Philadelphia Trumpet is a religious magazine that covers world events and traces how they were foretold by the prophets of the Bible. It does a lot of shoehorning in order to make the news fit Herbert W. Armstrong's prophecies from 50 years ago. The magazine's editor-in-chief is self-appointed prophet, fundamentalist, and conservative Gerald Flurry of the Philadelphia Church of God (a break-off church of Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God). He also hosts a weekly television show, "The Key of David." The Philadelphia Church of God is the current publisher of the books of Herbert W. Armstrong, which they make available for free but at the cost of spamming your snail-mail box with the magazine.
"Notes From the Editor"[edit]
Flurry writes an editorial in each issue of his magazine, detailing his personal values and how the United States is falling apart because America's youth do not follow his interpretation of God's values. In "Our Educators Have a Dangerous Contempt for Authority," (March 2010) Flurry argued that universities, including Harvard, were responsible for the deterioration of America's values. He went on to write that "American colleges and universities actually encourage people to indulge in SOME OF THE MOST REPUGNANT IMMORALITY IN THE HISTORY OF MAN! We lead the world to sexual immorality" (emphasis all his). Obviously, sex between consenting individuals at universities represent SOME OF THE MOST IMMORAL ACTS IN HUMAN HISTORY, right after the invention of science and the condom. He then goes on to blame this immorality for "the collapse of strong marriages and families—and of our nation!" So there you have it, all we have to do is eliminate sex and America will rise again!
Twisting logic[edit]
In one issue of The Trumpet, the writers attempted to prove that Christianity is the one true religion. How? By exclusively defining "Christianity" as religion. Since no other religion thus qualifies as such, Christianity wins by default. It is this kind of logic that can be found everywhere in The Trumpet. However, in the March 2010 issue, The Trumpet carried an article about the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti which read, "There are almost as many opinions on God's role as there are religions." The writer's opinion was that God was responsible for the earthquake. Why did He do it? Because Haitian Christians were not Christian enough. The Trumpet supposed that an omnipotent God is responsible for everything on earth. So why not have an earthquake in Saudi Arabia instead of Haiti if God is Christian? Maybe God really is Muslim.
Conspiracy theories[edit]
The Trumpet also deals in conspiracy theory; a recent favorite is that the German government is secretly run by Nazis. Not neo-Nazis, but the old Nazis who survived World War II. The Trumpet believes that Germany will play a central role in fulfilling biblical prophecy, and predicts that Germany will become the world's next superpower by conquering Europe economically, creating an evil, godless empire—just as Hitler had planned!
Besides Germany, their other bugaboos are the Pope, Muslims and the idea that global warming is caused by a lack of Christian values.
Against their own claimed beliefs[edit]
The Philadelphia Church of God has Christian pacifism written into their statement of beliefs, in keeping with the theology of Herbert W. Armstrong. Don't expect to find anything pro-peace in The Philadelphia Trumpet though. Every issue of the magazine is filled with articles advising Western nations to get tougher on the War on Terror, criticizing Britain and France for past "appeasements," praising military buildups, and stirring up moral panic about the Muslim hordes. Like Armstrong, the Trumpet subscribes to British Israelism, so the UK gets special attention for their Monday-morning military quarterbacking. Winston Churchill is a frequent subject of praise. They hate Wikileaks.