The Painful Truth Blog

The PLAIN TRUTH
A Magazine of Understanding
BOX 111, Pasadena, Calif. 91109

HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG, Editor
November 24, 1967

Dear Friend and PLAIN TRUTH Subscriber:

 My son, Garner Ted Armstrong, whose voice you hear on The WORLD TOMORROW, has written a personal letter offering you something (FREE of course) he believes you will want.

 It is also time for my own personal letter to you, which I write semiannually to our subscribers. So we have decided to send BOTH letters in the one envelope.

 Several times I have personally written to our subscribers answering the questions so many ask: “Who are you?” “Do you represent a religious denomination, and if so which one?” “Who sponsors and pays for your broadcasts around the world — and who pays for MY subscription to The PLAIN TRUTH?” “Just WHAT is your motive?”

 These questions continue coming in by the thousands. Some FORTY-FIVE MILLION people, on all continents of the earth, listen to The WORLD TOMORROW every week. Actually thousands of new subscribers are added to The PLAIN TRUTH every week in the United States — beside those in other parts of the world. These millions never hear any appeals for contributions over the air. And if they send money to pay for their PLAIN TRUTH subscriptions — or to pay for any of our books or booklets — they are surprised to find their money returned. Yes, they are ASTONISHED — for they never heard of anything like this before! Nor have YOU!

 It is so different — even so REVOLUTIONARY — it is hard to believe, I know. But it’s TRUE! I always want to give our listeners, and our readers, the frank, straightforward explanation. I want to tell you WHY there’s nothing else on earth like this Work.

So let me tell you what inspired this letter. A few weeks
 ago I was reviewing an article that appeared in the November PLAIN TRUTH, "The Unfinished Revolution," by our Managing Editor, Dr. Herman L. Hoeh. He returned recently from Russia. He spent a large part of the summer traveling through much of the USSR. Things in his article inspired this letter. You will see, differently than ever before, the answer to the question: Just What is our motive in this Work -- and WHO is back of it, and WHY! It will also make clear some things you probably never knew about Communism, traveling in the exact OPPOSITE direction from this Work.

 Right now a supreme CRISIS exists -- a crisis OF THE WHOLE WORLD -- and it threatens YOUR life at every point -- just as it threatens mine, and the lives of everybody else.

 Communism is the RESULT of that crisis. That is, one result!

 Forty years ago I began to study and research into Communism. I wanted to UNDERSTAND what it is. At about that time United States Communists were offering a "home study course" about Communism. I read it. In the early years of The WORLD TOMORROW broadcast, beginning 1934, I had an arrangement with a secret investigator, working in connection with a major city police department, to receive regular weekly bulletins, containing inside information in regard to Communist activities in this country. I always suspected -- though he did not say so -- that this secret agent was in reality connected with the FBI.

 I knew the Communist purpose and goal. I knew the Communist methods and tactics. I knew their philosophies and teachings. I knew how actual Party members are yielded completely to Communist Party discipline, obedient at any cost -- willing to make any sacrifice for it.

 But what I never could understand was WHY American college professors, and educated Americans, could ever become inner-core Communists, actually working for the overthrow (by violence, finally, if necessary), of the government of the United States.

 WHY? And yet I knew many did!

 Knowing that Communists are taught to use every deception, to lie, to pretend they are what they are not, to resort to the most unethical, dishonorable tactics, it simply didn't make sense that professional men -- some in high position, like, for example, Alger Hiss -- high in the State Department -- would join such a movement. Incidentally, I met Alger Hiss -- never dreaming he was a Communist. He signed my special State Department Press Card, at
 the United Nations Conference in 1945, at San Francisco.

 I could never understand WHY such brilliant, intelligent
 and able men turned Communist -- and I wondered -- until I read Whittaker Chambers' book, "Witness," published in 1952.

 I want YOU to understand why such men turn against our
 country, and become loyal to Communism. For it EXPLAINS the real REASON for The WORLD TOMORROW and The PLAIN TRUTH.

 The world crisis had already started prior to World War I.
 Only most of the peoples of the world were not yet aware of it. But men like Karl Marx and Nikolai Lenin knew. This world crisis resulted from the impact of science and technology -- and the injection of godless "German rationalism" into education. World Wars are the military expression of that crisis. Worldwide depressions are the economic expression. The so-called "New Morality" is the moral expression -- plummeting morals into the cesspool. Universal desperation is the spiritual expression. This has spawned the beatniks and the hippies -- the riots -- the marches -- the "civil disobedience" -- the breakdown of law and order.

 Teen-agers -- many from affluent homes -- turn beatniks and hippies because they see NO HOPE for the future. There is no longer PURPOSE. It is now possible to erase all life from this earth. They see NO FUTURE, but more wars, and, perhaps, human extinction.

 THAT IS THE SOIL THAT SPAWNED COMMUNISM. Communism is the VULTURE of decadent, dying politics, religion, and society.

 Whittaker Chambers explained WHY educated, intelligent people become Communists: "It is" he says, "a simple statement of Karl Marx, further simplified for handy use: 'Philosophers have explained the world; it is necessary to change the world.'"

 And there -- when I read it -- was the answer!

 These men are intelligent enough to know SOMETHING IS FATALLY WRONG with the world! They were not perceptive enough to recognize that Communism could never SAVE the world -- but ONLY ENSLAVE IT!

 One of America's most lucid, clever writers is Philip Wylie. He is fluent in picturing a word's-eye view of WHAT'S WRONG in the world. But he doesn't offer the solution. Like the philosophers, he explains the world -- but offers no way to CHANGE the world.

 Communism does offer a program to CHANGE the world. But not the kind of change Americans and Europeans -- as a whole -- want. But Communism appears to those who "fall" for it as the ONLY straw they can grasp. It offers THEM a chance to help CHANGE THE WORLD. They know it needs changing. Communism is the WRONG way to change it -- but they don't see that. It's the ONLY way they know -- the only one offered them. THAT EXPLAINS WHY COMMUNISTS ARE SO DEDICATED -- willing even to sacrifice career, fortune -- even their lives -- TO HAVE A PART IN CHANGING THE WORLD!

 They become dedicated. They submit to military-like discipline.

 As Dr. Hoeh points out, "Communism appeals to faith -- faith in the power of MAN to change the world!" He continues:"What does the United States send the world to counter this revolutionary faith? Not a more powerful or righteous faith, but GUNS and MONEY!

 "The Soviet Union knows that the United States cannot supply the world's desperate millions with enough food. ...But the only Power that the United States could provide the world to defeat Communism -- the strength of a more powerful FAITH than Communism -- that faith America does not have!

 "U.S. political leaders do not understand the power of faith in world affairs. Faith in an idea, the Communistic idea of the NEW MAN, is slowly winning against the bullets and feeble leadership of the West."

 "Though Communism," Dr. Hoeh continues, "is thriving on
 human faith and human works, it nevertheless lives. It lives, as cancer cells live and spread.

 "Under the lead of the USSR, all Asia and Africa are becoming alive, even as a cancerous growth in the world system. Their peoples have found an active faith in the doctrines of Communism. Amid their poverty, they have something to live for." (So they are led to believe -- though deceived!) "They are out to change their environment by human sweat and toil apart from God."

 Then Dr. Hoeh continues: "For two centuries the Western World dominated the Orient and Africa. But the West failed to deliver these peoples from squalor and misery. The West failed to give them the right kind of education -- failed to show them the PURPOSE of life -- failed to give them a real goal or a right knowledge of God. Why? Because the West does not itself know the purpose of life -- or why man was put on earth! Hence, the deception of Communism looks alluring to ignorant and even to educated minds who have no knowledge of the Plan or Purpose God is working out here below.

 "The dead faith of missionaries from America and England has not dented Oriental thought. But the active belief of Communists is moving millions. ... The U.S. might as well face the facts. THERE IS NO HUMAN WAY FOR THE WESTERN WORLD TO RESCUE ASIA FROM THE CLUTCHES OF COMMUNISM, unless the nation can somehow acquire a more powerful faith!

 "But national leaders have turned their backs on the Good News of the Kingdom of God. They have cast the Bible aside. ...It is time we opened our eyes to the real cause of Western weakness."

 And THAT, dear subscriber to The PLAIN TRUTH, explains what THIS GREAT WORLDWIDE WORK IS ALL ABOUT!

 Biblical prophecies have been fulfilled -- precisely ON TIME -- in every case so far! Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled TODAY! This world and all its present-day sickening
 conditions are described in the prophecies. The only possible SOLUTION is in these prophecies. And the OUTCOME is written plainly!

 There is only ONE HOPE -- ONE SOLUTION!

