Several weeks ago, I did a Skype interview with Steve Hassan on dominionism for an upcoming book he is working on. Today, he brought it out as a blog post on his Freedom of Mind website.
Steve is an internationally known expert on mind control groups. He was formerly in the Unification Church. I use his BITE Model when teaching persuasion in social psychology. It was a pleasure being interviewed and spending some time with Steve.
In 2017, former pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel James MacDonald taught Bible classes at Harvest Christian Academy. While there, on January 25 2017, he was recorded harshly confronting and physically grabbing a student during one of his lessons. This video recently surfaced on social media and in a blog post by Julie Roys. Here it is:
This is a video excerpt of James MacDonald teaching the HCA Bibliology class in early ’17. PLEASE NOTE: This is NOT the incident that @reachjulieroys wrote about in her WORLD mag article. I don’t know if this was during the same class session as that incident. Still horrible. ? pic.twitter.com/4PAWBWUhY8
I wrote the current superintendent of HCA, Talbott Behnken, to find out what happened as the result of that incident and if such behavior was in violation of HCA’s policies. Earlier today, he sent a statement that he requested be printed in full.
James MacDonald was fired from Harvest Bible Chapel in February of 2019. Harvest Christian Academy had no authority to fire or discipline the then Senior Pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel, James MacDonald. That responsibility belonged to the elder board of Harvest Bible Chapel.
Prior to the time of the Bible class situation in 2017, I was not aware of James’s outbursts and issues to recognize that it would not be a good situation for our students. At that time, I believed that James was a gifted Bible teacher and it was a great opportunity for our students. Clearly, it didn’t go as we all had hoped. If I had to do it all over again knowing now what I know, I would not have permitted James to teach Bible at HCA. We have wonderful godly teachers and staff at HCA who pour themselves out for the Lord and our students everyday. These videos are not representative of our incredible teaching staff, our school, or our expectations. The people being hurt are our dear students, alumni, teachers, and staff. James MacDonald is not here to deal with any of the fall-out from his behavior. He has hurt our people enough.
The content of the videos speak for themselves and James MacDonald is responsible for his conduct and words. James MacDonald has not instructed HCA Bible students since early in the spring semester 2017 and will not be permitted to teach students at HCA again. Please direct any further inquiries regarding the behavior of James MacDonald to James MacDonald.
Did John MacArthur visit the Lorraine Motel in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Several times since at least 2007, MacArthur has claimed that he was with civil rights icons John Perkins and Charles Evers as they traveled to Memphis in the hours after MLK’s murder. MacArthur added that he stood on the balcony where King was shot and visited the house where James Earl Ray fired the shots, all within hours of the assassination. A February 4 NOQ Reports article skeptically addressed this matter using an interview with civil rights icon Charles Evers as contradicting evidence. In the report, Evers denied he went to Memphis that night.
The NOQ Reports article quickly came under fire. Critics claimed it was biased and omitted some critical information. Due to the controversy and as a matter of historical interest, I became curious about the story and asked Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You (MacArthur’s teaching ministry), for additional clarification of several of the issues. He suggested I interview John Perkins.
Although it took several weeks for us to connect, I was able today to speak to Deborah Perkins, one of John Perkins’ daughters, who said she was empowered to speak for her father on this matter. I asked if John Perkins had gone to Memphis within hours of MLK’s murder. She said, “That’s not a comment we can offer a comment on.” She added spontaneously, “Charles Evers has already commented on that. He already said that wasn’t right.” I asked, “So, do you think Charles Evers’ statement is accurate?” Ms. Perkins said, “Yes, Charles Evers’ statement is accurate if he made it.”
Ms. Perkins said that John MacArthur was a friend of Dr. Perkins and that was all they wanted to say, but added that Charles Evers was accurate in what he said about the situation.
To make sure that I understood Charles Evers’ position and that he did indeed make the statement attributed to him in the February report, I called and talked to him. He repeated his claim that he did not remember John MacArthur, and he did not remember going to Memphis that night. He added that he might have gone to Memphis sometime after the murder but he didn’t remember for sure. In any case, he didn’t remember going anywhere with MacArthur.
I asked for response or comment from Johnson and Rev. MacArthur (through Johnson), but they didn’t response by the time I published this. I will be happy to add any response they offer.
Without a lengthier interview with Dr. Perkins, I still don’t know in detail what happened that night or if there was ever a trip to Memphis (within a week, a month?). Perhaps everybody involved has a fuzzy memory for the events of the time.
