Joined: 09 Dec 2002 Posts: 127 Location: Largo Florida
Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 2:15 pm Post subject: Rapists For Jesus!
How About It?
The Baptist Foundation of Arizona, a subsidiary of the Southern Baptist Convention used Southern Baptist pastors and former pastors as sales representatives to rob 13,000 mostly elderly Christians by promising high returns, the security of church backing, and the chance to help Baptist charities. It was nothing but a fraud and a big Ponzi Scheme.
In the old days the news media and the Evangelical leaders used to blame things on a specific individuals such as Dr. Lyons, Jim Bakker, and Dan Strader.
But with the arrest, sentencing and prosecution of so many people in the Baptist Foundation of Arizona and the Greater Ministries they are realizing it's a team effort by the religious leaders.
They have not wakened up to the fact yet that it's also the corrupt and perverted Fundamental Evangelical thinking, system and denomination that is responsible for producing wolves in sheep's clothing. It's very hard for them to swallow this idea but they are slowly coming around to see what is the truth - It's the system stupid!
It's The System Which Creates The Individuals And Supports Them - Religion Today and Christian News Today wrote about the same story on December 16, 1998 concerning Strawder, the founder and operator of Sovereign Ministries International. But the two approaches were completely different.
Religion Today dwelt solely on the sins and actions of Jonathan Strawder who was going to prison for promising people he'd better than double their money in a financial scam that mixed faith with greed.
Religion Today's title for the story was "A man who convinced 2,100 Christians to invest." While Christian News Today title was "What Evangelicals are Like In Florida. "Tampa Tribune title was "Ministries founder held in fraud case."
Christian News Today and the Tampa Tribune reported that Jonathan Strawder had family ties to Greater Ministries International, a similar Tampa-based program that is under federal investigation as a possible Ponzi scheme.
The Tribune stated that Strawder worked at Greater Ministries International, and there are many similarities between the two programs. Strawder's father and uncle are active members of Greater Ministries. Investigators suspect Greater Ministries also is a Ponzi scheme worth much more, and Strawder's plea agreement could be ominous. ``Clearly, it's a spinoff'' of Greater Ministries, Strawder's attorney Joel Hirschhorn said.
Christian News Today had also stated something which Religion today would not state that the mid week Newspapers of the Tampa Tribune and the St. Petersburg Times on December 15, 1998 both had stories about "born again" evangelicals who say the love the Lord but do terrible and wicked things. Just like the Straders of Carpenter's Home Church Lakeland, Florida who conducted a ponzi scheme and stole from poor defenseless elderly or Pastor Dempsey of Riverhills Church of God, Temple Terrace, Florida who had an adulterous relationship with another pastor's wife for five years
But Bruce Gourley the editor of THE BAPTIST OBSERVER NEWSPAPER in his COMMENTARY on MORAL ISSUES concerning Southern Baptists and Bill Clinton posted on the web about Baptist Doctrine and the system - the fundamentalist theology and attitude:
"On the other hand, just a few weeks, Ollin Collins, mega-church pastor and trustee chair of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and the direct product of fundamentalist theology and attitude, was revealed to be a long-running adulterer"
While Southern Baptists have built the largest theological training system in the world. Still, many of the convention's 100,000 pastors -- especially those of churches with fewer than 50 members -- do not have seminary degrees. More than half hold other jobs to fulfill a calling in the 16 million-member religious body, according to interviews and published reports.
Growing by nearly 100,000 new members and 1,500 new churches each year, the SBC holds the nation's largest annual church gatherings. It boasts a roster of flamboyant preachers -- from Billy Graham to Jerry Falwell -- and has been home to Southern politicians as divergent as Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich or Al Gore and Jesse Helms.
So it's no wonder the SBC pretty much sets the image for all Baptists in America.
"Whenever Southern Baptists are described in the news, all other Baptists are assumed by the population to be in the same camp," says the Rev. David Scholer, a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary who is an American Baptist, a smaller denomination based in Valley Forge, Pa
Yet all of this doesn't change the fact that the Southern Baptists system and theology produced thieves in the Baptist Foundation of Arizona who have stolen from and used the sheep for their own greed?
