Basic HTML Version
PASOTR GENERAL ' S REPORT , June 6 , 1 9 8 0
Churches Outlawed
inUS.S.R.
Don't say
it can'thappenhere!!
80tnillionAniericans fightback!
0
co
O'l
,-i
Y
OUR CHURCH is be ing
threatened! Ours already is
under attack.
We
are fighting the
battle for vov'.
The First Amendment of the
Constitution was adopted to pro
tect the freedom of religion from
the State,
as
well as freedom of the
press and the right of peaceable
assemblv.
But th� organized move to
DESTROY
the United States Constitution is alrea
dy under way through corrupt politi
cians. You need to know the
FACTS!
This conspiracy to destroy all church
es and the freedom of the press in the
C.S,A. by corrupt politicians has been
launched in America's number one pop
ulatedstate _ by the office of the Califor
nia Attorney General. He maintains
that all churches are the ward of the
political government-that the State
owns all church property and assets
and the political State should run and
operate all churches.
This is the most heinous and uncon
stitutional assault on American FREE
DOM,
and start toward a Communist
Dictator State.
Those in political corruption �lieve in the
domino theory. If our Church, singled out for
the beginning attack against Ccmstitutional
righU. succei!ds, other chuYches
wiU
nu.t be
destroyed, until all churches are nein-exlstenf
Eighty million Americansalready are fighting
back. Already those coming to our aid in submit
ting legal briefs to h-i.gher courts i.ncludl!- the
Roman Catholic, the
Methodist, the Baptist
national association, the National Council of
Churches. and many more of the leading church
organizations in America.
They do not believe all our doctrines, nor one
another's, nor we theirs. But they, and we, do
believe in the right of others to freedom
ofbelief
and of peaceful assembly.
Our Church, the Worldwide Church of God, is
nearly fifty years old in its present era of tM
Church started by Jesus Christ in A.D. 31 We
are comparati�·ely smaH-less than 100.000 bap
tized adult members. Yet we are worldwide, we
are non-proselyting, do not solicit members of
other churches. do not solicit funds from the
public. We believe sincerely and deeply in our
Church, e\'en as you do in )'ours.
A MODERN POGROM
Pogrom is a word that may be unfamiliar to most
Americans. It refers to the systematic or orga·
ni1.ed peysecution or destruction of -a minNity
group withina.society. Most often it has been used
to describe Tsarist Russian attach on Jews
there. It has not oftenbeen used in this country.
Pogrom, however, may be the only word
suitable for describing the ghastly attack on our
Church by the attorney geheral. Conservative
columnist James J. Ki\pat.rick, on !vf.arch 25,
1 980. writing in the Wa�hingum Star, described
it this way:
. you rn ight have to go back to the days of
Thomas , .let'terson to find a case more mi.rtd
boggling than the assault of the State of Califor
nia upon the Worldwide Church of God.
·'.Jefferson·s greatest contribution to the con·
cept of individual liberty was his Statute of
Religious Frt?-edom. The 3age of Monticellomust
be .spinning in his g:rave. California's incredible
takeoveroftheWorldwide ChurchofGod makes a
travesty of the Jetfor!!onian doctrine _ If ever a
case presented a brazen intrusion by the st.ate
uµon the free exercise of rel.igion, this i.s
it."
What '°this, . is, in case you have missed news
stories, is the takeover of our Church. Again, the
word!; of Mr. Kilpatrick:
"The facts are not even significantly in dis
pute. Toward the end uf 1978, a schismde\·elop�
ed wi thin the Pasadena,based Worldwide
Chur<:.h of God. The patriarcha1 leader of the
Church, i,6-year-old Herbert W. Armstrong.
split with his 48-year-old son Garner Ted Arm
strong.
"Half a dozen d issident members of the
Churc:h complained to the California attorney
general that the :,enior Armstrong and his dose
associate, Stanley
R.
Ra.der, were overpaid, that
they were pilfering Church property. that they
had conspired to sell Church property at less
than its fair ,.,aJue. that they had shredded
Church documents to prevent their disclosure,
and that they were living
ln
lull.ury at the
expense of t.he C'burch's ,-0,000 members "
On nomoreevidencethan thecomplaint ofthose
six former Church members. the St.ate ofCalifornia
raided the Church ·s prnperty and headquarters on
.January 3, 1979. and announced that a court
appoin"ted receiwr was in charge.
