"Let Justice be done, though the heavens
fall!"
Joseph W. Tkach -- Saint?
or Religious MONSTER?
In
these last days, we hear much about religious scandals,
cover-ups,
the sins of religious leaders such as Jim Baker
of
the PTL Club, and Jimmy Swaggart and his connections
with
prostitutes. But many people today
consider charismatic
Joseph
W. Tkach of the Worldwide Church of God to be
above
reproach, a "saint." A
careful, cautious study of his
past,
however, puts the lie to that fairytale.
Beware those who
seek
to steal not only your pocketbook but your soul!
William F. Dankenbring
Is Joseph W. Tkach for
"real"?
Four years in a row, while I was yet a
member of the Worldwide Church of God, in good standing, I was called on the
carpet ostensibly for crossing over the line insofar as promotion of my books,
published by Triumph Publishing Company, my own company, was concerned. In 1982 I was reprimanded by Tkach and Ellis
LaRavia (no longer apparently part of the Worldwide Ministry, I believe he is
now on a "sabbatical") who played the "good cop, bad cop"
routine on me for my sending out a letter to my own mailing list, asking people
to pray for the success of my new book of that time, Beyond Star Wars,
which was printed in a mass market paperback edition by Tyndale House
Publishers. This, apparently, to them
was a "no-no," but their demagogic tactics disturbed me no end. When they saw I wouldn't give in to them,
they let the matter drop, admitting I had a right to publish my books.
A Shocking Accusation
A year later in the April 1983 Pastor
General's Report, a publication sent
to WCG ministers, somebody wrote an article blasting my books and publishing
company, with scathing disapproval and denunciation. The article was either written or approved by
Tkach. The index of Worldwide Church of
God publications listed it and credited it to Tkach. However, Tkach sent an emissary to inform me
that he did not write it; he claimed that Herbert Armstrong wrote it, and
therefore Tkach was compelled to approve it.
Regardless of who wrote it, however, it was libelous and
blasphemous. The article declared:
"Question:
Several ministers have asked about Mr. William Dankenbring's
advertisement for
his books which have been distributed to members through
mailings, at Feast
sites, etc. Are the books endorsed by
the Church? Does
the Church approve
of them or recommend them? Is Mr.
Dankenbring still a
member of the
Church?
"Answer: Mr. Dankenbring is classified as a member of
God's Church. But
that does not imply
that his privately-sold writings have the approval or
endorsement of the
Church.
"Human nature
seems to want to use God, or God's Church, for personal gain
or profit. The moneychangers used God's temple as a
place of business to sell
at a profit to God's
people. In blazing anger, Jesus drove
them out. Jesus said,
'Take these things
hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise'
(John 2:16). We, the members, are God's house, builded
into a HOLY TEMPLE
(Eph.2:20-21).
"In II Peter
2:3 God warns, 'And through covetousness shall they with feigned
words make
merchandise of you.' Yes, SELLING FOR
PROFIT their words
in writing to the
members of God's Church.
"Perhaps the
selling of doves and things for sacrifice was not in itself wrong, but
exploiting God's
HOUSE as a place or means of selling to God's people was.
"The membership
of God's Church has been exploited for private gain a number
of times by those no
longer members.
"God has
commissioned HIS CHURCH -- not private members on their own --
to feed the
flock. The Church publishes much
literature -- magazines, booklets,
books, reprint
articles besides the personal ministry, to feed the flock -- AND
WE DO NOT CHARGE A
PRICE OR MAKE MERCHANDISE OF OUR
MEMBERS IN SO FREELY
GIVING GOD'S TRUTH! [Editor: Is that right?
I seem to recall
books by Herbert Armstrong and Stanley Rader having price tags,
as well as
Ambassador College Envoys which were very exorbitant in cost!]
"Although Mr.
