U.S. District Court of Western Arkansas Rules RICO Case Can Proceed Against Gospel for Asia

In April 2016, Gospel for Asia’s celebrity attorneys asked the Western Arkansas District Court to either dismiss the RICO suit against them or to require plaintiffs Matthew and Jennifer Dickson to submit to binding arbitration.  Today, the court declined to dismiss the case. Furthermore, they declined to require the Dicksons to enter arbitration, ruling that their employment contract did not envision a case such as this.
In short, the RICO suit against Gospel for Asia will go forward. From the court order:

Plaintiffs’ complaint is sufficiently pled to overcome the hurdles posed by Defendants’ motions to dismiss, and this case must proceed to discovery.
III. Conclusion
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendants’ motion to compel arbitration (Doc. 23) is DENIED.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendants’ motions to dismiss (Docs. 25 and 27) are DENIED.
IT IS SO ORDERED this 18th day of January, 2017.
/s/P. K. Holmes, III P.K. HOLMES, III CHIEF U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE

Over the next several days, I hope to review my posts concerning GFA from 2015 which should give some indication of what discovery will be like for the defendants.

Christian Leaders Call for Confrontation and Prayer for President Trump

Thirty-six Christian leaders are promoting a letter titled, “Appeal to Christians Regarding President-Elect Donald Trump” and are seeking co-signers on a Change.org petition.
The petition calls for Christians to pray for Trump and for Trump to repent of his rhetoric “dishonoring the image of God in others.”
The full statement follows:

In these times of difficult conversations and sometimes fractious words, we celebrate the political diversity of our churches. We are thankful that the U.S. church is not beholden to any political party.
Since November’s presidential election some in the American church have rejoiced that their candidate won (or that the other candidate lost), some are cautiously at ease with the results, and still others remain in a state of shock and anger at the election results.
Whatever the varied reactions, we believe our time calls for a prophetic word.
As Jeremiah wrote, we should not say, “Peace, peace!” where there is no peace. We mourn the absence of biblical shalom in the U.S. today: everything is not at peace. Our God is a God of truth, who brings thoughts, words, and deeds out of shadows. By the light of Christ, we see what needs to be transformed.
In that light we are troubled by the new access to power of a man who has signaled that he may not stand up for the dignity and welfare of all people.
President-elect Donald Trump has bragged about sexual assault and berated his female accusers. He has repeatedly disparaged African Americans, Latinos, and other communities. He has denied what is true and promoted what is not. He has threatened political opponents, called for torture of U.S. enemies, and has failed to quickly and unequivocally denounce and distance himself from race-based crimes committed in his name.
We recognize that many voted for the President-elect in spite of—not because of—these patterns.
But now is the time for the body of Christ to stand together against the devaluing of women and their bodies, xenophobia, inflammatory racialized rhetoric, and other harmful speech and behavior.
Some perceived greater political good cannot offset the President-elect’s words and actions. We cannot “just make the best of” our current moment without calling him to accountability. Calls for “national healing” ring hollow when they fail to acknowledge the division, fear, and hostility that the President-elect has done much to enable and incite. Rather, we stand united to promote the dignity of all people.
To that end:
1. We will pray for President-elect Trump, elected officials, our nation, our churches, and each other.
2. Rooted in the teachings of Jesus and the prophets, we will tell the truth about the world around us, and we will speak up for those who have been marginalized and taken advantage of.
3. We will actively resist the temptation to overlook or normalize values, speech, and behavior that are in conflict with what Scripture calls us to.
4. In the name of Jesus, we call President-elect Trump to repentance for dishonoring the image of God in others.
5. We will fix our eyes on Jesus and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, redouble our efforts to honor the image of God in all people and to love all our neighbors as ourselves.
We implore all Christians to take on these same commitments, and to model the repentance to which we call President-elect Trump.
Our calling comes from the God who raised Jesus from the dead. The same power on display in the resurrection enables us to promote the well-being of others and to seek God’s justice for all people.
We commit ourselves—and call on fellow Christians—to walk more worthily of such a calling in these challenging days.

