The Genesis of the United Church of God
A Personal View from Ground Zero
What forces helped form and establish the critical leadership that led to near-wholesale rejection of the unasked-for theological changes within the Worldwide Church of God and the subsequent establishment of the United Church of God?
As recounted earlier, doctrinal rumblings had intensified into spiritually destructive earthquakes of greater and greater magnitude. As one academic later independently chronicled, while Joe Jr and Mike Feazell had initiated and force-fed sweeping changes, the buy-in was by no means positively received or broadly accepted. Concerning church members, “The majority still held to the teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong. The Tkaches [including Mike Feazell] rejected his teachings, but because of their position were able to effectively hijack his Church” (emphasis added). The researcher sadly noted that the increasingly intensive “hijack” soon led to “appalling turmoil…with loyalties, friends, and even families spilt apart.”
Now events began to gather devastating steam.
A landmark moment
A critical dynamic series of events took place in early 1993 that unexpectedly and ironically laid the foundation for the initial organization of the United Church of God. It happened suddenly and spontaneously, sparking a landmark process that ultimately led to the structure and earliest leadership of what was to become UCG two years later.
Here is the critical backstory.
Doug Horchak, the brother-in-law to Joe Jr., had previously held leadership positions in the Pasadena headquarters. He had taken up the position of pastor in Denver, Colorado, but stayed in touch. During a visit to Pasadena, he was invited to the home of Dean May, who managed the Church’s automotive fleet program in the early 1990s. It was a time of old friends. Joe Jr. and I were invited to come along as well.
The evening began as a social visit with pleasant conversation and good-natured banter among brothers and friends. That didn’t last long.
Why? Neither Doug Horchak and Dean May were buying into the expanding and disconcerting theological “changes” that were rapidly fostering destructive controversy in the Church.
Perhaps a bit naive in retrospect, at the time some of us felt that this corrosive dissension would somehow pass, with God protecting us from the worst. To be honest, our Church culture at the time emphasized a viewpoint to simply leave unsettling matters like this in God’s Hands, especially if it was coming from the top down. If contrary opinions were expressed and motives questioned, one could be labeled a “dissident,” however unfairly. It was not a sound organizational practice or culture in that respect (UCG today has processes and safeguards in place that help address this).
In this instance, where family context and familiarity were high, there were no barriers to expressing concern. As the evening progressed, Doug Horchak became more vocal and outspoken, aiming pointed questions directly at his brother-in-law. Unrelenting, he shot query after query at Joe Jr., deliberately focused on what was the justification for the doctrinal disruptions. Doug asked: what about the changes we’re hearing about? What about the rumors about the Sabbath and other core beliefs being changed and done away?
The mood of the gathering quickly soured. Joe was forced into a defensive posture. And he clearly didn’t like it. As things heated up Dean May and I glanced at each other, recognizing the escalating discomfort. Good-natured banter gave way to testy argument.
Doug’s questions continued until there was a sudden stop. Joe had had enough. It was time for us to go. We abruptly said our goodbyes and Joe Jr. drove me back to my apartment.
A momentous discussion
On the way home, Joe unexpectedly informed me that he now wanted to design and implement a new administrative structure in the field ministry. That was a surprise to me.
Why? Up to now, such a management level had recently been greatly resisted. To be honest, such a regional structure had twice previously been transformed from an effort at improved communication and growth into something quite different. In fact, poor planning and deployment actually produced a breeding ground for divisive fracturing. That spawned havoc in the Church. Twice it had to be forcibly dismantled.
Long-time ministers and wives will remember that this happened first with the Regional Directors in 1974 and again with the Area Coordinators later in the same decade. The flawed structures failed to address critical challenges, which led to several exiting the church. Herbert Armstrong personally ordered the demise of the organizational structures.
As Joe explained, he had a different purpose for establishing a regional director network this time. This new structure would provide a framework for a select group of senior men to learn and absorb the new theology, thus, in Joe’s mind, equipping them to become teachers, influencers, and mentors for the rest of the ministry.
Knowing how people felt, I knew that this was a pipe dream, even as Joe was driving and explaining his thoughts. Surprisingly, Joe emphasized to me that he was going to get it off the ground right away. Apparently, the family argument had steeled his resolve.
Given that, I honestly thought that by morning this would blow over. I felt that Joe was jilted, angry, and simply quickly reacting to what happened that evening. In the positive days earlier, Joe and I had built a relationship in which he often confided his thoughts and personal feelings. We were friends on that level and worked together effectively. Now was a different story. We were becoming more distant when addressing the looming challenges and doctrinal concerns.
