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Stanley R. Rader (August 13, 1930 – July 2, 2002) was born as a Jew and raised to be observant. However, in 1956, in the capacity of a certified public accountant and while keeping his own faith, he first met Pastor General Herbert W. Armstrong who was founder of the Radio Church of God (later renamed Worldwide Church of God). This article traces the relationship between Stanley Rader and Herbert W. Armstrong.

Brief biography

Stanley Rader was born and raised in White Plains, New York. He later moved to California where he met his future wife, Natalie “Niki” Gartenberg. He graduated in 1951 from UCLA and became a Certified Public Accountant in 1954. In 1956 the young Stanley Rader first met Pastor General Herbert W. Armstrong of the Radio Church of God at its world headquarters offices on the campus of its Ambassador College in Pasadena, California. Under contract to the Radio Church of God, Stanley Rader worked on improving its accounting system, creating a highly favorable impression with Armstrong, who then urged him to attend law school at Armstrong's expense. In 1963 Stanley Rader graduated from the nationally ranked University of Southern California Law School where he came in first in his class.

The Radio Church of God had been previously incorporated on March 3, 1946 when it was reestablished in Pasadena. Prior to this event it had been an unincorporated voluntary association based in Eugene, Oregon named after its radio broadcast. On January 5, 1968, which was the year following the death of his first wife, Loma, Herbert W. Armstrong, as president, together with the secretary of the corporation amended its Articles of Incorporation to reflect change of name to the Worldwide Church of God. (By then its radio broadcast had also been renamed as The World Tomorrow. By this time Herbert W. Armstrong was considered to be more of a modern-day Apostle by his followers, rather than a mere Pastor General. After coming to terms regarding salary and compensation, in 1969 Stanley Rader decided to devote his full time and best effort to the service of Herbert W. Armstrong.

1971 sex scandal

Until 1971, having already taken over all major responsibilities for radio and television broadcasting as well as heavily promoted local public speaking campaigns, Garner Ted Armstrong was in line to follow his father as head of the Worldwide Church of God. In that year, sexual affairs, and gambling binges by Garner Ted Armstrong using church funds, which had been known about for many years by insiders, suddenly became public knowledge, resulting in a major scandal, and Garner Ted Armstrong was removed from the church and from the airwaves.

1972 time cycle ends

The doctrinal basis of the Radio Church of God/Worldwide Church of God had been built upon three basic ideas: The first was an assimilation of many beliefs common to Jews and the second was to disown many beliefs common to Christians. The second was the idea that Jews were merely one of the tribes of Israel (Abraham) and that ten of the tribes had become lost to history until they were rediscovered as being mainly the peoples who had settled in the British Commonwealth and the United States of America. The third belief was contained in a booklet called 1975 in Prophecy! which had been previously developed by Herman L. Hoeh who was a graduate student of Ambassador College.

This booklet which was written by Herbert W. Armstrong and illustrated by Basil Wolverton, stated that the Radio Church of God was operating on two 19-year time cycles with the second one beginning in 1953. That is when its The World Tomorrow broadcast was first aired over Radio Luxembourg. The second time cycle was prophesied to end sometime in February of 1972 following which the church would flee to a place of safety which was often hinted to be Petra in Jordan. Between 1972 and 1975 a third world war would be unleashed upon both the United Kingdom and the United States by a Neo-Nazi dominated United States of Europe which would destroy both Britain and America. In turn this would unleash a second war between this USE and a united USSR and China which would lead to the total destruction of humanity if Jesus did not return at that very moment as the world-ruling Messiah to halt all further military activity. Peace would then reign on Earth for one thousand years with the followers of Armstrong serving in positions of authority in the new world government.

1972 financial crisis

By February 1972 at the end of the second 19 years time cycle, most members had been led to believe that they would have been taken to a place of safety, probably in Petra, Jordan, to wait out the destruction of both the UK and the USA by a prophesied United States of Europe during World War III. But because the income of the church had began to fall dramatically with removal of Garner Ted Armstrong from the airwaves, he was quickly restored to both his broadcasting and ministerial positions of authority.

