Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders

Friday, February 20, 2026

Prophets, witches, demons, ouiji boards, magical TV's, Gerald Waterhouse, and more! A story like no other you will ever read about Armstrongism!


Time to buckle up, once again, because what you're about to read is hands-down one of the most unhinged, batshit-crazy tales ever spawned in the fever swamp of Armstrongism. It makes Bob Thiel's daily word-vomit look like mild-mannered Sunday-school storytelling for toddlers.

This is the legendary Kitchen family saga, as lovingly recounted by none other than Samuel Kitchen himself. Nothing you've ever scrolled past on the various COG gossip blogs even comes close to this level of glorious, weapon-grade insanity.

Gerald Waterhouse prophecies? Check.

Demons running amok? Check.

Witches, Ouija boards, full-on witchcraft? Double check.

Men swinging baseball bats and chains like it's a low-budget action flick? Check.

Actual fist fights breaking out? Check.

Nearly gutted on an operating table? Check.

Sawn nearly in half on an autopsy table, yet came alive to scare the nurse. Check 

Having your head smashed in a powerful press so hard your eyes pop out, and your skin splits on your skull. Check.

Demons running through locust trees, causing them to bend over like grass. Check.

Walls "breathing" due to demons moving around behind them as plates and silverware fly around and stick to the walls. Check.

Mystical "sanctifications," Check.

Magical televisions that work unplugged? Check

Doctrinal changes, Gerald Waterhouse, John Bailey, Joe Tkach Sr and Jr, Marvin Campbell, Vic Kubik. Check.

...and a whole buffet of "so much more" that defies rational description.

If you're looking for peak Armstrongite lunacy—the kind that makes you question whether reality itself has taken a permanent vacation—this is it. 

Enjoy the ride. Or don't. Either way, your sanity will thank you for the warning.


This is straight from his Facebook page, unedited:

When I look back at my father, i realize now that my Dad had a true sanctification from God.
Gerald Waterhouse told my dad that God must have a special job for him. God doesn’t give that much understanding that much all at once if it wasn’t for a special purpose. 
 
My dad’s first Church service was when Mr Waterhouse was passing through.  
 
