Enabler-in-Chief (Part 3) “Stepford Prime”
July 19, 2022 | by Marc Cebrian
The Restored Church of God should change its name to The Stepford Church of God to more accurately represent the mentality of the ministry.
The original intent of Part 3 was to examine the office of evangelist, which Bradford G. Schleifer currently holds (per Dave). However, while pulling quotes from two other enablers at The Restored Church of God, it became clear that those men deserved more adequate attention than just being a support element for the Brad story.
Prepare to enter the Bizarro World of Christian-living sermons inside The Restored Church of God. Messages are presented as “feeding the sheep spiritual food," but in reality are distorted manipulations that pervert the word of God. They act as insulation against concerns about David C. Pack and the continuous prophecy failures.
Propaganda disguised as godly teaching. Shackles disguised as biblical tools.
A true Christian-living message helps someone to have a greater understanding of the Bible so that they can be better equipped to make the journey to the Kingdom of God. The principles learned can apply to all aspects of their life and help them beyond the intent of the speaker.
That is what they used to be inside RCG. Those days are long past.
Edward L. Winkfield is the Prime Stepford Wife in the RCG ministry. Under Brad, he loves to lead the retch parade of manipulation and Dave-cheerleading.
Ed is technically #4 in The Restored Church of God pyramid, but may someday overtake the #3 slot, which is currently held by Ryan P. Denee.
For a long time, the Denee name was royalty inside RCG. Considering Ryan is “the last man standing” of that once-glorious dynasty, Dave probably slathers him with just enough butter to keep him around. If the last Denee falls, then Dave would have to wander the halls in search of another family to appropriate for himself.
So, if Ryan is higher on the food chain than Ed, why not address him next?
He is just not a “damage control” type of guy. In all my time there, I never heard him touch the topic. He lets other men pick up the bullhorns and trumpet for Dave. That is not Ryan’s style.
On the other hand, Ed is a pure Dave-enthusiast through and through. He gets the gold medal when it comes to delivering a classic Damage Control Sermon.
On March 6, 2021, Edward L. Winkfield delivered a message titled, “Stay Immune to Heresy.”
It is one long David C. Pack love-fest wrapped in the package of a Christian-living sermon. For the first half, all the scriptural points seem to be enriching and edifying. Deceptively so, as it was designed to lull you in and catch you off guard.
While listening to this as it was delivered at Headquarters, I began to wonder if he was going to weave in a parallel about the Greatest Unending Story series.
Oh boy. I had no idea what we were in for.
The true heart of the message was finally revealed at about half way in:
@ 43:06 Now let's talk about the prophecy series. Some have left us. Some few, it's not many, but enough to warrant what I wanna say here. Some have left us claiming that the Restored Church of God is off track. My response is: According to who? You? Who died and made you the the determiner of whether God's church is on or off track? What a pompous, arrogant thing to even delve in to. God's church is not off track. Far from it. Far from it.
If you witness escalating corruption of biblical knowledge and take issue with it, according to Edward L. Winkfield, you are pompous and arrogant. Not for acting on it, but for even considering it.
Your gut may be screaming at you, “What is going on is wrong! We are not the church we used to be!” But that just means you are full of yourself.
Paint on a placid face and repeat silently: “The church is on track. The church is on track.”
Turn off your brains, folks. You do not want to be pompous and arrogant.
***SPOILER ALERT***
According to Ed, if you disagree with Dave and the fraudulent prophecy series…
• You are pompous and arrogant.
• You are insulting.
• You are the only one who has a problem with it.
• You just don’t like the process.
• You just don’t like what you are hearing.
• You are a heretic.
• Your discernment is backwards.
• You are unlearned and unstable.
• You are twisting the scriptures.
• You are going to destroy yourself.
• You are rejecting the knowledge of God.
• You lack God’s grace.
• You are rejecting Dave as a master at prophecy.
• You are rejecting Dave as God’s servant.
• You think you know more than God’s apostle.
• You lack humility.
• You are rejecting wisdom.
• You don’t know your Bible.
• You are a Pharisee.
Yes, all of that in one message.
@ 44:14 The problem is some few among us choked on prophecy. That's the issue, but it became “the entire church is off track.” That gets my goat when I hear it. First of all, you're insulting me. You're insulting all of my friends. We're hearing the same thing you're hearing. Why don't we have a problem? It's an insult.
