Dave Pack: I became the "field" advisor to HWA while he was in Tuscon

Everyone in Pasadena has said that this is absolutely not true when Dave started spouting this years ago.  HWA never considered Dave an advisor of any sort.  Dave as considered more of a tattle-tale than anything else.  In those conversations he did have with HWA his glorified himself as HWA's true supporter.  This is just one more of Dave's tall tales.

It was during this trying time for the Church that Mr. Pack’s relationship with the Pastor General grew much stronger. On many occasions in the summer of 1978, the men spoke on the phone, sometimes at length, and discussed an array of subjects.

These long, detailed discussions laid the groundwork for more extensive talks about liberal doctrine and other wrong ideas permeating the thinking of certain senior men in Church Administration and many in the field ministry. The subject of these talks slowly rolled into reorganizing the Work “post-Garner Ted” and the Church’s overall condition from a field minister’s perspective.

That Mr. Pack was a field pastor was helpful to Mr. Armstrong. At the time, the Pastor General was surrounded by administrators at Headquarters who seemed to have their own agendas, while he was at the same time somewhat isolated living in Tucson. (A recent heart attack, plus a second marriage, had temporarily taken Mr. Armstrong to Tucson to live.) 

It was through these phone conversations that Mr. Pack slowly began to realize his relationship with Mr. Armstrong had changed. He had become an advisor from the field perspective.

“Many will dispute this, and our enemies will call this characterization false, but this is what our relationship became. Only many years later did I understand why God engineered circumstances as He did. But this description is the truth of the relationship—and many knew it.”

Mr. Armstrong expressed that he appreciated frankness and honesty, even when it meant respectfully disagreeing. It stood in stark contrast to the usually sugarcoated, self-serving political anglings he often received from those at Pasadena. These were people who either shielded him or told him what they thought he wanted to hear (generally, because they had their own agendas).

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Dave Pack: "You just stood up and vomited on 5,000 people!”

Poor Dave.  I can just see his beet-red face and veins popping as he yells at this senior minister for "vomiting on 5,000 members."  Then to compound the problem, not one single minister there would back him up!

But at the 1978 Feast, the situation boiled over. This same senior minister stood before 5,000 brethren and preached that there will be 100 different resurrections—that Christ was returning on Pentecost—that the apostle Paul was currently in heaven getting special training—and many other related utterly unbiblical ideas.

This event taught the Rochester-Syracuse pastor one of the most integral lessons of his entire ministry: thousands could listen to plain heretical nonsense spewed from the pulpit and not seem to hear ANY of it. And those who perhaps did, tolerated what they heard.

The time for tact was over.

Mr. Pack’s brother was an associate pastor at the Brooklyn, Queens, New York congregation and was also assigned to the Saratoga Springs Feast site. He spoke to his brother about this outrageous sermon. He and his wife completely agreed with the above assessment. Here are his comments:

“I approached my brother with what my wife and I had noticed in the sermon. It was appalling, and it became obvious that no one else in the arena seemed to agree.”

It was clear that immediate action needed to be taken!

Mr. Pack confronted the man in the choir room with the Syracuse local church elder at his side, and said, “That sermon was wrong! You just stood up and vomited on 5,000 people!”

“None of the other ministers are coming forward,” the minister replied.

“I don’t care what the other ministers do or don’t do! What you are teaching is false—and ludicrous!—and it cannot be left unaddressed.”

The minister slammed his fist on the piano.

“I’m the senior pastor here!” he yelled. “This conversation is over! We’re done talking!” The choir was waiting outside, and everyone heard the volume with which the man spoke.

Undaunted, Mr. Pack shot back with equal volume, “I won’t be intimidated. It is you who are in trouble—serious trouble—and right now!”

Yet, not one other pastor or additional elder—of the scores present in the audience—seemed to care or had the courage to say anything, assuming they were even listening. This tragic reality became a painful lesson for Mr. Pack, as most ministers’ lack of love for, or even understanding of, the truth would be a repeating disappointment for the next 15 years. That so many could tolerate so much from the pulpit without a word of objection left an impression on the 29-year-old pastor that would never be forgotten.

Following government and the Church’s organizational structure, he immediately called his area coordinator, who was attending the Feast in South Africa. Mr. Pack explained the details of what had happened—and that not one other minister spoke up (from a group of men primarily under the area coordinator’s northeastern administration).

His supervisor sought to smooth the situation. Though the minister was fired after the Feast, again, other than his brother and the elder with him, not one other minister was willing to say a single word of what was heard.

Only the sermon tape would tell the tale as the final witness of what had happened.

That tape and Dave running to tattle-tale.