More on Carl Franklin's Bad History

A fundamental part of Carl Franklin's thesis in his paper is that Rader and the IRS caused the Radio Church of God to switch from a collegial system (which is left extremely vague and is never really explained) into a ministerial hierarchy.

Here is where he argues that Rader discussing the nature of RCG with the IRS was actually what caused RCG to become a dictatorship.

The following is a quote from Stanley Rader's book, Against the Gates of Hell, Chapter 4, as quoted in Franklin's paper. Words in brackets are Franklin's, words in green are mine.

"It soon was apparent to me that much of the problem was caused by a misapprehension on the government's side of the very NATURE OF THE ORGANIZATION known then as the Radio Church of God, and of its operations in general. The government had obviously confused Herbert Armstrong with the likes of Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry, or on the other hand, with A.A. Allen, a well-known radio evangelist with whom the government had been at war for some time.

"Thus I knew how to solve the problem. I explained in detail what the Radio Church of God was, what it taught, how it promulgated its message, and, indeed, everything relevant and material about the organization and its operations that I had learned from several weeks of intensive study of the facts. The Internal Revenue Service has developed a list of fourteen characteristics that it uses in determining whether an organization qualifies as a church. [These qualifications were patterned after the organization of the Catholic Church.] [What are these fourteen characterizations precisely and how are they related to the Catholic Church? These questions are never addressed in this paper.] I simply demonstrated how the Radio Church of God satisfied these requirements. [At that time it actually did not.] (Carl Franklin's paper, p. 14.)

How on earth does Carl Franklin know these regulations were based on the Catholic Church? This is just an assertion he makes which he does not back up with any evidence.

He says RCG did not fulfill the IRS's requirements. What were they? He does not tell us except to say that in some mysterious way it caused them to become some sort of hierarchy.

The best he can come up with on page 15 is to say that RCG happened to be rather small at the time. That could not be helped and changing RCG into a hierarchical organization (whatever he means by that!) was not going to change that, so I do not understand why Franklin focuses on this topic to feebly support his contention that Rader and the IRS were responsible for WCG's dictatorial nature.

Let us meditate again on just what Carl Franklin is asking us to believe. There is a difference between a) Rader explaining the operations of RCG to some officials and b) conducting a radical reform of RCG's government. Franklin presents evidence for a) and acts as though this helps to prove that Rader committed b).

He also presents some RCG articles in such a way as to make it appear that there was a radical change in RCG's approach to government in 1956-7. Even though one of the 1958 hierarchy supporting articles is actually a reprint of a 1953 article, as was seen in the last entry.

Let us think meditate again on just what Carl Franklin is asking us to believe. He is asking us to believe that some stranger who goes to Washington on behalf of RCG went back and convinced HWA to radically change the form of government in the RCG.

Again I have to say that Carl Franklin's evidence that Rader and the IRS caused RCG to adopt a hierarchical government simply does not withstand scrutiny. The establishment of dictatorship in RCG occurred before Rader came onto the scene and he had nothing to do with its initial establishment.