Herbert W. Armstrong Library and Archives

Donald H. Tiger put the writings of Herbert W. Armstrong on CD and the Internet

Donald H. Tiger put many of the books, booklets, magazines, correspondence course lessons, co-worker letters, and even some of the music, and broadcasts, of Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA) and the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) on five Compact Discs (CDs) that he was giving away free of charge. The five original CDs were: The HWA Literature CD The Good News CD The Plain Truth CD The World Tomorrow CD The Bible Hymnal CD Collections Donald Tiger made a Web site called the Herbert W. Armstrong Library and Archives at http://www.HerbertWArmstrong.org. This Web site's address was not working for a while, for reasons explained in the notes below. It became available again, and some new CDs are being offered in addition to the original five CDs.

Herbert W. Armstrong

Notes:

1. Contents of the HWA Literature CD

   Donald H. Tiger's five Compact Discs (CDs) were impressive. The HWA Literature CD alone contained the following machine-searchable literature:

   All HWA's books and booklets
   58-Lesson Bible Correspondence Course
   Bible Correspondence Course Tests and answers
   All HWA's Co-Worker Letters (1934-1986)
   All Agricultural Research Newsletters
   The Bible Story--all 6 volumes
   AC's Hebrew Calendar Textbook
   World History Compendium - both volumes
   Imperial's 1st 2500 years History Textbook
   Personal Correspondence Department Letter Series
   Select Plain Truth Articles
   Select Good News Articles
   Select Tomorrow's World Articles
   The Bible Hymnal pages for printing
   The Bible Hymnal sound files
   Slide Show program using PT and Trumpet covers
   All PCG booklets as of 9/96
   The Works of Josephus and Philo
   Holy Days and Hebrew Calendar calculators
   National Genealogy charts
   Index of PT, GN and TW magazine articles

2. Donald Tiger and the Philadelphia Church of God

   After the death of Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA) in January 1986, Joseph W. Tkach, Sr. (JWT, Sr.) began to lead the Worldwide Church of God (WCG), and started to change its doctrines. In January 1992, Donald H. Tiger left the WCG to go with Gerald R. Flurry and his Philadelphia Church of God (PCG), which was formed in December 1989 and claimed to be holding on to the teachings of HWA. Strangely, the more Donald Tiger worked on the HWA CD project, the more out of favor he fell with the PCG, until he was eventually fired in November 1994, and then disfellowshipped in May 1997. After Donald Tiger was disfellowshipped for giving someone a free copy of his Plain Truth magazine CD, PCG members were told to destroy or return the HWA CDs that they had received.

   Gerald Flurry planned to reprint only some of Herbert W. Armstrong's writings, and started by reprinting a book called Mystery of the Ages in 1997.

   The Worldwide Church of God went to court against the Philadelphia Church of God to try to prevent the PCG from reprinting Herbert W. Armstrong's last book, called Mystery of the Ages. The U.S. District Court of the Central District of California decided in favor of the PCG. But, on September 18, 2000, this judgment was overturned on appeal by the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals in Pasadena, by a vote of 2 to 1. For details of this latest decision, see Worldwide Church of God V Philadelphia Church of God (Case Number: 99-55850, Date Filed: 09/18/00). On April 2, 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to let stand this ruling by the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals.

   The WCG had won the copyright court case. The PCG had lost the court case, and the Supreme Court had refused to hear the PCG's appeal. The PCG was awaiting a trial to determine what damages it would have to pay the WCG. So the PCG made a deal to pay the WCG two million dollars (plus another million dollars that the PCG's insurance had paid) to buy the copyright to the writings of Herbert W. Armstrong. The May 2003 edition of the PCG's Philadelphia Trumpet magazine announced the deal. Gerald Flurry then began to edit HWA's writings, including Mystery of the Ages, to bring them into line with the doctrinal changes that he had made.

3. Donald Tiger and the Church of God

   Around December 1997, Donald H. Tiger and some other former members of the Philadelphia Church of God formed a loose affiliation known simply as The Church of God (TCOG), which now has a Web site at http://www.t-cog.org. Donald Tiger said that there was a problem with someone trying to stop the HWA CD project there too, and that he was asked to leave. It is interesting to hear that only 25% of the people who received Donald Tiger's HWA CDs ever gave any donation at all. People collectively seem to be able to come up with many millions of dollars to support the various self-appointed leaders who want to suppress the HWA CDs, such as Gerald Flurry, David Pack, etc.

4. Donald Tiger and the Restored Church of God

   In the summer of 1999, Donald H. Tiger was contacted by David C. Pack, who convinced Donald Tiger to go with David Pack's new Restored Church of God (RCOG), which had been formed in 1999 after David Pack had been fired from the Global Church of God (GCG). Donald Tiger's five original CDs had included some Philadelphia Church of God (PCG) literature, which was now removed from the latest ones. Donald Tiger wrote a 10-page letter dated April 8, 2000, announcing what appeared to be good news about the Herbert W. Armstrong Library and Archives. It was the stated goal of the Restored Church of God to republish all the writings of Herbert W. Armstrong that were in print at the time HWA died in 1986. But, around the very day of the first anniversary of the RCOG, David Pack changed his mind and decided that no HWA CDs or booklets were to go out. Don Tiger was once again left on his own to try to make the HWA CDs available.

