TYLER, Texas — Evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong, who founded two independent ministries and was once the voice of the religious television program “World Tomorrow,” died Monday of complications from pneumonia. He was 73.
Armstrong died in a Tyler hospital, said his son Mark.
Armstrong founded the Church of God International in 1978 after his father, Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Pasadena, Calif.-based Worldwide Church of God, excommunicated him after a dispute.
He founded the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association in Tyler in 1978, along with the Church of God International. He left the second body after allegations surfaced involving sexual abuse. Armstrong founded the Intercontinental Church of God in 1998.
Mark Armstrong called the Intercontinental Church of God the “true” religion, with beliefs rooted in the Bible and the Ten Commandments. He said the church sought to eliminate pagan practices that had found their way into modern Christianity.
“He unapologetically offended more religious people than just about anybody in the history of radio and television. But when he offended them enough, they would go to their Bibles to find the truth,” Armstrong said in an interview Monday night with The Associated Press.
Armstrong’s work on the weekly “World Tomorrow” began in the late 1950s. The show was seen by millions of Americans on television, while the radio show was broadcast in five languages worldwide on more than 300 stations.
After he left “World Tomorrow,” Armstrong continued work on a TV program bearing his name.
Armstrong is survived by his wife, three sons and five grandchildren.