When I arrived for work early the next morning, Joe was already coming out of the elevator down from his father’s office on the top floor. He told me that as Pastor General, his father had approved Joe Jr.’s plan for the ministry.
This was now high priority. Joe Sr. wanted us to get right on it.
Joe Jr. instructed me to draw up a list of 70 names from our almost 400 full-time ministers. We would pare down that list to the final 14 proposed regional pastors. We chose that number because we already had a YOU (Youth Opportunities United) structure of 14 coordinators in place. Those existing geographical boundaries could be duplicated for the new regional pastor structure.
That was a sobering task. But it had its benefits. As with any service organization, there existed a broad spectrum of service and performance. But it was a humbling, weighty, and inspiring task for me.
As I reviewed hundreds of names, a renewed profound respect emerged for the character of many dedicated ministers who with their wives had worked tirelessly and sacrificially. Not a few were known for faithfulness, integrity, humility, wisdom, sound judgment, and exceptional people skills. Many had earned a reputation for outstanding pastoral care.
I already had the privilege of 25 years of experience serving in the ministry and knew many as neighboring pastors, from conferences, Youth Opportunities United (YOU) events, Feast of Tabernacles, and international travel to Europe and the U.S.S.R. There were many ministers who held decades of service, and there were many new, freshly minted ministers in the service of the church. The median age back then was about 42, which ironically was my age at the time.
After much consideration, thought, and effort, I produced an initial list of 70 men, as instructed.
I gave Joe Jr. my list and we promptly went right to work. Given the service quality and commitment of the men and their wives on this list of 70, it was a challenging task to come up with the names of 14 men. We finally settled on 14 and submitted it to Mr. Tkach Sr., who himself had once led Ministerial Services directly and was very familiar with the quality of our ministerial workforce.
After we secured approval from the Pastor General, Joe Jr. and I then got on the phone and started calling the finalists of their selection in a new role as regional pastors. Ironically, this same structure continues to this day in the United Church of God. Only one person turned it down. That was Ken Giese in Big Sandy, Texas. Jim Franks took his place.
So far as achieving Joe Jr.’s initial goal of creating new advocates for the massive doctrinal changes, there existed a major snag. Only one of the 14 were open supporters of the new theological wave.
In fact, some were vocally opposed, and the Administration knew it. One of the choices, Doug Horchak, had of course just personally and openly jousted with Joe Jr. about the new theology. Despite this, Doug made the list of 14. Incongruously, Doug was now going to be called on to be an influencer on the ministry in his region regarding the fateful and destructive changes.
It didn’t make sense. In change management there is a maxim that one appoints the strongest opponent as a champion for the very change one may oppose. In theory, that can result in conversion (like office automation or technology adoption). But if that was the intent here, organizational manipulation generally failed spectacularly in trying to force feed changes among men and women who were spiritually convinced and convicted of what they rightly believed as powerful biblical truth.
Another noted candidate on the list of 14 was Larry Salyer. Larry had already left Pasadena the year before because of all the controversy. When we called him, he made no secret of his position and retorted: “Why are you choosing me? You KNOW how I feel about this!”
But Joe was undaunted. He replied: “Larry, just give it time. Stay with it. You’ll understand it.”
I could not believe what was taking place before my eyes. Joe Jr. honestly thought that teachers and leaders who for years had faithfully been teaching our doctrine regarding the Nature of God, Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God, days of worship, the Law of God, and on would wake up a different person. Somehow these long-time servants would readily and wholeheartedly embrace a contrary belief structure, suddenly believing and preaching something that they had rejected and spoken against for years.
Ironically, some in the ministry did embrace these changes over time, leading directly to the predicted “appalling turmoil…with loyalties, friends, and even families spilt apart.”
To Bev’s and my astonishment, there were some who could be keeping the Saturday Sabbath for years and then, almost without skipping a beat, start keeping Sunday, Christmas and Easter and announce this to their congregations with a straight face. The Administration honored some of these people for being so “progressive” even though it was absurdly shallow. For me, thoughts like “What were they THINKING?” flooded into my mind.
When the break from Worldwide Church occurred two years later, some changed quickly to the new. Others took their time. A “grace period” was allowed, but eventually they had to bend to the new. Those holding to old beliefs were told there was no place for them in their church. Many were shown the door, their commitment and careers torn to shreds. This was a period that tried men’s hearts.
