Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Dave Pack: Big Bad Meanie Tkach Demoted Me And Deliberately Tried To Ruin My Life By Sending Me To New York City



Uncertain of the future, the Packs returned to Buffalo. 
Weeks later, on a Friday afternoon in August 1985, 
they received a telephone call
that would dramatically alter their lives.




It was from Mr. Tkach. Mr. Pack knew instantly that he was not calling with good news. Mr. Harold Jackson, an elderly evangelist and Mr. Pack’s friend, was also on the phone. 
 
“Dave, are you seated?”, Mr. Tkach began.

The field minister said, “No, but I can sit down.”
Mr. Tkach wasted no time: “We’ve heard some complaints. We think there are some lessons you need to learn, so we are sending you to New York City as an associate pastor.”
Mr. Pack could not believe the news. Yet another gross injustice, this time a plain demotion, and it had been stated in such a matter-of-fact manner—a terse notice that they would need to leave Buffalo as soon as possible—within a month. Mr. Tkach offered few explanations as to what were the problems, what lessons needed to be learned, or which brethren were upset.
“I was more shocked at this moment than at any other in my life to that point. I suppose in a way I feared it was coming, but the actual arrival of such an unbelievable injustice was the single most difficult experience in my life—or that of my wife. I had experienced injustice before, but NOTHING of this order. I knew that I had been the victim of a conspiracy of evil thinking, but would only learn later just how great that evil would be.
“What was worse, and what drove the moment indelibly into my mind, was that, while on the call, my 11-year-old son, Robby, ran into the house crying. Both sons had been playing a football game with neighborhood friends in the backyard—and Robby had snapped his collarbone—for the second time! He was simultaneously pleading for my help, while holding his shoulder as the bad news was being received. I did not realize the seriousness of his injury, and told him to go upstairs and I would be with him later.”
Mr. Pack hung up and walked upstairs in a daze to check on his son. Seeing his condition, the parents took him to the hospital. It was in the emergency room waiting area that the reality of the life-altering phone call sank in.
“I understood that New York City had been selected for my assignment because the goal of this maneuver was an all-out attempt to destroy my life. I would have no understanding of the true level of evil I was dealing with until years later. It was only in the apostasy that I fully understood the devil’s role acting through one of his chief agents in trying to destroy my ministry, in trying to get me to give up. Strangely, I was better able at that later point to more completely forgive the man for simply following the alien spirit that was probably always leading him.”


17 comments:

  1. Too bad his assignment was not to the entire country of NORTH KOREA, where he MIGHT have fit right in, especially with his "all things common" and abuse to anyone who disagrees with him attitude!

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  2. Yeah, well, I was a member in the NYC area when he was transferred in. The Pastor, Steve Botha was chosen to help rein him in. Mr. Botha is a kind but competent and firm minister, one of the best in my opinion. It didn't take long to see he would not be tempered, and most of us would enter the hall by the side door to avoid him.

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  3. Oh the villainy! It was 1985, how could HWA let Joe push Dave around like that?
    If Dave had to be corrected, why couldn't he have been sent to Hawaii, like Rod was?

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  4. “I understood that New York City had been selected for my assignment because the goal of this maneuver was an all-out attempt to destroy my life. I would have no understanding of the true level of evil I was dealing with until years later. It was only in the apostasy that I fully understood the devil’s role acting through one of his chief agents in trying to destroy my ministry, in trying to get me to give up.

    I am sure that is Dave's perspective and how he would naturally explain this to himself. From my perspective, I knew Steve Botha and we talked from time to time during this time. If Joe Sr was bent on getting rid of Dave he simply would have fired him. I would not think anyone was too worried about lots of folk following Dave as he did indeed have the reputation for authoritarianism and the kind of minister most were relieved was transferred out of their church in time.

    Dave was sent to NY under Steve Botha to see if he could not be salvaged and learn to work WITH people and FOR someone without more problems. I think they were hoping the man could find the heart of a pastor and not a coach who demanded winning to people's harm. When I asked Steve about how Dave was doing he simply said , and Steve was a rather quiet yet firm guy, "Fiiine, but he'll revert to who and what he is and does when he is not under anyone again." And so it was and is.

    No Demons were used or hurt during the production of this rescue mission.

