Saturday, May 6, 2017

Reading Mark Mendiola's Article, Generations in Crisis?

The first issue of LCG's recruitment magazine, Tomorrow's World (May-June 1999), featured an article by Mark Mendiola entitled "Generations in Crisis?" (pp. 18-21.) This was the first of several articles Mendiola would write for this recruitment magazine. Here he complains that younger generations are more flawed than the previous generation which went through the Great Depression and World War II.
Every month, approximately 3,200 World War II veterans die. Aging leaders like Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl have given way to younger men like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroeder.
Note how the revered aging leaders are all right wing while the younger men are all from left wing parties. His political tendencies are already quite evident.

I do not condemn the COGs for choosing to be right wing but it is important to note that they are right wing because that fact explains so many of their political stances.

He condemns some of "today's younger generation" as not appreciating the values and achievements of previous generations.
By contrast, today’s younger generation has too often undervalued or even ridiculed the values and achievements of their parents and grandparents, embracing lifestyles in many ways contrary to the standards for which today’s senior citizens fought when they were in their youth.
He bemoans that America lacks the sort of leadership it had during World War II.
Gone are Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur and so many others who displayed tremendous leadership qualities and courage during World War II. Would this modern generation be able to rise to the occasion if another crisis of such magnitude were to erupt — or have we become too soft and complacent in the prosperous post-war decades?
One would never know reading this that LCG actually forbids their members from serving in the armed forces.

He then disparage the democratic choice of the American people in the 1992 and 1996 elections by saying that Clinton's opponents were both World War II veterans. Once again right wing politicians are compared favorably compared with a left wing politician revealing that LCG's leaders tend to be right wing in regards to politics.
In 1992 and 1996, American voters were given a clear choice between two generations. They could have elected World War II veterans — George Bush or Robert Dole, representing more conservative values — or Bill Clinton, the first president born after World War II, representing modern liberalism and the Baby Boom generation.  
Both Bush and Dole were nearly killed in combat. A Navy Air Corps pilot, Bush had to be rescued after his plane was shot out of the sky by the Japanese during a bombing run, and he lay adrift in the ocean for hours. Dole nearly died from infection and other complications after he was gravely wounded in an assault on a fortified German position in the Italian Alps. After a series of operations and painful therapy that lasted more than three years, Dole never regained the use of his right arm.
Once again I do not condemn the COGs for choosing to be right wing but it is important to note that they are right wing because that fact explains so many of their political stances.

He whines that the young are insolent towards their elders.
“Insolence” sadly describes a far-too-prevalent attitude held by the young toward the elderly who gave up so much for their nation to help ensure the quality of life now taken for granted by many insultingly contemptuous in their speech and conduct. Today, age and maturity are considered outmoded liabilities. Corporations ruthlessly fire older employees on the verge of retiring, replacing them with young people who may themselves be discarded as they age.
He insists that the best qualified people are reluctant to take leadership.
... the most qualified leaders today decline to run for president, opting not to take charge, leaving the lesser qualified to assume positions of authority.
He denounces sexual conduct contrary to LCG dogma.
It is no coincidence that in the same context of this crisis in leadership, Isaiah described a blatant flaunting of sexual immorality and deviance. Today it is blared all over television, newspapers and magazines for people of all ages to consider — topics which people in the not-too-distant past would have been ashamed to even mention! The sexual sins of even our top government leaders are exposed for everyone to ponder. Yet, there is widespread indifference and lack of outrage at scandals that would have been the political death knell for elected officials not long ago.
He then also criticizes the older generation he supposedly defends for not giving God proper glory in the victory of World War II.
Despite all its laudatory characteristics, even the generation that Brokaw describes as the greatest is not without its sin and blame for conditions in society today. Often today’s senior citizens did not properly instruct their offspring, spoiling their children and grandchildren, and they themselves were too materialistic. Too frequently they have taken credit for “winning the war” without acknowledging God’s miraculous intervention in crucial battles, turning the tide against the Axis powers.
He insists that (LCG's) God can easily cripple the economic prosperity of the "Israelite" nations.
The same God who has blessed the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand with astonishing wealth and high standards of living can remove our stockpiles of food and riches just as He has removed our strong leaders. This generation’s boom could turn to bust suddenly, just as the roaring ’20s came to a screeching halt with the stock market crash of 1929, followed by the Great Depression.
He then ends his screed against the younger generation by insisting that (LCG's) Christ will soon return and usher in a prosperous thousand years of peace and happiness.

The problem with nostalgia is that it encourages one to remember the good things about older times and ignore the problems. This article encourages that nostalgic view. There are problems in any generation or society if one looks at it hard enough.

In September 2006 Mendiola left LCG and joined Dave Pack's Restored Church of God. Around 2008 he left RCG and joined Don Billingsley's Church of God-Faithful Flock.

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