AiCOG: Herbert’s Holy Heist: Stealing George Müller to Sell a Gospel Grift

 

A Cult Leader’s Hijack of a Holy Man

Herbert Armstrong loved to name-drop George Müller, the 19th-century evangelist who built orphanages in Bristol, England, through faith and answered prayer. Across decades of writings, the cult leader painted Müller as a shining example of what true belief could achieve: millions raised, thousands housed, all through the power of prayer. To the WCG, Müller was proof that God exists, that faith moves mountains, and that obedience to divine laws brings miracles. It sounds inspiring—until you see the con.

This wasn’t about honoring Müller; it was about hijacking him. Müller’s story became a prop, a shiny bauble dangled to co-opt his faithfulness and merchandize Christ for the cult’s gain. In Armstrongism, faith wasn’t about selflessness—it was a transaction: obey the rules, tithe till it hurts, pray the right way, and God will deliver. Müller’s legacy was exploited to sell this grift, lending credibility to a system that raked in millions while its leader lived in luxury. Today we rip apart this holy heist, showing how Müller’s example was used to peddle a gospel of greed, leaving WCG members with a warped faith that served the cult’s wallet, not their souls.

The Müller Myth: A Saint for Sale

Armstrongism couldn’t stop gushing about George Müller. From the 1940s to the 1970s, WCG publications called him a "great man of faith," a "modern apostle" who proved God’s existence through answered prayer. Müller, a Prussian-born evangelist, founded five orphanages in Bristol starting in 1836, housing thousands without soliciting funds—relying solely on prayer. The cult loved to tout the numbers: over 70 years, Müller raised the equivalent of $7 million, all through faith, feeding and schooling orphans in a testament to divine provision. This, they claimed, was the ultimate proof of God, a slam dunk against skeptics who doubted miracles.

But this praise wasn’t pure. The WCG founder zeroed in on Müller’s story because it fit the cult’s narrative: faith, defined their way, gets results. Müller’s answered prayers became Exhibit A, a convenient example to prop up Armstrongism’s theology. The system taught that faith meant absolute belief in God’s promises, obedience to its laws—like Saturday Sabbath and festival-keeping—and unwavering trust until the answer came. Müller’s success was trotted out as evidence that this formula worked, ignoring how his faith differed from the cult’s. By plastering Müller’s name across booklets and letters, the WCG borrowed his credibility, making its own teachings seem legitimate. It was a con, a holy heist to sell a distorted gospel to the flock.
Müller vs. the Cult Leader: 

Selflessness Meets Greed

Let’s compare the two legacies the WCG tried to tie together. George Müller was a genuine servant. He founded his orphanages to care for the destitute, never taking a salary, never asking for donations, trusting God to provide through prayer alone. His journals detail daily miracles—bread arriving as the pantry emptied, funds coming at the last moment to pay bills. Müller’s faith was selfless, his work a labor of love for orphans, not a scheme for personal gain. He died modestly in 1898, leaving a legacy of compassion that still inspires.

Herbert’s Legacy? The opposite. Armstrongism preached faith while demanding triple tithes—up to 30% of members’ income—to fund the cult, not orphans. By the 1980s, the WCG was pulling in $200 million a year, over $600 million in today’s dollars, while families struggled to pay bills. Where did the money go? Armstrong’s journals detailed his daily self gratification episodes. He lived a lavish lifestyle while members lived in poverty, guilt-tripped into giving more to prove their faith. Herbert claimed to follow Müller’s example, but Müller built orphanages; Armstrongism built an empire, one that enriched its leader while exploiting the faithful. Müller’s faith fed the hungry; the cult fed its greed.

Merchandizing Christ: Faith as a Transaction

The WCG didn’t just co-opt Müller’s story—it weaponized it to merchandize Christ. In Armstrongism, faith wasn’t about a relationship with God; it was a transaction. The system taught that answered prayer came through strict obedience to its laws—Saturday Sabbath, dietary rules, festival-keeping—plus unwavering belief. Müller’s millions, the cult claimed, came because he prayed the right way, believing until the answer arrived. The subtext? Follow the rules, tithe faithfully, pray like Müller, and God will provide. It was a sales pitch, turning spirituality into a business deal where the WCG held the contract.