 Man doesn't have it! Man has FAILED! Man has Demonstrated, by 6,000 years of human experience, that he is incapable of rightly governing himself -- so as to produce universal abundant well-being!

 We are in the prophesied CRISIS AT THE CLOSE -- the close of this Age -- and the BEGINNING of the happy and peaceful WORLD TOMORROW!

 YOUR BIBLE SAYS that God is now ready -- in VERY FEW years -- to send Jesus Christ again to earth -- this time in all the Supreme divine POWER and GLORY of the AWESOME, ALL-MIGHTY GOD -- to restore PEACE to this earth -- and universal right education, universal prosperity, good health, and HAPPINESS to all peoples and nations!

 The Almighty God has raised up THIS WORK -- HIS WORK -- using us as His instruments, to pave the way -- to WARN this world -- to proclaim the GOOD NEWS of the soon-coming KINGDOM OF GOD to bring abundant well-being for all to this earth!

 This Work, for 34 years, has grown in power and scope and impact on this world, at the rate of 30% per year, continuously! There is nothing lake it -- because it is GOD'S WORK!

 It has a tremendous MISSION. It is actively, dynamically, performing that Mission! It GROWS mightily because the POWER OF GOD, AND HIS SPIRIT, empowers it -- the living JESUS CHRIST heads, directs, and blesses it!

 And WHO sponsors it?

 ONLY GOD!

 It started small -- the very smallest -- as all things GOD does through humans must start. Thirty-four years ago I faced a personal crisis. MEN, who then paid me a salary as God's minister, demanded that I preach and act contrary to God's Word. To refuse was to lose their financial backing -- give up the salary.

 I saw clearly, then, that if men paid my salary I should have to serve MEN. If I were to serve GOD, I would have to rely on God, in LIVING FAITH, for financial support. My wife and I made the decision to SERVE GOD, and to RELY ON GOD. We knew, definitely, God had called us into His Service.

 Walking over a gravel country road to a one-room country schoolhouse, where I could preach without paying hall rent, a man said to me: "You won't get far -- you're preaching the PLAIN TRUTH of the BIBLE. It's too strong for people -- you're telling people their SINS! People will never support you!"

 "But," I replied, "I'm not working for people. I'm working for GOD. If I work for the Ford Motor Company, I'm sure they would be able to pay me my salary, and provide financially for whatever expenses were required for what they wanted me to do. God is much wealthier and more able than Ford."

 God did provide. I took up no offerings or collections in those meetings. I asked for no contributions. But a small few, who also had living faith -- and knew that through proclaiming CHRIST'S GOSPEL, and His soon Coming -- they could HAVE A PART in not only CHANGING THE WORLD, but SAVING THE WORLD, in total world peace, prosperity and happiness -- that little few voluntarily contributed their tithes and offerings. Thus they became active Co-Workers, having their part in the WORK OF GOD.

 After I had made this crisis decision to serve God faithfully, and RELY ON the living Christ for guidance and support, almost immediately He opened the door of MASS COMMUNICATION -- radio and the printing press. Both started the very smallest possible. Even so, I was enabled to get the true Message to hundreds, and then thousands, where it had been only dozens before. But it grew. More and more people heard and read Christ's living Truth.

 The broadcast started the first Sunday in 1934. The PLAIN TRUTH appeared first as a homemade mimeographed "magazine" February 1, 1934. But there was no subscription price! There was no appeal for money over the air. I didn't look to people for backing -- I looked to the living Christ -- on my knees. God does conduct HIS Work through human instruments -- through those whose hearts are willing, whose minds are yielded to Him. I didn't have to ask or solicit people for support. The living Christ whom I serve was able to move those yielded to Him to recognize His Message, and voluntarily to want to have a part in
 His Work. Jesus said "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:27).

 They were so very few, at first. But a few did recognize the Truth, and become Co-Workers with Christ in His Work.  Gradually the listening audience grew -- and The PLAIN TRUTH circulation -- and gradually, also, a few additional Co-Workers came to us. After two years a second radio station was added. Soon we were able to print a few small booklets, which I could offer, FREE. Then more radio stations. The growth seemed so very slow -- yet it was expanding 30% a year -- doubling in less than three years.

 As additional stations broadcast the Message, the little family of Co-Workers increased -- very gradually -- because it had to be voluntary on their part. I could ask GOD to open minds and hearts to receive His Truth -- to use me to reveal it plainly -- to change their lives and bring them into His Kingdom -- but I couldn't ask them to become Co-Workers.

 From then on it has been a gradual, steady, uphill growth through the years, to worldwide power and scope. Never have we had to beg or plead -- or even invite people to become Co-Workers. The living Christ Himself has led more and more, gradually through the years, to become HIS Co-Workers in GOD'S WORK which Christ Himself heads and blesses with abundant results. And He has BLESSED, spiritually and financially, those who have become His Co-Workers.

 THEY -- and we who now devote fulltime to God's Work -- are gratefully having a part, not only in CHANGING, but also in SAVING the world -- yes, soon THE WHOLE WORLD, after Christ's coming. And we have a part, now, in preparing THE WAY for that world-shaking blessed event!

 Millions have been deceived into dedicating their lives to godless Communism, in the misguided faith that they are having a part in CHANGING THE WORLD. Actually they are only enslaving it -- all but the FREE world. In all candor, how REASSURING it is that, in the Free World, there are a few thousand who want to have a part with the living CHRIST in the glorious WORK OF GOD, leading not only to changing, but SAVING the world -- with PEACE, and universal prosperity, happiness, abundant well-being, and ETERNAL LIFE!

 There is, indeed, an astonishing parallel in the progress of atheistic Communism, and THE WORK OF GOD -- a contrasting parallel in OPPOSITES! They are doomed to ultimate failure -- but we by the grace and power of the living GOD are destined to glorious SUCCESS bringing eternal life to the MILLIONS!

 THAT is my explanation. That tells you, in frank and straightforward manner, WHO we are, WHAT are our purposes and goals, and WHO is back of this great WORK OF GOD!

 THANK YOU, sincerely from the heart, for your interest -- for granting us the GREAT PRIVILEGE of serving you. We know it's indeed true, as Jesus said, that "it is more blessed to give than to receive."

 DEAR CO-WORKER WITH CHRIST:

 The above letter has been sent to ALL SUBSCRIBERS of The PLAIN TRUTH. Of the whole circulation, MORE THAN A MILLION COPIES WILL GO TO SUBSCRIBERS WHO ARE NOT CO-WORKERS -- who have never contributed money to God's Work.

 Far more than nine out of ten PLAIN TRUTH subscribers receive it FREE without ever having contributed to the Work. Some TWO-AND-A-HALF MILLION people now read every issue of The PLAIN TRUTH. The FEW of us whom Christ has moved to become HIS CO-WORKERS have the great satisfaction of knowing that WE, by our tithes and liberal offerings, are making it possible to GIVE Christ's precious Truth not only to that 2 1/2 million readers -- but also to reach approximately 45 MILLION EVERY WEEK who listen to The WORLD TOMORROW over the air!

 What a glorious privilege to be in GOD'S WORK with CHRIST, who actively heads, guides, and blesses this great worldwide Work!

 Several thousand are being brought to real conversion every year, now! Ambassador College is training more and more dedicated and consecrated ministers every year -- now stationed in all parts of the United States, and in all parts of the world. They have replaced the baptizing teams we used to send out. They visit those who REQUEST counsel and baptism, in their own homes -- all over the world! A GREAT HARVEST of precious lives are being brought to Christ and to ETERNAL LIFE!

 The FINANCIAL responsibility is on OUR shoulders -- yours and mine. The PRAYER responsibility -- to pray constantly, earnestly, prevailingly, for this Work is OUR responsibility.

 THANK YOU for being faithful!

 God is BLESSING THIS WORK beyond all expectations! Our prayers, our labors, and our financial sacrifices are DOING WONDERS -- because GOD'S POWER is back of it. But we must never forget, such a GREAT WORK does cost money! We must continually remain FAITHFUL! We continually need, not only tithes and offerings, but even the LOANS of larger sums where you are not free at this time to send those sums as outright donations.

 NOW WE FACE THE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING SEASON!

 Now is the time when so many FORGET Christ' s Work -- or any gift for HIM -- exchanging gifts with relatives and friends instead. This promises to be the most frenzied Christmas Shopping Season in history. People spend lavishly -- thinking it is Christ's birthday (which it is NOT -- ask for our free booklet,"The Plain Truth About Christmas"). But their "birthday presents" are NOT for CHRIST and His Work. This is the month SO MANY UTTERLY NEGLECT CHRIST AND HIS WORK!

