John Fea Watched Jim Bakker and David Barton So You Don’t Have To; About That Founders Bible

I watched the whole thing because I study this stuff, but John Fea did his readers a favor by summarizing a truly bizarre segment of the Jim Bakker Show (and that is saying something) with David Barton and Brad Cummings as guests. You should go read it.

I really can’t improve on Fea’s piece, but I want to highlight a few things. It is being reported around social media that David Barton predicted that a second civil war might happen if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Barton believes “liberal states” like California will secede. He believes that might trigger a war.

First, I seriously doubt this prophecy. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion regulation will return to the states and California will keep it legal while Alabama will outlaw it — at least for now. I believe there will be strong feelings and some might call for drastic actions, but I believe a return of regulation to the states has been anticipated for many years by both sides of the issue.

The second thing I want to notice here is the crew which cooked up this religious stew. According to Barton and Cummings (co-publisher of The Shack), they got together with Mormon Glenn Beck, seven mountain dominionist Lance Wallnau, and Rick Joyner to discuss where America is heading. I wonder which person’s god gave Joyner “the dream.”

Cummings then said that Joyner had a dream of America’s timeline from heaven’s perspective (because of course America is central in God’s mind). The bottom line is that Joyner said the time line ended with a second American civil war which this time will be “successful” in achieving equality. Let me quote what Fea had to say about this segment of the video:

Barton then affirms Joyner’s vision, and in doing so he says some accurate things about the failure of the founders to deliver on matters of racial equality.  This is a huge step for Barton. It led me to wonder where he was going this.  Where was the culture-war hook?

And then it happened.  At about the 4:50 mark Barton adds an additional layer to his interpretation of Joyner’s dream.  Rather than continuing with his mini-lecture on America’s failure in matters of race, he suggests that Joyner’s vision about a “Second American Revolution and Civil War” was actually about Roe v. Wade.  Barton says that we should expect a Civil War “over the abortion issue.”  If Roe v. Wade is overturned, California and other pro-choice states will secede from the Union and it will end in violence.

Eating this gnostic stew could be dangerous. Barton said he had to be careful how he said it, but there is no careful way to say that it may be God’s will to go to war over abortion. This is lunacy and every sane person should reject it publicly.

As I noted above, the issue will be decided by the states if Roe is overturned. However, even if states do attempt to secede, it is unthinkable to have a war where people die for a pro-life cause.

These people are so far removed from war that they don’t know what they are doing or who they are radicalizing. To them (especially Bakker and his end time food buckets), these sensationalized shows are ways to move products. Cummings and Barton are making the rounds right now to sell The Founders Bible as if it is a new thing. Rather, Barton and Cummings brought that out in 2012 after the failure of The Jefferson Lies.

About That Founders Bible

Barton and Cummings should do some soul searching on their messaging regarding slavery. In the first edition of The Founders Bible, they called slave holder and slavery advocate James Hammond of SC an American leader because he was an advocate of America as a Christian nation (see also here and here). Hammond was just alright then.

For more on historical errors in The Founders Bible, click here.

Mark Driscoll: The Five Points of Calvinism are Garbage

James MacDonald (left), Mark Driscoll (right)

On the Debrief Show video blog with Matt Brown, Mark Driscoll told bloggers to blog so of course, I must. About what, you ask? Calvinism and the garbage that it is, according to Driscoll. Watch:

After saying Time magazine dubbed him one of the thought leaders of the “young, restless, and reformed” (YRR) movement, Driscoll added:

I don’t hold to the five points of Calvinism. I think it’s garbage, so blog about that, but anyways, because it’s not biblical.

It is my impression that Driscoll restated Calvinism in several ways over the years (e.g. here) to try to make it more acceptable so I don’t think this is a tremendous departure from the past. I will defer to Driscoll watchers to comment about Driscoll’s devotion to the five points. However, what is notable now is his dismissal of the system as “garbage.”

Even more interesting is Driscoll’s psychological analysis of his former YRR mates as “little boys with father wounds.” Calvin and Luther are father figures as is God. Calvin and Luther are “dead guys” who are distant like their earthly fathers. In a way, he provided an armchair explanation for why conversion could be viewed as a psychological experience rather than a spiritual experience. I wonder if he realizes he did that.

In any case, Driscoll left Mars Hill and told many people that he was ready to be a spiritual father — who we should revere apparently.

The rest of the program before and after the Calvinism disclosure is a rehearsal of the need for fathers and how one’s father image effects one’s God image. I might take it apart at a later time, but for now I have done my blogging duty.