In summary, when John Perkins’ representative had the chance to confirm John MacArthur’s story, she declined to comment; then she spontaneously affirmed the accuracy of the person who said MacArthur’s story wasn’t true. This is what I can offer at this time. What it means is surely in the eye of the beholder.
Yesterday morning, Christianity Today announced that the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability suspended Harvest Bible Chapel for potential violation of four of seven financial integrity standards. ECFA’s president Dan Busby told CT that ECFA is trying to find out if the church is or is not in compliance. Although it has been obvious for some time, at least the ECFA has given the public some indication that all may not be right at HBC.
ECFA’s renewed investigation appears to be a response to Julie Roys’ indefatigable investigation of HBC and pointed questions in print for ECFA about HBC’s financial practices. Roys’ work is like deja vu all over again. ECFA also said Gospel for Asia and Mars Hill Church were meeting standards until it was learned that the organizations weren’t as they seemed. In light of the current HBC debacle, I thought of this 2014 article about ECFA’s benefit to donors and am reprinting it here.
Without the work of whistleblowers, bloggers, and journalists (mostly bloggers in these cases), would we ever have known any of what we know now about MHC, GFA, and HBC? (If a former board member had not leaked the ECFA report about GFA to a blogger, the public would never have known the extent of the financial issues with that mission giant.) ECFA membership gave those organizations a seal of approval which helped convince people to part with their money. I hope these glaring situations prompt some changes at ECFA and perhaps even some additional regulation of non-profits.
The mission statement of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability is “Enhancing Trust in Christ-Centered Churches and Ministries.” A primary means of pursuing their mission is through promotion of their seven standards of stewardship. The ECFA website states that the standards are “are fundamental to operating with integrity.” The ECFA tells the public that organizations who voluntarily agree to adhere to the standards “must comply with all of the standards, all of the time.”
But what happens when an ECFA member does not adhere to “all of the standards, all of the time?” What does the ECFA do to alert the public when non-compliance is discovered? The disappointing answer for donors is that the ECFA may do nothing to alert the public when an organization is or was out of compliance. In contrast to former years when the ECFA publicly suspended organizations, now the ECFA conducts a private review if there is concern over compliance with standards. Michael Martin, Director of Legal Services and Legal Counsel for the EFCA told me, “When standards-related issues are under review with respect to a particular member, ECFA does not comment on our review.”
I have written numerous emails and left phone messages with the ECFA regarding the Mars Hill Global Fund since May, 2014. I am aware that former members of Mars Hill Church have also contacted ECFA about the use of donations to the Mars Hill Global Fund from 2012-2014. In response to one of those former member emails, Michael Martin replied:
We are aware of the issues you mention and are in communication with leaders of Mars Hill concerning matters which relate to ECFA standards.
True to his word, the ECFA did not comment from May until July 25 when the organization released a statement to World Magazine:
The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) conducted a review of Mars Hill Global and issued a statement that read, in part, “The Church has gone the second mile to address use of any funds if they were not used consistently with donor intent. This commitment, which ECFA will periodically verify, demonstrates the integrity of Pastor Mark Driscoll and Pastor Sutton Turner.”
In other words, trust us, we will let you know. However, the problem for prospective donors is no one let them know. This statement is very close to an admission that the church did not comply with ECFA guidelines “all of the time” (“The Church has gone the second mile to address use of any funds if they were not used consistently with donor intent“). About donations to the Global Fund between 2012-2014, the church had already acknowledged that the “preponderance of expenses related to church plants and replants in the U.S” which was a change from their 2013 Annual Report when they reported that Global Fund money went to mission efforts in India and Ethiopia. There was no report of money spent on U.S. church plants. Yet, donors would not have known that if not for those outside of Mars Hill Church and the ECFA writing about it. Mars Hill Church is still misleading people about how they portrayed Mars Hill Global and has certainly done their part to keep this information out of public view by scrubbing video evidence. Apparently, the ECFA also believes that these matters should be handled secretly without potential donors knowing what is going on.
The ECFA touts their standards as “fundamental to operating with integrity.” They are good standards. However, if the public does not know that an organization has not or is not following them, then how can that integrity be assessed?
In recent years, the ECFA has removed very few organizations from membership due to violations. Most former members have either voluntarily given up their membership or merged with other organizations.
