The Bible calls the devil the "god
of this world."
What does this mean, and who is this mysterious being?
Did God create him? The answers will surprise you!
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RCG claims to retain the tenets, style, and structure of the earlier WCG before Armstrong's death in 1986.
Foundation
RCG was formed in May 1999, in the midst of ongoing upheaval in the
wake of a departure from WCG's previously established beliefs. It is
based in
Wadsworth, Ohio.
RCG's founder and leader is David C. Pack (born 1948). As Pastor
General of The Restored Church of God, David C. Pack oversees the
operations of the church.
He attended
Ambassador College and entered WCG's ministry in 1971.
Following the 1995 schism in WCG, Pack became a minister in the
Global Church of God,
but was fired on May 3, 1999, and went on to establish his own church.
Since then, he has established over 50 congregations, authored more than
20 books, written hundreds of booklets and articles,
[1] and appeared on
The History Channel.
[2]
The official church attendance is claimed to be in the thousands,
[3] but no solid numbers have ever been published.
Doctrines
RCG's doctrines are very similar to those of WCG before Armstrong's death, adhering to what critics often refer to as
Armstrongism, which includes belief in the impending
Apocalypse followed by the
millennial reign of
Jesus Christ on Earth, along with
Old Testament dietary provisions,
tithing, observance of
seventh-day Sabbath, bans on festivals with pagan roots like
Christmas and
Easter and most of Herbert W. Armstrong's other teachings.
Herbert W. Armstrong (31 July 1892 – 16 January 1986) founded the
Worldwide Church of God in the late 1930s, as well as
Ambassador College
(later Ambassador University) in 1946, and was an early pioneer of
radio and tele-evangelism, originally taking to the airwaves in the
1930s from
Eugene, Oregon.
Armstrong preached an eclectic set of theological doctrines and teachings that he claimed came directly from the Bible.
[3]
These theological doctrines and teachings have been referred to as
Armstrongism.
His teachings included the interpretation of biblical
prophecy in light of
British Israelism,
[4] and required observance of parts of the covenant Law including
seventh-day Sabbath, dietary prohibitions, and the covenant law "
Holy Days".
Armstrong proclaimed that behind world events during his lifespan
loomed various Biblical prophecies, and that he was called by God as an '
Apostle' and end-time '
Elijah' to proclaim the Gospel of
God's
Kingdom to the World
[5] before the
return of Jesus Christ.
He also founded the
Ambassador International Cultural Foundation, which promoted the arts, humanities, and humanitarian projects.
[6]
Through his role with the foundation, Armstrong and his advisers met
with heads of governments in various nations, for which he described
himself as an "ambassador without portfolio for world peace."
[7]
| Herbert W. Armstrong |
|---|
Armstrong in the mid-70's
|
| Born |
July 31, 1892
Des Moines, Iowa, U.S. |
| Died |
January 16, 1986 (aged 93)
Pasadena, California, U.S. |
|
Cause of death
|
Heart conditions, Anemia |
|
Resting place
|
Altadena, California |
| Residence |
Pasadena, CA, Tucson, AZ |
| Education |
Attended North High School in Des Moines[1][2] |
| Occupation |
Evangelist
author |
| Known for |
Radio evangelism
founding the Worldwide Church of God |
| Title |
Pastor General of the Worldwide Church of God (1946-1986) |
| Successor |
Joseph W. Tkach |
| Spouse(s) |
Loma Dillon (m. 1917–67)
Ramona Martin (1977-1984, divorced) |
| Children |
4 with Loma (Beverly, Dorothy, Richard David, Garner Ted) |
| Parents |
Horace Elon Armstrong
Eva Wright Armstrong |
| Relatives |
Dwight L. Armstrong (1904-1984), brother |
Early life
Herbert Armstrong was born in
Des Moines, Iowa, on July 31, 1892, into a
Quaker family.
He regularly attended the services and the Sunday school of First Friends Church in Des Moines.
[1]
At age 18, on the advice of an uncle, he decided to take a job in the want-ad department of a Des Moines newspaper, the
Daily Capital.
[8]
His early career in the print advertising industry which followed had a
strong impact on his future ministry and would shape his communication
style.
[9]
On a trip back home in 1917, he met Loma Dillon, a school teacher and distant cousin from nearby Motor, Iowa.
[10]
They married on his 25th birthday, July 31, 1917, and returned to live in Chicago.
