A church, born again

014 reborn a churchFor the past fifteen years, the Holy Spirit has blessed the Worldwide Church of God with unprecedented growth in doctrinal understanding and sensitivity to the world around us, especially to other Christians. But the scale and speed of the changes since the death of our founder, Herbert W. Armstrong, has amazed both supporters and opponents. It pays to pause to look at what we lost and what we gained.

Our beliefs and practices have been subjected to an ongoing process of review under the direction of Pastor General Joseph W. Tkach (my father), who succeeded Mr. Armstrong in office. Before my father died, he appointed me to be his successor.

I'm grateful for the team-oriented leadership style my father introduced. I am also grateful for the unity among those who stood by him and who continue to support me while we submit to the authority of the Scriptures and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Gone are our obsession with a legalistic interpretation of the Old Testament, our belief that Great Britain and the United States are descendants of the people of Israel "British Israelism", and our insistence that our religious community has an exclusive relationship with God. Gone are our condemnations of medical science, the use of cosmetics, and traditional Christian holidays like Easter and Christmas. Our long-standing view that God is a family of innumerable spirits into which humans can be born has been rejected, replaced by a biblically accurate view of God who has existed for eternity in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit .

We now embrace and champion the central theme of the New Testament: the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus' redeeming work for mankind is now the focus of our flagship publication, The Plain Truth, rather than end-time prophetic speculation. We proclaim the full sufficiency of our Lord's vicarious sacrifice to save us from the death penalty for sin. We teach salvation by grace based on faith alone, without resort to works of any kind. We understand that our Christian works constitute our inspired, grateful response to God's work for us - "We love, because he first loved us" (1. John 4,19) and by these works we do not "qualify" ourselves for anything, nor do we force God to intercede for us. As William Barclay put it: We are saved to good works, not by good works.

My father articulated scriptural doctrine to the Church that Christians are under the New Covenant, not the Old. This teaching led us to abandon previous requirements - that Christians keep the Sabbath on the seventh day as a sacred time, that Christians are obliged to observe the annual requirements of the people in 3. and 5. Moses commanded the annual feast days, that Christians were required to give a triple tithe, and that Christians should not eat foods that were considered unclean under the old covenant.

All these changes in a period of only ten years? Many now inform us that profound course corrections of this magnitude are without any historical parallel, at least since the days of the New Testament Church.

The leadership and faithful members of the Worldwide Church of God are deeply grateful for God's grace through which we were led into the light. But our progress was not without costs. Income has fallen dramatically, we've lost millions of dollars and been forced to lay off hundreds of long-time employees. The number of members decreased. Several factions left us to return to some previous doctrinaire or cultural position. As a result, families split up and friendships were given up, sometimes with angry, hurt feelings and allegations. We are deeply saddened and pray that God will give healing and reconciliation.

Members were not required to have a personal creed on our new beliefs, nor were members expected to automatically accept our new beliefs. We have emphasized the need for personal faith in Jesus Christ, and we have instructed our pastors to be patient with members, to understand their difficulties, to grasp and accept doctrinal and administrative changes.

Despite the material losses, we have gained a lot. As Paul wrote, whatever was of benefit to us in what we previously represented, we now consider harm for Christ's sake. We find encouragement and consolation by knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection and the communion of his sufferings, and thus we are conformed to his death and come to the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3,7-11).

We are grateful for those fellow Christians - Hank Hanegraaff, Ruth Tucker, David Neff, William G. Brafford, and friends at Pazusa Pacific University, Fuller Theological Seminary, Regent College, and others - who have extended the hand of the community as we sincerely strive to follow Jesus Christ in faith. We salute the blessing that we are part of not just a small, exclusive phyisical organization, but the Body of Christ, the fellowship that is the Church of God, and that we can do all we can to help the gospel of Jesus Christ to share with the whole world.

My father Joseph W. Tkach has himself submitted to the truth of Scripture. In the face of opposition, he insisted that Jesus Christ is the Lord. He was a humble and faithful servant of Jesus Christ, allowing God to lead him and the Worldwide Church of God to the riches of his grace. By relying on God in faith and fervent prayer, we fully intend to maintain the course on which Jesus Christ has placed us.

by Joseph Tkack