WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
WORLD HEADQUARTERS
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91123

HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
President and Pastor

January 7, 1979

Dear Brethren and Co-Workers with Christ:

Our Great God is still on His throne! God has given His Work a TREMENDOUS VICTORY against the most MONSTROUS conspiracy and attack Satan ever launched against God's Work!

I want here to give you the true inside story. You've probably read of the outrageous false charges against myself and Mr. Stanley R. Rader in 8-column front-page banner headlines, or heard it on TV news. But we were vindicated in the court, the conspiracy actually triggered by Satan broken. And God's Work SURGES ON!

To give you the complete story of this outrageous conspiracy -- Satan's most monstrous attempt to destroy the Church and Work of the living GOD, I need to reveal to you events and facts going back ten years or more.

I believed, until some ten years ago, that my son, Garner Ted Armstrong, had accepted and believed God's truth completely, and that he was in complete harmony with Christ's chosen Apostle and God's truth. I knew he had certain likes and dislikes in living style -- (he liked a different kind of music than I -- he liked to hunt and I didn't care for it, etc.) -- but I believed that he and I were firmly together on doctrine and God's truth.

To my very great sorrow I have had to come to see that he never did really agree with what Jesus Christ through His Word had revealed to His chosen Apostle. It is only since he has been disfellowshiped from the Church that the wide discrepancy of belief became apparent.

Some few years ago, through the office I had given him in the Work, he began disagreeing on rules of conduct for students in the college, and on minor points. By 1975 I began to have an intuition that a conspiracy was in progress to take over total command of all God's Work. I mentioned this to him as a father might reveal this thing I sensed, and he assured me there was no such conspiracy. I could not put my finger on it, to use an American idiom.

But gradually, in the office of Executive Vice President, he began demoting the older top-ranking ministers -- those who had received their Bible and theological teaching from me, or shanghaiing them to some other part of the world. Little by little I noticed doctrinal differences creeping in, always a more "liberal" view, watering down TRUTH. It was so gradual -- so subtile, as Satan works so subtilely, that I didn't wake up to it until it had grown to dangerous proportions.

He was very much influenced by young Dr. Robert Kuhn and a few others. A year ago, he clashed openly with me in a meeting of the Church's Board of Trustees. He resigned in this emotional outburst, but I calmed him, restored order, and did not accept his resignation.

The annual ministers' conference, with hundreds of our ministers from all over the world, began the next day. Because some wrong doctrinal issues had been brought up in the conference the year before, I told him that if any doctrines were to be discussed or presented in any way, I proposed to remain for the entire meeting. He assured me doctrines would not in any way be touched on. I opened the meeting in the morning, but in the afternoon flew on to Tucson.

But my son had lied to me. Actually the biggest doctrinal teaching of the Church's history was handed out to the ministers in a leather-bound cover, which I had never seen -- of which I KNEW NOTHING -- I did not know such a thing was being produced, primarily by Dr. Kuhn (to put it in "scholarly" language and style). It was a complete revamp of all the Church's doctrines -- and WATERING DOWN GOD'S TRUTH AND SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS!

Meanwhile, combining the Big Sandy campus students with Pasadena, at Pasadena, many additional professors had been added to the faculty, who had none of the teachings of God's Church. They were secular -- of the evolutionary approach.

The leather-bound doctrinal teaching had been titled "Worldwide Church of God SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY PROJECT," known to the ministers as the STP. It contained a very considerable "watering down" and alterings of the biblical truths as Christ had put His truths into His Church through His chosen Apostle.

By April, other events had brought matters to a head, and I put my son on a compulsory leave of absence for at least the remainder of the calendar year, until I could set God's Church under Christ's direction back on the track doctrinally and spiritually. My son refused to go, but went to the public press with statements harmful to God's Church and Work. Thereupon, Garner Ted was put out of the Church -- disfellowshipped, and marked before the Church membership worldwide.

Since, my son has been doing everything in his power to destroy God's Church, and to draw away its members to follow him.