In other news, Trump was sued today for defamation by one of the women who accused him of being sexually inappropriate with her in 2007.

House Vote to Create Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, August 2, 1983

On the urgent issue of civil rights, Senator Goldwater represents a philosophy that is morally indefensible and politically and socially suicidal.
-Martin Luther King, Jr. on the nomination of Barry Goldwater as GOP candidate for president.
 
Over the weekend, far right conservative filmmaker and pundit Dinesh D’Souza inflamed Twitter by claiming that Rep. John Lewis (“John Lewis is not a “legend”–he was a minor player in the civil rights movement who became a nasty, bitter old man”) and Rosa Parks (“So Rosa Parks wouldn’t sit in the back of the bus–that’s all she did, so what’s the big fuss?”)  were minor civil rights figures. The response was appropriately swift and severe.


Like D’Souza, his supporters cast Democrats as the party of racism since Democrats in the South were opposed, in large measure, to the 13-15th Amendments.
Today, D’Souza continues to defy the facts about race and political party:


D’Souza’s formulations fail to take into account the factors which have made African-American support for the Democrat party so strong. These are not hard. Goldwater as a GOP presidential candidate opposed civil rights legislation. When Democrats were moving toward civil rights, high profile conservative Democrats in the South switched to the GOP (e.g., Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms) and championed segregationist policies. Even though Ronald Reagan signed MKL Day into law, nearly half of GOP members opposed the day, whereas 95% of Dems supported it.
MLK vote in House
It would be easy to go on and on to provide reasons why African-Americans provide a voting bloc for Democrats. Trump received 8% of the African-American vote in the last election. This was a two point improvement over Romney in 2012 but should indicate to any reasonable observer that the vast majority of African-American voters don’t like what the GOP is doing and saying now.  What happened pre-Harry Truman is interesting historically speaking but it doesn’t have much of an impact on what is going on now.

This Popular Quote — A Private Faith That Does Not Act — Is about William Wilberforce Not by Him

When I first read it, it occurred to me that there was something not quite right about the tweet below:


Eric Metaxas, who wrote a biography about Wilberforce, retweeted the quote without comment so surely it was said by Wilberforce, right?
I view most quotes now with suspicion (see this quote misattributed to Bonhoeffer) and this one looked fishy. Indeed, it isn’t by Wilberforce but about him.
I posted the quote on Twitter and asked for assistance tracking it down. It didn’t take long for Matthew Dickson to post a link to an Introduction written by Chuck Colson to a 1996 reprinting of Wilberforce’s A Practical View of Christianity. On Twitter at least the switch of attribution from Colson to Wilberforce took place sometime between 2011 and 2012.
Here is the quote from Colson’s Introduction:
Colson quote about WW
So Colson wrote it about Wilberforce. Even though it is frequently attributed to Wilberforce, it isn’t his quote.
As I have explored these fake or misattributed quotes, I have found that a major problem to accuracy is a site called “AZ Quotes.” This site is often referred to by misguided quoters. Along with Eric Metaxas, AZ quotes seems to show up frequently as a source for the misattributed quote about silence in the face of evil. Although I have reported both quotes as being wrongly attributed, the quotes remain. Perhaps, the site needs to hear from more readers.

Ecclesia College: There Will Be No New Statement about the Arkansas Bribery Scandal

Just a little while ago, this statement appeared on the Ecclesia College Facebook page:

Ecclesia College Ecclesia has previously released a statement regarding the Micah Neal plea agreement and will not be issuing any further statement at this time.

You can read the prior statement denying any wrongdoing here.
For more on Ecclesia College and the Arkansas bribery scandal, read here, here, here, herehere, and here.
I suspect Ecclesia’s attorneys have advised anyone associated with the college not to speak about the matter since there is an ongoing investigation.

Ecclesia
Arkansas tax dollars in action.