WILD WORLD 
OF RELIGION Field Guide to the

This material is part of a Field Guide profile of The Worldwide Church of God (WCG) Under Founder Herbert Armstrong. Click here to go to the main page of the WCG profile.

This installment of the Memoir is Part 1 of a 4-Part series.
 

 

Contents: (Click on a section to jump to it)

Introduction

Bibliography

Part One: The "Pre-Tribulation Period"

 

Introduction

Matt 24:21

For then shall be great tribulation,
such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time,
no, nor ever shall be.

 

In 1953, Ambassador College thinker Herman Hoeh thought up an idea that really grabbed the attention of Radio Church of God (and Ambassador College) founder Herbert Armstrong.

Here is how Armstrong explained it to his supporters in a "Co-Worker Letter" 5/22/53:

Listen now to an ASTOUNDING fact! God has set TIME running in cycles of 19 years. Just once every 19 years the days, divided by the sun; the months, divided by the new moons; and the years, divided by the revolution of the earth around the sun, all come into exact conjunction. Thus God's NATURE runs in 19-year cycles. That is important. Now see what has happened.

It took just ONE COMPLETE CYCLE of 19 years for this work to grow from nothing until it carried the very Gospel of Jesus all over the North American continent in mighty POWER! That 19-year cycle ended, and the second 19-year cycle began, during the first quarter of this present year, 1953!

The very start of the second 19-year cycle marked the beginning of proclaiming this Gospel to ALL EUROPE and THE BRITISH ISLES! It must still go to Asia, Africa, South America, and Australia. WHEN it has spanned the world, THEN the END OF THE WORLD shall come! The disciples asked Jesus WHEN this world would end, and His second coming occur. He said THIS Gospel shall go around the world, and THEN shall the end come!

Now HERE IS SOMETHING STARTLING! Herman Hoeh, in his eye-opening article you will read in the June number of The PLAIN TRUTH on the Times of the Gentiles shows that the Times of the Gentiles---if chronologies are correct---will come to their final end in the year 1982. Very few have ever rightly understood the Times of the Gentiles---what they are, or when they end. They are to last until all the Gentile nations come to ACKNOWLEDGE that God is the real RULER over all nations and men. They will not acknowledge that when Christ first comes. Instead, they shall fight against Him---at Armageddon---and resist His rule. Christ shall rebuke strong nations afar off UNTIL (Moffatt translation) they recognize these truths. Christ will have to send famine, and then plagues, in successive YEARS, upon the Egyptians, before they will acknowledge Him as rightful RULER (Zech. 14).

Now if this chronology is correct, that means Christ shall return some very few years PRIOR to 1982! NO MAN KNOWS THE DAY, HOUR, OR YEAR OF CHRIST'S RETURN. But we CAN know exact dates of one or two other events. Jesus also still has to complete the confirming of the COVENANT---the NEW Covenant---with Israel for 3 1/2 years after He comes, according to the prophecy of Daniel's "70 weeks." (Dan. 9:24-27). The last half of that 70th "week" (actual 7 years) remains to be fulfilled after Christ's return. He was "cut off" by being crucified after 3 1/2 years of confirming the covenant (Rom. 15:8 and Dan. 9:27). We do not know, however, whether this last 3 1/2 years to take place after Christ's coming will coincide with the period required for the Gentile nations to come to acknowledge Christ as WORLD RULER.

Then, besides, there are two other 3 1/2-year periods prophesied to occur prior to Christ's coming. The first of these begins with the invasion of America and Britain in World War 3. THEREFORE we have a TOTAL OF THREE 3 1/2-year periods, or 10 1/2 years, which MUST occur between the invasion of America and the ending of the Times of the Gentiles. The invasion of the United States with HYDROGEN-bombs that shall destroy our cities, therefore, must BEGIN at least 10 1/2 years PRIOR to the ending of the Times of the Gentiles! IF THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES END IN 1982, in October, as Mr. Hoeh has it figured, THE INVASION OF AMERICA AND THE GREAT TRIBULATION MUST BEGIN NOT LATER THAT MARCH-APRIL, 1972!

