Unravelling Herbert W. Armstrong's Philosophy In Regard To Freemasonry And Anti-Freemasonry, The Jehovah's Witness Connection, Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism, British Israelism, Pyramidology, Zionism, The Jews, And The Carol Balizet Cult. Also An Examination Of The Church's Reform And Subsequent Break-Off Groups
It is now certain that Herbert Armstrong, even though he smooshed with Israeli politicians, was not a Zionist. He stated that the unpeaceful takeover of Palestine by Israel had nothing to do with Biblical prophecy. He said the Jews would only be returned by god in a peaceful manner and that they would be converted to Christianity at that time. He states that Jews are not "Israel" but that the Anglo-American people are Israel, the ten lost tribes; Jews are Judah, not Israel. Armstrong turned against Freemasonry, and so also maybe the Jews, but then again, Charles Taze Russell was anti-Mason but very Zionist. It is a complicated brew.
Armstrong follower Jack R. Elliot wrote a book warning the followers of the Worldwide Church of God about Freemasonry called The Truth About Masonry (here). Below are two more essays on Masonry by the same author. Herbert Armstrong stole from Charles Taze Russell, who stole from Freemasonry, but then turned against it. However, Russell also turned against British Israelism, but Armstrong didn't. Mormons (whom Armstrong also stole from) try to deny they got their teaching from Freemasonry, instead, they say Freemasons stole the original Mormon doctrine. Russell turned against the British-American Empire (which would have been the seat of power under Freemason British-Israelism), but Armstrong saw them as fulfilling god's destiny for humanity. Armstrong could have seen what Freemasons were plotting and could have used their maneuvers to create his prophecies about Great Britain and America.
Armstrong, like the Freemasons and their derived cults (Mormon, Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses, and in the beginning Adventists) denies the Trinity. The rejection of the Trinity is important in Freemasonry so that the firm stays Noahide compliant. Below is a video of Herbert Armstrong denying the Trinity, regardless of the fact that he taught something close to polytheism, like Mormonism, that god was actually a family of gods and accended humans who had become gods. Mormons, while believing in multiple gods with physical bodies, are still embracing the Noahide Laws. Also below is a booklet published by the Worldwide Church of God called "Is God a Trinity?", which also explains the "God Family" doctrine. Many Mormons say the "God Family" doctrine they have came from Kabbalah by way of Freemasonry.
The Armstrong cult was against medicine and told followers to rely only on god for healing. People died because of these teachings. Later, an Armstrong breakoff group known as the Attleboro sect combined Armstrongism with the teachings of Carol Balizet, the registered nurse who turned against medicine as witchcraft. Armstrong, like Balizet, equated medicine with paganism. This mixture of the two cults led to the medical neglect and death of two boys in the Attleboro sect. You can learn more about Carol Balizet and the Attleboro sect (here). Below are two books by Armstrong, Does God Heal Today? and The Plain Truth About Healing. While Christian Science which has Freemason leanings also rejected medicine, this was due to a belief that matter (and thus disease) does not exist, not necessarily that medicine in paganism... Armstrong may or may not have picked up from Christian Science
In 1952 Armstrong published Does God Heal Today? which provided the details on his doctrine on healing and his ban on doctors. Among his tenets were that only God heals and that medical science is of pagan origin and is ineffective. He believed that most illnesses were caused by faulty diet and that doctors should prescribe proper diet rather than medicine. He taught that members are not to go to doctors for healing but must trust in divine healing alone.[30] This was his teaching despite his father's death in 1933 after "an all-night vigil of prayer."[31] This teaching has been the cause of much controversy as individuals influenced by such teachings came to die.[32]
In Armstrong's view, the scourging of Jesus prior to crucifixion "paid the penalty" for physical disease and sickness, allowing the option of divine healing.[66]: 33
Armstrong placed much emphasis on faith in God for healing and taught against the medical practice, except in the case of "repair" (setting of broken bones, cleansing of wounds, etc.).[68] Medical intervention was consequently frowned-upon, there were consequently numerous controversial incidents involving death of members or member's children due to lack of medical attention. Armstrong spoke highly of principles of good diet (outside of the Levitical food regulations) and proper living, and members of the Worldwide Church of God as a result tended to gravitate towards whole grains, home-grown vegetables etc., although such acts were not an express tenet of faith.