What members have “choked” on since 2013 has been repetitive nonsense, confusion, and theological trickery.
Why don’t YOU have a problem, Ed? I recommend you listen to a great RCG Ambassador Center class called “Critical Thinking.” It would be well worth your time.
Turn off your brains, folks. You do not want to insult Ed or his friends.
@ 44:47 People choked on prophecy. It's what happened. They either didn't like the process or they didn't like what they were hearing. And they bolted out of the church calling us heretics when they were the heretics. I'm not trying to put anybody down. I’m just not gonna stand here and mince words. They flipped the narrative. We're the heretics. What? No, it's the other way around. It's the other way around.
People do not leave RCG just because they “don’t like” the process. Even though the “process,” is a perpetual back-and-forth “it is” “it is not” and “this means X” “no, this means Y” cycle.
People do not leave RCG just because they “don’t like” what they are hearing. Even though what they are hearing is falsehood gift-wrapped as God’s will.
People do leave RCG because a man who claims to be an apostle and a prophet sets dates for the return of Jesus Christ and fails. Repeatedly. Then enablers like Edward L. Winkfield use Sabbath services as a platform to sell how “on track” RCG is despite all the warning signs.
People leave RCG because the Bible exposes such men to be false. Even David C. Pack in his own “90 Reasons to Follow the Truth” series said to flee a corrupt organization.
Turn off your brains, folks. You do not want to be a heretic.
@ 46:08 Paul wrote and talked about things that were hard to understand. That's what it [2 Peter 3:16] said. They were difficult to comprehend…But what happened was you had “unlearned and unstable” people who twisted what he [Paul] was saying and what he taught. And not only did they twist what he was saying and taught, they ended up twisting other scriptures and they did it to their own destruction. How familiar does that sound? How familiar does that sound, brethren? And they destroyed themselves.
Another RCG gaslighting moment. This sermon is full of them.
Turn off your brains, folks. You do not want to be unlearned or unstable.
If anyone doubts that these quotes are real, feel free to listen to a sampling yourself:
@47:51 We are to grow in grace, it’s saying grace throughout and also the knowledge of God…How do you grow in the knowledge of God? What does it look like? The last five-plus years. It’s exactly what it looks like. Growing in grace, brethren, is required for this series. Bet you never thought of that. Growing in grace is required for this series.
If it truly looks like that, then we are all doomed.
Growing in gullibility and blindness is what the series requires. Closing your eyes, closing your ears, closing your Bible, closing your brain is what the series really requires, Ed. It looks like you have done that and you love it.
@ 51:00 God’s apostle, Mr. Pack, is an elder in the faith. He knows how to handle prophecy. He knows how to do it. He’s been doing it his entire ministry. He knows how to handle prophecy. He’s good at it. He’s a master…that’s a man who knows what he’s talking about…We should be submitting to him as God’s servant. As God’s servant. We recognize where he is in the Government of God. So, we should be submitting to him as God’s servant, not the other way around.
Dave is a master at handling the word of God deceitfully, for sure. Here we are sixteen months beyond this message and Dave is still doing it. And Ed is still there.
With Tammuz 15 fresh in your mind, do you still think he is a master?
If anyone wants to listen to a grown man gush like a high schooler with a crush, click here:
@ 52:07 We do not know more about prophecy than God’s apostle, than Mr. Pack. And no, I’m not looking for a raise anyone. I’m not, you know, I don’t hafta suck up to the boss. But he knows what he’s talking about. He knows what he’s doing. He knows how to handle the word of God. If we wanna understand what is a difficult series, even difficult for him…ask God for more grace and to understand the things that we’re learning.
I understand it pretty well, actually. It was false prophecy nonsense before I left. It is still false prophecy nonsense today. And guess what? It will continue to be false prophecy nonsense until Jesus Christ returns.
Critical thinking is shamed. Proving the truth is shamed. Accepting the obvious is shamed.
@ 52:46 Be clothed in humility. Humble. We have to be humble ourselves. God gives grace to the humble. If we’re clothed in humility, brethren, we’ll be just fine.
If you no longer believe Dave, you are not being humble. Well, I want to be humble, so I better keep quiet. Despite what the Bible says. So, I’ll just continue to sit, turn off my brain, and just be humble all day.
