Herbert Armstrong wrote a massive number of member and co-worker letters—we have 618 of them from 1934 to 1986. Some of them were called "The Bulletin" or "Co-Workers Bulletin", but their style and purpose was the same throughout his ministry. Some were only a few pages long, but many were 10 pages or more. It was in these letters that Herbert Armstrong communicated financial requests with church members and co-workers—his contributing followers. He did not ask for money from "the public".

However, a co-worker was often not far removed from the public. If a person asked for two booklets within a few months and sent in a few dollars to help defray the cost, he or she would probably be sent a letter asking if they wanted to receive co-worker letters—which would include "news and financial needs of the work.". What they began receiving was often a shock. But in the 1940s and 50s, co-workers greatly outnumbered members and were responsible for most of Armstrong’s income. This gradually declined, and at Herbert Armstrong’s death in 1986, there were about the same number of co-workers as members but the co-workers supplied only a fraction of the income

The main thrust of most of Mr. Armstrong’s co-worker letters was events of "the work". The stories of his successes have been recounted many times in his autobiography and other Worldwide Church of God literature. What is not often told is the story of the incredible number of requests for money made to co-workers—along with the vast array of methods employed to get them to give. This article attempts to summarize that story. If you would like to read the letters for yourself, ask for our Herbert Armstrong Co-Worker Letter Reprints.

Of his 618 letters, 525 mention financing in some way. The word "offering(s)" appears in 423 letters, "money" in 378 and "tithe(s)" in 376. No small number of letters were primarily emergency appeals for finances. Over 100 letters contain the word "emergency". Other frequent phrases are:

114 "air mail" [requested

way to send money]

106 "thousand dollars"

91 "special offering"

82 "generous offerings"

74 "return mail" [another

way to send money]

52 "urgent need"

50 "pledge"

48 "more money"

29 "regular tithes"

29 "great(est) need"

29 "large(st) offering"

19 "financial crisis

19 "save the work"

By contrast, nearly every letter also mentioned prayer and praying for "the work". Phrases about the Eternal’s power appear in many letters: "Holy Spirit" is in 134 letters and "Spirit of God" or "God’s spirit" in 128 letters, and "power of God/Christ/Jesus" in 77 letters. "Work of faith" is in 15 letters. But the number of words about money greatly exceed those about prayer and the power of God. "Praying for more money" and "for others to send more money" were frequent themes.

It would require hundreds of hours to read all of Mr. Armstrong’s letters and to precisely analyze how much time he spent on each subject. But one thing is certain: A few of his longest co-worker letters contain more words on the subject of "financing the work" than can be found in the entire New Testament. Nearly all scriptures about financing the New Testament ministry are printed in the first five pages of How Do We Give to the Eternal? (available free from Servants’ News). The New Testament does not record one case where some evangelistic activity was not accomplished due to lack of funds. It clearly shows that the Spirit of the Eternal directed the activities, and that The Eternal would provide for physical necessities.

Herbert Armstrong clearly did not learn his money-asking methods from the New Testament, but was it God’s will for him to request all that money so he could do a "big work" and warn and reach a lot of people? Many of the groups which have come out of the Worldwide Church of God want to continue using his methods. Indeed, some justify using his methods by saying his "big work" is proof that God was with him—though these same people would probably reject that reasoning if it were used as proof that the Seventh Day Adventist or some other "work" was of God. But lacking any clear divine revelation or statement in the Bible about Mr. Armstrong’s work, we must understand the methods that he used to finance his work from his letters, and compare them to the Scriptures.

While Mr. Armstrong never claimed that the Eternal gave him the words to say in his letters, he did claim that Jesus Christ supported the overall content. Nearly all of the letters were signed "in Jesus’ name" or "In Christ’s name". A few were signed "In Christ’s Service". What does it mean to write or do something "in Christ’s name"? This is how Mr. Armstrong understood it:

Herbert Armstrong clearly told his readers that what he wrote in his letters had the authority of Jesus Christ. So what, then, did he write in his letters? This article will summarize the major points about financing in his letters, supporting them with quotations from his letters. In most cases, we had to choose from many quotations with essentially the same message.

