Customer Reviews

Transformed by Truth

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1 star:		(12)

 

 

A wonderful tale of the much-needed collapse of a sham church created by a dead Iowa ad-man around the turn of the century. A 'church' led by a leader with over five decades of failed "End of the world" prophecies that left tens of thousands of dead, medically untreated, 30%-tithe-impoverished, socially-isolated, and emotionally crippled members in its wake.

Though the chapter on church potlucks and the recipe for lemon tarts was of special interest.

The church has since fractured into a handful of increasingly fanatical splinter groups like the 'Philadelphia Church' headed by Gerald Flurry; a man known mostly for his impassioned rhetoric on the evils of the world, Philadelphia being the One True Church and he its Prophet, and his 1993 DUI charge.

Philadelphia's numbers under Flurry's theatrical leadership are in stark decline, which have led the group the enact such sweeping spiritual reforms as banning its members from using Facebook.

However, the spamming of Amazon reviews is still clearly encouraged and supported, as outlined in the book of Jamaicans, chapter 2 verse 4. To fully understand the book of Jamaicans and other texts, Flurry suggests you read his commentaries. The chapters on how the devil deceived him into driving drunk are real edge-of-your-seat stuff; I felt my spiritual armor swelling with pride. Let the second 50 years of failed prophecies begin!

"Transformed by Truth", written by current WCG pastor general Joseph Tkach (Junior), claims on its cover to be "the inside story" regarding the WCG's transformation from "heresy" to "orthodox". And to some degree, it is - the author was present or privy to many of the key events he describes. However, the book is somewhat convoluted from the get-go - in attempting to describe the "transformation" in a manner that makes sense to both former and current WCG members, plus outside readers, Tkach's explanations and rationales presented through the book tend to be shallow and somewhat flimsy from time to time. Since a large part of the book deals with the actions of his own father, the work does tend to read like a simplistic hagiography at points instead of an "inside story". Becuase of these factors, it is not a heavily-researched work and its usefulness is diminished as a result - those looking for objective information on the WCG may be disappointed with its "touchy-feely", emotional style. On the other hand, it does bring out some good information on its topic from time to time and does do a fairly good job providing an introspective viewpoint of that period in the Worldwide Church of God's leadership. It is most useful when read in comparison to another work on the topic instead of alone, as its author's apparent wish to smooth-over some of the less positive events in question tend towards misleading at times.

This book is a good chronicle of many of the changes in the Worldwide Church of God (WCG), however, it's approach is deconstructionist in nature.

Those involved in the transformation of the WCG deconstructed the church and sent literally tens of thousands spinning out of the church into splinter groups, support networks, other Sunday keeping groups, all the way to the isolated.

This is a good work if you want a compare and contrast of teachings and beliefs of what many call a cult and what is considered mainstream.

The legacy left by those who supported this book is one of dismal failure. Lives were not transformed for the better and Christian love was left somewhere in the lurch.

The Sabbath keeping legacy does precede the SDA/Sabbatarian Adventists contrary to the chart that Tkach has in his book. Sabbath keepers can clearly be linked all the way back to 1525 in Germany/Moravia, through the Seventh Day Baptists, who called themselves 'church of God.' Even Ellen G. White mentions that the person who wrote about the Sabbath in early Adventism was himself a freewill Seventh Day Baptist.

There were many things non-cultish about the WCG, people were well travelled, educated, employed. They understood world events. They could tell you who world leaders were and the issues at hand. Yes, as with any other group of people, there were extremes.

The transformation written of here is from only one perspective, as expected. Yet the full truth of the happenings behind the scenes are for another venue.

Transformed By Truth is well written and gives a wonderful description of what can and does happen when we, as individuals or collectively make the, sometimes difficult, decision to do what is right instead of taking the easy way out and following the way that will cause the least disturbance!

This book lays bare the hard decision that Joseph Tkach Sr. was faced with when he discovered, after having been appointed by Herbert W. Armstrong himself as his successor, that there were some doctrinal errors to be dealt with!

"Should I keep doing what sells and involves lots of people and produces lots of income and employment for many at the expense of many others, or should I expose our errors and attempt to bring in sound Biblical doctrine?"

In the opinion of this reader, because of the integrity of Joseph Tkach Sr. as well as his son, when he/they were confronted with the errors that existed, there really wasn't a choice! The only right thing to do was what they did even though they had no idea how difficult it was going to be!

Adding to the difficulty were those in whose minds there could be no errors in the teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong!

We, the readers of this book, are able to put our feet in the shoes of the author and enjoy (and sometimes not enjoy) an incredible, remarkable, exciting, and often stressful journey!

If you are looking for excitement that comes from real life experiences---not fiction, you are sure to appreciate: Transformed By Truth

This book is pure trash.

Don't waste your time reading it, because it is a demonic lie. I was there and witnessed this unsuccessful attempt to destroy God's true religion by this demon called: Joseph Tkach Jr.!

God's true religion does continue to live on to this very day, and will to the very end.

Purchase and read: "Raising the Ruins", by Mr. Stephen Flurry, and learn the real truth about how it all happened.

You need to know where it is today.

This man is blind of what he wrote ,there is no truth to this garbage which he is putting out there, that is why his book is a bargain basement book for sale,learn the truth and order Raising the Ruins by Stephen Flurry !!!!!your eyes will be opened !! you know what Tkach did to the church ,because you are informed of what took place after Mr. H.W.A. died , all those changes and all .remember what was taught by him and what is being revealed in the book of Raising the Ruins by Stephen Flurry > remember !!

