2016 – Page 59 – Warren Throckmorton

Mark Driscoll's The Trinity Church Will Host First Meeting on Easter Sunday

When Mark Driscoll ran Mars Hill Church, Easter Sunday was a big deal on the church calendar. It is no surprise then that the first gathering of The Trinity Church will be on Easter Sunday in their new/old location.

Here is the announcement just sent a little while ago.

Our New Church Family Has an Old Church Home!

A church building with a rich past will serve as the new home of our future church. Pastor Mark Driscoll is excited to announce that The Trinity Church will host its first ever gathering at 5pm on Easter Sunday March 27, 2016, at the Glass and Garden Drive-In Church in Scottsdale, Arizona!
In time, we look forward to launching The Trinity Church. In the meantime, we did not want to pass up this historic opportunity to gather for the first time on the 50-year anniversary of the landmark building, which opened on Easter 1966. Even though it’s last minute, as the ink on our rental contract is still wet, we look forward to meeting you at our modest open house and prayer meeting. Pastor Mark will be sharing our church vision as we begin gathering our launch team.

About the Drive-In Church:

Pastor Goulooze and architect E. Logan Campbell designed the Glass and Garden Drive-In Church in the mid-century modern style of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The goal to build the 1,400 seat church and adjacent drive-in movie theater began on 7 acres. This drive-in church is likely the only one of its kind in Arizona. Today, the drive-in is gone, although the church remains on 4.55 acres and was named one of the “10 Coolest Churches” by local media.

You see more pics and read more about the facility here. Last Sunday was the last service in the facility for Living Word Bible Church Scottsdale. This coming Sunday (3/13) Living Word will hold their first service in a local Marriott Hotel while they build elsewhere.

More Truth Stretching: Ted Cruz's GOP Debate Claim About Obama's Oval Office Churchill Statue

Despite numerous factual accounts of what happened to the two White House statues of Winston Churchill, Ted Cruz repeated a debunked story during Thursday’s GOP presidential debate which has been around since the early days of Obama’s first term. Here is what Cruz said last night:

CRUZ: Of course it does. And we’ve seen for seven years a president that has made the presidency and has made, sadly, his administration a laughing stock in the world. This administration started with President Obama sending back the bust of Winston Churchill to the United Kingdom within the opening weeks.

Cruz has said that before during the campaign. The claim rated two pinocchios from Washington Post fact checkers.

UK Prime Minister Cameron and President Obama admiring the remaining bust of Churchill. White House

Obama did send a bust of Churchill back to England. That bust was loaned to George Bush and when he left office the statue had to go back. However, there is another statue which has a permanent place in the White House furnishings. That statue stayed at the White House and in the photo above is being viewed by U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron along with Barack Obama in 2010.
It is a pretty silly controversy, so am I writing about it?
Given Cruz’s close ties to David Barton and Glenn Beck, the fact that Cruz repeats what is to him a useful story despite it being so misleading as to be untrue is relevant to his candidacy. Just yesterday, I posted a clip of David Barton claiming that he was on the FBI’s hate group list. He encouraged his listeners to go look up his name on the FBI website. However, I learned from the FBI that the agency has no formal list of hate groups and so David Barton can’t be on it. Barton has made numerous false claims about historical and current events.
While opening for Cruz’s campaign speeches in Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada, Glenn Beck deceived Cruz audiences about his copy of Don Quixote and George Washington’s diary entry on the day Washington signed the Constitution.
These are needless distortions and falsehoods by two of Cruz’s closest endorsers. Cruz’s distortion of the facts was needless as well. However, it seems that Cruz and company have such a pattern of this that all factual claims need to be checked (see also this example from a Cruz legal brief). Those who have followed Barton and Beck know that truth stretching is part of the operating procedure. Either this has rubbed off on Cruz or birds of a feather have flocked together.
So many red flags go up. Cruz’s slogan is TrusTed. My response is: Why should I?

FBI Says There is No Hate List So David Barton Can't Be On It

Awhile ago, Right Wing Watch posted a clip of David Barton telling an audience that he was on the FBI website as a “hate group.” He also said there is a new hate group list out from the FBI and he is on it.
First, I went to the FBI website and used the search engine to look for Barton and/or Wallbuilders. I found nothing.
Curious, I decided to call the press office of the FBI and ask where I could see the new list and if Barton was on it. The representative said there was no list like that so Barton couldn’t be on it. She told me that the Southern Poverty Law Center publishes such a list.
I checked out the SPLC site and found an out of date article about Barton as an extremist but he wasn’t labeled a hate group as far as I could see.
In any case, it is hard to understand how Barton could confuse the FBI with the SPLC.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-3nwoAt3WA[/youtube]
And I don’t believe you can be fined in San Antonio just for saying marriage is between a man and a woman.
And Ted Cruz says Trump voters are “low information.“

Gospel for Asia's Christian Astroturf

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.

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.