(5/31/2020 – when I was researching the Worldwide Church of God back in those days, I discovered some celebrity members. These included Grabbe and Bobby Fischer.)

June 14, 2003 – D

Memories of Pasadena
by J. Orlin Grabbe

Describes being a student at the Worldwide Church of God’s Ambassador College in Pasadena.
Also: prophecy obsession over Germany, Bobby Fischer, Rohan, Armstrong’s interaction with world leaders, intelligence services.

International events would affect us, and we would interact with them. As students, life was intrinsically so serious, that we never appeared to take anything seriously. We busied ourselves with the past and future, which we acted out in myth and ritual…

…Greek or Hebrew roots served as Rorschach blots out of which aspiring scholars produced revelations that were a combination of folklore, insight, and asininity. The more upwardly-mobile and anti-intellectual students, however, who knew that the basketball team was the most direct route to a field appointment where they could exercise church authority and teach people how to live right, took a dim view of an occupation that was always engendering heretics. So they devoted themselves to “being balanced”—drinking beer, dribbling, and learning to preach.

…We saw the invisible web that permeated the universe and connected all things. There were no coincidences… (1)

Notes

[1] http://www.aci.net/Kalliste/Pasadena_memories.htm
From The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 5, No 2, January 8, 2001
Other writing by J. Orlin Grabbe at: http://freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/jograbbe_index.htm