THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE
Armstrong's Empire Exposed
by
John Tuit
(1981)
THE ORIGIN OF THE WCG
IN THE EARLY YEARS OF THE CHURCH, ARMSTRONG WAS LEARNING
and growing in the knowledge of God's truth. As long as he did
this, God continued to bless the Worldwide Church of God. The
problems seemed to start in 1968, after Mrs. Armstrong died. At
that time, Stanley Rader who had been around Armstrong for the
past ten years, was finally able to make his big move. Garner Ted
says that his mother had a great influence over his father, and
she was really the guiding influence over the Church. Garner Ted
said of his mother, "One of the most important things she was
able to do in dealing with my father and some of his ideas was to
say, 'No, Herbert'."
It is so easy to understand that this Church organization,
which was teaching so much of God's truth in such a powerful way,
would be a main point of Satan's attack. And it was Armstrong's
ego and vanity, and his later belief that he was a specially
appointed apostle of God, that gave Satan that opening.
Armstrong's claims that this was the only Church teaching
God's truth were false, as were his claims that he had been given
this knowledge in a special way from God. By making such claims,
he drew special attention to himself as someone very unique and
specially chosen, which placed him between the people and Jesus
Christ.
The facts are that the Church of God Seventh Day of
Stanbury, Missouri, back in the 1930s, had the same basic truths
that Armstrong had been teaching. And it was from this group that
Armstrong broke away in the 1930s. The Church of God Seventh Day
can trace its history back to the Middle Ages when
Sabbath-keeping Christians were being persecuted and killed along
with the Jews. This history, although rather spotty and difficult
to piece together, was written in a book called "The History of
the True Church" by A.N.Dugger and C.O.Dodd. Both these men
were Elders in the Stanbury, Missouri Church. Although there were
many inaccuracies in the book, it does form the foundation for
the fact that the Church never died out and can actually be
traced all the way back, even though there are gaps, to the first
century Church.
In the 1600s, Seventh Day Baptists began to flourish in
England, and they too were a part of the remnant Church. Many of
our early settlers were of various Sabbath keeping groups,
including the Seventh Day Baptists and the Church of God. The
founders of the Rhode Island colony, including Roger Williams,
were members of the Church. While the Seventh Day Baptists and
other Seventh Day worshippers had many differences in their
doctrines, there was a small remnant group among them that
constituted the Church of God. They were the ones who believed
the doctrines being taught by the Worldwide Church of God today.
While some did not believe in keeping the Holy Days, there were
others among them who did keep the Holy Days. Also, in their very
early days, many of the Waldensians and Moravians were Sabbath
keepers, although they later drifted totally into Sunday keeping.
Sabbath keepers, while scattered and of no strength as far as
organization was concerned, finally began to come together in the
early 1800s. That was during the time that the Adventist
movement, which believed that Christ would return in 1844, was
commonly accepted among both Sunday keepers and Sabbath keepers.
Of course, He did not. They had been reading too much into
prophetic events, and setting dates, which the Bible tells us not
to do.
Ellen G. White was one of the leaders of the Adventist
movement and was originally a Sunday keeper. She later came into
the knowledge of the Sabbath. It was in 1844, when the Adventists
realized that they had made an error in attempting to pick a date
for Christ's return, that a split came in the Sabbath-keeping
Adventist church. A large group followed Ellen G. White, and that
was the beginning of what is now known as the Seventh Day
Adventist Church, probably the largest Sabbath-keeping Church in
the world. While at one time they taught many of the doctrines
now taught by the Worldwide Church, they have, over the years,
fallen away and drifted into many pagan beliefs, including the
keeping of Christmas.
It was during that split in 1844 that the Church of God
Seventh Day was formed. There were probably also many other
splinter groups that are hard to identify that sprung up in
various places. The Bible Sabbath Association in Fairview,
Oklahoma publishes a directory of Sabbath-keeping groups. This
directory lists Sabbathkeeping groups of various doctrinal
beliefs.
Included in the listing is a large number of groups having
the same beliefs as the Worldwide Church of God. And
interestingly, many of these groups, although very small, in many
cases are scattered throughout the world in India, South America,
Asia and Africa. In most cases, these far-flung small Churches of
God had no contact at all with the Church in the United States.
The members of many of these foreign Churches of God say that
they have existed for many generations in their little villages.
For hundreds of years they have been carrying the same name and
believing the same beliefs as the Worldwide Church of God and
other similar groups in the United States.
Coming back then to the Church in the States, we find that
there was a man named G.G.Rupert who in the very early 1900s
produced a publication called "Remnant of Israel." His teachings
were again, basically the same believed by the Worldwide Church.
Coming, then, into the 1930s, when Herbert Armstrong came on the
scene, we find that there were many splits at that time. They
occurred over various minor doctrinal differences, and perhaps
one major one, as some did not want to keep the Holy Days and
others did. Today, we have the Worldwide Church of God which is
by far the largest. Then there is the Church of God Seventh Day,
headquartered in Denver, Colorado, which is a result of a split,
and the Stanbury group which by that time had relocated to Salem,
West Virginia. The Salem, West Virginia church is still in
existence in Salem. Neither of these groups any longer keep the
annual Holy Days, other than Passover, but otherwise there is
essentially no difference in teaching. They have various
congregations throughout the world. The Denver Church has a total
worldwide membership of perhaps 35,000 with most of the members
outside the United States and the Salem church is considerably
smaller. Out of the Salem group emerged the Seventh Day Church of
God of Caldwell, Idaho in 1952. This resulted because the
Caldwell group wanted to keep the Holy Days. They, too, have
several churches throughout the world, having about twenty-five
ministers in the United States and 175 in foreign countries.
