Warren Throckmorton

In a Christian Today article from yesterday, Mark Woods was able to secure some answers to questions I have been posing on this blog. In response to massive cash reserves being held in Indian banks, COO David Carroll said bank balances change as money is spent and deposited.

GFA’s Chief Operating Officer David Carroll told Christian Today that it was important to understand that GFA India and Believers Church were separate entities from Gospel for Asia USA. While he did not provide detailed figures, when asked about the cash reserves apparently held in Indian accounts, he said: “Like any nonprofit organisation or ministry, money in these bank accounts ebbs and flows throughout the year. It does not just sit there. The account balance will swell and then decline as the money is spent according to donor designations.”

In other news, water is wet.
Of course, the balances change but GFA’s surplus has been swelling for years. One nice feature of the Indian FC-6 forms is that balances at the beginning and end of the fiscal years are reported. Looking at just GFA’s balances (remember, GFA in the U.S. sends donor money to at least four Indian NGOs – GFA-India, Believers’ Church, Love India Ministries, and Last Hour Ministries), the balances have been doing more flowing than ebbing.

The above figures do not include money sent from GFA in the U.S. to the other three Indian NGOs. However, the rate of increase is about the same to the point where now all four organizations have more than $150 million just sitting in bank accounts.
Looking the growth of the balances, GFA in the U.S. continues to tell donors that so much could be done if only there was enough money. GFA has money stored away and that has been growing steadily.
I will end this post by previewing a future one. As I have done these calculations, I have noticed that the value of the rupee has declined over this period. By sending so much American money to India and letting it sit in banks, millions have been lost to currency devaluation. In my conversations with those knowledgeable currency exchange rates, they tell me it is better to keep money in the U.S. until it is actually needed on the field. It is easy to see why this is true. The minute you send money to India, you lose some of it. And the longer it sits there, the less it is worth. This method of management of the funds has lost millions of dollars over the years.

In a statement to Christian Today, via comment from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, Gospel for Asia admitted sending cash to India via student groups and ministry partners. From the article by Mark Woods:

GFA is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), which made an on-site review of its finances at its headquarters in Willis Point, Texas last week. ECFA told Christian Today: “We found the organisation to be highly transparent and fully cooperative, as I’m sure they’ll continue to be as ECFA continues our review of Gospel for Asia.”

It confirmed that GFA had sent cash with individuals travelling to India, but said that it had “stopped this practice entirely, and is working with legal counsel to determine appropriate remedial measures, if any”.

An organization is not highly transparent when they tell members of the public that they won’t answer questions which have now proven to be legitimate. On a regular basis, I get communications from former donors who tell me that GFA did not answer their questions and David Carroll told me he wouldn’t respond to any more of my emails.

On the money smurfing, it is now clear that the ECFA leaders now know this was happening. We also learn here (not from the “transparent” GFA but from GFA’s public relations spokesgroup, ECFA) that GFA has some idea that legal counsel may be necessary.

There is something wrong with this picture. The financial watchdog group appears to be more interested in damage control for a charter member (GFA) than getting answers for donors. All those years the money smurfing was taking place, GFA was a member in good standing with ECFA. If not for recent disclosures from former students and staff, GFA would still be doing it in violation of their own stated financial standards. However, when discovered, ECFA’s response is to focus on GFA’s claim that it won’t happen again. If ECFA had benefit for donors, it would focus on why GFA sent money to India in the first place.

Recently, a person who had carried cash to India for GFA told me that no explanation was given when the cash was handed out just prior to leaving the U.S. Travelers did not have time to contact family or advisors to ask questions about it. It was just expected. There were no receipts given in the U.S. or in India and no customs forms were completed. The amount in an envelope was $4500.

If you are a student, staff member, ministry partner, or pastor who carried cash out of the United States to another country, please contact me at [email protected]. We can speak off the record unless you designate otherwise.

So says Wartburg Watch.
You’ll remember this story once you start reading. You can get a summary in this prior post. Matt Chandler publicly called for people who had been hurt by TVC’s ideas about church discipline or in other ways to come to the leaders to reconcile.
Current statements from TVC and Karen Hinkley are at WW. Karen Hinkley says it is over for her.
TVC also referred Jordan Root to a specialist. As noted in a prior post, I endorse that move.
Now see Mars Hill executive elders, that wasn’t so hard.  The Petry family and the Meyer family (we could add other names as well) are still waiting on those phone calls and letters from you.  A bunch of your former pastors did a good thing last year.
Your turn.
Are you breathing and reading these words? That means it isn’t too late.

