Perhaps the most ardent 20th century spokesmen of the gap theory were televangelist Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986) and his son Garner Ted Armstrong. Challenged in 1924 by Hertha Dillon, a sister-in-law as Hertha's husband Walter Dillon was the brother of Armstrong's wife Loma, Herbert W. Armstrong undertook a study of the biblical account of creation and Darwinism (Armstrong 1986:293 see also Armstrong 1985:19-21 and Armstrong 1978:57-58).

Armstrong found the Scofield account compelling and incorporated it as part of his own teachings and ultimately the theory became part of "the truth" taught on The World Tomorrow radio and television programs and in The Plain Truth. The program had millions of listeners and viewers for about 35 years (1950-1985). Garner Ted Armstrong left The World Tomorrow telecast in 1978 and presently heads the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course, Lesson 11, from 1956, explained how a perfect pre-Adamic Earth became a ruin due to Satan's rebellion against God (Armstrong and Meredith 1956:3-4). See also In the Beginning --Answers to Questions from Genesis (Worldwide Church of God 1980:2-4).

In his Mystery of the Ages Armstrong explained: 

    From verse 2 of Genesis 1 on, the remainder of this first chapter of the Bible is not describing the original creation of the earth. But it is describing a renewing of the face of the earth, after it had become waste and empty as a result of the sin of the angels.
    What is described from verse 2 on, in the supposed creation chapter of the Bible, did occur, according to the Bible, approximately 6,000 years ago. But that could have been millions or trillions of years after the actual creation of the earth described in verse 1! (Armstrong 1985:75.)

His radio and television ministry popularized the theory. Ronald L. Numbers, who apparently did not take the time to actually study the teachings of Armstrong and his son Garner Ted but rather relied on secondary sources, states:

Like some gap theorists, Armstrong and his followers allowed for the existence of an ancient earth, populated by Satan and his fallen angels. Although they at times relied heavily on the writings of creation scientists, the Armstrong people defended creationism primarily on biblical grounds, refusing to dilute "Biblical truth to satisfy scientists by equating it with scientific theory." (Numbers 1992:317.)

The Armstrongs, nevertheless, were outspoken proponents of the gap theory. They argued vigorously against the notion that the creation of the universe and earth occurred about 4,000 BCE and often wrote about it in The Plain Truth magazine and discussed it on The World Tomorrow radio and television programs. As the Armstrongs understood the Noachian deluge to have been a literal worldwide flood one could argue that they did have a little common ground with creation scientists but in reality about the only similarity was that both groups had their centers of operations in southern California. Any other similarity was coincidental. Most Ambassador faculty and students of that time regarded creation scientists as half-educated kooks which remains an opinion shared to this day by most biblical archaeologists.

When Garner Ted Armstrong taught the second year Bible course, Theology 201 called systematic theology, at Ambassador College in the 1960s he used After its Kind, Before Abraham, and The Deluge Story in Stone by Bryon C. Nelson and later The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris as textbooks. Garner Ted Armstrong's teaching style, however, was to dissect a text and to expose the misassumptions and biases of its authors. He went to considerable length to show the fallacies and shortcomings of classical Darwinism, which he referred to as evolution, and to expound the gap theory. Late in the decade the Worldwide Church of God published a well-written, widely circulated anti-evolutionary booklet entitled A Theory for the Birds.

Another exposition of the gap theory appeared in Basil Wolverton's The Bible Story (Wolverton 1982:3-10) published by the Worldwide Church of God. The material had appeared earlier in The Plain Truth. Wolverton explained the consequences of Lucifer's rebellion:

During the great battle when Satan and his demons tried to conquer God, an awesome change came over the Earth. (Gen. 1:2) What had long been a beautiful planet had been turned into a cosmic wreck because Lucifer rebelled against his maker. The atmosphere was filled with smoke and poison gases so thick that nothing could live in it.
    The raging elements pounded the Earth. Little or no physical life could survive through that terrible time. (Ps. 104:29.)
    The only living beings left on the planet were the evil, restless demons whose lawbreaking had broken the perfect balance, harmony and beauty of a world God had lovingly created for His creatures. 
    For a time our world stayed buried in a deep blanket of gases, smoke and water. Oceans covered the whole Earth. There was no longer any dry land. The atmosphere was so clogged with clouds of tiny bits of matter that no light could reach the seas. We don't know how long this condition lasted, but later came the time when God started preparing for a very important event in His great plan. That was the bringing of human beings into existence. (Wolverton 1982:5-6.)

