In the poly-binitarian view, the question of God moves from "Who is God?" to "What is God?"  This redefining and reclassifying of "God" is basic to the confusing Armstrong-church polytheistic binitarian model.  Second, foxy polytheistic-binitarian advocates equivocate in the presentation of many of their ideas by clumsily dodging plain scripture contrary to their position and by ignoring direct questions.  And, they do not openly advertise that they worship multiple gods and practice polytheism.  The euphemism "God Family" is deceitfully used instead, which means one thing to them and another to outsiders.

Poly-binitarian advocates of my personal acquaintance are awfully hard to nail down on certain specifics such as John 17:3 and definitive polytheism.  Straight answers have been rare.  The majority of earnest binitarian representatives, in my experience, have presented an evasive and less than scholarly dogma.  Third, binitarian advocates either fail to recognize that Jesus and other biblical personages supported only one God (capital "G"), or if they do realize it, they manipulate the events.  For instance, one very popular ex-WCG preacher proposed recently, regarding John 17:3, that Jesus was "speaking out of his humanity."  This cleverly convenient idea suggests that Jesus could speak out of either of two sides of his mouth or face at will.

Most in the Armstrong Movement Binitarian Camp (BC) say that Jesus was the God of the Old Testament.  Next, it is said that Jesus stopped being God while on the earth, and then, upon leaving the earth, he became God again!  First, some God died to be born as Jesus, then, Jesus died to become God. God revived, it appears, at the same time Jesus was resurrected and slipped back into his "God-status-robe."   My experience: Some polytheistic binitarian folks (there are exceptions) are masters in the game of Artful Dodging & Hedging.  Direct questions to them are met with stony silence, taunts, personal attacks, or clever off-the-point counter-questions meant to confound the questioner, the one holding their feet to the fire.  Many seem to think that the worship of one true God is a joke and merely another silly Jewish tradition.

One poly-binitarian church of God leader has characterized the one-God monotheistic concept as an old idea, evidently as one that is out of date and ready for the trash heap: "Man's old idea was of a solitary God.  Alone.  Aloof.  Without peer.  Without heir. They thought he was a God who would have said, as James Weldon Johnson put it, 'I'm lonely; I'll make me a world.'  He was alone from eternity and would remain alone for eternity.  At a festival, he would dine alone.  But then came the Son, and some, still holding to their solitary God, created a Trinity—a God who, though three faceted, was still alone, and who would remain alone.  The three sides of the Trinity present a closed Godhead—one that could be adored, but never joined. At a festival, the three would dine as one--alone.  God's family could never increase" (Bible Correspondence Course, Lesson 4. R.L. Dart).

Somehow overlooked in all this "poly-binitarian" theology is the fact that many years after God resurrected the Messiah and sat him at his right hand, biblical writers continued to testify of one solitary, alone, true God who was without peer. They knew nothing of a mythological "family of gods" apart from Greek and Roman mythology.  The idea that Jesus is God is only as old as the Hellenized Roman (Catholic) Church.  The two primary "proof-text" areas of polytheistic binitarianism revolve around the word "elohim" and the first chapter of John.

Elohim & John 1: To my knowledge, binitarian supporters have never seriously addressed the testimony of the pronouns.  Thousands of personal singular pronouns found within the Bible and used by a great number of prophets and writers to refer to God (he, him), as well as those attributed to God's usage (I, my), are disregarded in favor of an ignorant application of one Hebrew word, "elohim."

Target passage: "Then God [Elohim] said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness...'  "So God [Elohim] created man in his [singular] own image; in the image of God he [singular] created him; male and female he [singular] created them" (Gen.1: 26-27).  Although the word "elohim" is plural in type, it is nearly always singular in usage.  (See FC#2002-1, Exposé of Gen.1:26)

Poly-binitarians say that "us" in Gen.1:26 means two Gods.  That is not true.  Stephen Flurry: "But let's see what the Bible says.  'And God [Elohim] said, Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness…" (Gen.1:26).  …  How do we know there is more than one [God] Personage?  God said 'Let us' -more than one.  How can we be sure?  John said, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God…' "  (God is a Family, p.4).  (Notice that the word "personage" has a capital "P" implying a divine God-being.  This capitalizing of "G" in the word "God" and the "W" in "word" is normally used to denote a divine God-being or personage.)  If we assume that "the beginning" is the very same beginning as mentioned in Genesis 1, and if we assume that the "word" in John 1 is a preexistent being, then the case for a preexistent, but historically created, Jesus could be made.  Admittedly, few people would question these assumptions, but they should be questioned, because a doctrinal position is being proven by an ambiguous and questionable passage. (Continued...)