Month: May 2016

Gospel for Asia Fails K.P. Yohannan's Own Stewardship Test

Yesterday, I noted how K.P. Yohannan criticized missionary hospitals and schools in his first book but now funds them in India with millions of donor dollars.
Today, at the suggestion of a reader, I take a look at similar criticism in his third book, originally titled Why the World Waits.
On pages 245-246 Yohannan’s 2004 edition re-titled Come, Let’s Reach the World, Yohannan poses some questions prospective donors should ask about mission organizations. While I don’t know the answers to all of them as applied to GFA, the answers I do know suggest Yohannan’s GFA fails his own test.
From the book:

Ask questions relating to financial and administrative standards.
1. Is an annual audit done by a certified accountant?

Until I reported on errors in the 2013 audit, GFA published an audit available by request. According to GFA sources, the most recent audit for 2014 has been completed but GFA won’t release it.

2. Is the audit made available to the organization’s constituency?

Not currently. For many years, GFA refused to post their audit citing security concerns. However, until recently, one could request a copy by mail. Now, GFA will not release an audit of the U.S. affiliate. To my knowledge, there is no public audit of the Indian organizations (i.e., GFA-India, Believers Church).

3. Is the ratio of spending for field ministry considerably greater than for administration? (It should be at least 80 percent for actual ministry.)

The actual ratio is a matter of debate. For many years, GFA claimed to send 100% of donated funds to the field but an analysis by Jason Watkins casts doubt on that claim. There is ample reason to suspect that many donations have gone to pay for hospital construction as well as other projects not designated by donors.

4. Are all documents, assets and the like in the name of the organization (not an individual leader)?

No, Believers’ Church* policy requires that property and assets be listed under the name of K.P. Yohannan as Metropolitian bishop along with the church.

5. What are the major items of expense? (If funds go primarily for properties, hospitals and schools rather than for actual field evangelism, be extremely cautious to check them out.)

As I have documented, GFA has amassed an empire of for profit schools and hospitals. They own a rubber plantation, a finance company, rental properties, and sponsor a professional soccer team. An Indian tax court found that GFA did not spend “substantial” funds as donors intended. According to Watkins financial review, only a tiny portion of the donations went to evangelistic activities.

6. Is the missionary or group receiving any financial assistance from other sources?

GFA receives funds primarily from donors in the U.S., Canada and the UK.

7. Is there a written agreement to declare all sources of income for any given project?

In the past, GFA promised to spend funds in accord with donor intent. After losing membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, GFA changed their promise to make it more explicit that the organization may use donated funds for purposes other than donors intend.

8. Is the group registered with the government as a charitable or nonprofit organization?

Yes.

9. Are finances and financial records handled only by the leader and his relatives? (If this is the case, then you have good enough reason not to support him.)

According the Believers’ Church constitution, funds cannot be spent without the oversight of the Metropolitan Bishiop (Yohannan). He has relatives on his boards (his wife, son, daughter, son-in-law and niece are on various boards with oversight over the funds).

10. Are the accounts jointly operated (that is, at least two people responsible for handling the funds)?

As noted above, Yohannan has the final say on how money is spent. There is a committee which exercises oversight but Yohannan has veto power over all actions of the Believers’ Church. His name is on the deed to all properties.

11. Are written and signed receipts kept for records of how money was spent for any given project or missionary?

When GFA illegally sent U.S. currency to India in student backpacks, students and staff were promised receipts. However, for the most part, these were not given to students and one staff member had to implore Yohannan and the U.S. leadership for receipts.

12. Who makes decisions that govern the activities of the mission?

Clearly, by Believers’ Church constitution, the decisions are made by K.P. Yohannan. According to former staffers, the same is true in the U.S., the board has very little role. One former board member Gayle Erwin left the board because he became convinced that Yohannan was withholding information from the board. Furthermore, Yohannan re-wrote a report Erwin penned because Yohannan perceived that the report portrayed GFA in a negative light.
More recently, Yohannan removed two board members from the board of GFA Canada after those board members began asking questions about GFA’s financial dealings.  The removal was contrary to the organization’s by-laws.
By his own standards, Yohannan’s current GFA fails badly and isn’t a good candidate for donations.
According to veteran missionary Billy Bray, the book should have listed him as first author since he wrote much of it. Read more about the authorship of Yohannan’s first three books here.
 
*Believers’ Church is the central organization in India. GFA in the U.S. sends donated funds to Believers’ Church to use them in India via GFA-India and other government registered charity entities.

Eric Metaxas and the Strange Hitlery Tweet

This so wrong on so many levels:


So many good replies:


Eine dummkopf.
Now Metaxas is up there with those folks who call Trump “Drumpf.”
Then I thought of Mark Noll’s sentence: “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”*
*Perhaps Metaxas was attempting a joke. In any case, it was a lame attempt. Given his support for David Barton, it is hard to tell when one can take him seriously.
Update: Now Metaxas says he was joking. Alan Noble (Christ and Pop Culture) provides the appropriate commentary.

