Friday, July 31, 2026

It is the 31st of July 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Today’s show- and character- could have become another entry in the Dr. Gene Scott Hall of Fame- our designation here for eccentric and heterodox teachers that have an interesting or shocking story, but that we cannot endorse even at arm's length. Oh, this story is eccentric and heterodox, but ends with one of the most remarkable institutional transformations in modern church history.

 

It was on this, the 31st of July in 1892, that Herbert Armstrong was born in Des Moines, Iowa. He was born into a Quaker family, but did not take to his family’s tradition. He went into advertising, married in 1917 on his 25th birthday, and eventually settled in Chicago. By the mid-1920s, he moved to Oregon, where he, by his own account, converted to Christianity after a challenge from his wife. She had been influenced by local members of an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists. She, Loma, challenged Herbert to search the scriptures for any proof that Christians should worship on Sunday. Unable to find evidence, he joined the local “Seventh Day” church, was baptized, and ordained in 1931.

 

A charismatic speaker with a loose grip on historical theology, he began a radio ministry, “The Radio Church of God,” and a magazine called “The Plain Truth”. With a flair for the dramatic and apocalyptic, and critical of established Protestant and Catholic Churches, he grew a large audience. By 1947, he relocated to Pasadena in Southern California and founded Ambassador College- the training ground for ministers in his Worldwide Church of God. At its height, this church had congregations in 57 countries with over 120,000 congregants. But Armstrong’s own curious theology had taken on the place of orthodoxy for this church. His most famous and popular doctrine was one of British Israelism. This taught that the 10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom made their way to the British Isles- a preposterous identification of “Isaac’s Sons” with “the Saxons” that claimed the true Israelites were British, descended from the British Crown, and would enter the New World. Armstrong was anti-trinitarian with a teaching about “God’s Family” that denied the full divinity of Christ and personhood of the Holy Spirit. He held to various Old Testament dietary restrictions and a rejection of all holidays similar to the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

 

Cracks in the church came to the fore with the ousting of Herbert’s son, Garner Ted Armstrong, whose infidelities and a power struggle led to him forming his own offshoot. Herbert would remarry after the death of Loma, but his new wife- almost 50 years his junior- would divorce him after a few years. After various claims to the second coming in his lifetime went unfulfilled, Herbert Armstrong died in 1986 at the age of 93.

 

Armstrong’s successor, Joseph Tkach, a follower of Armstrong's teachings, began to hold a “Doctrinal Discussion Group” that attempted to rebut the claim that the Worldwide Church of God was a cult. Over just a few years' time in the early 90s, the church, led by Tkach, disavowed most of Armstrong’s teachings, including British Israelism. Saturday worship was no longer required, Old Testament dietary restrictions were lifted, and the church’s exclusive claim that they were the one true church was dropped.

 

In July of 1996, Christianity Today published an article, “From the Fringe to the Fold: How the Worldwide Church of God Discovered the Plain Truth of the Gospel,” outlining the move of this one time cult had done what no modern body of its size and notoriety had done- shed heterodoxy and embraced a faith compatible with orthodox christianity as defined by the National Association of Evangelicals. They would pay dearly for losing their exclusivity- the church would see many splinters and decline. But, since 2009, the church once founded by Armstrong and known as the Worldwide Church of God would become Grace Communion International.

 

We remember the curious founder of the church body, Herbert Armstrong, born on this day in 1893- but more importantly, the story of a body that sought to elevate Scripture over the teaching of one man and came back to the evangelical fold this century.

 

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary, and instead of the difficult reading from Romans 9, a parallel reading is given from Isaiah 41:

“But you, Israel, my servant,
 Jacob, whom I have chosen,
 you descendants of Abraham my friend,

9 I took you from the ends of the earth,
 from its farthest corners I called you.
I said, ‘You are my servant’;
 I have chosen you and have not rejected you.

10 So do not fear, for I am with you;
 do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
 I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 31st of July 2026 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who still insists on wearing multiple pairs of eyeglasses at once… A la Dr Gene… he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who, were this a video show, would never include strange interludes featuring people on horseback… Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.