So he took a few nights to skim the revision and then spent another week comparing parts of the revision to the original. One change in particular shocked him. The first edition ended its account with a stirring study of the prophecies pointing to 2008. It said this “would be a logical time” for Armageddon, and the Disciples would live in Paradise within “months.”
The revision stated the current teaching, that 2008 marked a signpost about organizational changes, not a prophecy. It struck him that whoever wrote the second edition knew he was altering the historical record.
The answers to every question he asked himself led to five more questions. He needed to force himself to work in an organized fashion. One conclusion was already obvious, the Foundation altered its history book because it knew the original information would create too many problems. So it whitewashed its history. He had started reading “1984”, and now he understood the connection. The Foundation had its own “memory hole.” Inconvenient facts, like what it said about vaccination or the year 2008 disappeared from view. He wondered what else they changed.
He found a notebook, he wanted to jot down key findings, but wanted to keep them somewhere safe. Judith would not go through his private files, the ones where he kept his work as a Servant. That wasn’t true of Sophia, but even she wouldn’t dig too deeply, if he put it in the drawer with the new files from work, nobody would look at it. Or so he hoped, if caught, they’d Cast him out.
He started by noting the important passages from the Foundation’s history books. He intended to outline half a dozen or so major turning points in that account, and compare them to other sources. He continued studying the Foundation’s history.
As the Great Depression destroyed the American economy, it also ruined Michael Clifton Adderly’s life. About thirty years old, he inherited a thriving Seattle hardware business started by his grandfather during the Klondike gold rush. The depression wiped out the business and Adderly turned to drink, consuming illegal bathtub gin in the city’s speakeasies. He lost his home, and lived on the streets, a vagabond. Late one night, after passing out on the street, a church run shelter took him in.
Until that time, Adderly had no use for religion, but exposed to the Bible for the first time, he began an earnest study without regard to any prior understanding of scripture. His study led him to several discoveries. He came to understand that many accepted church teachings contradicted the Bible. He decided the Trinity was rooted in paganism, and that hell was figurative not literal. Heaven was reserved for a select few, God intended for humans to live like Adam and Eve, in a Paradise on Earth.
But when would this Paradise arrive? Many prophecies pointed to the Great Day when God would cleanse the Earth. But no one had yet uncovered the correct interpretation. Many interpretations relied on the idea, found in the Book of Numbers, that in prophecy, a day stood for a year. But these all proved mistaken. Adderly determined that a correct interpretation of the dates required adjusting from prophetic years to secular years. The Word taught that a few Theologians tried to decipher the year for a day prophecies, but gave up when they good not produce a correct interpretation. The Lord Himself inspired Adderly to unlock the key to the method.
In 1933, he incorporated the Word of God Foundation to publish his ideas. For many years the Foundation simply acted as a publishing house, no formal religion existed, Disciples met in houses to discuss Adderly’s books, which pointed to 1948 as an important time in world history. A time of trouble would end with the Jews restored to the Promised Land.
Adderly ran the Foundation until his death in 1966. It experienced slow, but steady growth in his lifetime. Although he did not use the term, many considered him an Apostle, chosen by God to lead His people. His prophetic interpretations predicted World War II, the atomic bomb, and the establishment of the state of Israel, all of which pointed to humanity’s entry into the Last Days announced in the Bible.
In 1963 he suffered a stroke, which limited his capacity to lead the Foundation. He humbly stepped aside and allowed a committee of spiritual men to manage the growing movement he had started. After he died in 1966, the Lord Appointed these men as Apostles, they later elected “Colonel” James Reeves to lead as Chief Apostle.
Reeves earned his nickname because of his service in the Army during the Second World War. He became a Disciple after the war, and rose rapidly because of his zealous work for The Word. Under his dynamic leadership, the Word grew from an obscure sect to a worldwide religion. The New Jerusalem campus in Seattle grew as well, producing material for use in Disciple-making, and the bureaucracy to govern the growing numbers. The Gatherings came under greater control from the Apostles, Servants appointed by New Jerusalem provided instruction and leadership.
In 1988, following Reeves death, the Apostles elected John Rodgers to serve as their Chief. Rodgers continued Reeves’ leadership. Under The Lord’s direction the Foundation announced new understandings of prophecy that led to a remarkable increase in Disciples around the world.
Here the first edition of the history focused on the year 2008, and the second edition altered the nature of the expectation. A second reading confirmed his first thoughts, the Foundation altered embarrassing information to avoid taking responsibility for it.
The following day, worried that Judith would notice his sudden interest in the computer, he started working on his research during his lunch break at work. Mr. Rommers had installed him in a tiny office of his own, befitting his new duties as a manager. It gave him a place where he could look at information on the Internet where prying eyes couldn’t see him.
He quickly discovered that Michael Clifton Adderly was far from the first to use the day for a year method extensively. One of the websites he looked at listed sixty-five separate calculations of two different prophecies using the year for a day method. The publication dates ranged from 1300 to 1916, the beginning and ending points of the prophecies displayed similar diversity. The site noted that these did not include many earlier Jewish predictions, nor many later thoughts published on the Internet.
It also quickly became obvious that Adderly did not invent the adjustment between religious and secular calendars. In short, the story was a fraud.
He found another site that dealt specifically with prophetic ideas advanced by The Word over the years. He quickly found himself navigating a maze of scriptural references and supposed stopping and starting dates. Adderly believed that one set of calculations showed the time of the end began in 1933, the Great Tribulation would begin in 1941, with Armageddon scheduled for 1948. Later Reeves kept the dates, but changed the claimed prediction. The Last Days still started in 1933, but the real prophecy pointed to the creation of The Foundation. Supposedly, the 1941 year was important because of American entry into the War, and the establishment of Israel proved the importance of 1948.
Reeves advanced a teaching, still accepted, that all these various dates were “signposts” that pointed the way to Paradise. The details were unimportant, the signpost marked steps along the path of history.
Many of these sites quoted one author, an east coast college professor who made a lifetime study of The Word. He pointed out the year for a day prophecies had many problems. For starters “there are no rules to this game, you can pull a number out of the Bible, pick starting and ending events, and claim the Bible predicted something.” He added, “a sign is not helpful if you can only read it after you pass it. Hindsight is always 20/20, retroactive predictions are never wrong.”
The next day he again took lunch alone in his office with the computer. Surfing the net brought him new information about Reeve’s rise to power. Again, The Foundation’s account did not match any other version. Reeves, it had taught, was the chosen successor to the role of Chief Apostle. In fact, no such position even existed at the time. Officially, Adderly was President of the Foundation, in public he rejected the use of the title “Apostle.” Privately, he insisted on it.
When his stroke made it impossible to carry on his duties, he appointed several men to form a committee to run the Foundation, with Reeves as its chairman. As Adderly’s health failed, Reeves replaced the directors appointed by Adderly with men of his own choosing. When Adderly died, the members of the committee declared themselves Apostles, and named Reeves their Chief.
Over the course of his tenure as Chief, he consolidated power in his hands. The other Apostles served at his pleasure, and most simply did what he wanted. In 1977, another signpost year based on a calculation starting with an obscure battle involving Islamic invaders in the holy land, a fight broke out over Reeves’ leadership. He managed to retain his position and further consolidated power, power eventually inherited by John Rodgers, the current Chief Apostle. At the time, The Foundation declared this a miraculous defense of The Lord’s chosen Apostles.
It did not sound like the actions of Godly men entrusted with The Lord’s Disciples.
Armageddon’s Slaves © Jeffrey Thomas All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All events and characters are
products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living
or dead is purely coincidental
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