Mr. Armstrong always clearly stated that the offerings and urgent needs he was requesting were to be "over and above" regular tithes and offerings. The phrase "over and above" occurs 50 times in his letters:

Mr. Armstrong strongly suggested that brethren could be killed by God for mixing up their categories of giving:

It is interesting to compare this warning with the Worldwide Church of God use of funds: Third tithe was used, at times, for expensive mansions and jet fuel. Excess second tithe and "tithe of tithe" were not always used for festivals or assistance, but simply put back into the WCG general fund. Mr. Armstrong does not seem to consider that his co-workers may have already been giving everything they had available on a regular basis, so they could not come up with extra for Holy Day offerings. He continually encouraged them to send in anything that they had available "right now" by air-mail.

We also must realize that Mr. Armstrong was not asking only the well-off to give out of their abundance, but the poor. "Widow’s mites" are mentioned in 98 of his letters. He was careful to point out that widows should give more than one mite:

When it became clear that co-workers could not give enough money, Herbert Armstrong also asked for monetary loans, a practice never used in Scripture to support the Eternal’s work (an axe was borrowed in 2Kngs 6:5, but not money).

Numerous co-worker letters continue to talk about these loans and the complex circumstances surrounding their repayment. Can anyone imagine Christ or the apostles talking about borrowing money to board a ship to preach the Gospel, and hoping to pay the loan back with money they received from the city they visited? But Mr. Armstrong kept asking for private loans through his co-worker letter of December 29, 1969. After this time, Mr. Armstrong writes about obtaining loans from banks and insurance companies. Why the change? One possibility is that by that time the WCG had so much real estate that it could easily obtain bank loans. It is also possible that the members realized that Mr. Armstrong planned not to pay back most of those loans:

In reality, Mr. Armstrong’s practice was not "twice as safe as bank practice". Mr. Armstrong may have kept 20% in reserve where banks only kept 10%, but banks invested the other 90% of their money anticipating all of it back, whereas Mr. Armstrong spent the other 80% of his money. If a bank ran short of money, it could sell its investments to pay off its loans. But Mr. Armstrong was simply relying on new contributions to pay off old loans. He never once hinted that he would sell assets of his work in order to repay loans.

As it was, the old loan program was replaced by a new kind of loan program. This time, members were asked to borrow the money from their banks, and then give it to the WCG. The letter on the next page tells the story. Notice the underlined portions, where members are given some possible lies to tell their bankers about why they wanted these loans. Notice also that a member must be sure that this loan will not cut into his normal giving. And finally, notice that this was directed toward members who had so little money that they might have to take out a loan to buy a TV or dishwasher. They were expected to forgo these items so the work could...could do what? The letter does not say exactly what the need was for—just "IMMEDIATECASH". While Mr. Armstrong and Stanley Rader probably did borrow $5000 from a bank, it is unlikely that they would have needed to. Their salaries were both over $100,000 per year and later disclosures indicated that both had personal savings of many thousands. They did not go without a TV, dishwasher or limousine to help "save the work"..

Mr. Armstrong often said that God used him to do "the work" because he was an advertising man who knew how to reach people. This may be true. On the other hand, it may have been a big problem in that his advertising skill attracted many people to his organization when they had no real relationship with God. What is evident, though, is Mr. Armstrong’s advertising skill in asking for contributions. He used an incredible number of methods, varying from one letter to the next—sometimes contradicting himself.

His most common approach was to mix in "exciting news of the work" with "praise for what co-workers had already done" with "desperate needs for money if the work was to continue". These letters appeared to be heart-felt and believable, especially since the reader was learning Bible truth from Armstrong’s organization and had a natural tendency to want to believe them. But when examined historically, many of these heart-felt and believable items seem to be little more than marketing ploys. It is clear that he rated the effectiveness of his letters by how much money they brought back:

Mr. Armstrong said "the last BULLETIN helped", but it really was the people who helped.

