Denomination of the Week: Grace Communion International (GCI)
With this post I begin a new series; I hope to post one like it each week. Each post will highlight an American denomination. (This is, of course, related to my work as reviser/editor of the Handbook of Denominations in the United States beginning with the 14th edition.) The purpose of this series is not so much to express my opinions (although I will sometimes do that as here) but to educate people about little-known or poorly understood denominations. I begin with one I find extremely interesting: Grace Communion International headquartered in Glendora, California.
According to its web site (www.gci.org) GCI is “an international Christian fellowship, on mission with the Father, Son and Spirit, living and sharing the gospel in ways that birth all kinds of churches, for all kinds of people, in all kinds of places.” (Italics original) GCI is a member denomination of the National Association of Evangelicals. However, there’s a backstory to the GCI that cannot be ignored—not because it helps understand the GCI’s current status (beliefs and practices) but because it illustrates the power of God to transform. An entire denomination can undergo conversion—as described in the books Transformed by Truth by Joseph Tkach and The Liberation of the Worldwide Church of God by J. Michael Feazell.
So, a little of the “backstory.” (Whenever possible I will tell here my own experiences, if any, with the “denomination of the week.”)
Americans my age, who lived through the 1950s and 1960s, will remember two “television evangelists” named Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986) and his son Garner Ted Armstrong (1930-2003) and a popular magazine called The Plain Truth that often appeared on tables in doctors’ waiting rooms (among other places). The television show was called “The World Tomorrow.” The Armstrongs were leaders of a denomination (many called it a cult) called The Worldwide Church of God (WCG). Cult watchers called the theology of the denomination “Armstrongism.” I grew up being warned by my spiritual mentors against it.
Back then many, perhaps most, American evangelical churches held occasional teaching series about “cults.” Christian bookstores displayed books and charts about them and evangelical churches usually had some of these in their libraries. “Armstrongism” was fairly new then and so much attention was being paid to it by evangelicals. The WCG had a “slick” public relations and an attractive-looking education institution called Ambassador College in Pasadena, California.
The Armstrongs’ public message centered around world events and their own interpretation of biblical eschatology which was strongly apocalyptic. They did not believe in the key tenets of Christian orthodoxy and taught against the deity of Jesus Christ (although they considered him the unique Son of God and savior of all who truly believe) and the Trinity. They taught against salvation by grace through faith alone and promoted their own program of Christians keeping the law of God—including Saturday as the Sabbath. They worshiped on Saturdays (and were thus considered “Sabbatarians” by sociologists of religion). The group did not have church buildings but met in rented spaces. They believed that they were the only true Christians and that all denominations were apostate, false Christians at best.
During my high school years I became somewhat obsessed with so-called “cults and new religions” in America. I read voraciously whatever I could get my hands on about what sociologists of religion would now call “alternative religious groups.” I knew about the WCG mostly from its critics although I picked up copies of Plain Truth and read them and occasionally watched “The World Tomorrow.” For some strange reason I still don’t understand, my high school teacher (a coach) of a course on “Social Problems” established a segment of the course on religion and I think I helped him focus that segment on so-called “cults and new religions” or alternative religious movements. I think his main “job” at the high school was coaching and he was glad to turn much of the semester over to me—to find speakers who would come to the class representing alternative religious movements that most people called cults. I managed to get several to come to the class to speak about their beliefs and practices. And, like a true “preacher’s kid,” I sat in the front row with my Bible and during the Q&A asked them questions I thought they couldn’t answer.
I was on a mission to get the leader of the local WCG to come to the class to speak. I wanted to hear about their beliefs and practices from the proverbial horse’s mouth and ask him some hard questions from the Bible about the deity of Christ, the Trinity, and salvation. Well, the WCG was not in the phone book, but somehow (I truly don’t remember how) I found out the man’s home address and walked right up to his front door and knocked. When I explained why I was there—to invite him to speak to my high school class about the WCG—he slammed the door in my face. I wasn’t surprised because I had read in anti-WCG literature that the group did not talk about themselves except to potential converts. The way the group grew was through readers of Plain Truth and watchers of “The World Tomorrow” calling a phone number “on the screen” in the magazine or writing to an address for more information. You could not simply “visit” a local church meeting even if you knew where it was.