Here in another life Driscoll discusses Calvinism and Arminianism. He named one of his sons after Calvin so at that time he was on team Calvin. In this sermon, he certainly didn’t think the five points were garbage. He agreed with them, albeit with a caveat on limited atonement.

Given that one’s view of God is related to one’s view of one’s earthly father, I can only guess that his view of his earthly father has changed.

Compare Gospel for Asia’s Image with Reality

In 2019, Gospel for Asia is celebrating 40 years in business. This comes the same year GFA settled a fraud lawsuit (Murphy v. GFA) for $37-million. The settlement was just finalized with about 26,000 claimants seeking just over $109-million. Not everybody will get what they donated but this shows that donors weren’t happy.

On their Patheos blog, an unnamed staff member wrote a glowing vanity piece about GFA founder K.P. Yohannan. I would like readers to compare that piece with an email from David Carroll to Yohannan from 2015. This email came to light during discovery in Murphy v. GFA. At issue in the case was the use of donor funds. Plaintiffs Garland and Phyllis Murphy contended that GFA didn’t use all donor funds as donors intended. As a part of fund raising, GFA made representations that the funds were all going to mission work and were urgently needed. The discovery process pulled back the curtain on GFA’s claims and found that the reality wasn’t always what they claimed.

The narcissism in this article is obvious. The blog is GFA’s and the person writing it is an anonymous GFA staffer and yet readers are expected to take the following statements at face value:

They, and others like them, can look back and stand in awe of how an Almighty God has blessed their ministries abundantly and beyond imagination.

I know a man exactly like that. His name is Dr. K.P. Yohannan. He is one of the humblest and most dedicated men I have ever known. Forty years ago, he responded to God’s call to minister to the millions of people in Asia. Little did he know that in 2019 he would be able to look back at the remarkable things the Lord did over the past 40 years.

By any objective assessment, GFA has not had such a good record since 2014. The organization has been embroiled in scandal, membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability was removed, they lost other symbols of financial integrity, they lost their registration as a charity in India, at least one of their schools in India closed due to financial problems, and they have to pay a $37-million settlement to donors. Yes, K.P. is a remarkable CEO.

Leaving aside the fact that GFA hasn’t had a great record of late, the picture presented is that GFA is taking all of that money using it to help the poor and needy. Since all of this is done for the Lord, surely there wouldn’t be any deception or double talk.

Now let’s pull back the curtain a bit.

In the fraud lawsuit, an email from Chief Operating Officer David Carroll to CEO K.P. Yohannan surfaced which presents a different picture. Here is the email. 

Sir, I need to share with you where I am over this situation. I will try to summarize for brevity sake. We have a saying in our country: The numbers don’t lie. The published FC-6 reports show westerners that we have either sent money to the field raised for National Ministries and Bridge of Hope to fund the hospital and the corpus fund, or our FC-6 filings are filed wrong. Either way, this is a huge problem. It appears to those reading these that we might have been dishonest to the donors (fraud), or been dishonest to the Indian government, (a PR nightmare at least). Sister Siny’s report below will, in my opinion, do little to satisfy those who are printing out and analyzing our FC-6 reports. I am sorry for not expressing more confidence than this. I think we may have used money raised for National Ministries and Bridge of Hope for the hospital.

I think that India feels that we raise money and send it. I think that India feels that we raised money and sent it to them and they can legally use it any way they deem fit. I hope that I am wrong, but I am doubtful. I also don’t think that it is an intentional wrong, but if I am correct, it is a huge wrong. We’ve spoken at hundreds of churches with tears asking for the National Ministries and Bridge of Hope support, and the FC-6 that is public says that we sent much of that money for the hospital and the reserve corpus funds.”

“It doesn’t matter that we have now moved the money out of the corpus fund because according to the public FC-6 reports, we have been building them up for years. Moving the money only serves to confirm the feelings of guilt to outsiders.”

“I think the only way for us to handle the inquiries raised by Bruce and others is to refer them to our Indian office. Mr. Throckmorton (unless a miracle happens) will get this information and may even begin an investigation of us. We can say all we want that we don’t have anything to do with the Believers Church or the field and that you are only the
spiritual head of the church and that finances are handled by others but you, but as a practical matter, that will not hold up. Can the field find a way out of this situation? I too am very nervous. I have always believed in total accountability of the field, yet the FC-6 reports provide numbers that, as a former auditor, I cannot just explain away with a simple explanation. I, and the world, will need numerical proof now, and I do not have the ability to get it from the USA end. Only the field can explain it, and I am in the hot seat in this crisis and I feel a lot of pressure.