But -I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.. - Thomas Jefferson Letter To Francis Hopkinson, Paris Mar. 13, 1789
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. - Thomas Jefferson Letter to P. S. Dupont de Nemours, Poplar Forest, April 24, 1816
So Why Would Southern Baptists Evangelists Billy, Franklin and Ned Graham Hide their total Compensation?
Can religious Evangelical institutions and their leaders be trusted in America? As seen from the many court prosecutions in the last five years including Dr. Henry J. Lyons, former president of the National Baptist Convention, the Baptist Foundation of Arizona, a subsidiary of Southern Baptist Convention, and Greater Ministries International Church, the answer sadly is no!
The Baptist Foundation of Arizona, a subsidiary of the Southern Baptist Convention used Southern Baptist pastors and former pastors as sales representatives to rob 13,000 mostly elderly Christians by promising high returns, the security of church backing, and the chance to help Baptist charities. It was nothing but a fraud and a big Ponzi Scheme.
Until the late 1980s, the BFA had been managing church building funds and retirement funds for a few thousand Baptist layman. Profits came from land investments in the red-hot Arizona market. But when property values tanked, the BFA investments did, too. Instead of admitting losses and writing down loans, BFA officials in several cases allegedly cooked up transactions between BFA and shell companies that made it look as if the BFA was still profitable. "It was a big paper charade," charged Assistant State Attorney General Robert Zumoff, reported the Phoenix New Times
The Baptist Foundation of Arizona took in a total of $590 million, using a maze of shell corporations in a Ponzi scheme, before it was shut down in August 1999. Ponzi schemes depend on the solicitation of new investors to pay existing ones.
Three people related to the Baptist Foundation pleaded guilty to defrauding investors in May and have agreed to cooperate in an investigation of five others indicted on 32 counts each of theft, fraud and racketeering.
A Phoenix judge had accepted plea bargains from three of eight defendants charged with crimes in the 1999 collapse of the Baptist Foundation of Arizona, a subsidiary of the Southern Baptist Convention. They were accused of bilking 13,000 investors -- many elderly and most members of Southern Baptist churches -- of hundreds of millions of dollars in the largest fraud case involving a non-profit organization in U.S. history.
Foundation officials Edgar Kuhn, Donald Deardoff and Jalma Hunsinger had earlier pleaded guilty to reduced charges in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors in a case involving five others who claimed innocence reported the Associated Baptist Press.
Food for the Poor Inc., a nonprofit Deerfield Beach-based charity that helps feed people in Latin America and the Caribbean, has been pronounced financially sound by a private oversight council for religious charities and was awarded control over $25 million in food relief this month by the Department of Agriculture. But FBI agents are still investigating accusations of fraud within Food for the Poor, FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said.
To fend off accusations of wrongdoing, Food for the Poor administrators asked a private group that audits religious charities to review their financial records. The group, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability in Winchester, Va., sent a letter to Food for the Poor saying the charity was financially sound. "We asked them to come in and do a full review of the entire charity," said Food for the Poor spokeswoman Ann Briere. "They are fully satisfied."
But is the Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability very responsible and truly accountable to the public? For Southern Baptist Evangelist Billy Graham was embarrassed in 1977 when the Charlotte Observer discovered an undisclosed $23-million fund in Texas, apparently not mentioned in the accountings of the Minneapolis headquarters of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. As a result Graham's business manager led the formation of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability after Graham said on a national telecast, ". . . there are some charlatans coming along and the public ought to be informed about them and warned against them, " "stated K. Hadden and Charles E. Swann in their book Prime Time Preachers.
Graham helped start the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, a self-policing organization, …the St. Petersburg Times reported on Oct 11, 1998.
…In 1992 his ministry, Samaritan's Purse, had a run-in with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, the self-policing organization his father helped start. The ECFA suspended Samaritan's Purse while it looked into Franklin's (Graham) compensation and use of the company plane.
FRANKIN'S REAL COMPENSATION AND PERSONAL USE OF HIS COMPANY PLANE IS STILL A REAL PROBLEM TODAY AND NED GRAHAM'S PROBLEMS HAVE PROBLEMS!
It is a fact that the most efficient charities in the American Religion Category for the year 2000 Samaritan's Purse, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Focus on the Family, and Campus Crusade for Christ had many things in common besides being Southern Baptist led in that they do not reveal to the public or their donors the total salary of their Chairman of their non profit organization even though their tax exemptions come from the public.