It could begin sooner. This date is hypothetical, not definite. But apparently it cannot begin LATER than that date. One chronology sets this disaster TEN YEARS from now! But March- April, 1972 is the LATEST POSSIBLE DATE.

NOW SEE WHAT THAT MEANS! That date is exactly 19 years from March-April this year, 1953! It is exactly 19 years---ONE COMPLETE CYCLE---from the time the FIRST cycle of this great work of God ended!

WHAT A TREMENDOUS SIGNIFICANCE THAT HAS! Think of it! God allowed us one exact complete cycle of 19 years for proclaiming CHRIST'S GOSPEL to all North America---all the United States, Canada, and Mexico! At the START of the second 19-year cycle, GOD OPENED THE DOOR to ALL EUROPE! And the MILITARY INVASION that shall END all true Gospel preaching is apparently to strike at the precise END of this second 19-year period---the spring of 1972--- EXACTLY 19 YEARS FROM NOW!

It took one cycle of 19 years to spread this work to all North America. There remains exactly one more 19-year cycle to spread it to ALL THE WORLD!

Surely I have NEVER before had anything so startling---so SIGNIFICANT---to write to you Co-Workers! Can you grasp the MEANING of it? Do you realize just HOW SHORT a time 19 years really is? To me it seems this past 19 years, since the work on the radio and by printing press began, has whizzed by like a jet plane. Yes, IT IS TIME FOR US TO WAKE UP! Time is short. We have a herculean task ahead!

 

Herbert had been predicting the imminent Return of Christ since at least 1934. In that year he had declared in his new Plain Truth magazine that the world had already entered the time period referred to in the Bible as the "Tribulation," and that Jesus would return in 1936. (So it’s not quite clear why this 19-year time cycle information should be considered more startling.)

But when his 1936 scenario didn't play out as he had expected, he didn't give up. Throughout the period of WWII he kept proclaiming that The End was at the door, encouraging the listeners to his World Tomorrow radio program and the readers of the Plain Truth to send generous, even sacrificial, donations to him quickly so that he could warn the world before it was too late.

When the war ended with peace rather than Armageddon, he was no doubt puzzled. But it barely slowed him down in his predictions. At first he insisted in the pages of the Plain Truth that Adolf Hitler was still alive, hiding in South America and ready at any moment to "rise again" to take the reins of a resurrected Roman Empire in Europe that would bring a time of Great Tribulation to the world. But as the years after the War drug on, it became obvious that this was becoming less and less likely.

And then came Hoeh's astounding discovery of the alleged prophetic "nineteen year time cycle" pattern of history. Finally Armstrong had something that he could once again use to convince his supporters that they needed to sacrifice financially to help him tackle the "herculean task ahead."

  

It is now the year 2010. The period of Tribulation foretold in the Bible did not begin in 1972. Yet even at that point in time, Herbert Armstrong never stopped speculating that the End was, as he put it over and over, "nearer than we have supposed." After the failure of the 1972 scenario, he kept implying he was still working on the "herculean task," and he still badgered his supporters for those "sacrificial offerings."

His most avid and loyal "evangelist," Gerald Waterhouse, loudly proclaimed to WCG congregations in public relation trips around the world that they would be leaving en masse for a "place of safety" very, very soon, before the Tribulation began. And their leader in that place would be Herbert Armstrong. For, he insisted, Armstrong would be alive at the return of Christ. As Waterhouse put it bombastically over and over—"If Herbert Armstrong would die, brethren, God is a LIAR!"

Yet in spite of Waterhouse's assurances, Armstrong died in 1986. The members of the church group that he founded never did "flee" to that fabled Place of Safety. And the empire he built on those sacrificial offerings to help in that "herculean task" has since crumbled to ruins.

And in spite of Armstrong's 50+ years of assuring his audience that the Tribulation spoken of in the Bible was imminent, it has not yet come upon the world.

 

But in a very real way, a good case could be made that a Tribulation
did begin in 1972. For in that year a "time of trouble" began
for the Armstrong Empire that continued for a whole decade—and beyond.

