Authors: Gerald Flurry
Two days after that hearing, the
WCG
seemed all the more eager to settle, lowering its licensing offer to a $3 million bottom line. Sensing desperation on their part, my dad was inclined to be patient. On December 24, we put together a $2.5 million package offer for all the copyrights to the 19 works involved in the litigation.
We didn’t hear back from
WCG
, despite their insistence to get things done quickly, until after their executives returned from their Christmas/New Year’s holiday celebration.
On Tuesday, January 7, the
WCG
came down to $2.8 million for perpetual licenses, but with these added concessions: The copyright notice, agreed upon by both sides before finalizing the deal, would say something like “© Publishing Inc.,” but we would not have to print any disclaimers under the copyright.
But buying the copyrights altogether, at a price range this “low,” was not possible, they told us. Their offer intrigued us: no disclaimer and a copyright notice that was at least inoffensive. For the most part, that’s what we had at the beginning of our distribution in 1997. We printed the works without a disclaimer and a notice that read “© Herbert W. Armstrong.”
In weighing their offer, we took a step back and considered our ultimate objective at the outset of our distribution of Mr. Armstrong’s works. It was to keep the
WCG
from destroying those writings forever by making them freely available to all who valued them. With that in mind, we began to see a scenario in which we actually could live with a license.
After weighing our options for several days, we reached a final decision on Monday, January 13, 2003: $2.65 million for the
WCG
to “grant
PCG
a worldwide, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, fully paid-up, non-royalty-bearing license” to all 19 works. Under the agreement, the copyright notice would read “© Herbert W. Armstrong.”
The next day, to our utter amazement and shock, the
WCG
asked us to submit an alternative offer for buying the copyrights outright. Thus, by the end of the 14th, we had two final offers on the table—one for licenses and one for full copyright ownership. We offered $2.65 million for perpetual licenses and $3 million to buy everything outright.
On Thursday morning, January 16—
17 years to the day after Herbert W. Armstrong’s death
—the
WCG
agreed to sell us
all
the copyrights for $3 million. Apart from contributions from our insurance carrier, the total cost to the
PCG
was an even $2 million. With about $1 million on hand, we planned to finance the other $1 million.
Later that day, Mark Helm and the
WCG
’s attorney conference-called Judge Snyder to tell her that both sides had agreed to terms of settlement. Thus, for all intents and purposes, six years of litigation ended the afternoon of January 16, 2003.
WCG’s “Successful” Conclusion
After settlement, Ralph Helge wrote to the members of the
WCG
, “We are pleased to announce that the Worldwide Church of God … has reached a successful conclusion in its lawsuit against the Philadelphia Church of God.”
32
This is how he spun the negotiation process: “During the last year or so, pcg made different offers to license or purchase some or all of the literary works in question, and thereby settle the litigation. As the church did not consider that the amounts offered were sufficient, the offers were rejected. But then pcg made a substantial offer of $3 million to purchase 19 of the literary works written by Mr. Armstrong, and settle the litigation.”
That version of the story, as is customary with Tkachism, leaves out all the essential facts. But it didn’t matter to us.
We knew
that deep in his heart of hearts,
Helge knew
who came out victorious in this case.
Think about it.
Their publicly stated goal, from the very beginning of the battle, was to keep Mr. Armstrong’s teachings out of circulation. Joe Jr. had to eat those words.
They told the court early on that they had suffered irreparable harm by our “unlawful” action because in distributing
Mystery of the Ages
,
we were “perpetuating beliefs no longer followed by Worldwide Church.” They
loathed
the thought of Mr. Armstrong’s teachings resurfacing.
The
WCG
owned the copyrights, Greg Albrecht said in 1997, and they “
DO NOT ALLOW OTHERS
to publish our former teachings and doctrines for a
variety
of reasons.”
33
Flurry
understood,
they told the court in 1999, that the
WCG
“refused” requests to reprint
Mystery of the Ages
. This was common knowledge.
They
refused to make Mr. Armstrong’s works available—and they wouldn’t allow
OTHERS
to do it either.
After Judge Letts ruled that we could rightfully distribute
Mystery of the Ages
,
Helge called the judgment an “erroneous view of the law” and said our reprinting was “in violation of both the commandment of God and the copyright law of the United States.”
34
They brought up the annotated plan in an attempt to overturn Judge Letts’s decision. After that happened at the Ninth Circuit, Helge said we only had “certain limited rights.”
35
But for all practical purposes, he continued, the Ninth Circuit’s decision “would seem to be final in all material respects.” That, as it turns out, was wishful thinking.
Then, in April 2001, Tkach Jr. told
Christianity Today
that if the Supreme Court refused to hear our appeal, “
WCG
lawyers will go after several overseas websites that post the complete text of
Mystery of the Ages
.”
36
Intimidating words!
After the Supreme Court decided it would not hear our appeal, Ralph Helge’s assistant, Earle Reese, incorrectly asserted, “This is the end of the pcg’s ability to appeal to a higher court.”
37
After that, the
WCG
worked to make the literature available through print on demand. Not because they wanted to—they
had
to. But they still had the upper hand, they were convinced, because all the literature downloaded would include a nasty preface. Yet this turned out to be yet another stronghold position they gave up on.
Then, when asked about the likelihood of licensing Mr. Armstrong’s works to a potentially dangerous sociopath like my father, Joseph Tkach Jr. testified to this: The
WCG
had to be in a position where it could “police or control” the literature if there was to ever be a settlement in terms of licensing. More words they would have to eat.