During my Bible college years (early 1970s) I worked in an office where one of the company’s “directors” belonged to what my co-workers called “a strange church that meets on Saturdays but doesn’t have a church building.” Aha! The bell went off, the penny dropped, and I cautiously approached him—asking him about his church. He said “I belong to the Church of God.” Well, I knew there were lots of churches called that, including at least one that meets on Saturdays (the Church of God, Seventh Day), so very cautiously pressed him for more. I asked him which one and he responded “the only one.” I stared at him blankly, feigning ignorance, and he said “There’s only one church on earth—ours, the Church of God” (with emphasis on “the”). I asked him what their church services were like and he said “Oh, we mostly talk about money—how to make it and how much to give to the church.” I already knew that the WCG expected members to triple tithe. I couldn’t get any more out of him; he turned his back and walked away in a manner that let me know the conversation was over.
When I taught theology first at Oral Roberts University (1982-1984) and then at Bethel College (now Bethel University) I taught an annual elective course every year that I titled “America’s Cults and New Religions.” To attract students into it I advertised it on both campuses using its unofficial name “Unsafe Sects.” I made clear to students, however, that that was meant tongue-in-cheek and that I did not consider all the religious movements we would study unsafe except in the spiritual sense—unsafe to people wanting to know truth about God and have a strong and healthy relationship with God. A few of the groups I taught about I did actually come to believe were unsafe in other ways.
My course was a mixture of sociology of religion, American religious history, and Christian theology. One critic of my interest in cults and new religions and my teaching about them told me that when the Secret Service teaches bank tellers how to recognize counterfeit money they don’t show them counterfeit money; they make them study real money. The point of that old legend (which worked its way in some books by evangelical authors who should have known better!) was that people of God should not be exposed to error, heresy, but only to truth. I heard that legend so many times that I finally wrote to the Secret Service asking about it. I still have the letter from the Secret Service in my files. The author, a Secret Service agent who taught bank tellers how to identify counterfeit money, told me the story is completely false; they do show bank tellers counterfeit money. I knew that the moment I first heard the legend as a sermon illustration (and I have heard it many times since!). It is simply so counter intuitive that any critical-thinking person must doubt it immediately. (It falls into a category of “urban legends” called “evangelegends.”
One feature of the course was guest speakers—from the cults and new religious movements we studied. I brought as many in as I could and turned the podium over to them for thirty minutes and required that they field questions after their talks. For the most part that went well. However, I was never successful in getting any person from the WCG to come.
During the 1990s I began to hear rumors of change in the WCG—after Herbert W. Armstrong died and his son Garner Ted left the group to start his own offshoot. Armstrong’s successors, led by Joseph Tkach (senior), began repudiating Armstrong’s teachings and some of the church’s distinctive practices. They led the church toward Christian orthodoxy and even evangelical Christianity. That is the story told in the two books I mentioned above. It is truly a miracle story—of God working through a group of open-minded and loving evangelicals befriending WCG leaders and leading them away from heresy into truth.
The result, however, was division in the WCG “house.” Many WCG ministers led their congregations out of the WCG, which was renamed Grace Communion International. Ambassador College was closed and the WCG ceased publishing Armstrong’s books. Others picked them up and began republishing them. Several groups spun off the WCG/GCI and continued the teachings of “Armstrongism.” Among them are the United Church of God and the Philadelphia Church of God. (When one of my sixty-five first cousins died, one I did not know personally, I noticed his funeral was held by a United Church of God minister in a funeral home. The family suggested memorials be given to the UCG.)
Today the “denomination of the week” is a totally different denomination than the WCG. Grace Communion International is an evangelical Christian church that believes in and teaches Christian orthodox with a distinctly evangelical “flavor.” It is, as stated before, a member of the National Association of Evangelicals. Its leader is Joseph Tkach, Jr. My friend and former editor at InterVarsity Press Gary Deddo now teaches in the GCI seminary.
According to the Handbook of Denominations (13th edition published in 2010) GCI has about 43,000 members in the U.S. According to its web site it has branches all over the world. Its current leaders inform me it does not consider Saturday the Sabbath and rejects the label “Sabbatarian.” This is a case where I will be challenged as to how to categorize a denomination in the Handbook’s 14th edition. The further evolution of this “converted” denomination will be interesting to watch.
Some years ago I was asked by a Mormon scholar (who teaches at BYU) if I think the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is “Christian.” I said no, but I have hope for it. He asked what I meant and I said I am praying that it will undergo a conversion like what happened to the Worldwide Church of God—from error into truth. If it can happen to the WCG it can happen to any denomination. God is powerful. Truth-seekers will be found.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In