 

This Memoir is a summary of what it was like
to be a part of the WCG in that Time of Trouble.

 

Sources of Information

A number of books and many articles have been written, from the 1970s to the present, that include coverage of the time period of 1972-1982 in the WCG. Some have focused almost entirely on the negative experiences of the average member during that time. Some have focused on what they believe to be doctrinal errors taught by the WCG. Others have focused on the "political" intrigue and battles for control among top church leaders behind the scenes at the church headquarters. And still others have focused on a purely objective description of an overview of events of the period. Authors have included former ministers of the organization, long-time "lay members," religious or sociological researchers, and representatives of what are usually referred to as "cult-watcher" ministries.

The objective of this Memoir, as well as the whole Worldwide Church of God profile on this Field Guide website, is to pull together all of these perspectives, and provide a central source for documentation of just what was happening in those years within the organization, how it affected all of those involved, and how it was viewed by both insiders and outsiders.

Many of the books and articles from that time period are no longer in print, and/or no longer easily obtained by those interested in investigating this part of WCG history. And although there really is a large collection of information and documentation available on the Internet regarding this time period, it is very scattered and piece-meal for someone who does not wish to invest a large amount of time pulling it together, but who merely wants to get a quick overview. Thus this material on the Field Guide seeks to be a one-stop-shopping resource regarding this topic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

The following full books regarding the WCG are in my personal library, and have been consulted for information which is included in this Memoir, including some direct excerpts.
  
  

Armstrongism: Religion or Rip-off?

McNair, Marion

Pacific Charters, Orlando FL

1977

Marion McNair was one of the earliest students at Ambassador College, graduating in 1954, and one of the first men to be ordained to the rank of "evangelist" in Herbert Armstrong's organization. This book, written shortly after he resigned in disgust from the organization, contains some of the most extensive documentation and details available in print on the development of Armstrong's ministry from the earliest days in the 1930s while he was still affiliated with the Church of God, Seventh Day, right up to the time of the upheavals after the failure of the 1972/1975 prophetic scenarios.

 

The Armstrong Empire: A Look at the Worldwide Church of God

Hopkins, Joseph Martin

William B Eerdmans Publishing Co, Gr. Rapids, MI

1974

At the time of writing the book, Hopkins was a Professor of Religion at Westminster College, contributing editor to The Presbyterian Outlook, and an author of articles published in a number of magazines and journals including Christianity Today. This book is exceptionally objective—and meticulously and copiously documented—in its description of the history, practices and doctrinal beliefs of the WCG, compared to many others written by Protestant authors critical of WCG doctrine. Although the author does spend some time dissecting the doctrines and presenting counter arguments from his point of view of scripture, he does not engage in erecting "straw men" about HWA's teachings, as have a number of other more sensationalistic books. He documents most of the concepts that he addresses with quotes directly from WCG materials, and presents a summary of doctrinal WCG beliefs in an appendix that was, he notes, prepared by an Ambassador College graduate. He also presents an extensive collection of interviews with and comments by present and former members of the WCG, as well quotations from a wide variety of other authors who had done research on the organization.
  
  

The Broadway to Armageddon

Hinson, William B

William Hinson, Hohenwald TN

1977

Hinson had been involved with the Radio/Worldwide Church of God since 1962. He was ordained as a deacon in 1965 and as an elder/minister in 1969. He left in disgust in 1976 and wrote and compiled this book. A number of the chapters are collections of memoirs of other former members, resignation letters from ministers and members, personal correspondence between those in leadership positions in the Armstrong movement and so on. One of the most valuable contributions of this book is its emphasis on personal stories of unnecessary suffering among the membership brought on by the unbiblical, ungodly and unethical teachings and policies of the Armstrong system. Most of the other books critical of the movement focus rather on theological arguments about HWA's doctrines, or exposes of the unethical or immoral financial, sexual, administrative and other shenanigans of the leadership.

 

The Daughter of Babylon, The True History of the Worldwide Church of God

Renehan, Bruce

A 130 page book available free in its entirety for download from the Internet.