The use of medicine and doctors was discouraged because members were expected to place their faith in God for healing.[66] Armstrong stated:
Here's God's instruction to YOU, today, if you are ill. If we are to live by every Word of God, we should obey this Scripture. God does not say call your family physician...He does not say, call the doctors and let them give medicines and drugs, and God will cause the medicines and drugs and dope to cure you.... Instead God says call GOD'S MINISTERS. And let them PRAY, anointing with oil (the type and symbol of the Holy Spirit). Then GOD PROMISES He will HEAL YOU![104]
Charles Taze Russell obviously stole Freemason ideas, regardless of the fact that he denounced Freemasonry. Herbert Armstrong denied ever being a Jehovah's Witness, but it is obvious he stole ideas from them. The Jehovah's Witnesses predicted the end of the world in 1975, and so did Armstrong. It is interesting that of all the cults touched by Freemasonry, the ones that went anti-Mason (7th Day Adventist, Jehovah's Witnesses, Armstrong) predicted much gloom and doom, and taught doctrines that drew people out of mainstream society... both Russell and Armstrong's teachings are very destructive to national solvency, perhaps they were convinced of their own teachings, but they did turn people against the system which they saw as Masonic. Apocalypticism has been used to destabilize the West in many ways, it would be surprising if it were the Masons who wanted stability and the anti-Masons who wanted things to fall apart.
10 Super-Specific Doomsday Predictions That Didn't Pan Out
This latest incorrect prediction is just the most recent in a long string of failures.
BY AVERY THOMPSONPUBLISHED: SEP 25, 2017
Herbert Armstrong was one of the first televangelists, preaching the gospel across the airwaves long before it became popular. He founded his own church, the Worldwide Church of God, in 1933, and three years later predicted the end of the world. He claimed the rapture would occur in 1936, and was probably surprised when it didn't.
One missed prediction wasn't enough to shake his confidence, however. Armstrong revised his apocalypse schedule for 1943, and when that didn't work, revised it again to 1972. Perhaps he thought that was far enough into the future that he wouldn't have to worry about being proved wrong, but Armstrong did in fact live to see his prediction fail one more time. At this point, most people would hang up their hat, but Armstrong made one last try, predicting the end of the world in 1975. The real miracle is that anyone still listened to him.
In 1966 the Watch Tower Society issued the first of what became a sequence of statements on the importance of a new date—1975—that raised the possibility of that year heralding the beginning of Christ's millennial reign and, along with it, doom for unbelievers.[39]
According to this trustworthy Bible chronology six thousand years from man's creation will end in 1975, and the seventh period of a thousand years of human history will begin in the fall of 1975. So six thousand years of man's existence on earth will soon be up, yes, within this generation. How appropriate it would be for Jehovah God to make of this coming seventh period of a thousand years a Sabbath period of rest and release, a great Jubilee sabbath for the proclaiming of liberty throughout the earth to all its inhabitants![...] It would be according to the loving purpose of Jehovah God for the reign of Jesus Christ, the "Lord of the Sabbath", to run parallel with the seventh millennium of man's existence.[40]
The hope hinged on the Society's belief that Adam had been created in the northern hemisphere in the autumn of 4026 BCE. The Society suggested that the close of the first 6000 years of human history could correspond with the end of God's "rest day"—with the transition marked by the Battle of Armageddon. Yet as researcher Richard Singelenberg has pointed out, the Society's literature at no point definitively stated that Armageddon would take place in 1975. In fact, as early as 1966 Frederick Franz, then vice-president of the society, inserted a definite "uncertainty" clause:
Does it mean that God's rest day began in 4026? It could have.[...] [The] book does not say it did not[...] You can accept it or reject it[...] Does it mean that Armageddon is going to be finished[...] by 1975? It could! It could! All things are possible with God. Does it mean that Babylon the Great is going to go down by 1975? It could[...] But we are not saying.[41]