He took a step off the stage, after giving a 4 hour sermon and walked straight up to my dad and said: “I hear the ladies in the back are fixin’ me up a pot of coffee. Would you mind if we chat a spell?”
For another 6 hours they talked, until the were the last ones in the hall. They closed and locked up the doors sometime around 1am.
My dad was telling Mr Waterhouse his life’s story. Im going to go ahead and tell some of it too.
My dad’s live as a child wasnt easy. It seemed like everyone had a reason to see him dead.
From fist fights, ambushes set by others, to being pushed down stairs and wells, it seemed whatever could go wrong did go wrong.
He dropped out of high school. He didn’t think it would matter. His family and friends all had a death pool he wouldnt make it to twenty years old.
When he was ten years old he was invited to a church dow lm the road, by a girl he liked. On the way in he saw the pastor molesting a little girl in a side room. He bit his lip.
He had proved to himself by the age of ten, there was a God. And he knew enough that was not what God said to do in the Bible.
When everyone sat down and the pastor got up to the podium, things got weird.
The pastor knew his name. Although he was a stranger, and while that church was still in town, he was too far away from home for this man to know his name.
The preacher began screaming at my dad, a ten year boy on the front row, telling him how he was going to burn in hell, and how evil he was and how God hated him! My dad stood up in front of the congregation, and responded: “what does God have to say about molesting little girls? If im going to hell, then where are you going to be by molesting “so and so”(he named off the girl) over in the side room? I dont think God looks too good on that” and he walked home.
He wasn’t invited back.
God had shown him from a young age, how wicked this world’s religions are! Even those professing to follow the Bible weren’t.
There was an old lady in the neighborhood, named “Raincrow”. She looked exactly like a hook-nose wrinkly witch! Probably because she was a “high priestess” of witchcraft.
Some days she would come up to my dad and say “my master tried to kill you last night. He didn’t get the job done, but some day he will!”
She shrieked one time “IT’S YOU! You’re from the Holy One!” And took off running for her life while shrieking down the road!
My dad laughed as a kid at that. Later he realized what it meant.
He had a similar event happen while eating at the Royal fork in Wisconsin dells. He had the habit every feast to invite at least 20 people and pay for their meals. So the entire restaurant was full of God’s people.
A lady walked up to my dad’s table, and looked at my dad and screamed: “AHHHHH! It’s YOU! You’re from the Holy One!!!” And ran out of the building screaming at the top of her lungs!
My dad walked up to the counter to pay.
He apologized to the owner who was standing there. He replied, “no your money is no good here. You’re with the Worldwide Church of God aren’t you?” My dad said yes.
“We got the tab. There is no doubt we me that God is with you! Your meals are on me.”
At age 16, he was working one sumner and was busting concrete with a sledge hammer. He started to cough up blood, and couldn’t stand for the amount of pain he was in.
They rushed him to the emergency room.
They x-rayed his chest and found a “straight needle, rusted in a couple of pieces in his lung.”
They wanted to operate and get that out of there.
Well, my dad woke up on what he described was an autopsy table! They had him saw nearly in half with rib spreaders! He looked down and saw his guts and lungs and heart all there in the open! He staggered to stand up. No one was in the room.
He said later that it seemed to him they thought he was dead, and they was getting ready to harvest his organs.
As he staggered to sit up, he knocked over the surgery tools, and made enough noise for urse to investigate the room!
She turned white as a sheet!
“Doctor!” She screamed as she ran out into the hallway.
Doctors and nurses came running in.
My dad said he thought he heard someone say “Oh my God, he’s alive!”
They gave him anesthesia and it still wasn’t working. They gave him some more and he still wasn’t going under. They had him count down from a hundred, and on the third time, he blacked out.
A few years later, he was working in a local steel factory, and he was friends with the guy who ran the presses. He worked as a foreman inspector. He inspected the molds after they were pressed, for any imperfections.
In between the presses he would chat with his buddy through the pressing machine.
Now if anyone has seen Terminator. This machine is what killed the terminator machine at the end of the movie. That’s what my dad worked around.
One day he was chatting and thought he heard his friend call him, so he leaned under to respond, and his friend didn’t actually call him but was running the machine as usual. This crushed my dad’s head twice. Causing his eyes to pop out and his skin to burst on his skull, splitting the scalp. He was alive! They took him to the hospital. He never regained full eyesight.
Now prior to this he was prone to drink, and brawl. He wanted to have a good time, but people would go out of their way to try to do him in. Biker gangs, thugs, etc. He was ambushed a lot.
Everytime, he felt this “presence” help him. He found out later it was an angel or something. More on that later.
Many times he would be ambushed and the were literally beating him to death, when suddenly he got a hold of something and would come to with them laying in pools of blood. He blacked out!
He got a reputation built, and men would come around from hundreds of miles away to defeat this “wild man with a punch from hell”. So he got into some intersting situations.
However he never started a fight. He just knew how to end it.