Renehan was a member of the WCG for 23 years. He first became involved with the organization in 1969, and was employed at the Pasadena HQ in 1970, working for the church for seven years. This book gives a broad overview of the history of the church, with quite a bit of documentation. But its particular emphasis is on the author's research into the WCG's notion of "church history." WCG writers constructed an idiosyncratic view of history which they used to establish the work of Herbert Armstrong as the head of the "Philadelphia Era" of an unbroken sequence of "church eras" through history that allegedly included the Waldenses and other obscure religious groups of the past 2000 years. Renehan offers extensive historical documentation which brings many facets of this scenario into question.

 

Herbert Armstrong’s Tangled Web

Robinson, Dave

John Hadden Publishers, Tulsa OK

1980

The description of the late Dave Robinson from the back cover of the Tangled Web book:

He began to listen to Herbert Armstrong on the radio from a Mexican station in 1949 and became a heavy financial contributor soon after. He met HWA the next year and became a member and supporter of what was then the Radio Church of God. He supported Herbert Armstrong for a full three decades.

In 1969 he went to work full-time for the Worldwide Church of God several years after his ordination as a minister in that church. During the next decade, he served in varied capacities for that organization. He came to know most of the top men of the church well, and is eminently qualified to write of the workings of those echelons of the church.

Among the responsibilities carried by Dave were those of administrator, counselor, lecturer, security chief, and minister. He was a confidant of many of those men who have either been removed from the church altogether or have been relegated to dishonor within that organization.

He writes from firsthand knowledge tempered with deep disappointment and has come to agree completely with Solomon who advised against putting trust in men.

Robinson's book contains the most intimate view of the inner workings of the organization, and the most candid of descriptions of many of the principle players in the saga, of any of the books available on Armstrongism.

 

The Truth Shall Make You Free

Tuit, John

The Truth Foundation, Freehold Township NJ

1981

Tuit began reading the Plain Truth in 1957, and began contributing to the Radio Church of God in the early 1960s. He became a baptized member of the Worldwide Church of God in 1975. In 1978 he became so totally disillusioned with the leadership of the WCG after Garner Ted Armstrong's ouster that he cooperated with a handful of other members to organize the suit against the WCG that resulted in the imposition of the Receivership in January 1979. Although he does touch upon a variety of details about the history, doctrine and practices of the WCG, his book adds little to the collection of this information available from many other sources. However, the book is the most effective chronicle available of the events leading up to and during the Receivership because Tuit had first hand knowledge of much that went on behind the scenes.

 

 

Another source of information which provided extensive documentation for the contents of this Memoir is the Ambassador Report, a periodical publication created by a number of former Ambassador College students to provide documentation and  exposés on what they believed to be serious problems within the Armstrong organizations. .

Many rank and file members of the WCG at the time assumed, because of what they were told from the pulpit, that the Ambassador Report was just a “scandal sheet” dealing with unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo and slander. And that it was written and published by hateful, disgruntled former members of the church with an unjustified ax to grind.  Nothing could have been further from the truth. It was started by people who cared deeply about the organization, who had solid information and documentation on very legitimate concerns, who wanted to bring truth to light and “clean up the Church.”  

The complete collection of Ambassador Reports from 1976-1999 is available at the link below. The inclusion of this link is not an endorsement of everything on the website which hosts this Ambassador Report collection. But the site received exclusive rights to distribute the digital versions of the collection, and thus this is the only spot on the Internet where the collection is available at this time.

This collection is such a valuable source of documentation on the history of the Worldwide Church of God that it should not be ignored by those looking for a complete perspective on that history, whatever one might think of the rest of the material on the website that is hosting the collection.

http://www.hwarmstrong.com/ar/index.htm

 

Other information for this memoir has come from articles from newspapers and magazines of the time period, including the Pasadena Star News, the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, and others.

A number of websites have been invaluable as a source of information and documentation, particularly for such items as copies of resignation letters from former WCG ministers and members and other items that have circulated through "underground" grapevines for the past 35 years.

 

Finally, much of the information and evaluation included in this Memoir is just what is implied by the word memoir … my own personal memories and thoughts and opinions.

