Raising the Ruins (12 page)

Beginning in the fall of 1988, Mr. Tkach, Dr. Ward and company set out to strip away everything that made Ambassador College unique, despite their persistent claims to the contrary. This one decision led to a whirlwind of activity and change in the church—all revolving around Big Sandy. In 1988, they decided to pursue accreditation for Big Sandy. In 1989, they decided to consolidate both campuses in Big Sandy. In 1990, they closed the Pasadena campus. In 1994, after wholesale changes in the school—altering the curriculum, increasing student enrollment, building dozens of new structures, introducing inter-collegiate sports—the college finally obtained accreditation.

But getting back to 1988, de-emphasizing the importance of preaching the gospel to the world as a warning while focusing energy and resources inward to expand the college activities did not bode well for the survival of Mr. Armstrong’s most important book.

“Christian Duty” to Turn Yourself In

As you might well imagine, by this point there were a number of dissenting voices within the church’s ranks—although not nearly as many as there should have been. Some ministers were beginning to question the church’s direction—even refusing, in some instances, to preach the “new truth” coming out of Pasadena.

To these ministers, Mr. Tkach’s message was clear: G
ET BEHIND ME OR GET OUT
. In 1988, he wrote to the ministry:

“[I]f you have any doctrinal area that you do not understand properly, you have an obligation to contact Church Administration and discuss the matter. It would be dishonest and divisive for a minister to refuse to address with his congregation a doctrinal point of significant import to the church because of his personal disagreement, and to fail to notify his superiors of that disagreement.”
²⁶

This is one reason so many ministers buckled under the weight of these many changes—they knew if they didn’t declare their support for them from behind the pulpit, it could well cost them their jobs. Tkach continued,

“If a matter is unclear to you or deeper understanding is needed, it is your
Christian duty
… to call Church Administration for guidance. It is spiritually inexcusable for you to permit your lack of understanding or disagreement to become a source of division among the membership in your local congregation.”
²⁷

If they didn’t agree with the church’s direction, they had a Christian duty to turn themselves in. Tkachism, we would find out years later, had a great fondness for the term
Christian duty.

“The fundamental truths of God’s Word are contained in
Mystery of the Ages
. But we must realize that some of the peripheral or incidental points it contains give occasion to critics to fault the whole book, as well as inadvertently misleading readers on a few points.”

— Joseph Tkach Sr.

Pastor General’s Report, February 14, 1989

Not surprisingly, Mr. Tkach decided against revising
Mystery of the Ages
. Bernie Schnippert had the honor of making the first official announcement on December 2, 1988—albeit only to church employees involved in producing and distributing literature. He wrote, “Mr. Tkach decided last June to stop distributing
Mystery of the Ages
[actually, he placed the book on hold May 13, then discarded the inventory on June 2] because of sections that no longer properly reflected the church’s teaching on
certain subjects.”
¹
In actuality, the only specific reason offered in those earlier reports was that it needed to be revised “to better reflect the church’s teaching
about healing.”
²
Now the reasons had broadened to “certain subjects.”

“For now,” Schnippert wrote, “Mr. Tkach has decided not to reprint the book.”
³
And with that, the
WCG
had finally made it official. The book’s lifespan within the church had lasted from September 1985 to May 1988—a run of only 32 months. Years later, they would spend more than twice that amount of time fighting us in court to
keep
the book out of print!

Mr. Schnippert offered this explanation in his December 1988 report: “When Mr. Armstrong compiled
Mystery,
he drew material from other booklets, booklets that are still in print. In that way,
Mystery
will not actually go out of print since parts of it are already contained in other booklets.”
⁴
This is one of the first instances where they used the “while we’ve made a change, it’s not really a change” excuse. This tactic would be repeated again and again for three more years, in an effort to hide their massive doctrinal transformation from the church membership. Schnippert gave this example as support for the fact that
Mystery
would “not actually go out of print”:

The same sort of situation exists with
The Incredible Human Potential
. As early as 1982, Mr. Armstrong had sections of the book produced as booklets.
Your Awesome Future,
What Science Can’t Discover About the Human Mind
, Human Nature—Did God Create It?,
and
World Peace—How Will It Come?
were all originally part of
The Incredible Human Potential
. Mr. Armstrong used these booklets frequently on the telecast. And although
The Incredible Human Potential
is no longer in print as a book, much of it is still being used in booklet form.
⁵

Tkachism latched on to this excuse early on and milked everything it could out of it.
But the same message is available in other literature,
they often said.