Dankenbring is a graduate of Ambassador College and has studied
under Mr. Armstrong
and our ministers, he has stated in writing, 'I appreciate him
(Mr. Armstrong) very
much, although I have disagreed with him from time to time
on some relatively
"small" or "little" things.' [Editor:
Notice how the writer here
uses Mr. Armstrong's
name; it is for this reason that I doubt Mr. Herbert Armstrong
wrote this piece at
all, but rather Joseph Tkach or more likely Mike Feazell or one
of his other flunky
"ghost writers"!] But what the
writer might consider 'small' or
'little'
disagreements might in God's eyes be vitally important disagreements.
"God's Church
therefore does not endorse nor give approval to Mr. Dankenbring's
books, nor those of
others than the Church's own publications or those definitely
approved."
Joe Tkach claims he did not write that
article but that Herbert Armstrong did.
However, the fact that the article refers to "Mr. Armstrong"
in the second person puts the lie to that statement. Also, the phraseology of the article has
always struck me as "second rate" imitation Armstrong. He wouldn't write that way. Thirdly, he saw my full page book
advertisements at the Feast in Big Sandy, and never criticized or condemned
them, and when Don Ward announced from the pulpit that they were not officially
sanctioned by the Church, Herbert Armstrong even questioned why he made such an
announcement. Later when I talked to Bob
Fahey, then HWA's chief assistant, about my books and such, he discussed it
with HWA, and there was no negative reaction.
Fahey told him I was like a "sheep bleating in the
wilderness," and sought to bring us together. Therefore, the above quoted article is totally
inconsistent and out-of-character to have been written by Herbert
Armstrong! If it had his authority, it
surely would have carried his by-line, but was anonymous!
Somebody obviously did not like what I
was writing, and used this means to pummel me in the stomach and turn Church
people everywhere against my books! It
seemed strange at that time that prior to this article suddenly appearing,
NOBODY in the
Church had
talked to me negatively about my books or their contents, and I had been
praised by several ministers for them, and some ministers even used them for
the basis of sermons and Bible studies!
The fact is, evangelist Raymond F. McNair even published his book Ascent
To Greatness through my company!
Also, strangely, two or three months before
this article appeared, I had just sent a couple of my books to the attention of
Stanley Rader, and his office had written me a short but nice letter
appreciating them.
At the same time, I had sent several
copies of my books to the attention of Herbert Armstrong, with a short
supportive cover-letter, in which I tried to tell Mr. Armstrong I was loyally
back of him 100% in his efforts to get the Church "back on the
track." I did write the little sentence
admitting to not agreeing with him in every little thing, but I went on to say
-- in the rest of the sentence, for some reason not quoted honestly in the PGR
article -- that we were all growing together in grace and knowledge, "Till
we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the son of God,
unto a perfect man" (Eph.4:13).
I was merely being honest and
straight-forward, for there were a few items I would have liked to talk to Mr.
Armstrong about -- since he had flip-flopped on the subject of whether physical
life of any kind existed on earth prior to Adam and Eve's creation, as
evidenced in his books The Incredible Human Potential and Mystery of the Ages. However, I never got a chance to talk with him
about these things -- I was literally "blown out of the water" by
this nasty, scurrilous diatribe printed in the Pastor General's Report, with no "by-line" to show who
the insidious author really was.
Whether or not he wrote it, I
immediately telephoned Joe Tkach and sought to make an appointment to talk to
him and Ellis LaRavia about the matter.
He did not return my first phone call.
The second call I got him personally, and he agreed to have a meeting to
discuss the matter -- but he seemed reluctant somehow. He never called me back to set up the
meeting, and I decided to commit the problem into God's hands and leave it
there.
The "Annual Visits"
A year later I was called to task once
again for publishing and promoting books.
This time, though, Joe actually seemed to approve of the book I had
published, The Incredible History of God's True Church. After we finished our discussion, he and Ellis
both seemed to be impressed by my "good attitude," and Joe even asked
me to begin writing articles for The Plain Truth again, which he promised to show to
Herbert Armstrong so they could be published.
In the following months, despite having turned in 5-6 articles, I heard
nothing in response, however,
and it
appeared that Joe Tkach had merely been leading me on -- he was not interested
in my articles after all.