One of the most common techniques Mr. Armstrong used to increase contributions was "visualization"—making the instruction so clear that a person has nothing left to think about; they know that they could do it now. Advertisers know that a sale delayed so the customer can "think about it" is often a "lost sale". In over 100 letters, Mr. Armstrong suggested specific amounts that a co-worker could give:

As the years went by, the numbers kept getting bigger. But is believing someone else will give huge amounts of money, faith in God? Or is it tempting God? If someone gave an amount between $51,000 and $99,000, would Mr. Armstrong reject it because it did not fit his above statement? Or, is this statement just a hope that a wealthy person reading this letter would have one of these amounts at his disposal and then think that it was God’s will for him to give it? Or, is the purpose of this statement to make slightly wealthy people who cannot give the largest amounts feel like the least they could do would be to give one of the middle-range amounts?

Faith is believing what the Eternal says, not inventing something and claiming that He will do it. Did the Eternal want Mr. Armstrong to use phony faith in order to raise money? It is difficult to believe that Herbert Armstrong was so "close to God" that He revealed to him how much other people could contribute. In the same time period, he was predicting America’s defeat during World War II, and then, a soon-coming World War III with Hitler still being alive and leading the Nazis. Mr. Armstrong’s anticipated big donations were not based on previous fact either, as his June 9, 1947 letter acknowledges that $1000 was the largest gift that he ever received. Over two years later, he said "Never yet has anyone given a single contribution to this work as large as $5,000" (November 11, 1949).

But he also took the opposite approach and used the diligence of his poorer co-workers to spur the wealthier ones to give more:

Herbert Armstrong would sometimes talk about miracles from the Eternal, but those miracles nearly always turned out to be co-workers giving more money. We did not find claims that the Eternal sent him money, caused his supplies not to run out, or caused a stranger to give him the things he needed for free. These things did happen in the New Testament (Matt 17:27; 14:19-21; 21:2-3). The following two paragraphs come from the same letter, one near the beginning, the other near the end. The first asks for a miracle, the second is a full-blown visualization technique to get everyone to send everything possible:

It is an unusual person who does not sometimes feel guilty before God. Mr. Armstrong often stepped into the role of the authoritarian parent (claiming to represent God) and gave his co-workers a stiff lecture about their laziness. He could not have known their personal income and expenses—there were too many co-workers for that to be possible. When he chastised them for non-payment, he never seemed to consider that they might have given everything they had after receiving his last letter and actually needed to pay some of their own bills in order not to bring disgrace to Christianity by their bad example.

These are among the dozens of accusations against co-workers:

The expressions "slacking off" or "slackening" are in 19 other letters. The guilt trip was taken further when those who did not give enough were threatened with the Lake of Fire. This letter was written when Mrs. Armstrong was suffering from an intestinal blockage:

There is no doubt that people who do not obey Christ will be put into the lake of fire. But in these letters, Mr. Armstrong makes failure to obey him the same as failure to obey Christ. Beside the "stick" of the Lake of Fire, he also dangled the "carrot" of a Place of Safety for those who supported him:

Mr. Armstrong usually asked for money to pay specific bills or for specific future projects. His reason for not waiting for money to be available to start the new project was nearly always the same: time was short and the Great Tribulation and the Return of Christ was near. He continually reminded individuals that they would not need their property soon, while he piled up millions of dollars of property in Pasadena. Many of the prophetic reasons he gave to urgently collect money have proven false:

58 years later, the Gospel has not been barred from the air.

The false prophets he identified are dead, the prophecy has yet to be fulfilled.