There are many other small groups, some of which emerged
from the original Stanbury, Missouri group, and some of which
carried through independently from the darkest, most distant
annals of Church history.
Parallel to all these groups, and many times mingling among
them, were others known as Sacred Name Believers. All of the
Sacred Name Believers keep the annual Holy Days. Where they have
been able to organize, they are known as the Assemblies of
Yahweh. The largest such group is headquartered in Bethel,
Pennsylvania, and was formed in 1966 by Jacob Meyer by gathering
together various Sacred Name Believers who had been worshipping
in and among the other groups known as the Churches of God. The
only difference in doctrine between the Holy Day-keeping Churches
of God and the Assemblies of Yahweh is the fact that the
Assemblies of Yahweh believe that the only names to be used for
God and Jesus Christ are original Hebrew names. "Yahweh" comes
from the Hebrew word which was spelled YHWH, and is the word from
which we get the word Lord. Rather than use the Greek words
"Jesus Christ," they adhere to the original Hebrew word, "Yashua
Messiah."
And again, just as there are Churches of God throughout the
world, there are groups in these same obscure places in foreign
countries known as the Assemblies of Yahweh. And again, many of
them have been there for hundreds of years with no knowledge or
contact with other like groups until the last few years.
All of this proves, then, that while the Worldwide Church of
God is not the one and only Church as Herbert Armstrong claims,
it is in fact one of the groups in the one and only true Church.
The way these doctrines have been preserved over the centuries,
even through much turmoil in the Church due to Satan's constant
attacks, is more than ample proof that these beliefs, these
teachings and doctrines, are true, and whoever believes in them
and follows them is in fact a member of the one true Church, the
true Church of God, the Body of Christ, no matter what its actual
name.
Christ said that He would not forsake His Church, and by
keeping it dispersed, Satan could never destroy it. But certainly
Satan would go after Herbert Armstrong with a vengeance, as
Armstrong was making an impact with his message. Once he allowed
his ego and his self-proclaimed importance to become dominant in
his thinking to the point to where he proclaimed himself an
apostle, he was vulnerable to Satan's attack, and this attack
came through Stanley Rader, who can only be described as a tool,
an instrument of Satan. Once Rader was able to prey on
Armstrong's human weaknesses, he had him. And as long as Garner
Ted was having his problems, Rader thought that he could control
him also. However, Garner Ted apparently has overcome his
problems and repented.
(Sad to say, that was not true, but would not be found out for
another 14 years or so; Ted had learned how to conseal his sexual
drug for other women, very well indeed, until one gal outsmarted
him in 1994, which finally caused the CGI board to "kick him out"
of the CGI - Keith Hunt)
After years of battling these serious problems, he
apparently overcame them and was able to stand against Rader. No
longer would Rader be able to hold anything over his head. In
1978 Garner Ted was able to meet Rader head on and, for whatever
purpose, God allowed Rader to prevail over Garner Ted. It could
only have been that God allowed this in order to purge and purify
the Worldwide Church. As Garner Ted said, "Rader has something on
just about everybody he wants to control, but he has nothing on
me. My past is my past."
(The battle between Ted and Rader had nothing to do with "sexual
misconduct" but purely a power struggle for control of the
Worldwide Church of God, and its 65 million dollar a year income
- Keith Hunt)
And referring to the problems and the excesses of the
Worldwide Church he said, "I praise God, and thank Jesus Christ
my Savior that I am no longer a part of any of that - that any
part I remotely had in it I have vomited it up in deep heartfelt
repentance before my God". Referring to the problems of the past,
Garner Ted said, during the time of his greatest troubles, that
"it was just becoming more than I could cope with. I was nearly
having my own private mental breakdown."
(It was all made factual in the early years of the 1980s that
though Ted had a very high life-style, it was no where near
comparable to his dad's high living, and he did speak up to his
dad about some of it, and the terrible teaching the WCG had on
the issue of "devorce and re-marriage" and other things like his
dad wanting to marry a lady 50 years younger than himself. As Ted
once said to his dad, in effect, "It is a slap in the face to all the
widows in their 60s or so." Ted was to devulge he had other
disagreements with his dad, so it became easier for Rader to step
inbetween the two of them. With everythings else on Ted's plate I
can see why it would have been more than he could cope with -
Keith Hunt)
His wife Shirley had said that it was the most horrible time
of their lives and that it was only through the grace of God that
they pulled through it. Garner Ted has recently said, "I can only
go forward now. Anything bad that could be said about anyone has
already been said about me, there's nothing more they can say.
And that's all behind now. I can now go forward and do the work
of Jesus Christ as He leads me."
(And for a while, it's possible he did go forward, with the work
of God through the CGI, but steady income, a certain amount of
"power" and "fame" again, and he fell back into his old addiction
of having to have other women in various sexual ways, not always
full intercourse, but sex is more than just intercourse - Keith
Hunt)
So while Garner Ted ultimately ended up out of the Worldwide
Church, what had Rader really been up to with Herbert Armstrong?
.........................
To be continued with "Satan's Master Conspiracy"
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