Garner Ted Armstrong

Christian Century, Oct 4, 2003

Garner Ted Armstrong, 73, a religious broadcaster who split from his fathers Worldwide Church of God, died September 15 from pneumonia. Armstrong was president of the Intercontinental Church of God in Tyler, Texas, which he founded after leaving the sectarian Worldwide Church of God in Pasadena, California.

His father, Herbert W. Armstrong, used radio broadcasts, slick magazines and a richly endowed Ambassador College campus to expand a church that demanded heavy tithing and held to at Saturday sabbath and other Jewish holidays while not observing Christmas. Garner Ted became the full-time voice of the widely heard The World Tomorrow radio program in 1957. The wealthy church's communications clout was such that it often featured interviews with prime ministers and other foreign leaders. By the 1970s the actor-handsome young Armstrong was seen on 165 television stations, but his dalliances with women and high living led to his removal from church positions. The Worldwide Church of God continued to undergo schisms in later years, but a remnant core in Pasadena has for more than a decade rejected the sect's heterodox doctrines and been welcomed to Protestant evangelical circles.