What is the current name and status of the former Worldwide Church of God?

1. How a controversial sect became an evangelical denomination — the headline transformation

The Worldwide Church of God underwent a deliberate, institution‑level conversion from the heterodox teachings of founder Herbert W. Armstrong to historic evangelical Christianity, a process led by Joseph Tkach Sr. and Joseph Tkach Jr.; those reforms included abandoning doctrines such as British Israelism, specific sabbath and dietary laws, and non‑Trinitarian theology. The institutional shift was recognized externally when the body was admitted to the National Association of Evangelicals in 1997 and later rebranded as Grace Communion International in 2009, with the UK branch legalizing that name in 2022, signaling formal organizational departure from Armstrong’s legacy ^{[2] [1] [4]}.

2. What the name change means in practice — doctrine, governance, and evangelical alignment

The name change to Grace Communion International reflects substantive doctrinal revisions, not merely cosmetic rebranding: official statements and denominational materials emphasize Trinitarian theology, grace‑centered soteriology, and participation in mainstream evangelical networks. GCI presents itself as an episcopal‑style international denomination engaging in ecumenical relationships and ordaining women in some contexts, positioning the group firmly within the evangelical ecosystem rather than as an isolated sect ^{[5] [6] [7]}.

3. Size, scope, and geographic footprint — numbers that vary but point to an international presence

Estimates of membership and congregational counts vary across sources and years: available figures range from roughly 30,000 members in 70 countries to claims near 50,000–64,000 members and some hundreds of congregations across 70–100 nations. Those discrepancies reflect different counting methods (active members vs. broader adherents), organizational reporting updates, and regional legal name adoptions; nevertheless the consistent picture is of a small‑to‑mid‑sized international evangelical denomination rather than the large, centralized movement it represented under Armstrong ^{[5] [7] [1]}.

4. The fracture: splinter groups that kept Armstrongism alive

The transformation drove significant defections and the formation of multiple successor groups that preserve Armstrong’s original doctrines; notable examples include the United Church of God and various smaller associations. These splinter bodies explicitly rejected the Tkach reforms and continued the pre‑reform theology and practices, explaining why observers sometimes conflate the history of the original Worldwide Church of God with the ongoing activities of those breakaway groups. The result is a plural landscape where the original institution is now evangelical GCI while several Armstrongist denominations continue separately ^{[3] [2]}.

5. How historians and observers frame the change — reconciliation, controversy, and recognition

Scholars and religious journalists characterize the shift as one of the more dramatic institutional transformations in American religious history: from what many labeled a cult‑like movement under Armstrong to a church that publicly repudiated its founder’s core teachings and sought external validation through bodies like the National Association of Evangelicals. Commentators note both internal controversy and external acknowledgement — internal because of member loss and legal/financial disputes during the transition, external because mainstream evangelical organizations accepted the reformed body as doctrinally orthodox ^{[2] [8] [6]}.

Sources referenced in this analysis report the organization’s current name and status, the timeline of doctrinal change and name adoption, the uneven membership figures, and the existence of splinter groups that continue Armstrong’s legacy ^{[5] [2] [9] [6] [7] [1] [8] [3] [4]}.