 This is the month, dear Co-Workers, I have to ask you for EXTRA LIBERAL OFFERINGS -- to make up for the NEGLECT of so many!

 Of course many of our Co-Workers, having their eyes opened to the TRUTH about Christmas shopping -- that it is PAGAN, and CONDEMNED by God's Word -- have stopped this trading of gifts entirely. They know the "wise men" did not present their gifts to the Christ-child on the day of His birth -- nor on His birthday at all -- and they were NOT "birthday presents" at all, but the customary gift that is always given to royalty whenever one visits royalty.

 For example, Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy the other day visited a king in the far east -- and presented him a gift. A meeting is being arranged for me to visit King Hussein of Jordan soon -- and it would be proper for me to present to him a gift - but it will not be a birthday gift.

 And beside, people seem to forget the wise men presented their gifts to CHRIST -- they did not exchange them among themselves. If one is giving GIFTS at this season, the ENTIRE gifts, properly, should go to the living CHRIST for HIS WORK, don't you think?

 Let's all make sacrifices of other things during this season, that GOD'S WORK will not suffer! THIS is the time to be EXTRA GENEROUS! And please PRAY, more diligently than ever, for CHRIST'S WORK -- and for me and my son Garner Ted especially -- and for all our Co-Workers!

Sincerely, with love, in Jesus' name,

Herbert W. Armstrong

Roger Neville Williams

Extracted from Penthouse Magazine April 1977

  Garner Ted Armstrong is a media superstar, but his message is a real bummer. We’re about to blow ourselves up, sayeth the prophet, and, God help us, Garner Ted has discovered the profit of fear.

He’s heard and seen by more Americans each week than Walter Cronkite. His magazine has more subscribers than Newsweek. He calls himself a news commentator but preaches prophecy. His radio, television and printed message is one of impending apocalypse, and his church, which is entirely based on the belief that Jesus Christ will descend from the clouds during our lifetime and ruthlessly organize a world government, rakes in more money to its central coffers every year than most big corporations do.

He’s Garner Ted Armstrong, and you heard him if you’ve ever driven across country at night, his booming golden voice is heard on “The World Tomorrow” on WOAI San Antonio, then he fades and comes in loud and clear on KLAC Los Angeles. He signs off, and you pick him up starting over again on WREC Memphis or won New York or KSL Salt Lake or WRVA Richmond or any of the hundreds of other radio stations that carry his half-hour “The World Tomorrow” broadcast six nights a week. He’s the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, Fear, spreading his warning of the Coming End across the airwaves to 50 million people every week and telling of The Wonderful World Tomorrow that will follow the nuclear obliteration mankind is about to bring upon itself.
He’s the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse…Fear

After the smoke clears, he says, the survivors will find heaven on earth, with Jesus sitting on the throne of David in Jerusalem, reigning over the millennium and running a sort of United Nations in Christ, brooking no opposition, and smiting down those who resist His coming. Or, in the words of one of Garner Ted’s aides: “The good news is that Christ is coming back. The bad news is that he’s pissed off.” And Garner Ted Armstrong and the 100,000 followers of his Worldwide Church of God (WCG) believe it.

Much more tangible, and believable, than The World Tomorrow is the world today of Garner Ted Armstrong and the apocalyptic empire over which he presides. The Worldwide Church of God, which sponsors “The World Tomorrow” radio programs; is headquartered in Pasadena, California, on the campus of Ambassador College, a small liberal-arts institution of 800 students of which Garner Ted Armstrong’ is president. Ambassador College takes up fifty prime acres on both sides of the Pasadena Freeway. Although it is not a Bible college, it is church affiliated and offers a religious correspondence course that more than 500,000 people have completed. There is a hand lettered sign in the student union, announcing “a student project to raise $10,000 to put ‘The World Tomorrow’ on another radio station.”

The college is a Garden of Allah surrounded by quiet streets and manicured lawns and very expensive homes, including Garner Ted’s large, ranch style affair, which is easily worth $150,000. Date palms, Royal palms, Australian gum myrtle, Norfolk pines, live oaks, and sycamores grace the hill sides. Ducks and swans meander on the greensward. There are waterfalls, fountains,’ reflecting pools, and streams stocked with fish. A sumptuous sunken garden separates the modern chemistry and fine-arts buildings. The college recently won an award designating it “The Most Beautiful College Campus in America”.

Dominating this small Eden is the Hall of Administration tanned and of the WCG. It is a honeycomb of white marble with four story atriums; expensive chromium wall sculptures; and, in the lobby, a solid silver, foot high replica of the Mayflower purchased from Harrods’s of London. Garner Ted Armstrong’s radio studio is on the top floor, behind a thick oak door marked “Private.” Inside, behind double glass separating it from the well equipped control room, is the desk where herald-cum-newsman Armstrong sits and makes his six-day-a-week “The World Tomorrow” broadcast tapes, surrounded by dozens of pictures of himself in action: there’s Garner Ted, mike in hand, with the Apollo astronauts; Garner Ted, windblown, reporting from the Golan Heights; Garner Ted, in Hawaiian shirt, standing before a nuclear power plant, his eyes gazing earnestly into the television lens.

Next door are the head offices of the WCG, an executive suite so lavish in its appointments that by comparison the boardrooms of most of the country’s top corporations look simple. Corporations are usually cost conscious; this church is not. The walls are of paneled hardwoods, the huge desks of rich walnut, the long sofas of red velvet, and everything else in leather or wool. No plastic, vinyl, acrylic, or Formica is anywhere in evidence.

“The good news is that Christ is coming back.  The bad news is that he’s pissed off.”

This is not surprising, considering Armstrong’s $50 million annual budget to do with as he, his father, and his executives see fit. Most of the $50 million is collected from WCG members, who must minimally tithe but give in some cases as much as 30 percent of their income. The rest of it comes from some 300,000 “coworkers” who voluntarily contribute to The Work of the WCG, which is to spread the Gospel, or “Good News”. Ironically, no appeal for funds or donations is ever made on “The World Tomorrow” broadcasts or in the magazine Plain Truth, and all literature is given away free. But the money rolls in from believers around the world. Enough money to buy airtime on 500 domestic and foreign radio stations and 131 television stations. Enough money to support the plush Ambassador College as well as a second campus of bright, modern buildings at Big Sandy, Texas, east of Dallas, where courses in agriculture and mass communications are featured. Enough money for two jets, a Dassault Falcon, and a Grumman G2, the largest private aircraft made.

There is also enough money for the opulent Ambassador Auditorium, an $11 million, 1,200 seat performing arts center that has been acclaimed by visiting artists as the finest small concert hall in the world. It operates under the aegis of the Ambassador International Cultural Foundation (AICF), of which Garner Ted Armstrong is president, and which is “Made Possible By Gifts From The World Wide Church of God”, as the gold plated inscription explains.

The decor includes seventy foot interior walls of rosewood and teak, twentyfour karat gold leaf on the staircase soffits, and Persian rose onyx walls in the foyer’ which reflect a 6,000 pound chandelier The exterior walls are black marble, set off by a white colonnade that is topped by an ornate cornice of gold tile. It is a modern Temple of Solomon. Proceeds from the concert series, underwritten by the AICF go to United Way, UNICEF, the March of Dimes, the NAACP, Tel Aviv University, and toward cosponsoring, with Hebrew University, ongoing archaeological excavations at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where students from Ambassador College dig down through 3,000 years of history, looking for the Throne of David. Where Jesus is going to sit.

What in God’s name is a Christian fundamentalist radio preacher doing in the business of high culture, arranging benefits for Israel and helping to support Jewish archaeological digs? What is a religious fundamentalist doing in the news business, producing a mass audience news magazine and sophisticated color documentaries in his fortyfive man, ultramodern television studio? Who is Garner Ted Armstrong, and why is he engaged in telling fully one quarter of the American people — in the biggest media blitz run by one man the world has known — that we’re about to blow ourselves up?

First of all, Garner Ted Armstrong is the son of Herbert W. Armstrong, who conceived the idea of radio preaching in 1934. Although Garner Ted Armstrong is currently the best known of the two Armstrongs, Herbert’s twenty five years of “The World Tomorrow” broadcasts once made his name a household word to inveterate radio listeners across the country. By 1960 Garner Ted had taken over responsibility for “The World Tomorrow”, the world’s oldest and longest running radio show. But it was his father, now eightyfour, who put the Armstrong Empire together.

