Church officials appear on Christian broadcast

By Thomas C. Hanson

Pastor General Joseph Tkach and Mr. Albrecht appeared live on Hank Hanegraaff's Bible Answer Man broadcast Jan. 4. Call-in questions taped after the broadcast ended were aired Jan. 5 and 12.

The daily, hour-long broadcast, which airs on more than 100 stations in the United States and Canada, originates from the Christian Research Institute in Irvine, about an hour's drive from church headquarters in Pasadena.

Mr. Hanegraaff began the broadcast by reading excerpts from an article by Mr. Tkach that appears in the current Christian Research Journal, published by the Christian Research Institute.

The broadcast was a discussion of changes the church has made in the past several years, and Mr. Tkach said that appearing on the broadcast was a "historic moment for us."

Mr. Albrecht added that we are deeply grateful for "brothers and sisters in the Lord who have rallied to our cause [and] are praying for us."

"At the same time," Mr. Albrecht continued, "it is a deeply painful experience to know that there are people who oppose our every step along the road" and find our fellowship coming to Christ to be "an expression of permissiveness" and some sort of fulfillment of biblical statements about "falling away."

Mr. Tkach said: "I feel badly for people who are faced with the thought that my 20 or 30 years of life [in the Worldwide Church of God] have been a waste of time, but what I wish those people could see is that it isn't a waste of time if they come to Christ....

"I love [Herbert Armstrong] like I loved my own father or any other brother in Christ, but we need to be mature enough to recognize that he was a man and he made mistakes, and we should be spiritually mature enough to look at those mistakes and not repeat them."

Mr. Tkach asked the listening audience to pray for those who have left the Worldwide Church of God that the light of Christ would shine to them, to understand the objective truth of Scripture.

Mr. Tkach said: "In growing up in the church I have some fond memories. I don't think everything that happened in our church is bad or wrong. I do believe that there were people who came into our fellowship who were brought to Christ....

"We were with Christ. We knew Christ. We knew a lot about Christ, but didn't know him in the way that we should know him."

Mr. Tkach said that in spite of the difficulties the church has faced, we have baptized 200 people a month for the past 12 months.

For a list of stations airing the Bible Answer Man broadcast write to the Christian Research Institute, Box 500, San Juan Capistrano, California, 92693, or call 1-800-443-9797.