Raising the Ruins (38 page)

To admit that removing our legal claim was at least of “secondary importance” was astounding. They never hinted at this in the court proceedings. They made it seem like a genuine attempt to serve the needs of our members. But going back to Helge’s assessment of the lawsuit, why would the
WCG
even need
to make the works available if we were in such an indefensible position? Hadn’t the courts been ruling “overwhelmingly” in
WCG
’s favor? Were we not left with just one option in this litigation—standing before the bar of justice to have damages assessed against us for our “unlawful” and “illegal” distribution of
Mystery?

Helge concluded his interview with another personal attack against my father. “Mr. Helge predicted that, whenever the final court hearing adjourns and the
PCG
is still not allowed to print Mr. Armstrong’s books, ‘I’ll bet he says this is a famine of hearing the Word, that Satan did this .…’”
¹⁰

He said that two weeks
after
the
WCG
offered to sell us
Mystery of the Ages
.

Meanwhile, my dad had called for a church-wide fast within the
PCG
. Members were asked to beseech God for special deliverance in this struggle. He scheduled the fast for the fourth weekend of November.

Denied Summary Judgment Again

The
WCG
lowered its settlement offer to $3.1 million, but insisted that the figure was much too low for any discussion about selling the copyrights. Their offer was for perpetual licenses only and we would have to print a disclaimer on the literature saying, “Used by permission of the Worldwide Church of God.” There’s no way we would have ever agreed to that.

We bumped our offer to $1.5 million—again, for all the copyrights and first right of refusal on anything else they might sell.

Meanwhile, preparations for the December trial had to move forward. In the
Journal
article, Helge had indicated that if the November 6 summary judgment hearing came out in favor of
WCG
, then the next step would undoubtedly be a “trial to determine attorneys’ fees and damages the
PCG
would have to pay the
WCG
.”
¹¹

But at the hearing, Judge Snyder again denied their motion for summary judgment on the grounds of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Even though they were now e-publishing the works we wanted, the judge said they were “charging too much” for
Mystery of the Ages
.
Our attorney pointed out that “although the Ninth Circuit did say that having to ask for a license and presumably having to pay for it couldn’t be a substantial burden, they didn’t say that the Worldwide Church could set the price wherever they wanted.”
¹²

“And in fact,” the judge added, “they implicitly suggest that it
has to be available
on a
reasonable
basis.”
¹³

It was yet another sharp blow to the
WCG
’s already wobbly legal position. Judge Snyder set the next hearing for November 25, when she would consider the arguments of both sides to exclude evidence at trial.

Junk Science

While formulating a defense against our counterclaim, the
WCG
also had to prove how badly they had been “damaged” by our distribution of
Mystery
—a book we gave away
FOR FREE
; one that the
WCG
had distributed for free during Mr. Armstrong’s life, and now had a “Christian duty” to keep out of print. The bulk of evidence in this regard fell on the shoulders of a “forensic economist” named John Crissey, who had worked as an expert in numerous cases for Allan Browne’s law firm. According to Crissey’s September 18, 2002, preliminary expert report,
WCG
had been denied “profits” totaling $3.84 million—$4.3 million with interest—by our distribution of nearly 100,000 copies of
Mystery
. He also calculated the
future
“losses” of
WCG
to be $3.3 million. All totaled,
WCG
would be seeking $7.63 million in damages at trial—just for
Mystery of the Ages
.
¹⁴
(They would also be seeking millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees.)

Crissey based his findings on the fact that
Mystery
recipients gave more money than non-recipients of the book—never mind the fact that
Mystery
recipients might be more inclined to agree with the
PCG
’s overall message and work. What Crissey ignored was that pre-1997 data showed that
Mystery
recipients had
already
been giving at a higher rate long before
PCG
even started distributing the book! He ignored this data (which we supplied him) because it completely contradicted his “expert” analysis. Many of our own members and their children were the first ones to request copies of
Mystery
once we began distribution. These people were already “pre-disposed” to giving more—they were already tithing members of the church!

In
PCG
’s motion to dismiss Crissey’s report, Mark Helm argued that the court should not admit Crissey’s testimony, calling it bogus, fatally flawed and defective junk science, among other things.

Judge Snyder agreed. She wrote in her tentative order, a few days after a November 25 hearing, “[T]he methodology employed by Mr. Crissey has not been shown to be sufficiently reliable to allow it to be presented to the trier of fact, and therefore his quantitative estimate of the amount of contributions that are attributable to distribution of
MOA
is not admissible.”
¹⁵

Thus, on the eve of the damages trial, the
WCG
was faced with the prospect of not having any real evidence to show how much they were “damaged” by our
Mystery
distribution. Of course, they had much difficulty with this argument long before Crissey came along.

When we started distributing the work in 1997, we absorbed all the printing and mailing costs, and then gave it away free of charge. Under any circumstances, it would be difficult to show how this was some sort of moneymaking scheme for
PCG
. But for
WCG
to then claim that our free distribution was actually stealing “profits” from them is the height of hypocrisy. Aside from the unfathomable logic of the idea to begin with, why would they now seek “profits” from a book they had been ridiculing for years and had vowed to keep out of circulation? Bernie Schnippert, after all, testified that “as a matter of scruples,” they determined long ago not to disingenuously profit from material they “didn’t believe.”
¹⁶

The Cult “Expert”

Besides John Crissey, the
WCG
relied on other biased “experts” like Ruth Tucker, the self-proclaimed authority on “cultic movements.” Of course, when we brought up Tkachism’s personal beliefs, like during the Schnippert deposition, the
WCG
legal team would blow a gasket. But when they brought up
our
personal beliefs and tried to make us look like a dangerous cult, to them it was completely relevant to the merits of the case.