And what about Helge’s letter to Bob Ardis, where he portrayed my father as a stiff-necked rebel attempting to thwart the legal process? We were completely out of options, he said. We were staggering along, acting on sheer desperation, but with no place to go, except before the bar of justice to be judged guilty and sentenced to pay up to the Worldwide Church of God. Of course, none of that ever happened either.
What did happen is this: They sold us a storehouse of literature for an amount of money that, by our estimate, barely covered their legal costs, if even that. They retrieved no “profits” or “damages” from us. All their “overwhelming” victories in court were conditioned on them making Mr. Armstrong’s works available. And in the end, they were exactly where they started before the case, money-wise, but having forfeited ownership of all 19 copyrights.
Ethical Questions
Writing in
Christianity Today
after the lawsuit settled, Marshall Allen said, “At one point, the
WCG
said it was fighting the countersuit because it didn’t want to see the heretical works republished.”
38
But the church had since reversed its course, he wrote. Allen quoted Reginald Killingley, a former
WCG
pastor, as saying, “They’re willing, in effect, to support what they condemn—to permit the perpetuation and promotion of heresy for the sake of money.”
The article sent shock waves through the
WCG
, even prompting a response in the
Worldwide News
. The
last thing
the
WCG
wanted from this whole ordeal was for their friends in the evangelical community to turn on them.
Christianity Today
had long been a staunch supporter of Tkachism.
In its coverage of the lawsuit in 2001, the magazine summarized the case this way: “[T]he Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on a 2-1 vote that Armstrong legally willed his copyright of
Mystery of the Ages
to the
WCG
, which could restrict its distribution. The court majority said that despite the
WCG
action to suppress the book, pcg could not claim fair use in reprinting the entire book. Because they now believe
Mystery of the Ages
is ‘riddled with error,’
WCG
officials say they feel a Christian duty to withhold the book.”
39
Believing many of the same doctrines Tkachism accepted,
Christianity Today
had no problem reporting on what they viewed as the
WCG
’s attempt to “withhold the book.” They didn’t want the book in circulation either!
So when the
WCG
granted us unrestricted ownership of all the copyrights, you can see why they were disturbed by the
WCG
’s about-face.
The
WCG
surrender also bothered another Tkachism advocate, Philip Arnn. Writing for
Watchman Expositor
in 1993, Arnn said, “The current doctrinal revisions being brought about by the efforts of Joseph Tkach and his team are to be applauded as extraordinary in light of their spiritual benefits to the church membership.”
40
But their decision to sell the copyrights 10 years later, according to Arnn, raised ethical questions about the
WCG
. “These are heretical doctrines that are destructive to the eternal life of anyone who comes under their influence,” Arnn said. “To have profited from the release of the copyrights is a matter that I would think [would be] very troubling to the conscience.”
41
Even the
WCG
’s hometown newspaper, the
Pasadena Star-News,
called into question the church’s ethical standing. “The settlement … allows Armstrong’s followers in the Philadelphia Church of God to reproduce the books. … Present Pastor General Joseph Tkach Jr., however, once wrote that it was their ‘Christian duty’ to keep the book out of print ‘because we believe Mr. Armstrong’s doctrinal errors are better left out of circulation.’”
42
The lawsuit had finally ended. It had been six years since Tkach Jr. wrote his book. And here he was
still
getting pummeled for the “Christian duty” statement—and from a newspaper in his own backyard!
According to the
Star-News,
Bernie Schnippert said it would have been financially “imprudent” for them not to accept the settlement offer. “We came to an end where we received a considerable sum of money and the other party received a number of works that are out of date and inaccurate according to most of the Christian world,” said Schnippert.
43
Just nine months earlier,
we listened to Schnippert testify smugly that Tkachism had supposedly taken the moral high ground by
not
milking revenue from teachings they didn’t believe in—which is precisely what they did in the end.
To the Victor Go the Spoils
Contrast the
WCG
’s sellout with what the Philadelphia Church of God obtained in this struggle. Our one goal at the outset, stated clearly in all our literature, was to make
Mystery of the Ages
available to a wide audience. In the end—something we could not have imagined in our wildest dreams before the case—we owned
Mystery of the Ages
,
as well as
SIX OTHER BOOKS
by Mr. Armstrong,
11 booklets
and a 58-
LESSON
Bible correspondence course
.
On top of the literature, we obtained access to thousands of internal documents through discovery—letters, reports, bulletins, interoffice memos, board minutes, e-mails, interviews, books, magazines, newspapers, sermons, announcements, transcripts, financial disclosures, contracts, surveys, spreadsheets and statistics. We obtained multiple thousands of pages of sworn testimony in affidavits, declarations and depositions. There was six years’ worth of court documents that we and the
WCG
had filed—briefs, rebuttals, motions, opposition motions, petitions, claims and counterclaims. Add to that all the documents filed by the judicial branch—courtroom transcripts, orders, tentative orders, summary judgments, injunctions, opinions and dissenting opinions.
Without these documents, it would not have been possible to write
this
book. And without this book, we could not have exposed Tkachism’s deceptive agenda nearly to the extent that we now have.
Besides
Raising the Ruins
,
we had the opportunity to expose their lies during litigation—before judges, magistrates, attorneys, clerks, law students, reporters—even the general public. This case, after all, did attract national attention, including a feature story on the front page of the
Wall Street Journal.
Then there were the depositions—particularly those during the summer of 2002. What an opportunity for a little “peanut shell” supposedly going nowhere. After the Tkaches absolutely wrecked the church we loved, we found ourselves in the enviable position of making them, under oath,
ANSWER FOR ALL THEY HAD DONE
.