From Radicalism to Mainstream Evangelicalism: Exploring the Effects of Doctrinal Upheaval on Second-Generation Members in the Worldwide Church of God

A Brief History of the Worldwide Church of God

The Worldwide Church of God was founded in 1933 by Herbert W. Armstrong. Beginning as a small radio ministry, the WCG eventually grew into one of the most financially successful religious organizations of its time and enjoyed a much larger renown than its membership would seem to warrant. At its height, for example, the church counted approximately 100,000 baptized members,¹ but in the early 1980s it reported an annual, tax-free income of $70 million per year and held greater financial and media power than the Billy Graham and Oral Roberts ministries combined.² Two of the church’s most well-known media distributions were its free magazine publication, The Plain Truth, which reached six to seven million readers worldwide,³ and its television program, The World Tomorrow, which was carried by 350 stations.⁴

In part because of its media and financial influence, the Worldwide Church of God was often criticized by mainstream Christian ministries for its radical doctrines.⁵ Among these were a belief in British-Israelism, which posits that the people of Britain and its colonies, including the United States, are the direct descendants of ancient Israel and thus are God’s chosen people. The church also preached salvation by adherence to Old Testament dietary laws, Sabbath-keeping, and festival practices, and rejected notions of salvation by grace, as well as the Trinity. Members were also required to give 10 percent of their annual income to the church to fund its ministries; to save 10 percent to fund their personal travels to church festivals; and every third year, to donate an additional 10 percent to help the church’s poor.

Some of the WCG’s more radical tenets discouraged members from seeking conventional medical treatments, including basic vaccinations, since only God was to be relied upon for healing. Members were also discouraged from voting, which was seen as an erroneous attempt at trying to impose humans’ will, rather than God’s will, on world events, and they were dissuaded from dating and often forbidden from marrying outside the church. Additionally, the Worldwide Church of God taught that the return of Christ would likely occur in members’ lifetime and that the events of the Cold War were signs of the apocalypse described in the book of Revelation. In fact, during the 1970s, some local ministers discouraged members from buying property as they contended that the end time was so near that it made better economic sense for its members to rent apartments rather than buy homes.⁶ Perhaps most importantly, however, members of the WCG believed that they were the only true Christians called by God and that other Christian followers were “pagan,” “false prophets,” or simply misled. The church also borrowed from Mormon theology and taught that its members would obtain Godhood after the second coming of Jesus.

What makes the Worldwide Church of God an interesting organization to study is its abrupt transformation from the radical religious sect described above to a mainstream, evangelical organization in the mid-1990s. The origin of this shift lay in the 1986 death of charismatic founder Armstrong, who had shortly before appointed Joseph W. Tkach as his successor. Over the course of the next eight years, Tkach came to believe that the WCG’s doctrines were not in keeping with the Bible and had in fact ignored much of the New Testament. He then decided to lead the church in a new direction that was more in line with mainstream Christianity, and in 1994, publicly explained his decision in a sermon at the church’s liberal arts college, Ambassador University. In this sermon (and in the many that followed), Tkach announced that it was no longer the church’s official position that members needed to adhere to Old Testament laws or Sabbath-keeping to be saved, but that the church now embraced a theology of salvation by grace. He also announced his belief that WCG members were...