The Indoctrination Conferences
The next step was to hold conferences where the new RP’s would receive their first indoctrination and discuss their new roles. We met about every two months at Headquarters in Pasadena until late 1994. International Directors were also brought in for this instruction.
As I was preparing my part in the conference, I still thought of myself as an assistant to Joe Tkach Jr. While my business card read “Church Administration Assistant Director,” I always considered myself Joe Jr.’s assistant first to help him with his work. And plenty of work there was with all the communication and providing the personal touch to the ministry with administrative, personal, and sometimes conflict resolution.
This involved considerable travel. My wife Beverly was very directly connected to what I did. When the church was teaching sound doctrine, we loved every aspect of this job. That was quickly changing. Now, my assignment was to organize the Regional Pastor structure and define its new function.
In implementing the new regional director framework, I leaned on the models of our previous structures, which I was once a part of and that date back to the District Superintendents, Regional Directors, and Area Coordinators. The RP’s first task was to get acquainted with the ministry in their area. Each one had about 25 full-time pastors and 35 local church elders to oversee. It was not a line function, and the ministry was still welcome to call Joe Jr. or me at any time.
Their role was to serve the ministry, answering their questions and discussing challenges in their region. But I knew and was grieved that the big and real reason for these meetings was to push through the new doctrines, beginning with the Nature of God being the Trinity. Once that was ingrained, much more would follow.
A conference of the 14 was immediately called, and an agenda was handed to me. It was clear that major doctrinal changes were coming into high gear, no longer confined to doctrinal committee discussions.
Most of the conference was conducted with session after session by a minister named Kyriacos Stavrinides. The lecture titles spoke of various processions of the Spirit and relationships in the Godhead.
Those who were born in or were called into the United Church of God in later years may wonder, who was this Dr. Stavrinides? Who was this controversial scholar who later left the Church of God community altogether and returned to the Greek Orthodox Church, recently dying with the title “Father Alexander”?
My first contact with him was when I was a student at Ambassador College in Bricket Wood, England back in 1968. He was a faculty member and spoke often in the Bricket Wood congregation. He was born on the island of Cyprus and took classes at the University of London and the University of Cambridge.
Over time he was in degree programs involving in Music, Classics, Theology, Philosophy, and Biblical Studies. He was said to be fluent in 13 languages, including Ancient Greek, New Testament Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Spanish, and was an accomplished musician.
Following the close of Ambassador College in Pasadena, he moved to Texas and became Chairman of the Classics and Philosophy Department at Ambassador University in Big Sandy. After Ambassador closed its doors, he became a faculty member in the Graduate Department of Theology at Azusa Pacific University, where he served for 20 years, including the time of great change in the Worldwide Church of God.
I found it ironic that he rejoined the church organization that I came out of. He became a deacon and was finally ordained a priest in 2006. He changed his name and became known as “Father Alexander.” He died in August 2024.
Unrelenting reeducation
For this initial conference, he was tasked to teach 25 hours of theology in one week to new Regional Pastors and International ministers brought into Headquarters.
My part in the conference was the very last two-hour time slot in which I was to explain to the newly chosen RP’s what their job would be.
Dr. Stav (as he was known colloquially) immediately went to work setting up his show. And it really was that. This was a pivotal point in the church. We were not introduced to this regimen by being told straight up what the end game result would be. By looking at the agenda, you really didn’t know what it all meant when you came to the last lectures. There was no textbook or syllabus that told you that you were going to have your faith deconstructed and that you would enter a different world from where you’ve been.
The truth? We all were subjected to clever, deceptive, manipulative arguments that could cause us to doubt our sanity. The God that you have committed your life will be taken from you, and you may even wonder if He exists! The God that you have worshipped is not good enough. You will now be asked to enter a confusing labyrinth through a series of clever, unendearingly theological arguments. We were asked to explain the infinite with our limited human dimensions and pretend we understood more than what the Bible revealed.
Drawing the line
The conference began with Dr. Stavrinides drawing a horizontal line midway on the board. What he was going to say now would be either above or below the line. What was explicitly biblical was above the line, and what was implicit was below. Our thinking had to be in both places as he tied the dimensions together.
This introduced the idea of defining God as a hypostasis. Most of us had never that term before. It has never been used much, because it was never intended to be a final stop in defining God. The word “hypostasis” is of Greek origin, meaning "underlying substance" or "foundation." In the context of the Trinity, each person (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is considered a separate hypostasis.
In the Statement of Beliefs booklet published by WCG in 1995, the Nature of God was defined as “hypostasis.” The next revision replaced " hypostasis " with “Trinity.”