Expectations for 1975 also built on the belief that Christ had set up his kingdom in heaven in 1914 and that "this generation [those who were at least 15 years old in 1914, according to a 1968 Awake![42]] would by no means pass away" before the end came.[43] The 1967 book, Did Man Get Here By Evolution Or By Creation?, similarly stated, "We find that the time of our generation, our day, is the one that is identified in the Bible as the 'last days'. In fact, we are actually living in the final part of that time. This can be compared, not just to the last day of a week, but rather, to the last part of that day".[44]
A convention badge from a circuit assembly, c. 1970
In a 1969 book the Society expanded on its belief in a link between the seventh millennium of human existence and the kingdom's establishment. It stated: "In order for the Lord Jesus Christ to be 'Lord of the sabbath day,' his thousand-year reign would have to be the seventh in a series of thousand-year periods or millenniums. Thus it would be a sabbatical reign."[45] Raymond Franz, who became a member of the group's Governing Body before defecting in 1980, claimed readers were left in no doubt about what was expected in 1975, claiming: "The presentation is in no sense indefinite or ambiguous."[46]
The prophecy galvanized the Jehovah's Witnesses movement, and proselytism increased substantially. On the eve of the predicted Millennium, in 1974, the number of publishers (Witnesses who submitted their record of preaching) rose by 13.5 percent worldwide and many Witnesses were actively preparing for the dawn of the New Order.[16]
Yet as 1975 drew closer the degree of uncertainty expressed in Watch Tower publications increased. The chances of Armageddon occurring that year were initially described as "feasible", "apparent" or "appropriate", but from the end of 1968 it became a mere "possibility". In 1966 the Society characterised the chronological calculations as "trustworthy"; by 1968 it considered them "reasonably accurate (but admittedly not infallible)".[47] The basis of the gradual retraction was uncertainty over the elapsed time between the dates of Adam's creation and that of Eve.
In fact, says Singelenberg, from the end of 1968 Watch Tower Society publications never again explicitly focused on 1975 in a theological context. Though articles continued to remind readers that the "end of 6000 years of human history" was imminent, they increasingly highlighted non-Society sources that forecast a gloomy future with worldwide famine, ecological collapse and oxygen deficiency. The articles, says Singelenberg, featured emotional expressions of excitement, hope and urgency, with readers told: "What a time of turmoil is ahead of us! A climax in man's history is imminent!"[39]
Less-cautious language appeared in publications distributed only to members of the group. In a 1968 issue of the monthly bulletin Kingdom Ministry, adherents were encouraged to increase their preaching activities because time was running out rapidly: "Less than a hundred months separate us from the end of 6000 years of man's history. What can you do in that time?"[48] Some Witnesses sold their possessions, postponed surgery or cashed in their insurance policies to prepare for Armageddon[16] and in May 1974 the Watch Tower Society told members: "Reports are heard of brothers selling their homes and property and planning to finish out the rest of their days in this old system in the pioneer service. Certainly this is a fine way to spend the short time remaining before the wicked world's end."[49]
Talks at congregation meetings and assemblies also disseminated the prophecy. Speakers at some conventions highlighted the phrase "Stay alive till '75" and urged the audience to maintain their meeting attendance or risk losing their lives at Armageddon.[50] The Dutch branch overseer urged the audience at a "Divine Purpose" district convention in 1974 to "pioneer" (take part in full-time preaching) as the end approached:
Many of us have suffered misery, sickness and death. You don't have to experience that any more. The new order is near[...] Sell your house, sell everything you own and say, oh boy, how long can I carry on with my private means. That long? Get rid of things! Pioneer! Plan to shower people with magazines during these last few months of this dying system of things!"[51]
