Worldwide Church of God
Worldwide Church of God
Official Name: Grace Communion International
Estimated Membership: 75,000 worldwide
Leader: Joseph W. Tkach Jr.
Headquarters: Pasadena, California
Radio Church of God
On January 7, 1934, the Radio Church of God radio program began broadcasting on KORE in Eugene with Armstrong as host. It was essentially a condensed church service on the air, with hymn singing featured along with Armstrong’s message. This was the launching point for what would become Worldwide Church of God.
Armstrong moved to Pasadena, California, and he officially incorporated his church first on March 3, 1946 as the Radio Church of God. He wrote that the apocalypse would begin in 1936, later postponed to 1943, then 1972, then indefinitely. These prophecies each attracted many new members into the fold and garnered Armstrong much-needed attention to grow his church, which eventually outgrew his simple radio program.
Worldwide Established
On January 5, 1968, the corporate name of the church was changed to Worldwide Church of God as it transitioned from a remote radio-base church to forming real congregations across the world. Members began to meet for the ‘Feast of Tabernacles’ and other versions of Jewish holy festivals as translated by Armstrong to modern-day western parlance. It was headquartered in Pasadena, California and was for decades until the organization’s collapse and transformation in the mid 90s.
Governmental Structure
In Worldwide, Herbert W. Armstrong was the undisputed leader. Answering to him were the Evangelists, and answering to them the Regional Pastors, who oversaw the Speaking Ministers, who oversaw the Elders who looked after the Decons. WCG instituted what current and former members refer to as ‘one-man rule’, and disputes over whether to copy this idea in WCG’s splinter groups caused many more splits in their wake.
Today, Grace Communion International has a hierarchical structure. The ecclesiastical policies are determined by the Advisory Council of Elders. Members of the Advisory Council are appointed by the President. The President, who also holds the title of Pastor General, is chief executive and ecclesiastical officer of the denomination.
The Church maintains national offices and satellite offices in multiple countries. Pastor General Joseph Tkach, Jr. periodically travels worldwide in personal appearance campaigns to congregations in diverse intercontinental areas, such as Great Britain, Africa, and the Philippines. However, membership and tithe income originates primarily from the eastern United States.
In the United States, denominational contact with local assemblies or local church home small group meetings, i.e. cell churches, is facilitated by district superintendents, each of which is responsible for a large number of churches in a geographical region (such as Florida or the Northeast) or in a specialized language group (such as Spanish-speaking congregations).
Local churches were led by a senior pastor, pastoral leadership team (with one person designated as a congregational pastoral leader), each of which is supervised by a district pastoral leader. Some senior pastors are responsible for a single local church, but many are responsible for working in two or more churches. Salary compensation for the paid local church pastor, if available, is determined by the local church.
Most local church groups retain the long-standing traditional policy of meeting in leased or rented facilities for meetings or services. The trend since 2000, however, has been to adopt a local church setting blending into the local milieu with headquarters retaining administrative oversight functions. As of 2005, the church established a new computer system of financial checks and balances for church budgets at the local level. Also, GCI now mandates a local Advisory Council, which includes a number of volunteer ministry leaders (some of whom are also called deacons), and often additional elders or assistant pastors.
Youth Programs
YES
The sabbath school programs run by WCG were called YES, and children were taught after services, often by pastors or their wives, out of thin paper readers explaining in simple terms the teachings of Armstrong along with basic Bible stories. Frequently there were games and coloring opportunities, all intended interest young children in learning church doctrines. The program had different levels for K-7 with progressive complexity and maturity of the lessons.
YOU
WCG’s youth bible and sabbath school program was known as YOU, and was geared towards teens. It also was connected to a series of youth camps throughout the world for WCG teens. These were often summer camps peppered with Bible studies and other religious discussions and lectures.
Influence and Media Presence
The World Tomorrow Radio Program
The World Tomorrow radio broadcast was the original broadcast that launched the Radio Church of God, and was hosted by Herbert W. Armstrong for years. The programs originated daily in a half-hour format, primarily from a studio located on the campus of Ambassador College. Other studios were located at Ambassador College, Bricket Wood, Herts, England and Ambassador College at Big Sandy, Texas.
The World Tomorrow Television Broadcast - There were two eras of The World Tomorrow on television. The first era featured Herbert W. Armstrong speaking from a Hollywood sound stage in the 1950s before the advent of videotape when all syndicated programs had to be recorded on film. The original series was shown on a portion of the ABC Television Network for half an hour, once a week in black and white.