[11]
On May 9, 1918, they had their first child, Beverly Lucile, and on July
7, 1920, a second daughter, Dorothy Jane.
In 1924, after several
business setbacks, Armstrong and family moved to Eugene, Oregon where
his parents lived at the time.
While living in Oregon, they had two
sons, Richard David (born October 13, 1928) and
Garner Ted (born February 9, 1930).
Armstrong continued in the advertising business despite the setbacks.
[12]
Beginnings of ministry
During their stay in Oregon, his wife, Loma, became acquainted with a member of the
Church of God (Seventh Day),
Emma Runcorn.
Emma and her husband O.J. were lay leaders in the Oregon
conference of the Church of God, Seventh Day, a seventh-day-keeping
Adventist group that rejected the authority of
Ellen White and her teachings.
Loma became persuaded the Bible taught
Sabbath observance on Saturday, the seventh day, one of the beliefs of that church.
[12]
Her assertion of this to her husband was met with dismay and appeared to him to be "religious fanaticism."
[13]
She challenged him to find biblical support for Sunday observance.
As
his business was struggling against larger competitors, Armstrong had
the time to take up this challenge.
He began what would become a
lifelong habit of intensive, lengthy Bible study sessions.
He soon felt
God
was inspiring this, opening his mind to truths that historical
Christian churches had not found or accepted.
Shortly after, as related
in his autobiography, Armstrong would take up a similar study on the
topic of
evolution of the species after a conflict with his sister-in-law.
[14]
His studies on Sabbath and evolution convinced him that his wife was right, and that the theory of evolution was false.
He was eventually baptized, along with his brother
Dwight L. Armstrong, in the summer of 1927 by Dr. Dean, the
non-Sabbatarian pastor of Hinson Memorial Baptist Church in
Portland, Oregon.
[15]
It is unknown, however, if he ever joined this denomination.
[16]
He would later recollect over four decades later that he believed, "On being baptized I
knew God then and there gave me HIS HOLY SPIRIT!"
[17]
Despite his own unique teaching on
baptism his own account is noteworthy for the absence of any mention of the process of
laying on of hands or a special prayer in the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, which were considered fundamental for membership in the
Worldwide Church of God and reason for many a new convert's
rebaptism.
[18]
In 1931 Armstrong became an ordained minister of the Oregon Conference of the Church of God (Seventh Day).
[15][19]
The existence and history of this church became a significant factor in Armstrong's later beliefs.
[20][21]
While a member of The Church of God (Seventh Day), Armstrong became
acquainted with ministers John Kiesz and Israel Hager who began to
suspect that Herbert was a little too arrogant and tended to go against
church doctrine.
They cited Armstrong's refusal to submit to the Church
of God ministers to be baptized but went out to a local Baptist minister
instead as a point.
After his ordination, Armstrong allied himself with
two other rogue ministers by the names of Andrew Dugger and C. O. Dodd,
both of which had composed a book called
A History of the True Religion, from 33 AD to Date,
in which they claimed that the New Testament Church of the first
century had secretly descended through history and eventually became the
Sabbath-keeping Church of God (Seventh Day).
Dugger also predicted that
the apocalypse would occur in 1936. Eventually, this led to Dugger and
Dodd's ouster and when they promised to make Armstrong an apostle in
their new church, The Church of God (Seventh Day), he joined with them.
[16]
After severing ties with the Church of God (Seventh Day) as the result of doctrinal disputes, he began to teach a form of
British Israelism, which would later make up his book
The United States and Britain in Prophecy.
[22]
His ministerial credentials with Dugger's church were revoked in 1938.
[15] This, Armstrong believed, indicated God was now directing him in leading a revived work into the next "church era."
[21]
Radio and publishing
In October 1933, a small 100-watt radio station in Eugene, Oregon,
KORE, offered free time to Armstrong for a morning devotional, a 15-minute time slot shared by other local ministers.
[23]
After positive responses from listeners, the station owner let
Armstrong start a new program of his own.
On the first Sunday in 1934,
the Radio Church of God first aired.
[24]
These broadcasts eventually became known as
The World Tomorrow of the future Worldwide Church of God.
[25]
Shortly thereafter, in February, 1934, Armstrong began the publication of
The Plain Truth, which started out as a church bulletin.
[24]
It was at this time that Armstrong began to make prophetic claims and
among them were the claims that Hitler and Mussolini were the prophesied
Beast and False Prophet of the Book of Revelation who would deceive the
nations for a short time just before the return of Jesus Christ.