Although it's the public right as well as each donor's right to know and ask questions about the total remuneration of Southern Baptist Billy Graham, including special privileges and expenses in his North Carolina home paid by BGEA, including support staff. Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Samaritan's Purse, and Campus Crusade For Christ have developed the art of stonewalling when it comes to special remuneration and expenses of it's chairmen.
Many prominent Baptist evangelists in America, such as Billy and Franklin Graham, belong to the Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability that purports to work on behalf of the donor but in reality exists for the spenders. Although ECFA has in its possessions the total salaries of all the religious evangelical non-profit organizations that belong to it, it will not disclose them. Christian News Today requested such information from ECFA but to no avail, although the hypocritical motto of ECFA is
"For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the LORD, but also in the eyes of men"
As CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, he collects an annual salary of $115,500, plus a $38,500 housing allowance. The organization and its affiliates brought in $139- million in contributions and revenue last year reported the St. Petersburg Times during the Billy Graham Crusade in Tampa in 1998.
It also reported Graham, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, has crusades planned next year in Indianapolis and St. Paul. He was so unsteady on his feet Tuesday he had to be shuttled in a car and a golf cart from the news conference in the club area of the stadium to the nearby football field, where he posed for photographs. His return to Tampa, one of only two crusades he agreed to this year, is a homecoming of sorts. ( In actual fact Billy earned at least $ 100,000 per crusade that year?)
Graham said that even though he is weak, he still believes he has work to do.
He joked that the task became abundantly clear one recent day when he was on an airplane with a drunk passenger. He said the passenger kept harassing the flight attendant until he realized Graham was sitting behind him. He said the passenger then turned around and offered his hand to Graham. "Put her there," the drunk passenger told Graham. "Your sermons sure have helped me."
"There is something that can be corrupting about power and notoriety," said Paul Nelson, president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, which reviews Graham's finances each year. "God bless them, they (Graham's organization) have been able to navigate that." (These remarks turned out to be false for Billy Graham's total compensation was a lot higher according to the financial statement of B.G.E.A. not including fringe benefits pension and health care expenditures and he spent fifty percent of his time in bed?)
Even though he was sick and dying, spent over fifty percent of his time in bed or the hospital, Dr. Billy Graham had been taking a one hundred percent salary and other benefits from the B.G.E.A. that he had founded: Even though the I.R.S. rules stated that no non-profit organization should exist for the benefit of one individual.
No other salaried employee in B.G.E.A. was allowed to take a one hundred percent salary plus his pension fund and other perks and spends so many days being sick, as Billy Graham has done and does. Where was the justice or integrity in all of this?
So how can American TV preachers preach to others if they are hiding their total salaries? They cannot! It only shows they have no integrity, especially Rodney Howard Browne who has his parents on the payroll and Benny Hinn who has his family on the payroll and Dr. Billy Graham who pretends to be something that he is not. For the Tampa Tribune reported that:
Although Billy Graham encourages religious leaders to be open about their salaries and publish their finances, Howard-Browne would not disclose what he earns. He says his salary is determined by his board of directors, which is comprised of four pastors, himself and his wife. The couple does not vote on his salary. ``People get hung up on the figure,'' he says. ``But they don't take everything into account. I don't get a housing or clothing allowance. We take our kids on the road and that's very expensive.''
Not good enough, says Paul Nelson, president of the Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability in Washington. Revival Ministries International is not among its 925 members. ``When you hold yourself out as a public trust, it's just good practice to be open about your finances,'' he says. ``If you're not forthright, you leave a question in the minds of your potential givers.''
For the past five years, the ministry has been audited by Katz & Kamm, a Baltimore accounting firm. But the tax-exempt church association is not required to open its books to the public. `While I applaud them for getting the audit, I would strongly suggest they go one step further and make their records public,'' Nelson says.
Speaking of making their records public, "open about your finances'' and "forthright," while Paul Nelson, President of Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability reveals upon demand even to strangers his total salary of $ 123,000 and IRS tax form 990 Billy, Ned and Franklin Graham do not. This makes the Grahams and ECFA hypocrites.
