Confronting Conspirators
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In January 1978, an extensive doctrinal notebook called the “Systematic Theology Project” (STP) was distributed to the ministry at the annual ministerial conference, held at Pasadena. The ministers were told that this was an outline of basic Church doctrines, and that no one was to preach against it.
Meanwhile, Mr. Armstrong had just embarked on a round-the-world trip, and was completely unaware of the STP. It had been concealed from him. A few months later, some older, more loyal ministers managed to get the STP into Mr. Armstrong’s hands. When he discovered what had gone on, and how the STP was an organized effort to plunge the Church into doctrinal liberalism and outright Protestantism, Mr. Armstrong roared to life! Like a shepherd protecting the sheep, he sprang into action and disfellowshipped the conspirators, beginning in June 1978 and culminating in January 1979.
Disfellowshipped by his father, Garner Ted Armstrong went his own way, and began his own church. (He died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2003.) His father, nearing his tenth decade of life, had to resume broadcasting and other administrative responsibilities.
In the fall of 1978, a group of conspirators hatched a sinister plot to attack and destroy the Church. They armed themselves with a class-action lawsuit. Mr. Armstrong explained, “This resulted in an ex parte order by a judge. Secretly without prior notice, deputies on order of the [California] Attorney General’s office swooped down on the Church on the morning of Jan. 3, 1979” (“Recent History of the Philadelphia Era of the Worldwide Church of God,” Worldwide News, June 24, 1985). The state dropped the case months later, and an appellate judge ruled that the lawsuit was groundless.
Mr. Armstrong later often referred to this period as “the liberal years.” It was a severe time of testing for the Church—but it also swept away many liberals who wanted to water down true doctrines. Additionally, it provided a powerful warning of what could happen if the Church took its eyes off God, His Work and the truth that all individual members and ministers should have proven before conversion.
Most would ignore or forget this powerful warning!