Articles on Cults

Phillip Arnn

The articles on our site concerning the Worldwide Church of God are to inform readers about the history of that organization and the doctrines taught by its founder. Numerous splinter groups still practice Armstrongism. The Worldwide Church of God is a Christian denomination and a member of the National Association of Evangelicals and Evangelical Ministries to New Religions (EMNR).

The Worldwide Church of God for over half a century has placed much emphasis on Bible prophecy as part of its warning the world of impending judgment from God.

Herbert W. Armstrong adapted the theories of British-Israelism early in his ministry career and this emphasis became a bedrock doctrinal pillar of the church.

Basic teaching under British or Anglo-Israelism states that the ten tribes of Israel were taken into captivity by Assyria, never to return to their homeland. They were eventually scattered westward into Europe, becoming the forefathers of the peoples of western European nations.

Thus, according to Armstrong, Britain and its offspring, the United States along with other nations, are the true Israel and, as such, the focus of Bible prophecy given to Israel.

Through the years Armstrong and his subordinates poured forth volumes of prophetic predictions of famine, pestilence, disease and military destruction to befall the West.

The Plain Truth magazine, founded in the mid-Thirties, has been Armstrong's written chronicle of prophetic utterance which has proven to be a source of major embarrassment to the Worldwide Church of God.

In January of 1939 Armstrong made this statement:

"Undoubtedly, then, the "Beast" who will capture half the city of Jerusalem, fighting at Armageddon against Christ at his Second Coming, is MUSSOLINI, with ten European Dictators, and their armies! It is coming in This Generation!" (The Plain Truth, p. 4)

Again in The Plain Truth:

"And I saw the beast (Hitler) and the kings of the earth (his junior partners), and their armies, gathered together to make war against - against WHOM? Not Britain and America! NOT Israel - against HIM THAT SAT ON THE HORSE (Christ) and His army (Rev. 19:19.) It is CHRIST and the Angels that Hitler will fight" (Mar./Apr., 1943, p. 6).

In 1956, Armstrong published a booklet entitled 1975 In Prophecy.

The Worldwide Church of God was convinced that 1975 was the outside date for the Second Coming of Christ. They had used several different formulas to arrive at this date using Bible prophecies.

Armstrong's warning of approaching doom was vivid:

"Jeremiah's prophecy is more specific. It is the beginning of the NATIONAL trouble to come on America, the British nations, and the democracies of north-western Europe! And, as both Jeremiah and Jesus were inspired to record - and also the prophet Daniel - it will be the MOST CATASTROPHIC time of national trouble that has ever struck any nation or ever will! Here is exactly how catastrophic it will be: ONE THIRD OF OUR ENTIRE POPULATION will DIE in the famine and disease epidemic!" (1975 In Prophecy, p. 11)

He gives Joel, Chapter One, as the prophetic picture of this awful time. Then Armstrong describes what will happen next:

"But all these things, as Jesus explained, are to be only the BEGINNING of our time of national trouble.

"Once we are weakened by starvation, disease and the resulting calamitous economic depression, the Ten-Nation European Colossus will suddenly STRIKE with hydrogen bombs that shall DESTROY OUR CITIES and our centers of industrial and military production!" (Ibid, p. 13)

In the Good News magazines of April 1962 and October 1963, among others, Worldwide Church members were shown pictures of Petra in Jordan which was said to be the "place of safety" they were going to live in during the tribulation. The Lord would warn them when to flee and the Worldwide members would depart for Petra, probably by large airplanes.

The year 1975 arrived and nothing occurred. Like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Children of God, the Worldwide Church of God had predicted falsely that 1975 would be the end of man's reign. A colossal failure for Herbert W. Armstrong.

If it had been a prophecy made by one of the local ministers or even a lone evangelist, it might have been excused as over-enthusiasm. But it capped over forty years of prophetic failures by the man who claimed to be God's Apostle - the one through whom God had restored the Bible truths that were lost for 18-1/2 centuries (The Inside Story of the World Tomorrow Broadcast, pp. 9-10).

Today, these prophetic failures and the whole system of date calculation are embarrassing facts that the Worldwide Church is trying to overcome.

Joseph Tkach recently stated the Worldwide Church's new approach to prophecy in his "Personal" column appearing in Worldwide News:

"Prophecy programs will not highlight which nation or which group of nations currently may be fulfilling specific end-time prophecies. Prophecy programs will present a balanced, overall perspective of the purpose and value of prophecy, instead of attempting to interpret specific prophecies.

"Prophecy programs will not lose sight of the gospel message by trading the true gospel for a `10-nation/save-your-skin' gospel (Galatians 1:6-10)" (Jan. 29, 1991).

Fifty-seven years of false prophecies and faulty Bible interpretations have mercifully come to an end.

[Ed. Note: Watchman Fellowship has been informed by the Public Affairs department of the Worldwide Church of God that they no longer believe the prophecy that 1975 would be the end of the world and that they no longer make available to the public Armstrong's booklet, "1975 In Prophecy."]