This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Armstrong's chosen successor, Joseph W. Tkach Sr, began revising doctrine almost immediately, permitting members medical care, cosmetics and birthday celebrations in 1988 that Armstrong had forbidden. The changes accelerated: in 1991 the church revised its teaching on being born again and accepted the Holy Spirit's full divinity, and in 1993 it formally accepted the Trinity. The most consequential change came on 17 December 1994, when Tkach preached a sermon titled "Understanding the Covenants," declaring that the Old Covenant's laws, including the seventh day Sabbath and the annual festivals, were not binding on Christians living under the New Covenant. Through 1995 the church went further still, formally rejecting British Israelism as well. By the church's own account, the reforms cost it heavily: hundreds of ministers and roughly 12,000 members left in 1995 alone, most joining or forming splinter groups that preserved one or another of Armstrong's original teachings, a fragmentation into more than a hundred distinct bodies documented at length in David Barrett's scholarly history of the schism.
Tkach Sr died on 23 September 1995 and was succeeded by his son, Joseph Tkach Jr, who completed the turn toward evangelical orthodoxy. The church joined the National Association of Evangelicals in 1997, and in April 2009 it renamed itself Grace Communion International, the name it carries today as a member denomination of mainstream American evangelicalism.
Sources The Fragmentation of a Sect: Schism in the Worldwide Church of God (David V. Barrett)David V. Barrett with A Short History of Grace Communion International (Grace Communion International)Grace Communion International, Transformed by Truth (Joseph Tkach)Joseph Tkach