In the past, Gospel for Asia has spent donor money on “reputation management” — using fake accounts to flood social media with positive information about GFA. It appears they are at it again. On twitter, the image below is the result of a search for GFA.
The glam photos, odd name combos and exact same message give away the spam. I am not sure of the value of these tweets since the accounts are quite small. In any case, someone is reporting lots of social media traffic which is ultimately fake.
The following accounts also appear to be fake.
The format is all the same (there are dozens of these) and they all hope to see me around. I doubt it. They link to blogs which are either fake addresses or to blogs which have no entries.
We know GFA has contracted with Reputation Management Consultants in the past to shore up GFA’s image. Instead of a grassroots uprising of donors defending GFA, it appears that more donor money is going to Christian astroturf.
Month: March 2016
More Indian NGOs Get Gospel for Asia Donations and Other GFA Developments
There have been a few new developments in the Gospel for Asia story:
2014 Audit
According to good sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they may face retribution, the 2014 GFA audit is complete. However, GFA is not releasing it to anyone at this time on the advice of counsel. This seems like a flimsy reason. GFA representatives regularly claim they want to regain membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability and a clean audit available for review is one condition.
Gospel for Asia Out at National Religious Broadcasters
The Christian Post followed my story on GFA’s absence from membership in the NRB with a story citing a private letter to GFA ending membership near the end of 2015. Due to the fact that GFA lost membership in ECFA due to violations of standards, GFA also violated NRB’s membership requirement of financial integrity.
We also learned in that article that Johnnie Moore, editorial advisor to the Christian Post, also represents GFA in public relations concerning financial integrity issues. Seems like CP should have interviewed someone else for some balance. Thanks to CP and GFA’s editorial advisor, GFA got a nice free advertisement with no perspective from former employees.
More NGOs get GFA Donor Money
The website India Happenings has a nice run down of new financial information gleaned from the Indian Home Ministry about GFA. This analysis finds about $8-million given to unheard of NGOs in India from the shell LLCs here in the United States. Eventually all the money comes from GFA and ends up with Believers’ Church or GFA-India. This is a long way from accounting for the estimated $128-million unaccounted for over the past 8 years.
According to a source with knowledge of the arrangements, GFA first asked a trusted staff person to donate money to a LLC in order to get the entities started. GFA then gave money to a staffer in order to get the first donation on the books (e.g., Javier Mendoza for “Growth in Fraternity Trust” — see the India Happenings article). Then GFA used the LLCs as a channel to get cash to India. Staff were told that difficulty getting money to India necessitated these false front entities for the purpose of sending money to India and without the appearance that GFA sent it. Reportedly, GFA does not want the Indian government to know how much cash GFA is sending to India.
Money Might Be Flowing
I have gotten many communications from people in India since the lawsuit was filed. I am slowly following up on them (if you haven’t heard from me, be patient, I will do so). Many of them are reporting lots of cash flowing through Believers’ Church and GFA related organizations. Land and for profit schools are being purchased. It appears that GFA is trying get rid of lots of donor cash.
Deja Vu All Over Again: Anti-Goldwater Ads Which Could Be #NeverTrump Ads
This ad for Lyndon Johnson is uncanny and is making the rounds on social media. I also have included here two other ads that are also deja vu all over again material.
Goldwater lost in a landslide. I hope the GOP doesn’t repeat the past this year. As a lifelong Republican who was a child when Goldwater lost, I don’t recognize the party of my lifetime. My more liberal friends will tell me that I have been in a fog, but I say Ronald Reagan wouldn’t be in the majority among today’s GOP rank and file.
This man scares me. I think my party made a mistake.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiG0AE8zdTU[/youtube]
Which Goldwater (Trump) are you for?
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyP_hWvqchU[/youtube]
KKK members endorsed Goldwater. This is also an eerie similarity to Trump today.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hcpedQmOyo[/youtube]
Polls: Kasich v. Clinton is Best Shot for GOP in November Election
En masse, Republican primary voters may not be acting in the best interest of the party’s chances in the November election. Real Clear Politics tracks all kinds of polls, including how each GOP candidate does against the likely Dem nominee Hillary Clinton. John Kasich consistently polls higher than the other three candidates despite being fourth place in the current delegate count. Even though he has amassed the most votes, Donald Trump consistently loses to Clinton in a head to head match up.
So when Donald Trump says Clinton doesn’t want to face him, I think he is overconfident. In current polling among Republicans, Trump leads, followed by Cruz, Rubio and Kasich. However, the same polls show Trump losing to Clinton with Kasich showing the largest winning margin over Clinton followed by Rubio, and Cruz.
If you check the polls back into 2015, all GOP candidates consistently lost to Clinton in most polls conducted in 2015. However, Kasich, Rubio, and Cruz have risen to a winning position in 2016. In other words, they have closed the gap, with Kasich showing a larger margin of victory on average than Rubio and Cruz. Trump on the other hand has only won 5 out of 47 polls against Clinton and has consistently trailed her up to and including the most recent polling. For the full analysis, see the Real Clear Politics pages for each candidate:
Kasich v. Clinton
Rubio v. Clinton
Cruz v. Clinton
Trump v. Clinton
How Are Mark Driscoll and Donald Trump Alike?
Anyone who has ever taken or given a Wechsler Intelligence Scale will recognize my title as having the form of the Similarities portion of the test. Those taking the test are given two different terms or things and asked how they are alike. Since the exact questions are a carefully guarded professional secret, if I tell you more I will have to see about broadening the laws on torture or something.
Writing in the New York Times op-ed section yesterday, Christianity Today‘s managing editor Katelyn Beaty wondered how Donald Trump and dictatorial church pastors are alike. She used our pal Mark Driscoll as exhibit A. Although I get what she is going for and as much as I don’t understand how Driscoll manages his brand, I think Mr. Trump is the scarier proposition.
Beaty tells us that there is a strong correlation between being a church pastor and narcissistic personality disorder. She might be right. At the 2015 American Association of Christian Counselors conference, R. Glenn Ball and Darrell Puls reported that “Narcissistic Personality Disorder in active clergy in the PCC is between 500% to 3000% higher than is found in the general population.” PCC stands for Presbyterian Church in Canada and those are big numbers.
Yesterday, I taught the familiar social psychology experiment conducted by Stanley Milgrim (more recently replicated by Jerry Burger) in which two-thirds of subjects thought they were shocking a person in the next room at dangerous levels because a researcher in a lab coat said it was necessary. We are a lot like sheep with many clergy and politicians willing to be our shepherds. When the shepherds are narcissists, the sheep are more like pawns.
Human nature being what it is, we must take care. I want to commit appropriate conformity for the good of others but I must keep my wits about me, whether in church or at the ballot box. Blind conformity or failure to question those we like and agree with can lead us astray.
How about some open forum on this article?
2019 update: Was I right or what?