@ 56:04 This series is helping us to get to understand God. To grow in the knowledge of God. That’s what it says. You can’t deny it. It says it. That explains it.
That is vile. The “god” Dave is presenting to RCG is not the god I want to worship. A cruel trickster dangling the eternal carrot on a stick. The Master who will never really throw the ball. A god that forces his apostle to lie to his people and then threatens them with burning if they do not choose to endure. A god of confusion who never makes good on his promises. A god so inept, he just cannot get his chosen servant to get the math right.
No thank you.
@ 1:01:58 Be patient. God will work things out. Wisdom and knowledge is coming through this series. It’s happening. It’s happening. Don’t miss it. Just because what we’re talking about is hard, does not mean the church is off track. Just because you’re confused, “Oh clearly, the church is off track.” No. No.
If you no longer believe Dave it is because you are impatient. You are rejecting wisdom. You are rejecting knowledge. Wow. Ed makes this series sound super-duper important. It is a good thing that it has dragged on for so long and fumbled so many touchdowns.
I wonder what Ed had in mind when he said, “It’s happening.” You mean “knowledge” like The Night To Be Much Observed turmoil at the time?
Dave moved the date of NTBMO that even Herbert W. Armstrong had settled on from the eve of the First Day of Unleavened Bread, all the way to the last. A dumb idea for dumb reasons. For over six months, Dave held on to this. Until it started approaching and then the logistical reality began to settle in.
By this point, I had enough of the nonsense and started to more openly joke with people in the office that on the NTBMO 2021, I was going to order a pizza. Because after sunset that night, eating leaven was no longer a sin. I could do an entire article about the absurdity of that premise. But, Dave did another 180 the week before and returned it back to where it always was.
Yep, God’s wisdom and knowledge is self-evident in that one.
I bring this up because Ed delivered this message during that “doctrinally fluid” space of time. Come to think of it, RCG has been in a continuous doctrinally-fluid state since Elul of 2013.
@ 1:09:25 Heretics that have baulked at this series, they don’t know their bibles. They pretend they do. They talk like they do. But if you ask them some specific element or something, they don’t know what they’re talking about….They think they know. They’re like the Pharisees, “Oh, we know.”
Once Edward L. Winkfield gave this message, he officially became Stepford Prime. This was the sermon where I personally lost ALL respect for him. Years of admiration and goodwill were erased inside 45 minutes.
He went up to the lectern on that Sabbath to protect the prophecy series and David C. Pack, not to protect God’s people. The whole message is one big psychological beat down.
Listening through the rest of the message was painful, even at 2.5x speed. Every verse and every point from here on supports the madness. It is a disgusting use of the Bible.
This message was delivered in 2021. We are living in a post-Tammuz 15 world. I wonder what perverted message Edward L. Winkfield will deliver now. What other godly principle will he pluck from the Bible to warp and throw in the face of God’s people?
If I were Stepford Prime, here are things I would present to those in RCG:
Pride: “Tammuz 15 was part of God’s process. Those who are upset are just being prideful. ‘It didn’t go the way I wanted!’ The devil was full of pride and see what happened to him.”
God’s Will: “We don’t always understand how God is going to work things out. We should seek His will, not fight against it. It was God’s will that His apostle, Mr. Pack, did the math the way he did. If you have an issue with that, take it up with God. It was God’s will to have the church endure this. So, don’t fight against God’s will.”
Obedience: “Christ was obedient unto death. He received His stripes without a word. Brethren, having a few days pass on a calendar…is that really a hard stripe? I mean, the weather has been wonderful this year so far. Aren’t you glad the day passed into another beautiful one? Be obedient to the process and to God’s Government the way Christ did. Submit, brethren.”
Shall I go on? (Ed, if you use any of these, you will also owe me sixty bucks.)
It was painful to watch RCG sink into the mire. It was painful to listen to David C. Pack embarrass himself week after week after week. It was painful to hear how “on track” we were from the propagandist-enabler, Edward L. Winkfield.
The pillow he uses to protect Dave may not be as large as Brad’s, but every pillow helps.
I cannot help but wonder: If Ed ever left The Restored Church of God, would this message be a source of his greatest shame?
