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The Real Jesus
By Garner Ted Armstrong
Kansas City, Sheed Andrews & McMeel, Inc., 1977. 280 pp. $8.95.

Garner Ted Armstrong (GTA) is known to millions around the globe as the dynamic voice of The World Tomorrow radio-TV program. But last May the popular commentator was banished from the airwaves and ordered into "retreat" by his autocratic father, Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA), founder and "pastor general" of the Worldwide Church of God (WCG), the program's sponsor. The feisty dictator, 86, accused his 48-year-old son of secularizing the church's message and usurping authority conferred upon the elder Armstrong by "the living Christ."

This was not the first time Herbert's handsome and multi-talented son had fallen from grace. In 1972 he was exiled for four months-and two years later, when it was disclosed that the discipline had been occasioned by multiplied sex offenses, a major schism in the WCG occurred. But both GTA and the church rode out the storm, and last spring officials reported a worldwide membership of 75,000 and a healthy annual income of $75 million.

When "converted" at age 35 in 1927, Herbert W. Armstrong was well tooled in sales and advertising but had minimal exposure to Christianity. A man of determined will and indefatigable energy, he engaged in passionate study of the Scriptures and, aided by indiscriminate use of cult literature, constructed a do-it-yourself theology: an amalgam of Seventh-day Adventist, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormon, British-Israel, and Jewish doctrines. This eclectic blend of dogma he began to proclaim on a low-wattage radio station in Eugene, Oregon, in January, 1934, simultaneously distributing a mimeographed sheet free of charge to listeners requesting it. Thus were born the "Radio Church of God" (renamed the "Worldwide Church of God" in 1968) and The Plain Truth magazine, now a slick four-color periodical with a distribution of 1.5 million copies (about half its peak circulation of a few years ago). The World Tomorrow soon expanded across the country and around the world. In the late 1950's GTA relieved his father of most of the

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broadcasting chores, and during the present decade the aging Herbert commenced touring world capitals in a plush church-owned executive jet as "ambassador for world peace without portfolio." Kings, emperors, and prime ministers entertained him like royalty, and foreign universities conferred honorary degrees upon this self-educated tenthgrade dropout, in exchange for five- and six-figure donations to pet educational and cultural projects. But all this came to a halt when the elder Armstrong was felled by a heart attack a year ago. Making a remarkable recovery, he first turned over the reins of administration to his son-then, a few months later, shut down the sect's flourishing liberal arts college, divested GTA of all executive powers, and resumed full command of the sprawling religious empire.

The Worldwide Church of God is typical of many latter-day cults. A charismatic leader who believes he has been divinely called as God's only end-time prophet attracts a fanatical following whose self-image is that of the "one true church," commissioned to prepare the world for the millennial reign of Christ. In the process, the "true believers" not only submit to their guru's dictatorial rule but accept without question his frequently bizarre teachings. God, to HWA, is not a Trinity but a "Family" (cf. the Mormons). The Holy Spirit is not a person but a "force" (cf. Jehovah's Witnesses). Man does not possess an immortal soul, he is a soul which perishes upon physical death, to await a future recreation; there is no hell, the wicked will be annihilated (cf. Adventists and Witnesses). Christmas and Easter are eschewed as pagan holidays (Witnesses). The Anglo-Saxons are Israel restored and heirs of all the divine promises originally given to ancient Israel (British-Israelism). The Old Testament religious festivals and kosher laws (but not circumcision and sacrifice) are binding today.

This is the religious heritage of the author of The Real Jesus, and it is a yoke under which GTA has chafed for many years. Subtly, gradually, he succeeded in effecting changes. Hard-line doctrines (such as the rules requiring dissolution of second marriages and, where possible, reunion with original mates) have fallen one by one; others (proscription of most medical services) have been modified. Strict separation from the world has given way to a policy of accommodation. Thus "the Work," as HWA likes to call it, has been "corrupted by secularism" and has slowed to a standstill-after enjoying an average annual growth of 30 per cent for the first 35 years of its history (1934-1969).

The Real Jesus is GTA's first venture into the field of commercial book publishing. But as a writer of religious literature he is by no means a novice. Over the past two decades scores of articles and dozens of pamphlets bearing the "Ambassador College Press" imprint have been distributed gratis to literally millions of his radio and television fans. In literary composition, as in speaking, the younger Armstrong displays unusual communication skills. His style is swift, colorful, vivid, forceful-never tedious, seldom dull.

Given the Armstrong theological mishmash, The Real Jesus is

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remarkably free of cultic deviations. The "God is a Family" concept emerges intact, but is downplayed. Jesus and Yahweh of the Old Testament are one and the same. Christmas and Easter are debunked, but not excoriated as in earlier, harsher Armstrong tracts. Herbert's Wednesday crucifixion and Saturday resurrection doctrine is affirmed-although "crucifixion" he considers a misnomer since (with the Witnesses) he substitutes "stake" for "cross." (Both Armstrongs insist on a 72-hour interval, based on Jesus' "three days and three nights" Jonah prophecy-notwithstanding his repeated predictions that he would return to life on the third day.) Salvation (the new birth) occurs not in this life, but upon resurrection into the next life.

Only at one point does there appear to be variance with the elder Armstrong's teaching-and, from the traditional view, this is a plus for Garner Ted. HWA denies that Jesus arose in the same body which was slain on Calvary, while GTA certifies that Jesus appeared "in the very same body which had been quite literally resurrected" (p. 269). His revived flesh was cold, however, "for his blood had been drained completely out of his body" (p. 271). Like the Adventists and Witnesses, GTA (in defense of "soul sleep") insists that the comma in Jesus' word of assurance to the penitent thief has been misplaced in most Bible translations. As paraphrased by GTA it reads, "Truthfully, I am going to tell you right now-you will be with me in paradise!" (p. 240).

But if the foregoing list seems extensive, let it be considered that GTA, in most respects (indeed far more than many mainline theologians) endorses orthodox Christology: Jesus' eternal pre-existence, his Virgin Birth, his miracles and prophecies, his bodily resurrection and ascension, his imminent return in glory as Judge and King. And he defends with equal ardor Christ's full humanity.

The Real Jesus is not pretentious. It was written for "the average layman." But scholarly sources (Josephus, Tacitus, the Talmud) are not ignored. Biblical criticism, however, is. While deriving evident relish from demythologizing popular notions about Jesus (that he was born in the year zero, that the shepherds and the Magi converged at the manger, that he was an only child), he makes no mention whatever of Bultmann, the Synoptic problem, or the "Q" document.

At times GTA gets carried away by both his fertile imagination and his personal prejudices. He is sure that free enterprise will be the rule in the millennial kingdom (p. 139), and that first-century Palestine was "a verdant, beautiful, rich part of the world, virtually unrivaled in industry, wealth, and strength" (p. 43). "We can be quite positive that Jesus wrestled as a boy," he asserts. "How? He had previously shown his interest! We can prove that Jesus, in his preexistent state, had wrestled with Jacob" (p. 21).

But there are strengths to offset these weaknesses. His exegesis of the tetragrammaton, for example: "'I am that I am' can also be taken to mean 'I will be what I will be' or 'I continue to be that which I continue to be.' 'I am the self-determined one, the life self-inherent, the One who is, and who always will be: the Eternal"' (p. 12).

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Traditional Christians will find much to approve, much to disapprove in GTA's The Real Jesus. But they will find the book stimulating reading-a fresh backdrop against which to reexamine their own presuppositions and interpretations of the God-Man, Jesus Christ.

Joseph M. Hopkins
Westminster College
New Wilmington, Pennsylvania