In the old days, it seems to me that donors had more of an advocate with the ECFA. For instance, witness this response from then ECFA president Paul Nelson to criticism received in 1997 when the ECFA suspended Gospel Rescue Mission (a homeless mission?!) for using generic fundraising letters (a more minor offense than re-routing mission money, in my view):
The ECFA, Mr. Nelson said, does not want to punish member organizations, which by joining are voluntarily submitting to accountability. “By the same token we must call attention to the issues when a violation has occurred, and that’s what we’ve done in this case,” he said. “Our whole approach is not to be adversarial to the membership but to take disciplinary steps when we have to, which is what we felt we had to do. Now we’re prepared to work with them, if they are prepared to work with us.”
At the time, the ECFA seemed to take a more diligent approach to their public role. Nelson added:
The standards have not changed, Mr. Nelson said, and the suspension is a reminder that ECFA intends to be vigilant. “I think it does send a clear message-that if there are practices going on, and if those practices are widespread, that are borderline, or are moving in and out of compliance-that ECFA is serious about truthfulness in communications.”
As an evangelical donors to evangelical causes, this research into Mars Hill Global and the ECFA has been surprising and disappointing. More so than ever, if I have doubt about an organization, I will check that organization’s ECFA status but that will be only the beginning. I now know that an organization could be out of compliance even if accredited. Worse yet, the accrediting group could know an organization is out of compliance and never make it known. I may use the ECFA standards, but realize I will have to explore compliance on my own with the organization. I will have to ask for reports of how money is used (apparently the ECFA is not going to require this report from Mars Hill Church regarding their Global Fund) and not assume that accreditation means the organization has been or is in compliance with the guidelines.
Bruce Morrison is a pastor in Nova Scotia, CA and a former Gospel for Asia supporter. In recent years, he has actively sought to bring to light GFA’s practices regarding fund raising and spending.
In this guest post, Morrison documents and describes the path of funds from Canadian donors to India and then the Wills Point, TX where they were spent to complete the GFA headquarters. The routing of money from Canadian donors who thought they were spending money to help poor India people to the Wills Point campus should be of interest to Canadian authorities.It makes me think that the source of funds to pay the court settlement will likely come from Canadian donors. Thanks to Rev. Morrison for this analysis.
…………………………………………..
Bland Garvey CPA, from Richardson, TX, was the accounting and auditing firm that prepared the financial statements for GFA-US in 2013. In their audit notes they stated that $19.8 million was received from an anonymous donor to help fund the construction of the new GFA head office complex in Wills Point, TX. Later, it was disclosed that this money did not come from an anonymous donor, but instead came from Believers Church in India. Apparently, the auditors did not research the validity of what they had been told by GFA as one would expect, especially given the large amount of money involved.
The idea that money sent to India designated to spread the gospel and help the poor was later returned to the US for an expensive building project was disturbing to donors who learned of this.
Three years passed. In a US federal court hearing with plaintiffs Garland and Phyllis Murphy versus GFA defendants, a new and surprising revelation came to light. The $19.8 million for the US building project did not come from India – it came from Canada!
The court hearing took place on May 16, 2017. On Pg. 32 of the hearing transcript, Judge Timothy Brooks referred to the $20 million that came from GFA-India and the plaintiff’s claim that this money was donor restricted, diverted away from donor’s intents, without donor’s knowledge, and was therefore used fraudulently.
In response, to assure the Court that US funds were not misappropriated, Robert Mowrey, lawyer for the defendants, on page 32, lines 4-19, stated:
The documents – – your Honor, this gets a little complicated, but the documents we have provided to the plaintiffs show that the $20 million did not come from any US donors. This was $20 million that GFA-India had. It was their money. It was sitting in an account in Canada.
There were Canadian donors who had given this money to GFA-India to be used in various purposes. GFA-India directed that money to be given for the campus and then GFA-India fulfilled requests, the specific requests from internal money in GFA-India to replenish the Canadian account.
The bottom line here is that – – and I don’t know if the Court followed that but the bottom line here is that none of the $20 million came from any US donors.
To this the judge replied:
Well, it says in the second sentence that GFA staff confirmed that the funds relating to this donation were originally received by GFA as gifts restricted for the field.
Thus, Mr. Mowrey attempted to avoid allegations of fraud by saying that US-donor money was not used to help fund the new GFA head office. The judge did not agree and contended that even if the $20 million came from Canadian donor-restricted funds they were still – donor restricted! In other words, fraudulent use by GFA-US of Canadian funds was equally as fraudulent as if the money came from US donors. For the judge, the country of origin was not an issue.
