The San Bernardino County Sun San Bernardino, California Sunday, August 20, 1972 - Page 15
For Bobby Fischer, Chess on the Sabbath Is Frivolous
Pasadena — Games, including chess, are considered frivolous pursuits, unworthy of the attention of the followers of the Worldwide Church of God on its Sabbath.
That helps to explain why the world chess championship at Reykjavik, Iceland, is interrupted from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.
Bobby Fischer, the American challenger, has been a member of the strict fundamentalist church for about six or seven years.
Officials of the 75,000-member church, with headquarters here, are as tight-lipped about Fischer's exact involvement in its teachings as is Fischer himself. He refuses to talk about religion.
“As a practice we don't check up on our members. That would be an invasion of privacy,” said a headquarters official. “Mr. Fischer's relationship to our church is a confidential thing.”
Insiders say, however, that Fischer is almost as serious about his religion as he is about chess.
Fischer's lawyer, Fred Cramer, said in Reykjavik that he did not know the date of Fischer's conversion. He recalled that during the championship chess tournament in Havana in 1966, Fischer had been a devout practitioner of the Worldwide Church of God faith.
Fischer last attended a Saturday afternoon service of about 1,200 people here in June, shortly before he left for Reykjavik.
The worldwide church is headed by Herbert W. Armstrong, a radio preacher-commentator, and his son, Garner Ted Armstrong.
The church, founded in Oregon 40 years ago, is a blend of Old Testament Judaism and fundamental New Testament adventism.
It imposes Hebrew dietary and Sabbath proscriptions and preaches the imminent return of Jesus Christ to set up a superorganized world government.
The worldwide church de-emphasizes the local church. Many of its 300 local congregations meet in rented halls.
“We feel the church is people, not a building — a congregation is a body of people,” explained Les Stocker, a spokesman for the Armstrongs and public relations director of the church.
Each minister is an elder or a bishop. “But we prefer to call them elders in accordance with what the New Testament says,” said Stocker with a chuckle.
Baptism must be by immersion, and converts are dipped in rivers, pools and sometimes in oversize tile bathtubs installed in the homes of Church of God ministers.
Worldwide Church of God members are expected to give the biblical tenth, or tithe of their income — as well as “second” and “third” tithes.
This demand doubtless pads plush appointments in the Pasadena in the Pasadena headquarters and church-related college complex and provides the Armstrongs with elegant clothes, jets and homes, an apparent accommodation to worldliness that has drawn criticism from some ex-members.
All contributions go to the Pasadena headquarters, according to Stocker, and all ministers' salaries are paid from there.
Some say Fischer tithes 20 per center of his income to the worldwide church. The “second tithe,” as it is called, is for personal religious use. Stocker explained that church members are expected to spend eight days each summer at regional church conventions, at their own expense.
Thousands go, but except for individual ministers who may keep track, officials say the church doesn't monitor members' activities or giving.
The third tithe, based on the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy (chapter 14, verse 28), is collected every three years for “widows, orphans and the destitute.”
The last two verses of the 58th chapter of the prophet Isaiah are the keystone of the worldwide church's Sabbath observance. The emphasis is on turning from one's own pleasures to things believed to “delight the Lord.”
“It's a day set aside for worship and reflection on creation,” said a church official. “It's a weekly memorial set up for people to think on God's ways. But that's not to say worship must be an ugly thing.”
Thus, Armstrong followers are neither to work on the Sabbath nor to indulge in worldly pleasure or sports.
“But we don't carry it to extremes,” said one church official. “We don't tear off and stack toilet paper the day before the Sabbath like one orthodox group does.”
While retaining the Passover and other Jewish feasts, adherents renounce Christmas, Easter and other religious holidays of allegedly pagan origin.