Mr. Armstrong did extract some material from
The Incredible Human Potential
to produce smaller booklets for the television program. But to say that, because of these booklets, “much” of the book was still being published was terribly misleading. To then use the same excuse for retiring
Mystery
was even more ridiculous in light of the long list of changes that had been made.

After Schnippert’s December 1988 announcement, Mail Processing updated its staff on procedures regarding the book. “Both versions of the
Mystery of the Ages
book [softbound and hardbound] have been out of stock for a few months”
⁶
—
discarded
or
destroyed,
actually. Those requesting the book would now be sent a postcard saying, “This publication is no longer available and there are now no plans to reprint it.”
⁷

Preparing the Church

Almost seven months elapsed from when
Mystery
was put “on hold” to when they said there were “no plans to reprint.” Then, after that, it took Church Administration another
60 days
to inform the field ministry about the decision and an additional 20 days to tell the membership.
⁸
By stark contrast, Joseph Tkach Jr. fired my dad on December 7, 1989, a year after they killed
Mystery,
and news of the disfellowshipment hit the
Pastor General’s Report
just 12
DAYS LATER.
⁹

But upon deciding not to reprint Mr. Armstrong’s best and most popular work—even long after destroying all remaining inventory copies of the book—church leaders waited
nearly three months
before telling the membership. The reason they took so long is because they wanted to prepare the church for an announcement this earth-shaking.

At the outset of 1989, Mr. Tkach Sr. wrote to the ministry, “One area that I want to stress is that of putting undue emphasis upon Mr. Herbert Armstrong or upon me. In the church of God, human leaders are never to become objects of reverence or devotion bordering on worship.”
¹⁰
Previously, we have noted Mr. Tkach’s attempt to demote Mr. Armstrong post-mortem—even rejecting his prophesied role as the end-time “Elijah.” At the same time, Mr. Tkach wasted little time in assuming the spiritual rank of apostle, just 10 months into his pastor-generalship. What’s interesting about the above statement is that Mr. Tkach presents himself as co-equal with Mr. Armstrong. Don’t put “undue emphasis upon Mr. Herbert Armstrong
or upon me,”
he said. From what I remember,
he
was the only one putting undue emphasis on himself. Mr. Tkach continued,

It is not appropriate, for example, to assign various scriptures to Mr. Armstrong
or me personally
as though our leadership were specifically prophesied in the Bible. Besides being erroneous and spiritually presumptuous, this kind of thinking only serves to falsely brand God’s church as a cultish sect that worships its human leaders.
¹¹

I remember Dean Blackwell once delivering a sermon in which he went through Joshua 1, likening Mr. Tkach to Joshua, who succeeded Moses anciently. Outside of general references like that, I certainly don’t remember any minister ever assigning
specific
scriptures to Mr. Tkach and his leadership. That Mr. Tkach would now consider this a problem was simply an attempt to de-emphasize Mr. Armstrong’s importance while elevating his own, and in a manner that seemed both humble and wise.

On the other hand, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Tkach and just about every minister in the
WCG
had,
for many years,
assigned various scriptures to Mr. Armstrong and
his
leadership. That Mr. Tkach would now equate this with
worshiping
a human being is absurd. Jesus is the one who said that Elijah (not the “church”) “shall first come, and restore all things.”
¹²
Was it erroneous and spiritually presumptuous for Jesus to say this? Or for the disciples to believe it? They knew that John the Baptist was the first-century fulfillment of this prophecy.
¹³
In fact,
Mr. Tkach
even said John the Baptist was the prophesied messenger to prepare the way before Christ’s first coming. Was it erroneous and spiritually presumptuous for him to assign various scriptures to
John the Baptist
—a mere human? Was Mr. Tkach worshiping John the Baptist?

Mystery of the Ages
has more to say about various scriptures assigned to Mr. Armstrong than any other book or booklet he ever wrote. Mr. Tkach now deemed these sections of the book erroneous and spiritually presumptuous. What members did
not
know at the time was that Mr. Tkach now believed the
WHOLE BOOK
had so many errors that a revised copy couldn’t even be printed.