As incredible as it seems, the lawyer for GFA implied that GFA-US did not defraud US donors, only Canadian donors – as if to say Canadian donors didn’t matter – it’s OK to cheat Canadians!
It is amazing beyond words that unsuspecting Canadians gave close to $20 million USD to help build an elaborate GFA complex in the USA, all the while believing their donations were spent in India.
The idea that GFA-India money sent from Canada was later replenished by GFA-India in India is absurd. Why not send the money to the US directly from India in the first place? Even if GFA did replenish the Canadian fund, it would still mean that Canadian donor money was not used as donors intended.
More Evidence of Possible Canadian Violations
Later, at a February 16, 2018 hearing, evidence was given that GFA World in Canada possibly breached laws set forth in the Criminal Code of Canada on many counts and might also be guilty of non-compliance with several CRA regulations. (GFA World was formerly known as GFA-Canada.)
On page 62, reference is made to GFA’s Indian bank account. Deposits to this account were made from GFA-Canada’s main bank account at a Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in Hamilton, Ontario, and from there large sums were transferred into an “Indian account” which, in fact, was not located in India, but was actually just a separate account in the same RBC bank. GFA falsely led donors to believe that their donations had gone to India and were used for the reasons the gifts were given. The truth was exactly opposite to their claim – the money was still in Canada.
Also on page 62 of the transcript, reference is made to a letter sent by David Carroll from GFA-US to Sarah Billings of the RBC in Hamilton, requesting that she transfer $20 million from GFA’s Indian account to GFA’s head office in the US. On page 63, Mark. Stanley, lawyer for the plaintiffs, referred to a document showing that this money was received at the GFA head office in Texas.
Apparently, money sitting in the GFA-India RBC account grew to tens of millions of dollars and sat there for an undetermined number of years. These massive amounts of cash undoubtedly earned interest that aided growth. No one other than KP Yohannan and a few of his confidants knew of this. Apparently, even Canadian board members were not informed
A search of FC-6 sites In India FYE 3/31/2015 and FYE 3/31/2016 shows that for the first time, GFA entities in India reported that they received money from Canada
CANADA TO INDIA FYE 3/31/2015
From
To
INR
USD
CAD
GFA-Canada
Ayana (GFA)
658457500
10,798,703
12,247,310
GFA-Canada
Believers Church
933660000
15,312,024
17,366,076
GFA-Canada
Last Hour
109840000
1,801,376
2,043,024
GFA-Canada
Love India
110393900
1,810,460
2,053,327
Total
1812351400
29,722,563
33,709,737
This is the first year that GFA entities in India reported receiving money from Canada. For the year that ended 12/31/2015, GFA-Canada stated on their T-3010 Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) 2015 Registered Charity Information Return, that they sent $11,105,054 to India. However, the amount reported as received by GFA entities in India from Canada for the period is vastly different – approximately three times the amount. Such discrepancies are common practice for GFA.
CANADA TO INDIA FYE 3/31/2016
From
To
INR
USD
CAD
GFA World
Ayana (GFA)
219660000
3,294,900
4,393,200
GFA World
Believers Church
1953422565
29,301,338
39,068,451
GFA World
Last Hour
614395950
9,215,939
12,287,919
GFA World
Love India
695898469
10,438,477
13,917,969
Little Hills
Believers Church
44077968
661,170
881,559
Total from Canada
4027454952
52,911,824
70,549,099
The following year GFA-Canada, on their 2016 T-3010 Registered Charity Information Return, did not report to the CRA the huge $70,549,099 that was sent to India. They made no mention of their secret Little Hills Corporation. To say the least, their misstatements to the Canadian and Indian authorities are startling.
Follow the Money
In a recent article in the Christian Post, Francis Chan defended Gospel For Asia against allegations of fraud due to misappropriation of finances.
I have great respect for this man of God. He is a gifted Bible expositor and motivator to love and good works. Bible study groups in my church use his study materials and benefit greatly from them.
I described to an elder in my church the position Francis Chan has taken regarding GFA. He thought for a moment and then spoke of the gifts of the Spirit as described in the New Testament, comparing ministry gifts to gifts of administration. He indicated that there is no doubt that Francis Chan is a gifted minister but added that this does not mean he has the same strength when it comes to functions of administration. Discerning the true nature of GFA’s troubling practices, particularly those by KP Yohannan, cannot be made by one whose eyes are blinded to key facts, regardless of the esteem in which that person is held for other reasons.
