THE EDIFICE COMPLEX
ARMSTRONG ANNOUNCES NEW CAMPUS BUILDING
Herbert Armstrong has wanted to build a new church headquarters building for several years and recently discussed plans with his architects for another fabulous building on the Ambassador College campus. In fact, he tried to make an announcement of these plans in a recent co-worker letter. Unfortunately, Ted Armstrong and Robert Kuhn excised Herbert's announcement because finances were tight and with Ted putting the finishing touches on an emergency letter asking for more money, it would look bad for Herbert to be planning a new building. Nevertheless, inside sources report the desire for this "last erection" remains a strong passion in Herbert's heart. Whether he will ever get his wish remains to be seen. In the meantime, after studying literally hundreds of Herbert's famous co-worker letters, we of the Ambassador Report staff believe we can capture the spirit of that glorious yet future co-worker letter in which Herbert makes the grand announcement.
DEAREST CO-WORKERS in the Gr-r-r-eatest Work on Earth:
Here I am flying at 55,666 feet above Africa on my way to visit Uganda's president, Idi Amin. As I type, mother Earth is making her last dying revolutions around the sun, and the end time we have lived in since 1934 is drawing closer to the end. As I sit here stupefied in these dizzying times sipping sherry, I KNOW as never before that we are running down the home stretch of the gun lap to victory. Why just a year ago the governments I visited were toppling right after I left them. Now they're failing even BEFORE I can get there to give them MY wonderful GOSPEL-the good news of the get/give principle.
Brethren, it's now obvious that the four horsemen of the apocalypse are beginning their prophesied ride. Just yesterday I learned the jelly bean crop in Alberta has been virtually wiped out by a virulent venereal disease prevalent among boll weevils. Groups of Communist Eskimo guerrillas are running rampant in Alaska. Our respected News Bureau informs me that there have been 12 cases of swine flu in the U.S., and 12 is a complete number, the number of beginnings-and this IS just the beginning of sorrow. One-third of Americans are prophesied to perish in horrible disease epidemics, and they are beginning. You HAVE BEEN WARNED! Yet skeptics sneer at my prophecies, claiming they never come to pass. But co-workers, to doubt is to be DAMNED!
Now for some great news-another NEW giant step forward for the Work. I can now announce that the auditorium was not my LAST erection! Co-workers, I am the organ through which the Great Creator is reproducing himself. God's Work never stops growing! I plan to erect another fabulous building that will compare favorably with our auditorium, the greatest building in all the world! This new erection will rival the Great Pyramid in design excellence, the British Parliament in stateliness, the Pussycat Theater in drawing crowds, Versailles Palace in cost, and the Watergate Hotel in notoriety. It will be a 19-story skyscraper (in honor of the holy time cycle, on which this Work is based) to house our 1,500-volume library and Dr. Hymen Haywire's rare book collection.
We have diligently searched the scriptures and sources that agree with my way of thinking to determine how to design this edifice. Our doctrinal committee members voted unanimously for my plan-it was really God's plan because I have God's mind. (It's true 15 of them resigned, but for health reasons only.) We agreed that the whole structure should be designed on the principle of church government-the biggest and MOST important on TOP and the dumb sheep holding up the bottom. (The Bible does call you sheep, brethren, and with good reason.) Hence each story of the building will be shaped like a fat, giant square. The top one will represent me and be the biggest, and as you get closer to the bottom, each square will progressively get smaller. The whole erection will rest on a revolving solid gold turntable donated by the widows of the Pasadena church. The turntable will make one revolution every 7 hours (7 is a biblical number of perfection), stopping to rest on the 7th day-unless I'm entertaining foreign dignitaries.
The first-story walls will be composed of solid Steuben crystal. As people enter the structure, they will see a 12-foot-high statue of me in Steuben crystal-donated free of charge in recognition of my purchasing $1,000,000 worth of Steuben crystal. There will be a giant opening in the middle of the first 7 stories in which palm trees and imported African climbing vines will grow. My dear friend, President Kenyatta of Kenya, promised to ship me hundreds of live African birds to fly in the building's center section, which will have a mammoth jewel-incrusted chandelier with 10,000 lights hanging from the ceiling.
Each floor will house specific departments. On the first levels will be editorial offices, janitorial storage areas, and a huge room to house bird feed for the African birds. On the 8th floor will be a mahogany sauna room for key AC officials an WCG pastors.
Lately, I've noticed many of our top men here at HQ are spending their whole afternoon away either at lunch or at the handball courts. To keep them nearby when I need them, the new edifice will house a plush restaurant designed in Corinthian architectural style. It'll be called the Red Light House and will serve my two favorite delicacies: chopped Italian Carrozoh and Roast Martin Supreme. On the floor below the restaurant we will construct several air-conditioned handball courts complete with a ministerial-faculty locker room furnished in typically austere AC style-a Hama-skin carpet, famous ancient Grecian art works, and the finest imported African ivory urinals and pink onyx shower floors. This will put real quality and character where it's MOST NEEDED in the Work. Co-workers I know some will accuse me of extravagance because of this. But believe me, it's extremely important that I impress foreign dignitaries with AC's emphasis on culture rather than on its immaculate lawns. Remember, though, God's way is quality-NOT extravagance!