 

History in general is, in many ways, not a "science," but an art. Any given day in history has billions and billions of events and human interactions occurring all over the globe. Anyone who attempts to distill out of these a limited number of items to focus on is engaged in an act of creativity, "freezing" a moment in time and space and some of its elements into a picture that can be contemplated by others.

I have no doubt that anyone else—including members of my own family and my closest friends—who lived through this same period in WCG history would vary widely in the items they noticed, and how they reacted to them and evaluated them, and what connections they saw between them.

But over the years I have been asked over and over such questions as "Why did you leave the WCG in 1978?" or "Why are you so critical of the ministry of Herbert Armstrong?" The best answer to that and many related questions is to show the reader the WCG world at that time from my perspective. This Memoir will document those events that occurred at the time that affected my perspective, and share my personal evaluation of how these things lined up with what I understood then … and understand now … from common sense and my own study of the Bible.

Some of this evaluation will be affected by hind-sight, of course. I now have information and documentation that I did not have during some periods which affect my perspective of just what was really going on at the time.

After considering all of the information and documentation and opinions in this Memoir, the reader is free to draw his/her own conclusions regarding the validity of my perspective regarding any given matter.

 

 

Memoir
  
  

Part 1: The Pre-Tribulation period

In 1956, Ambassador College published and began aggressive distribution of a booklet authored by Herbert W Armstrong titled 1975 in Prophecy. The date in the title was based on the prophetic speculations of WCG evangelist Herman Hoeh and endorsed by Armstrong. The details of the booklet outlined a view of the interpretation of the visions in the book of Revelation that was extremely literal, and this was emphasized by inclusion of graphically ghoulish illustrations by Basil Wolverton. Wolverton, a member and elder in the Radio Church of God, had a long reputation as an illustrator for fantasy and horror comic books, and the illustrations for 1975 in Prophecy would have been at home in any such horror comic of the decade.

Armstrong regularly offered the booklet on his World Tomorrow radio program, in the pages of the Plain Truth magazine, and in display ads purchased in commercial magazines such as Capper's Farmer. Here is a short excerpt from the beginning pages of this booklet:

FANTASTIC push-button world by 1975? It is being planned by modern science and industry. But now you're going to take a peek into the surprising future, exactly as it will happen! Not what men PLAN -- but what GOD SAYS! Here, in understandable language, is a quick SUMMARY of all prophecy -- the neglected one-third of your Bible -- made PLAIN. It's truly startling!

YOUR own future is laid bare, now, in prophecy! The curtain of the future is drawn back. Prophecies that were closed and sealed tight now stand REVEALED. This mystifying, neglected third of the Bible now becomes plain. Mysteries of God, never before understood, now become crystal-clear. God's own time for this revealing has come. The KEYS that locked the future have been found. But what is actually going to happen is not what the world expects!

 

…PHOTO CAPTION: This scene of utter destruction -- depicting the grim, lifeless result of misused human inventions -- would take place in this generation but for God's promised intervention to save man from this terrifying end.

 

 

 

 

The original illustrations for the booklet were in black and white, but a colorized version of this picture, created by Wolverton's son Monte, can be seen on the Internet .

In fact, colorized versions of most of the illustrations for this booklet and for a companion booklet, The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last, can be seen on that same site, starting at the following address. Please be advised these pictures are not for those with weak stomachs.

 

The booklet continues:

… MAN does not know the WAY to peace and happiness and joy. What man is bringing on the world is the diametric opposite -- such catastrophic and terrifying destruction that human life will be erased from the earth in 25 years unless God Almighty intervenes!   

A reader of this booklet who was convinced the author may know what he was talking about would have been left with virtually no doubt about just when the author expected all this to come to pass. The wording throughout is extremely dogmatic and bombastic.