The following year, when I wrote to
book stores and gift shops in Festival areas to have them display my books,
including Ivor Fletcher's book on Church History, my own books on Overcoming
Satan, Last Days of Planet Earth, and
Paul Syltie's book Millennial Agriculture:
The New Eden, I quickly got a
phone call from Tkach's office asking me to come and see him. This time he and Selmer Hegvold were in the
office, and Tkach immediately got down to business and read me a memo he was
threatening to send to ALL festival sites, accusing me of preaching things
contrary to Church doctrine!
The kid gloves were off! He obviously meant business! However, the whole idea I felt was totally
absurd. This was patently ridiculous, and
I thought he was being ridiculous, but I
went along with the game, humoring him. I pointed out that he knew very well
where I stood on the subject of Satan's Fate
I had even written a book about it several years before, with the very
title Satan's Fate -- and the Church had known it for years, and nobody had every said anything to me
about it. It seemed ridiculous to bring
that up as some "point of controversy," in order to blast me publicly
and to blacken my reputation. I then
pointed out to him that since the Church had told the various gift shops that
they did not want them selling my books, in most Feast sites my books would not
be present at all, and my books would only be represented in a few places, at a
few sites. It seemed ludicrous -- like
shooting a yellow canary with a huge cannon -- for them to send such a memo to
all festival sites! Joe apparently
thought better of his plan, and the memo never went out.
The Final
Meeting
A year later, we had another one of our "annual meetings,"
and I asked Joe what he thought of the research paper I had sent to him on
Daniel's 2300 day prophecy, which differed from Herman Hoeh's old
interpretation. I had sent copies of the
paper to about twenty different headquarters ministers, and only one had even
responded, Leroy Neff, and he said he found it "very interesting,"
but sadly said he had no time to study into it further. When I asked Tkach about it, he merely said
he discussed it with Dr. Hoeh over the phone.
I had already presented Hoeh with a
copy, as well as had him over for dinner at our home, where I had presented the
"newly discovered truth" to him.
At that time, he seemed to be impressed with it, and did not deny it at
all. When I pointed out that Adam
Clarke's Commentary even had it right, except it was one year off, he
exclaimed, while he picked his teeth with a toothpick, "I read
that." I asked him whether he meant
he had read it back in the 50's, and he nodded but said nothing else. So I offered, "Well, back then it had no
significance
and we didn't
know then that the 2300 years would be up in 1967, the year of the Six Day
War."
After all these meetings with Joseph
Tkach, I came away with the impression that this man was cagey, street-wise,
smart in a political sense, and very cunning and crafty. No wonder he had wormed his way in to the
very top, impressing Stanley Rader, with whom he was ordained as an evangelist
during the Church's Receivership Crisis.
However, I came away with the distinct notion that this was not a man
who could be trusted -- not at all. He
was a consummate liar, shifty, covered up his tracks well, and was a master of
flattery. When he took over the Church
after the death of Herbert Armstrong in January 1986, I had grave misgivings
and doubts about the future of the Church -- but I decided to give him a
chance, to see how he would operate. I
was not long in finding out.
Disfellowshipped without a
Hearing!
A year after Herbert Armstrong's death,
Tkach sent two ministers to my home to inform me I had been
"suspended" from Church for having written a new Triumph Publishing
catalog, advertising a new booklet "Daniel's 2300 Day Prophecy Revealed
for the Very First Time!" and for having written a Church member in
Australia a letter informing him I thought the Church was then composed of a
mixture of Laodiceans and Philadelphians, and that I had grave doubts about
where the Church was headed, but that time would tell.
The next week the ministers returned to
my home to inform me that I had not only been suspended, but
"disfellowshipped" as well.
The third week, Jim Reier, the lead minister, called me on the
telephone, informing me that I was going to be "marked" that very
weekend and that it would be better if my wife stayed home that day so that she
would not be too embarrassed.