As a result of things he falsely claimed, a few members or ex-members, including one from the State of New Jersey, and others in Pasadena, launched a legal, civil suit against the Church, and naming myself and Mr. Rader also as defendants. They managed to have this suit backed by the acting Attorney- General's Office (whose acting authority ends in a few days). Giant banner headlines burst out in the newspapers, saying Mr. Rader and I were accused of "syphoning off" millions of dollars to our own private accounts, from God's Work. This was a monstrous lie. But, in Satan's world, such is the system that news media may print the accusation in HUGE TYPE, and then, when the charge is disproved, either print nothing or a small blurb back about page 13 where no one will see it. The damage to one's good character is done. Such damnable methods will not be used in the WORLD TOMORROW, my brethren!

But when this suit came for a hearing in court, Friday afternoon, January 5th, GOD GAVE US THE VICTORY. Although our records were seized, NO EVIDENCE of any wrongdoing had appeared. Incidentally, because of accusations from enemies of God's Work, the Internal Revenue Service of the national government had somewhat recently conducted a thorough investigation of our books and records lasting 18 months, and there was no evidence of any wrongdoing or, as accusers in the present suit alleged, "syphoning off" of Church funds to our own private accounts.

In the Court hearing Friday, the Court ordered all our seized records returned. God gave His Work the VICTORY!

Brethren, every time you send us your tithes or offerings, you are, in fact, giving Christ's Work under His Apostle a vote of CONFIDENCE. It might be well if you stated that fact in your letter as you send it. Also it will help God's Work if you also state, in sending money for the Work, that you are sending it for the PURPOSE of fulfilling Christ's Great Commission -- of proclaiming the Gospel Jesus taught INTO ALL THE WORLD FOR A WITNESS TO ALL NATIONS!

Brethren, there has been a CONSPIRACY against this Work, although I ascribe it primarily to Satan, who can DECEIVE men into doing his destructive work.

Those members involved in precipitating this suit, so far as I know who they are, have been disfellowshipped from the Church of God.

For some few years now, there had been a certain group at Headquarters, whom my son surrounded himself with, who have wanted to "water down" God's truths and doctrines. They seem to have wanted to get as close to the ways of Satan as possible, still keeping "one foot" in God's Church, hoping thereby to get into the Kingdom of God.

I want to get as CLOSE to GOD's true doctrines as possible, and as far away from Satan's ways as possible.

If there is any reason why the living Christ chose me as His Apostle, it is that I will not compromise a thousandth of an inch on God's true doctrines.

Did you ever realize GOD won't compromise with them? No doubt God had the POWER to just forgive us our sins, without having to give His only begotten Son Jesus to pay our penalty -- and Jesus had to give His LIFE to pay our penalty rather than compromise with His Law!

Brethren, LET US STAND FIRM in the truth of the Eternal GOD! If ever I needed you to stand back of me as Christ's chosen Apostle, IT IS NOW!

Last Wednesday we had the astonishing situation of Christ's Apostle having been put out of God's Church under color of authority of the State government, and Wayne Cole made the HEAD OF THE CHURCH by the state civil government! And that in a country whose very constitution provides SEPARATION of CHURCH and STATE! I have never heard of such a thing in all my life!

But by Friday afternoon Christ's chosen Apostle was back in power and Mr. Cole was OUT. God did not forsake us! GOD IS STILL ON HIS THRONE! This is HIS Work -- not that of MAN. Never forget that! God is alive and well, and active ON HIS THRONE!

Brethren, this has been a crucial ordeal -- and it found me with a sore throat and fever, threatened by pneumonia! But God pulled us through! Never were your generous offerings, beside God's tithe, so vitally necessary as now.

The group of "liberals" which my son surrounded himself with, who wanted to alter and modify or change GOD'S LAW AND DOCTRINES, are being put out. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TEN YEARS, GOD'S CHURCH AND ITS LEADERS AT HEADQUARTERS ARE IN HARMONY, IN GOD'S TRUTH, IN PEACE, AND IN HIS LOVE!

With love and gratitude in Jesus' name,

Herbert W. Armstrong

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