The second era began in the 1970s and lasted well into 1980s. The presenter was originally Garner Ted Armstrong and then following his departure from his father’s church, Herbert W. Armstrong resumed the presentation. The thrust of the broadcasts was largely to present how current events in the world tied into the church’s views of Biblical prophecies. Both the radio and televisions of The World Tomorrow invariably informed their audience how to receive the church’s magazine, The Plain Truth, the content of which was largely similar to that of the broadcasts.
Following Armstrong’s death in 1986, the television program was presented by David Hulme, David Albert, Richard Ames and Ronald Kelley on a rotating basis until 1994 when doctrinal shifts in the Worldwide Church of God and declining revenues led to the program’s cancellation.
The Plain Truth Magazine
WCG’s flagship publication was The Plain Truth Magazine. The Plain Truth began to evolve into a standard size monthly publication which eventually gained the outside look and feel of a high-quality magazine which appeared similar to both TIME, Newsweek and US News and World Report. Eventually several million copies of this magazine were distributed free of charge each year in several languages by free subscription offers over the airwaves; by double page advertisements in such publications as Reader’s Digest and from street corner racks.
The editorial content of The Plain Truth magazine was anything but that of a mainstream news magazine, although its masthead proclaimed that it was “A magazine of understanding.” The editorial was written under the name of Herbert W. Armstrong as publisher, but the features were usually written by graduates from one of the three Ambassador Colleges. Other contents included a world wide radio and later television log for The World Tomorrow program, which at its peak reflected the largest purchases of airtime on broadcasting and cable stations by any independent broadcasting organization anywhere in the world.
At its height in the mid-1980s The Plain Truth had a monthly circulation of eight million in seven languages, including English, German from August 1961, French from June 1963, Spanish from 1968, Dutch from 1968, Italian from July 1982 and Norwegian from February 1984.
The Plain Truth magazine is now published by Plain Truth Ministries, which has no connection to Armstrongist teaching or the Worldwide Church of God. Plain Truth Ministries deliberately chose to maintain the name of the magazine, as it represents an acknowledgement of its history and its doctrinal reform.
Congregations and Membership
WCG had congregations literally all over the world, their evangelical efforts and media voice spurned forward by its vast wealth. At its peak, it had hundreds of thousands of members throughout the world, and was a force to be reckoned with in the religious world. The more power WCG became, the more criticism it garnered from mainstream evangelists such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. The church was so large that single cities had multiple congregations of hundreds of people, which today would seem unheard of in any of the splinter groups.
Armstrong frequently made overseas trips, spending a lot of tithe donations to score major photo opportunities with major world leaders, most of whom didn’t know who Armstrong was. Yet the pictures were sent back to Worldwide and published, the meetings hailed by the ministry and membership as Armstrong ‘doing God’s work and preaching the gospel to the nations’. WCG was also mentioned by then Vice President George Bush during a speech.
Influence on Mainstream Christianity
Armstrong’s teachings regarding the End Times have affected mainstream Christianity and have increased the popularity of the coming ‘Kingdom of God’ among Evangelicals and Pentacostals, along with the ideas of the rapture and other concepts that have begun to saturate mainstream Christianity since Armstrong’s death.
1975 in Prophecy
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 1952, The World Tomorrow began to air on Radio Luxembourg, making it possible to hear the program throughout much of Europe. The beginning of the European broadcast provides the context of a booklet published in 1956 called 1975 in Prophecy! This controversial book provided Armstrong’s vision of what the world would look like by 1975 – featuring illustrations of mass burials and tidal waves destroying cities. Overall he thought that World War III and Christ’s return was at the doorstep, probably to occur within his lifetime—to him a joyous truth, as the Bible describes a utopia to 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.
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 his church would be taken to a place of protection, or “place of safety” — possibly Petra in Jordan. 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. From the place of safety they would continue the work and prepare to help Christ establish Utopia upon His return.
Related Resources*
Grace Communion International Home Page
Wikipedia: Herbert W. Armstrong
Wikipedia: Radio Church of God
Wikipedia: Worldwide Church of God
Wikipedia: Joseph W. Tkach Sr.
Wikipedia: Joseph W. Tkach Jr.
BlogSpot: Worldwide Church of God
*Please note that Silenced does not endorse the content of these sites. This is merely additional information for educational purposes to make the public aware of how these cults present themselves so their scams can be more easily identified.