This transactional faith was a grift. Müller’s example was used to guilt members into giving more, tying their spiritual worth to their financial sacrifice. If Müller raised millions through prayer, why couldn’t you? Never mind that Müller never demanded money—the WCG did, incessantly, claiming it was the key to divine favor. Members who couldn’t pay triple tithes were shamed as lacking faith, while their offerings funded a lifestyle of luxury. Faith became a product, Christ a commodity, and Müller’s legacy a marketing tool to keep the cash flowing. The cult wasn’t honoring Müller—it was exploiting him to sell a gospel of greed.

The Fallout: A Warped Faith That Breaks

Armstrongism’s distortion of Müller’s faith had a devastating impact. Members were taught that prayer and provision hinged on perfect obedience to the cult’s rules—rules Müller never followed. Müller’s faith was flexible, rooted in trust; the WCG’s was rigid, rooted in control. When members prayed and didn’t get answers—because they couldn’t tithe enough, or broke a dietary law—they were told they lacked faith, not that the system was a sham. This warped view of prayer and faith left them disillusioned, as we saw in previous discussions of how the cult breeds atheism. Many who left didn’t just reject Armstrongism—they rejected faith entirely, unable to separate God from the transactional grift they’d been sold.

Müller’s example, meant to inspire, became a weapon in the WCG’s hands. Members felt pressure to emulate Müller’s results without his freedom, trapped in a cycle of guilt and failure. The cult’s co-opting of Müller didn’t build faith—it broke it, turning a story of divine provision into a tool for spiritual abuse. The system didn’t care about Müller’s heart; it cared about his story, a shiny veneer to mask its own greed while fleecing the flock.

The True Motive: Profit, Not Piety

Why did the WCG latch onto Müller? Profit. Müller’s story was a goldmine for a cult built on exploitation. By linking its teachings to Müller’s success, the system lent legitimacy to its empire, convincing followers that its rules were the path to miracles. But while Müller’s faith fed orphans, the WCG’s faith fed a bank account. The $7 million Müller raised over 70 years pales in comparison to the $200 million the WCG raked in annually by the 1980s—money that didn’t go to orphans but to luxuries. Müller lived modestly; the cult leader lived like a rock star, all while preaching a faith Müller supposedly embodied.

This holy heist wasn’t about piety—it was about power. Müller’s legacy gave the WCG a veneer of holiness, a way to sell its gospel grift to a captive audience. But the truth is clear: the cult didn’t admire Müller—it envied him, not for his faith, but for the story it could exploit. The system stole Müller’s faithfulness to merchandize Christ, turning a saint’s legacy into a sales pitch for a cult that left its members spiritually bankrupt.

The Gospel Grift Exposed

The WCG’s glowing praise of George Müller was a sham, a holy heist to co-opt his faithfulness for the cult’s gain. Müller’s selfless mission—raising millions through prayer to care for orphans—became a prop, used to sell a transactional faith that enriched Armstrongism while impoverishing its members. The system didn’t honor Müller; it exploited him, merchandizing Christ to fund an empire of greed. For AiCOG readers, this is a stark reminder of the cult’s true legacy: a gospel grift that turned faith into a product, leaving WCG members with a warped belief that broke under its own weight. Müller’s legacy deserves better—Herbert Armstrong’s legacy deserves to be exposed for the con it was.

Herbert’s Holy Heist © 2025 by AiCOG is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0

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Bob Thiel's Ordination Conundrum And His False Claim Of Legitimacy

 

Bob is too big of a narcissist to realize the hole he dragged himself into.

A comment on Illegitimately Ordained Crackpot Prophet Pops His Self-Righteous Cork Over Banned Article

LOFCOG asked:

Does the witch doctor's ordination and alleged succession also extend to his animated Cartoon Bob character as well?