While the co-worker letters contained numerous requests for money, and asked for all kinds of sacrifice, they contained almost no guidance as to how co-workers might balance these requests with commands in the Bible:

Thanks to computer searching, we can be nearly certain that Herbert Armstrong never explained these verses in his co-worker letters. He talked about the giving of "widow’s mites" in 98 letters, but never once talked about helping to care for widows. Co-workers were left completely on their own to determine how to balance their contributions to Herbert Armstrong’s work with helping those they know that were in need, helping take care of their spouse, taking care of their children, planning for their education, paying for medical bills, or buying things that would save them money in the long run (for example: new, energy-efficient appliances can pay for themselves in a few years by reducing utility bills).

If a person were to literally believe what Herbert Armstrong said, that he was the only voice that God was using to speak, and that the whole world would be over in a few years, how could they use any money on themselves and their families when they receive a message like this in the mail:

But his work did not endure to the end. A great many of his co-workers did not help others in need, did not attend to their own medical needs, did not plan for their children’s education, did not plan for their retirement, did not plan for their own funerals and now they are dead. "The End" predicted by Herbert Armstrong did not come in his or his listener’s life times and his "great work" is gone. This writer knows of many people who suffered greatly because of the money sent to Herbert Armstrong, and others who appeared to receive miraculous protection through it all—the Eternal may well have honored their zeal. But all of these co-workers will be judged by scriptures like the ones listed above (1Pe 1:17; 2Tim 3:16), not by their response to the co-worker letters of Herbert Armstrong!

Several places, Herbert Armstrong claimed that he would not ask co-workers to do anything that he would not do. He also talked about how he suffered more than any of his readers would ever know. But he virtually never shared any information about how much money he personally received, the type of house he lived in, the cost of his office facilities, the type of clothes he bought, etc. When he wrote about his own personal wealth he was usually claiming to be giving up some of it.

He did sell his home (which was partially paid for by the local congregation) and put the money into "the work" in 1944. But this "forced" him to eat in restaurants for the next three years as he lived in various rented rooms without kitchens. (Most poor people I know who find themselves without a kitchen eat sandwiches and raw fruits and vegetables). Three years later, he admitted that this expense of eating in restaurants was equal to a house payment: "It [the new home] came to us with no down-payment except just three monthly payments in advance, and on monthly payments which just equal what we have had to spend in restaurants for food" (June 9, 1947).

Did Mr.Armstrong stop eating in restaurants regularly after he bought the home? People who knew him at that time say "no". Did he encourage his co-workers to buy homes? His letters never indicate such.

A January 12, 1958 letter indicates that he was planning to personally save $100 per month for emergencies or to take care of Loma should he die. He never encouraged any such saving among co-workers.

In the late 1970’s when court proceedings and private investigations delved into Herbert Armstrong’s finances, they found that he had a salary of over $200,000 per year, benefits worth hundreds of thousands, and assets he personally used worth millions. When Mr. Armstrong entertained the Ambassador College seniors in the 1970s, he would boast that his table setting cost over $100,000. If he could have served the seniors on a $1000 table setting, every poor person in the church worldwide could have have had a new pair of shoes.

Herbert Armstrong virtually never taught about spiritual gifts, even though the Bible contains a lot about them (Rom 1:11-13; 12:6-8; 1Cor 12; 14; Eph 4:11-15; 1Pet 4:8-11—to help study these, ask for our free paper, How Does the Eternal Govern Through Humans). Now that he is gone, those who followed him are having a very difficult time teaching new people from the Bible. We have not prayed for spiritual gifts, and if we have them, they have not been developed. Mr Armstrong’s approach was simple—it was just nothing like New Testament teaching:

Herbert Armstrong seemed to have little concept that the Eternal could guide his ministry by dream or vision—or even by supplying money for the projects that He wanted, and by not supplying money for the projects that He did not want. Mr. Armstrong seemed to regard any apparent "setback" as a failure of co-workers to contribute. The apostle Paul lists many beatings and real setbacks as signs of his apostleship (2Cor 11:22-28). He also shows how the Spirit guided them to do things that they would not have humanly chosen:

