For many years when Roderick C Meredith was over the Church Administration Department he was the main agent of enforcing Herbert Armstrong's perverse Divorce and Remarriage "doctrine." I remember in my church area watching families and good marriages being ripped apart by this disgusting and vile teaching.
In July 1969 Rod Meredith wrote a letter to the ministry giving them instructions on what he expected them to do.
One of the first things he wanted the ministers to do was to gain the married couples trust and to have them spill the beans on every aspect of their married lives, particularly when it came to sex. The perverse preoccupation that Rod Meredith has for sex is just mind boggling. It ran his mind back then and still does to this very day.
Here are some excerpts from the letter that is on the Living Armstrongism blog:
WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD
World Headquarters
Pasadena, California
Herbert W. Armstrong
President and Pastor
Office of
Roderick C. Meredith Second Vice-President
July 18, 1969
Special instructions: SAVE!
Dear Fellow Ministers:
This is a special letter of instruction regarding the handling of divorce and marriage cases. I hope all of you will read it very carefully and follow these instructions in handling these cases/
Appeal to them to be open-minded and candid about any pertinent information or intimate details of their past marriages. Let them know that you have gone into intimate details of dozens of cases and that you are not going to to be shocked at all. They should not hold back anything about any pertinent romantic or sex relationships before marriage. Tell them--if these factors apply--that you are God's minister and are married, have children and know about sex. Also, that you are bound as God's minister not to divulge any of it to anyone, and that, in fact, you forget most details anyway as you go through more and more cases.
Notice how Meredith demanded that members share every intimate detail of their sex lives,, both before an during their marriages. The claim that Meredith makes that minsters do not share this information is a total lie. That is the ideal that they should have had and that many ministers in Christian domination's actually practice, but it was NEVER practiced in the Radio/Worldwide Church of God. The ministry wrote down all the juicy details and sent them off to Pasadena where they were read by numerous people. Ministers regularly talked about the sex lives of their members with other ministers and LAUGHED about them.
I will never forget the time when Church Administration was located in the Hall of Administration lobby on the first floor down the hallway from the Security Department. Will in the Security Department one day talking to the receptionist we could hear Robin Webber and another man laughing about a counseling that he had just had. We could hear the intimate details of the conversation that should have been private. He would talk and then they would laugh, share more details and more laughter. Not only could we hear it all, but the office clerical staff and other people in CAD could hear it too.
One of the functions of the huge main frame computer system the church had in Pasadena was the ability to keep member files on every single member. Every letter a person write in, how much tithe money there were paying, how many offerings they made, every question asked, every counseling they had and every comment a deacon, elder or minister ever made was stored in these files. There was no privacy then and certainly still is not today.
Meredith made full used of this stored information and it was used over and over to break families and marriages up.
Meredith had a large list of questions that he expected these members to answer. Many of them were sex related.
Meredith was particularity interested in what type of sexual relations they were having. The more juicy it was the better Meredith loved it. What did Meredith consider "normal" sex to be considering how preoccupied he was with what he called "abnormal" sex. That is the sex that has always titillated him.1. Has either party been married before? How many times? If so, go through each marriage in chronological order covering the following points to finally determine their present status. Remember to ask about any "common-law" situations or "arrangements" while the man was overseas in the service, etc.
2. When did the original couple become acquainted? (Approximate date and their ages.) Ask the family background, religion, etc., of their parents.
3. How long and what type of courtship did they have? Did they have formal dates? Was petting involved? Fornication?
4. Did they discuss home, family, children?
He also had more to his list of things he wanted to know about:9. What fruits of point #4 above were evident? Did they buy furniture and dishes, rent an apartment, set up housekeeping, or live with their parents, etc.? Did he properly support her or at least try to be a husband in this regard? Did they make a home and perform the duties of a husband and wife? Did he provide for the home? Did she cook, sew and keep house? Did they have normal sex relations?
10. Was there previous fornication with anyone else or fraud of any kind involved?
We must judge the spirit of fraud as well--lesbian or homosexual, absolute alcoholic, dope addict, demonism, etc. These are matters affecting the character and being of the individual.
Then to really scare the members into revealing the most intimate details, Meredith make this asinine claim:
Tell the people that what they told us is the basis of our decision. If they have not told us the truth, then they are sternly accountable to God Himself as were Ananias and Sapphira!
Meridith then makes the following comment which shows how manipulative and devious his mind works. He makes the claim that the church has NEVER asked couples to separate. However, if they want their salvation assured then they will do it because of that. They must do it on their own though. When salvation is threaten to be taken away, what is a COG member going to do? They are going to do what the minister expects them to do. Fear is the greatest tool that Meredith had in his arsenal.
Then Meredith tells the ministers to explain to unconverted mates that "just like any other club, the church has its own rules." Club? The church is a "club?"
If one of the mates is not interested in the Church, just explain to him or her that just as any club has its own membership rules, God has set down certain requirements that must be met before a person can become a member of the Church of God. It is our responsibility as His ministers to explain these requirements, but what the individual does about it is his own private and personal business.
Meredith also expected his gestapo agents to go to family and friends to dig up more information:
If an antagonistic mate simply will not divulge information on previous marriages, try to find out the basic details from the converted mate--or other relatives or friends--and you may be able to be sure from that.
Then to further emphasis his deviousness he says:
While he was more than willing to break up marriages an families he did not want the courts to every know what he was up to.Do not, under ANY circumstance, put the decision in writing! It could be used against us in court, as occurred in one case that all of you are familiar with.
Once Meridith's rules have been enforced and a couple agree to separate Meredith expected them to move long distances apart, preferably to another state!
If they both agree to the separation, we should offer help and advice in carrying out their decision. They should separate geographically--at least a state away in most instances, and in every case should be in different Church areas.
Then Meredith makes a shocking statement. Apparently incest has been quit common in the Church of God, so much so that the church has even approved it at times! Of course they did, they had the highest example set for them when they knew about Herbert Armstrong's incestuous relationship with his daughter!
Only in very rare circumstances--perhaps when one or both are senile and when one or the other is crippled or severely disabled--might a brother-sister relationship be approved. In no case, however, should you hold out this hope until this arrangement has been approved by Headquarters! We have found that brother-sister relationships just do not work--even though they might, and I say might, be able to remain sexually separate. They are still living in a husband-wife relationship in their minds. Only in very unusual and extreme circumstances would this arrangement be approved. We have learned some hard lessons on this through the years!
You can read this entire disgusting letter here: Roderick C Meredith's Shameful Role in "Divorce and Remarriage " Policy