I'm convinced that it was Evans' idea, not Bob's, to have Evans lay hands on Bob. When you lay hands on someone, you are showing yourself to be their superior. Evans needed to lay hands on Bob to show his African flock that Bob was subordinate to him. But doing this screwed up Bob's claim to legitimacy. Deep down, despite all his mincing and flailing about it, Bob didn't trust his accidental "ordination" from Gaylon Bonjour, so he was willing to accept a real and intentional one from Evans. But you can't ordain someone to an office higher than you hold, unless it's some special one-off miracle like Bob used to say happened when Gaylon laid hands on him. Once Bob decided to supplement Gaylon's ordination with Evans', he lost all claim of being anything more than another evangelist. He can't be a prophet anymore.

Illegitimately Ordained Crackpot Prophet Pops His Self-Righteous Cork Over Banned Article

 

It's raining here today in Southern California, and I think some of it is the spittle flying from the Great Bwana Bob as he melts down over yesterday's article about the so-called lineage of Armstrongism ordinations. 

Apparenlty, when God was forming the foundations of the world and in the process of creating the greatest Church of God leader to ever arise in the Church of God movement, one of those soon-to-be rebellious angels must have interrupted God when He was getting to the part about the sacred ordination of the Great Bwana Bob. God missed the ordination part completely. Due to this oversight, this led the Worldwide Church of God, the Global Church of God, and the Living Church of God all REFUSEING to ordain him. He never even broke the glass ceiling and made it as a deacon! Oh, the humanity!

He pops a major cork over Craig White and Lee Walker's research. These two men are not as intelligent nor filled with the true Holy Spirit that was supposedly sent after the true ordination of the Great Bwana Bob, the end-time exorcist, and greatest COG leader in human history. Shame on Craig and Lee! How could you?

Well, it should be pointed out that Lee Walker’s anti-succession conclusions are opinions, NOT historical facts. 

Silly Craig and Lee! What you have to say means nothing when the One True Church leader and the most intelligent man alive today is superior to you. No one is more intelligent than he is, and since he is God's most highly favored end-time prophet, his word is the FINAL word! 

The historical reality is that the true Church of God does have laying on of hands apostolic succession. The laying on of hands is part of how God transfers the Holy Spirit into the newly baptized (Acts 8:17; 19:5-6). And without the Spirit of Christ, one is not a Christian (Romans 8:9).
That said, let me state that I even shared an apostolic succession list with the Waldensian church in Rome which ran from the apostles through the year 1525. 

 

Now, did Andrew Dugger, Jr and CO Dodd, Dr. Herman Hoeh, various ones in LCG, and me Dr. Bob Thiel, ever make any mistakes in their understanding of specifics related to succession? 

 

Yes. 

 

But that does not mean that the succession idea was wrong. 

 

As far as Craig White and Lee Walker go, they are entitled to their opinions that they could not demonstrate laying on of hands succession to North America. After looking at information, some of which that I doubt they saw, I have a different view.

Everything, and I mean everything that Bwana Bob Thiel says regarding theology is an opinion. His opinion.  It's his own particular interpretation and cannot stand up to rigorous theological debate.

Like most of his debates, he goes on to have another whine-fest about how the Global Church of God and Living Church of God refused to heed his commands.

Working to correct errors in church history was something I began to work on when I was with the Living Church of God (which promised to correct numerous historical errors it admitted it taught, yet that it later failed to do so) and then later in the Continuing Church of God. 

 

While the late Dr. Herman Hoeh (of the old Radio, then Worldwide, Church of God) was prone to correct errors in his historical understandings, and there was a willingness to do so by the late John Ogwyn when I spoke with him, sadly many others have not been as willing.

The Great Bwana has been trying for YEARS to get various COG/Sabbatarian groups to listen to him and change their teachings. All have refused him. And, I mean ALL!

For what it’s worth, off and on for years I have looked into the historical period of the 1600s to 1800s. In doing so, I have spoken to and/or emailed leaders in many groups, including various CG7s (I even met with CG7-Denver’s Robert Coulter and still speak to him on the telephone from time to time) and xWCG related ones. One of which still sends out A.N. Dugger’s book. Also, I have had several contacts, including verbal, with leaders of groups claiming to have come from the Waldensians.

Then, the Great Bwana admits he cannot prove his direct lineage in ordination from Jesus and the apostles to himself, but he is trying! Really trying.

That being said, because of limited available records, it is not likely that anyone in this age will be able to put together a perfect history of the true Church.