Update: Graham has responded to criticism via an editorial in USA Today.
Don’t you hate it when you boycott (personcott?) your bank because it is too gay friendly and then you switch banks and then find out that the new bank is also gay friendly?
Read all about it at WaPo in an article by Sarah Pulliam Bailey.
When I first converted, I was told by my youth pastor that one shouldn’t go to movies because doing so would support Hollywood. I didn’t get it then and I don’t get it now.
Franklin used Facebook to make his declaration. Well, that is a problem for him going forward. He said Christians don’t have to shop at Tiffany & Co. Well, that’s good because I can’t really afford to. I guess evangelists who run big charities have a choice.
Last night, I asked Franklin’s PR rep, Mark DeMoss, for a comment about the new bank, BB&T, but didn’t hear back.
 
 

On Saturday, I pointed out that the Missouri Baptist Convention was co-sponsoring David Barton and George Barna to speak at the Turning America Conference to be held at the Second Baptist Church in Springfield, MO later this month.
I asked Rob Phillips, communications director for the MBC, why the MBC was co-sponsoring Barton in light of the widespread criticism of Barton’s historical claims by numerous Christian historians. The answer came from Dr. John Yeats, MBC executive director, who said:

We are grateful for the opportunity to help a leading Missouri Baptist church serve as host of the conference. Whatever your views on David Barton, we support the event and encourage Missouri Baptists to hear him out and decide for themselves. In my many years in Baptist life, I have found my fellow Baptists to be fair-minded and discerning people who love the truth.  Certainly, we agree with the stated mission of WallBuilders: to educate the nation concerning the Godly foundation of our country; to provide information to federal, state, and local officials as they develop public policies that reflect Biblical values; and to encourage Christians to be involved in the civic arena.

In addition to asking for explanation from MBC, I asked several Christian historians for their opinion regarding the MBC’s decision. Barry Hankins, professor of history at Baylor University, said:

David Barton’s history of the American founding is out of step with even the most conservative, Bible-believing, evangelical historians in the Christian college world. I’ve never met a professional historian with a Ph.D. who accepted Barton’s argument that the founding fathers as a group were pervasively Christian and intended to found a Christian nation as Barton defines it. Moreover, when one’s biography of Thomas Jefferson is discontinued by Thomas Nelson publishers, as Barton’s was, Christians should wonder why. It is sad that anyone in the evangelical world would continue to promote his work.

After reading Dr. Yeats reply, The Masters College historian Gregg Frazer said:

I am a conservative, evangelical, born-again Christian; I am also a trained historian whose research is centered on the American Founding.  I believe that the Supreme Court’s “wall of separation” notion is bad legal doctrine based on bad history that has resulted in denial of religious freedom.  But replacing bad history with more bad history that we like better is not the solution.
Baptists may well be “fair-minded and discerning people who love the truth” and it is good that the president wants Missouri Baptists to “decide for themselves.”  The problem is that in order to properly discern and to properly decide on truth, people must have access to proper information and actual truth.  Missouri Baptists, for example, would never come to the truth of the Gospel if all that was presented to them was Buddhism or Islam.  In order to come to a proper conclusion, one must have access to the truth.  How can they learn truth if Missouri Baptists hear only manufactured “history” – history as some wish it had been; history as constructed from partial quotes, quotes out of context, misleading half-truths, and complete falsehoods?  The vast majority of Missourians/Americans do not have the time or resources to study primary historical documents – so they put their faith in people who claim to have done that study.  When that trust is misplaced, Missouri Baptists will inevitably draw false conclusions – through no fault of their own.
If Missouri Baptists are going to hear the eccentric views of self-proclaimed historians and still have a chance to know the truth and to discern it, they must also hear from someone who can point out misleading tactics and errors and show them the actual texts that are distorted and manipulated.  I’m from Missouri; I trust that Missourians could discern properly between two alternatives.  But IF THEY ONLY HEAR ONE SIDE, HOW CAN THEY MAKE A PROPER DETERMINATION?  When they “decide for themselves, “ will they not be captive to the information they have – whether it is false or true?  Completely false information can be made to look very persuasive when presented in isolation. (emphasis in the original statement).

Frazer and Hankins reveal the problem with Dr. Yeats’ stance. After the false information is presented, how will the audience get the right stuff?