   David Pack gave a sermonette, dated May 27, 2000, called CDs, Compromise, Conflict & Conscience to explain his decision to reject Donald Tiger's HWA CD project. The basic reason seems to be that David Pack, who had once said that he wanted the members of the Restored Church of God to be the most informed people around, doesn't want everyone to have access to all the Worldwide Church of God literature from the past. To help people to forget about Don Tiger's exhaustive HWA CD project, David Pack announced in a June 7, 2000 Update, to the surprise of some, "You are all aware that a CD of Mr. Armstrong's books, booklets, and reprint articles in circulation at the time of his death is already under way." But, he warned that, "While this is a very special project, it is also an extremely large one as well and will take a significant amount of time and effort to be able to do it properly." Only the wicked should hold their breath while waiting for this new CD to be produced.

   On the Restored Church of God's Web site, a June 5, 2000 statement appeared about Donald Tiger's HWA CDs, which David Pack was refusing to return to Donald Tiger. In it, David Pack said that another party, which he did not name, was claiming ownership of the CDs. He said that the new (unnamed) party had been "most gracious and accomodating by any standard," and had "produced substantial corroborating evidence that their claim is, indeed, valid." Of course, David Pack didn't give any details. More information about David Pack, from those who know about him and his tricks, has been posted on an Information page at http://home.neo.rr.com/lilshep/bill/information.html at Bill Sheppard's Web site.

   An unsigned June 10, 2000 Update on the Restored Church of God's Web site happily announced the arrest of Donald Tiger, and tried to make it sound like it was God's doing and not David Pack's. For the rest of the story, there is an article in the July 31, 2000 issue of The Journal newspaper with the heading Friend says Church of God member wrongly indicted.

   At the time of Tiger's troubles, Thomas L. Munson was the treasurer of the Restored Church of God. He did not like David Pack's behavior and treatment of people like Donald Tiger. Around September 2000, Thomas Munson wrote a letter to the members of the Restored Church of God to tell them what was really going on. A copy of Thomas Munson's letter is available here.

   The February 27, 2001 edition of The Cleveland Plain Dealer had an article about Donald H. Tiger called Man defends use of multiple names.

   The March 24, 2001 edition of a Medina, Ohio newspaper called The Gazette reported that Donald H. Tiger was sentenced to 6 months in jail for his use of aliases. The details are found in an article called Wadsworth accountant sentenced.

   Lessons one can learn from this whole sad story:

   1. Pay your traffic tickets promptly. Don't just ignore them.
   2. Don't use phony driver's licenses to open bank accounts. It looks bad.
   3. Don't give David Pack any information that could be used against you. It will be.

5. They thought he was a goner but the Tiger came back

   Occasionally, one hears about some unbalanced religious type who read what Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-46 about being hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, and in prison. Yet, the unbalanced type isn't interested in helping the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, or the sick, especially if they are believers. The unbalanced type also doesn't seem to understand that the good guys mentioned in the Bible ended up in prison for their right beliefs and good behavior, not for their wrong beliefs and depravity. So, rather than doing any good to any believer, the unbalanced type wants to go visit unbelieving, unrepentant serial killers and rapists in prison. But, will anybody remember or care about people like Don Tiger?

   Due to these circumstances, Donald H. Tiger's HWA CD project was put on hold for a while. During this time, Nyal Bartch stepped in and made it possible for people to download the contents of Don Tiger's HWA Literature CD off the Internet from a Web site called The Ultimate Church of God Links Page.

   After Donald Tiger got out of jail, he put his Web site, called the Herbert W. Armstrong Library and Archives, back up at http://www.HerbertWArmstrong.org.

6. Tiger's Web site disappears again--and returns yet again!

   Unfortunately, around April 2003, Donald Tiger's Web site, called the Herbert W. Armstrong Library and Archives, disappeared again. But, by July 2003 it was back up again at http://www.HerbertWArmstrong.org with the following explanation posted at his Web site:

   "This web site has been out of commission due to the actions of those who are opposed to the free distribution of the complete and unedited works of Herbert W. Armstrong. Please resubmit any requests for the CDs that were not received, as all previous email requests were lost. Please allow approximately four weeks for delivery."

   A more detailed explanation would be nice for those who have been trying to contact Donald and are still unable to reach him.

   In the event that his Web site at http://www.HerbertWArmstrong.org ever again becomes unavailable, Don Tiger put up duplicate Web sites at http://www.herbertwarmstrong.org and http://www.hwarmstrong.org.

7. HWA Library and Archives--the next generation

   Donald H. Tiger is currently working on what he calls the "next generation" of the Herbert W. Armstrong Library and Archives Web site, which sounds exciting:

   "Original, Unedited, Searchable, Downloadable, Quality PDF Images with Text, Audio and Video"

   The new Web site will be available at http://www.herbert-w-armstrong.org.