But to suggest that there is no reason to accept that there was laying on of hands succession from the Old World to the New World is not so. 

 

That said, we are still working on details related to this period to improve our understanding, but some of what is in this post should show all, that will look, that we have not held onto certain misunderstandings that some had. 

 

The true Church of God is the Christian church. Despite some errors in historical understandings, the basic view that the true Church of God has existed since Acts 2 is correct, as well as consistent with Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:18.

He has a long list of things that he posts from one of his books, trying to prove he is right, but he can't. More importantly, he continues to gloss over his own ordination at the hands of his African leaders since no American Church of God group would ordain him. 

 

Is Armstrongism Defined By Its Identity And Authority In A Lineage Of Ministerial Ordinations?

Classic “Armstrongism,” for want of a better term, teaches that the “True Church” is defined in its identity and authority by a lineage of ministerial ordinations (sometimes termed “apostolic succession”). Christ ordained the original apostles, who ordained people, who ordained people, yada-yada-yada, who ordained people, and at least one of those people personally ordained by the laying on of hands Herbert Armstrong. All of these people will have followed “true” Christianity, which means they were seventh-day Sabbatarian. They will not have descended from the supposed Simon Magus counterfeit religion, as Armstrong would elaborate, and at no point will there be a non-Sabbatarian in this lineage. 

This was the explanation given by Andrew Dugger, Jr and CO Dodd in their 1930s book “A History of the True Religion” (originally titled, “A History of the True Church”). Armstrong embraced this concept, and intensified it in the 1950s. See “Must God’s ministers be ordained by the hands of man?” (1960 version). The idea is that to be a “true” Christian minister, one must have been ordained by the literal action of a minister in that succession.

 
This is not my opinion. This is the teaching of your faith tradition. If you found a minister of a small congregation somewhere meeting on Saturdays and perhaps teaching a few doctrines traditionally associated with your faith tradition (Armstrongism), that would not necessarily mean that church is a “true Church of God” (or “branch of the Church,” the terminology preferred by some like the late Roderick Meredith). The minister would had to have been ordained in that discussed lineage. He couldn’t have been, say, ordained as a Presbyterian minister, looked at the Decalogue, and said, “Oh, wait! We should be observing the seventh day, not Sunday!” and then led his congregation to do so. Likewise, lay members of your faith tradition meeting without a minister could not say to you, “Hey, dude! You’re doing the job of a minister. We think God wants you to be a minister,” then all lay hands on you and declare you ordained, and have it be legitimate (in the eyes of your religion). You wouldn’t have ministerial authority, and your “congregation” would simply be a gathering of individual adherents to your faith.

It is this claim of ordinational lineage that gives the ministry of your faith tradition their legitimacy as a binding authority. Thus it is core to the claim of Herbert Armstrong being an “apostle,” “the Elijah,” etc. If that lineage does not in fact exist, then the claim of his authority is false, as is that of the ministry ordinationally descended from him.

Craig White of Australia has done decades of research in “True Church history,” and has sought to demonstrate the alleged linkage going here in North America. Whatever doctrinal commonalities the different Sabbatarian groups may have possessed (and doctrines can be transmitted or developed in the number of ways with no ordinational or organizational succession), he admits failure to find the requisite linkages.

 
From White’s writeup, A Note on the Seventh-Day Baptist Relationship to the Church of God:

Note Point 4: “4. if there is very little linkage between them and there is no evidence of ongoing sequence of laying hands upon subsequent leadership or elders from one era to the next, how does one know it is legitimate?…”

He acknowledges “no evidence” of the ordinational succession, and then asks the resultant question of how to evaluate the “legitima[cy]” of the Armstrongist “True Church” and ministry claim.

And here is the answer: Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 include a reference to a number of families claiming Levitical descent at the rebuilding of Jerusalem, but whose names are not listed in a registry of such descendants. This results in them being declared “unclean” and set aside from the functions and privileges of the priesthood (until objective verification could be had). Putting this in jurisprudential terms, this is a “precedent,” an event which sets out how situations like this ought to be handled. The “burden of proof” lies with the people claiming the succession exists. It does not lie with somebody challenging it.

