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Beware of any authoritative Bible teacher who
proclaims that Herbert Armstrong was given God's truths and was
used by God! While this article will show exactly how
Worldwide Church
of God was able to deceive and draw people into their organization, the methods
are very similar to what many of the high demand
splinter
groups use, especially Philadelphia
Church of God (Gerald Flurry),
Restored Church of God (David C. Pack), and
Living Church of God (Roderick
Meredith).
Also see:
Questioning Herbert W. Armstrong (was
he who he said he was?) (many articles)
I first heard Herbert
Armstrong's dynamic and charismatic voice on the radio back in the mid `60's. We were
quite
naďve
at the time because we never suspected anyone sounding so sincere
and seemingly so dedicated with his message could end up being so deceptive. In fact,
we hadn't ever heard anyone speak with as much authority and zeal
toward the Bible and the issues of the day, as he seemed to do.
What first got my attention
with HWA's World Tomorrow program was how he was speaking on
the subject of, Does God Exist? In fact, that was the first booklet
(actually a small pamphlet) I ordered,
and the second one (which actually went along with the first) was, The Proof of the Bible.
They sounded like he REALLY knew
what he was talking about. One of our relatives came
to visit us during this period of time and saw the first one lying on
an end stand and commented, "This is
really good!" So that enforced in my mind all the more that Herbert Armstrong could
PROVE one of the most important questions
there ever was. (Little did I know that others had covered the same
subject before.)
Around this time, we had recently
started attending a large non-denominational church on Sunday evenings
that we liked. But since HWA sounded so much more knowledgeable and
exciting than any
other person we'd ever heard, we would find ourselves actually listening to
his program on our car radio in the parking lot before we went inside
this church! Listening to HWA was almost like a drug high. We
simply had to hear more and more of this captivating man who was "giving us the
answers to everything."
Unknown to any
of us at the time, Herbert Armstrong had
studied
Hitler's methods of thought reform and crowd control and he had
studied and researched into
Communism. He introduced his booklets, including
the Ambassador College Bible
Correspondence Course1, one lesson--and one
step--at a time, each building on the
other. That's why other Christians can ask, "How could you
ever have believed that?" Well, if we had looked at one of the
"stronger meat" booklets right off, or the last
Bible lesson, we might have rejected it.
But
instead we started out listening to the fascinating subjects he
expounded on the radio and read his "news magazine" (the Plain
Truth). Each booklet, article, lesson wanted us to send away for
more to "further understand things." It felt exciting to
learn all
these things, and we truly felt we were looking in the Bible (by means
of his correspondence course) to
PROVE it ourselves2
Many of us who were pulled into
the group had
little or no knowledge of orthodox Christian doctrines;
barely understanding the basics of our faith.3 Furthermore, we didn't hear much
about apologetics, or how to discern religious cults, back in those days, let
alone the techniques of thought
reform and coercion used by those who would exploit us.
Garner
Ted Armstrong also spoke on the radio, alternating
with HWA. One day he spoke
on baptism and how it was only authentic if it was done by immersion.
He didn't say which church to have it done in, only that we were to
send away for his free booklet on "Baptism" to learn
more. When we found out that
this new church we
had started attending had a baptismal pool,
we
thought it was an answer to prayer. We thought all we had to do was
let this church baptize us and then we could continue on
listening to HWA who knew "so much more than other
ministers." I have to look back with sadness when
remembering this
Christian minister briefly counseling us after services, as we sat together in
the chairs in the auditorium. I very clearly remember
him saying, "Now do you understand that you
don't have to
keep the Ten Commandments in order to be saved?" Already
in a fog from HWA's mind-manipulation, we shook our heads "yes"
(knowing we didn't believe what this minister was saying).
Later,
I jokingly mentioned how
"deceived" this minister was in comparison to the
"truth" we were learning from Herbert Armstrong.
This minister, however, might have warned us about Herbert
W. Armstrong and Garner Ted if we had asked him if he had ever heard of
them and The
World Tomorrow broadcast. Instead we went ahead
with our baptism the next week and afterwards felt we now were
"authentically" baptized in God's sight and had the Holy Spirit.
