Herbert W Armstrong

(Editor's Note: The following is from a transcript of the videotaped message Mr. Armstrong prepared for the members of the Churches in Southern California. He expressed his deep appreciation of their support during the Church/state crisis and explains a bit further the why and wherefore of what the Church had to do.)

GREETINGS EVERYBODY back there in Pasadena! I've just finished recording my message for the opening on a Friday night of the coming Feast of Tabernacles, and the opening sermon on Sabbath morning which will be shown on the screen at all feast sites all over the world.

While I have the television crew here I thought that I might say a very few words to just you people there in and near Pasadena, and in the Southern California area.

I want to thank you millions and millions of times over. I don't have the words in my vocabulary to properly thank you for your loyalty and your willingness to get out and work when the State of California came down with their illegal and unconstitutional massive attack against the Church of the Living God.

You know government has always fought God and God's way. Way back at the time that God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, God said in effect, "You've rejected Me as your King and as your Lord and Ruler [so] now go form your own governments, form your own kind of rulership." And so that's what man has done, and man has, ever since, been contrary to God.

Now some few have tried to misapply the scriptures relating to our personal conduct in regard to Caesar — in other words, in our relationship with the government. But they forget that we are to render unto God the things that are God's. I know Jesus said, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's," but when it comes to rendering the whole Church of God and all of its assets over to the state, they are not Caesar's, they are God's! And we are not going to render what is God's over to Caesar. And we didn't, and thank you for standing back of us, brethren.

In our personal everyday life we are told in Romans and elsewhere in the Bible that we must be subject to the powers that be. I've explained that so many times. Here's a little example: if the government says that we must only drive 50 miles an hour, okay, only drive 50 miles an hour, not 55 or 60. That is for our everyday life and our private lives.

But what did Jesus do when the Pharisees came to Him? Remember the Pharisees were in government positions (or did you forget that?). The Roman Empire was ruling over Judea in the days of Christ and the Romans were pretty smart. They didn't send a lot of people from Rome over there to administer their lower and simpler form of government. They took the sect of the Pharisees to do that ruling. But remember that there were Roman armies there. There was a Roman governor, and he had military forces. Jesus healed one man who was a centurion; in other words, he was a Roman soldier over 100 Roman soldiers.

And so it was the government of Caesar that came lashing out at Christ. And what did He say? He said, "You blind leaders of the blind, you hypocrites," you are lower than any animal. A snake is about the lowest animal — it crawls on the ground. You are lower than that, said Jesus to these people. He didn't mince words, He talked right back!

Now some few have tried to misapply the scriptures relating to our personal conduct. But they forget that we are to render to God the things that are God's. Now in our personal everyday life, we must be subject to the powers that be and we have always taught that, brethren. Concerning what happened in Pasadena, nobody was attacking the State — all we did was defend and protect the property of God. No one made any attack against people of the State. We didn't try to harm them. We didn't try to club them, to stab them or to shoot them. We did nothing of the kind. We had no arms at any time.

Peter and Paul had to spend all night in prison for preaching the truth about Christ and preaching the gospel. This suit has come on us because I preach the gospel around the world. After Peter and Paul had spent the night in jail for preaching the truth about Christ, the next day the government told them, "Don't you dare ever again preach that word about Jesus Christ anymore. You shut up your mouths and quit preaching." What did Peter and Paul do? They said, "Well, we shall obey God rather than man."

When it comes to defending Christ and His property against the government, that's a different matter altogether. I hope that you all understand that, and that some of the enemies of the Church are not going to mislead you.

Well, we're having nice hot weather over here, I don't know what you're having in Pasadena. But usually whatever you have today we'll get over here tomorrow. It just takes about 24 hours for the same weather you have to get over here. But we are thankful for one thing, the smog seems to settle somewhere along the way. It doesn't get all the way here and we don't have to endure that. Our temperature has been up above a hundred a great deal lately, but it's a dry heat and we have air-conditioning, so when we come inside we're out of it.

Well, I'd like to be there with you; I will be as soon as I can again. Thank you again a million times from the bottom of my heart! Good-bye.

ATTORNEY GENERAL FORCED TO DISCLOSE CHURCH DOCUMENTS IN HIS POSSESSION

For some time now, the Church's attorneys had been attempting to get the Attorney General to admit that he has had adequate information and material upon which to make a determination that the Church, College and Foundation were above reproach. And, of course, conversely that there was no reason for his having brought the action against the Work of God in the first place.

Since the beginning of the year, the Attorney General has resisted in court all of our efforts to obtain a list of the various Church documents that have Seen in 5is possession. Finally, several weeks ago the Attorney Genera1 was ordered by the court to produce such a list! Consequently, Friday afternoon we did receive the court ordered list. The papers furnished by the Attorney General revealed that he has had in his possession some 818 different documents, some of which are 24 to 50 pages in length! Others, of course, amount only to a one-page letter or interoffice memorandum. But please note that there are more than eight hundred documents (not just pages).

