For more than two decades, Cartwright and his wife Linda ran one of the few independent, cross-group publications in the fractured post-Herbert Armstrong world of the Churches of God. From their base in Big Sandy, Texas, they produced a subscription newspaper that refused to function as a controlled mouthpiece for any single organization. In a landscape of hierarchical groups that tightly managed information, The Journal offered something rare: a forum where members across the various COG splinters could read news, share views, and sometimes confront uncomfortable realities.
Cartwright launched The Journal in February 1997, one month after John Robinson shut down In Transition. Cartwright had worked with Robinson's paper and tried to keep it going, but the two could not reach an agreement. Rather than let the idea of an independent COG newspaper die, he and Linda started their own. The first issue appeared as the post-1986 and post-1994/95 splits were still reshaping the old Worldwide Church of God world. United Church of God, Living Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, Restored Church of God, and dozens of smaller groups and independents were all competing for members, legitimacy, and control of the narrative.
Cartwright's stated purpose was practical: help people maintain contact with other COG Christians across organizational boundaries and provide a place for discussion. Unlike many church publications of the era, The Journal did not require articles to pass a doctrinal purity test. It published news of congregations and leadership changes, Feast reports, historical pieces, governance debates, and letters to the editor from a wide range of perspectives. Major COG organizations largely stayed away from advertising in it-precisely because they preferred to control the message. That absence itself was revealing.
Over its run of roughly 202 issues, the paper covered concrete problems inside the movement. It reported on governance conflicts, leadership struggles, financial and organizational decisions that affected ordinary members, and events such as the 2005 shooting at a Living Church of God service in Brookfield, Wisconsin. It carried historical material on the WCG era, Ambassador College, and the early years of the various splinters. It also ran opinion pieces and letters that questioned aspects of Armstrongist practice and authority. Critics in the more hardline groups sometimes dismissed it or attacked it; some in the stronger anti-Armstrong circles called Cartwright an "enabler" for continuing to operate inside the COG orbit rather than fully repudiating it. Cartwright's response was consistent: he was not trying to prop up any particular leader or group. He was providing a forum and an avenue for communication and fellowship among people who still identified with the Churches of God.
He continued publishing through health setbacks, including a heart attack in 2011 that reduced his energy. In late 2017 he announced that The Journal would end after the January 2018 issue. At the time he noted that the paper would turn 21 the same month he turned 71, that his reasons for publishing had changed, and that he no longer saw the same necessity for the project that he had felt in 1997. He remained active in one or more COG groups and described himself as a COG member, though he said he was not the same kind of Christian he had been when he started the paper. The website continued for a time under other oversight, and plans were made to archive the issues.
Cartwright's contribution was not that of a full outsider or relentless polemicist. It was that of an independent publisher who refused to let the major organizations monopolize the flow of information. In a movement long marked by top-down control, suppressed dissent, and careful public relations, a newspaper that reported across group lines and allowed competing voices had a corrosive effect on the old closed system. It documented the ongoing fractures, the governance problems, and the distance between the promises of the Armstrong era and the realities of the later COG landscape. That documentation helped members and former members see the picture more clearly.
Dixon Cartwright's death closes a long chapter in the independent reporting on the Churches of God. The Journal was never the most aggressive exposé vehicle, but for twenty-one years it was one of the few consistent places where the news and the arguments of the post-Armstrong world could appear without being fully filtered by the organizations being written about. In that role it performed a real service.
The Death of Dixon Cartwright
Mr. Reginald Killingley of Texas informed me today that Dixon Cartwright died yesterday. Many of my readers will remember Dixon as the publisher of The Journal, News of the Churches of God - a long running newspaper tracking schools of thought and happenings within the Armstrong Churches of God. He edited, reported and wrote for the paper until he retired some years ago.
I will always remember Dixon as a friend, and as the person who encouraged me to write about my experiences and views regarding human sexuality - especially concerning issues surrounding homosexuality and the Christian faith. Indeed, Dixon published several articles by me on this subject in his newspaper. True to form, Dixon was unafraid of controversy and invited the expression of different perspectives on a host of topics.
I remember many long conversations on a host of theological questions over the years, and some over political views where our disagreements were sometimes very profound. I had the honor of hosting Dixon in my home when he attended the funeral of Tom Justus of Arkansas many years ago. Despite the sad circumstances, Dixon and I thoroughly enjoyed our time together, and I will never forget that occasion.
May God bless Dixon on his journey, and may God bless his family and friends as they grieve his loss. Bottom line, everyone who experienced the Armstrong Church of God culture owes Dixon a debt of gratitude for his indefatigable and clear-eyed reporting on it.
Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix
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