I spent three weeks as a guest of GFA in India. I spoke in Kerala at their seminary and later to their head office staff. I toured with some of their leaders and spoke at their Bible training centre and at some of their churches in Tamil Nadu. I travelled to Sri Lanka to speak at their Bible training centre in that country. My daughter, Sharlene, attended the GFA seminary in Kerala for two years and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in the year 2000. The teaching staff were well qualified and spiritually minded Sharlene, along with two others, were the first students from the West to attend the seminary. Prior to this she served as a volunteer at GFA’s head office in Dallas, TX, for six months and after graduation she worked at GFA’s Canadian office. My church supported GFA for twenty years.
Nothing in our experience indicated that anything was wrong. I was a strong supporter of GFA and an avid advocate of their ministry encouraging others to support them. As far as I knew there was every reason to applaud voices such as Francis Chan’s in endorsing GFA.
However, the day came when I began to learn that things might not be what I had thought they were. I began to enquire.
Where Is The Field?
My first letter to GFA was dated March 27, 2015 and was followed by a series of letters. When I questioned why $108 million GFA-Canada reported to the CRA they had sent to India over an eight-year period was not reported to the Indian government that it was received, KP Yohannan responded by email and said:
In Canada, GFA India has a bank account owned and controlled by them. When all field donations come into our Canadian office, they are entered according to donor and designation preference by our staff at GFA Canada, and then deposited into the same bank account in Canada controlled by GFA-India. So once the funds are deposited into that account, they are considered received on the mission field and available to the field immediately.
That money deposited in a Canadian bank was considered to be “on the field” was both surprising and alarming. The full impact of this did not become apparent until the Murphy v. GFA court hearings took place and until GFA entities in India reported their 2015 and 2016 foreign incomes.
“Love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8) is wonderfully true. It is also true that, “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (1Corinthians 4:6).
Essential to true love is a love of truth, and valid discernment cannot be devoid of truth. The truth of GFA’s deceptive financial practices as evidenced by its use of Canadian donor money is but one example of a much greater picture that remains hidden from the view of many due to repeated denials of the truth.
I pray that someday soon this will end.
……………………………..
When the recent court settlement says that all moneys sent “to the field” were used on the field, it doesn’t mean much when “the field” is this loosely defined. Donors still need to be wary.
On Twitter, Dinesh D’Souza is on the defensive. He desperately wants the Democratic party to be a party of bigotry and racism, not just during the 1800s but continuously through to the present. Given that Democratic president Lyndon Johnson supported and signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, it is hard to make the case that Democratic party remained the party of racism. However, D’Souza is persistent. He invokes the well-known racism of Johnson as a Senator which to him is proof that the CRA and VRA were not what they seemed.
In a tweet, political scientist Phil Klinker informed D’Souza that no one disputes Johnson’s racism. He then asked D’Souza:
Are you arguing that LBJ’s legislative achievements–the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts–were part of some racist design on his part?
In a mindbinding response, D’Souza said:
Yes. Why else would a bigot promote a civil rights act if not for some bigoted reason? Of course the bigoted reason is invisible to you because it is progressive bigotry
Surely, there are other reasons why a president might support legislation, especially legislation as far reaching as the CRA and the VRA. The real mind twister is his contention that Klinker can’t see the reason due to “progressive bigotry.” The CRA and VRA accomplished the aims of civil rights campaigners and many Republicans. Did they also have bigoted reasons for supporting those laws? I can’t figure out what he is getting at. What would LBJ have supported if he wasn’t a racist?
As I demonstrated in recent posts, numerous Republicans were also quite bigoted throughout the period when other Republicans were supporting Civil Rights legislation. Lily white Republicans in the early 1900s wantedto purgethe GOP of African-Americans and were successful in some parts of the country.
If D’Souza diminishes the CRA/VRA due to Johnson’s racism, then what will he do with Warren Harding’s similar sentiment? In Harding’s 1921 Birmingham’s speech on race, he told the crowd that blacks should have equal rights to vote but he added this:
Men of both races may well stand uncompromisingly against every suggestion of social equality. . . Racial amalgamation there cannot be.
Whoever will take the time to read and ponder Mr. Lothrop Stoddard’s book on The Rising Tide of Color, or. say. the thoughtful review of some recent literature of this question which Mr. F. D. Lugard presented in a recent Edinburg Review, must realize that our race problem here in the United Slates is only a phase of a race issue that the whole world confronts. Surely we shall gain nothing by blinking the facts, by refusing to give thought to them. That is not the American way of approaching such issues.
