HWA’s Sex Booklet In Spanish
By Wes White
1979 was a tough year for the Worldwide Church of God. Lots of tumult. Garner Ted had just bolted from the organization the year before -- taking hundreds of members with him and setting up the Church of God International. Then in January 1979, the receivership crisis began.
History seems to have forgotten another traumatic event that exploded in the midst of those turbulent times. I’m speaking of the WCG Spanish department’s translating of HWA’s book, “The Missing Dimension in Sex.”
Sex?!? Now you know the story is going to get interesting.
My late wife, Linda Hardy White, was the editor of “El Communicado,” the Spanish language version of “The Good News” magazine. (She died of ALS in 2003.)
Linda learned that the translation of HWA’s sex book was far from accurate. And it wasn’t just poorly done. Worse than that, the translators were putting things into the Spanish version that actually went totally opposite of what HWA had originally written!
As a pompous, true believer, I was indignant when she told me of this. It’s not that I believed HWAs’ writings were necessarily sacrosanct. In fact, I thought HWA’s two books on sex were quite silly and lacked any real understanding of sexual relations. Here was this old man telling us what we should and shouldn’t be doing in the boudoir! It was actually quite creepy.
But I did believe back then that HWA was God’s anointed. Obviously, I have repented of that today.
Linda’s problem with the translation was not so much indignation that people would go against God’s apostle. Her concern was more academic. She felt that no author’s translation should contain inclusions that went against his original work. I mean, you don’t even have to be a Christian to buy into that.
So Linda approached her boss, Fernando Barriga. He privately acknowledged to Linda that this translation was something that HWA would not approve, but he justified it by saying that HWA didn’t understand the Spanish-speaking culture. Linda suggested that they at least explain this to HWA so he wouldn’t find out later – after the book was in the hands of hundreds (if not thousands) of people.
Barriga became furious. He shouted at her, “I am a minister of Jesus Christ! How dare you question my decisions?”
Linda backed down and said, “No problem. You’re the boss. We’re done talking.”
She then asked me to mention this to my boss, Raymond McNair, who was the deputy chancellor of the college. I was Raymond’s flunky assistant. Naturally, he became quite alarmed.
So here is what we did. Linda verbally translated portions of the book from Spanish to English onto a cassette tape. Not the whole book. Just the offending chapters. Two of the Ambassador College secretaries then transcribed Linda’s words from the cassette into type-written pages. McNair then took these pages to HWA in Tucson.
HWA was initially perplexed. He found it unfathomable that the Spanish department would do something like this. So he had another Spanish speaker confirm the accuracy of Linda’s translation.
And then, boy, did it hit the fan! Needless to say, HWA was livid when he realized what had been done to his sex book.
Within a few days, Linda and I found ourselves on a flight to Tucson to see “the apostle.” We flew down there with Joe Tkach Sr and Kevin Dean. (Another story for another time.) We met with HWA in his home and Linda went over the whole thing with him.
Since it had taken several days for him to confirm the accuracy of Linda’s translation, the Spanish department in Pasadena continued on with this project. During this time, the booklet went to press. I don’t know how many thousands of copies were printed before HWA lowered the boom. Once he closed down this project, Walt Dickinson had all the copies of the book thrown into a dumpster behind the Office Facilities building.
I couldn’t resist taking one. I believe I have the only one left in existence today. Here are pictures of the opening pages.
Walt Dickenson was removed from the Spanish department and sent out to the field to pastor a couple of churches. It was probably just as well. He barely spoke Spanish. He was in his position “because he was loyal.” And I think because his family had once owned Dickinsons Jellies and Jams. When the family sold out, a big chunk of the profits was donated to “the work.”
Leon Walker (who at the time was Dean of Faculty) was placed over the Spanish department. In a sense, he is still over it today. He joined up with United at its inception and brought over many Spanish-speaking churches from Mexico and South America. (Churches that had been CG7 for decades originally. Another story.) When United wanted to replace him as director over their Spanish department, he refused – saying that HWA put him over the Spanish work and that no man could remove him. (Kinda like a third world dictator who is in power for life.) So he left United and joined COGWA. To this day, I believe he is still “over the Spanish work.”
But I digress.
Looking back, I regret getting involved in this Spanish department dust-up. In retrospect, so many of us now see how dysfunctional the WCG was. I should have counselled Linda to just let it go and let things work themselves out. Sooner or later, HWA would have learned about this mistranslation and dealt with it. Of course, then there would have been a bloodbath with people being fired, disfellowshipped, and marked. Linda was genuinely trying to save her departmental peers pain and humiliation.
If these folks would have listened, Walt Dickinson would have stayed in his job. Even though he could barely speak Spanish.
Finally, why do I bring up these things from almost 40 years ago? Two reasons:
First, I like history. I want to know the why’s of history. When I read about a historical figure performing a certain action, I want to know why he took these steps that he did. What motivated him to do that? I want future historians to have as much information about the WCG as they can, so they can better understand it. We must preserve our history – warts and all. I continue to confess the imperfections of my past. On this blog site and in sermons, I have admitted things about which I am embarrassed and ashamed. History needs to know these things.
Second, those of us who have survived those days need to learn lessons from what went on back then. If we fail to learn from our past mistakes, we’re going to keep repeating them over and over again. Too many of our organizations have brought their WCG dysfunctionality in with them. This cancer needs to be removed from the COG movement.
Enough is enough. Haven’t enough people been hurt already over the decades? Let’s learn from the past so we can avoid hurting others today.
Wes White lives in Big Sandy TX and may be reached at