If I say, well, it is not my problem, it’s a field problem, it’s as good as saying we are guilty of misappropriation, If I say “The FC-6 reports are filed inaccurately on purpose, due to the hostile environments we work in, it gets the field in trouble and turns the attention to them. I get the feeling that, although we are not financially dishonest, we are financially reckless — the stockpiling of money in the RBC [Royal Bank of India] account
and then the hurried transferring of it to the field, the Hong Kong account, et cetera. Sir, may I please have my name taken off of the RBC account as soon as possible?”

There is much in this email which is inside baseball. One would need to follow this story closely to understand all of what Carroll is worried about. But note this: He is worried. He is worried because GFA was caught in misrepresentations and feared that Bruce Morrison from Canada and/or I would investigate the matter further to expose it all. And we did.

For the purpose of this post, I want to highlight one misrepresentation. K.P. Yohannan told people that he had nothing to do with finances in India, that he didn’t control anything financially there. However, here is what David Carroll said about that.

We can say all we want that we don’t have anything to do with the Believers Church or the field and that you are only the spiritual head of the church and that finances are handled by others but you, but as a practical matter, that will not hold up.

Yohannan told the the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability and his staff the story that he had no power over finances in India. However, in this email, David Carroll acknowledged that Yohannan’s story would “not hold up.” Click this link to hear the audio of the staff meeting in 2014 when he and Carroll told the staff about a $20-million gift from India which was used to complete the GFA headquarters in Wills Point, TX. The transcript can be read here.

Carroll could see there was a problem with donor funds going into a corpus fund (a kind of rainy day fund) and being spent on a medical center and other projects instead of on what donors intended. Yet, GFA was officially denying all of this. Eventually, the ECFA removed GFA from membership when these discrepancies could not be cleared up.

GFA still hasn’t admitted publicly that anything was ever wrong. They haven’t been readmitted to ECFA membership. They were sanctioned by a federal judge for delaying discovery during their fraud trial. There isn’t an indication that anything has changed. For all we know, reality is still much different from what they are presenting.

One aspect of the fraud case settlement which might serve to bring GFA into the light is the addition of two new board members to GFA’s board. Plaintiff Garland Murphy and an unnamed person will be added. Provided GFA honors the intent of the settlement, there may be some light at the end of this tunnel. For now, the public would do well to discern reality from image.

 

 

Want Mark Driscoll’s Autographed Sermon Notes? Sign UP!

Mark Driscoll (right); James MacDonald (left)

You know you want them. Pastor Mark’s signed notes are essential evangelical merch. All you have to do is add your email to Pastor Mark’s email list and you can have a chance to own these authentic notes the research for which may or may not have been paid for by Mars Hill Church.

No deadline is given, but don’t delay for as Driscoll 3:16 says, “I am the brand, and thou art not the brand.”

UPDATE: Rev. Driscoll removed the tweet sometime on 7/8 but never fear, it is screen captured below.

 

Teflon David Barton

In the real world, if you fake your credentials or tell stories about your accomplishments, there can be consequences. In today’s evangelical subculture, Christian celebrities often avoid the fullness of these consequences. I could talk about Ravi Zacharias who passed off honorary doctorates as earned doctorates for many years and said he was a professor at Oxford when he wasn’t. He had to fess up and took a little heat over the matter, although arguably it hasn’t slowed him down much.

Today, I will examine a claim from David Barton. He seems even more immune from consequences than Zacharias. First, I want to note some cases similar to Barton’s which resulted in real consequences for people and then ask why Barton is above it all.

The Fake Statistician

Amy Apodaca was a statistician for the Army until it was learned that she faked both masters and doctorate degrees. Apodaca told the Army she had degrees from major universities including Yale. However, she only had a BA in sociology from U of TX in Austin. In 2014, Apodaca was forced to resign her job.

The Fake Professor

In 2014, David Broxterman was a popular professor at Polk State College in Lakeland, FL until officials discovered his doctorate was fraudulent. He claimed to have a doctorate from University of South Florida but did not. He was arrested and charged with stealing his salary since it was garnered until false pretenses.

Luggage C.E.O. Had to Pack His Bags

In 2018, Ramesh Tainwala was forced to resign as CEO at Samsonite because he referred to himself as “Dr.” when in fact he did not have an earned doctorate. Tainwala actually attended classes at the Union Institute in Cincinnati but did not complete the degree. He rarely used the Dr. designation and the company bio did not refer to a doctorate. Even so, the company took the allegations seriously and said in a statement that the resignation was in the best interest of the company and shareholders.

