Where did Herbert Armstrong get his ideas from when he came up with the idea of Ambassador College?
Training young people to become ministers in the organization was paramount to the survival of the church, and the expected future expansion of Herbert’s family franchise.
After old man Tkach took the reins of the Worldwide Church of God, he began to go thru Herbie’s desk and found a copy of Mein Kampf. Once you understand the basis of the book, you begin to understand what it was that guided the man to come up with the leadership ideas that Ambassador College would promote.
The first 6 minutes of this video reveals astounding parallels to Hitlers Nazi Germany, and Herbert Armstrong’s plan for Ambassador College and the future progression of his cult.
With the death of Germany’s leader Adolf Hitler, like with the death of Herbert Armstrong, the dream of a world ruled by the ‘chosen elite’ collapsed in a fit of despair. What remains continues to destroy the lives of those who never learned the lessons of history.
The Nazi belief of Aryan superiority is from Julius Streicher: “A people that does not protect its racial purity will perish.” HWA adapted this view with the pronouncement that blacks were inferior to the white race. Interracial marriage was discouraged with the threat of disfellowship.
The big difference between the Nazis and the Ambassador College students is that the core of the Nazi youth were young men encouraged to be alpha males.
Ambassador College ‘men’ were subverted to suppress alpha males, since they are generally annoyingly indominable and are difficult to make into slaves and lackeys.
Herbert Armstrong was to be the apex alpha male and all others were to be submissive to him. This does not work for alpha males. They accept that they are masters of their own destiny and generally accountable for the consequences of their actions.
Herbert Armstrong perpetuated the lie that anyone who submitted to him would be covered and protected if they followed his dictates. This, of course, was a lie and he stabbed them in the back when things went wrong, even if they did slavishly obey his dictates.
So, even as deluded as they were and deceived, the Nazi youth were far superior in their resolve than Ambassador College students.
In the end though, neither came to a particularly good end, which is the result when you follow some tin horn cult leader.