Mystery of the Ages
Revised

Two weeks after his comments about assigning scriptures to names, Mr. Tkach began the
PGR
by writing, “I am thrilled to announce that our new booklet
Who Was Jesus?,
written by Paul Kroll, is now printed and ready for mailing!”
¹⁴
The publicity the church gave this booklet is not unlike that which Mr. Armstrong heaped upon
Mystery of the Ages
when it was first released. All members and co-workers automatically received a copy. The church offered the booklet on television. Mr. Tkach also offered it to all
Plain Truth
subscribers in his semi-annual letter. He went on to write, “I believe this will be one of our most vital and important pieces of literature as we continue to do the job of preaching and teaching the full gospel of Jesus Christ—the unparalleled good news about the salvation of mankind through Jesus, and His prophesied Second Coming to establish the kingdom of God.”
¹⁵

The problem with
Who Was Jesus?
wasn’t so much the content (although it does contain some unbiblical teachings), it was the new
direction
or
focus
of the message. It was moving away from the message Jesus actually preached to focusing primarily on the messenger.

In
Mystery of the Ages
,
Mr. Armstrong wrote about a “violent controversy” that erupted in the early years of the first-century church. The dispute centered on whether the church should proclaim the gospel
OF
Christ or merely
a gospel
ABOUT
Christ. The gospel about Christ won out—leaving only a faithful few to proclaim the true gospel of Jesus Christ.
¹⁶
Mr. Armstrong wrote about this false gospel, in some detail, on pages 278-279 of
Mystery of the Ages
.

Our purpose in this volume is not to help you prove which gospel is true. But suffice it to say, had Mr. Armstrong lived long enough to compare
Who Was Jesus?
with
Mystery of the Ages
,
he would have made this conclusion in the strongest possible terms:
Who Was Jesus?
is
ABOUT
Christ, whereas
Mystery of the Ages
contains Christ’s message—the gospel
Jesus Christ preached
.

It is not coincidental that Mr. Tkach delayed the
Mystery of the Ages
announcement until
AFTER
Who Was Jesus?
was printed. He needed a replacement for
Mystery of the Ages
.
He just couldn’t, in good conscience, make all the editorial changes necessary to keep
Mystery of the Ages
afloat. And aside from that, the whole focus and intent of the church’s work had changed. Nothing reflects this better than comparing
Who Was Jesus?
with
Mystery of the Ages
.
So, on the eve of announcing that
Mystery of the Ages
was now dead and buried, Mr. Tkach said he was
THRILLED
to announce that “one of our most vital and important pieces of literature” was now ready for distribution. In that way,
Who Was Jesus?
served as the revised edition of
Mystery of the Ages
.

Passing the Buck

As would become customary with major changes in the church, Mr. Tkach had someone else break the news about
Mystery
being discontinued. Though Mr. Tkach had personally opened the January 17 pgr with his “thrilling” announcement about
Who Was Jesus?,
in the next issue, he delegated the job of telling the field ministry about
Mystery of the Ages
to Larry Salyer, who wrote,

Mystery of the Ages
is among the most expensive pieces of literature we have recently published. We have offered this book to the public many times through the telecast, the
Plain Truth,
co-worker letters and semi-annual letters. While it is not completely accurate to say that we have saturated our audience with these offers, we have made more offers for this book and have distributed it more than any other in the past four years.
¹⁷

Actually, the book had been distributed less than three years.

Mr. Salyer then factored in another reason for its removal: “Because
Mystery of the Ages
covers so many doctrinal subjects and is so costly to publish, obviously we want it to be completely accurate theologically. This is important, also, because our literature faces an ever-increasing critical review from outsiders.” To his credit, he at least slips in part of the real reason, indicating it wasn’t “completely accurate.” But later, Salyer wrote, “Please do not tell prospective members to request copies of
Mystery of the Ages
,
because we do not have any in stock. We do not plan to print more until editorial and budget questions have been resolved.”
¹⁸
Actually, they had destroyed all remaining stock and told employees there were no plans to reprint.

Breaking down Salyer’s comments, he identified three reasons for
Mystery’s
removal: 1) too expensive; 2) distribution had reached
near-
saturation point; and 3) not completely accurate theologically.

Let’s look at these three reasons more closely.

Too Expensive

In his 1998 deposition, Mr. Tkach Jr. backed up Larry Salyer’s assessment, that the book was too expensive. “It’s much easier to give away 10 booklets that cost a dime each to produce than it is to give a book that costs 10 bucks to produce. It’s just that simple.”
¹⁹
But it’s not as simple as he made it sound because
Mystery of the Ages
never cost that much to produce. When Dexter Faulkner asked Tkach Sr. about what to do with the 120,000 unusable copies in 1988, he said the replacement cost for the book would be “around one dollar per copy.”
²⁰
With that in mind, using Joe Jr.’s hypothetical, sending
Mystery of the Ages
may have been
more
cost-effective than 10 booklets.