The Armstrongist ministry has long and strongly drawn a direct parallel between itself and the Levitical priesthood. No remotely experienced Armstrongist can deny this with a straight face. That said, I will include a few of my favorite examples to illustrate the depth your religion takes this. The reference to “Levites” in the Deuteronomy 14:28-29 discussion of “third tithe” was used to justify the use of the assistance fund to pay for home renovations of ministers. I even recall a minister at a WCG Feast of Tabernacles saying that it could be used to directly augment ministerial salaries because of this (though he denied it had ever happened). Much of the authority and prestige of the Armstrongist ministry comes from drawing such parallels. A UCG minister after the 1995 event even said that they could call themselves “priests” because of this if they so chose. Another minister, then still in WCG post-1995 but now pastoring for UCG, told me of how at WCG headquarters in Pasadena, since ordained ministry were called “spiritual Levites,” they went full-circle terminology-wise and referred to non-ordained church workers as “PHYSICAL Levites.” Armstrong himself took it so far as to even roll it over into a theory that many of his ministers were descended literally – genetically – from the Levitical line. 

(Here is a comedic story touching on this, involved security at the Ambassador campus. The writer is obviously very discontented with Armstrongism. It seems that security volunteers on the Sabbath were given a technical consideration of being “spiritual Levites” in order to justify their work on the Sabbath. As all good satire is based in truth, it demonstrates just how truly serious the Armstrong faith tradition has taken the supposed Levitical parallel. )

The Levite-“True Church” minister analogies go on and on, and every minister of the Armstrong tradition knows that.

Ergo, following the parallel laid out by the ministry of your faith tradition, it is on them or their supporters to show the lineage exists. And if that cannot be done – and up to now it has not been done – they are to be considered set aside, and their doctrinal and spiritual authority nonbinding.

Despite this, Armstrongist apologists not only seek to avoid the general issue, but actually play dumb on the whole matter. Note the following exchange on LCG’s “Tomorrow’s World” YouTube channel. “TommygunNG” is yours truly.

“HUMAN lineage” (emphasis added). Is that genetic or actional (by ordination)? This purposeful distortion of the issue is shocking in its audacity. Obviously, this being more of an outreach channel, LCG is attempting to hide the reality of their faith from the uninitiated – that is, prospective members. They will think in general terms about a lineage or succession, believing there’s nothing to what I asked, while members can CHOOSE to take it as referring to genetic reproduction in order to deny to themselves the disingenuousness. But in reality, all their muddling does is show the legitimacy of my point, and their own complete lack of a genuine answer. 

To their credit of sorts, at least they were attempting something vaguely substantive. When I asked a comparable question to LCG via Facebook Messenger in 2021, this one specifically regarding who ordained Armstrong himself, their only response was, “Mr. Armstrong explained his ordination in some of his articles, autobiography, etc.” On the other hand, UCG did not reply at all, and COGaWA only replied after a second message noting that they did not reply, with them saying, “Hello! Thank you for your message! We will personally reply to your message as quickly as possible. In the meantime, feel free to check out our website at […]!” Of course, no such “personal reply” ever came.

Even attempting to deny the direct applicability of the scriptural example (and thus losing much of the power and prestige in the ministry gained by the Levitical typology), the precedent sets the parallel in establishing the burden of proof for succession claims. Think about it. If a woman from your past claimed her child was the result of a union between the two of you, you would not simply accept her claim. You would demand affirmative proof that the child was yours. How much more important than the genealogy of a single individual is being sure that the doctrinal authority you believe you are bound to is the correct one? 

Today we have DNA tests to determine physical paternity. But unfortunately, there is no spiritual DNA test that can track ministerial ordinations. People have to rely on verifiable documentation for that. And unfortunately for your religion, the Armstrong faith tradition cannot even determine what elder(s) ordained Armstrong himself, let alone who ordained him/them, etc., back to the original apostles.