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  5. PS In my experience, people don't change much over the course of their lives. The personality is set pretty much when the sperm hits the egg it seems. There were any number of ministers (and members, deacons, elders) who wracked up one offense after the next and never seemed to understand they caused them with their actions and reactions. Some were zealots for the faith or the Armstrongs which comes with its own set of righteous problems.

    I worked around Dave Pack and Ron Weinland and they are the same today, just free of any accountability and report to no one but themselves. Men like Dave simply don't work well or at all with others. They want the top spot and they want it now or soon. They were always the classic "loose cannon" and in their own minds out of a zealous mindset but to others, arrogance, power and control. As Carl Sagan would say, petty humans struggling to control one pixel of the Pale Blue Dot"

    There are people that are more easy to like just because of the kind of person they are and there are those who are difficult or impossible to like and relate to. I know few if any who go from one to the other.

    I have to admit in hindsight that some of the kids I was in college with seemed like normal fun guys but when they got in the ministry I hardly recognized them . I had a healthy dose of naiveté' coming from not a church background never having spent any time in a local congregation with a local minister until after I had gone to college.

    Dave doesn't mention it or at least I haven't seen it but he was let go from the Ministry way back in 1973 I believe after just a short time in the ministry , for "budget" reasons. He went back to Milwaukee. In 74 I was taken into Chicago from Minneapolis by the new Regional Director to work for him. He was best friends with Pete Ochs who was Dave's father in law., and somehow Dave or the Ochs family got the RD's attention to bring Dave back into the ministry in Chicago. The RD asked me what I thought and I said "sure" lol. Sorry.... I have read his account of being in Chicago and Rockford (Rockford was where I gave my first sermon) and would take exception to his exaggerations but that's Dave.

    Then came the '74 East Coast Rebellion" of which my boss was a huge part , I got fired, then rehired and sent to Erie PA, but then rerouted to Findlay, Ohio and my personal circus began






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    1. Many of the good ministers who still had consciences did resign in the so-called rebellion of ‘74, so it’s easy to see how you initially were suspect and fired!

      BB

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  6. Pack is estranged from his children. Does that tell you something?

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  7. It doesn't matter what Dave Pack or anyone else says about Joe Tkach, Mr. Tkach was the best thing to happen in that God forsaken church.

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  8. What is completely weird is that people actually follow & believe every word that pours out of David Pack's lying mouth.

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    1. Anon 8:54 AM, Trust me when I tell you that Dave Pack's RCG is not growing by leaps & bounds and I know for a fact that more people are leaving his group than are actually joining it. Give it time and his group, as well as Gerald Flurry's PCG, will fade into nothing.

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  9. “I had experienced injustice before, but NOTHING of this order. I knew that I had been the victim of a conspiracy of evil thinking, but would only learn later just how great that evil would be.”--DCP


    It could have been even worse, Dave. Much, much worse.

    Some people naively trusted your Restored Cash Grab (RCG) cult and got taken for everything they had: tithe, tithe of second tithe, unused second tithe, “unused” third tithe, offerings, building fund donations, continual fundraisers, and then “common” where everyone had to hand over everything they owned (savings, retirement plans, houses, possessions, etc.)--“or no salvation if you don't.”

    The money then got worse than wasted spreading your lengthy “First Dominion” series of prophetic nonsense that totally garbled all past understanding as taught by HWA.

    Some of these people probably realized that they had been the victim of a conspiracy of evil thinking, but would only learn later just how great that evil was, is, and will continue to be.

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  10. James Malm recently reported:

    COGWA is taking in large sums with their Jan to Apr income up 19%.

    We know COGWA isn't recruiting new members from outside the ACOGs, so if COGWA is up 19% so far this year, that increase must be coming from other ACOGs. Does anyone here know which group or groups the growth is coming from?

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    1. You even trust that news or those figures? Don’t you realize Armstrongites have mastered the art of “How to Lie with Statistics”?

      BB

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  11. Speaking of the greater good, imagine all of the misery and heartache that would have been avoided by Dave’s followers today if way back when they had broken him and derailed his so-called ministry.

    BB

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  12. My son was badly hurt.. now back to ME ME ME ME

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  13. He's such a whiney ass. When I was a teenager, I worked for a man that would have you do whatever he needed done. When he was asked, Why should I do that, that's not my job". His reply was, "What difference does it make what you do, you're getting paid the same anyway".

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  14. 4.00PM
    The average house price in some western countries is about one million dollars. It only takes a few deceased estates to provide the 19% boast. So I wouldn't put much meaning on the figure.

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