(Note: Highlighting is mine to emphasize the
"qualifying and discrediting" that Meredith uses. What an asshole. Ed)
FROM: RODERICK C. MEREDITH
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 19:09:22 -0400
To: (name withheld)
August 20, 1997
Dear Mr. (name withheld),
Greetings from San Diego! Please forgive me for my tardiness in answering your email. I have been extremely busy and also "knocked out" for several days with an extreme sore throat and virus but am now catching up on things and will try to answer your questions.
First of all, let me say that I knew Mr. Armstrong very well for 36 years of my adult life, I traveled with him, sometimes staying in the same hotel room or hotel suite. I knew his family, including his unconverted daughters, and certainly knew Ted Armstrong very, very well.
I also knew that, in spite of human faults which we all have, Mr. Armstrong was an extremely dedicated individual and was trying hard to give his life to God. Obviously, the "fruits" of his life and ministry are evident in all of us and literally tens of thousands of individuals whom God used him to reach with the Truth who had never kept the Sabbath before or the Holy Days or never had understood God's Plan before Mr. Armstrong was used to open their eyes. We have to understand this aspect of the Big Picture if we're going to grasp properly anything that happened in Mr. Armstrong's life.
As to your specific questions about Mr. Armstrong's personal behavior, I sincerely do not know if he had the kind of relationship with his daughter that you describe. I know that she and another family member became extremely agitated and hateful because of a decision Mr. Armstrong made about his son. I know that alcoholism was involved in one of their lives (perhaps both), and that one of these individuals was saying and doing things that was not right and was lying somewhat regularly.
The Church aircraft was NEVER referred to as the "flying whore house" by any decent individual of which I am aware. I think I do remember one "yellow-sheet" journalist using that term as he often tried to attack the Work, the Armstrong's and even many of us individually by such scandalous wording and accusations . Mr. Herbert Armstrong was NEVER accused of misusing the aircraft in any such way as implied in your question.
Many people criticized Mr. Armstrong's use of Church funds in building the beautiful Ambassador Auditorium, in having a G-3 aircraft at his disposal and in staying in hotel suites on his trips. Knowing him extremely well, I feel that he sincerely felt that he was being used as a special "ambassador" for God in reaching heads of state and other leading dignitaries and that these accouterments would greatly enhance the weight he would carry in talking to them and bringing his message to them.
However, neither he nor anyone else in Mr. Armstrong's party ever "ripped off" the Church by stealing or fraudulently misusing large sums of money to my knowledge. In fact, during the 1979 crisis, I specifically checked up on this when confronted with such accusations about one of Mr. Armstrong's traveling companions. I was told that this individual was very clever, that he had a high salary and put everything he could on expense, but that he did not do anything illegal and really did not need to do this as he was so well taken care of anyway.
So these stories have had a habit of "feeding on themselves" and people do like to exaggerate things like this in order to get back at one whom they may have felt was too authoritarian, or with whom they disagreed, or whatever. Moses' enemies often accused him of being too high handed. And yet, in God's sight, Moses was the most humble man on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3).
So God is Mr. Armstrong's ultimate Judge-not puny men who try to invent and exaggerate various stories after the death of one whom God used so mightily over a period of 52 years in building this Work. And I do sincerely believe that many of these stories were GREATLY exaggerated and that we ought to do as Christ tells us to do and look at the "fruits" of Mr. Armstrong's ministry before playing into the hands of Satan the Devil who is the ultimate "accuser of the brethren." Satan would delight in tearing down Mr. Armstrong's reputation and therefore, indirectly, tear down the vital message that he brought to the world and thousands of us.
I hope that this Information will be helpful to you. And I hope that you will try to see the BIG PICTURE as I have described it. I sincerely try to do this myself and I sincerely do NOT think that most of the accusations to which you referred are true as they are set forth. May God guide you to serve Him sincerely and to honor what He has done through His servants.
Sincerely, Roderick C. Meredith
My comments:
Truth?
Herbert Armstrong's fruits?
Yes his fruits are evident in thousands of screwed up lives laying by the wayside as you religious crackpots pompously proclaim your secret truths that GAWD has revealed to only you. And you have this wonderful WORK to do that you need our money to do and it never seems to get done. God is so weak that he needs people such as Herbert Armstrong and Roderick Meredith to do His work of warning the world. BARF.
Roderick Meredith is hwa's clone.
The world would be a sooooo much better place without people like Herbert Armstrong and his apologist/clones like Roderick Meredith spreading their fear/guilt religion and ripping off poor, gullible and many times sick people in search of God.
Ed Sr.
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