A look back at the delusional distorted perceptions of Roderick Meredith, circa 1963.
It’s hard to believe that none of any of this exists today, save for the Last Man Standing, Roderick Meredith.
And we’re pretty sure that the “Inside Story” isn’t really the complete story.
And thanks, GTA, but what are “True Facts”?
Is that opposed to “False Facts”?
1963… Nostalgia just isn’t what it used to be.
The church had a booklet for everything. I don’t recall the booklet called ‘The Plain Truth about Masturbation’ however. He could have given a pointer or two on the subject no doubt!
The booklet certainly didn’t mention all of the gratuitous gas passing that took place in the mens’ dorms! I have to wonder how the self-righteous electronic eaves droppers might have reacted to that later on when the dormitories were bugged. (“Hey, Mr. B, do you believe this?”). Some nights during study hours, peoples’ eyes were known to water. The funny thing is, the “crass” remarks that were made about it were considered to be more offensive than the noises or the odors themselves. Only at Ambassador College!
BB
Traveling around in the 70s, I met a church member who had shared a dorm at AC Pasadena with my local minister. The member told me I should tell the minister I’d met him, and he “wishes him a good fart”.
When I told the minister, there was an awkward, quizzical pause, followed by uproarious laughter…
The Inside Story of The World Tomorrow Broadcast is significant for reasons not yet covered here: It was the exposition of the establishment of the Church Cult Corporate, replete with all the triumph of image over substance accompanied with the internal political intrigue that always accompanies the establishment of corporations of medium to large size. Garner Ted Armstrong was busy date raping Ambassador College coeds, boozing it up with his alcoholic buddy, David Jon Hill, Roderick Meredith was establishing himself as someone REALLY important, the lies about “changed lives” was being promulgated at a time that the descent into REAL corruption was really beginning, the luxury of being rich and increased in goods was being established just after the lean times of the 1950s when everyone wondered whether the church would even survive, while at the same time there was the rush of energy propelled by the vision of tomorrow’s successes just beginning to appear on the horizon.
This was 1963, just before the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the war in Viet Nam and the protests and the start of the Hippy Movement — which folded well into the selling of the World Tomorrow, Plain Truth Magazine and (eventually) the Worldwide Church of God. The times set the stage for phenomenal growth in the 1970s with adding television to the mix. The cold war was still very much in vogue with the threat of nuclear annihilation creating the potential to leverage the Great Tribulation and the Place of Safety as recruitment vehicles.
If you ignore “Moral Mazes” and “The Corporation”, it would be easy to miss the significance of the corporatization of the Radio Church of God, but without it, Stanley Raider would have never made it on the scene and the WCG would have fizzled before it could splinter into hundreds of sects.
Who is really behind The World Tomorrow was really an important question — certainly not answered by the booklet which was little more than a PR vehicle. Who was behind it was a pervert false prophet high school dropout. If people could have answered THAT question at the time, the world today would be a very different place for those who suffered through the abuse of the cult.
Through the booklet, we get the briefest of glimpses of entitlement for those who had no accountability at a significant time when integrity would have made all the difference in the world.