Stoddard’s book was a call to white supremacy and helped stimulate the 1924 Immigration Act which limited immigration from non-Nordic nations. When D’Souza wants to find fault with Democrats, he associates Stoddard with progressives. In his book, The Big Lie, he says this about Stoddard and his book:
Stoddard was the bestselling author of a notorious tract, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy, that portrayed the pristine Nordic race being swamped through immigration and interracial marriage by degenerate hordes from other lesser races. Both Lothrop and Gamble became avid Nazi sympathizers who sought to import Nazi sterilization programs in their full magnitude to America
What D’Souza doesn’t tell his readers is that Stoddard was popular among those in the Harding administration and that Republican Harding himself cited this tribute to white supremacy in a presidential speech on race.
The facts don’t fit D’Souza’s predetermined narrative which leads to strange and ahistorical assertions about the bigotry and the CRA/VRA.
Today, the WASC Senior College and University Commission posted a letter dated March 4 which describes their decision to keep The Master’s University and Seminary on probation. The letter also informs the school that the search for a new president to replace John MacArthur should be completed by the end of 2019 (see also this post). According to the letter, TMUS’s board of directors had decided to extend that date until later. The WASC team determined that was not in keeping with the plan previously established.
The Commission saw the lack of movement of finding MacArthur’s replacement as a sign of concern regarding organizational integrity. The Commission stated:
In addition, the institution made a commitment to transition its chief executive officer from the position of president to Chancellor of the Seminary within 18 months of the date of the visit. Yet, at the panel interview, the president mentioned that the Board has extended that date and had still not taken steps to define the requirements and job description for the institution’s next president. The Commission is concerned that TMUS still struggles in the area of operational integrity and transparency.
For this and other reasons, the Commission decided TMUS was out of compliance with the accreditation standards.
The Commission found that The Master’s University and Seminary is not in compliance with WSCUC Standards 1 and 3 and acted to continue the sanction of Probation.
Being on probation can lead to dire consequences for an institution of higher learning.
Under U.S. Department of Education regulations, when the Commission finds that an institution fails to meet one or more of the Standards of Accreditation, it is required to notify the institution of these findings and give the institution no longer than two years from the date of this action to correct the deficiencies. If an institution has not remedied the deficiencies at the conclusion of this sanction period, the Commission is required, under U.S. Department of Education regulations, to take an “adverse action,” which in this case would take the form of withdrawal of accreditation.
TMUS is required to respond to the following concerns:
1. The Board should ensure the successful succession and transition of the Presidential role including conducting a national search by 12/31/2019. (CFRs 3.8, 3.9)
2. The Board and Administration should continue to communicate with their constituents in the TMUS community regarding personnel actions and leadership succession. (CFRs 1.7, 3.2, 3.6)
3. TMUS should establish systematic two-way communication practices to promote consistent and sustainable flow of information among administrators, faculty, staff and students. (CFRs 1.6, 3.7, 3.10)
4. TMUS should establish and implement a formal procedure that allows for a safe environment for staff and faculty to express grievances and ethical concerns. (CFRs 1.7, 3.2)
The Commission’s Standards 1 and 3 are as follows (read all of them here):
Standard 1: Defining Institutional Purposes and Ensuring Educational Objectives
The institution defines its purposes and establishes educational objectives aligned with those purposes. The institution has a clear and explicit sense of its essential values and character, its distinctive elements, its place in both the higher education community and society, and its contribution to the public good. It functions with integrity, transparency, and autonomy.
Standard 3: Developing and Applying Resources and Organizational Structures to Ensure Quality and Sustainability
The institution sustains its operations and supports the achievement of its educational objectives through investments in human, physical, fiscal, technological, and information resources and through an appropriate and effective set of organizational and decision-making structures. These key resources and organizational structures promote the achievement of institutional purposes and educational objectives and create a high-quality environment for learning.
Each of these standards has criteria for review (CFR) which are identified in the letter. When CFR is referred to above in the letter, those are the criteria which are of concern to the Commission.
In his book The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left, Dinesh D’Souza attempts to draw a link between the Democratic party and the eugenics movement in the United States and Nazi Germany. In the 2017 book D’Souza wrote, “Progressives in America founded a plethora of eugenic organizations.”(p. 135) He then listed leading eugenicists including, “Eugene Gosney (sic), director of the Human Betterment Foundation.” (p. 136). (Note: Gosney’s first name was Ezra).