Herbert Armstrong is a portly, plump jawed gentleman with a kindly smile who, despite his years, travels incessantly He retains the title of college chancellor and pastor general of the WCG. Herbert was a successful Chicago advertising man during the early 1900s, until hard times cost him his job and he returned to his rural home near Eugene, Oregon. His family quickly sank into hopeless poverty, while his wife became interested in one of the local Jesus sects and began telling him that modern Christianity had it all wrong and totally misrepresented what the Bible really said. “The Sabbath is Saturday, not Sunday”, she informed him. She had found the way. “This was the worst news I have ever heard! My wife gone into religious fanaticism!” Herbert recalls in his autobiography to prove his wife wrong, he began studying the Bible diligently and, as if it had been opium, got hooked himself. “It was humiliating to have to admit my wife had been right and I had been wrong. It was shocking to learn that all these churches were wrong” he writes. He decided to switch from advertising to God, ultimately getting the God account and becoming one of the Almighty’s most effective advertisers.

Herbert Armstrong became a minister of a small Pentecostal sect and “these simple, Bible loving people, looking to me for leadership.”’ In 1931, says Armstrong, “Christ ordained me to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom in all the world as a witness to all nations”, which is no small calling. And so he went on the air and published the first edition of his magazine The Plain Truth. “On that tiny powered radio station KORE in Eugene, Oregon — and in that infant, mimeographed Plain Truth — was going out an astonishing Message! Just as the public, 1,900 years before, had been astonished at Christ’s Gospel, so were those who began to hear this SAME Gospel in 1934. It was utterly different from what had been palmed off as “Christianity” he writes. One man, after three and one-half years of per-son al Bible study, had overnight eradicated 2,000 years of biblical interpretation and orthodox Christian doctrine. Astonishing! But the people in his alienated and confused listening audience liked hearing the inside dope on what Jesus and the Old Testament prophets really had to say, from one who knew, or who said he knew. So they kept sending him money, and during the war he went on the air over a 150,000 watt Mexican border station and in 1947 moved his Radio Church of God, as it was then called, to Pasadena. He founded Ambassador College and went for the big time: nationwide radio ministry.

Today, retired from broadcasting, Armstrong Sr. still trots the globe as “an Ambassador for World Peace without Portfolio representing the Government of God”. In the words of an aide. He is a sort of elder statesman to America’s millions of religious fanatics. He addresses large audiences and public figures in dozens of countries, speaking about love and understanding and human potential.

During the past few years, Herbert Armstrong has met with the leaders of Japan, Jordan, Monaco, The Netherlands, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, the Philippines, Tanzania, Thailand, Iran, South Africa, Kenya, and on and on and on. The man is tireless. However, should he show up in Washington, D.C., few people in the government would know who he is — except for Ellsworth Bunker, former ambassador to South Vietnam.

Bunker invited Herbert to visit Vietnam in 1971. “To give millions of readers true UNDERSTANDING of the Plain Truth about THE VIETNAM WAR, I flew personally to Saigon” (in his Grumman G2), wrote Herbert. In the pages of Plain Truth, he explained that if the United States did not stop Communist “aggressions and invasions at South Vietnam, it would be too late. They would have gained such a grip on conquering the whole world, we would be unable to stop them before they invaded the United States.” His peripatetic aide, Stanley Rader, wrote in the same issue: “Better to have to lose 54,000 U.S. soldiers’ lives than 70 million lives of civilins, women and children as well as soldiers and probably end up SLAVES to the Communists”.

Herbert’s son, Garner Ted, concentrates less on anti-communism, although “he’s anti-Communist like you wouldn’t believe”, as his PR man describes him. He takes a plague-on-both-your-houses approach to the two super nations, whose mad arms race, he is convinced, will end life on this planet as we know it, forcing Jesus to intervene. Garner Ted Armstrong is now in charge of the administration of all the Armstrong institutions. Besides being president of Ambassador College and president of the Cultural Foundation, he is executive vice-president of the Worldwide Church of God, editor in chief of The Plain Truth, and executive producer of GTA-TV–that’s Garner Ted Armstrong Television. And of course he is the honey throated herald whose radio broadcast message that we are living through “the last days” reaches more Americans every day than any of the network news shows.

He doesn’t look the part: he is strikingly handsome, smooth, dapper, a natty dresser in well-tailored suits and bright ties that enhance a strikingly youthful countenance belying his forty-seven years. The silver haired, silver-tongued talker is fast becoming an American institution, with far more spiritual clout than that of almost any other religious leader. He is late night companionship to thousands of truckers, the voice of the morning to millions of farmers, the living room preacher to a subculture of lonely, frightened, disoriented Americans. He is even better known in Canada, where the airwaves are saturated with his television and radio broadcasts. Carried over 150,000-watt Radio Luxembourg, the most powerful commercial station in the world, his voice is well known to millions of Europeans.

GTA, as he’s known around Pasadena, is no “born again” preacher who waves his’ arms in emotional frenzy and asks audiences to “receive Christ as your personal savior”. In fact, he says he doesn’t believe in proselytizing but merely “warning” and “bearing witness of the Good News of the coming Kingdom of God on Earth.” He never really wanted to be a minister, he says, but has “a call from God” to do what he’s doing. He is intensely media shy “He doesn’t feel he’s a public figure–he doesn’t belong to the public”, says Tom Hall, Garner Ted’s PR man in Pasadena, explaining why Armstrong seldom grants interviews. Whatever he is or represents, he is definitely not a mindless crackpot Christer.

After duty as a seaman aboard an aircraft carrier in the Korean War, and “after I got tired of slopping around and wasting my money on cigarettes and beer”, he says, “I decided to look for a new kind of life”. So he took a Ph.D. in theology at Ambassador College — where else? — and adopted his father’s rigid biblical literalism. Later his father ordained him (Herbert, remember, insists he was ordained by Jesus Christ himself). Little Garner Ted was entirely mute until he was two and one-half, and his father believes it was a direct answer to his prayers, a “miracle from God”, that cured his son of his speech problem. “And he’s been talking ever since”, says Herbert. As God’s mouthpiece while the end of the world gets nearer, GTA draws a comfortable salary of $50,000 a year, enjoys his Falcon jet, which he pilots himself (he’s also qualified to fly the church’s several prop aircraft), and gets into the back country of Colorado several times a year for hunting and fishing. He drives a 1970 Cadillac and a remodeled 1930 Model-A. He is lead guitarist and vocalist in a Country and Western band; a devoted basketball, chess, and bridge player; and an artist in oils. He speaks fluent Spanish, reads stacks of Western novels, and writes most of the free booklets that are promoted on “The World Tomorrow” radio program. He concludes every broadcast with “Write for the free booklet… [title]. It’s absolutely free. Write to Garner Ted Armstrong, Pasadena, California.”

These free “booklets” which are read by millions, contain the beliefs of the WCG and Garner Ted Armstrong. There is the Four Horseman series, on famine, pestilence, and war. There are pamphlets on over-population, crime, racial conflict, political corruption, and pollution, all of them telling people what they already know, that the world’s a mess. There are booklets entitled Is Sex Sin? Why Were You Born? and Does God Exist? Some, like The Modern Romans: The Decline of Western Civilization, are respectable pieces of historical scholarship and current political analysis. Militarism is denounced: “The principal contribution of modern science and technology has been the production of constantly more terrifying weapons of mass destruction”, writes Garner Ted. “Our peoples today stand on the brink of disaster greater than Rome’s”. The American parallels to Rome’s decay are exhaustively outlined, from “welfares”, to “sodomy and legalized homosexuality”, to the “collapse of the home”, to the “mad craze for pleasure” He cites “the ascendancy of the cults which takes place in times of confusion” such as the latter days of Rome and draws comparisons with the modern Western obsessions with Buddhism, Indian gurus, Sun Myung Moon, and so on. However he fails to make the connection with the cult of Garner Ted Armstrong, which is also prospering in these times of confusion. Nor, of course, does he count himself among the “false prophets” that the Bible says will proliferate just before the End.

He writes of the Last Days in which, he says, we live: “We have appraised the major facets of modern Civilization — this world’s Education system, its Science and Technology, its Commerce and Industry, its systems of Government, its Social Order, and its Religions, and we have found them all WRONG–all EVIL–all DECADENT. They are ready to die. But the ETERNAL GOD will soon usher in the UTOPIAN world of peace and happiness. World famous scientists now say frankly that the only HOPE for SURVIVAL on earth is a supreme, world ruling government, controlling all military power. They admit that this is impossible for man to accomplish.”

