In my research questioning Herbert Armstrong, I had been left with one nagging question in my head: Was Herbert Armstrong intentionally scamming his followers - or did he honestly, truly believe he was who he said he was?
There are certain things that stick out strongly to me. There was his absolute narcissism fully admitted - that he viewed himself as "the most important person on the face of the Earth" - even well before his religious ideas kicked in. He fully admits he was "cocky", "conceited" - fully invested in himself in nearly every angle. His arrogance even as a young man was off the charts. His most desperate life goal - the thing he wanted more than anything - was to "make something of himself". This was the prime goal of Herbert Armstrong - that, due in part to the Great Depression - and due to another part by Herb himself - became deeply frustrated.
It's true he learned a lot from rich and successful people in his early adulthood. He learned techniques about advertising and took what he considered invaluable advice from multimillionaires. He spent an abundance of time with "important people" from every walk. He had the tools to be successful, but he did not have the product. That's where the religious part came into gigantic play.
When that religious "part" became a part of who he was, there were certain aspects of himself that history proves were exactly the same. First was the idea that he was the most important person on Earth. When Loma had that dream about Herbert, and Herbert heard it, it fed directly into the belief that he was the epicenter of the Universe. Within years, he began to conclude that he - and he alone - was the only person on the face of the earth with the "mission to warn" the nations of what was just a few years down the road. When radio - and television - became the normal means of mass communication along with print - Herbert found what had to be God's direct answer to him alone of how this was to be.
After all, in Herbert's world, he alone was right. He alone was God's mouthpiece. He alone was being taught by God. He alone was the only one who could revive the dead churches who weren't growing, or prosperous. Everything he viewed in his worldview was based on himself being absolutely distinct from everyone else, with a mission from God himself that he was chosen to warn the world. The Church's secondary explosion of growth was secondary to him warning the world - and was necessary as the financial arm so he could do what he felt God called him to do. Everything revolved around this - that he alone was "the voice crying out in the wilderness" and that the sure doom of the world was literally a heartbeat away.
This is why he felt the purpose of the Church was to "back him up". Because he already knew he was "the most important person on Earth" who had a mission from God. In order for the Church to "back him up", Herbert had to make sure they were fully in agreement with financially backing him up, but also "backing him up" in regards to what he viewed as his rulership, his authority, and of course, his government over the financial backing arm - the Church.
When the idea of the College came into fruition - everything from his past that he wanted but didn't get in his rich young years suddenly came right back. When he read the Northwestern Banker and hung out with the rich and famous, he read about all those Bankers Conventions. He saw those images of the offices of the powerful with marble and mahogany. He read about the lifestyle of the rich served on the finest gold. All of these things in the past he wanted. Suddenly, because of the "backing up" of his supporters - Church members, and co-workers who agreed with and bought into his ideas of religion - he had the way - not through being a banker - but as a religious preacher - to fulfill his heart's desires as a young person - through a College.
Of course, he rationalized away the fact that those were his "heart's desires" with words such as "God's College", "Quality", and you know the rest. Since it was a "God thing", "God's College" had to be the very best thing the world had ever seen. Consciously, or unconsciously, he had a way to get exactly what he wanted all of his life - power, prestige, and material wealth. And nothing was going to stand in his way now - through this path, he could "warn the world of what was to come" and fulfill his dreams as a rich, powerful, and successful person. And he could RULE like he never could rule in a worldly business - with full control over those in his kingdom.
The problem came when he began forming his "inner circle". When the in-crowd of elites saw that Herbert came upon an elusive, winning, financial formula of success that revolved around religion - the "in-crowd" we now know as pioneer evangelists of the Worldwide Church of God was established. One by one, the McNair clan from Arkansas bought in. Herman Hoeh bought in. This "enterprise" seemed to have God's blessing - and they began to realize the power that they had. Of course, in their minds, this was all a God thing - they were reviving the faith once delivered in the nearly dead Church. The true Gospel hadn't been taught for 1,900 years. They internally endorsed everything they began to do and believe as blessed by God. More saw the "blessings" and bought into it, the public started to see the "blessings" and bought into it, and in time, they established a doctrinal dogma that had a huge financial windfall with extreme wealth - and a theory of world change in just 3 to 5 years to cause people to become citizens of their own little kingdom. But there were no checks and balances on Herbert, and Herbert's extreme trust on his ministry's ethics caused very little true checks and balances on the ministry - so long as they fully and completely agreed with Herbert.
It was Herbert's - and the inner circle's - perceptions - combined with Herbert's salesmanship on who he was - that caused the religion to boom and grow to such large proportions. But the question still remains and hasn't been answered - did Herbert truly and fully believe he was who he said he was? Or was he intentionally conning his followers?
I tend to believe, of myself, based on everything I have researched and studied - that, because of his extreme, full-fledged narcissism, his beliefs that everything that happened was seemingly God-ordained to him, and of how he viewed himself and all of the instances - that he really believed he was who he said he was. One man - the most important person on the Earth - with a warning message of impending doom and destruction.
What I also believe is that he was never "converted". He thought he was, yes. But his fruits, and actions, demeanor, behavior, and admissions tell me otherwise. He was Herbert before religion, and he was Herbert after religion. He started out with a kind of religious piety - but when money and power became his for the yielding - any sense of religious piety went out the window, and "Business Herbert" - the "Business Herbert" of the 10's and 20's - was right back for the '50s and '60s and beyond. The only conversion he had was what he needed to have to keep his followers and achieve his goals and fulfill his mission. The rage, temper, impatience - those things never left. And in my view, the fruits of the Spirit - never came.
Was Herbert intentionally scamming his followers? I don't believe, now, that it was an intentional "I'm going to scam as many people as I can" philosophy. . This is not to say that those of his inner circle were not intentional, however. Herbert was an advertising genius - but as his organization grew, and grew - and became massive - he was outnumbered by thieves, wolves, and power hungry people who I think were intentionally scamming his followers. And by the 70s, the absolute carnality of worldly business politics had completely infiltrated the system while he was "warning the world" of "a strong hand from someplace" on his many self-promoting trips around the world. It was the thieves and the wolves - the inner circle - that hired the notorious infamous ministers that would end up on Herbert's desk for approval. Herbert's attempt at setting everything "back on track" in the late 70s and 80s was too late - too much scandal, damage, and harm had already damaged the Church - and it's members - and permanently etched it's destructive culture in stone.
All of this proves one thing. The Worldwide Church of God was the result of one man's greedy, self-centered, narcissistic idea that he was God's Warning Man - and the Apostle for the end-time Church of God - gone wild by the infusion of less than honorable and power-hungry men who fed his narcissism, helped him fulfill his worldly dreams under religious delusion, and took advantage of the windfall ministry to lead it to it's downfall. And somehow, you and I became enveloped into all of it and shared into that common religious delusion.
At least, this is how I have come to see it as of this moment. I didn't say I was done researching. ;)
submitted by SHT