After much prayer and fasting, I
decided that the time had come to follow the example of Herbert Armstrong, when
he left the Church of God Seventh Day back in the early 1930's. The time had come to put my trust completely
in the hands of God, and to serve Him totally, independently, and to trust HIM
with the outcome in pure, shining, unadulterated FAITH!
In the five years since that time God
has blessed my efforts, and my wife's, and those associated with us in Triumph
Prophetic Ministries. In the intervening
years, Joseph Tkach has proven his true colors -- and they are black with a
very wide white stripe! The Church of
God, since he took over the helm, has plunged over the cliff of out-and-out
apostasy, with a speed and violence that is breath-taking. Doctrines are being shifted and changed right
and left, so that most members don't know what the Church teaches any more, and
are afraid to ask their local minister lest they be looked upon as some sort
of
"dissident"!
I have categorized the massive
sea-changes in doctrine that have overwhelmed the Worldwide Church of God in
other articles. Suffice it to say that
Joseph Tkach has virtually undermined and disgorged every vital doctrine taught
by Herbert W. Armstrong, especially those in his most important book he ever
wrote, The Mystery of the Ages. Tkach
has destroyed the doctrine of the God Family, the doctrine of Christ's
humanity, the doctrine of when we are Born Again, altered significantly the
doctrine of the Kingdom of God, claiming now that the Church is the Kingdom,
and abolished all real understanding of Biblical prophecy, claiming
"prophecies fail" and cannot be trusted. He has really messed with the minds of God's
people, leaving them in grave spiritual jeopardy and peril. The major doctrine upon which Jesus Christ
built the Church through Herbert Armstrong, the identity of the United States
and British Commonwealth in Prophecy, has been jettisoned and thrown overboard,
with only the final "taps" waiting to be sounded for its interment.
A man who is so changeable when it
comes to Church doctrines, what is he like in his personal life and
habits? Is he the saint that so many
seem to think? How does his winsome smile
play in Peoria? What kind of character
does he have?
The Robert Skaggs Testimony
I recently had the pleasure of talking
with a Robert Skaggs, longtime member of the Church of God in the Chicago,
Illinois area. He has been out of the Church
for several years, but was a member back in the early Chicago days, the early
1960s, when Dean Blackwell was district superintendent and when Joseph Tkach
was first ordained as a local elder.
Tkach and another member, Martin Fillipello, were summoned to Chicago
one Sabbath and both ordained the same day.
According to Mr. Skaggs, who was also a
leading member, Dean Blackwell was a
very sensuous minister, and participated in sexual relations with a number of
women in the Church, with or without their husband's knowledge. He had a special office in his basement,
where trysts were held.
Blackwell also saw to it that leading
Church women would clean his home 2-3 times per week, and cook special meals
when out-of-town guests would arrive.
Several women wound up in his arms or bed, as the situation dictated,
including the wives of Mr. Fillipello and Mr. Tkach, according to Skaggs. Said Mr. Skaggs, the way to quick ordination
in Chicago was to give your wife to Mr. Blackwell! Skaggs himself refused to let his wife go
over to the Blackwell residence, and told her, "Let Mrs. Blackwell do her
own cleaning!"
Mr. Skaggs related to me how one time
he saw Mr. Blackwell put his hand on Mrs. Elaine Tkach's buttocks and give her
a fondling pat. He has no doubt that
Mrs. Tkach was one of Dean Blackwell's lovers.
The Fillipello Affair
However, according to Mr. Skaggs, when
Martin Fillipello found out what his wife had been doing with Blackwell, he
went crazy. A leading Church woman one
day took some food over to the Blackwells, hearing that Dean Blackwell was sick
in bed. So she tip-toed into the
bedroom, and to her chagrin and shocked surprise, she saw Mrs. Fillipello in
BED with Dean Blackwell, both of them naked as jaybirds. She hurriedly retreated. A few days later, after Sabbath services, she
was invited for dinner with the Skaggs.
While there, she told Mr. Skaggs what she had seen -- it was too much
for her to keep to herself. Skaggs,
smelling the scent of scandal and corruption in the Church, immediately
telephoned Pasadena and spoke with evangelist Roderick C. Meredith. Meredith acted surprised on the phone, but
promised to get to the bottom of the problem.