Yet The Watchtower's public coverage of the same series of conventions expressed a far more cautious tone. In its summary of the convention talks, the magazine reiterated the teaching that Bible chronology showed 6000 years of human existence would be completed in the mid-1970s, then pointed out: "These publications have never said that the world's end would come then. Nevertheless, there has been considerable individual speculation on the matter." What was certain, the magazine said, was that the end would come within the generation of those who saw the beginning of world tribulations in 1914. "So we can be confident that the end is near; we do not have the slightest doubt that God will bring it about[...] we have to wait and see exactly when, in the meantime keeping busy in God's service."[52]
Franz says a 1968 Watchtower article implied that members should be careful about taking too literally Jesus' cautionary words about forecasting the last days. The magazine warned: "This is not the time to be toying with the words of Jesus that 'concerning that day and hour nobody knows[...] only the Father'. To the contrary: it is a time when one should be keenly aware that the end of this system of things is rapidly coming to its violent end."[53]
In a 1970 paper, Joseph F. Zygmunt commented on the likely outcome for Jehovah's Witnesses if this prediction, too, failed: "While return to this old strategy would seem to expose the sect once again to prophetic failure, the risks are balanced by the potent ideological reinforcement accruing from this forthright renewal of faith, which thirty-five years of diffuse watchful waiting seem to have made necessary." But he added: "The risks of another prophetic failure actually appear to be minimal. The new prophecy is being phrased in a manner that lends itself to 'confirmation' by the old device of claiming partial supernatural fulfillment."[5] Beckford, too, expected no significant organizational disturbance resulting from the absence of observable effects that year, suggesting in 1975 that Witnesses were being "skilfully prepared for prophetic disconfirmation" to reduce the dangers of disappointment. He noted an increasing frequency of Watch Tower Society warnings about the futility of making precise predictions about events expected for the jubilee year.[54]
Yet Singelenberg, a Dutch social anthropologist, found that – amid the conflict of Watch Tower Society statements from the era about what might happen that year, its sense of urgency on a probable apocalyptic event, and later the possibility of a cataclysm – expectations of a significant event in 1975 had a "startling impact" on the proselytizing activities of Jehovah's Witnesses and on membership growth. His analysis of Watch Tower Society data from the Netherlands showed annual growth of "publishers", which had averaged 2.8 percent annually between 1961 and 1966, leapt to between 10.4 and 12.4 percent from 1967 to 1975, with the number of active Witnesses through the 1970s peaking at almost 28,000 in November 1975.[39]
The number of average annual baptisms in the Netherlands more than doubled, from 750 to 1851, with the ratio of defections to recruitments plummeting. The percentage of "pioneers", Witnesses devoting at least 60 hours a month in preaching work, more than tripled from 2.3 percent of members to almost 8 percent in 1974 and 1975. He also found major increases in the number of "back calls", return visits to interested members of the public who purchased publications, and average hours spent in service by individuals in the same two years.[39]
The passing of 1975 without obvious incident left the Watch Tower Society open to new claims of prophetic failure. Instead of maintaining the prophetic significance of that year, however, the group's leaders embarked on a lengthy period of denial and purge, blaming rank-and-file membership for misreading the organization's interpretations.[16]The Watchtower initially explained that the reason for the failure of Armageddon's arrival was due to the time lapse between the creation of Adam and Eve. Although the Society had earlier argued that the gap was "weeks or months, not years", it now decided the time lapse could, after all, be years.[55]
In 1976 the magazine repeated its explanation, but declared Witnesses themselves to blame for their eager expectations about 1975 because they had misread the Bible.[39] "It was not the word of God that failed or deceived [the individual Jehovah's Witness] and brought disappointment, but[...] his own understanding was based on wrong premises."[56] In talks at conventions four years later, leading members of the Society finally acknowledged their error in the initial formulation of the prophecy, and in the March 15, 1980 Watchtower the Society said its claims about 1975 were regretted.[39] It assigned no different interpretation to the date and demanded that its members recognize that there never was an explicit prophecy.[16]