He was ambushed one night, after walking to a bar in town. He was walking out to go home when five men jumped him with baseball bats, ax handles and logging chains. He ended that night covered in blood but not his.
On the way home he collapsed in the street, and began praying. He thanked God for intervening, because they had him down. They was beating him to death and he couldn’t stand back up. But he recognized that “presence” and believed it was God who intervened.
So when he had his accident at the steel factory, he quit drinking. Soon his brother, my uncle, invited him out to a bar. “One drink won’t hurt ya” he said.
Well, the one drink he got, had a mickie in it. Seems like someone wanted my dad dead. As soon as he drank it, he went from dead sober to blind drunk. He lost his vision, and could stand or walk.
Now my dad drank a fifth of whiskey to get a buzz when he drank before! Someone told my dad after that night he saw a bottle where the bartender was met by some guys in suits outside. He asked her “what’s in that bottle!” She said, “none of your business!” He said that bottle went missing right after my dad went down.
Now as soon as he went blind, a couple of brothers hit him from behind with a pool stick and took a beer bottle and hit my dad across the face, right across the eyes!
Well, for some reason he snapped out of the “drunk”, blood in his eyes he could see the guy but had grabbed him by the collar and was preceding to beat the man!
My uncle was up from the table and there beating on the guys just as soon as it happened. They ran off. But they did admit someone paid them to do my dad in.
I’m saying this stuff to show you what kind of man my dad was, and how he grew up, and what sort of stuff he had been through!
Soon after that night, he started to have brain aneurysms. Hundreds of them. He was beginning to lose time, and lost a week at one point. He would wake up with him and his bed soaked in blood!
Life became unbearable. He was pain constantly. Years later he wondered what they really gave to him.
Now that was early 1980’s. He had his last brain aneurysms around 2003.
He went through a lot.
As life became unbearable, he contemplated suicide.
He thought about it, and prayed plastic down in his parent’s living room. Got his shotgun, and sat down and began praying.
He asked God, “I know you’ve created everything for a purpose Lord! What purpose do I have? I don’t know why I’m here! I am hated by everyone. Everyone wants me dead. There’s no use living anymore. If I have a purpose show it to me. And if not, I’ll meet you in a few seconds.”
Now as he was praying he realized the tv in front of him was on. A white haired old man was talking about God.
He didn’t want to listen to another televangelist lying about God! He had enough of the lying pastors!
So he reached over and turned the knob off. It didn’t go off.
He turned the channel knob. It didn’t change the program.
He reached behind the TV and pulled all the plugs from the wall.
The white haired old man continued to talk.
So my dad fell back and began listening to him.
It was Herbert W Armstrong.
Mr Armstrong said. “many think about suicide today. Perhaps you are thinking suicide? Perhaps you have asked God what your purpose is, and why God put you on this earth! Well, my friend sit down and listen, because the great Eternal God has something for you to hear!”
My dad’s jaw dropped.
Soon he was a baptized member of the Worldwide Church of God and attending the Ottumwa Iowa congregation.
That’s how God called my dad.
Shortly afterwards, my dad was hunting with family, and came back one day. In front of his sisters house, was a lane with large locust trees on each side of the driveway!
His sister had stayed behind with her girlfriends while the men was hunting.
And when the got back they suddenly heard a terrible scream! It was a woman screaming! It was getting louder and louder and it was coming from across the road!
My dad looked and saw the corn field part like something huge was running through it towards them! Then the large locusts trees bent over like grass as someone invisible screaming was running heavily towards him! Now he started shooting at it, but not seeing anything! His buddies had ran inside and locked him outside! So he stood his ground.
Suddenly it stopped in front of him and he could feel its hot breath on his face. It was huge and it was in a rage!
My dad realized it was a demon, so he began praying and asked God to remove it. And it left.
Came to find out, his sister and her friends were playing around with an Ouija board earlier!
But it seemed like the Devil wanted to destroy my dad!
He was invited by his friend Lex one day, because he and his wife was having some “supernatural problems” at night, and they wanted someone to witness it.
So they invited my dad over.
He woke up in the middle of the night with the walls breathing in and out, and a demon screaming and plates and silverware flying into the room and sticking in the wall above his headboard! He knelt down and began to pray and actually fell asleep! He woke up in the morning with pieces of glass and porcelain all around him, plates stuck in the wall.
These people were experiencing a haunting, and wanted to be sure it wasn’t them losing their minds!
So he’d leave for a couple of days and it would return, and they’d invite him over for the weekend again. He did eventually explain to them they were somehow opening the door for it to come back, and that he couldn’t keep staying there. The eventually sold the hose and moved out.
But I say these things, to explain what kind of man my dad was.
When he was baptized, a lady from the congregation a Mrs. Hershberger, gave my dad like 12 plastic bins full of church tapes. All from Mr Armstrong and the Church. He husband had been bed ridden and as a shut in, he received sermons for many years. So she felt my dad needed it, and actually gave it to him, but after he got done listening to them, he gave them back. Shortly afterwards I think they were destroyed.
