Garner Ted Armstrong (February 9, 1930 - September 15, 2003) was the son of Herbert W. Armstrong. He developed his speaking style by copying the tones of news broadcaster Paul Harvey. Garner Ted Armstrong spoke to millions of listeners daily over radio and television stations heard around the world. He was a American evangelist with a polemical message that was unlike most other religious broadcasters of his day.
Brief biography
Garner Ted Armstrong, who was born in Portland, Oregon, and raised in Eugene, Oregon, was the youngest of four children of broadcast evangelist and Worldwide Church of God founder Herbert W. Armstrong and his wife Loma, née Dillon.
Following service in the United States Navy during the Korean War, Armstrong returned to Pasadena, California, to attend his father's Ambassador College, from which he received bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees. He was made a minister in 1955 and held key administrative posts in both the Worldwide Church of God and Ambassador College until he was disfellowshipped (excommunicated) from the church by his father in 1978. In the runup to his removal, he was considered "heir apparent" to succeed his father as head of the Pasadena-based operations.
Personality
Armstrong was noted for his attractiveness and charisma. His ease before cameras and microphones caused him to be called "glib" by TIME magazine. His speaking style was often compared to that of radio news commentator Paul Harvey. In his programs he skillfully mixed political, economic, and social news of the day with Bible-based commentary. His radio broadcasts originated from recordings made at one of the Ambassador College radio studios in Pasadena, California; Big Sandy, Texas, or Bricket Wood, England, with telecasts being recorded at studios in Pasadena and sites on-location at sites throughout the world. The voice, style and presentation of Garner Ted Armstrong attracted millions of viewers and at one time he was rumored to have been approached by a major cereal company to act as their paid spokesman. Such was the fame of his voice that it was included along with many of the world's famous politicians and entertainers for mention on the record The Intro and the Outro by the Bonzo Dog Band of the 1960s.
Reversal of fortunes
The decade of the 1970s brought a series of reversals for Armstrong's career, however.
In 1972, Time magazine reported that Herbert W. Armstrong had said, without further elaboration, that his son was "in the bonds of Satan" and had been removed from church roles. Speculation was rife that the younger Armstrong had been commiting adultery and gambling.
The year 1972 had been central to the theology of Herbert W. Armstrong which he had written in a booklet called 1975 in Prophecy! which had been graphically illustrated by Basil Wolverton. February of 1972 was supposed to be the conclusion of the second of a 19 year "time cycle" which had begun in 1953 with the first broadcasts of The World Tomorrow over Radio Luxembourg in Europe.
At the conclusion of that second 19 year time cycle the entire Worldwide Church of God was supposed to have fled to a place of safety, which was usually identified as Petra in Jordan. Following this event World War III should have been commenced by a Neo-Nazi United States of Europe destroying both the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Consequently Garner Ted Armstrong knew in 1972 that "the prophecies of the world tomorrow" which announcer Art Gilmore promised that Garner Ted Armstrong would deliver within the next thirty minutes on radio or television, was a lot of hot air with both hollow threats and empty promises from the worldwide God that the senior Armstrong claimed to represent. In short, it was playtime with a clear conscience for Garner Ted and that is how the world media began to report his contradictory lifestyle.
Stanley Rader
Meanwhile, as Garner Ted Armstrong faded from the scene, Stanley Rader who was a Jew, attorney and the church accountant who had been the right-hand man to Herbert W. Armstrong since 1958, appeared to be stepping into the number two position of administration that had previously appeared to be the domain of Garner Ted Armstrong. A power struggle ensued behind the scenes in California and relations between the two were strained.
One issue that troubled Garner Ted Armstrong was the numerous corporations that Rader had set up over a number of years in an apparent bid to corner the church's multi-million-dollar business, especially since Rader was not even a member of the church at the time. However, by 1972 the Worldwide Church of God had lost its reason to exist, since its prophecies had all failed and Garner Ted continued his playboy lifestyle of sexual exploitation and gambling with money derived from the church.