It
wasn't long before we stopped attending this Christian church and I began to
immerse myself more and more into Herbert Armstrong's literature and what
I thought was "God's revealed truth." Once
HWA got us to distrust other Christian ministers, he had us where he
wanted us. We
wouldn't listen to those ministers anymore (Christianity was "blinded
and of Satan"). We kept thinking we were "proving
everything" from the Bible ourselves by looking up the verses HWA
provided. If a reader was converted before they
heard HWA's teachings, they would begin to doubt all they grew up believing. In fact,
The
Ambassador College Correspondence Course told us to "lay all preconceived ideas and
religious bias on the shelf."4
I remember
one of the first articles I read by HWA was about how to recognize the
"one true Church." In this he proceeded to "prove"--by selected verses in the
Bible--that the TRUE name of God's church was "Church of
God." All others weren't true. Then he narrowed it down to
"all churches who keep the 7th day Sabbath." Soon it was narrowed down
to "all churches who keep the annual Sabbaths (O.T. feast days)." Churches that didn't
have these "qualifications" were "Satan's counterfeits." Once you fall into this
trap,
your mind by-passes all critical thinking.
HWA's recruiting
techniques were very sophisticated and subtle. He encouraged the
listener to keep ordering more and various "thought-provoking" free booklets
and literature, which in effect built upon each other.
He
actually was asking leading question and then taking Scriptures out of context
in order to believe what he said. But we didn't realize this because he did it in such a cunning way,
always adding just the right amount of fear; e.g., "Now you KNOW
the truth, what are you going to do about it?" And, "You are
RESPONSIBLE for the truth you have received!" As a result, you became
afraid to discount what you felt God was revealing to you--one
of the select few--through His Apostle. (Read about how HWA made use
of "fear phobia
induction." Once the person becomes fear phobic, they become
submissive to the authority of the group.)
All this time you never knew there was a
"church" (i. e., Bible-based cult) behind the radio or TV program because it was never
mentioned until one got up into the literature. It usually took years for a reader or listener to come to
the place where they felt ready and willing to request a visit.
If anyone donated at
least twice to the radio or TV program, they would then
receive a Co-Worker letter. It was meant to make you feel pretty special to be a
"Co-Worker of God's Work." Soon you decided to
enroll in their free Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course, so you could learn
even more about the Bible. Then they would follow up with another letter telling
you what a good decision you had made.
When Lesson #1 arrived (How to Study the Bible in the Space Age),
you may have felt it was a little different (and more fearful,
especially in the way it talked about the "last days") than you expected,
but when you looked up all the Bible verses given, it answered
ALL the questions the way HWA wanted them answered. He picked
and chose the Scriptures to suit what he was trying to get you to
believe. Easy self-tests were sent every few lessons and made
you feel you were really making progress. The
course was set up in such a way that the unsuspecting and
unlearned felt they were actually learning God's truths
known only by His "one true Church" on earth, especially
since HWA said he had been given (by God) the "7 keys to understanding
the Bible."5
During this Bible
Correspondence Course, the student is told not to read outside literature. This is
part of "information
control" that cults employ. Notice
from Lesson #4 of the 1965 Ambassador College Bible Correspondence
Course, p. 11: [all emp. theirs]
"RELIGIOUS LITERATURE other than ours should not be studied UNTIL
YOU ARE THOROUGHLY GROUNDED in this course and have the whole pattern
of the Bible fixed in mind. This takes time. Our Correspondence
Course is complete and it leads from one scripture to another and lets
the Bible interpret itself as it goes along; NO LITERATURE CAN DO
MORE! It would only confuse you to read other religious tracts at
first. It is not recommended as a practice to beginning students here
at Ambassador College."
As you worked your way through the
course you found exciting words such as these:
"No other Bible course in this world
even dares to reveal the future as does this Course. Why?
Because only this Work--which God had to raise up to carry
His message--dares to reach the true gospel of His Kingdom to the
world as a final 'witness' (Matt. 24:114). (C. Paul Meredith,
"An Open Letter from the Director." Ambassador College Bible
Correspondence Course, Lesson 4 (1955, 1968). p. 2)
The Bible Course at that
time consisted of at least five years of study and the student was to put
in a minimum of at least one-half hour a day studying it. This was
to be their "Bible study time."
As I mentioned,
HWA always added a strong element of fear in much of his literature
and lessons. He made you feel that since you
now knew the "Truth" (about the Sabbath, Holy Days,
Tithing, Ten Commandments, baptism, Christmas, Easter,
birthdays, salvation, true Church, obedience to God, prophecy,
etc.) you better not cast it aside, or you would be held
eternally responsible, ending up in the Great Tribulation,
martyred, and/or placed in a concentration camp, which he prophesied
was to come "in your lifetime." And if you didn't
repent then, you would be thrown into the Lake of Fire at the
Great White Throne Judgment and annihilated. The World
Tomorrow never went into depth about these subjects
because what they did talk about was only the
enticing bait to grab the interest of the
listener and lead him eventually into the organization where
he would come to replace God in his mind with "the government
of God." (Read more about this phenomenon in letter to ESN: "Clues to Application of Mind Control in WCG").