K.P. Yohannan Criticizes Social Programs in His First Book But Spends Millions on Them in India

Will the real K.P. Yohannan please stand up?
In his first book Revolution in World Missions, K.P. Yohannan (through ghostwriter Bill Bray) criticized social programs such as hospitals and schools. However, Yohannan has directed massive amounts of donor money to build and purchase hospitals and schools in India. In the book RWM, Yohannan claims:

One issue involved one of the most far-reaching policy decisions I ever would make. For some years I had suffered deep pain over what appeared to be massive imbalance between our busyness with maintaining Christian institutions, like hospitals and schools, and the proclamation of the Gospel. Both in India and in my travels around Western countries, I constantly uncovered a preoccupation with so-called “ministry” activities operated by Christian workers, financed by church monies, but with little else to distinguish them as Christian.
Far too much of the resources of North American missions is spent on things not related to the primary goal of church planting.(p. 104-105, 2015 edition)

In contrast, Yohannan controls a massive empire of for profit businesses on behalf of himself and the church he runs, Believers’ Church. Twelve schools are listed on The Believers’ Church website, including a medical college and an engineering school. The flagship healthcare institution is his Believers’ Church Medical College and Hospital in the state of Kerala. In recent years, much donor money appears to have gone into the building or purchase of these institutions without the knowledge of American donors.
K.P. Yohannan – Patron
On the Believers’ Church Medical College and Hospital and the Caarmel Engineering School websites, K.P. Yohannan is described as the patron of these institutions.
The engineering school website proclaims Yohannan’s leadership:

Believers Church Caarmel Engineering College, established in 2002, is a leading self-financing private co-educational institution under the Caarmel Educational Trust owned and managed by the Believers Church headquartered at Thiruvalla, Kerala. Dr. K. P. Yohannan, Metropolitan, Believers Church, is the Chairman and Patron of the College. Fr. C. B. Williams is the Manager and Dr. Paul A. J is the Principal of the College.

In contrast to Yohannan’s claim that he doesn’t sit on the boards of any of the trusts in India, he is described as the Chairman and Patron on the school website. The school appears to be quite elaborate with excellent facilities. You can take a virtual tour of the campus online (link).
caarmel engineering
The Medical College and Hospital are quite new with the medical college just opening this year. Again, Yohannan is described as the patron:

Believers Church Medical College Hospital is a healthcare project of Believers Church. The Church is dynamically involved in various nation-building social and educational projects, healthcare initiatives, charitable activities, community development programs, rehabilitation projects and relief works. Dr. K.P. Yohannan, Metropolitan of Believers Church is the patron of the hospital and Dr. George Chandy is leading the project.

The facilities are extraordinary.
BelChurch Hosp
In his RWM book, Yohannan decries such “nation building” programs as causing him “deep pain.” He spends several pages indicating that his ministry will not focus on “social concerns.”

Because of this teaching, many churches and mission societies now are redirecting their limited outreach funds and personnel away from evangelism to something vaguely called “social concern.” Today the majority of Christian missionaries find themselves primarily involved in feeding the hungry, caring for the sick through hospitals, housing the homeless or other kinds of relief and development work. In extreme cases, among nonevangelicals, the logical direction of this thinking can lead to organizing guerrilla forces, planting terrorist bombs or less extreme activities like sponsoring dance and aerobic exercise classes. This is done in the name of Jesus and supposedly is based on His command to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. The mission of the Church, as defined by these humanists, can be almost anything except winning people to Christ and discipling them.
History already has taught us that this gospel—without the blood of Christ, conversion and the cross—is a total failure. In China and India we have had seven generations of this teaching, brought to us by the British missionaries in a slightly different form in the middle of the 19th-century. My people have watched the English hospitals and schools come and go without any noticeable effect on either our churches or society. (p. 109-110, 2015 edition)

 
I don’t know if GFA hosts dance and aerobics, but the group does sponsor a soccer team in Myanmar.
I have written before about GFA’s rubber plantation, but there are many more real estate holdings, according to Narada News in India. Then there is the matter of many tuition-funded residential schools which take in children of all faiths (e.g., the posh Believers Church Residential School).
In his book, Yohannan criticizes British missionaries but he has recreated the same infrastructure using donations from his affiliates around the world. Let me add that I personally have no problem with the work being done in these institutions. The problem is the deception of donors who read RWM and want to get behind a ministry which puts into practice what Yohannan preaches. For this and many reasons, donors should beware and be wise.