This booklet was one of the most-requested pieces of literature from the Radio Church of God throughout the next decade and more. Exact figures are not available, but it would not be unreasonable to speculate that this booklet was single-handedly responsible for the inclination of  thousands to become “co-workers” of Herbert W Armstrong–a designation he have to those who became regular financial contributors to his ministry. For the bottom line of the booklet was that only those who accepted Armstrong's perspective on both Bible prophecy and doctrine would be escaping the awful coming destruction. Here are excerpts leading up to the climactic end of the message of the booklet:

At that mighty moment of earth's history [in the midst of the Great Tribulation], hundreds of thousands will remember the TRUE MESSAGE FROM GOD that they had heard going out freely to the world at THIS time, on The WORLD TOMORROW program. Yes, hundreds of thousands who take it lightly today, or put it out of mind because it's different from the teachings of their worldly churches, will then REMEMBER and cry out to God for mercy!

And these hundreds of thousands shall learn that God's mercy, truly, is greater toward us than the heavens are high above the earth! For God will hear their repentant cries, and place them under His divine protection from the indescribably terrible PLAGUES which are then yet to come! For these are the plagues that GOD shall send -- plagues sent in divine PUNISHMENT on those Fascist powers of Europe that shall have yielded themselves as the chief political religious agencies of SATAN in his defiant war against God!

… And now, finally, a last word to you who read this warning message -- this summary of the prophecies:

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Your immediate future is of your own choosing. You can take this lightly, let it slip from mind, allow yourself once again to be absorbed in the mechanics of today's complex society that you put this out of mind. If you do, you have now read YOUR FATE -- and I say to you on authority of God Almighty that it is absolutely SURE!

Or, you may heed the warning, realize the truth -- that there already have occurred in the world sufficient happenings to verify the REALITY of God's prophecies -- and REPENT NOW before it is too late. If you DO turn to God by forsaking your way and this world's ways through Jesus Christ as personal Saviour -- if you DO then overcome, study the Bible continually to let it correct and reprove and instruct YOU -- living by EVERY WORD OF GOD, rather than by the ways and customs of society -- if you pray earnestly and continually, drawing closer and closer to GOD, and endure in this wonderful new life, you shall be accounted worthy to ESCAPE all these terrifying things soon to befall the world. (Luke 21:36).

You may escape the Great Tribulation. No PLAGUE will come near you.

And, finally, given the precious gift of eternal life, you shall be used in God's Kingdom teaching and ruling those human beings made joyous in that PEACEFUL WORLD TOMORROW! The decision is now YOURS!

 

Sucked In

An ad that included an offer for a free copy of this booklet appeared in the December 1957 issue of Capper's Farmer magazine. Also offered on the same coupon that could be clipped out and mailed to Ambassador College was a free subscription for the Plain Truth magazine, and another booklet titled Will Russia Attack America? (The answer: No. Germany at the head of a United Europe would, with Russia part of another power axis that would eventually fight that European "resurrection of the Roman Empire.”)

A year or so later, my husband George (in about tenth grade at the time) was rummaging in a pile of magazines in his mother's attic, and came across a copy of that magazine. His mother had kept it for the Christmas cookie recipes. Thumbing through the magazine, he spotted the ad from Ambassador College. Although active in his Congregational Church, he wasn't particularly "devoutly religious." Nor did he know or care much about prophecy at the time. But the price was right—free—so he clipped out the coupon and sent it in.

For the next several years he received the Plain Truth, and skimmed through the issues. He remembers after all these years being impressed with the 1975 booklet, and mentally accepting many of the speculations of Armstrong. But perhaps because of his youth, and perhaps because of the fact that 1972 seemed a long way away yet, with enough time for him to "get serious" later, he didn't pursue sending for any more booklets from Armstrong.

During the short time of our courtship in 1965 (one month), he never brought up the topic of religion. So I was surprised a few days after our wedding when he brought home a stack of Plain Truth magazines and suggested I should consider seriously some of the ideas in them.

I was an agnostic at the time, in my Freshman year of college and studying Evolution in my Natural Science required course.  I grudgingly worked my way through some of the magazines, initially finding the prophetic claims and other content laughable. But a main feature in the Plain Truth at the time was a series of unexpectedly persuasive anti-evolution articles. Irked, I began seriously trying to disprove what I was reading—and ended up instead being convinced that this magazine had the plain truth about God and the Bible and the future within its pages.