The Associated Baptist Press - www.abpnews.com on April 3, 2001 reported that:
"About half of Baptist organizations contacted by the independent newspaper Baptists Today would not disclose salary information for their top executive. Three Southern Baptist Convention entities said policies allowed them to release only salary ranges.
Presidents Albert Mohler of Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and Kenneth Hemphill of Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, declined to provide any information on compensation. New Orleans Seminary did not return numerous phone calls regarding the salary of President Charles Kelley. However, the IRS requires all colleges and universities to report the salaries of the top five paid staff members, Brumley explained."
But Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said recently on CNN's Larry King Show: I believe the Roman Church is a false church and teaches a false gospel. ... Indeed, I believe the pope himself holds a false and unbiblical office."
The International Mission Board has defended the publishing of prayer guides for use in Southern Baptist churches that critics said were insensitive to Jews, Hindus and Muslims.
A leader of a Southern Baptist fellowship of "Messianic" believers recently announced the group was severing ties with the convention because of a public perception that Southern Baptists are intolerant of other faiths.
So Southern Baptists such as Albert Mohler are not only intolerant of other faiths but are thieves who hid their total compensation?
Christian News Today had requested that Campus Crusade for Christ validate or deny the following story and disclose the total salary of its Founder Bill Bright. When contacted a staff worker of CCC said it would not be a problem and that CCC would not only give us Bill Bright salary but also his personal income tax. Later the same staff worker when asked about the CNT request and CCC offer told CNT in writing " I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU AGAIN EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"For CNT had reported In other news, Bill Bright, 79, Southern Baptist Evangelist and Conservative Fundamental Evangelical learned last week that he has fibrosis of the lung, a disease that builds up scar tissue. There is no known cure, and life expectancy is three to five years, his ministry said. Bright also has been treated for prostate cancer for the last four years, just like another Southern Baptist Evangelist and Fundamental Evangelical Billy Graham.
Bill Bright and his wife made up of two of the four directors of the board that runs this family ministry and just like a typical family run evangelical ministries their total salaries and those of their best friends are one of America's best kept secrets. None of the prominent evangelical leaders in America, such as Billy Graham, Bill Bright, Jerry Falwell, Charles Stanley, and Pat Robertson to name but a few, reveal their total compensation to their donors.
Many prominent Baptist evangelists in America, such as Billy and Franklin Graham, belong to the Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability that purports to work on behalf of the donor but in reality exists for the spenders. For although ECFA has in its possessions the total salaries of all the religious evangelical non-profit organizations that belong to it, it will not disclose them?"
Why is it that the Religious Evangelical leaders in America such as Bill Bright and Billy Graham who profess Christ and the love of Truth will not disclose their total salaries nor release their personal income tax to their donors? Is it possible that they are really crooks who use the separation of Church and State to fleece the sheep as South African Evangelist Dr. Rodney Howard-Browne had said, it was their responsibility to fleece the sheep?
Evangelist Howard Browne winter camp meeting in the USF Sun Dome in Tampa Florida attended by two CNT reporters, South African Pentecostal Evangelist Dr. Rodney Howard Browne taught pastors that "sheep needed to be fleeced or they would have too much hair and could not see where they are going. It was the pastors job to fleece the sheep."
Dr. Rodney Howard- Browne had been credited with bringing the laughter revival to America. But from what really happened in Carpenter's Home Church in 1993 and 1994 and its devastating effect on the community including the robbing, raping and murdering of the sheep, was not much of a revival. The leadership of the Assembly of God denomination both in Lakeland and Missouri also would not accept the testimony of one of its members Roy Aldrich that he was robbed and raped by money changers and wolves in sheep's clothing in Carpenter's Home Church during the so called "revival". But the State of Florida who cared about justice, righteousness and truth accepted the words and testimony of Roy Aldrich about the Straders.
The Florida State prosecutors proved their case and convinced the jurors that Dan Strader, the son of the senior pastor Karl Strader, devised an elaborate scheme to attract cash in the real-estate and mortgage investments. He was selling the securities without a license and that the securities were unregistered. This was done in an organized method amounting to Racketeer-Influence and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO Act.
Daniel, 37, was sentenced to 45 years in prison in August 1995. He was convicted of 238 felony counts for bilking 57 mostly elderly investors, some members of the church, out of $2.3 million by selling investments in properties that didn't exist or already had liens against them. Others who were involved along with Dan Strader were not pursed by the State of Florida as they felt that the conviction of Daniel Strader was a good example for others to take notice.