However, the failure of these prophecies revealed that Herbert W. Armstrong did not have a master plan or inside information after all. In fairly short order the first in a never-ending series of doctrinal disputes leading to defections and splits began to tear the church apart.

Proposals by Garner Ted Armstrong

Garner Ted Armstrong made proposals that would have relegated the past failures to his father so that the son could present a new plan for the future. That plan included a transformation of church- sponsored media into the more mainstream approach similar to the plan adopted about that time by the Christian Science movement. Garner Ted Armstrong wanted to transform The World Tomorrow program into a daily news broadcast which it was suggested could be sustained by developing a flying television studio aboard a Boeing 707. For years he had rehearsed his style to copy that of Paul Harvey to the point that sometimes the similarity became obvious to the casual listener. He would have also turned The Plain Truth into a newsmagazine and since it had been styled after US News & World Report, to which it had already been to a minor extent. He later suggested that it should instead become a newspaper and actually converted it from a glossy magazine into tabloid newsprint. This experiment did not last.

Proposals by Stanley Rader

Because Stanley Rader had gained the financial confidence of Herbert W. Armstrong beginning in 1956, he was able to reverse the plans of Garner Ted Armstrong and inject his own instead. Using his inside knowledge and great personal influence on Herbert Armstrong, Stanley Rader remodeled the Worldwide Church of God to sustain any sudden and dramatic change which would once again damage the donation income flow, such as the scandalous public disfellowship of media draw Garner Ted Armstrong.

The membership and existing media were left in place with the existing doctrines sans any mention of time cycles or dates for end time prophecies. Indeed, the church attempted to go out of its way to pretend that the time cycles had never really been a part of the core message of the church — in spite of all of the broadcasts, editorial articles and the booklet called 1975 in Prophecy!.

1975 conversion

Stanley Rader, who still considered himself to be a Jew, was baptized into the Worldwide Church of God by Herbert W. Armstrong in 1975 using a hotel bathtub in the Mandrin Hotel in Hong Kong. This move allowed Stanley Rader to reposition himself as a toprank evangelist Christian minister in an attempt to quell misgivings by many in the church hierarchy and laity who felt that Rader's undue influence on Armstrong was troubling. Rader, the ever striving CPA, had become class valedictorian of his law school class at USC, a noteworthy accomplishment. In the 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace, he more than proved able to defend himself, remarking humorously to Wallace, "I (Rader) don't take stupid pills." ] Herbert Armstrong, by way of contrast, dropped out before finishing high school, and refused to interview with 60 Minutes. More importantly for Rader, this move also gave him an insider's semi-legitimate financial control of the Worldwide Church of God within the eyes of public nonprofit regulation. By becoming a evangelist in the Church, he would be able to defend himself much more effectively as to the ethics and legality of his highly questionable dealmaking with the Church, as the law grants wider latitude to the religious leaders of California non-profit religious corporations. This evangelist role gave him much more leeway to defend himself on conflict of interest issues than if he were just was merely an outside attorney or just a hired accountant for the Worldwide Church. Just four years later in 1979, Rader was to make use of the his newfound position as evangelist to defend the Church against the State of California's court ordered financial receivorship of his Church. His personal future, as well as his fortune, was at stake as the government investigated: a tangled web of improperly managed accounts, improper cash controls, deficient auditing procedures, signing off on misrepresentations to Arthur Anderson regarding finances, Swiss bank accounts, corporate officers able to purchase monetized silver and gold bullion from the Church at its cost through the use of fraudulent book entries to show that the investments were purchased on behalf of the officer (through the extension of free credit), financial misappropriations, embezzlement, conversion of funds by various executives and evangelists, unethical and illegal insider dealings, and Church dealings with corporations from which Rader himself controlled and benefited. ]

