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Naturally, it is incumbent on me as God's Apostle, to protect
His "sheepfold" He has placed under my care. As I told you in the
letter offering to provide you with living facilities equal to what
you have enjoyed these past eleven years, that God's Work could not
pay you to fight it, take away members, or seek to destroy the Work
that was paying you. I have not seen the L.A. Times story--but it
seems you construed this $50,000 offer as a bribe. Nothing could have
been farther from my mind or intention. Perhaps you so construed
it because I let Stan Rader write the letter for me, but it was
my idea, and I tell you truthfully my only thought and motive was
your own welfare--and the fact that of approximately 25 years service,
the first 15 had been good years, and warranted that recognition.
Certainly the only thought or motive in my heart was right.
Last night, I ran across a very lengthy telex I had sent you
from South Africa, March 11, 1977. You had always complained that
you wanted to please Shirl and me above all others, and that we never
do appreciate it, or show confidence in you--and especially that I
had not valued your input, counsel or recommendations. I was trying,
in this telex, to show that kind of confidence in you and appreciation
of your counsel.
In this telex I said, "This is the Work of the Living God,
totally unlike all other human-devised institutions, organizations
or activities. Let me say, 1) I do have and entrust to you implicit
confidence. I do not only consider your advice and counsel, I need
and must have it, and always when I agree--which is nearly always--
I act on it, as in this instance"--mentioning a recommendation from
you that I had followed at once.
I tried, Ted, to stand "back-to-back" with you. I had mentioned
that, since, the entire universe is headed by a Father and Son
combination--God and Christ--it would seem to ensure this as being
truly God's Work, if it could be headed the same way--but when I
mentioned how Christ has always been of the same mind and in all
points of one accord, under His Father, you immediately changed the
subject.
You completely overstepped the authority I delegated to you.
You have recently stated publicly in the public press that you never
did agree with me in matters of procedures. All friction between
you and me, Ted, came from two sources--you did not agree with the
manner of procedures that God had started me out on long before you
grew up to maturity, and you felt a sense of resentment over the fact
that, in the natural order of the growth of the Work, God had placed
YOU under my authority. You remarked, one time, some two or more
years ago, "You've never had to work under anyone, Dad." You said,
you meant under a MAN. Before you were born, Ted, I had to learn
to work under other MEN. I agreed with what I had read from Elbert
Hubbard, who said, "If I worked for a man I would work for him!" I
worked under a man in the Des Moines Daily Capital, from age 18 to
19. I performed that work, under authority, so well that it opened
to me a bigger job. I worked under authority as timekeeper and
paymaster of the Finkbine Lumber Mill outside of Wiggins, Mississippi,
at age 19. There I did the job it had taken three men to do before
they turned it over to me. It was not my kind of work. I was like a