Since the death of Herbert W. Armstrong the Worldwide Church of God moved to a relatively moderate, middle of the road evangelical stance in these matters. Its leaders redirected the attention of the church's membership to other fundamental biblical doctrinal matters, reconciliatory ministry, and practical Christian living issues and do not make sensational evangelistic claims out of the Genesis accounts of creation and the Noachian flood.

In the early 1990s articles appearing in The Plain Truth by John Halford entitled "Religion and Science: Bridging the Gap" and "Evolution: Fact or Faith?" admitted microevolution and called for a new analysis of Genesis 1 more in line with scientific evidence but rejected macroevolutionary theory. In a supplement to The Plain Truth entitled Must We Choose Between Science and the Bible? its writer asked "Do we have to choose between divine creation and evolution? The fact is, we need not find an insoluble conflict between living faith and scientific evidence" (Worldwide Church of God 1994:1). In 1996 the Worldwide Church of God published their Creation or Evolution booklet concluding "there need be no final conflict between science and religion" (Worldwide Church of God 1999:69). In the final decade of the 20th century the Worldwide Church of God carefully distanced itself from the gap theory.

More recently, the magazine's cover story was "Science and Religion: Must we Choose?" consisting of a set of three thought-provoking articles: "The Real Question Is Who" by Monte Wolverton (son of Basil Wolverton), "Will We Ever Get Our Act Together?" by Neil Earle, and "The Creation Date Controversy" by Hugh Ross (president of the Pasadena-based Reasons to Believe ministry). The implication of the article triad is that the Plain Truth Ministries and the Worldwide Church of God have moved toward the reconciliation of religion and science. This is consistent with the reconciliatory thrust of both organizations.

Nevertheless, the gap theory continues to be taught by some of the derivative groups spinning off from the Worldwide Church of God such as the United Church of God publisher of The Good News and the Living Church of God publisher of Tomorrow's World. Herbert W. Armstrong's son Garner Ted Armstrong (see Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association), a committed anti-evolutionist, continued to teach and preach the gap theory and lead the Intercontinental Church of God. Authors from these groups such as United Church of God writers John Ross Schroeder and Mario Seiglie develop some compelling arguments for the theory and present them clearly and thoroughly (see Creation or Evolution � Does It Really Matter What You Believe?).

According to Numbers:

    During the second half of the twentieth century, few denominations promoted strict creationism more vigorously than the apocalyptic Jehovah's Witnesses and the Worldwide Church of God, members of the same millenarian family that included the Seventh-day Adventists. The Witnesses sprang indirectly from the Advent Christian Church, which, like the Seventh-day Adventists, had grown out of the ashes of the Millerite movement of the 1840s. The Worldwide Church of God (formerly the Radio Church of God) was a third-generation offshoot of the Seventh-day Adventists by way of the Church of God (Seventh Day). Both sects, though often indebted to the scientific creationists for arguments and evidence, remained ambivalent toward flood geology and antagonistic toward its promoters, a feeling amply reciprocated. Duane T. Gish summed up the common attitude: "Of course, they don't want anything to do with us, and we don't want anything to do with them". (Numbers 1992:316.)

Numbers attributes the rise of the Church of God (Seventh Day) and therefore the Worldwide Church of God to the Millerite movement and the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This is a common misconception and over-simplification. The history of the Church of God (Seventh Day) in the New World precedes the Adventist and Millerite movements by nearly two centuries. Many Millerites, upon discovering the Sabbath, joined themselves to Sabbath-observing Church of God congregations. Later some of these individuals attempted to wholly subvert the underlying doctrines and the core values of the Church of God and basically they swamped it with Millerites. When Mrs. White declared herself a prophetess and proceeded to preach heresy those Church of God people who did not get caught up in the advent movement absented themselves from the Adventists and attempted to rebuild their own Church of God. This period of terrible turmoil lasted about twenty years.

With the end of the World Tomorrow program, basically its single mass media proponent, the theory began to decline. Scientific creationism became increasing militant and fiercely argued against it. Nevertheless, it has enjoyed some resurgence with the republishing of the Scofield Study Bible and the Dake Bible.

Page last edited: 01/25/06 05:29 PM

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