Singelenberg's analysis of Jehovah's Witness preaching activity in the Netherlands in the wake of the 1975 prophetic failure showed a drop in the group's membership from mid-1976, a trend that did not reverse until 1980. An estimated 5,000 Witnesses in the Netherlands either left the movement, were expelled, or became marginal and inactive members.[39] Singelenberg suggested many of those expelled and shunned in the late 1970s had rebelled against the group's authority structure out of "post-prophecy frustration". Post-1975 defectors were described to him and to American researcher A. J. Brose as "opportunists" who had joined the group out of fear when the end seemed imminent, yet who lacked genuine commitment.[39]
One elder told Singelenberg: "It was good that Armageddon did not take place. It separated the wheat from the chaff."[39] Researcher Mathew N. Schmalz suggested the leadership drew attention from the disconfirmation by requiring an even greater loyalty from members, a demand enforced with the expulsion of almost 30,000 Witnesses in 1978 alone. The insistence on doctrinal orthodoxy reached the highest levels of the organization in 1980, with many in the writing committee disfellowshipped.[16]
In almost every country the annual growth rate of Jehovah's Witnesses fell markedly after the 1975 failure. In the US, the group's growth-rate fell from 6 percent to 2 percent. In South Korea it plummeted from 28 percent to 7 percent and the downward trend continued through to 1978. Even among the majority who remained, morale declined: in 1977 and 1978 the average "publisher" spent 140 hours a year proselytizing, compared to 196.8 hours in 1974.[57]
In his ethnographic study of Jehovah's Witnesses, English sociologist Andrew Holden quoted the testimony of a Witness who had been in the movement from the early 1970s, but found it impossible to remain as an active member after the failure of the 1975 prediction. He said that he, like many others, had been convinced the end would come in 1975:
I said it from the platform! We told everyone the end was near. When I became a Witness I gave up my insurance policies, I cancelled all my insurance endowments, I never bought a house because I knew I wouldn't need one, we didn't even want to put the kids' names down for school.[58]
Many people have noticed that Herbert Armstrong's "God Family" resembles the Mormon version of multiple gods with spouses and children. Armstrong also taught that humans can become as god is. It would seem like Mormons, Armstrong taught to some extent that god has a corporeal body. This essay suggests that Mormon and Adventists in the Midwest cross-communicated and were competing for adherents. There was a Mormon-Adventist sect started by James Strang, whose arguments were likely known to Armstrong.
In the 1970s there was a church that proudly displayed a seal bearing the image of a small child, a lamb and a lion. A church that had built an extravagant auditorium to hold services in, and serve as a cultural center for the surrounding community. This same church ran its own liberal arts college. And it was moving in new directions theologically, raising accusations of "liberalism" from some quarters.
An earlier version of the RLDS seal superimposed behind the church's Modesto, California chapel.
That body was the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Now known as The Community of Christ, this group, headquartered in Independence, Missouri, is the second largest Mormon denomination after the Utah-based LDS church. It has a membership worldwide of some 250,000.
Setting the Scene.
The Worldwide Church of God is a member of the Adventist family of religious groups, separating in the 1930s from the Church of God (Seventh Day). Originally known as the Radio Church of God it quickly became a distinct sect in its own right. The founder, Herbert W. Armstrong, was happy to adopt "truth" from a variety of sources. Is it possible that his borrowings included some from the "Restoration movement" established nearly a century before by Joseph Smith Jr.? And is it possible that there might have been substantial interchange between certain Mormon sects and the Church of God (Seventh Day) prior to Armstrong's separation?
One qualification before proceeding. The term "Mormon" as it is used here does not refer exclusively, or even primarily, to the church headquartered in Salt Lake City. The "restoration movement" has a number of strands, and it is among some of the smaller bodies that interesting convergences with the WCG appear.
WCG pre-history: The Mid-West Connection.