The recei�·er. a.�ain t1s Mr. Kilpatrick descrihes,
· ·camearmed w1(h ane1 partPrnurt orderdirecting
him to take- pt:1$Sessitm and control of the Church.
indudini all its assets. ID take o,,er the manage
ment t,f the Church to the extent that he deemed
neces:>ary m his sole discretion: to suspend or
terminate an.y employee, and so on. One of \the
receiver's] tirst t1Cts was to tire the Church's
executive �ecre-tarv
"Fm- the next seven weeks, until Church
leaders Wt!re able to get the recei.,,ership lifted
under a S3.4 million bond, agents of the state
roamed r:tt will through nearly 7 .000 seized
documents. The attorney 1reneral demanded
that formi;r Church officials produce for judicial
inspection not only financial records but also
confidential papers having to do with matters of
ministry and theology--for example, the unpub
lished pal?e proofs of a manuscript, ·The Doc
trines of the Worldwide C-hurrh of God '
·•At no point has the Church been accused of
any injury to the public health or safety; the
trial court has stressed that the Church "has not
been acc11sed of any wrongdoing.' The ruost
serious allegations. having to do with the below
value sale of real estate for pri•.rate gain. have
been dismissed as mere hearsay.
"It is beyond comprehension-beyond my
comprehension anyhow-t\Qw the \l.tate of C'ali
fmnia can &ssert a power to contro1 what a
Church employee 1s paid. That issue lies at the
very heart of this case."
It is beyond uur comprehension too. Our
Church
'.s
�·ork has '*en seriously disrupted. All
hecause the attorney general believes, or says he
believes. that a Church's money is public money,
not the Church ·s, that the State has the right
and obligation to make sure aChurC!h's. money is
spent properly, and that he is the pe:rwn who
can decide what proper spending is.
As- Mr. Kilpatrick noted, ··rt is. apparenti.)·
immaterial that a Church, as in this case, has
never solicited funds from the general public,
but relies only upon the contributions of its own
members scattered across the nation.''
And that is the whale crux of the matter. lt i.s
God"s money. We gi,.,e it freely to our Church
because we want to and because we trust our
Church's leaders to use it wisely in cartying out
wc,rkthatwe 1;1.1pportand ofwhich •Ne approve,
You don't havf" to approve of us or support our
work. Certainly, the attorney general's support or
approval is o{ no concern to us. We want onl
y
!()
be left alone W go about our religious business
as u: e see fit, as u..:e &eiiet:e vou s/101.1.td be
Can you imagine the attOrney general over
.seeing the spending of the Roman Catholic
Church in California? Can you imagine a Catho
lic cardinal's compensation being subject tG thae
attorney general's review"
Would he have attacked the �ethodist
Church, the Presbyterian or Lutheran?
Would he have undertaken to raid a S
y
na
gogue?
\,·Vil/ he
1
He might well, given his apparent determina
tion tQ be th.e reli�ious arbiter for California's
citizens, UNU.SS HE IS STOPPED NOW. He chose
what he thought was a small. helple!Ul group,
perhaps expecting us to disappear without a
whimper. lea..-ing him with an important legal.
precedent.
We turned out to be somewhat bigger and less
helpless than he expected. We do n()t intend to
disappear, whimperingly or otherwise. We
intend to continue defonding our Church
because our religion and our right to practice
that religion as we wish matter more to us than
our property or even our lives.
What about you? What matters to y(m? Your
religion'' Your politics? Youf sex? Your profes
sion? Your rac:e'?
Again, we don ·t ask you to care about the
Worldwide Church of God.
We
Mk you
to
care
about yourself and about what you believe in
and to ask yourself whether you don't have a
cause in common with os
\Ve thinlt you do. h's cal\ed,
the Constitution
of the United States
As
wesaid earlier, we do notseekmembers, but
wewill behappy toprovideany information about
\1':> that ','OU wish. Write us: The Worldwide
Church of Cod, Box 1 1 1 , Pasadena, California,
91 123, or call our tolJ�free number: (800) 423-
4444��;
Herbert W. J\ymstrong
Page 8