Few people would argue that the world just may be going down the tubes. But Garner Ted Armstrong and his “gospel machine” as he likes to call it, have answers. Here lies his phenomenal success. The “answers” are found in the free booklet and his handbook of doom and human salvation, The Wonderful World Tomorrow: What It Will Be Like. Garner Ted explains in great detail exactly how the whole world will be saved at the last possible moment. “The nations will be engaged in a climactic BATTLE of coming World War III, with one battlefront at Jerusalem, and then Christ will return!” The warring nations will turn their nuclear weapons on Jesus and his host of angels, including the resurrected apostles and the prophets and kings of the Old Testament, but will be “put down by FORCE — divine supernatural force.”

The Bible predicts, says Garner Ted Armstrong, that Jesus will come exactly “when delay would result in blasting all life from this planet.” They quote Matthew, chapter 24: “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved ["no human flesh left alive" in the King James version], but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.”

Asks Robert Kuhn, GTA’s second hand man for the entire vast apocalyptic organization, “When before in history has man had the potential to blow himself up? That possibility has only emerged since the advent of the hydrogen nuclear bomb. That’s why we believe this is ‘the time of the end’ that the Bible talks about”, However, according to this prophecy, it sounds like Jesus and his Sword of Iron will be doing a little zapping of his own when and if he arrives.

But if you’re converted to God’s way and repent, you will survive and be made a divine member of the elect and get to participate in the government of the New Jerusalem; ruling over the mere mortals who have yet to come around. “The most ABLE, the most RIGHTEOUS, those best fitted for office will be placed in all offices of responsibility and power,” says Garner Ted. “We know that King David of ancient Israel resurrected, will be King over the twelve great nations composed of literal descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel. We know the Twelve Apostles will each be a King, sitting on a throne, over ONE of those great nations…. Mortal man has proved he is incapable of governing himself, so there will be no elections, no political parties. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will function as a topflight TEAM with Abraham as ‘Chairman’ of the TEAM, next under Christ in the coming World Government of God!” He believes Daniel, Moses, and Elijah will be among the “chief executive personnel under Christ”. Noah will head a “vast project of the RELOCATION OF THE RACES and NATIONS”, and “Job will be Director of worldwide URBAN RENEWAL”, rebuilding the waste places and the destroyed cities. Under the New Covenant, for an entire millennium, there will be no crime, no wars, no hunger, no hatreds, and no sex, for men and women “will be made equal.

Don’t worry about America. The Armstrongs believe that America and Britain have joined the Jews as “the chosen people”. They believe the progenitors of “the British race” are two of the lost tribes of Israel, those of Manasseh and Ephraim, which were descended from Joseph and carry the “Birthright of Abraham” Thus the Americans (only of British ancestry?), in addition to the Jews, are the true Israelites, the chosen of God. Confused? Well, there’s the free booklet The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy.

The free booklets and most of the more than 2 million monthly copies of The Plain Truth are sent out of an elaborate mail processing center, which last year mailed 60 million pieces of literature. (The rest of The Plain Truth magazine, published in four languages, is printed and mailed from plants in England and Australia.) At the center a battery of WATS telephone operators receive 40,000 calls a month – average caller’s age, thirty-five – and forty-five full-time computer terminal keyboard operators process requests for material and Plain Truth subscriptions through the WCG’s IBM 370 computer, which takes up a whole building and has 2 million names on file. The ultramodern center, which employs 150 people, receives 45,8,00 inquiries a week and answers them all. Since thousands of the letters contain cash and check donations, admission to the mail receiving area is only by punching the combination in a solid state lock. “This is the backup for Ted Armstrong”, says center director Richard Rice, rising from his Danish leather swivel chair. “If GTA can’t reach people personally, he’ll lose credibility.” And if the people can’t reach GTA, they can’t send dollars.

The Plain Truth: A Magazine of Understanding is for millions of Americans their only news magazine. Highschool students in working-class districts from Montreal to Portland receive The Plain Truth free of charge and rely on it for information about current events. Its theological message is veiled by news reports and slick cover stories, such as “Sadat Jolts the Kremlin” and “The Passing of Europe’s Old Guard” and “Angola Falls to Reds–What It Means for the West.” One series profiled the Soviet-bloc countries, and the reporting was as objective and informative as that in Time magazine, which The Plain Truth with its colored border resembles. “The Plain Truth,” says Garner Ted, “analyzes world news and human experience in light of Bible understanding -something no other magazine does.”

But aside from its news reports, The Plain Truth is largely a right-wing propaganda outlet. Articles rail against “the twisted ideology”’ of the women’s movement, stating that the letters Ms. should stand for “Marxist sisters”. It denounces pornography as “an ideal weapon employed by our enemies to weaken Western civilization”. Garner Ted has looked like a liberal when he’s taken stands against “the death of the oceans” or “aerosol Armageddon” or the American SST. But in his column and occasional articles that appear in each issue, he is happier campaigning against European unity, which he believes threatens United States interests and is the fulfillment of the prophesied resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire. He bewails America’s “isolationist attitudes” and fears that the CIA exposés will weaken our country and the CIA. He vehemently and consistently supported the Vietnam War, right up to the fall of Saigon, fearing at the end that his big “World Tomorrow Campaign”’ planned for Bangkok would be eclipsed by invading North Vietnamese troops. And despite his strong, if abstract, denunciations of world militarism, he whole heartedly supports a strong American military machine: “What doesn’t make sense to me, as a minister, an evangelist, a news commentator, and an observer is this: Knowing we won’t trust God, I can’t understand why we want to tear down our military.”

Ironically, Garner Ted Armstrong’s forty-eight-page monthly was among the first mass publications in this country to deal with the question of pollution. The issue of man’s desecration of his environment was raised in eloquent and gripping terms as early as 1966 but was presented not to urge that man do something about it, but only to show that until Jesus gets here, we’re going to continue to make a mess out of things. The Plain Truth, especially in its mindless inconsistency, offers little hope, but neither does the rest of the news media with its heavy load of bad news. The Garner Ted Armstrong folks have the answer to that: a second magazine called GN: The Good News, a strictly religious monthly magazine with 400,000 subscribers. (The two magazines are currently merging into one called Plain Truth.)

The least religious, most secular, part of the Armstrong empire is GTA-TV, a weekly half-hour series of expertly produced color programs dealing with everything from Yasir Arafat (“Portrait of a Hero”) to the American Farmer (“Caught in the Middle”) to juvenile crime (“Can We Prevent It?”). The U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations recently requested the transcript, for use in its hearings, of Garner Ted’s documentary “Nuclear Power: Risk or Remedy?” The program takes no sides on nuclear energy but concisely examines the complex arguments for and against. GTA-TV technicians last year built a $300,000 “video pod”, a self-contained mobile television studio that fits into the luggage compartment of commercial jets. The only one of its kind, it was shipped to Egypt to be used for televising an interview by Garner Ted with Anwar Sadat, and then to Brussels, where he interviewed the Belgian prime minister and NATO Secretary General Joseph Luns, for a program entitled “NATO: Who Needs It?” The video pod is also used for televising Garner Ted Armstrong’s religious “campaigns” around the country. These, in addition to the documentaries, are shown every week on ninety-seven American television stations.

But it is “The World Tomorrow” that reaches the largest number of people–no less than 50 million a week–and produces among its listeners a reaction the New York Times has called “a combination of fascination and puzzlement”. The Times quoted one Pasadena resident: “He makes so much sense when he’s talking, but afterward it’s hard to remember exactly what he said”. In one recent program Garner Ted touched in his rambling, repetitious, adjective-laced fashion on the Jewish Holocaust, Eric Von Daniken, the pollution of Los Angeles, Zero Population Growth, and the beauty of butterflies, and, after twenty-five minutes of nearly incoherent syntax, ended with the question “Are we living in a biblically prophesied age?” He then intoned in his John Cameron Swazy voice, “Write for the free booklet, ‘Is This The END TIME?’”

The man who wrote this well researched, fearful little publication based on the Bible’s prediction of “the time of the end”, when “the Lord shall lay waste the earth and make it desolate”, is Robert Kuhn, GTA’s Jewish vice-president in charge of just about every-thing. Kuhn, thirty-two, has a PhD in neurophysiology and other degrees from UCLA and Johns Hopkins. Hardly your run-of-the-mill Jesus freak.

The Bible is a record of God’s word, not a dogmatic list of orders and demands”, says Kuhn in his executive office full of original surrealist paintings. Declaiming in the tones of a New York intellectual, Kuhn explains that the Worldwide Church of God does not believe in life after death (“when you’re dead, you’re dead”), does not believe in evolution (neither do 45 million other American evangelicals), and does not believe in the Trinity. Nor do the 100,000 members of the WCG, who attend church on Saturday, celebrate Easter or Christmas. Extra and premarital sex is proscribed but not alcohol. “Make no mistake about it”, says Kuhn. “This is the End Time. It is the most cataclysmic time in human history, and man’s 6,000 year age will soon come to a tumultuous climax. But Christ’s return at the last possible moment will prevent global catastrophe”. Kuhn, dedicated to “preparing the way for His second arrival”, says, “This is not just the ranting of another wild-eyed sect.” He insists Christ will come during the lifetime of this generation and expects to see the whole show himself. Perhaps GTA TV will secure exclusive worldwide rights to broadcast the Return live.