The roots of the WCG lie not in California, but in the American Mid-West. In the 1930s the Church of God (Seventh Day) was headquartered in Missouri. It was here that independent Adventist congregations had rejected the authority of Ellen White (Seventh-day Adventism's prophetess) and coalesced into a denomination. It was also here that another American prophet, Joseph Smith, discovered his "Zion", designating the town of Independence, Missouri as the "Center Place." Smith believed that the original site of the Garden of Eden was to be found in Missouri, and prophesied that when Christ returned, it would be to a temple standing on the Temple Lot in the town of Independence.
Long after Brigham Young led the great trek to Utah, the Mid-West was to continue as the heartland for a less extreme version of Mormonism. Those that rejected Young's iron rule forged a new body, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was to this group that Joseph Smith's immediate family rallied, including his widow Emma and sons. In due course Smith's eldest son, Joseph III, ascended to the church presidency. The younger Smith distanced the church from the controversial Utah body, denouncing polygamy and rejecting the temple rituals practiced in the larger sect.
A much smaller schism formed among the early Latter Day Saints when a number of believers fell under the influence of James Strang. It is among the Strangites and RLDS that some surprising WCG connections may be found.
RLDS Auditorium, completed in the 1950s
The Church Organization Debate.
Those familiar with Herbert Armstrong's autobiography will recollect that the parent body of the Church of God (Seventh Day) split apart over the issue of the correct form of church organization. A dissident group, led by the colorful Andrew Dugger, promulgated a "Bible organization" plan with Apostles (of which there were to be twelve) at the top of a ministerial hierarchy. This presumably would follow the New Testament precedent.
What few writers have noticed, however, is how closely the Dugger doctrine resembled that of the various Mormon sects that were active at that time, and working the same territory in direct competition with the Church of God. These were times of public debates between different Christian groups. A favorite subject was the Sabbath question, and the meetings were a form of entertainment in a time before TV chat shows or talk radio. It was an essential principle of the "Restoration" that the apostolic offices were to be re-established, and that this constituted proof of Mormonism's legitimacy. Both the Utah and Independence bodies have 12 Apostles and lesser offices such as "seventies". Dugger duplicated this. And it would be surprising if there was not interaction, debate and exchange of beliefs between these two very American religious movements, both of which were vigorously promoting themselves. So it seems likely that the Dugger faction lifted the concept of "Bible organization" directly from one of the Restoration sects (probably the RLDS.) And, as we shall see shortly, the Strangites may have borrowed heavily from an Adventist body such as the Church of God.
Armstrong himself later rejected the Dugger innovation (twelve apostles was apparently eleven too many!) However the system of "evangelists" that he later set up was to mimic the Mormon system in some ways.
James Strang
The Sabbath and the Strangites.
Herbert Armstrong borrowed from a wide variety of sources as he cobbled together the unique blend of doctrines and customs that once characterized the Worldwide Church of God. Any uniqueness was however in the blending, and not in the constituent parts, each of which had precedents. For example his key work, The United States and Britain in Prophecy, was a plagiarized rehash of Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright by J. H. Allen, a British-Israel advocate from the early 1900s.
Armstrong was not alone in his promiscuous use of other people's pet theories. James Strang, an early schismatic Mormon leader, was similarly disposed. Falling out with both Brigham Young and the Reorganization, Strang founded a Seventh Day Mormon sect after becoming convinced that the Sabbatarians (the independent Adventists of the Church of God?) had it right.
We believe in the Ten Commandments, including the commandment to "Remember the Sabbath day ... the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," which God gave as a "perpetual" memorial. James J. Strang restored that commandment in 1850 as part of the "Restoration" of all things.
Strang also speculated on the Old Testament sacrificial system, and the Old Testament law. While it seems unlikely that Armstrong borrowed directly from the Strangites (who now prefer to be known as Great Lakes Mormons) he would certainly have known of them. This takes on added significance when the origins of the God Family doctrine are considered; long considered to have much in common with the Mormon understanding of the Godhead. Could Armstrong have flinched his "anthropomorphic" doctrine (that God has a spiritual body, complete with body parts) from James Strang's Mormon cult? And what about the now abandoned teaching that "the incredible human potential" is to "become God as God is God." Both resonate with Joseph Smith's doctrines.