Dr Rodney Howard Browne used his influence and powers to raise money at Carpenter's Home Church to buy the senior pastor Karl Strader his much needed second Lincoln Town Car. But when Rodney was requested to use his influence and power to raise money for the unfortunate elderly victims of Dan's Strader, he refused.
It is to be noted that Howard-Browne's standard biography claims he once served as an associate pastor at Rhema. But according to Rhema church officials contacted, Howard-Browne was never an associate pastor-nor did he ever hold any pastoral credentials or responsibilities. Said Kelmeyer: "Rodney was never an associate pastor here. He was an ordained minister by the state and a lecturer at our Bible school, but was not involved in any form of pastoral work."
Howard-Browne also claimed a "doctorate of ministry degree" from an obscure San Jacinto, California correspondence institution called "The School of Bible Theology." A state Department of Education employee contacted likened the tiny school, which bills itself as "The Seminary to the World" and has no faculty, to a "diploma mill."
Why are Evangelical leaders in America hiding their total personal salaries? Are they ashamed that they earn so much or not enough? Or are they Crooks and Liars? Mind you the latter is more plausible for Evangelical Leaders in America, be they Billy or Franklin, Graham, Bill Bright, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell or others, have no integrity whatsoever; especially when it comes to their own personal salaries and those of their special friends.
David Taggart, a twenty-nine-year-old "personal aide" to Jim Bakker and his lover, received $360,000 in 1986 for special services. While in 1986 the Bakkers were paid $1.9 million. It is a fact the PTL Club was full of personal misconduct, mismanagement, and pillaging of the PTL treasury.
So are the others any different? For the total salaries of the Billy Graham and his sons and family are one of American's best-kept secrets and even their personal lives that are no different than that of Jim Bakker!
Self Righteous Baptists leaders, such as Billy Graham and Bill Bright were shocked and dismayed, at the revelations about the life style and morality of these Pentecostal "televangelist in America. On Larry King live in the fall of 1998 Southern Baptist Evangelist Billy Graham was insulted when he was compared with TV Evangelists such as Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker and their sex scandals. Billy Graham said that he did not do those things which Jim Bakker or Jim Swaggart did - a statement that turned out to be a lie!
But Billy Graham's own son Ned Graham turned out to be no different than Jim Bakker. Even though a President of an Evangelical Ministry must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, and not greedy for money, Ned Graham the son of Billy Graham, Southern Baptist minister, president East Gates International, a group that distributes Bibles in China told Christianity Today in an interview that he had abused alcohol and spent an "inappropriate amount of time" with two women on his staff.
Grace Community Church, Southern Baptist Convention, in Auburn, Washington-which counted Ned Graham, his wife, and their two sons as members established in 1999 the fact that Ned Graham was an adulterer, alcoholic, wife abuser, and drug user and revoked Graham's ministerial credentials. It directed Graham to stop using the title reverend.
Yet in a style reminiscent of Jimmy Swaggart, who refused to be defrocked by the Assembly of God denomination, Ned Graham left that congregation for another church.
Most of the staff and board members of East Gates International resigned amid controversies. East Gates, in Sumner, Wash., withdrew its membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability after Ned replaced the board members with his sister Ruth Graham McIntyre, brother-in-law Stephan Tchividjian, and business leader Peter Lowe.
It's evident that they are nothing but thieves, liars and wolves in sheep's clothing and the word of Jesus are unchanging:
"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. "You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?
"Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. "Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
"Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!' Matthew 7:15-23
As I'm sure many of you will realize once it's pointed out to you, virtually EVERY convention of churches eventually becomes corrupt. For example, the Mormon church, the Catholic church, the SBC for among other things, just what you said, the OBC for allowing women pastors.
Joined: 09 Dec 2002 Posts: 127 Location: Largo Florida
Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2003 7:23 pm Post subject:
What has God to do with Southern Baptists? Nothing!
It is a fact that the members of the Southern Baptist denomination whose roots was founded in racism prior to the Civil War when they split from the Northern Baptists because of the slave issues, were singing in the choir on Sunday and were burning crosses on Monday as active members of the Klu Klux Klan. Only recently have the Southern Baptists admitted to their racists sins and bigotry.
