The Apostle has started a series of articles detailing, as he assumes, the infiltration of evangelicalism into the Worldwide Church of God under Tkach Sr. Malm's article is filled with some truth, lots of half truths and several blatant lies.
One of his lies is his description of Rod Meredith and his banishment to Hawaii. While it may be partially true that Rader was behind part of that decision, HWA was the one who made the final decision after countless complaints by Church members and ministers on how Meredith was treating them.
When Meredith was over Church Administration he ruled with a heavy hand that was filled with viciousness at times. Meredith tended to be very vindictive towards many members and to many ministers. Meredith was still living in the 1950's mode of the Church in the 1970-1980's. Hard line legalistic control was his weapon of choice.
Meredith broke up hundreds of marriages, disfellowshipped countless people, and made life miserable for most who came into contact with him. The reports were constantly crossing HWA's desk which ended up culminating in his banishment to Hawaii.
Rod and Malm like to blame it all on Stanley Rader. While Rader found Meredith to be a condescending jerk, it was not Rader that sent him off to a year of luxury in Hawaii, expenses paid.
The Apostle writes:
Rod Meredith has been called a tyrant by his enemies [as part of a political struggle] and much has been said about him that is in error and uncalled for.
To set the record straight; Rod was removed and sent to Hawaii [by Stan Rader] because of his loyalty to HWA and Herbert’s post 1974 teachings, in the same manner that C Wayne Cole was fired for his loyalty to HWA at the beginning of the Receivership. They were both victims of the Rader struggle to defend himself from the lawsuit investigation; and later on [in Rod's case] Rader’s efforts to take full control of the WCG.
Rod Meredith is an Armstrong loyalist with something of HWA’s leadership style. Yes he is a dominating authoritrian leader; but he is by far the closest to the post 74 HWA doctrinal teachings. (Note that the die-hard Armstrong loaylists are now movign the date
He was removed from that position to be replaced by Joe Tkach, in a Rader power grab designed to replace any HWA loyalist heading the ministry with his own man. Rod was then sent to Hawaii to remove him from any influence on any in the ministry, until Tkach could get well settled in and start promoting those persons with his evangelical agenda. (Meredith's banishment letter to Hawaii is in the next post) Tkach at this point in time was having to clean up the trail of destruction that Meredith had left in his wake. Tkach had no idea how much damage Meredith had done till Rod was ensconced in Hawaii.
It still amazes me after all these years the number of people that want to white wash Rod Meredith as a wholesome, godly person who walks in humility before God. Ask most people that had to work around him in Pasadena and they will tell you otherwise.As for Rod being a tyrant; he was loyal to HWA and his post 74 teachings; and those who were strong HWA loyalists supported him, while of course those who were of the evangelical persuasion hated his insistence on adhering to the post 74 HWA teachings.
Apostle Malm is still under the impression that COGWA will eventually unite with Living Church of God and that the only thing holding them back is the leadership issue.
COGWA was formed for the very purpose of loyalty to the Armstrong post 74 teachings; and it is quite natural that they would align themselves with Meredith’s LCG. This process is ongoing and LCG has been working to set the conditions for a rapprochement between the two groups.
While Tkach was no innocent party in this matter, Meredith is not the poor picked upon servant of God. Far from it!
You can read the rest of Apostle Malm's half truths here: Rod Meredith and the WCG power struggle
5 comments:
I'd always understood that Wayne Cole was actually fired for co-operating with the court appointed receiver. That was his understanding of Biblical teaching.
But, he was also loyal to HWA.
I don't think evangelicalism was even on the horizon during that era. Much of the historical information on WCG has degenerated into error over the past years, following various peoples' agendas.
I'm wondering how old James Malm is, and what year he began attending. That would help a lot in understanding his mindset.
BB
I have heard it said that if WCG had cooperated with the receivership, that Rader would have been caught with his hand in the cookie jar by the state of California. I now believe that's only half the story, because I think HWA is the one who really would have been caught red-handed. People say that Rader was a bad guy, and people say Meredith is a bad guy, and true enough, they were/are, but they didn't get where they were in WCG for no reason.