As I pointed out in a post earlier today, Gosney was a registered Republican. He also supported the Boy Scouts and Paul Popenoe’s American Institute for Family Relations, the organization which gave James Dobson his start. While those are good things, that’s not the point. The point is that these guys were not progressives in the manner D’Souza depicts. They were Republicans and in many ways, they were socially conservative.
The Human Betterment Foundation Charter Members Were Republicans
Now to follow up on today’s post, I want to report that when the Human Betterment Foundation opened for business, none of the founding members described themselves as members of the Democratic party. I checked all of the voter registrations and other sources and found no Democrats.* There was only one person I couldn’t find any information about (A.D. Shamel), but all others were or became Republicans during their service to the organization. One member (George Dock) was a Democrat in 1924 but by 1928, he had joined his wife as a registered Republican and remained that way according to available records. Another HBF founding member (William Munro) did not state his affiliation until 1936 but when he did, it was Republican to match his wife.
So in short, in 1928, Republican philanthropist E.S. Gosney brought together 24 people, none of whom were Democrats, to form an organization that Dinesh D’Souza claims was influenced by the Democratic party.
Dinesh D’Souza is probably correct to say that the Human Betterment Foundation had an influence on the Nazis. At least HBF board member Charles Goethe said so when he wrote Gosney in 1934 after a trip to Germany:
You will be interested to know that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought and particularly by the work of the Human Betterment Foundation. I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people.
D’Souza claims that eugenics groups like the Human Betterment Foundation are part of the “disgraceful legacy of the Democratic left.” In the light of history, the HBF is disgraceful but how can it be the legacy of the Democratic left when no Democrats were involved in it?
*Voter registrations were checked via Ancestry.com.
Last week in a Twitter response to Princeton historian Kevin Kruse, Dinesh D’Souza linked to a 2017 article published on Breitbart.com in which he claimed the following:
Hitler learned a great deal from the Democrats and from American progressives. He got some of his core policy strategies from them.
Dinesh DSouza speaking at CPAC 2012 CC 2.0
Specifically, D’Souza claimed Hitler copied three policies from American Democrats – the treatment of native Americans, the segregation of African-Americans, and sterilization laws and the eugenics movement from the first half of the last century. While all of these claims are problematic, my intention in this post is to fact check him regarding immigration laws and eugenics.
1924 Immigration Act
D’Souza wrote:
Hitler also appealed to the racially exclusionary provisions of U.S. immigration laws, specifically the 1924 Immigration Act that had been pushed by American progressives as a model of enlightened eugenic legislation.
As Kruse pointed out on Twitter, the 1924 Immigration Act was sponsored by two conservative Republicans, Albert Johnson (R-WA) and David Reed (R-PA) and signed into law by Republican president Calvin Coolidge. When Republicans controlled the House, Johnson was the chair of the House Immigration and Naturalization Committee. While chair of that committee, Johnson appointed eugenicist Harry Laughlin to be the committee’s “Expert Eugenics Agent” and routed funds for eugenic research to Charles Davenport’s lab at Cold Spring Harbor where Laughlin also worked.
While it is true that the supporters of eugenics and race-based immigration had common cause, it is not true that the Democratic Party was the sole or even leading influence. Members of both parties voted for the bill but it was sponsored and promoted heavily by Republicans.
On a related note, Republicans today are typically the ones who want to slow immigration into the U.S. It was a recent Republican president who wondered why we couldn’t take more people from Norway than from “sh*thole” countries.
Sterilization Laws
D’Souza wrote:
Third, Hitler learned from progressive sterilization laws that had been enacted in America through the influence of activists like Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood.
Progressive eugenicist Paul Popenoe, himself an advocate of euthanasia by poison gas, praised Hitler for being on the front lines of modern eugenics. Harry Laughlin and Charles Davenport’s Eugenic News termed the Nazi sterilization program “a milestone which marks the control by the most advanced nations of the world of a major aspect of controlling human reproduction.”
It is true that Hitler praised America’s laws allowing the sterilization of people deemed to be deficient in various ways. It is also true that many of the leaders in the eugenics movement supported Germany’s movement to enact similar laws. However, Sanger had little to do with sterilization laws because the eugenics supporters cited by D’Souza didn’t want her help.