(The RLDS tradition has abandoned the plurality of God teachings and now holds a position much closer to mainstream Christianity.)
Later Cross Pollination.
For those who were members of the WCG during the 1970s and 80s the church was characterized by more than just distinctive doctrines. We shunned the use of the cross as a symbol (as did the Mormon sects.) Instead there was wide use of "The Peaceable Kingdom" motif from Isaiah: a lion, a lamb and a small child (as with the RLDS.) These symbols were adopted on the church's seal (as with the RLDS.) And then there was an extravagant auditorium that served as a focus for the church (as with the RLDS.) Then there was the church's Ambassador College, supposedly a liberal arts institution (and yes, the RLDS had one of those too, Graceland College, so named long before Elvis strummed his first guitar chord.)
Present Community of Christ seal
Even the period of "liberalism" - a brief Indian Summer of relative sanity in the late seventies (often associated with the Systematic Theology Project) - was prefigured in a reform movement within the RLDS church that began in the sixties. By the seventies the Reorganized Mormons had already made a transition from the far fringes of Christianity toward the moderate mainstream.
The RLDS transition, although painful to many members and leading to some decline in numbers, was less frenzied and destructive than the reforms that later shattered the WCG when the ham-fisted Tkach administration decided to return to a reforming agenda. The RLDS church has been careful to pace its reforms, and retain key elements of its distinctive history and culture.
It is interesting to note that WCG apostle-in-waiting Garner Ted Armstrong was very familiar with the Reorganized Mormons. He has related how, in the early years of his ministry he had RLDS neighbors which he "compared notes" with. And one of his closest ministerial hunting buddies was raised in the RLDS church before converting to Armstrongism.
Imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery. Could it be that the Reorganization copied Worldwide rather than the reverse? The RLDS seal dates back well before the WCG's adoption of the symbols - it has undergone many redesigns over the decades, but all recognizably based on the Peaceable Kingdom. The RLDS auditorium was envisioned in the 1920s and completed in the 1950s. Graceland College (now Graceland University) has been around since 1895. In every case it was the WCG which seems to have appropriated the older church's distinctive traits. It seems almost as though the Reorganization may have served as some kind of template for the WCG at certain times in its history. Perhaps a past generation of WCG leaders saw the Reorganization as, at the time, a successful example of a sect making the transition to respectability and stability.
RLDS scholar Wayne Ham, in an essay discussing the more obscure Mormon schisms, recounts one example of "contamination" between the two groupings, Mormonism and the Church of God:
Then there's Doug Boyd, a self-proclaimed prophet, who was reared on a diet of Worldwide Church of God ideas, so he celebrates all of the Jewish holy days. He comes to town [i.e. Independence, Missouri] for every major Jewish festival to stand on the Temple Lot and proclaim his prophecies.
(Wayne Ham. Center Place Saints. Published in Restoration Studies III, Herald House 1986)
Conclusion
No man is an island. Nor, apparently, is a sect. It seems that the Mormon and Church of God traditions have been influencing one another in the American Mid-West for a very long time. And it may also be that, at some stages in the WCG's history, there was some conscious modeling on the Reorganized Church. It seems somehow fitting that, with the crumbling of Armstrongism and the shedding of its one-time distinctives, that the Reorganization seems to be left in sole possession of those things that were originally theirs.
Today the RLDS church has completed a new step in its journey. It is now known as the Community of Christ. For many years the Presidency of the church was reserved for direct descendants of Joseph Smith. Its current president has no such lineage. Many Community of Christ congregations seem similar to mainstream Christian churches. The Book of Mormon has been de-emphasized, and many church members regard it as uninspired. The church ordains women and in its Lord's Supper observance practices open communion. Its leadership is regarded as more liberal than evangelical (most of the fundamentalists have left.) Like the WCG it is a fascinating study in the sociology of religion.