Forcefeeding abstractions
The lectures from Dr. Stavrinides went on for hours. There was quite a bit of strident questioning from the RPs and some of the wives, but he always held his own. He told us that he knew all the scriptures we would be using and had all the answers. Some say that he had the entire Bible memorized. There is no doubt that he was brilliant and knowledgeable.
He never allowed anyone to change the playing field of discussion. For example, one elder started asking if all this discussion is another manifestation of metaphysics. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, including existence as well as objects and their properties. His answer was a gruff: “I don’t know metaphysics,” and he moved on to something else.
What spirit was emerging was one of God that people were unfamiliar with of being “foundation” and a substance that was “God.” We know we are made in God’s image, but that identification is only for us, who have only a tiny portion of the theological data. For some, this theater of God was devastating because God is very personal. We talk to Him and have a relationship with Him.
Guy Swenson joins the fray
At the time this happened, there was a change in our Church Administration personnel. My assistant left our employ, so I needed to hire another one. Joe Jr. and I agreed to offer the position to Guy Swenson, pastor of the Beckley and Summersville congregations in West Virginia.
I knew Guy and Jennifer through a church visit to them in 1991 and was favorably disposed towards them, knowing and staying with them on a visit to Milwaukee in the 80’s. Joe Jr. was keen on Guy because of his innovative care of his brethren. Guy had started a computer "club" that involved assembling IBM PCs using a loan from Church Administration, and the members purchasing the computers at cost.
Guy also taught classes on word processing and spreadsheets. In the end, the congregation repaid the loan from Church Administration in full (Before being a pastor, Guy had spent ten years in sales and management in the computer industry and quite knowledgeable here). It was one of many innovations Guy brought to the ministry.
Just as the doctrinal changes were coming out into the open, the Swensons arrived in June 1993 with their four children. Guy immediately proved to be most valuable. We were actually next-door neighbors on campus. He was a good writer and extremely diligent and really wanted to help.
His wife Jennifer was also useful to us by creating and editing “Connections,” which was a journal for minister’s wives and helping at conferences. They arrived on campus around the time the “Nature of God” lectures were being given to the RPs and recorded. These recordings were intended to be sent out to all the ministry.
These were confusing and tough times. As he later recalled, Guy and Jennifer’s first recollections were seeing Jim and Sharron Franks sitting on a bench. Sharron was crying, and Guy wondered what in the world was going on.
An experienced and confident professional, Guy asked to see the videotapes and, after reviewing some of them, said they were too disjointed to send out to the field ministry. They obviously did not display or encourage spiritual unity.
The videotaped meetings were filled with pointed and, at times, harshly worded questions from senior ministers with lots of pushback from Stavrinides. Frankly, they were awful. I knew that, having experienced them firsthand. I had never seen such a contentious display in the ministry.
A problem solver, Guy suggested that Stavrinides re-record them and not include questions and answers. This would take days. Amazingly Dr. Stav did it! So, the entire conference was re-recorded with only Stavrinides, the cameraman, Mike Feazell and Guy in the room.
During the breaks, my new assistant would debate with Stavrinides. Even though new on the scene, Guy was ready to defend biblical beliefs and doctrines.
A man well-acquainted with organizational challenges, Guy was concerned that Joe Sr. did not know what was going on. He thus drafted a paper to Mr. Tkach debunking what Stavrinides was teaching.
Before sending the paper to Mr. Tkach, he vetted it by Herman Hoeh and Don Ward. Given the tenor of times, they promptly shared the draft with others. Stavrinides found out what Guy was doing and this quickly led to a confrontation in Joe Sr's office where Mike Feazell and Stavrinides demanded that Guy be fired.
This was just two weeks after the Swensons arrived in Pasadena. What a start!
Joe Tkach, Sr. asked Guy if there was anything he could do to "pour some oil on the water." Guy told him that he could state that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were divine. After that there was not another word said about him being fired.
But Guy was banned from going to the next several regional conferences and it was a while before he was allowed to give sermons in the surrounding churches.
Despite his tumultuous start, Guy proved to be very valuable as we collaborated on many positive aspects of the work of the Church. His timely arrival included helping to develop lectures and ways of communicating with the Regional Pastors that bore good fruit amidst a tumultuous time. He would soon become helpful in another strategic way.
Next:
We will continue talking about events leading to the United Church of God that were germinating in the Regional Pastor conferences over the next year. Removing and replacing doctrine was not the only thing attacked.