If you completed all
the Bible correspondence lessons,
which were fifty-eight, there's a strong chance you
would have become a member. The further you got into the lessons,
the more you were taught about how ONLY
"God's true ministers" (which were their
ministers)
could baptize you and only then could you receive the Holy
Spirit, after they laid their hands on you. All other baptisms prior to that time were "not true
conversions." It
mattered not if you were baptized as a child or, by another
church as an adult, they told you it "isn't valid."
I remember seeing
a "happy picture" in one of the Bible lessons, showing "God's true
people" meeting together. It was at a Feast of Tabernacles
site (although at
that time you didn't know you had to go away to observe the holy days). But they finally bring you up to the place where
you know God's people are meeting somewhere and you desire to
be there.
So I wrote and asked for a visit
from one of their "representatives." After all, the course said we had
to be in "God's true Church" if
we wanted to make it into God's Kingdom and escape the Great
Tribulation,
which was coming "very soon."6
The "minister"
contacted us by letter, but didn't actually come to our house for several
weeks. This is
deliberate in order to bring one to the place where they feel desperate to become a member.
(Philadelphia Church
of God ministers phone the prospective member right away,
but still have "required literature" one must read before
attending services.) When they did arrive, they
seemed quite serious, but didn't call themselves
ministers. They said they were "representatives of
Ambassador College." We said we wanted to get baptized,
and after some exchange of words, they asked us how many of
the booklets we had read and then wanted to see all of them.
Of course, I felt very proud that I had read so many. I felt I
surely would be seen as one desiring to "follow God's
ways." I now know that the more of the necessary
literature you have read the more under the mind control
(thought reform) you
have become and that's what they want.
We still had to wait several
weeks after that and ended up having to write them again, explaining
our "need" for baptism. (In the meantime, I was aware of their literature
that stated a person had to "bring forth fruits worthy of
repentance" and I thought maybe they were waiting for this.) After
letting them know that we really wanted to be baptized, the
minister and his "assistant" came this time and visited with us some
more. Then we were invited to services. Before that we didn't even know where
the church was because it was kept very secret. (The
church was only a "front" for what actually was a multi-million dollar
organization.) I learned later that
they wanted to make sure no one walked in unannounced that hadn't read enough of their literature
to
make a decision to want to become a member. Furthermore, no unscreened stranger could
locate the address in the phone book, because it wasn't there. All visitors came through a minister first. The first service we attended was in the
basement of a Masonic lodge with no windows and hard floors with metal
folding chairs. (I found out years later that their services were usually
held in unusual places: Masonic lodges, theaters,
rotary clubs, roller skating rinks, school cafeterias, auditoriums, etc. They never
seemed to have enough money to build churches for their members, their
excuse being that the tithes and offerings were being used to
"do the Work" which meant "proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom of God to all the world.") There were
only about a hundred people in attendance and we were late. (I must admit that
I was a little surprised that there were so few people attending--less
than 60.) But as we walked
down the aisle, their voices
were strong and loud as they sang, which made me think it was "so
good to have found God's true Church! Only people in His true Church
could sing this enthusiastically." One doesn't know that all high demand groups are noted for their enthusiasm and seeming
zeal for God (especially in
their singing).
An
elder was located at the door to the meeting room (in our case it was the
only door
there that led to the stairs to get out of the building). When you
went to leave right afterwards, he would tell you not to go, but to
stick around and "fellowship." This was to keep you with the
group on the Sabbath and to cause you to bond with your new
"family."
Our counseling for baptism took place
that next week in
the minister's
small, dark upstairs apartment. I remember only one window in
the room. The "counseling" lasted for at least two hours while he asked
questions and determined whether we were truly ready. One of
the things I remember being asked was, "What are you
supposed to repent of?" The only correct answer was "to repent of
my human nature." And HWA taught that our human nature
was rotten to the core.
The baptism took place the
following week in the
dreary basement of a music building, owned by one of the members. We had
a lot of
trouble locating it at first (becoming afraid we were going to "miss
out on receiving God's Spirit"). When we finally found it and
walked down the stairs, the elders had a horse tank set up for the
baptism, with cold water. Perhaps this was intentional also. I
had to be placed under the water "twice" because my feet
came up the first time. After we went into our cubicle and dried off, changing clothes, we
gathered in a circle (there were two ministers there--everything had
to be done in twos) and they laid hands on us, praying their specific
prayer. No one could receive the Holy Spirit "unless" hands were first
laid on by "God's true ministers."