Tucker’s report was a boring rehash of what Tkachism had been saying all along.
Mr. Armstrong was a dictator with bizarre teachings;
Mystery of the Ages
was a huge money-making scheme; the Tkaches courageously transformed the church;
Gerald Flurry
thinks he’s above the law,
and so on.

Tucker said our claim that Mr. Armstrong wanted every prospective member to read
Mystery of the Ages
before baptism had “absolutely no merit at all,”
¹⁷
even though the requirement was clearly stated in the
Pastor General’s Report
in 1986. Relying instead on page 26 of
Transformed by Truth,
Tucker said Mr. Armstrong’s baptismal requirements were, if anything, “lax.” She also said “there is no evidence that the
PCG
ever had a baptismal prerequisite” for reading
Mystery,
even though we had stated the policy verbally and in print numerous times between 1989 and 1996.
¹⁸

On the point of government, Tucker said Mr. Armstrong “was an authoritarian leader. His personality and leadership style dominated the
WCG
for five decades .…”
¹⁹
In an article she wrote for
Christianity Today
in 1996, she characterized the
WCG
as a “classic case study of an authoritarian cult.”
²⁰
Mr. Armstrong, she wrote, “held tight reins over his diverse empire. His authority was unquestioned by most church members .…”
²¹

So at her deposition, we asked if she believed Mr. Tkach Sr. had inherited the same degree of control from Mr. Armstrong in 1986. She confidently said
NO
,
²²
even though Feazell and Schnippert had both said the opposite earlier at their depositions. We told Tucker about how Tkach Sr. designated himself as an apostle in 1986 and about Tkach Jr.’s empty promises to modify the church’s form of governance—and she started backpedaling: “I’m not an expert in the area of church government.”
²³
But mention
Herbert Armstrong
or
Gerald Flurry
and she immediately becomes one.

Tucker wrote, “Former members of the
PCG
have told how Mr. Flurry’s words were often presented as the very words of God.”
²⁴
We asked about the identity of these “former members,” but she couldn’t remember which
website
she got it from. She assured us that “there are a number of sites that have postings from former members of the Philadelphia Church of God.”
²⁵
She did not, however, personally contact any current or former members of the
PCG
, nor any
PCG
officials, while preparing her “expert” testimony about our church.

We asked her if there was anything about the establishment of the
PCG
that she would characterize as positive. “Not that I can think of,” she responded.
²⁶
“… I’ve never heard or seen literature that would indicate that the Philadelphia Church of God was particularly looking to assess its views against scripture.”
²⁷
That is incredible. She finds
nothing
positive about the
PCG
—nothing biblical
about our doctrines. She just knows.

Regarding our supporters, she said the people attracted to Mr. Armstrong’s teachings are book readers. “They might not be terribly sophisticated thinkers, but they were certainly people that read books .…”
²⁸
That’s how she characterizes hundreds of thousands of members who joined the
WCG
over the course of Mr. Armstrong’s ministry and millions more who read his literature and donated to his work—
they’re all simple-minded
.

Far from being hired for her expert testimony, Ruth Tucker was brought in because she is pre-programmed to heap praise on Tkachism no matter what. Her intimate relationship with the Tkaches goes way back. In 1988—two years after Mr. Armstrong died—Michael Snyder, the
WCG
’s assistant public relations director, contacted her about the doctrinal reforms taking place in the
WCG
. He wanted her to have the most up-to-date information for a book she was writing about cults. In 1991, Tucker invited Snyder’s boss, David Hulme, to speak at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School about the progress the
WCG
had made in accepting the trinity doctrine. In 1996, the
WCG
returned the favor and invited Tucker to speak at its ministerial conferences. “Dr. Tucker was excited about our reforms and encouraged us in every way she could,” Tkach Jr. wrote in 1997. “We consider her a gift from God.”
²⁹

Gutting Their Case

Judging by Ruth Tucker’s expert report, Mike Feazell’s preface and questions we were asked during our depositions, the
WCG
clearly intended to label us as a cult in court. They wanted to show how we were supposedly a racially bigoted, misogynistic fringe group, led by a self-proclaimed dictator.

But in her tentative order after the November 25 hearing, Judge Snyder said she would not allow the trial to turn into an “attack on Flurry” because it would “distract the jury from the issues at trial” and “unfairly prejudice
PCG
.” Later, the court concluded that the “
WCG
should not be permitted to describe specific religious tenets—either its own, or
PCG
’s—regarding racial issues because such evidence will be unfairly prejudicial and will confuse the issues at trial.”
³⁰
In explaining why they discontinued
Mystery,
the judge said she would allow
WCG
to say that it considered its message to be “no longer
socially
acceptable.” But so far as the judge was concerned, they couldn’t even use the word “race.”
³¹

Another huge breakthrough for us. Added to the ruling on Crissey, we felt the tentative order would pretty much gut the
WCG
’s case for damages. Not only were they unable to prove damages, now they couldn’t sling mud. Added to that, they still had to tackle our counterclaim, not to mention subject themselves to a rigorous
PCG
defense dead set on exposing their lies and deceit.

Sealing the Deal

The damages trial had now been pushed back to March 4, allowing both sides more time to argue over what evidence would be allowed at trial. At a December 18 hearing, as a follow-up to her tentative order, the judge said she wasn’t inclined to change her tentative ruling.