Rader had incorporated several businesses he controlled which did millions of dollars of inside no-bid contracts with the Armstrong Church in the areas of aircraft leasing, travel, advertising, purchase of radio and tv station time, and other areas. This set up an inherent conflict of interest with the Church in that he controlled the accounting for the church, while he gave it important legal advice, while at the same time did business with it as a third party outside vendor, all the time while exerting undue influence on the elderly Herbert Armstrong. Only a handful of men had a complete picture and extensive knowlege of secretive church finances, one of which was the now ousted Garner Ted Armstrong. ] Rader advised Armstrong to resist the court ordered financial receivorship and to reveal absolutely nothing regarding the legalities of Church finances. At the same time, this move helped to protect Rader from any possible personal financial exposure or legal problems resulting from his personal conduct in his long standing deep-seated legal and financial relationships with Herbert W. Armstrong the Worldwide Church of God.

Ambassador for World Peace

Whereas the plan of Garner Ted Armstrong was to ease his aging father into retirement, the plan of Stanley Rader and his aide Robert L. Kuhn was to transform Herbert W. Armstrong from an elderly evangelist into casting him as a vital Ambassador for World Peace without portfolio. The diplomatic phrase "a minister without portfolio" may refer to an important government official who is not in charge of a particular department, but who still takes part in the decisions of government. His plan required the creation of a totally new and secular cover entity from which to operate, distanced from his Worldwide fundamentalist sect, which might prove unpalatable to prominent world leaders as he played out his role as quasi ambassador. In 1975, therefore, he incorporated the AICF Ambassador International Cultural Foundation which was actually funded from tithe money of church membership of the Worldwide Church of God.

As a consequence, the AICF foundation transformed Ambassador Auditorium on the Ambassador College campus from a church auditorium in which Saturday Sabbath church services were conducted, into a Carnegie Hall of the West, which began a concert series featuring the top names in classical music, jazz and the performing arts. PBS and other television networks made use of this glamorous new venue. The AICF also created a new glossy secular coffee-table commercial magazine called Quest magazine with a circulation of several hundred thousand copies; bought the book publisher Everest House and funded the motion picture Paper Moon starring Tatum O'Neal.

Herbert W. Armstrong, in the company of Stanley Rader, began introducing himself to any world leader who held political power willing to meet with the aging grandfatherly figure while receiving expensive gifts such as Stueben crystal during a Plain Truth photo op. Armstrong sold his new AICF portfolio approach to the church membership as being a "new phase" in preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, that gospel message had now changed to a more palatable international mix of less of its Judeo-Christian elements and more of Buddhism. The message was now about giving and not getting and instead of referring to Jesus, Armstrong dusted off an old US News and World Report editorial headline about A Great Unseen Hand from Someplace as being the savior of the world.

Business relationships

Stanley Rader used his own professional legal accounting practice and also incorporated new companies with which to conduct profitable business enterprizes on behalf of the Worldwide Church of God. The companies largely owned and controlled by Rader included:

• Rader, Helge & Gerson who provided legal representation for the church;
• Rader, Cornwall, Kessler and Palazzo who provided accounting services for the church;
• Worldwide Advertising, Inc., which booked The World Tomorrow on radio and television stations;
• Mid-Atlantic Leasing, which leased light aircraft and a Gulfstream II, all paid for by the Worldwide Church of God, to enable Stanley Rader and Herbert W. Armstrong to fly around the world meeting kings, princes, presidents and prime ministers;
• Wilshire Travel, which made the travel bookings for Stanley Rader and Herbert W. Armstrong;
• Gateway Publishing, which printed books used by the church.

1978 excommunication

Behind the corporate scene Garner Ted Armstrong began to complain loudly to other ministers that Stanley Rader had taken over the church. Stanley Rader hit back and the continued gambling and sexual escapades of Garner Ted Armstrong, which had never stopped since his return to the church in 1971, were suddenly plastered all over the mainstream media in both news broadcasts and print media articles. Garner Ted Armstrong was denounced by his father and excommunicated for the final time.

