I don't remember where I got this. I have had it for a while in a file. It explains a lot on how Herbert worked and why he did what he did.
Herbert was raised a Quaker by a very strict and dominating father, which had a profound effect on his life. Eager to get away from a bullying and brutal father he left school after the eighth grade and tried to make his own way in the world.
Having been told that he would amount to nothing and often beaten and verbally abused he developed a deep personal sense of inferiority which manifested itself in an imperative need to be a success and prove his father wrong.
This inferiority complex had a much greater down side, making him suseptible to flatterer’s. Herbert loved to be flattered, especially by men he looked up to, or regarded as successful. This proved to be his undoing in his later life as Satan always attacks us on our most vulnerable weaknesses.
At the same time his father’s bullying attitude was reproduced in Herbert; first because that was his primary influence, and second because he was determined to always take a dominant position and to never be bullied himself again.
This dominant personality trait seems to have run in the family because his cousin and wife Loma was no slouch herself. She was known for keeping her husband in line, sometimes even shouting from the pews during services “Don’t you dare talk to God’s people like that”. Their marriage was presented as perfect as they could to the brethren; when much of the time it was a perfect storm. Loma worked hard at protecting him from his tendency to succumb to flatteries and from his more extreme domination tendencies; which efforts were often resented by her husband.
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And as soon as Loma died, we were off and running: Tkach, Rader and any other finely tuned psychopath with his RADAR on.
All they had to do is manipulate Herbert Armstrong and they tapped into the gold (silver, crystal, etc.).
Thank you so much for the reference.
Many have said that as soon as Loma was gone, Herb went on a trip and never truly returned. There was no longer anyone to exert any controlling pressure on him and he literally went wild. He wasn't tending to business as Loma would have insisted and lowlifes like Tkach, Rader and company steadily took over.
The egomania knew no bounds, and as long as he was handing out gifts to third narion free loaders and once upon a time royalty, the flatery flowed.
No true "world leader" paid him much attention, but they were diplomatically polite those few times when he happened to worm his way into their presence. That usually included generous handouts from the tithes and sacrifices of fawning sychophants -- like you and me -- until we wised up.
I have to also comment that even though I despise what Herbert Armstrong did and hold him and his teachings in contempt, I can't bring myself to blanketly condemn him.
Just as I, and you, are the product of our past, our upbringing and the experinces of our lives from birth on, so was he. With the same personality type and background, any one of us could have turned out just as much an evil hypocrit as was he.
Since I no longer believe in a punishing or rewarding God, it's all kind of academic to me and I just analyze and try to learn from it without passing judgments and condemnations. Should there be an afterlife of some sort (it can't be proven one way or another) all we can do is speculate and wonder what it might be like, either for him or for us.
Can you imagine what the reunion of Herb and Loma would have been like if there was any such reunion?
As the Spanish would say, "Aye, yi, yi, yi!"
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