Church of God (Seventh Day) history shows that the early ministers of that denomination held ordinations from mainstream non-Sabbatarian protestant churches. CG7’s founders were simply ministers who became involved in the Millerite/Adventist movement and adopted seventh-day Sabbatarianism. Few if any came in as Sabbatarians. The same can be said of most of the lay members. They were not “rebaptized” upon this change in their practice. The whole claim of such a lineage preceding the formation of what became CG7 did not exist until the 1920s. Dugger himself claimed in a 1926 article that his “first insight” on the idea came from an event in 1922:

More here from Richard Nichols’ history (from Friends of the Sabbath)

History simply does not bear the claim out, and in fact points against the claim. Contrary to the impressions given by people like Herman Hoeh, there are no (known) ordinational linkages between them and any sort of Sabbatarian line back to antiquity. A clever and perhaps typical example of an attempt to give this unfounded perception is found in LCG’s booklet on the subject, discussed above in the YouTube screenshots. In a particularly odd case of attention to detail, it attempts to mislead readers into thinking Roswell Cottrell, a Seventh Day Baptist who entered the Millerite/Adventist movement in 1851 and became a leading figure in the movement, was a “long time Sabbatarian minister” at the time of his entrance. The truth is, while his family has a long Sabbatarian history (back to the 1630s) and his father John was a former in SDB minister who entered Adventism the same year, he himself was not apparently ordained until 1854 – that is, already within the Adventist movement, and two years after his father’s death. (Plus, at age 34, he wouldn’t have been a “long-time” anything!) The apparent intent is to imply to the initiated reader that the supposed “True Church” ordinational succession might have entered Adventism through him. Yet without a prior ordination, it obviously could not.

Speculative thought: I have to wonder if the writer actually intended critics to look into the fellow and find his family’s descent from European nonconformist groups often mentioned in “True Church” histories. The problem, though, is that actual attention to detail and a refusal to simply accept their unfounded presumptions defeats the effort. (Good try, though.😁)

And thus, based on the Ezra 2/Nehemiah 7 precedent and the most basic of common sense, your religion’s claim of exclusively being “true Christianity” and that the teachings of your ministry — INCLUDING THAT OF HERBERT ARMSTRONG — ought to be disregarded as authoritative in the sense traditionally held in Armstrongism. This does not mean that you or they are or were wrong about any other given point of biblical doctrine. It’s simply means that you are not bound before God to believe those ministers, and thus are free to study doctrinal questions and arrive at different conclusions. You are not bound to Herbert Armstrong, WCG, or their legacy. 

In a very real sense, I personally do not care what days you rest for worship. I do not care what you believe about the state of the dead. I do not care whether or not you doctrinally allow or prohibit makeup or interracial marriage. I can even sadly tolerate the denial of civic duty among many Armstrongists and Armstrongist fellowships (it is a free country, after all). What I do care about is that people are feeling held to a faith tradition – that is, Armstrongism – which bases its doctrinal authority over adherents on a fundamentally flawed and false premise [fraud, perhaps?]. And thus, I will confront its adherents with the historical reality and the scriptural precedent laid out here. 

I was an Armstrongist (WCG 1988-95; UCG 1995-2000; ICG 2000-01), as you are now. I do know what you believe. I understand your take on John 6:44. I understand how powerful it is believing that you have been given a special opening to knowledge. But I will put this to you: Jeremiah 17:9 - “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it.”

What I present to you is not my opinion or my specific doctrinal conclusions. It is historical fact and scriptural precedent. It is my hope that you will look into this matter and consider it objectively. A deceived man does not know he is deceived. No matter how deeply you intuitively believe something, it can still be wrong. If you look at this objectively, you will understand. 

Contact me on TruthSocial at @LTWalker03 to respond.

Cats, Guns, and National Security

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NOTE: If an Armstrongist minister ever denies the ordinational succession claim and/or its centrality to the defining and operation of their supposed “True Church,” ask him if there is even a serious possibility that his church might possibly recognize as a “true” minister someone claiming to be a minister, but definitely without such succession. If he says that it is at all possible, then the hold on members that the Armstrongist ministry claims is gone. His church will be no better than any other Christian denomination. Anyone will be free to leave their current church and be declared a “minister,” and members will be free to follow him or any other professed minister – or none at all. The Armstrongist minister and his church will have no justification on those grounds for denouncing the new “fellowship.” On the other hand, if he says that here is no chance that the succession-free minister would be so recognized, then he is essentially yielding the point.

Lee Walker