But he received a lot of truth all at once, and he came in right before Mr Armstrong died.
Mr Waterhouse, he said, was very instrumental in grounding him with the truth of God and in holding fast to the apostle Herbert W Armstrong! Without Mr Waterhouse doing what he did, my dad said he wouldn’t have made it through the great falling away.
Now from the time he came into the church he began reminding people of what was taught, and began wanting of departures. People wanted to convince him how much error was in the teachings of “Armstrong”, and often would gang up on him, to try to bully him into submission, and he would not back down!
One feast site, had like 200 men he said! He couldn’t believe how many was telling him how wrong God was and how wrong Herbert W Armstrong was! My dad had already proven how right God was and how right Herbert Armstrong was!
Well, in 1989 he married my mother. Melissa Barcuch from the Fort Worth Texas area.
She had grown up in the Church, since 1977, when her mother became a member.
In 1991, they had me Samuel William Kitchen, named after my grandfather.
And Timothy John Kitchen Jr., named after my dad. We were twins.
Now my dad took us in the hospital one day and rolled us into a side room, and he sanctified us unto God. He held us up to God, and dedicated us and sanctified us to be used by Jesus Christ as He saw fit. He used the example of Hannah and her son Samuel.
He also did this with our little brother Clinton James Kitchen, when he was born in early 1993.
Now around 1993, my dad began to uncover a conspiracy locally, where a major clean up was underway, where the EPA was dumping chemicals and poison and toxic waste, into underground rivers and that fed our well water. We began experiencing sepsis, and variety of health problems that was killing us! As toddlers we would be rushed to the Emergency Room because we were hemorrhaging from Evey orifice losing blood! We were dying!
My dad was given six days to live at one point.
Because of these health problems, and with the birth of our little brother, our dad couldnt work. So we went on state aid, and disability assistance, and my dad began investigating what was going on!
At the time, we couldn’t attend regular church services, so we began attending the new Bible studies led by our local pastor John Bailey. It was closer to us.
They began pressuring mom to accept the changes. My dad resisted it. My mom did too. But their pressure began to make its affects.
In 1997, when my dad and mom told John Bailey we could no longer attend because of the changes in doctrine, he admitted to us that for 3 & 1/2 years they had been trying to get my mom to divorce my dad and take us kids away. He was too strong in “Armstrongism”, and wouldn’t accept any changes. But they held out hope for mom. She was more quiet.
John Bailey said it was direct from Joe jr.
So that put things back into 1993-1994, when they began. In fact, the local Bible study group was established for that reason of breaking my parents up.
That’s what the man admitted!
So in 1993, Church administration, Joe Jr. gave the order to target my dad.
Now this just so happened to be the year, Joe Jr. and Victor Kubik set up a “regional pastor structure”, who then placed a man over our region, and so for 3 & 1/2 years mentored John Bailey on how to overcome “the challenge” my dad presented to the local area. What would happen when someone stayed and didn’t leave the church!
So in 1993, we see a repeat of 1974,1975 and 1979, with Victor Kubik suggesting a “solution” to Joe Tkach Sr. They had already gotten approval of this Regional Pastor Structure. They had obtained a power block of ministers.
Now Kubik suggested that Tkach change the “decision making process” to include a more democratic inclusion of all the ministers, especially the regions pastors!
Tkach said no, and Victor Kubik called up the ministers who were fed up with the changes, and pulled them away from the WCG to create the UCG.
Remember Mr Armstrong stopped every attempt like this before!
So from 1993-2010, the work of Zerubbabel was halted, as it were, in the Worldwide Church of God.
1986-1993 was a seven year period of testing for the ministry. The ended up accepting the offer presented by the sport of Satan.
They could not stand in the gap, as Mr Armstrong did! So they left.
My dad, with special calling, continued faithfully.
1993-2003 was a ten year period of judgement on the ministry. A lot of higher ministers died during this period.
Between 1997-2003, we was attending the PCG group in Iowa. In the local congregation was 12-18 older WCG members they had gone to the PCG in order to support the reprinting of Mr Armstrong’s books. That’s why my dad went to them.
There was some, who was demon possessed, who wanted away from “Armstrong”. One man, knew my dad from his younger days, and absolutely hated him! My mom thought maybe my dad thumped him years before.
But he hated my dad.
Between 1997-2003, my dad would hold the PCG ministry to their word. They promised they believed 100% of the truth taught and restored through Herbert Armstrong.
During this time, there was no resident minister. A Regional Director would pass through once a month or more.
In dealing with the demons and unbelievers in the congregation, thhe rest looked to my dad for leadership.
The Regional Director Marvin Campbell, saw Jesus Christ working there, and he wondered why. It was clear to him, he said, that it was the only place in the PcG group where he saw Christ actively working.
My dad kept telling him to take it to God. He smiled and said “good answer”.
But what we found out later, was the PcG group was at logger heads with the WCG membership! And they were spiritually bullying them in order to get them indoctrinated with THEIR CHANGES of doctrine!
