Armstrongism refers to the teachings and doctrines ofHerbert W. Armstrong while leader of theWorldwide Church of God (WCG).[1][2] His teachings are professed by him and his followers to be the restored trueGospel of theBible. Armstrong said they were revealed to him by God during his study of the Bible.[3][4] The termArmstrongite is sometimes used to refer to those that follow Armstrong's teachings.Armstrongism andArmstrongite are generally considered derogatory by those to whom it is applied,[5] who prefer to be known as members of theChurch of God (COG). These doctrines were also espoused by his sons Richard David Armstrong (until his death in 1958) andGarner Ted Armstrong (until his death in 2003) with slight variations.
Herbert Armstrong's teachings have similarities to those of theMillerites andChurch of God (Seventh Day) (sometimes referred to as "COG7" to differentiate it from similarly styled sects named "Church of God" which worship on Sunday and generally hold to traditional Christian teachings), from which WCG is spiritually and organizationally descended. The religion is a blend ofChristian fundamentalism, non-belief in theTrinity and some tenets ofJudaism and Seventh-Day Sabbath doctrine.[6] Armstrong himself had been a COG7 minister before the Oregon conference stripped him of his ministerial credentials and excommunicated him for his seeking to "water down" and change their long-established COG7 doctrines. It was in the fall of 1937 when Elder Armstrong's credentials were revoked by the Salem Church of God organization. The reason given by the Board of Twelve Oregon Conference of the Church of God, 7th Day (COG7) for this adverse action against Herbert W. Armstrong, was because he taught and kept the annual Feast days. But the real reason seems to have been because of his uncooperative attitude.[7] Armstrong then began his own ministry.
Armstrong taught that most of the basic doctrines and teachings ofmainstream Christianity were based ontraditions, including absorbedpagan concepts and rituals (i.e. religioussyncretism), rather than theJudeo-Christian Bible. His teachings have consequently been the source of muchcontroversy. Shortly after Armstrong's death in 1986, the Worldwide Church of God started revising its core beliefs toward the concepts, doctrines, and creeds of mainstream Christianity. This resulted in many ministers and members leaving the WCG to start or join other churches, many of which continue to believe and teach Armstrong's doctrines to one degree or another. In 2009, the WCG changed its name toGrace Communion International (GCI). Today, the official doctrinal position of GCI is mainstreamevangelical, although there are still GCI ministers and members who do not fully embrace all of the changes.
Some of Armstrong's identifiable doctrines are in addition to or are different from traditional mainstream Christian doctrines. Many groups and churches which splintered in the aftermath of doctrinal changes within the Worldwide Church of God continue to hold many or all of these teachings of Armstrong.
The God Family doctrine holds that theGodhead is not limited toGod (theCreator) alone, or even to a trinitarian God, but is a divine family into which every human who ever lived may be spiritually born, through a master plan being enacted in stages. The Godhead now temporarily consists of two co-eternal individuals (seeBinitarianism),Jesus theMessiah, as the creator and spokesman (The Word orLogos), andGod the Father.
According to this doctrine, humans who are called by God's Holy Spirit to repentance, who [accept], hope to inherit, the gift ofeternal life made possible byJesus' sacrifice, who commit to live by "every word of God" (i.e. biblical scripture), and who "endure to the end" (i.e. remain faithful to live according to God's way of life until either the end of their own lifetime or thesecond coming of Jesus) would, at Jesus' return, be "born again" into the family of God as the literal spiritual offspring or children of God. Armstrong drew parallels between every stage of human reproduction and this spiritual reproduction. He often stated that "God is reproducing after his own kind— children in his own image." Whatever the changes brought about by this new entrance of humans into God's family, God the Father will always be theomnipotent sovereign and sustainer of both the universe and the spiritual realm, forever to be worshipped as God by the children of God. Jesus, as the creator of the universe and the savior of God's children, will always rule theKingdom of God, which will ultimately grow to fill the entire universe, and he likewise will forever be worshipped as God by the children of God.
Armstrong taught that theBible (excluding theBiblical apocrypha and thedeuterocanonical books) is the authoritative Word of God (The Proof of the Bible). He taught that even though the Bible's message isinerrant, it had been distorted as the result of many conflicting interpretations of it, and the Gospel's full message of the Kingdom of God as it was understood by the originalapostles was not restored until the 20th century, when God opened Armstrong's mind to the plain truth of scripture and revealed the Gospel's full message of the Kingdom of God to the Church through him (Armstrong).[4] Armstrong taught that all other churches which called themselves "Christian" churches were not merelyapostate churches, they were actually counterfeit churches because their histories could be traced back to thefirst century, and they are also described as false churches in theepistles (which refer to a "false gospel", "false ministers", and "false apostles"), the eighth chapter of theBook of Acts (the appropriation of "Christian" trappings by influential and ambitious pagan religious figures [including a man known to secular history,Simon Magus, mentioned inActs]) and later historians likeEusebius.
The observance of theSabbath fromdusk on Friday to dusk on Saturday was the first non-traditional religious practice (as compared to mainstream Christianity). In several of his books, Armstrong wrote that after his wife Loma met a member of a Sabbatarian church group (theChurch of God (Seventh Day)), she challenged him to use scripture to prove that Sunday was the proper day for Christian worship, as Herbert claimed. After months of Bible study, Armstrong concluded that there was no sound scriptural basis for Christian worship on Sunday, instead, he asserted that for decades after the establishment of the Church age, the Apostles and the first generation of Christians, bothJewish and Gentile converts, continued to set an example for all Christians by observing the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week (from Friday at sunset to Saturday at sunset).
Eventually, Armstrong accepted and observed many principles and laws which are found in theOld Testament and he also taught converts to do the same. These principles and laws included theTen Commandments,dietary laws,tithing, and the celebration of high Sabbaths, or annual feast days such asPassover,Pentecost, and theFeast of Tabernacles. Furthermore, he taught that Christians should not celebrateChristmas andEaster, based on his belief that these holidays were not of biblical origin, instead, he believed that the celebration of them originated as the result of later absorptions of pagan practices into corrupted Christianity.
Armstrong was a proponent ofBritish Israelism (also known asAnglo-Israelism), which is the belief that people ofWestern European descent, especially theBritish Empire (Ephraim) and the United States (Manasseh), are descended from the "Ten Lost Tribes" ofIsrael.[8][9] It is also asserted that theGerman peoples are descended from the ancient Assyrians. Armstrong believed that this doctrine provided a "key" to understanding biblical prophecy, and he also believed that God called him to proclaim these prophecies to the "lost tribes" of Israel before the coming of the "end-times".[10]Grace Communion International, the lineal successor to Armstrong's original church, no longer teaches the doctrine,[11] but many offshoot churches continue to teach it even though critics assert that British Israelism isinconsistent with the findings of modern genetics.[12]: 181
Walter Martin's book,The Kingdom of the Cults (1965) argues that Armstrong's teachings are largely a conglomerate of teachings from other groups, noting similarities in elements of his teachings to theSeventh-day Adventists (sabbatarianism, annihilationism, and their belief that thesoul remains asleep until its bodily resurrection),Jehovah's Witnesses (whose belief differs from the mainstream Christian belief that the soul stays awake and goes to eitherHeaven or Hell immediately following death), andMormonism (God Family doctrine).[13]
There are many splinter churches as well as second-generation splinters from WCG since Armstrong's death. Most of these churches hold fast to Armstrong's teachings and primarily pattern their organizations on how WCG operated. They are often referred to collectively as the "Sabbatarian Churches of God" or simply as the "Churches of God" or "the COG".
Many people are publicly associated with Armstrongism and the legacy of WCG.