As the last words of the
minister's prayer was
being said, it was like reality changed for me and I gradually slipped
into a pleasant dream-like state
that lasted the rest of the evening and even the next day. (I go more
into this in my other writing:
The Weird Experience of Baptism into "God's True
Church".) I thought the Holy Spirit had been given. In all likelihood it was merely a
self-hypnotic state, which I also experienced in those early years during the
Feast of Tabernacles from the minute the sun went down on the first
day and until it went down at the end of the Last Day.
After becoming a
member, you soon understand through sermons and their insider
magazine that you are not to talk
about your beliefs to outsiders, unless they showed an interest.
And then you weren't to try and "convert" them. If
visiting relatives told you they wanted to accompany you to
services, you had to tell them that they had to listen to the
broadcast and send away for the literature first and then talk to
the
minister. HWA warned us about "throwing our pearls
before swine." Besides, we were told that it was
"God that did the calling" and everyone in there had
been "called of God." All of these techniques are used
more or less to the same degree in other high demand, controlling
offshoots
today which teach and believe that Herbert Armstrong was called by God to
"restore the true gospel" and that we are at the "close of
the age."
Getting caught up in Herbert W. Armstrong's
"one true Church" will eventually lead to tremendous loss,
misery and destruction. You very likely will end up
in an abusive marriage,
if not a destroyed marriage; your children will become alienated or damaged
from all the control, fears and lies; you will have many financial
problems; job problems; ill health or death due to not going to a
doctor. There will be broken
relationships with loved ones; no friends outside the group; no
pension or retirement in your old age (you thought you were going to
the "place of safety"
instead); turmoil; stress; heavy burdens; spiritual strongholds; loss
of those you thought were "family," and feeling as if your mind has been
raped.
If you have already found yourself down this road, certain losses
will probably never be able to be regained. But you don't have to
become a prisoner to your past, or be overcome by it. You can start
from where you are now and make a new and free life for yourself. When you come to
understand what and how it all happened and that you aren't alone, and
when you are able to break the chains, and be able to trust
the true Lord Jesus Christ, you will find that He will heal you, shepherd you and
guide you, and never forsake you. His message is simple and burden free.
By D. W.
Exit & Support Network™
February 10, 2001
Last updated January 31, 2007
"A
deceived person does not know he is deceived."
~ Herbert W. Armstrong,
Mystery of the Ages, Chapter 5, p. 171,
1985.
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What is MIND
CONTROL?
Very simply put, it is going from A to C without the awareness or
knowledge of ever passing B. It is a total change in mind set,
world view, behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. How is it
done? Through deceit,
propaganda,
repetition, intimidation, spiritual, emotional and physical abuse;
fear, guilt and
shame. In Bible based cults, it is used
to enslave the
minds of members and to control and exploit them for the leader's
purpose--usually for financial reasons.
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Comment:
It can be very healing to write your own personal story of how you
were tricked and deceived and why you came out. See:
Where Do the Feelings Go? Deceptive,
mind-manipulating groups
are never upfront and honest with those they are trying to recruit and
control.
Remind yourself that if you had access to more information at the
time, you would have made better choices. It was not your fault. And
those who were raised in the WCG or
PCG were there without their consent. (Read:
Without
My Informed Consent!)
To
understand more about what you came to believe and why, read articles on Looking
Back on My Experiences, which is also applicable
for those who were in any of the high demand WCG offshoots or
splinter group.
Footnotes:
1 The Ambassador College Bible Correspondence
Course was formerly instituted in 1954 by Herbert Armstrong by
appointing C. Paul Meredith (uncle of
Roderick C. Meredith) as its
director. (Good
News, October 1963, "Make the Most of the Ambassador College
Bible Correspondence Course" by Richard H. Sedliacik.) In 1970
the course was reduced to 24 lessons; in 1973 to 12 lessons. (The
Armstrong Empire, p. 163, Joseph Hopkins)
2 Joseph Hopkins referred to Ambassador College's way
of teaching the Bible as, "narrow, rigid, and authoritarian." (Ibid, p. 132)
3 For more detail, see
the
first part of chapter
one in ESN's critical review
of Herbert Armstrong's Mystery of the Ages.
4 Bulletin of Ambassador College, 1971-1973, p.
43.
5 "The Seven Keys to Understanding the Bible" by
Herbert W. Armstrong, Tomorrow's World, January 1971, p. 3.
6 HWA continually emphasized that the end was coming
"very soon." For examples, read: Did
Herbert W. Armstrong Set Dates?
UPDATE:
Worldwide Church of God is
now considering a name change. Read:
Worldwide
Church of God is Changing Their Name.
Questioning Why I Was in a Deceptive Cult
Articles on
Understanding Mind Control and Exploitive Groups
Articles For Those Who
Were Emotionally and Spiritually Abused
Index
for Personal Writings About the WCG Experience
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