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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, April 18, 1980
Page 9
SUPPORTIVE ARTICLES
AND
PUBLICITY ABOUT CHURCH CASE PROLIFERATE
More and more articles are making their way into print that express con
cern about the Attorney General's assault on God's Church.
We are repro
ducing, by permission, two syndicated artic
s by widely-read columnists.
Many of you will recognize James J. Kilpatrick's name due to his many
appearances on the _§_Q Minutes TV program in the "Point, Counterpoint"
segment.
The Washington Post Company is permitting us to reprint William Raspberry
article.
His column is picked up by many papers across the country and
seems to hit a responsive chord in the minds of many who watch for, and
regularly read, his commentaries.
A
Conservative View
California Takeover Of Church Incomprehensible
By JAMES K. KILPATRICK
WASHINGTON-&me
biz.
arre First Amendment cases
get to the U. S. Supreme Court
everyterm, but you might have
to go back to the days of
ThomasJeffersonto find a case
mere mind-boggling than the
assault ofthestate of California
upcnthe Wcrldwide Church of
Goo.
Jefferson's greatest con
tribution to the concept of in
dividual liberty was his Statute
of Religious Freedom. The
Sage <i Mcnticello must be
spinning
in
his
grave.
Cal i f o rni a ' s
inc r edibl e
takeover of the Worldwide
Church of God makes a
travesty of the Jeffersonian
doctrine.
If ever a case
presented a brazenintrusionby
the
state
upoo thefreeexercise
of religion, tbJais it.
The facts are not even
significantly indispute. Toward
the end r:l. 1978, a schism
developedwithinthe Pasadena.
based W<rldwide Church of
Goo. The patriarchal leader
of
the church, 88-year-oJd Herbert
w.
Armstrong, splitwith hise
year-old son Garner Ted
Armstrong. Half a dozen
dissident members of the
�hurch complained to the
California attorney general
that the senior Annstrong and
his closeIISSIX:iate, Stanley R
Rader, were overpaid; that
they were pilfering clmrch
property; that they had co&
spired to sell church property
at less than its fair value; that
they had shredded church
documents to prevent their
disclosure; and that they were
living in luxury at the expense
<i the clmreh's 70,000 members.
The Worldwide Church of
God,
like
many
other
denominations,
owns
its
property as a non-profit cor
poration. Under the law of
California, all such property is
viewed as the property of the
general public. 1be attorney
general
is
charged with
e:iamining
church records to
determine ifthepublic hasbeen
defrauded, or if a church has
failed to comply with laws
regulating charitable trusts. It
is apparently immaterial ,that a
cturcb, as in this case, never
has solicited f1D1ds from the
"general public," but relies
only upon the contributions of
its own members scattered
across the nation.
On the morning of Jan. 3,
1979, retired Judge Steven
Weisman, acccmpanied by a
platoonof lawyers representing
the six dissidents and the at,.
torney general descended upon
the church's headquarters.
Weisman had an astonishing
announcement: Without one
word ofnotice to the church, he
had
been
appointed
its
receiver. He came armed with
an ex parte court order
directing
him
to
take
possession and cmtrol of the
church, including all its assets;
to takeover themanagementof
the church to the extent that he
deemed necessary in his sole
di.scretioo; to suspend or ter·
minate any employee, and so
on. One of Weisman's first acts
was to
fire
the church's
executive secretary Virginia
Kineston.
For the next seven weeks,
until clllrch leaders were able
to get the receivership lifted
under a $3.4 millloo bond,
agents of the stateroamed at
will through nearly 7,000 seized
documents.
The
attorney
general demanded that former
church officials produce for
judicial inspectim not only
financial records but also
cmfidential papers having to
dowith
matters
ofministryand
theolo gy--for example, the
unpublished page proofs of a
manuscript, "The Doctrine of
the Worldwide Church of God."
At no point has the church
been accused of any injury to
the r ubllc health or safety; the
tria court hasstressed that the
church "has not been accused
of any wrongdoing." The most
serious allegatims, having to
do with the below-value sale of
real estate fOI' private gain,
Juwe been dismissed as mere
9
1980 Universal Press Syndicate
hearsay.
It is beyond comprehension
heyond my compre hension,
anyhow--how the state of
California can a�rt a power to
control what a cll.irch em
ployee is paid. That issue lies at
the very heart of this case. The
basic allegatim is that Ann
strong and especially Rader
were "siphcning off' church
f unds through
their
own
salaries and perquisites. In
Weisman's view, Rader's
$200,000 annual salary was
"outrageous."
Remarkably,
Weisman has submitted a bill
for his services as receiver
amounting to $51,000 for the
seven weeks' work, which
figures out to an annual rate <:l
$378,000. Attorneys for the six
dissidents-who incidentally
have withdrawn fromthecase
are seeking $175,000 in fees to
be paid from the frozen church
funds.
The church's petition
for
Supreme Court review
is
supported by friend-of-the
court motions
from
the
National CoWtcil of Churches of
Chrtst and from a number of
Ba p t i s t ,
M e t h o d i s t ,
Presbyterian and Evangelical
bodies. The high court was
expected
to consider
the
petition at its conference this
past Friday, March 21. A
decision could be armoWlced
any day.
Reprinted by Permission of Universal Press Syndicate