A more appropriate title for this book would have been: "Transformed Away From The Truth...The Liberalization of the Worldwide Church of God; The Remarkable Story Of A Church's Journey From the Religion OF Jesus to a Religion ABOUT Jesus".

Love him or hate him...the lectures, broadcasts, published books and magazine articles of Herbert W. Armstrong brought many thousands of people all over the world to the knowledge and acceptance of Jesus Christ as personal saviour...many of whom had never even considered attending a church before!
This was no pop culture 'plastic Jesus', but the Christ of the Bible...whose actual teachings would still be much in disfavor in today's supposedly 'enlightened' Evangelical world.
Yet, the author of this book vainly tries to insist that the Worldwide Church of God under the direction of Armstrong was more hung up on the 'Law of Moses' and the 7th Day Sabbath, rather than the "grace" of Jesus...and thus relegated Him (Jesus) to background status behind God the Father, and Bible Prophecy.

In 1976 the WCG published perhaps the best book written to date about the life, person and teachings of Jesus Christ, "The Real Jesus" by Garner Ted Armstrong who, at the time was a high ranking Minister in the denomination.
This, along with all the other Christocentric books and articles published by Armstrong over the decades since 1927, are all strangely ignored...as if Armstrong himself, never gave Christ as much as a passing thought!
Joseph Tkach Jr. goes on to largely bear 'false witness,' as it were, against the Church; its teachings; its mission; and its founder and late Pastor General H.W. Armstrong. He takes Armstrong to task over having the audacity to actually think that God would use him, to start a new era in the chronology of Church history....yet he himself mulls over the same thing, in his own role in the destruction of the denomination, which ironically he sees as a new beginning 'under grace'...whatever that means, since he's gone on to disfellowship entire congregations in various parts of the country...for continuing on in the traditional faith and worship practices, and for refusing to adopt his new 'tupperware party' style of pop-worship service.
About the most interesting thing in the book, were the charts tracing all the breakaway conferences, or 'splinter groups' as he calls them...however, the biggest irony is that the largest breakaway group, "United Church of God" now has more members than the WCG under the Tkach regime!
Another shortcoming of the book is the total lack of comment on, or concern for the victims of the Church's meltdown; the divided families; the fired long-time Ministers and other employees, and the total disruption of the Colleges. Perhaps the Church's new leaders need to write and sell books to make an income; since over 100,000 members picked up and left the organization since Tkach and Feazell took over the reins. Make no mistake about it...he (Tkach) has his fans, who view him as a 'liberator', while his detractors suspiciously view him as the possible end-time 'Man of Sin sitting in the seat of Moses', mentioned in Revelation!
Christ did say "Ye will know them by their fruits..." Thus far the fruits of Tkach's leadership have resulted in a bitter harvest.

I got this book when it first came out. Read it cover to cover and didn't find any biblical truth in it. I dusted it off recently and reread it. Still no truth found. Only half truths and omitted scriptures. One thing that I do agree with the author about is that there was less emphisis on Jesus in the WCG than there should have been. This they should have done and not left the other undone.

Book starts off with "Is this a Con?" like it's a hint of what's to come. Childish stories about how the doctrines of the Worldwide Church were all
wrong and suddenly needed to be changed. Maybe the recruitment tactics were not working anymore; or the false prophecies, scandals and financial ruin of its members had taken their toll on the organization. It was time to turn this thing 180' around, but what they did sunk the ship, and maybe that was their intent! Sure sounds like a conspiracy theory, and sure enough it seemed that way as the news of coming changes leaked out, only to confuse the once faithful. Why would ministers preach what they didn't believe? Well the money and benefits were pretty good. Strange how the sabbath changed along with unclean meats, holydays, tithing, healing, etc. Looks like Tkatch found the stairway to heaven, and Armstrong was no longer the infallible pope. Even the holy spirit changed into a person. And what(?) the pagan trinity and the symbol of the cross became Kosher?
The book mentions Herbert W Armstrong being the master salesman, and like
a bar a soap he had to make his church unique so his followers would use no other. He started positioning his product by identifying all others as inferior or even worthless, as misleading, as spurious and even hurtful. Of course, he will have to use basically the same ingredients for his soap that they do in theirs, but will change the name of those ingredients. We were told that we were the "only true" soap. So when Tkatch and Co. began admitting we weren't the only real soap out there, it all started to look so BOGUS. In their disillusionment many members started spinning off to splinter groups. Quite a few abandoned religion altogether and tried to live a normal life again. That was the real transformation as nauseating and heart breaking as you would ever experience. How could we have believed such things? By the means of Fear Induction Psychology and Mind Control by its leaders, this cult and its many divisions have manipulated the lives of its members and destroyed their lives. The book ends up bashing old Armstrong pretty well, but contradictorily says they are not judging him. Makes it worth the $1.09 the printed version is going for, but do a search and save the postage, unless you need the kindling.

For the survivors: "Does anyone remember laughter?"

The Worldwide Church of God (formerly Radio Church of God) grew from a one-man operation in the 1920's to a $50 million/year worldwide preaching effort in the 1970's.

An orderly transition was nixed when founder H.W. Armstrong's son Ted took a walk on the wild side. You can find the story in back issues of "Time" magazine in the Religion section.

So, with Armstrong approaching senility and loot and ego at stake, the former fundamentalist denomination fell into the hands of people who wanted to take it mainstream.

As a result of this balyhooed transformation, the book admits that 40,000 former churchgoers don't attend church anywhere.

It's hard to tell what the intended market for this book is. It could only interest an insider.