It is a fact that the average Southern Baptist is an uneducated white married low income female of 48 years of age and many Baptist churches grow by division. It's a fact that only 5 million of the 17 million baptist attend church on any sunday morning and they throw out people out of their churches who don't believe exactly like they do!
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (BP)--Self-perpetuating trustees of The Baptist Home, a collection of three retirement facilities with a $30 million endowment and $10 million in assets, say they will bring criminal trespassing charges and civil legal action against the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) and 7 trustees elected by the convention at its annual meeting if they try to assert their trusteeship.
MBC leaders and the trustees-elect decried the warning, some calling it "un-Christlike" while the MBC president vowed to attend the trustee meetings anyway. It also raised the specter of costly -- and perhaps lengthy -- litigation as conservatives, now in control of the state convention, spar with moderate and liberal Baptist trustees over ownership of five Missouri Baptist entities, including The Baptist Home.
"Please be advised that the purported trustees elected by MBC are not legally entitled to be present at any TBH Board of Trustees' meeting," states the Nov. 21 letter written by the St. Louis law firm of Guilfoil, Petzall, & Shoemake.
"Any attempt by such purported trustees to attend a duly called and scheduled trustees meeting shall constitute, in our opinion, civil and criminal trespass as we, on behalf of TBH and its Board of Trustees, are specifically instructing such individuals not to appear at said meeting. Such actions would be unlawful and ill advised, and any attempt by any person to assert trusteeship or otherwise interfere with the affairs or business of TBH or its duly elected trustees will be dealt with swiftly and severely.
"We have drafted legal documents and stand prepared to vigorously and expeditiously pursue legal action against any individuals personally who attempt to interfere with TBH and any entity responsible for appointing those individuals," the letter states.
The trustees are scheduled to meet Dec. 4 at the downtown Drury Inn in St. Louis. MBC President Bob Curtis, pastor of First Baptist Church of Ballwin, will attend under the threat of arrest.
"We're seeking to resolve this in a Christ-like manner," Curtis said.
"Any Missouri Baptist has a right to attend any trustee meeting of any entity whether they are an elected trustee or simply a concerned Southern Baptist," Curtis said. "To deny by implication -- or edict -- to any Missouri Baptist church member the right to attend is censorship. It is not being open, not being Christ-like, and not following the tradition of all Missouri Baptist agencies. It seems arrogant."
It is not known whether all seven -- or some -- of the trustees elected overwhelmingly by messengers at the MBC meeting in October will attend the Dec. 4 TBH trustee meeting.
"It's disappointing they think it would be a criminal act to do what the state convention has elected us to do," said Paul Pope, pastor of Sonrise Baptist Church in Bonne Terre. "The convention still believes The Baptist Home belongs to the MBC."
"It's sad to say, but we will probably end up in court if they are not willing to recognize the trustees elected by the convention," he said.
Roger Moran, a member of the SBC Executive Committee and research director for the Missouri Baptist Laymen's Association that has spearheaded the election of conservative MBC presidents at each of the last four state convention meetings, was more blunt:
"When the convention's democratic process no longer produced the results desired by the Mainstream/CBF moderates that dominated the boards and agencies of the MBC, they simply voted to 'steal' the institutions.
"To hide the politically motivated 'theft' of the convention's agencies, the trustees hired lawyers and declared that their 'fiduciary responsibility' suddenly required the actions they took. We have watched in dismay as hard-line moderates have used their evaporating majority-status on the boards and agencies of the MBC to systematically dismantle this convention."
