Turning Hearts Backward: Armstrongism's Latest Family Disaster

Just when you thought Armstrongism had scraped the very bottom of its theological barrel, in spite of Crackpot Bob's barrel dredging, Samuel Kitchen has resurfaced with another spectacular exercise in religious imagination. Apparently, the greatest spiritual crisis facing Christianity today is that former members of the Worldwide Church of God have failed to return to Herbert Armstrong's old religious playground. Never mind the Gospel, the New Covenant, or the fact that Jesus Christ supposedly established His Church nearly two thousand years ago. According to Samuel, the Almighty has apparently been waiting all this time for former Armstrongites to come crawling back, and Samuel has been personally drafted to lead the grand restoration project.

Samuel's latest prophetic masterpiece claims that Jesus Christ used Herbert Armstrong between 1927 and 1986 to turn the hearts of the fathers toward the children, and that we are now living through a second phase in which the children must turn their hearts back toward their fathers. Naturally, those fathers are Herbert Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God. There is just one enormous problem with this interpretation: the New Testament already tells us how the Elijah prophecy was fulfilled. Luke 1:16-17 identifies John the Baptist as coming in the spirit and power of Elijah, while Jesus Himself connected John with that prophetic expectation in Matthew 11 and 17. But apparently the Gospel writers forgot to mention that John was merely the opening act for Herbert Armstrong, who would arrive centuries later with a printing press, a radio program, and an organizational chart.

The most outrageous part of this family-restoration fantasy is the suggestion that Armstrongism somehow turned the hearts of fathers toward their children. For countless former members, the experience was often quite the opposite. Armstrongist teachings and institutional demands divided families, encouraged suspicion toward relatives who left, and placed loyalty to the organization above ordinary human relationships. Parents, children, spouses, and extended families suffered the consequences of religious doctrines that made church membership and obedience to ministerial authority more important than maintaining loving family connections. If Herbert Armstrong was supposedly sent to restore families, somebody should have checked the construction plans as he destroyed his own family., alienating all of his children and grandchildren. The finished product left an awful lot of broken relationships behind!

Samuel then drags Malachi 2 and 3 into his prophetic construction project, insisting that everyone who departed from the Worldwide Church of God has departed from God's way and must return to the original organization. He takes God's appeal to Israel to return to Him and conveniently transforms it into a divine command to return to Samuel's version of Armstrongism. Malachi 3:7 is about repentance and covenant faithfulness, not an advertisement for a twentieth-century denomination. The prophet was not predicting that former members would eventually have to choose between Armstrongist splinter organizations and Samuel Kitchen's personal restoration headquarters. That interpretation requires a considerable amount of theological imagination, but Samuel seems to have an unlimited supply.

His insistence that Jesus Christ remains the head of the Worldwide Church of God is equally absurd when used to establish the organization's exclusive spiritual authority. Of course Christ is the head of His Church. Paul makes that abundantly clear in Colossians 1:18. But nowhere does Paul identify Herbert Armstrong's organization as the exclusive institutional embodiment of Christ's Church, nor does he suggest that Christians who leave it have abandoned Jesus. The Church belongs to Christ, not Herbert Armstrong, not Samuel Kitchen, and certainly not whichever Armstrongist personality happens to announce that he has inherited the divine franchise. The Worldwide Church of God underwent enormous changes after Armstrong's death, and former members had every right to examine its teachings and reach their own conclusions. Disagreement with a religious organization is not automatically rebellion against God.

Then comes Zerubbabel, because no Armstrongist prophetic fantasy is complete without dragging him into the discussion. Samuel takes the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple in Zechariah 4 and attempts to transform it into a two-stage prophetic blueprint for Armstrong's original organization and Samuel's present restoration effort. The declaration "Grace, grace unto it" becomes another convenient steppingstone toward his predetermined conclusion. Unfortunately, Zerubbabel was rebuilding the temple after the Babylonian exile, not establishing a prophetic template for every self-appointed Armstrongist leader who decides he has been commissioned to restore something. By Samuel's reasoning, anyone undertaking a renovation project could potentially qualify as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. The Bible is apparently one enormous Armstrongist treasure hunt, and Herbert's photograph is hidden behind every chapter.