Gospel for Asia's Staff Exodus

In 2015, nearly 50 staff and families, many in key positions, left Gospel for Asia.
In a website project of some of the former staffers — Donor Be Wise — the exodus is described in detail.
staff-leaving-gospel-for-asia
This extreme turnover is a signal that something is very wrong at GFA. Regular readers of this blog will know that there is much wrong with the second largest mission group in the country.
The post concludes with just some of the concerns that have prompted GFA staff to seek work and ministry elsewhere.

The reasons so many staff left are many, yet one only has to read through some of the materials published to draw some conclusions as to the climate of the office leading up to the many public reports. Sadly some current staff have chosen not to read anything that has been published.

GFA’s board has not addressed this dire situation. Instead, their response has been to blame bloggers and admit vague inefficiencies. GFA has also spent loads of donor money on a campaign of public relations. For instance, in the face of the recent drought in India, GFA has spent a meager amount on supplying water while inflating their image at home.

A Problem I See with the DOE/DOJ Guidance on Transgender Students

At the outset, let me be clear that I believe transgender students should not be discriminated against when it comes to public accommodations. I have no problem with the Obama administration issuing guidance to schools about how the Departments of Justice and Education interpret the law regarding sex discrimination. While I don’t agree with all aspects of the DOJ/DOE documents (more on that below), I think schools benefit from knowledge of how the Departments interpret the law.
The guidance isn’t new law.*  The May 13 letter says:

ED and DOJ (the Departments) have determined that this letter is significant guidance. This guidance does not add requirements to applicable law, but provides information and examples to inform recipients about how the Departments evaluate whether covered entities are complying with their legal obligations.

While I don’t object to equal treatment under the law for transgender students, I question the DOE/DOJ on their interpretation of how a student should be regarded as transgender. According to the DOE/DOJ, no professional assessment of the student is required.

The Departments interpret Title IX to require that when a student or the student’s parent or guardian, as appropriate, notifies the school administration that the student will assert a gender identity that differs from previous representations or records, the school will begin treating the student consistent with the student’s gender identity. Under Title IX, there is no medical diagnosis or treatment requirement that students must meet as a prerequisite to being treated consistent with their gender identity.6  Because transgender students often are unable to obtain identification documents that reflect their gender identity (e.g., due to restrictions imposed by state or local law in their place of birth or residence),7 requiring students to produce such identification documents in order to treat them consistent with their gender identity may violate Title IX when doing so has the practical effect of limiting or denying students equal access to an educational program or activity.

All that is required for schools to treat students in keeping with their asserted gender identity is a student’s word (presumably for adult students) or a parent’s word (presumably for minors).
In my experience, parents often disagree over what is best for children. What is a school to do when one parent asserts a change in gender identity and the other doesn’t? In my clinical experience, I have seen just such cases. For instance, some parents interpret gender non-conforming interests as a signal that a child’s gender identity is different than what was assigned at birth. Such interpretation may not be in the child’s interest.
Evaluating the broad spectrum of children where gender identity is an issue often requires professional assistance. Particularly when children and teens are involved, getting competent help can be key in coming up with the best course of action in keeping with professional guidelines. To me, it makes sense for schools to require a supportive statement from a treating physician and mental health professional.
What is the basis for the DOE/DOJ claim?
As an authority (footnote #6) for the contention that schools can’t require a diagnosis, the DOE/DOJ letter uses a case of a transgender female employed by the Army who won an EEOC complaint alleging a civil rights violation in part because she was not allowed to use a common women’s bathroom. The Army’s defense involved a concern that the complainant had not fully physically transitioned from male to female. The EEOC ruled that an employer cannot require a medical procedure in order to deny civil rights to a transgender employee.
However, in that case, the complainant had legally changed her records and was legally female. While she had not had surgical reassignment, she had made significant steps toward transition. The facts of the case involve an adult and are much different than a school where a parent or student may not have consulted a professional.
Of course, students should not have to prove full reassignment to be treated fairly, but it seems to me that schools would be within their rights to require evidence from mental health professionals and physicians that accommodation would be appropriate. Schools regularly require professionals to provide opinions on lesser matters.
When the DOE/DOJ says “there is no medical diagnosis or treatment requirement that students must meet as a prerequisite to being treated consistent with their gender identity,” I think they go beyond the facts of the case they used as a basis for their interpretation. Perhaps there are other relevant cases, but the letter doesn’t list them.
Schools should be safe for all students, including transgender students. My concern is that this guidance will hamper schools in reacting for the good of all students on a case by case basis.
 
*When I first posted this article, I wrote that the DOE/DOJ letter wasn’t an edict. While I still don’t see it as heavy handed as some opponents do, I will concede that some school districts may experience it negatively. Furthermore, I removed that reference because I don’t want to distract from the main point of the post.