The Royal Pretender

Herbert Armstrong always had a passion for wanting to be royal. 

I've discussed in the past his dream and ambition for having his own royal palace - many decades before such an edifice was raised into being. He even traced down his lineage to see if he had any link to royalty. Importance - to Herbert - was not in what the fruits of the Spirit were. Importance had to do with how monetarily successful you were, and how well you appeared to other people, and most of all - what you controlled and managed well. 

Herbert collected many, many physical treasures over the years. To specify for this article's purpose: 

One of the types of treasures to induce the appearance of royalty were expensive oil paintings. When he had the funds to have paintings of his family produced by those who painted actual royalty, he jumped at the opportunity. He commissioned oil painters in the development of many of these paintings. One of which was a particular S. Morse Brown, a "leading painter" who resided in the United Kingdom. 

I looked up information on S. Morse Brown and his paintings. He was commissioned in the paintings of many "important people" in Britain and elsewhere, including the Right Hon. Lord Davies, Admiral Edward Evans, 1st Lord Mountevans of Chelsea, and David Davies, 1st Lord Davies of Llandinam. Auction sales of his paintings generally sold in the thousands of dollars. In other words, he was a very important painter. 

The painting above by S. Morse Brown of Loma Armstrong was painted in England in the year 1961, no doubt on one of their many shopping excursions "for the College". It was this year, or shortly thereafter, that Herbert Armstrong conceived the master plan of the College, including the Ambassador Auditorium. Many of his overseas or international trips were full of many such elaborate shopping excursions well beyond the scope of "Gospel Proclamation" on his quest for luxurious living as an important person. In fact, As early as the 1940s, Herbert Armstrong was not modest on his excursions all over Canada, shopping at Hudson's Bay, one of the oldest Canadian department stores in existence. The stores, according to Wlkipedia, have a "focus on high-end fashion apparel, accessories, and home goods". 

Other personal portrait paintings of the Armstrong Family were featured prominently within the Ambassador College Campus of Bricket Wood - which hung a large painting of Dick Armstrong to grace one of the Campus's main buildings. 

Of course, these were not the only oil paintings that took place during the emergency crisis' of the 1940s to the 1970s. Nor were they the only extravagant purchases that occurred during the times when members and co-workers were being drained to the last penny under constant salvation-ending pressure. 

Herbert Armstrong's sales technique and plans were nothing sort of masterful - in the business sense - in the creation and quest of his royal and kingly lifestyle. Look, for instance, at how he created "crisis" and "emergency" perceptions to the public when it came to his building program. (Mirrored applications in how he built his media empire could also be shown.) 

First, overbook students. In other words, intentionally crowd them into a dorm for the following year, or a goal of such in the next few years - accepting more than it could currently house. This creates a need, and a sense of urgency. In such, it's an intentionally created "man-made" crisis or emergency, intentionally designed to motivate people to give more, to avoid the appearance of a "backwards" step in "the Work", something that would bring shame to a work that was said to have divine favor and origin. 

With more students, other "man-made" emergencies would erupt. Now, dining rooms were filled to capacity. The escalating "crisis" now needed more money to be spent on other buildings, like a larger dining room - otherwise, the dining room would be over-capacity and the college could get into code violations. He'd often see the need, and instead of doing the "right business thing", he'd green-light the project to build what was needed even without the finances on hand - and then guilt the heck out of the members to their breaking point to support this "Work of God". All while building up and purchasing royal treasures or expensive items in existing structures, and paying existing employees lavish incomes (consider Raymond McNair's Jaguar in the 50s/60s.) 

This pattern started from the very beginning and carried on into completion - but it was the Auditorium that launched the fundraising program into what the Church remembers so well as the "Big Push". It was during this time period that Herbert felt he had no choice but to pull out the worst business trick possible - the imposition of massive lies and extreme fear to extort finances out of spiritual people to raise enough money that the bank would approve the loans to sign off on the dream of the Auditorium. 

Herbert had an addiction to, and a passion for, the high life of material wealth. A life of fancy, luxury living with the finest of all physical treasures well beyond the auditorium. He wanted to be an important person. He knew that the only way to "be" an important person was through physical impression and physical appearance. The buildings, the clothes, the grounds, the music  - and yes, the property and treasures - all of this had to meet the high class life he always so desperately needed and wanted since he was 16 years old. Even on the personal appearance campaigns, his son Garner Ted was constantly looking for just such type of people - and would overtly ignore anyone who did not meet that mold. Those who were common poor folk were beneath them. 

His "world tomorrow" was a physical manifestation of the world based on physical interpretations of scripture that he most desperately envisioned as the reality of what world peace would be. A world of high-class, kingly living, where gold and silver jeweled treasures were everywhere, fountains flowed all over, everyone had the personality of royalty and the flair of royal manners - royal music like Strauss everywhere - all in the mold of the acceptable culture of life as part of the collective drone-like personalities imagined as appropriate under the rule of Herbert Armstrong. Spiritual enforcers - royal beings of the highest rank and position - would always keep an eye out for any who would possibly dare to express their own personality and creativity, under the rule of his interpretation of the governance of what he considered the law to be. There would be no shortage of royalty. 

Many times, Herbert would call the members of the Church future kings and queens in his world tomorrow. He would also call the children of the Church princes and princesses. And for the elite of the College who were seniors, these future royalty were given the rare opportunity to eat with the king to be himself, Herbert - on and around royal treasures worth nearly half a million dollars - a chance to play king with the great royal pretender himself. 

Real life was never like the world Herbert wanted so desperately to be. Certain splinter groups continue in the illusion and delusion of such a royal life. But such endeavors arealways to the detriment and the harm of the common people. Those who have been suckered in under royal pretense.That they would, too, someday, share in the rank, and position, and power, of those who are currently benefiting from those who believed their smooth talk. They believed that if they gave up what they had now, that they could be royal later - in a year, maybe two or three - that they were specially chosen for royalty. Only to find years later that they were victims of what can only be described as a royal scam. 

The truth is, scripture says that God is more precious than silver and gold. Scripture says that the things of the spirit and are of far more value than any earthly precious mineral or gemstone, or monetary wealth. Scripture says to store your treasures in heaven, where rot cannot destroy. True royalty is not what Herbert thought he was - because right now, Herbert has absolutely nothing. True royalty can best be described in the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have people do unto you. True royalty is encapsulated by the example of love. It's not in BMW's, or gemstones, or gold - like one particular splinter leader tried, and failed, miserably. 

The Great Pretender's treasures of gold and silver have scattered to all corners of the earth, as have the people, ministers, and buildings he treasured so much. But those who through it all have lived a lifestyle of love are like the building which was never washed away in the storm. And if there's one thing Herbert's legacy taught us, it's this: What seems physically unbreakable in one generation may be a distant memory the next.  A lesson all of us, in whatever we may believe and hold on to, should hold dear.

submitted by SHT