My dad once again, was standing in the way.
He was strengthening the brethren, back to what was restored through Mr Armstrong! And that congregation sparked to life!
Now what I saw, was Jesus Christ using my dad to “reconnect the flow of the golden oil” to those who were holding fast, but was being obliterated spiritually speaking by the PCG group!
Marvin Campbell was an evangelist and was doing the work of evangelist, when he started noticing Fhrist working through my dad. He repented of some brethren! He stood before thousands at a feast site in Sandusky Ohio, and just confessed what he’d been doing wrong! He was too much a sheriff and not enough a shepherd! And he talked about how he may have pushed his own son away from God, and how he had hurt so many of God’s people! He gave a sermon on what a real shepherd does, with God’s Holy Spirit! And how he fell short. He wanted to make sure the people wouldn’t take his wrong example and turn away from God and become bitter against the ministry.
We were put out of the PcG, for no reason, but to get us out of the way.
Soon after Marvin Campbell left and died. He was a minister I saw repent. So I think he secured his crown.
But Christ used my dad to accomplish that! I see that clearly!
I remember talking that year at the youth camp, to Michael Watts a friend and fellow camper, about my dad and how I felt he was being used by God.
So from 2003-2010, the Church went through another 7 year test.
From 2005 I began telling everyone that would listen about Christ working in my dad.
By 2009, we was out of the PCG. And Christ began reviving the Zerubbabel work through us.
No one wanted to be the Worldwide Church of God! No one! But we kept sharing and kept advocating for the restoration of the Worldwide Church of God!
I was baptized in 2012 by my dad. And he did perform the laying on of hands ceremony on me. I didn’t know why at the time. No I do.
My dad seems to have been sanctified from birth. And he was baptized into the Body of Christ, and he did receive the laying on of hands by a minister of Jesus Christ.
From 1986 forward he was used in a spiritual work by Jesus Christ.
As a prophet.
I’ve been praying and studying on what authorty my dad had. Jesus said you shall know them by their fruits. So I have been examining them.
He had no administrative authority.
No doctrinal authority.
No preaching authority.
Although he was being trained by Marvin Campbell to begin preaching and go into ordination. But that didn’t happen. Christ stopped it.
He was being used in a capacity above of an evangelist, as he was used to restore an evangelist to Christ!
When Mr Armstrong died…as an apostle…Satan locked out the ordained ministry by what occurred in 1993-1995, with Victor Kubik. This stopped Christ from being able to use any of the ordained ministry. If one was available, He would no doubt used them!
So it fell to a prophet, God had set apart through sanctification. My dad only had authority over his family. His pastor, was Herbert W Armstrong.
He always went back to Herbert Armstrong, and not to another minister.
So under the apostle, but over the ordained ministry, is the special category of prophet.
So from 1993-2010, Jesus Christ worked through my dad, preserving the Worldwide Church of God ministry, and using him to train me, and his children as we were sanctified for Holy use by God!
I don’t know why he asked for special sanctification for us! But he went through with it!
So when I was baptized in 2012, and he performed the laying on of hands, he was doing it with the authority of a prophet of Jesus Christ! It was He who was used to revive the Zerubbabel work, guiding me and helping me, and that is why I am here today! I didn’t choose this!
I spent all my life in training!
I thought my dad was one of the two witnesses. He was just the prophet used to revive the Work and the Church that wil set up the two witnesses!
His fruits are evident.
It’s why Satan seemed so dead set on killing him. He like Mr Armstrong, went eye ball to eye ball with the Devil.
He died in 2021, three days before my 30th birthday. He was killed. As was my mother it seems.
In 2022, I came face to face with the Devil too. He told me through the one he possessed that he wanted me dead, and he would possess the Pope even “to get the job done”. I went to Jerusalem and to Petra.
In 2023 I started the worldwidechurchofgod.org in Philadelphia, PA.
In 2024, I went back to Jordan.
In 2025, I went back to Jerusalem for Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread.
I visited brethren in Canada four times!
We kept Trumpets, Day of Atonement and The Feast in Bethany near Jerusalem. On the eighth day we were in Tel-Aviv(Joppa) signifying new organizational beginnings.
January 16 this year I went to Pasadena to make a video commemorating the closure of the last 40 years(1986-2026).
And now we move towards the spring festival season! Commemorating Joshua and Jericho falling.
Now we understand why the ministry was “out of the way”. What Satan wanted done in 1974, 1975, 1979 and in 1993-1995, was accomplished! They were locked away in Egypt and Babylon.
So we see Zechariah 3 come alive!
And what we are beginning to see is the restoration of the Worldwide Church of God, as seen in Zechariah 3-4.
People have questioned about my dad. Who was he? How did Christ use him? What authority did he work with? I have a lot more stories of what he and my family went through. But wow Christ is getting the job done!

2 comments:

  1. That's pretty hard to deal with.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, but it explains why Sam is like he is. Nothing like anything I would want in my life. The stuff that made me say fu(k it and walk away from the insanity was maybe 1/100 as bad.

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