The 13th floor will be reserved for Mr. Saintly Raider, my only counsel, to decorate as he pleases-since he owns 51% of the building.
The offices of Garner Stud Headstrong will adorn the spacious 18th floor. He will be served by a comely secretarial staff providing full services. Stud's office will come complete with a bed in case he, as the second most important man in the world after me, has to work late into the night rehearsing for Hee Haw or planning hunting and fishing expeditions.
Atop the 19th floor above my office will be a special heliport so Ambassador executives can be ferried to and from the airport where their respective jets are hangared.
This new structure will be dubbed the Indira Gandhi Memorial Library. I've met her several times on my round-the-world gospel-preaching flings. She ran her nation so much like I run AC and the Worldly Church of God-like God's government-that I chose to honor her in this way. The library, by the way, will be housed in the basement. (There was no other place for it once space was allocated for the restaurant, handball courts, and the executive office suites.)
To pay for this $100,000,000 structure, I'm reinstating the doctrinal committee with explicit orders to find biblical proof for a 4th, 5th, and 6th tithe. Personally, I feel the book of Lamentations will provide the solid scriptural proof I want.
This marvelous library building will further accent AC's long-time stress on academic excellence. While the college's academic division has gone unaccredited for the 29th year in a row, the college's landscape engineering division again won the award for the most ostentatiously landscaped college in the world. AC is the only college in the world with a 10 to 1 gardener to student ratio. That's one of the many unique advantages AC offers over other pagan colleges that only teach one how to earn a living. But with this new building, people won't come to AC just to sniff the flowers. They'll come to seek knowledge.
To properly dedicate this grand structure, I'm budgeting $1,000,000 to fly the premier orchestra of Southeast Asia-the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra and Marching Band-over for a dedication concert. It's true the construction crews will have to WORK on the sabbath and the holy days to finish the building on time, but God didn't object when we did this to finish the auditorium on time for Vienna's second-best orchestra.
Now for a serious matter. You co-workers have been letting down in prayer because the income is only up 25%. What do you think my airplane runs on-peanut butter, honey, and pickles? As Malachi surely meant to say, "Not by might nor by power nor by my spirit, but by MANDATORY TITHING! Will a man ROB God's Apostle?" Brethren and co-workers, you've got to sacrifice MORE! Give me your money while it still has value. Go without food twice a week instead of once a week, as you are presently doing. Remember, you were called to support me. Without your money, it is impossible for me to please God. This Work can do nothing without the almighty dollar. Some have thought God would be displeased if they starved their families to support my Work. I think NOT! You all KNOW I think not!
I want to again stress that my trips are not for personal pleasure or aggrandizement. They ARE bearing fruit! I have converted 7 people in Japan in the last 8 years of conducting personal testimonials-and 7 is a perfect number. As a result of making new acquaintances with world leaders on these trips, I've found a buyer for the Big Sandy campus-which we can't afford anymore due to the spiraling cost of jet fuel. One of my "Japanese sons" will buy the campus for $50,000, and I'm selling before he lowers the offer. By the way, I have put Saintly Raider over the Work's money now that he's been baptized. He has assured me repeatedly that he'll TAKE CARE of me!
I have a new booklet to offer-the MOST IMPORTANT SINCE THE BIBLE was written. It's The Missing Dimension Unveiled at Last! This book is loaded with dogmatism, dozens of statistical surveys from 19th-century works, doomsday sketches, and pictures of me and Raider- everything but strong biblical truth. We just can't AFFORD to mention the Bible in this booklet lest we offend the world leaders I hobnob with. Though none of the apostles preached the gospel like this, remember, God IS leading me. This booklet is absolutely free of charge-we couldn't sell it if we wanted to. But don't forget that God loves a cheerful tithe payer.
I have just walked through two more closed doors. I can see an Unseen Hand in this in spite of my eyesight. Huge Heftner has asked to meet me and my son Garner Stud, who is now the Vice-Editor-in-Heat of The Blind Truth. Heftner wants to use my unique explanation of cause and EFFECT as the basis for a new series of articles on sex, which is aptly being titled "Open Wide for the Worldwide." So we will reach 20 million Plowboy readers with the true gospel-news about cause and effect. I intend to run full-page ads in Plowboy offering a new booklet, Just What Do You Mean ... Only Two Positions for Sex? In this monumental booklet, I reveal for the first time in human history what the Third Position is and why it's utterly pagan.
But Satan is angry. He's out to get me and my son Stud. Remember 3 things: (1) No one who kept faithfully giving 30% of his income to this Work has ever left. (2) No one who has kept his heart in the Work has ever allowed the truth to influence him to leave. (3) Everybody who attempts to put his personal relationship with God and obedience to him ahead of this GREAT WORK-and God's government on earth-always ends up leaving sooner or later. So hold fast to the faith I once delivered you. Don't forget, God binds in heaven what my church-even in unrealized error-has bound on earth!
Brethren, I'm deeply concerned for your well-being. Nothing else is on my mind-except the delights of marriage. So keep praying and PAYING, and you'll be blessed.