For a very short time Stanley Rader emerged victorious because he seemed to have total control and his new secular entity was growing while the church was being downplayed. When Garner Ted Armstrong left the airwaves again, his aging father attempted to resume the task, but he was not successful because he had passed his prime and his religious message was discredited. However, as Ambassador for World Peace without portfolio, Herbert W. Armstrong continued making the rounds of visiting world leaders with Stanley Rader and delivering his new message about giving versus getting and the Great Unseen Hand from Someplace. Stanley Rader assumed that he had won the war for control of the church when he moved into Garner Ted's former office space. In 1979 Stanley Rader told a reporter:

Mr. Armstrong has said publicly very often that I am a son in whom he is well pleased. The only other one he ever said that about was Garner Ted Armstrong.

1979 retaliation

While Garner Ted Armstrong had been driven out of the Worldwide Church of God and from the airwaves, he attempted to reestablish himself with a new membership base that he created around his new home in Tyler, Texas. However, the organization and media reach that Garner Ted Armstrong was able to create was minuscule by comparison with the Worldwide Church of God and its annual multi-million dollar budget. Garner Ted Armstrong then began to engage in behind-the-scenes political activity in order to topple Stanley Rader from power, so that Garner Ted Armstrong could regain control of the Worldwide Church of God and its income.

In alliance with dissident Worldwide Church of God members who were not happy with Stanley Rader and his AICF activities, Garner Ted Armstrong and others managed to get the attention of the State of California to look into allegations of financial malfeasance and misfeasance by Stanley Rader and his business associates with regards to the income of the Worldwide Church of God. Concurrent with that activity the dissenters also managed to get the attention of Mike Wallace, famous for his tough interviews on the nationally-acclaimed CBS television series 60 Minutes. Wallace was given audio tapes in which even Herbert W. Armstrong appeared to be having misgivings about what Stanley Rader was actually trying to do in transforming the church from a religious organization into a secular enterprise. Garner Ted Armstrong told Mike Wallace that:

Practically everywhere you look, if the church has business it is performing or bills that it’s paying, well, somewhere Rader is involved. How can this be? Why should it be?

Response by Stanley Rader

In an attempt to explain the church’s lavish spending policies overseas, Rader told Mike Wallace:

Our policy was we would make friends wherever we went in order to help us to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Rader’s plan was successful.

According to the American Lawyer magazine:

By 1976 the two had become constant companions - Armstrong called Rader his "best student" - and they traveled around the world together some 200 to 300 days a year.

Receivership

By 1979 California Attorney General George Deukmejian had opened an investigation into allegations that millions of dollars a year had been stolen from the church by Herbert W. Armstrong and Stanley Rader. These allegations resulted in the Worldwide Church of God being placed in court-ordered receivership for more than a year.

60 Minutes

Mike Wallace was able to convince Stanley Rader to appear on the 60 Minutes show on April 15, 1979. In speaking about himself, Armstrong, and the Worldwide Church of God, Rader said:

This is a state, and we are representatives of God, and I am Mr. Armstrong’s Secretary of State.

Wallace then revealed that he had been given a secretly taped phone call in which Herbert W. Armstrong had alleged that Stanley Rader was deliberately trying to put himself in a position to take over as the church’s spiritual leader following the death of Herbert W. Armstrong. This infuriated Stanley Rader who got up from the interview, told Wallace to leave, adding: You’re contemptible.

On April 16, 1979, Herbert W. Armstrong wrote to his co-worker supporters in an attempt to explain what was going on:

Perhaps I will have a steward on our jet plane write an article of what he actually SEES me and Mr. Rader do on trips around the world. We are busy every minute. I am writing articles, letters, or proclaiming THE GOSPEL on my typewriter on the plane, in my hotel rooms almost every minute I am not out preaching to big crowds in Ghana, Liberia, Kenya, India, Japan, Thailand, Holland, South Africa, Jamaica, the Bahamas, the Philippines (many times), Costa Rica and many other countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, South America.