While it is safe to say that Margaret Sanger was progressive in her views, she wasn’t viewed as a colleague by those in the mainstream of the eugenics and sterilization movement. She hoped to attach herself to it to further her own cause but leaders in the eugenics movement didn’t seem to want her. Read what eugenics leader Paul Popenoe said in a letter to fellow eugenicist Madison Grant about Sanger’s American Birth Control League:
Dear Mr. Grant,
I have been considerably disquieted by the letter you showed me yesterday, suggesting a working alliance between the American Eugenics Society and the American Birth Control League. In my judgement we have everything to lose nothing to gain to such an arrangement.
[The American Birth Control League] is controlled by a group that has be brought up on agitation and emotional appeal instead of on research and education… With this group, we would take on a large quantity of ready-made enemies which it has accumulated, and we would gain allies who, while believing that they are eugenics, really have no conception of what eugenics is and are actually opposed to it.
[At a recent international birth control conference] two members of our advisory council … put through a resolution at the final meeting, urging that people whose children gave promise of being of exceptional value to the race should have as many children, properly spaced, as they felt that they feasibly could. This is eugenics. It is not the policy of the American Birth Control League leaders, who in the next issue of their monthly magazine came out with an editorial denouncing this resolution as contrary to all the principles and sentiments of their organization.
If it is desirable for us to make a campaign in favor of contraception, we are abundantly able to do so on our own account, without enrolling a lot of sob sisters, grand stand players, and anarchists to help us. We had a lunatic fringe in the eugenics movement in the early days; we have been trying for 20 years to get rid of it and have finally done so. Let’s not take on another fringe of any kind as an ornament.
Francis Chan is a superstar pastor who has a franchise called Crazy Love™. There is a Crazy Love book, study guide, website, ministries (plural) and store where you can “shop now” for all of Chan’s books. Like all superstars, he also has a church planting network. We used to call them denominations. His is called We Are Church. He is pretty cool.
Anyway, he is also a board member of Gospel for Asia. That has always confused me because GFA hasn’t had such a cool recent history. But Francis Chan thinks everything is fine. In fact, he is out saying that GFA hasn’t done anything wrong, telling Christian Post that he researched the matter with a trusted friend and found nothing wrong with GFA’s finances.
I have written Francis Chan in the past and he first had his Crazy Love assistant Chaz answer me. When Chaz didn’t actually answer the question I asked, I wrote back but Crazy Love stopped responding.
In response to Francis Chan’s statement about GFA, I still have some questions. Maybe someone at We Are Church or Crazy Love will tell someone who will tell someone who can ask Francis Chan about it.
Dear Francis Chan:
One, if there were no financial problems at GFA, then why did Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability take the rare step of evicting the organization from membership? In case you didn’t read the report, you can read all about it here. Chaz can print out a copy for you.
Two, why did a federal judge appoint a special master to oversee GFA during Murphy v. GFA? I think you know the answer. GFA couldn’t verify their expenses and the judge had given the leaders months to do so. Being sanctioned by a federal judge isn’t a sign of an honest broker.
Three, why does His Eminence The Most Reverence Metropolitan Dr. K.P. Yohannan need to have a personal fortune when he is the supreme Metropolitan of Believers’ Church in Asia? You looked at his tax returns in the U.S. but did you consider the vast wealth of Believers’ Church in Asia? How does being the patron of a state of the art medical center and medical college in India figure into one’s empire? Why does the church need a soccer team? What needs or wants are not met when the church supplies everything due to your position as supreme temporal and spiritual authority?
Four, why did GFA cover up the transfer of $20-million from Canada to India to the U.S. for the completion of the Texas headquarters? I assume you’ve been to the compound. I hear it is pretty nice. You probably wouldn’t need a big income if you have everything you need provided for you by donors who think their money is going to evangelism and poor children in Asia.
Five, why hasn’t GFA told donors that Believers’ Church and GFA lost registration as a charity in India? When Compassion International lost their registration, it made the New York Times. When it happened to GFA, GFA told several different false stories. It still isn’t clear how funds are getting into India, if they are getting in at all.
I have more questions but that should do for now. As a board member, you will be busy meeting your two new colleagues, Garland Murphy and whoever he helps chose to take Gisela’s place. Also, you all are going to have to raise the $37-million for the settlement. Since a lien will be on the Texas headquarters, you will be really busy raising money to pay the $11-million you can’t get from “the field.” Probably, raising $11-million to pay a court settlement is really going to keep the board busy. Donors might be a little skeptical of an organization raising money to pay former donors who settled a RICO suit.
Crazy.
Love, The Blogger
P.S. In case you haven’t read the Murphy v. GFA settlement, it is here.