Herbert Armstrong always denied that he had ever been a Seventh-Day Adventist. While this is true, it is also a deflection from the larger truth that Armstrong had indeed been an Adventist, only of a different kind. Herbert had been a preacher for the Adventist sect Church of God (Seventh Day). Armstrong was disfellowshiped for promoting British-Israelism and promoting the keeping of Old Testament feast days.
A well-publicized member of the church was evangelist Herbert W. Armstrong (1893–1986). In 1927 Armstrong was challenged by his wife, Loma, to find a biblical justification for keeping Sunday as the Christian Sabbath. Loma had come under the influence of Emma Runcorn, a member of the Seventh Day church in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Runcorn and her husband Ora were lay leaders in the Oregon conference. Armstrong soon became a minister for that church and a writer for the Bible Advocate journal. Within a few years, Armstrong began teaching the British-Israel Theory – the alternative history that regarded the nations of Western Europe and North America as the literal descendants of the "Lost Ten Tribes" of Israel – and the mandatory keeping of the Feast Days in Leviticus 23. Armstrong disassociated himself from the Church of God (7th Day) - Salem Conference over these two issues, which were not original doctrines of the Churches of God (7th Day); years later, Church of God (7th Day) revoked his ministerial credentials with their Church, but by this time he was well-established in his own church, the Radio Church of God.[8]
After Herbert Armstrong died, the Worldwide Church of God discontinued its teachings on British-Israelism. Many groups broke off, including Herbert Armstrong's son Ted, and founded British-Israelist congregations. These include the Philadelphia Church of God, the Living Church of God, Church of God, International, and the United Church of God. No matter how small these cults are, they may have a place in world politics, even micro-cults can be dangerous and have great influence and power. Armstrong himself was friends with many world leaders and was extremely rich and well-publicized. I do not know what these breakoff churches believe about the Jews, Israel, Freemasonry, and the like.
Beginning in the 1960s, the teaching of British Israelism was vigorously promoted by Herbert W. Armstrong,[13]: 57 founder and Pastor General of the Worldwide Church of God. Armstrong believed that the teaching was key to the understanding of biblical prophecy: "One might ask, were not biblical prophecies closed and sealed? Indeed they were—until now! And even now they can be understood only by those who possess the master key to unlock them."[68] Armstrong believed that God commanded him to proclaim the prophecies to the Lost Tribes of Israel before the "end-times".[69][unreliable source?] Armstrong's belief caused his separation from the Church of God Seventh Day because of its refusal to adopt the teaching.
Armstrong founded his own church, first named the "Radio Church of God" and later renamed the "Worldwide Church of God".[69] He described British Israelism as a "central plank" of his theology.[70]
After Armstrong's death, his former church abandoned its belief in British Israelism and in 2009, it changed its name to Grace Communion International (GCI). It offers an explanation for the doctrine's origin as well as an explanation for the church's renunciation of the doctrine on its official website.[69] Church members who refused to accept these doctrinal changes left the Worldwide Church of God/GCI and founded their own offshoot churches. Many of these organizations still teach British Israelism, among them are the Philadelphia Church of God, the Living Church of God, and the United Church of God. Armstrong promoted other genealogical history theories, such as the belief that modern-day Germany represents ancient Assyria (see Assyria and Germany in Anglo-Israelism), writing, "The Assyrians settled in central Europe, and the Germans, undoubtedly, are, in part, the descendants of the ancient Assyrians.".[71]
CGI was founded in 1978 by four former members of the Worldwide Church of God,[2] including evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong (1930-2003)[3] after his father, Herbert W. Armstrong, excommunicated him from the WCG and fired him from all roles in the church over disagreements about operations and certain doctrinal positions. CGI established its headquarters in Tyler, Texas, and also founded the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.[4]
British Israelism
CGI asserts a belief in British Israelism. This belief is not used to assert racial or ethnic superiority, but solely to interpret End Time prophecies which are believed to be directed at the United States and Europe.