Rader's apparent victory

During this time Stanley Rader was the point man for Herbert W. Armstrong and he rallied other religious groups to his defense. With the help of this political this pressure group, Stanley Rader was able to successfully introduce a bill into the California Legislature which denied the Attorney General authority to investigate religious organizations forallegations of fraud. The state then dropped its investigation.

Author

In 1980, Rader wrote a book called Against the Gates of Hell: The Threat to Religious Freedom in America. It was about the investigation by State of California into the finances of the Worldwide Church of God and which the National Council of Churches praised as "the seminal work on church/state relations in the 20th century." The book was published by the church’s Everest House corporation.

Stanley Rader Sues Steven Spielberg

In a sensational case after the release of the first of the Indiana Jones films (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Rader sued producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg for $100 million. Stanley Rader claimed that both he and his associate Robert Kuhn of the Ambassador International Cultural Foundation had outlined a very similar plot for a movie. The plot, Rader alleged, had been shown to an artists’ agent whose properties were later acquired by Lucas and Spielberg. Nothing came of the suit.

Resignation

Although Stanley Rader appeared to have won the financial receivorship, his plan to create the AICF cultural empire had come to a halt. In 1981 Stanley Rader resigned as General Counsel and Treasurer of the Worldwide Church of God. Armstrong paid Rader a special $250,000 bonus, after taxes, he said, as a result of his efforts in vigorously defending the church against the state receivorship. Also, Rader received substantial pension payments arising under his contractual agreement with the church. However, when Herbert W. Armstrong died in 1986, control was passed to Joseph Tkach Sr., a person alleged to be close to Stanley Rader. Joseph Tkach, Sr. then began a now evident process of slowly repositioning church doctrines over time. Before Tkach Sr. died, he appointed his own son, Joseph Tkach, Jr. to Pastor General as his familial successor. As of 2005, however, despite the State of California taking the Worldwide Church into a financial receivorship, a CBS 60 Minutes television investigation, no verifiable detailed account information regarding what happened to the multimillion dollar tithe donations and estate gifting to the Worldwide Church has ever been released.

Death of Stanley Rader

By the time that Stanley Rader died on July 2, 2002, which was just two weeks after being diagnosed with acute pancreatic cancer, the Worldwide Church of God had terminated its former broadcasts and created a separate ministry for its magazine which had renounced its previous editorial purpose. When virtually nothing remained of the former major doctrines of the church it joined a mainstream evangelical organization.

With its educational arm closed, the church then sold off its headquarters property in Pasadena, and planned moving into to a new office building on Financial Way in Glendale, California. Reportedly, the next strategic move may be to be to change again the name of the Wordwide Church association or perhaps its winding up and corporate dissolution, perhaps funding with the remaining assets a newly named non-profit entity, consistent with the newly amended bylaws of the California corporation sole.

Timeline of Change

• 1986 - Herbert W. Armstrong dies and transfers office of Pastor General to successor Joseph Tkach, Sr.

• 1988-1995 - Tkach, Sr. renounces many former church teachings.

• 1995 - Joseph Tkach Sr. dies; appoints his son Joseph Tkach, Jr. to office of Pastor General as successor.

• 1995-1997 - Tkach, Jr. renounces Lost Ten Tribes belief; Move to Sunday worship; Christmas,Thanksgiving, and Easter observance mandated in lieu of Saturday Sabbath, Feast of Tabernacles and Holy Days; Tkachian apology to members and world regarding previous "erroneous" teachings, Worldwide Church of God joins the National Association of Evangelicals.

• 2002 - Stanley Rader dies.

External links

• Against the Gates of Hell: The Threat to Religious Freedom in America by Stanley R. Rader On-line copy of Rader's book defending Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God
• Stanley R. Rader Resigns Article by Herbert W. Armstrong
• Stanley Rader obituary Article in the Los Angeles Times
• "The Devil and Stanley Rader" Article in The American Lawyer
• Stanley Rader on Sixty Minutes with Mike Wallace

• 1931 births
• 2002 deaths
• Religious leaders
• Church of God (Armstrong)