This
piqued the interest of his audience.
The broadcast expanded to other
cities, and in 1942 began to be broadcast nationwide from
WHO of Des Moines Iowa, a 50,000-watt superstation.
[25]
Donations began to pour in, and although he claimed to be very poor at
the time in his autobiography, other members of the Oregon Church of God
later reported that they would often see Armstrong dining in Portland's
finest restaurants as they passed by outside.
[16]
Critics point to statements in his early writings that proved to be inaccurate.
[26]
For example, a statement from a lead article in the February 1939 edition of
The Plain Truth, about a coming world war, said this:
By way of brief review of previous articles, and radio messages,
notice, first, that this war will involve ALL nations. It will be the
first real world war. Secondly, it will center around Jerusalem....And
thirdly, this war will END with the Second Coming of Christ![27]
From his new contacts in Los Angeles, Armstrong began to realize the
potential for reaching a much larger audience.
He searched for a
suitable location and chose Pasadena, California, as being ideal as it
was a conservative residential community.
During this time, Armstrong
also reflected on starting a college to aid the growing church, by
teaching and training young men and women.
Hence, in 1946 Armstrong
moved his headquarters from Eugene to Pasadena and on March 3, 1946, the
Radio Church of God was officially incorporated within the state of
California.
[25]
He purchased a lavish mansion on Millionaires row just off of the Rose
Parade route on Orange Grove Boulevard, quickly acquired his own
printing plant, and was broadcasting internationally in prime-time radio
time slots.
On October 8, 1947, his new college, Ambassador College
opened its doors with four students.
[25]
International expansion
During the 1950s and 1960s, the church continued to expand and the
radio program was broadcast in England, Australia, the Philippines,
Latin America, and Africa.
In 1953,
The World Tomorrow began to air on
Radio Luxembourg, making it possible to hear the program throughout much of
Europe.
[25]
The beginning of the European broadcast provides the context of a booklet published in 1956 called
1975 in Prophecy!
In this book Armstrong put forward a controversial vision of what the
world could look like by 1975 - featuring illustrations of mass burials
and tidal waves destroying cities.
[28]
Overall he thought that
World War III
and Christ's glorious return were at the doorstep and that world peace
and utopia would follow. Armstrong believed that God had exciting plans
for mankind that would see the end of such wars—though the message went
far beyond an earthly utopia.
[29]
Several books and booklets focused on the key events that would
signal the imminence of Christ's return, and taught of a specific
end-time prophecy to be fulfilled, manifested in the form of European
peacekeeping forces surrounding Jerusalem, at which time God's Church
would be taken to a place of protection, or "place of safety" — possibly
Petra in
Jordan.
[15]
World War III was predicted to be triggered by a "
United States of Europe" led by
Germany which would destroy both the
United States of America and the
United Kingdom.
[30]
From the place of safety they would continue the work and prepare to help
Christ establish
Utopia upon His return.
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.
[31]
This was his teaching despite his father's death in 1933 after 'an all-night vigil of prayer.'
[32]
This teaching has been the cause of much controversy as individuals influenced by such teachings came to die.
[33]
The book
The United States and Britain in Prophecy was
published in 1954.
It became the most well known and requested church
publication, with over six million copies distributed.
[34] In this book, Armstrong makes the claim that the peoples of the United States, the
British Commonwealth nations, and the nations of Northwestern Europe are descendants of the
Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
[35]
This belief, called
British Israelism, formed the central basis of the theology of the Worldwide Church of God.
[36]
Franz Josef Strauss,
a major politician in post WWII Germany, became the target of the
broadcasting and publishing media blitz that Armstrong unleashed upon
Europe through the daily offshore
pirate radio station broadcasts by his son
Garner Ted Armstrong,
The Plain Truth and the
Ambassador College campus at
Bricket Wood in
Hertfordshire, England.
Strauss was portrayed as being the coming
Führer
who would lead a United States of Europe into a prophetic and
victorious future World War III against the US and UK at some time
between 1972 and 1975.
In 1971, Strauss played along with the prophetic
interest shown in him as Herbert W. Armstrong recalled in a 1983 letter:
"I entertained him at dinner in my home in Pasadena, and he spoke to
the faculty and students of Ambassador College. I have maintained
contact with him."
[37] Strauss also appeared in an interview on
The World Tomorrow television program.