The next thing Skaggs knew, he had been
summarily suspended from Church, disfellowshipped, and was informed that HE
needed to repent! In fact, in order to
get back in the Church, a year or so later, he had to submit to the
embarrassment of being re-baptized,
although he had done nothing wrong!
Menwhile, what about Fillipello? As I said, he virtually lost his mind over
the sexual debauchery involving his very own wife. He took his new lease car, supplied by the
Church, and his new credit card given to him as a minister, and took off -- no
one knew where. All the Church could do
was follow the receipts of the credit card which Fillipello used prodigiously
as he snaked his way to Las Vegas.
Finally they caught up with him, but pressed no charges. In fact, Fillipello was reinstated in the
ministry with a minimum of fuss.
Apparently by this time he had overcome his sense of loss and shock, and
was willing to keep quiet about the "Blackwell affair."
Immorality Unlimited
Did Joseph Tkach "buy" his
way into the ministry by "selling" his wife's sexual services to
evangelist Dean Blackwell? John Trechack
of Ambassador Report fame, interviewed Robert Skaggs, and wrote up the
story as follows:
"However, almost
all the WCG oldtimers I talked to were
convinced
that there was a connection between Elaine's condition
and
a sexual relationship she allegedly had with evangelist Dean
Blackwell,
her husband's superior in Chicago during the early '60s.
"The
Tkach administration now wants the Blackwell affair down-
played
as having been merely verbal overtures by Blackwell. With
only
one exception, however, all the WCG oldtimers I talked to said
their
understanding was that the Blackwell affair was out and out
adultery
-- at the very least. . . . When I suggested to former WCG
pastor
Al Carrozzo that Blackwell's romantic relationship with Elaine
Tkach
was now being portrayed as only verbal, he replied, 'That's
not
the way Joe talked about it years ago.
He believed Dean Black-
well
had gone to bed with his wife.'"
Al Carrozzo is the minister who blew the
whistle on the sexual scandal of Garner Ted Armstrong, in the early '70s, who
was sleeping with innumerable co-eds, baby sitters, stewardesses, and young
Ambassador College girls mesmerized by his allure, glamour, and boyish good
looks and the trappings of power and spiritual "authority." Says John Trechak:
"Carrozzo
is known for his frankness. He is a man
that does not
mince
words. His understanding of the
Blackwell affair with Elaine
Tkach,
however, is very mild compared to what some others have said.
For
instance, at least one WCG evangelist has described the Blackwell-
Elaine
trysts as 'wife swapping.' When I first
became aware of this
accusation
I assumed the evangelist was confusing Dean Blackwell
with
Blackwell's brother Lowell, who was put out of the WCG ministry
years
ago because of alleged wife swapping.
That sordid business was
actually
detailed in a turgid open letter written to the entire WCG ministry
by
church administrator Roderick C. Meredith in the early '70s. But a
similar
accusation against Tkach has now come from other sources, as
well.
One of these sources is the very same
Robert Skaggs with whom I talked a few weeks ago. Trechak continues:
"In March, I was
contacted by Indiana businessman Robert Skaggs, who
had
been a WCG member in the Midwest during the early '60s. He had
then
been involved with the WCG's visiting program and had been very
close
to both Tkach and Blackwell. Skaggs
claimed that when he knew
him, Tkach was not genuinely
interested in religious truth, but was
possessed
by a lust for power. Skaggs told me that
in his quest for power
Tkach
stooped so low as to allow evangelist Blackwell, then his superior,
to
sleep with Elaine, his wife. In return
for this favor, says Skaggs,
Blackwell
had Tkach ordained into the WCG ministry.
"When
I was told this, I pointedly asked Mr. Skaggs, 'Are you saying
that
Joe Tkach was ordained in return for participating in some kind of
wife-sharing
arrangement?' His answer: 'Absolutely!'
Skaggs went on
to
state that Blackwell had at least one other man ordained for the same
reason."