The real character of Samuel's message becomes especially apparent when he moves from prophetic speculation to threats. He tells former members that if they refuse to serve God, they can go into the lake of fire, that they deserve destruction, and that the Church does not need them anyway. What a delightful demonstration of Christian hospitality! Jesus taught His followers to love their neighbors, forgive their enemies, serve others, and demonstrate humility. Samuel appears to have discovered an alternative version of Christianity in which the principal qualification for leadership is the ability to threaten former members with eternal destruction for refusing to join your organization. He claims that God needs people to return while simultaneously declaring that the Church does not need them. Apparently, God desperately needs your participation, but Samuel doesn't particularly care whether you exist.

His demand that former members disclose their names and photographs to demonstrate Christian fellowship is another peculiar feature of this article. According to Samuel, maintaining anonymity is somehow denying Christ, and Christians cannot hide behind a curtain like contestants on The Price Is Right. One wonders whether the apostles realized they were supposed to preach the Gospel or whether they should have been collecting identification photographs for the Jerusalem congregation. Christian fellowship does not require surrendering reasonable personal privacy to satisfy the demands of a religious leader. Trust must be earned, not demanded, and refusing to disclose personal information is not evidence of spiritual rebellion. It is particularly understandable when dealing with religious environments where disagreement can result in condemnation and unwanted attention.

But perhaps the most revealing declaration is Samuel's insistence that God personally drafted him and his family for this restoration work. He claims they did not set out to accomplish this mission, that Jesus Christ did it through them, and that anyone with complaints should take them up with Jesus. What a convenient arrangement! Samuel makes the claims, Samuel establishes the authority, Samuel determines who is faithful, and anyone questioning the enterprise is apparently questioning God Himself. The New Testament offers a rather different model of Christian leadership. Paul specifically told the Corinthians that he did not seek to lord it over their faith but was a fellow worker for their joy (2 Corinthians 1:24). That is a far cry from declaring yourself God's appointed restoration coordinator and threatening everyone who refuses to cooperate.

The greatest absurdity is Samuel's claim that the Bride of Christ cannot make herself ready without returning to the Worldwide Church of God and participating in his restoration project. Hebrews 8:6 tells us that Christ established a better covenant founded upon better promises, while Ephesians 5 describes Christ's relationship with His Church. Nowhere does the New Testament teach that Christians must belong to Herbert Armstrong's organization to become part of the Bride of Christ. The preparation of the Church is centered upon Jesus, His grace, His righteousness, and the work of the Holy Spirit. Apparently, however, Christ's accomplishments are insufficient in Samuel's theological universe unless somebody first signs up for the restoration program, supplies their photograph, and helps finance the operation.

For former members who have escaped Armstrongism, the most important restoration is not a return to Herbert Armstrong's organization but freedom from the religious fear, guilt, and institutional control that characterized so much of their experience. Leaving Armstrongism was not necessarily an act of rebellion against God; for many, it was an act of conscience after examining teachings that simply could not be reconciled with the New Testament. Some have rebuilt damaged family relationships, rediscovered Christian fellowship, and found peace in understanding that their relationship with Christ does not depend upon the approval of a minister or membership in a particular splinter organization. Samuel wants these people to abandon that freedom and return to the very system they left. That is not restoration. It is an attempt to resurrect an institution by resurrecting the guilt that once kept people inside it.

The hearts of the children were not miraculously turned toward their fathers through Herbert Armstrong. In far too many cases, Armstrongism did precisely the opposite, teaching people to place organizational loyalty above family affection and to regard those who departed as spiritually dangerous. No amount of Malachi quotations, Zerubbabel references, or elaborate prophetic gymnastics can erase that history. Samuel can keep his two-stage Elijah fantasy, his theological construction project, his demands for photographs, and his threats about the lake of fire. Those who have found freedom in the New Covenant have no obligation to return to a system that placed human religious authority between them and Christ.

Perhaps Samuel should spend less time explaining why everybody needs to return to Herbert Armstrong and more time examining what Jesus actually taught. Christ does not need another self-appointed Elijah to finish what He supposedly failed to accomplish through the previous one, nor does He need Samuel Kitchen to serve as the gatekeeper of salvation. Herbert Armstrong was not the Gospel, the Worldwide Church of God was not the Kingdom of God, and Samuel Kitchen is certainly not the exclusive custodian of Christ's Church. The New Covenant has already been established, Jesus Christ is already its mediator, and Christians do not need to crawl back into Herbert's old clubhouse to prove their faith. After all, Christianity is supposed to be about following Christ, not spending the rest of your life trying to get everybody back into Herbert's old religious clubhouse.