Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 16, 2014

Joseph W. Tkach (1927–1995) was an American pastor who was the appointed successor of Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God. Tkach was ordained as a minister in the church in 1957, and became President and Pastor General of the church upon the death of Armstrong in 1986. Tkach spearheaded a major doctrinal transformation of the Worldwide Church of God, abandoning Armstrong's unconventional doctrines and bringing the church into accord with mainstream evangelical Christianity. Changes included encouraging members to seek proper medical treatment while retaining faith in God as a healer, permitting interracial marriage, and allowing work on the Sabbath. The changes that he implemented stirred much controversy among those who continued to follow Armstrong's theology. Dissenters labeled the changes as heresy and many left to form new church organizations. His son, Joseph Tkach Jr., continued his work and in 1997 the Worldwide Church of God became a member of the National Association of Evangelicals. Within the mainstream Christian community, some have hailed Tkach's reforms, which brought a church from the fringe to orthodoxy, as unprecedented.

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