Two rival plans
Two different and rival views were then constructed for the future of the church.
One plan was formulated by Garner Ted Armstrong who decided to take the church on a more mainstream approach that would enable him to build a bigger publishing and broadcasting platform for himself. Garner Ted was through with prophecies built around specific dates and he was reported to be against the idea of continuing with messages relating to the Lost Ten Tribes. He wanted to create a church newspaper to rival the Christian Science Monitor and develop his program along the lines of one that was later developed by the Christian Science Church who created a short-lived nightly news program that was later seen on the Discovery Channel. However, Armstrong's plans predated the widespread arrival of cable and he spoke of buying a 747 jet airliner and turning it into a flying television studio. The weakness in this plan was that it did not include a major role to be played by his aging father.
The other approach was taken by Stanley Rader who devised a totally unique role for the senior Armstrong to play on the world stage: Herbert W. Armstrong was groomed as the "Ambassador for World Peace without portfolio" in which he did not represent the Worldwide Church of God or Ambassador College, but a completely new entity called the Ambassador International Cultural Foundation (AICF). This foundation helped to finance the Tatum O'Neal motion picture of Paper Moon; a new and slick commercial publication called Quest magazine; it bought the Everest House publishing company and it turned Ambassador Auditorium into the Carnegie Hall of the West so that it featured major celebrities in stage, screen and the recording arts. Suddenly the Ambassador College campus was transformed into settings for television network productions and prime ticket locations for an evening of classical, jazz or even popular music entertainment in the Greater Los Angeles area. Meanwhile Herbert W. Armstrong with Stanley Rader at his side began to shake hands with Prince Charles; President Anwar Sadat; Prime Minister Golda Meir; King Hussein; members of the Japanese Imperial family and kings, presidents and prime ministers in many other countries. Suddenly the bleak message of Herbert W. Armstrong had been transformed to a Buddhist-like message about peace and brotherly love, of giving versus getting and mankind being guided by a "Great Unseen Hand from Someplace" (a phrase picked up from an old editorial in US News and World Report).
Rader's gain and GTA's loss
Because the Rader plan included a part for Herbert W. Armstrong to play, Stanley Rader won and Garner Ted Armstrong lost. Rader was sitting on a goldmine because the Worldwide Church of God was at that moment in time far wealthier than any other comparable religious organization. After Garner Ted was disfellowshipped from the Worldwide Church of God, Rader offered him a $50,000 a year contract "to keep his bad mouth shut" (as Rader put it in an interview with Mike Wallace on CBS's 60 Minutes.)
Disfellowshipped
Finally in 1978 when Herbert W. Armstrong finally disfellowshipped his son from the Worldwide Church of God, Garner Ted moved to Tyler, Texas where he quickly set up his own Church of God International. Garner Ted Armstrong never again had the media outreach that he had enjoyed in his father's organization, nor did his new church ever rival in membership statistics that of his father's. The Church of God, International, did, however, become a haven for some of the more liberal-minded ex-members of the Pasadena church.
More sex scandals
Armstrong's career received a further blow in 1995, when a licensed nurse in Tyler, Texas, accused him of making sexual advances to her during two massage sessions. Geraldo Rivera made use of some of this material which was secretly videotaped and replayed on his CNBC television show. As a result of this development, Armstrong was then removed as minister in the Church of God, International, which was the church that he had founded. His next move was to establish both the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association and in 1998, the Intercontinental Church of God, which he headed until his death in Tyler due to complications from pneumonia.
External links
- Intercontinental Church of God homepage http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/
- Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association homepage http://www.garnertedarmstrong.ws/
- Obituary, The New York Times http://www.iht.com/articles/110358.html
- Obituary, The Los Angeles Times http://www.rickross.com/reference/wwchurch/wwchurch7.html
Last updated: 05-02-2005 04:27:54
Last updated: 05-03-2005 17:50:55