Herbert Armstrong saw every possible opportunity as "an open door" to walk through. He said this so often that his co-workers (including myself) believed it. But the truth of the matter is that numerous religious organizations did the same thing that he did—as long as they had enough money. Mr. Armstrong virtually never asked co-workers to pray with him and send money only if the Eternal showed them that a particular project was His will. He almost never peacefully said that "if this project is the Eternal’s will, He will fund it, and if not, I know that I am not responsible to do it." When projects became possible, he asked his co-workers to fund them, and went looking for more projects. If existing projects fell into a snag, the co-workers suddenly had to bail them out.

Mr. Armstrong did not present the facts honestly and say that he "will have to drop one or more stations for a period of time". He says "killed" and "thrown off the air" (that expression is used in 10 other letters). If Herbert Armstrong had a divine revelation to place his program on as many stations as possible and never go off any of them, one might understand the panic here. But in reality, Mr. Armstrong frequently dropped stations that were producing little response for their cost. He dropped subscribers from his mailing lists who had not responded in a certain length of time. Could not he realize that the Eternal might sometimes show him ahead of time which stations not to go on because they would not bear much fruit?

The letters of the 1970s and 1980s were milder than those that went before. After the "1975 in prophecy" concept failed, new dates were not set for Christ’s return. The motivations used to "contribute now" were more like "the end is near" or "we are in the gun lap". Also, the wealth of the WCG became more generally known and it was harder to ask co-workers to sacrifice when they knew that Mr. Armstrong and top assistants were living in million-dollar mansions, chauffeured in limousines, and flying in 20 million-dollar aircraft. But Herbert Armstrong never publicly apologized to anyone for their great personal sacrifice in sending every spare cent to him only to see it used for a false prophetic warning or a $1000 dinner at a restaurant.

It seems that Mr. Armstrong never did attract any wealthy donors—possibly the wealthy could see through his marketing techniques. Only the Eternal knows how many people were genuinely interested in the Bible truth that he taught, but stopped all contact with him when they received his first money-grabbing co-worker letter. This writer remembers his parents considering that very thing.

Herbert Armstrong reached millions of people with Bible truth, but we have no way to know how many really established a relationship with God, and how many were simply humanly convinced by his great marketing skills that he was God’s representative. We cannot judge Mr. Armstrong’s motives for asking for so much money. Did he believe it was all God’s will, or was he partly selfish? What we do know is that his legacy of co-worker letters has been preserved for all to see. It is on the Internet; it is in books and magazines. Anyone who studies Mr. Armstrong in the future may well think of 1 Timothy 6:5 (NIV):

People who believe that God’s future "work" will be based on Mr. Armstrong could start a massive effort to suppress negative history about him. But is the Eternal in desperate need of people to "cover" for Him so He can work?

The "work" of Herbert Arm strong is gone. His broadcasts are off the air, his writings are nearly all out of print, his buildings are being sold and the organization he founded is a fraction of its former size—no longer teaching his doctrines. Those upholding Mr. Armstrong as a great man are divided among many small groups. Even if one of them were to rise up and build a big organization with 100,000 members, it will be a new organization with mostly new people, and considered the work of the new leader, not a continuation of the work of Mr. Armstrong.

The method Herbert Armstrong used to finance his work is not worth keeping. The methods used in the New Testament are worth keeping. The truth that Herbert Armstrong taught is worth keeping—it can be much better taught without his name attached to it. We need to look inward to see what truths we know that we can teach from the Bible without having to refer to Mr. Armstrong’s writings. We need to look outward to the world around us, to understand the questions in the minds of people today and how we can best serve and teach them. We need to look upward to our Father in heaven, and ask, "Please lead us, we want You to show us what to do."

He Will! (Heb 13:5; 1Jn 5:14)

—Norman S. Edwards

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