The volume of literature requests for material written by Armstrong
continued to grow during the 1960s and 70s, and the literature was
translated into several languages and distributed to a worldwide
audience.
They were distributed for free "as a public service."
The Plain Truth magazine continued to be published and circulated, eventually reaching a monthly press run of eight million.
On April 15, 1967, Armstrong's wife, Loma, died; three and a half
months before their 50th anniversary. Before she died he sent a
co-worker letter that has often been criticized for its harsh tone to
'failing' members and calls for more money.
[38]
Worldwide Church of God
On January 5, 1968, the Radio Church of God was renamed the Worldwide Church of God.
[39]
Shortly before, the church began to broadcast a television version of
The World Tomorrow.
[25]
The program would eventually expand to 382 US television stations, and
36 television outlets internationally, dwarfing televangelists
Jerry Falwell,
Jimmy Swaggart,
Oral Roberts, and
Jim Bakker.
[40]
By this time,
Garner Ted Armstrong,
the son of Herbert W. Armstrong, was the voice and face of the program.
It was speculated that with his charisma and personality, he was the
logical successor to Armstrong, but doctrinal disagreements and
widespread reports of extramarital sex led to his suspension in 1972. "
[15][41]
After initially changing his behavior he returned, but these issues
resurfaced, coupled with his challenging his father's authority as
Pastor General, resulting in him being permanently "disfellowshipped"
(the church's term for
excommunication) in 1978.
[42]
Final years
In 1977 Armstrong, then in his 80s, married Ramona Martin, then 38, a
long-time member and church secretary who had a 15-year old son from a
previous marriage.
[50]
The controversial marriage would last for only a few years.
The
Armstrongs separated in 1982 with Herbert Armstrong returning to live in
Pasadena full-time, and the marriage finally ended in divorce in 1984.
[51]
During pre-trial proceedings in the divorce case, Armstrong's lawyers
had sought to limit evidence of a sexual nature regarding his prior
incestuous conduct but his wife's attorneys said "it was crucial since
the church leader alleged Mrs. Armstrong had breached an agreement of
love and fidelity."
[52]
In his latter years, Armstrong stated that he did not know whether or
not Christ would return in his lifetime but did know, based on the
sequence of events in the Bible, that the Lord's return was approaching.
He had long written of his belief that the primary sign to look for
would be some sort of dissolving of the Eastern Bloc alliance under
Soviet control, followed by those nations' subsequent incorporation into an eastern leg of a United States of Europe.
[28]
In August 1985, Armstrong's final work,
Mystery of the Ages, was published. He wrote that "time may prove this to be the most important book written in almost 1,900 years"
[53]-
and called it a "synopsis of the Bible in the most plain and
understandable language."
It was more or less a compendium of
theological concepts, as articulated by Armstrong, which included the
notion that God deliberately coded the bible "so that it would not be
understood until our modern time"
[54]-.
In September 1985, with his failing health widely known, Armstrong delivered his final sermon on the
Feast of Trumpets in the
Ambassador Auditorium.
He spent his final days confined at his home on the college campus in Pasadena, California, on South Orange Grove Boulevard.
Almost until his final days, there was uncertainty about who would
succeed Armstrong in the event of his death.
The church's Advisory
Council of Elders, acting on a clause in church by-laws added in 1981,
was to select a successor after his death,
[55]
yet Armstrong reportedly worried about the ramifications if certain
individuals, such as his son Garner Ted or evangelist Roderick Meredith
were selected.
[56][57]
Finally, Armstrong opted to select the next Pastor General personally.
[56]
Armstrong told the Church's Advisory Council of Elders of his decision
to appoint evangelist-rank minister Joseph W. Tkach on January 7, 1986.
[58]
Tkach had worked closely with former church executive Stanley R. Rader
prior to Rader's retirement from active service with the Church, and had
been ordained to the ministerial rank of evangelist along with Rader
and Ellis LaRavia in 1979.
Only nine days after naming Tkach as his successor, Armstrong died
shortly before 6:00 a.m. on January 16, 1986, at the age of 93.
[59]
Approximately 4,000 people attended his funeral, including a number of World political figures.
He was buried in
Altadena's
Mountain View Cemetery between Loma and his mother, Eva Wright
Armstrong. Long-time church member and one of the first graduates of
Ambassador College, Evangelist Herman L. Hoeh officiated at the
graveside service and Tkach gave the closing prayer.
Source:Wikipedia
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