Trechak goes on in his amazing and
candid report, saying that evangelist Dean Blackwell had a "reputation"
among the ministry of the Worldwide Church of God as a sort of "ladies'
man." He seemed to especially have
a way of consoling "widows" in the Church. Because of his moral trangressions, he was at
times brought into Pasadena for "R and R" -- repentance and recovery.
Writes John Trechak:
"As shocking as
they are, Mr. Skagg's accusations regarding Blackwell
are
in step with Blackwell's reputation among many former colleagues.
Former
church administrator Gary Arvidson told me, 'Yes, Dean Black-
well had something of a
reputation. Without going into details,
let's just
say
that he was known as someone who really know how to bring relief
to
the widows.' Another former WCG minister
recalled how Blackwell
repeatedly
had to be brought into headquarters for periods of moral
rehabilitation. Some such periods culminated in pulpit
pronouncements
by
Blackwell (somewhat akin to those of Jimmy Swaggart) that he had
finally
repented and learned his lesson" (Ambassador Report, 'Joseph. W.
Tkach
-- God's New Rep on Planet Earth,' III, December 1989).
Former WCG minister David Robinson, who
wrote Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web, a fascinating expose of the
Armstrong empire and failings, sexual "warts" and entanglements,
including the shocking account of decade-long incest, told John Trechak that in
the fall of 1971 WCG minister Don Wineinger confessed to him how he had
obtained a quick raise in ministerial rank to that of preaching elder by
threatening to expose Blackwell's transgressions and his double lifestyle. Faced with this threat, Blackwell quickly
raised him up a notch in rank -- within mere days. Years later, Don Wineinger
and his wife were having severe marital problems. One day in 1978, while consulting a divorce
attorney, Wineinger committed suicide in after murdering his wife.
In my own recent conversation with Mr.
Skaggs, he told me how one evening when he lived in Kentucky, and the Blackwell
group was staying overnight in his home, he got up in the middle of the night
to go to the bathroom. In so doing he
had to pass through the living room, where he saw Dean Blackwell at midnight
standing and hugging the girl who was Jack Pyle's fiance! Jack Pyle was later to become a minister in
the Church. Sleeping, supposedly, not
twenty feet away on the sofa, was Mrs. Blackwell, either impervious or not
caring about the whole thing!
I asked Mr. Skaggs about whether Joe
Tkach was guilty of the same kind of sexual sins and excesses as Dean Blackwell
appeared to be. He said that he was sure
the answer was yes. He was
positive. According to Skaggs, Blackwell
chose men around him to help him who were "birds of a feather," who
were just like him. "Birds of a
feather flock together," he said.
"Servicing the Widows"
As if to corroborate this intriguing
story and candid revelation of serious sexual hanky panky among the leaders of
the Chicago Church in the early '60s, I recently received a letter from a woman
in Chicago, a long-time Church member, who wrote to me just a few weeks
ago. She declared:
"Dear Mr.
Dankenbring:
"I
feel that I must come forward and speak to you frankly. I have
been
reading letters from others who suffered at the hands of the
ministers
in the Worldwide Church of God. Now I
tell you what
happened
with me.
"I
have been a widow for many years. A long
time ago, after my man
died,
Joe Tkach came to visit me. He wasn't
nobody important then.
"I'm
ashamed to tell that he took advantage of me and I'm ashamed of
myself
ever since. He offered me comfort but
then was aggressive
with
me and forced himself.
"I
blame myself mostly, but also him because he should have known
better
too than to take advantage of me in my weakest time after my
man
died. People need to know the truth,
that Joe Tkach is not the
saintly
man he wants you to think he is.
"I
have repented and try to live the best I can now. I think God has
forgiven
me. I pray for Joe too, but still feel
bad about the whole thing."
Tkach's Incredible LIES about His
Background
Tkach's claim to have attended Illinois
Institute of Technology was utterly bogus.