“The Worldwide Church of God is not even in the same camp as Christianity”, says the Reverend Larry Falk, one of the established church’s many critics who regard Garner Ted as an egomaniacal charlatan. Presbyterian minister Tom Green in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, says of the Armstrongs: “It was all I could do to keep from puking after one of my parishioners bent my ear for an hour on the virtues of Garner Ted. I tried to diagram one of his scriptural addresses once and ended up with my left thumb in my anal cavity and a pencil stuck in my ear. He makes no sense. He takes biblical passages and changes words to make the scripture say what he wants. Figuring out what he’s saying on ‘The World Tomorrow’ is like trying to catch a greased pig when you’re bow-legged”.

Green says, “Garner Ted is certainly meeting a need. But is it a sick need or healthy need? Does he enable people to function in a way that celebrates who they are as human beings? Certainly not. He keeps people at their physical level of dependence, like a bunch of pithed frogs”, Green believes that the “God is Dead” period of the sixties is now being replaced by fundamentalist sects representing the befuddled masses who never caught up with modern theology. “Organized religion has failed the masses”, says Green. “The established church keeps calling the American people to account in the now, but the people say, ‘This life is so crummy, the next one has to be better, so let’s concentrate on what’s coming’” Here lies Garner Ted Armstrong’s strength, not to mention Jimmy Carter’s.

It’s not been entirely smooth sailing for the Armstrong operation. In 1972 Garner Ted was ousted from the church, the college, and the radio broadcasts for several months by his father for “personal and emotional problems”, Herbert Armstrong told the congregations of the WCG that his son was “in the bonds of Satan”, The New York Times reported at the time that a source said Garner Ted had written his father, confessing “I have sinned against my wife, the children, and the church”. He was eventually reinstated to his positions of responsibility and leadership after “the process of repentance was complete”, in the words of his father Two years later, thirty-five ministers broke away from the WCG and formed a splinter group, citing the Armstrongs’ domination of the church. Said Walter Sharp of Texas, “What the split actually boiled down to is the realization by many of us that the World Wide Church has a totalitarian system of government”, Several thousand dissidents left the church and went over to the new group. But despite the setbacks, which the Armstrongs refuse to acknowledge, membership in the WCG is growing at the rate of 10,000 a year.

“Figuring out what Armstrong’s saying; according to one critic, “is like trying to catch a greased pig when you’re bow-legged.”

Martin E. Marty, professor of the history of modern Christianity at the University of Chicago, says of the Armstrong phenomenon: “Like the Seventh Day Adventists and Moody Bible people who also preach Pre-Millennialism, the Armstrongs believe things have got to get worse before they get better. Their message does what religions always do: give meaning to life and a sense of belonging. Apocalyptic sects like this tend to appear at moments in history when other explanations give out, at moments when things aren’t right. Sects like Armstrong’s probably drain off discontent into harmless channels among people who might be more dangerous without Armstrong’s alternative view of history to grasp onto. This kind of religion makes elites out of the ignorant and the poor.”

Mainly, this kind of religion is making elites out of the Armstrongs and the executive strata of the WCG, Ambassador College, and the AICF The Armstrong folks are undaunted by their detractors and are charging full-scale into the future, the coming chaos notwithstanding. Last May, in Chicago, Garner Ted Armstrong, the most prolific broadcaster of our time, offered the invocation at a luncheon of the National Association of Broadcasters and told 2,500 media executives: “We plan to make ‘The World Tomorrow’ the number-one religious broadcast in the nation. We plan to have the program on 2,000 stations by 1980.” Armstrong is also aiming at a circulation for The Plain Truth of 10 million.

Herbert Armstrong is continuing to expand the Cultural Foundation’s nondenominational activities. In order that the wealthy WCG may become a patron of the literary arts, the foundation is starting a new, commercial monthly, Quest 77, which they call “The Magazine of Human Potential”. “We think good writers should have a place to appear besides Playboy and Penthouse”, says Kuhn. To edit the magazine, Kuhn hired Robert Shnayerson, former editor in chief of Harper’s magazine. The Ambassador Auditorium’s concert season and the new magazine are both hugely ambitious undertakings. Together they lend prestige and mainstream respectability to the Armstrong cause.

Religious quacks or sincere believers? It’s not easy to say, but sincerity seems to be the signal trait of the cleancut, all-American innocents one sees on the Ambassador College campus. And sincerity is certainly to be read on the faces of the two Armstrongs and the staff of their $50 million-a-year organization.

Keith Thomas, one of the WCG’s ordained ministers, looks out over Manhattan from his office on the twenty-eighth floor of One Penn Plaza and speaks of the Armstrongs reaching 100 million people a week through all its media–radio, television, and its myriad publications. Says Thomas, gazing at the twin monoliths of the World Trade Center in lower New York, “We are living in the last days. Things are focused on a collision course. Either God intervenes, or the world is going to be a cinder. Our commission is to take this message to the world”. PR man Tom Hall says it once more: “This generation will see the return Of Jesus Christ. The drama being worked out here below is such that when He returns, no one will question why He came”.

Any questions? Write for the free booklet . . .

The following is from the archives of a friend who hosted the now defunct Ekklesia website. We wish to thank this individual for donating his vast sum of material to The Painful Truth. The following is just one article from the selection.

THE WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD VS.
 THE CHURCH OF GOD (7th day)

To Whom It May Concern:

Since the early 1960′s we have often been asked, mostly through letters, what we know about Herbert W. Armstrong, whether he has ever been a member of the Church of God (7th Day), and if so, why is he not with this church today, was he disfellowshipped or did he leave of his own accord, and if so why; can one rely on his autobiography, and what do you think of his present work, his attitudes, and teachings?

Our first knowledge of him was in late 1931 or early 1932 while I was office editor of the Bible Advocate, which was then published at Stanberry, Missouri.

At that time he and Robert Taylor were publishing the Messenger of Truth, in Oregon, in which appeared articles written by both of these men. One of the articles which interested me very much was on the “secret rapture” fallacy, written by Herbert Armstrong, which I in turn reprinted in the Bible Advocate. I believe some of his writings had appeared in the Bible Advocate previously, and perhaps several later.

As for Herbert’s origins in religious matters, as far as his associations with the Church of God (7th Day), who gave Loma a Bible study on the Sabbath question. Loma rejoiced in this newfound truth, and rushed to tell Herbert about it. To him that was the worst news he had ever heard. He became very much upset, and considered divorcing her,he told me in later years, but that seemed too drastic, so he decided to study and prove to his companion from the Bible that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath. After studying intensively for six months, he became convinced that the weekly seventh-day Sabbath, together with the annual Sabbaths, must be observed.

After his conversion, Armstrong naturally began seeking for the true Church. He checked out the Seventh-day Adventists, the Seventh Day Baptists, and the Church of God (7th Day). Although the latter-mentioned church was the smallest group, it had more Bible truths than any other. So he began to fellowship with the scattered few members in Oregon. It was in 1927 that he was baptised, but I do not recall his ever telling me that he was baptised by a Baptist minister, instead of minister of the Church of God (7th Day), until I read it in one of his writings. It appears that he decided to be baptised by a minister who would not make him join that denomination.

The Oregon Brethren urged him from time to time to preach to them, but becoming a preacher was the very last thing he ever wanted to be, he said. However, in 1928 he preached his first sermon, and many more sermons followed at the Church of God meetings for several years. In 1931 he was ordained to the ministry, and in 1932 he received his Ministerial License Certificate from the Oregon Conference of the Church of God, signed by O. J. Runcorn as President, and Mrs. I. E. Curtis as Secretary.

The headquarters of the General Conference of the Church of God (7th Day) had been at Stanberrry, Missouri, since the late 1880′s. In the fall of 1933 there was a division in the Church of God organization, one group retaining Stanberry, Missouri. This newly formed group instituted what was termed Apostolic form of organization, with the Twelve, the Seven, and the Seventy. My name appeared in the list of the Twelve, and Herbert’s in the list of the Seventy.

As mentioned before, Herbert and I commenced corresponding with each other from late in 1931 or early in 1932, which we kept up until the fall of 1945.

