GCC Website Criticism of Those Who Criticize! How ironic!

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[Linda]

There are so many different mentions of "Internet Criticisms" on the Great Commission Churches web page, that I sometimes forget what I've already seen and what is new.

Is this new?

http://www.gccweb.org/about/responding-to-criticisms

During the 1970s and 1980s, some secular newspapers wrote articles accusing churches in our movement of being a cult.  We understood then (as we understand today) that some people are quick to use the word “cult” in describing Christians who are serious in their devotion to Christ and who are actively sharing their faith.  In addition, because we were a new movement that was not well known, unfair and exaggerated statements were published that were based on ignorance or false reports. Now and then some of these mischaracterizations of GCC from the 1970s appear on secular blogs and websites today.

No mention of the 1991 Statement of Error and Apology, just ad hominem attack against website posters and a bold declaration of how they were wronged!

Also, guys, you got on the cult lists not because you were zealous for the Gospel to go forward, you got on the cult watch lists because you were demanding a lifetime commitment to your group and complete obedience to Great Commission elders. Zeal for the Gospel is great. Zeal for God is great. Zeal for your group is pride and idolatry.

In the article there is a link if you click on the words "false reports".  It takes you here:

http://www.gccweb.org/about/how-false-information-can-spread

Anyone know who Mr. Watson is? I don't believe Mr. Enroth ( http://www.gcxweb.org/Books/ChurchesThatAbuse.aspx) or Mr. Martin ( http://www.gcxweb.org/Books/CultProofingYourKids.aspx ) ever recanted.

For the record, I agree that personal offenses should not ever be dealt with via the Internet.

Also, for the record, we confronted leadership for over a year and a half about their bad teaching. WE WERE ASKED TO LEAVE RATHER THAN STAY AND HELP THEM CORRECT THEIR ERROR. False teaching is to be exposed and corrected. To date, Great Commission has only tried to discredit the messenger and hide the messages. They have never corrected their false teaching on commitment to the group for life and obedience to elders.

[Linda]

Hey, have you all seen this?

http://www.gccweb.org/dr-enroth-and-gcc

Approximately two decades ago, I made reference in my writing to a network of churches then known as Great Commission International (GCI), now known as Great Commission Churches (GCC).  Some former members and other critics were of the opinion that the leadership of GCI was authoritarian and controlling.  Elders were said to emphasize loyalty to the group and the promoting of an unhealthy dependency on the leadership. Examples of those perceived attitudes were reported in my book, CHURCHES THAT ABUSE (1992). In recent years attempts have been made to achieve Christian reconciliation involving current and past church leadership and former members.  I am pleased to learn that remarkable progress toward restoration and reconciliation has been a reality.  Based on information I have received, I wish to inform my readers that I no longer view GCC as spiritually unhealthy and I commend all parties for their willingness to strive for unity in the body of Christ and to make changes and improvements as needed.

I think Dr. Enroth has been misinformed!

[Linda]

Someone should tell Dr. Enroth about this Rick Whitney tidbit. They still teach loyalty to the group and admit that nothing has changed.:

I recently heard a brother comment on our church association’s recent history.  He used the phrase, “Our organizational wilderness . . . ”  He was reflecting on some of the changes that we have been wrestling with as a church movement. 
   I understand what he means. We have gone through changes and it seems like there is no end to the number of Great Commission, “GC acronyms”, that we can come up with.  I understand his humor and maybe his partial frustration.
   But honestly, nothing has changed. We are still the same group of men and our bond remains strong.  We have lost a few and yes, it hurts and yes, there have been challenges.  All movements of God have lost men.  Even our Lord lost a few. But nothing has really changed.
 
Joining the Ranks

   If someone is going to “cross over” in their heart and join us, the steps are still the same.  In our local church, in our region, in our movement.   

   1.  They show up.  And they keep showing up.
   2.  They begin to process and understand what our core beliefs are.
   3.  They hold to our beliefs, and begin to speak up for them. 
      They “own” our vision.
   4.  They ‘roll up their sleeves’ and get involved in serving.
   5.  They begin to be faithful in sharing their time, their money, their
      home and resources - in our shared vision, our common cause.
   6.  And they say, “This is my family and I will fight for it.”

   This is how someone joins our ranks in a local church.  This is how someone joins our region.  This is how someone joins our movement.  The steps are exactly the same.  This process is what we are looking for in our local church and it is what we are looking for across this movement of churches. 

[Huldah]

Thank you, Linda. Those were very good posts. It gets very wearisome, reading all the excuses and defensiveness that come from GC. It's discouraging to watch them dismiss very real doctrinal concerns by implying that their critics are all angry, anti-gospel, unsaved, and/or uninformed. Who's slandering whom?

[Linda]

Huldah, Thanks. Agreed. Wearisome. Discouraging.

This is not about "reconciliation". This is about correcting false teaching and practice. This is about exposing error.

It would be great if they would make public correction of their error and stop slandering people who are exposing it.

[EverAStudent]

I had an interesting dialogue with some Roman Catholic seminary students.  They lament that we "protestants" will not reconcile and return to the mother church.  They could not really grasp that "protestants" had formed genuine churches apart from the RCC and had no interest in reconciliation because we continue to feel RCC doctrine is too unsound; in their minds they could only see a single church politic (the RCC) and no other local gathering of Christians was valid. 

