The Great Falling Away . A more appropriate title for this book would have been: "Transformed Away From The Truth...The Liberalization of the Worldwide Church of God; The Remarkable Story Of A Church's Journey From the Religion OF Jesus to a Religion ABOUT Jesus".    Love him or hate him...the lectures, broadcasts, published books and magazine articles of Herbert W. Armstrong brought many thousands of people all over the world to the knowledge and acceptance of Jesus Christ as personal saviour...many of whom had never even considered attending a church before!   This was no pop culture 'plastic Jesus', but the Christ of the Bible...whose actual teachings would still be much in disfavor in today's supposedly 'enlightened' Evangelical world.  Yet, the author of this book vainly tries to insist that the Worldwide Church of God under the direction of Armstrong was more hung up on the 'Law of Moses' and the 7th Day Sabbath, rather than the "grace" of Jesus...and thus relegated Him (Jesus) to background status behind God the Father, and Bible Prophecy.     In 1976 the WCG published perhaps the best book written to date about the life, person and teachings of Jesus Christ, "The Real Jesus" by Garner Ted Armstrong who, at the time was a high ranking Minister in the denomination.   This, along with all the other Christocentric books and articles published by Armstrong over the decades since 1927, are all strangely ignored...as if Armstrong himself, never gave Christ as much as a passing thought!   Joseph Tkach Jr. goes on to largely bear 'false witness,' as it were, against the Church; its teachings; its mission; and its founder and late Pastor General H.W. Armstrong. He takes Armstrong to task over having the audacity to actually think that God would use him, to start a new era in the chronology of Church history....yet he himself mulls over the same thing, in his own role in the destruction of the denomination, which ironically he sees as a new beginning 'under grace'...whatever that means, since he's gone on to disfellowship entire congregations in various parts of the country...for continuing on in the traditional faith and worship practices, and for refusing to adopt his new 'tupperware party' style of pop-worship service.    About the most interesting thing in the book, were the charts tracing all the breakaway conferences, or 'splinter groups' as he calls them...however, the biggest irony is that the largest breakaway group, "United Church of God" now has more members than the WCG under the Tkach regime!   Another shortcoming of the book is the total lack of comment on, or concern for the victims of the Church's meltdown; the divided families; the fired long-time Ministers and other employees, and the total disruption of the Colleges. Perhaps the Church's new leaders need to write and sell books to make an income; since over 100,000 members picked up and left the organization since Tkach and Feazell took over the reins. Make no mistake about it...he (Tkach) has his fans, who view him as a 'liberator', while his detractors suspiciously view him as the possible end-time 'Man of Sin sitting in the seat of Moses', mentioned in Revelation!  Christ did say "Ye will know them by their fruits..." Thus far the fruits of Tkach's leadership have resulted in a bitter harvest
Output: NEG