The Principal Busted by the School Paper

In 2017, Amy Robertson was going to be principal at Pittsburg (KS) High School. That is, she was until the school newspaper staff discovered her graduate degrees came from a diploma mill. Once this became known and accepted by the administration and school board, Ms. Robertson resigned.

I could discuss many more: The college president booted from an accreditation board for getting his PhD from a diploma mill, or a CEO who falsely claimed an MBA degree.

You know where I am going with this.

On September 7 2016, self-styled historian and Project Blitz promoter David Barton placed a video on his Facebook and YouTube accounts proclaiming that he had an earned doctorate. He said he had chosen not to talk about it before, but he claimed he was now showing it to his audience. After I disclosed that the degree came from Life Christian University (which gives degrees to people without ever attending their diploma mill), Barton, the next day, removed the video from both accounts. Here is the video claim:

Barton began by chastising progressives for doubting his claim that he had a doctorate. He said he has two honorary doctorates and then for reasons that became clear later, he pointed to what he called his “earned doctorate,” but he didn’t say where he got it. He hid it behind another diploma. At the time, that seemed strange since there is no reason to hide an earned degree unless one has something to hide.

As it turned out, the diploma was given to him by Douglas Wingate, president of Life Christian University. Barton didn’t take any courses or go to any classes. Wingate’s diploma factory just gave it to him. In Missouri, a doctorate from Life Christian University issued like this can’t be called “earned” according to state authorities. Joyce Meyer had to remove the phrase “earned doctorate” from her website in connection to the piece of paper given to her by Wingate’s “school.”

Barton ended his bragging video with this sentence:

So for all of you critics, sorry to pop your balloon but I do have an earned doctorate.

However, the piece of paper that he kept partially hidden isn’t an earned doctorate. He appeared to know that because he hid it and took the video down as soon as it became known. Now what?

To my knowledge, Barton has never addressed this matter publicly. Only one Christian media outlet – UK’s Christian Today (not Christianity Today) wrote about it. Many people in Christian leadership know about this and about the compromised material in Barton’s speeches and books. And yet, Barton continues to show up in large evangelical churches like Gateway Church, on conservative talk shows like Ben Shapiro’s, and in major evangelical political initiatives like Project Blitz.

Barton also claimed to play Division One basketball while in college (his college said he was not on the team) and to translate for the Russian Olympic gymnastics team (they had their own translators). However, no significant Christian media investigation took place after those claims came to light. Nor did any of the Christian organizations which claim high standards of integrity take any action or require any answers.

Even without the media coverage, I am aware that many leaders in organizations like Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, American Family Association, etc. know the issues. And let’s not forget the fact that Barton’s book on Thomas Jefferson was pulled by Christian publisher Thomas Nelson. They have been made aware by their ideological fellows, and yet they continue to use Wallbuilders materials and feature Barton’s work. I don’t know if evangelicals on a large scale will ever figure out how they have been misled.

Apodaca, Broxterman, Tainwala, Robertson and Barton. One of these names is not like the others. Maybe four of them should have chosen evangelical Christianity as their area of endeavor. They might still be in business.

 

Additional note: Maybe the reason Barton hasn’t said anything about this is because in Texas it is illegal to claim a fictitious or substandard degree.

Sec. 32.52. FRAUDULENT, SUBSTANDARD, OR FICTITIOUS DEGREE. (a) In this section, “fraudulent or substandard degree” has the meaning assigned by Section 61.302, Education Code.

(b) A person commits an offense if the person:

(1) uses or claims to hold a postsecondary degree that the person knows:

(A) is a fraudulent or substandard degree;

(B) is fictitious or has otherwise not been granted to the person; or

(C) has been revoked; and

(2) uses or claims to hold that degree:

(A) in a written or oral advertisement or other promotion of a business; or

(B) with the intent to:

(i) obtain employment;

(ii) obtain a license or certificate to practice a trade, profession, or occupation;

(iii) obtain a promotion, a compensation or other benefit, or an increase in compensation or other benefit, in employment or in the practice of a trade, profession, or occupation;

(iv) obtain admission to an educational program in this state; or

(v) gain a position in government with authority over another person, regardless of whether the actor receives compensation for the position.

(c) An offense under this section is a Class B misdemeanor.

(d) If conduct that constitutes an offense under this section also constitutes an offense under any other law, the actor may be prosecuted under this section or the other law.