I began sending for every booklet and article offered in the magazines, as well as Ambassador's 52-lesson Bible Correspondence Course. By the end of 1965 George and I were both committed to supporting the work of Herbert Armstrong with a tithe--a full ten percent on the gross amount--of our meager income. (George was making $1.35 an hour as a hospital janitor in fulfillment of his work requirement as a Conscientious Objector.)

I eventually wrote asking for someone to come to counsel us for baptism. We did not realize that there was an actual church, with congregations throughout the country. We thought it was just an “evangelistic” organization, sort of like the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. And thus we just expected some representative of Ambassador College to come baptize us and then ride off into the sunset, leaving us alone to muddle along as best we could.

The organization was literally concerned so much about possible “persecution of true Christians” that would precede the expected Tribulation period coming soon that they kept all mention of the Church and its congregations out of public notice. You had to be baptized–or very close to it–or a family member of a baptized person to be “invited” to come to the worship services of what was called the Radio Church of God. (The name was changed to the Worldwide Church of God in January 1968.)

I was baptized at the end of January in 1968, and George was baptized in August that year. At that point we became totally immersed in the mandated lifestyle and the doctrinal teachings of the Worldwide Church of God.

 

Living with the End in SIght

In recent years I have learned that, by 1968, many in the leadership of the Worldwide Church of God were beginning to seriously doubt the dogmatic predictions for the Tribulation to begin by 1972. But this notion had been the centerpiece of the Church's teachings since 1953, and the average member in a field congregation in 1968 was totally unaware of the growing doubts of many in the ministry.

Instead, many such men still reinforced the speculation through sermons and Bible studies. At one of the first Bible Studies George and I attended in 1968 the minister took careful pains to chart for us the "interpretation" of the mysterious incident of the "handwriting on the wall" in the biblical Book of Daniel. Although the text itself gives no indication the message on the wall was to be taken as a "prophecy regarding the distant future," we learned that night that it indeed was.

By an elaborate system of numerology, the words on the wall were given numerical values based on the coinage of the time. And these values were added up … and were determined to indicate that "the Times of the Gentiles" (spoken of elsewhere in the Bible) were to last 2520 years and then the End would come.

I still have the notes in my old KJV Bible I took that night, with the date 539 BC (Fall of Babylon) next to the incident, and the indication that 2520 years from 539 BC would come out to 1982. This doesn't seem to line up with Hoeh's earlier speculation. But by 1968, someone had come up with an ingenious way to get back to 1975—one merely "subtracted" seven years from 1982. And the reason given for the subtraction was the incident when Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, became "like an animal" for seven years. This made no real sense to me at the time, and it certainly makes even less now. But I noted it down carefully and "took it on faith" that my Prophecy Teachers knew what they were talking about.

 

In recent years, some admirers of Herbert Armstrong have tried to claim that he never really "set a date" for the beginning of the Tribulation, but always just indicated that "maybe" it would be at or by a certain time. Thus, they suggest, it was just the fault of his listeners for taking his speculations and making them, just in their own minds, actual dogmatic, prophetic predictions.

But this is not being honest with the historical record. Armstrong made dogmatic statements over and over from 1953 on through the late 1960s that unmistakably state absolutes about his prophetic scenario. (Samples of such prophetic statements can be seen in Herbert W Armstrong–The Man and the Myth on this site.)   

Those ministers who were doubtful toward the end about this prophetic scenario—perhaps even the man who first taught prophetic date details to me at a WCG Bible study—were extremely careful to never express those doubts publicly, lest they incur the wrath of Herbert Armstrong. Armstrong seemed to publicly indicate, howbeit very subtly, some doubts himself, even as early as 1969, about the dates regarding which he had previously been dogmatic. But he still regularly hedged even those doubts with broad hints that prophecy probably was still on track for the nineteen year time cycle prophecies to be fulfilled. And thus only he was allowed to ever-so-carefully begin hedging his bets regarding Spring of 1972.   