Bickering, Bashing, & Branding all in the Name of The Anti-Christ
by Dr. Thomas Cassidy, Pastor First Baptist Church
8758 Troy Street, Spring Valley, CA 91977 (619)462-9019
http://www.baptistpillar.com/bd0549.htm
I'm a Baptist. Not just a run-of-the-mill Baptist, but an Independent, Militant, Fundamental, Unaffiliated, Separated, Soulwinning, King James, Hell Fire and Brimstone Preaching, Local Church, Landmark, Faithful Bride believer! By taking a strong stand on any, or all, of the above positions, I find myself called on to defend my doctrinal position on a regular basis. My many articles published in various periodicals have created so much hate mail that the editors have requested your letters be sent directly to me, and not to them. I have received dozens of letters, some positive, many negative. In many of the letters, and in Baptist circles in general, I have noticed a tendency that bothers me greatly. In the letters I receive, both for and against my position, and in many of the articles I read in the varied publications I subscribe to, there is a disturbing tendency on the part of many writers to engage in name calling and mean spirited bickering, bashing, and branding. I find this attitude very distressing. In a letter I received recently I was called "stupid," "ignorant," "small-minded," "feeble-minded," "cracked," "radical," a "fogy," "cowardly," a "heretic," "non-fundamental," "less fundamental," and many other names too numerous (and some too vulgar) to mention. To the best of my knowledge, I am none of these things. The men calling me by these names do not know me, have never met me, but presume to judge me on the basis of one or two articles which I have written concerning sincerely held beliefs and practices.
Generally speaking, name calling is carnal. One of my seminary professors used to say "If a man is incapable of arguing the issue, he argues the semantics, and if he is incapable of arguing the semantics, he attacks the personality." I fear this is very true today in our Baptist circles. We are commanded to be "speaking the truth in love," in Ephesians 4:15. In 1 Timothy 5:17 we are told to "labour in the word and doctrine," not in personalities, attacks, and name-calling. 2 Timothy 2:4 tells us to "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove; rebuke; exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine." The focus of our writing ought to be doctrine. If you don't know any doctrine, learn some. If you can't support your position without name-calling, study some more, learn more doctrine, and learn to defend the issue, not attack the man.
The news media is very busy these days defaming all Christians, linking us to right-wing radicals and terrorists. We do nothing to counter that false perception when we talk and write like right- wing radicals and engage in verbal terrorism. An honest, well thought out defense of our doctrine will do much more to further the cause of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the true New Testament Church, and the Biblical doctrines for which it has stood for the past two thousand years, then all the bickering, bashing, and branding that is currently going on today. Calling a man names such as "coward," "stupid," "cracked," and "feeble-minded," is not only unloving, but is an ambush not intended to deal with doctrinal issues, but intended to slander the person with whom we disagree. Disagreeing is one thing, slander is another. I believe we ought to defend our faith. We ought to tell others what we believe. We ought to expose false teaching. We ought to write letters to authors with whom we disagree (and to those with whom we agree, as an encouragement to continue). We ought to write letters to the editors of the various publications we read. But we must, first of all, remember who we represent, and who we belong to. My Bible teaches me, in Ephesians 6:20, that I am an Ambassador for Christ. When I speak, my words reflect on the Lord Jesus Christ. When I write a letter, my words reflect on the Lord Jesus Christ. When my words reveal a mean and caustic spirit, those mean and caustic words damage the reputation of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we, as Christians, fail to demonstrate a Christ-like spirit, how will the world ever see Jesus in us? If we, as Christians, engage in childish name calling, how can we ever expect to be treated as mature, knowledgeable, men of God? I am, by nature, a very aggressive man. I served in the military during the Vietnam war. I was a pilot. My aggressiveness may have helped me to stay alive. But when I came to Christ as my Saviour, I humbled myself before Him. He then instructed me to humble myself before men (1 Peter 5:5). Humility is a slippery thing. Just when we think we are humble, we find out we really are not. After much prayer and sacrifice, we finely get a handle on humility. Pretty soon, we get so humble, we become proud of our humility! Name calling is proud. Name calling is arrogant. We sometimes forget, even Christians we disagree with are still our brothers in Christ. We must learn to disagree without being disagreeable. When we call those who differ with us "cowards," "stupid," "feeble-minded," we are attacking the man, not the doctrine. Christ died for that man. Attack the false doctrine, not the man who believes it. Before I learned better, I believed some of the false doctrines these men believe. If a fine, loving, Christ-like man had not sat down with me and showed me where my doctrine was in error, I would still believe most of those false doctrines. If that man had called me names I would not have been willing to listen to him. Name calling drives people away. If we want people to listen to us, we must be meek, humble, and use Godly reason (Isaiah 1:18) to persuade those who have an incorrect understanding of the things of the Lord. Galatians 6:1, tells us, "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." Ephesians 4:15 tells us that our position is important, "But speaking the truth in love," but it also tells us our disposition is important "...speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, [even] Christ:" Think about it.
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