Much of our correspondence during 1934 was concerning his stand as to when to baptise new converts, and the other concerning his understanding about the law of the clean and unclean foods. He wanted us to know how he stands on these matters before accepting his position on the Seventy, since he was considering on working with the Salem group. So, in the fall of 1934 he received his credentials from the Salem branch of the Church of God. As mentioned previously, I was then a member of the executive board of the church, which decided on who was eligible for those papers.

It was in the fall of 1937 when Elder Armstrong’s credentials were revoked by the Salem Church of God organization. The reason given by the Board of Twelve for this action was because he taught and kept the annual Feast days. But the real reason seems to have been because of his uncooperative attitude. One writer, in his published book, says that Armstrong was asked to surrender his credentials to A. N. Dugger, and that Dugger at that time was president of the Salem Church of God. That is not true. Dugger never was president of the Salem branch. I was on the Board of Twelve when Armstrong was issued ministerial credentials in 1934, and also when his credentials were revoked in 1937. May I state that I personally did not participate in the revoking procedures.

Following this incident of revoking Armstrong’s credentials, he and I remained close friends, although not in full agreement on several points of doctrine, yet we had many things in common and worked together. Without going into details why, at this time, I will state that about eight or nine months later I submitted my ministerial credentials to the Salem Church of God organization, 1938. Sister Kiesz and I assisted in the Feast of Tabernacles at Eugene, Oregon, in 1941, and again in 1944, and the last one I attended by myself at Belknap Springs, sixty miles east of Eugene, 1945. We lived in Canon City, Colorado, most of the time from 1940 to 1950. It was during part of January and part of February, 1945, that Herbert held us a fairly successful evangelistic campaign in Canon City.

It is a mistake for anyone to state, as was done by Marion J. McNair in his book, that Armstrong continued as an unofficial organization, between 1937 and 1946, until he incorporated as the Radio Church of God. Actually, he organized the Churches of God in Oregon shortly after his credentials were revoked.

In the month of July, 1940, ministerial credentials were issued to me–John Kiesz–signed by the following Board Members:
Herbert W. Armstrong,
Jeremiah M. Day,
Claud V. Ellis,
John Davison,
D. T. Henion,
O. J. Runcorn,
F. W. Beard.

Lest anyone concludes that I have ill feelings, or malicious designs against Herbert Armstrong, let it be said that I would not in the past, nor now, have had anything to say or write about the man and his work, were it not for the information that has been requested from time to time. It is true that it hurt me personally when he dropped me as a “hot potato” during or after the 1945 Feast of Tabernacles meeting, after enjoying good fellowship for ten years.
One question, among others, I have been asked is :”Why did Mr. Armstrong drop you?” Well, in “telling it like it is,” it was because I believed in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

It is true that Herbert was not always able to work harmoniously with other ministers. Perhaps it was not his fault alone. He had a feeling, evidently, that some folks were always undermining him, and trying to destroy his work. In time, I observed that he possessed (and probably still does) a “persecution complex.”

Not long before he decided to drop me, he told me at his Eugene, Oregon office, that he will start a college and train his own men for the ministry, so they will all speak the same thing, and his problems in that area will be over. I did not say it then, but felt sure that his proposed course would work nicely for a while–until some of these men would think for themselves, and then trouble would start in his own organization. I did not think then, however, that it would take so many years until his movement would be fractured.

Another area in which folks have concerned themselves with, is his Autobiography. I have been asked: “Do you believe everything written in the biography is true?” Since he reported in his Autobiography, in the August, 1962 issue of the Plain Truth, the three and a half weeks meetings he held for us in Canon City, Colorado, during part of January and February, 1945, and since about half of his report was either distorted or false, I have to question his other reports too. For instance, he wrote in his Autobiography about his trying in the early 1930′s to work with men like Taylor, Oberg, Ray, and Daily, and how all of them worked against him. I did not get personally aquainted with Taylor, but I did with the rest of them. I did not find them as bad as he pictured them. I’d say that not everything published in the Autobiography is reliable.

I used to consider Herbert a humble man, but when he began to write that for 1800 or 1900 years the true gospel was not being preached until he (Armstrong) began his work, I had to change my mind about his modesty. To me, such an attitude is too presumptuous. Our heavenly Father has always had a true and faithful people in every age, or else he would not have fed and nourished them in the wilderness for 1260 years (Rev. 12:6,14) He has also indicated from time to time that the Almighty chose him as a special Apostle, and that what he has been preaching and publishing has been revealed to him directly by Jesus Christ, whereas the fact is that what truths he has been preaching he originally learned from the Church of God (7th Day). We must admit, however, that he has been teaching additional concepts which are not scriptural truths.

I remember the time when Herbert wrote and taught strongly against church organization as it was generally carried on, but later became so strongly organized that he became to his followers what the Pope of Rome is to the Catholic Church. Many of his followers have come to believe that he is God’s prophet, and these actually fear him. We have heard some of his people say, after they were shown some of the discrepancies, “Well, if Mr. Armstrong says it then it is so.”

When one claims that he has been ordained of God, Baptised by Jesus Christ, and has consistently, for many years, been preaching the one true gospel of the Kingdom of God, and dared to tell in specific, point-by-point, and in detailed order, the events that are to occur, the real meaning of the mysterious books of prophecy, and that his work is the only genuine work which is carrying out Jesus’ very commission–he ought not have preached and published contradictory messages, nor should he have made predictions which never came to pass, nor ever will.

We admit that all prophetic students can make mistakes, and have made mistakes, in interpreting Bible prophecies. But the way Herbert Armstrong and some of his fellow-writers have written articles in the Plain Truth, and in the Good News, and in his Letters to Co-workers, stating that no one but he and his group understand these things, and that for over 1800 years the true gospel was not preached until he started to do so, and if he is God’s true prophet for these times, he should never have made such predictions as have miserably failed, as will be shown below, for the Almighty Himself knows everything and makes no mistakes. He does not reveal things to His servants which never come to pass.

It has been stated at times in the Plain Truth that whatever article he was then considering, that he had taught certain things as far back as 28 years ago, when no one would believe him, and that those predictions have now come to pass, or are now coming to pass.

But he usually does not tell you of the miscalculations or misinterpretations he then published and preached. I wish to point out a few of those here.
The first one goes back to 1935.

In the July issue of that year of the mimeographed Plain Truth, in big headlines on the front page, he wrote:

“Mussolini goes to WAR. Even as you read this, he is marching to Armageddon!”

“We learn that the ‘beast’ symbolizes a revival of the ancient Roman Empire, by a federation of ten nations within its territory.”

“Verse 41–’He shall enter also into the Glorious Land–
Palestine! Great Britain controls Palestine, so that will involve him with war with Great Britain, and then it will be difficult indeed for the United States to keep out! When Mussolini takes PALESTINE, then the nations will be plunged into the great, last and final WORLD WAR.”

“When Mussolini takes Palestine, he not only will force England in, but then Russia and Turkey will enter the war, for they are allied together for the express purpose of REGAINING PALESTINE, at any cost!”

“Mussolini is starting a war that shall end AT ARMAGEDDON! It is the START of the final world WAR! It is NOW STARTING! Do you really REALIZE IT? It is STARTING NOW!”

The Plain Truth (also mimeographed), Vol. V, No. 2 Published by Herbert W. Armstrong, at Eugene, Oregon, APRIL-MAY, 1940, had this headline:

DEMOCRACY DOOMED! THE FACTS, Today!

“Verse 45–Mussolini shall establish his palace, as capital of the revived Roman Empire, at JERUSALEM! Zech.14:2 says the city shall be taken! ‘Yet he shall come to his end, and NONE shall help him!”

“Democracy went, yesterday, in England! Today England is a DICTATORSHIP, as absolutely as that of Adolph Hitler or Benito Mussolini. The king is still there, as always. He will remain on his throne over the British Commonwealth of Nations until Jesus Christ comes and removes that very throne to Jerusalem! But Winston Churchill rules England as absolutely as Hitler does Germany! The government of Churchill OWNS England–OWNS every man, woman and child–has absolute power over every person, every dollar, every resource. Yesterday we heard over short-wave broadcast from London these ominous words:

“Men will work when and where, and for what pay, the government will direct.”

“And WHEN the United States gets into the war–as we are CERTAIN to do sooner or later–THE SAME THING WILL HAPPEN HERE!…”

“This is acknowledged by all who KNOW. As now in England, the President will become Dictator absolute and not only soldier, but factory worker, farmers, every dollar of our money and wealth–all will be CONSCRIPTED! And it is THEN according to the Bible prophecies, the Great Tribulation shall come, and the MARK of the Beast will be enforced! THE TIME IS AT HAND. IT IS time for us to AWAKE!”