That institution of higher learning has absolutely no record of him as a student of any kind, and the
courses he claims to have taken --
"industrial management, industrial safety and human factors in
industry" -- were never even offered at ITT! Officials there adamantly and emphatically
insist there never was anybody named
Joseph Tkach at that institute! The fact
of the matter is, Joseph Tkach never even graduated from high school!
Tkach completely lied about his
background, including the famous story about a wildcat strike by 2,000 people
when he was supposedly once fired by Hupp Aviation for refusing to work on the
Sabbath. Now officially called Aircraft
Gears Corporation, that company never had more than a few hundred employees in
its history and official records as well as old-time employees attest to the
fact there never was any such strike at all!
What about Tkach's vaunted military
service record? Didn't he
single-handedly shoot down Japanese kamikaze airplanes in World War II, jump
ship and escape to a beach by floating, going AWOL, just before the ship was
blown up by the Japanese and sunk? Didn't he then turn himself into the local
marine commandant, get tossed into the brig, and while there beat up on several
Marines in the brig? Absolutely,
utterly, completely UNTRUE -- every one of these claims is complete HOGWASH! The truth is, Joseph Tkach never saw any real
fighting
action in World War II. The ship he was
supposedly stationed on, the U.S.S. Austin, was a destroyer escort, and
according to offical naval records never saw action at the places where the
Japanese used kamikaze fighters! It
wasn't in any famous World War II naval battles at all. It never saw a single kamikaze. Nor was it ever blown out of the water by the
Japanese.
The whole tissue of stories about Joe
Tkach's World War II exploits were manufactured out of whole cloth, merely in
an attempt to bolster his self image and his public persona and profile among
the Church brethren, to lend credence to his becoming "pastor
general" of the Worldwide Church of God!
Is Tkach a Crook?
Judas Iscariot was a "thief," and was the
treasurer for Jesus' small group of disciples. He held the bag, and was
outraged when a woman anointed Jesus' feet with a pound of expensive ointment,
asking why the ointment was not sold for the money it would bring. Wrote the apostle John, "This he said,
not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the bag,
and bare what was put therein" (John 12:3-7).
Beginning in the early '60s, Tkach's
superiors often put him in charge over the "poor fund" or "third
tithe" accounts. Wrote John Trechak
in Ambassador Report about Tkach's money managing activities:
"Earls Timmons, for
a decade a confidant of Tkach, told me that
Tkach
would often siphon off funds by making loans to needy
church
members, then labeling the loans on the books as gifts paid
out,
and finally pocketing the loans when they were repaid. I person-
ally
recall how during the early seventies, a number of my WCG
friends,
unemployed at the time, went to Tkach for assistance. In
each
case they were granted a few hundred dollars.
They were
startled,
however, when Tkach informed them that the amount they
received
was only a loan and that the loan had to be repaid to Tkach
personally
in cash.
"I
asked one former church secretary, who had known Tkach quite
well
during the seventies, if she believed Tkach had siphoned off
funds
meant for the poor during those years.
She told me, 'Oh sure
he
did. But so what? In those days a lot of the ministers were
doing
the
very same thing.'" (Ambassador Report, "Joseph W. Tkach --
God's
New
Rep on Planet Earth, III, December 1989).
Stanley Rader, former attorney and
adviser to Herbert W. Armstrong, whose name is very familiar to those in
Worldwide Church of God circles, in a February 1, 1981 telex to Herbert
Armstrong commented on Joe Tkach's "illegal fencing activities" which
surfaced when the Church was preparing its civil rights case. Former WCG attorney and accountant Jack
Kessler, in a letter he wrote to the WCG board of trustees, recounted many
ethics violations among top executives of the Church. He made the following statement regarding Joe
Tkach's helping himself to money from the "poor fund" or "third
tithe" fund. Said Kessler:
"According to Mr.
Robin Webber, Mr. Joseph Tkach apparently
felt
justified in giving himself from a trust fund he controlled a little
advance
of $5000.00 as a 'needy Church member' to take advantage
of
a special investment in unregistered securities then illegally being
peddled
(against advice of counsel) by the Dean brothers" (ibid.).