This was written by Ron Laughland who was a minister in WCG and now
serves with
LCG. He was a minister in Southern California in the early 1980s.
In response to your questions about the letter from Mr. Armstrong to Dr.
Meredith let me
fill you in on what I know about the situation. It is a shame that the church
of God has
to have gossip, rumor and destruction of character as it's main method of
dealing with
each other. I have experienced over the years how people trying to get
something use the
destruction of anothers character to further their own ambitions.
I was in Pasadena in 1979 when Dr. Meredith was director of the ministry. At
that time Joe
Tkach and Kevin Dean were attempting to become the power brokers for the
church. GTA had
been eliminated. Dr. Meredith was the next natural enemy that was in the way
of them
running the church under Mr. Armstrong. I was approached by Kevin Dean to
start a campaign
and write a letter against Dr. Meredith so that he would be removed and Mr.
Tkach would be
put in his place. That is the way the church operated at that time. Politics
was the guide
for the operation of the church of God. Mr. Armstongs letter was based on
false information feed to him by these men. I feel that anything he wrote was
what he
thought was truth and therefore, as he always said, "if you start with a
false
premise you will not have the truth".
I have seen the same thing happen in the Global Church of God, where false
information is
feed to the leadership in order to get someone. It is a shame on all of us.
Mr. Armstrong later in life finally realized that people were bringing him
information to
further their own careers and he adopted the attitude in "why is this
person bringing
these facts to me". I hope that the leadership today can take that stance
in the
future and investigate every accusation against another. I think that Mr.
Lambert Greer's
investigation into the "Pack incident" is a perfect example of how a
minister of
God should truly look at accusations against a member of the Body Of Christ.
Please pass this on to any others you think may have seen that vile letter.
The only way
to stop character assassination is to counter it with truth.
Ron.