“…Armageddon, we believe, must be at least three or four years away…”

The NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 1940 Plain Truth Magazine had an article entitled:

Turkey Wiped out by Britain

“For, make no mistake about it, Palestine and Egypt are to be captured by the Roman Axis powers!”

Later, in the Plain Truth, 1943, he wrote:
“The Axis armies meantime shall have poured into Palestine. Hitler and the False Prophet shall set up the tabernacle and the palace there (Dan.11:41,45)–move their headquarters there…”
Much more could have been quoted from his writings over the years, but this shows how miserably some of his predictions have failed.

Mussolini marched into Ethiopia and conquered the country, but lost it again in 1941. He did not march to Armageddon, neither did he enter Palestine, nor did he establish his headquarters there. Mussolini has been dead for many years and Armageddon is still future. Remember, in 1940 he thought it was three or four years away.

The President of the United States, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, did not become absolute Dictator, as Armstrong declared he would to the extent that every dollar of our money and wealth would be conscripted. Neither did the Great Tribulation and the enforcement of the Mark of the Beast come then.

Turkey was not wiped out by Britain. Palestine and Egypt were not captured by the Roman Axis powers. Hitler and the False Prophet did not set up the tabernacle and the palace in Jerusalem.

Just as sure as he failed in some of his former predictions, just so sure will he fail in some more of his current predictions. He says that the United States, England and Canada will be taken into captivity by the Germans. If this were true then these could not be present in the Battle of Armageddon in the Near East, to oppose Russia and her hordes. But the lion (England) and the young lions (her offspring) will be present to fight against Russia according to Ezekiel 38:10-13.

The Plain Truth, Vol. 13, June 1948, contained a lead article on “Jews Are a Nation Again! Prophecy Fulfilled?” Notice that he left the heading with a question mark. He stated in that article that instead of being a nation at all, it is a colossal illusion.

It was further stated that the return of the Jews to Palestine was not the prophesied exodus, but a man-made blundering and CONFUSION.

Even as late as May 1965 (The Plain Truth) printed this: “Yes, Jesus Christ was able to look down into the future and accurately predict that the Jewish people would be scattered throughout the world, and that the old city of Jerusalem would remain trodden down under the heal of the Gentiles until the ‘times of the Gentiles’ were fulfilled. Many prophecies show that the ‘times of the Gentiles’ have not yet ended. The greatest proof that the ‘times of the Gentiles’ have not yet ended is the simple fact that the Gentile Arabs are still in possession of the old city of Jerusalem. They will remain in control of this city until the Second Coming of Christ, at which time He will deliver Jerusalem, the Jews and all Israel from Gentile domination.

As known from his previous teachings; namely, that the Jews are not fulfilling prophecy, but all Israel will at the Second Advent he had to change his ideas, as reflected in his PERSONAL from the Editor, in The Plain Truth, June, 1967.

JEWS TAKE JERUSALEM

“What is the real significance? The Israelis won a flash war–a blitzkrieg, Israeli style! The news reporters do not know what it means. But you can know! For this is one of the major fulfillments of Biblical prophecy! There will be a Jewish Temple built in Jerusalem, with animal sacrifices once again being offered, probably within about four and one half years. It is going to take some time to build such a Temple. And I don’t see how they are going to have another month to spare–in taking over the ‘old city’ now in Arab hands–if they are going to have the Temple built by the time indicated by prophecy.”

Now to the Plain Truth, March 1968: “Watch Jerusalem! Watch Israel!”

“The recent Israeli victory gave them complete control of the city of Jerusalem–including the original site of Solomon’s Temple. The stage is now set for the construction of the ‘Temple’ prophesied in II Thessalonians 2:4 and Revelation 11:1,2″ Referring again to his prophecy concerning Turkey, in the November-December issue of the Plain Truth, he maintained that the Edomites (descendants of Esau) are identified with the Turkish nation today, and that the prophecy of Obadiah is about Turkey.

This is a bad perversion of the facts. It is the Arab world of today who are the descendants of Esau (Gen. 36:8,9; Deut. 2:1-5; Obad.) They are Semites. This is not true of the Turks, for they are descendants of a Mongolian race of peoples. Every history student should know that the Seljuk Turks from Turkestan (the Steppes of Asia) settled in Asia Minor during the eleventh Century, and that the Ottoman Turks from Asia later settled among the Seljuks. They were largely Moslem in religion, but blended with the various strains of people who had lived there. In 1453 they caused the fall of Constantinople. There is plenty of evidence that the present race of Arabs are referred to in Obadiah and in Ezekiel 35. The casting of lots for the possession of Jerusalem (Joel 3:3, Obad.11) was carried out under former President Harry Truman’s administration. It is not Turkey but the Arabs who are fighting Jacob today. How could anyone overlook what is actually happening in the Near East?

So, on and on. One writer claims that some sixty prophecies failed. Now all of the references to false predictions must be measured and weighed in the light of the Holy Scriptures; namely, if a prophet speaks in the name of the Eternal, if the thing does not come to pass, it is what the LORD did not speak. So it seems only fair to conclude that Herbert Armstrong is a self-proclaimed prophet.

Not only has armstrong seriously misinterpreted some of the prophecies, but there are also discrepancies in his doctrinal teachings and practices.

Armstrong is off with his interpretation as to the time when one is born again. He teaches that one is born again when he is resurrected or translated at the second coming of the Messiah. According to our Savior’s warning, it will be too late then. I suggest that you order our tract on “The New Birth.”

He teaches that Melchisedec is or was the Son of God, whereas the Bible states that Jesus is “another priest” made after the “order of Melchisedec.” See Hebrews 7:11-17.

In Bible Story Vol.III p. 32, you read that the Scapegoat, as pictured in Leviticus 16th chapter, represented the Devil. Every Bible student knows, however, that the Son of God is the Sin-bearer or the Scapegoat (Isa. 53:10-12; 1 Pet. 2:24).

He uses fermented wine in place of grape juice at the Lord’s Supper. But the fruit of the vine has gone through a process of fermentation or corruption by the time it is fermented wine. Our Savior’s blood saw no corruption, so the corrupted wine cannot symbolize his uncorrupted blood.

He teaches, like the “Oneness” people, that the Jehovah or Yahvah of the Old Testament is the Jesus of the New. With several exceptions, the YHVH of the Old Testament is the Father who created everything through His Son, however. Write for a compilation of the”Christological Controversy,” which deals with this matter.

He teaches that the earth was created long–perhaps billions of years–before man, whereas the inspired Word says that “in six days the LORD made (not remade) heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is…”

He opposes the moving of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the saints, or in the services, and has even contended that those who claim that they have been baptised with the Holy Spirit, have really been deceived by the Devil.

I well remember the time when Herbert apparently was as much against worldly pleasures as I was: such as attendance at the movies, dancing, drinking, card-playing, and the wearing of excessive jewelry.
At one time he told me that his people need my type of preaching, but now all these things are permitted in his groups. One cannot be spiritual and worldly at the same time (1 John 2:15-17)

Another question often asked is: “Brother Kiesz, what do you think will be the outcome of the Worldwide Church of God?” This has been questioned especially since the recent fractures in what some have termed the “Armstrong Empire.” I have no answer for this, except that I know that quite a number of splinter groups have been formed (perhaps about thirty), while some have joined the Church of God (7th Day).

Many of those who have been associated with the Worldwide Church of God have become completely disillusioned, are bewildered, not knowing which way to turn. Some, however, have turned. Some have given up completely, some are very bitter, some have given up even some of the basic truths of the Word, some have gone back into Sunday-keeping, and some have turned extremely in the opposite direction of what they had been taught. For example: Armstrong taught his people to pay three tithes, and some now teach that no tithes need to be paid at all. It is sad, indeed, to realize the confusion and trauma some are experiencing.

There are some deserved commendations for Herbert Armstrong after all. He has been a hard worker in the gospel field, and has been the means of bringing many thousands into the light of the Sabbath and other basic truths. Originally, he sacrificed much, that I personally know of, in order to spread the Good News as he understood it. I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

I knew him as a humble man. But things have changed over the years. He grew too big for his own or anyone else’s good, as far as spirituality is concerned. The majority of his adherents have been thoroughly brain-washed, and there is nothing anyone can do for them anymore, as far as directing them into the right channels is concerned. His claiming that the Church of God (7th Day) is “the dead Sardis church,” has affected many thousands, so that their prejudices keep them from investigating what the disclaimed church is really
like. So, with all the apparent good that has been accomplished, much harm has also been done. The final judgment remains with the Creator.

Document courtesy of Byron Sanders.

Suggested Reading: Herbert Armstrong’s 209 False Prophecies