Rader was Armstrong's partner (in crime) for twenty years. You don't work that closely with someone for that long and not come to understand who you're dealing with. Rader was where he was in WCG because he and HWA were two peas in a pod. People want to paint Rader as oil and HWA as water, and then ignore how well they mixed. No, they were both greasy. HWA's own son-in-law, Ben Chapman, ratted out Rader to HWA, and HWA promptly disfellowshipped Chapman instead. Why? Because in a mob infested city, you gotta be careful which police officer you call for help. Chapman didn't realize his father-in-law was the Godfather himself, and had a vested interest in not cleaning the city up. IMHO, Rader was ambitious enough and smart enough to beat HWA at his own game. I think HWA wanted Rader around because Rader was a better idea man than HWA had ever been and HWA wanted his ideas, and wanted to learn from him. Much of the time there was little difference between HWA's will and Rader's will. They were partners. Rader schemed up the business plan, and HWA provided the capital.
I think the same holds true for Meredith. Meredith was merely another HWA henchman who carried out HWA's dirty work, so that HWA could appear to be above the fray, beneficient and magnanimous. Al Capone didn't kill people himself, he had third parties take care of that for him, which made it impossible to build a murder case against him. Meredith didn't get to be the boss over all the ministers for no reason. Meredith saw himself as the heir apparent to the crime syndicate because he knew he'd loyally carried out HWA's will for so many years. But the henchman is never in line for the throne. Meredith's ambitions simply didn't square with HWA's interests, so that determined where and when they parted ways.
HWA always hid behind a cloak of plausible deniability. He always claimed he didn't know, just like top brass always claim when called into court to account for the wrongdoing of the company they lead. Reading the Ramona divorce deposition, HWA is very cagey, taking the fifth amendment, and when he does give an answer, he is as vague and evasive as possible--clearly not a man with nothing to hide. Romona had him securely over the proverbial barrel and was blackmailing him for all he was worth in the divorce settlement. Rader also was paid, by all accounts, hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, which I always thought was hush money.
The only thing that Malm does get absolutely right is that it was always about who is in charge. As far as I can tell, every decision that was ever made, at any level was never guided by a belief in god, or a desire to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, it was always about that person holding on to or increasing their own individual power within the organization.
If Meredith and COGWA are devoted to preserving Armstrong-Post-74 doctrine, how would Malm describe himself? Neo-Armstrong-Pre-74 doctrine? Make Malm the apostle over his own COG splinter group and I would bet any amount of money he would be worse than Meredith.
I have never known how to interpret Stan Rader. He was certainly opportunistic but he never seemed to me to be the villain that some claim.
I sat in Rader's all employee meetings in the Auditorium. For someone who supposedly had a lot to hide, he certainly tried to appear open. He knew the rumors and was eager to address them, using any half reference to his wealth as an opportunity to make his defense.
Sure, his house was worth a lot of money. The church helped him buy a mansion that could be used to entertain dignitaries. But nobody realized that Southern California real estate prices were about to explode. He was just the lucky beneficiary of that explosion.
Sure, he made money leasing the Gulfstream II to the church. No bank wanted to foreclose on a church so he formed a company, bought the GII, and leased it to WCG. He built in a big profit for himself because if the church had defaulted, he would have been on the hook.
If he was a crook, he was pretty open about it.
The other complaint was that Rader advised HWA to sideline or fire certain people (like GTA). Well, Rader was HWA's advisor and if you're paid to advise, you should advise. Was his advice intended for the best interests of the church or was it too self-serving? I certainly don't know. But does anyone think WCG would have been better off under GTA?
As for Wayne Cole, the story that went around during the receivership was, when HWA first heard about the state action, he told Cole to cooperate. After others convinced him to resist, Cole became the bad guy. At least, that was the story; I was at the bottom of the totem pole so I don't know if it was true or not.
Stephen
Reading the Ramona divorce deposition, HWA is very cagey, taking the fifth amendment, and when he does give an answer, he is as vague and evasive as possible--clearly not a man with nothing to hide
Andrew just wondering if you can post up any link(s) to the transcript of said deposition if known? Thanks!
Bill
I thought I found it on the painful truth site, but I don't see it right off. I did a google search and came up with http://hwarmstrong.com/ar/AR26.html which contains an excerpt from it, but that is all. Sorry, it was too long ago already.
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