It is obvious to any reasonably informed individual that no greater amount of information should be necessary for the Attorney General to glean than what has already found its way by stealth, and in some cases by outright theft, to the Attorney General. For example, the Attorney General has copies of the Work's certified financial statements going back more than 10 years. He also has copies of various tax returns and information returns filed by the Church, College or Foundation going back ten years or more. In addition, the Attorney General has copies of all of Mr. Jack Kessler's audit working papers which go into great detail for each of the years that Mr. Kessler [the Church's outside auditor] and/or others have audited the Work. The documents include many, many highly confidential ecclesiastical materials as well as letters from Mr. Herbert Armstrong to other members of the ministry, and letters from members of the ministry to Mr. Armstrong.

Hence, I believe it is important for all of you to realize that not only has the Attorney General been a receiver of stolen property, as we have stated on more than one occasion, but has in essence lied repeatedly to the public as well as to the courts when he has said that he needs an audit. The Attorney General never was entitled to an audit under any law, as he well knows. But more important, he was never entitled to trespass upon the property of the Church and/or the College in his effort to seize control of Church property and Church records, to convert the property to his own purposes and to allow his handpicked receiver — the ex-judge Steven S. Weisman — and any henchmen that he would appoint, to rip off the Work of the living God at a cost of over $350,000 for the short time the Receiver was here. The Attorney General is now, by the way, "hanging on by his teeth," as they say, or "by his fingernails," desperately trying to convince someone that he had a right to proceed in the manner that he did even if he cannot prove, as he cannot, of course, that any of the outrageous allegations of his lawsuit were true.

In the meantime, it appears that the California Supreme Court in San Francisco; has been hearing our appeals for help. Friday afternoon I received a "stay" and my petition for a hearing before the California Supreme Court was granted on a Tatter involving my personal suit against Hillel Chodos and Lawrence Tapper for defamation in their public statements about me made to the media. In the matter that was taken to the California Supreme Court, I had argued that I should not be legally compelled to cause the Church or the College to produce for Tapper's and Chodos' benefit copies of television tapes of any remark that I might have made about them. (Actually, the video tapes are so favorable to my lawsuit that I would probably want to show them as evidence myself!) As you can readily see, my action against both of them is as an individual and there should be no burden — no burden of any kind — imposed upon the Church or the College merely for their convenience.

Stanley R. Rader

CHURCH DEMANDS FURTHER INVESTIGATION OF PACHT AND CHODOS

As our readers may recall, the NEWS SUMMARY of May 25 reported the white-washing of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jerry Pacht and attorney Hillel Chodos by the California Commission on Judicial Performance. The Church has taken great exception to the commission's press release of May 22 which exonerated these men — both of whom also happen to be members of the commission. (Chodos and Pacht were allegedly disqualified from participation in the commission's decision.) As you may also recall, that press release was very misleading!

On June 25th, Church attorney Allan Browne wrote a letter to the Executive Officer of the Commission on Judicial Performance. In the letter he clearly outlined the Church's objections to the commission's woefully inadequate investigation of Pacht and Chodos. Two days later the following news release was issued to the media by the Church, accompanied by a copy of Browne's letter.

The Commission on Judicial Performance is continuing its "investigation" of the California Supreme Court, and attorneys for the Worldwide Church of God have demanded that the Commission on Judicial Performance conduct a full investigation, which has been demanded before, of the unethical and unlawful activities of Judge Jerry Pacht of the Los Angeles Superior Court and Hillel Chodos — both members of the Commission on Judicial Performance now investigating the California Supreme Court.

Attorneys for the Church and church officials have insisted that both Jerry Pacht and Hillel Chodos be removed from the Commission on Judicial Performance pending a full investigation. The request comes because there are presently pending before the California Supreme Court, three separate petitions in the instant case involving the State of California and the Worldwide Church of God. Furthermore, additional petitions are expected to be filed as the litigation continues.

The Commission on Judicial Performance said that after going to "special lengths" and examining "all the facts" of the Church's original complaint, they found that "standard practice was followed." "If anything is clear," said Mr. Browne, "it is that standard practice was not followed. Standard, and indeed, required, practice obligates a party to file his action [law suit] before seeking any legal relief whatsoever..." (Superior Court-Rule 7, Section 1 cited). As our readers know, the dissidents' attorneys, headed by Chodos, conversed with Judge Pacht before ever appearing in court. Far from being "standard practice" therefore, such conduct was highly irregular and improper.

"In addition," continued Mr. Brown, "both the United States and California Supreme Courts have clearly and unequivocally held that orders affecting First Amendment rights cannot be granted ex parte without notice" (cases cited). Since no notice was given to the Church of the pending action, nor was there any attempt to notify the Church so it could defend itself at that time (actually, no one wanted to give the Church a chance to state the truth in court to answer the dissidents' false allegations), Judge Pacht could not properly have even considered the application for placing an ex parte receivership over the Worldwide Church of God!

No evidence was presented to Judge Pacht — only hearsay and false allegations Mr. Browne further stated that it was absolutely clear the judge must have placed heavy emphasis not only on the oral argument, but also upon the presence of fellow Commission member Mr. Chodos, a retired judge whom he knew, and a deputy attorney general who came into court under the cloak of credibility and authority of that office. But it appears to Church attorneys that he placed the most emphasis on the fact that Chodos and Weisman were his long-time influential friends.

Mr. Browne concluded by asking the Commission to reopen the investigation of Judge Pacht and attorney Chodos in order to give Church attorneys a chance to present to the Commission their concerns about Pacht's conduct in the case. The Church should have been given this chance to be heard but had not been even contacted in the so-called "thorough investigation"!