 

One minister who seemed to never flag in his certainty that Armstrong would be shown to be accurate was evangelist Gerald Waterhouse. I remember one strange speculation that Waterhouse made in one of his long-winded prophetic sermons in 1971. There was an incident that made national headlines in which a whole fleet of DC-10 jet planes were found to have potentially fatal flaws in the struts of their wings which could leave 10-inch gaps, leading to their removal from service. Waterhouse speculated that God might see to it that the WCG could purchase this fleet of planes at a discount price to transport all the people to the Place of Safety (believed to be the abandoned ancient city of Petra in Jordan). He made light of the structural problem by noting that ten inch gaps were no problem for twelve inch angels.

Sadly, this insanity actually made sense to many in the church. I can't remember now if I bought this scenario at the time, but I had certainly gullibly bought into many almost as goofy between 1965 and 1971, so I cannot mock any who may have thought Waterhouse was making sense with his plane truth speculation.

 

As the fall of 1971 approached, there were clearer and clearer references by Armstrong to the "possibility" that the Church might have "more time" to finish some aspect of "The Work" that remained. But after so many years of dogmatic statements about 1972, many members of the WCG seemed to have their minds in a fog. And thus many were still fully convinced that they would be leaving soon to be whisked to that Place of Safety, where they would receive their final training for their role in the soon-coming World Tomorrow of the Kingdom of God on Earth by Armstrong and his assistants.

Actually, not even Armstrong ever dared to go into too many details explaining just how over 100,000 people including men, women, and children could successfully set up "camp" in the Jordanian desert! What about water, what about latrines and sanitation in general, what about food supplies, what about shelter?—the caves there couldn't possibly house all of the 100,000!

Speculation on all these sorts of problematic issues were rife in conversations among many brethren in the Church. Would God send manna again? Would water come from a rock like it did when Moses hit it? But many just assumed if Herbert Armstrong said it was going to all be taken care of, God would back up Armstrong's word, no matter what kind of miraculous intervention might be needed.

 

And this miraculous intervention surely had to come soon. For Armstrong had bombastically declared in 1953 that "…the MILITARY INVASION that shall END all true Gospel preaching is apparently to strike at the precise END of this second 19-year period---the spring of 1972--- EXACTLY 19 YEARS FROM NOW!"

If the invasion was to begin by the spring of 1972, and the Church was to be long gone and carefully tucked away in that Place of Safety before the first bombs dropped, then when would the "fleeing" happen? Many speculated that it would be in the fall of 1971, with perhaps the whole church leaving directly from the numerous Feast of Tabernacles sites around the country where thousands of WCG members gathered in conventions every fall to celebrate that biblical festival.

Even though the church did not teach a "rapture to heaven" before the tribulation, the notion of the "Place of Safety" was very similar. You might say it was a "snatching away" (the definition of the word rapture) that was just sideways instead of upwards. And just as with some evangelical Christians today who believe in a pre-Tribulation Rapture, in some WCG circles in 1971 a paranoia almost set in. Many—adults and children alike—were fearful that if they were not totally "right with God" by being totally obedient to those over them—ministers or parents—they might get "Left Behind"!

 

In fact, as is clear in the passages quoted from the 1975 in Prophecy book earlier, Armstrong did indeed teach that any not totally zealous for the truth as he taught it would not be "counted worthy to escape" the coming Tribulation.

And so, many breathlessly awaited the 1972 start of the Tribulation period. And it did, indeed, start. But it wasn't a Tribulation on the nations of Britain and America as Armstrong had taught.

It was a Tribulation on the Worldwide Church of God and the ministry of Herbert Armstrong.

 

Part Two: The Gathering Storm

 

 

Unless otherwise noted, all original material on this Field Guide website
is © 2001-2011 by Pamela Starr Dewey.

Careful effort has been made to give credit as clearly as possible to any specific material quoted or ideas extensively adapted from any one resource. Corrections and clarifications regarding citations for any source material are welcome, and will be promptly added to any sections which are found to be inadequately documented as to source.

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Personal from the Webauthor:

Memoir of the Tribulation

 

A personal perspective of the  1972-1982
"Tribulation Time" of the Worldwide Church of God