And so it is with GCC.  They cannot see us (the protesters and our churches) as valid apart from them, nor can they grasp that their doctrine and practices are biblically unsound in several important aspects.  All they see is that "protesters" must return to them and reconcile. 

None are so blind as those who simply refuse to see.

[Linda]

Good points, EAS. Another thing that I think is happening is they are postmodern in their thinking that all conflict is "relational" and therefore everything is about how we "feel" about each other.

All the "reconciliation" talk speaks to that. All the sitting down and talking (which, by the way, we did) will not correct bad teaching. Also, Mr. Hopler should know that we wasted a year and a half trying to do this and were told, by Mark Darling, who sits on the national board of his organization to leave, rather than stay and try to change things.

At the same time, because we are flawed people ministering to flawed people, relational conflicts and misunderstandings still arise. When conflicts occur, most Christians we know pursue a respectful reconciliation process privately.  Others, however, make anonymous posts on blogs.

Mr. Hopler reads this forum. Clearly he knows that these are not misunderstandings or relational conflicts. He has chosen the low road as he suggests publicly that those posting here are disrespectful. He has slandered us.

What Mr. Hopler needs to do is forget about us and answer the concerns on this forum by public, and repeated correction of bad teaching. His continual personal attack on those pointing out the false teaching and practice of his organization speaks volumes.

[2xA Ron]

Is this new?

http://www.gccweb.org/about/responding-to-criticisms

During the 1970s and 1980s, some secular newspapers wrote articles accusing churches in our movement of being a cult.  We understood then (as we understand today) that some people are quick to use the word “cult” in describing Christians who are serious in their devotion to Christ and who are actively sharing their faith.  In addition, because we were a new movement that was not well known, unfair and exaggerated statements were published that were based on ignorance or false reports. Now and then some of these mischaracterizations of GCC from the 1970s appear on secular blogs and websites today.

No mention of the 1991 Statement of Error and Apology, just ad hominem attack against website posters and a bold declaration of how they were wronged!

It does appear to be a fairly recent article.

Also, in all fairness it does say in the very next paragraph (after the section you quoted) that "in the early years there were some valid criticisms" and vaguely alludes to "errors and imbalances" that may have been in the GCx as a whole or in individual churches.  It also mentions Jim McCotter.  The very next paragraph contains a link to the full text of the 1991 Statement of Error.

The article is very vague.  I'd say the purpose is PR more so than informational.  It definitely has a bias, in that the writer views the errors as things of the past or isolated incidents in the present (but then, I have to admit I have a bias in that I only ever saw one church where things were wrong, and yet I tend to judge other GCx churches as if they had the same problems--or my old church that it continues to have the same problems and will not change--, even when I have no evidence whatever that it is so).

I suppose one could take the article as an ad hominem attack on all critics if one chooses to, but that does not strike me as reflecting the writer's intent or the contents of the article so much as mischaracterizing them.  After all, the article does confirm that at least some of the criticism was deserved.  It further provides links to the Statement where the GCx admitted its error in many areas and promised to take steps to eliminate them (not all of which were followed at the church I attended, but I cannot say whether or not the same is true elsewhere).  Finally, down toward the end it offers further reading on "anonymous posters" and links to a letter that admits such people may post either because they did try to reconcile privately and got nowhere or else they believe the GCx is in serious doctrinal error.

[2xA Ron]

I recently heard a brother comment on our church association’s recent history.  He used the phrase, “Our organizational wilderness . . . ”  He was reflecting on some of the changes that we have been wrestling with as a church movement. 
   I understand what he means. We have gone through changes and it seems like there is no end to the number of Great Commission, “GC acronyms”, that we can come up with.  I understand his humor and maybe his partial frustration.
   But honestly, nothing has changed. We are still the same group of men and our bond remains strong.  We have lost a few and yes, it hurts and yes, there have been challenges.  All movements of God have lost men.  Even our Lord lost a few. But nothing has really changed.

Um...in context, is this statement from Rick Whitney really about whether or not the movement has corrected its errors from the McCotter days?  It seems to me his assertion that "nothing has changed" has to do more so with concerns that the GCx will lose something positive as its organizational complexity grows.  I seriously doubt he intended to address whether or not the GCx had changed in response to criticisms, given the immediate context.

[2xA Ron]

I agree that the teaching that people need to commit to a local church for life and make its leaders their final authority is wrong and needs to be addressed.  Whether or not the teaching is an official one of the GCx, something taught by isolated men, or just something assumed in the culture, it needs to be addressed and spoken out against--if not by them, then by us.

However, I don't think we do our cause any justice by taking everything they say and reinterpreting it into an insult or a proud admission of guilt (as the above).  If we accuse them of slandering us when, objectively, they are doing no such thing, then truly who is slandering whom?  If we are so quick to take everything Hopler says in the worst possible light, is it any wonder he refuses to post here?  Will he not think that, if he posts, we will just twist his words and beat him to death with them?  Have we not justified that sentiment? 

[Linda]

My point is that rather than correct some rather glaring theological errors, Hopler and others have chosen to challenge those who are bringing them up.

Suggesting that those posting here are dishonorable helps nothing.
Suggesting that those posting here are bringing up issues that were settled long ago is misleading.
Suggesting that posting anonymously nullifies someone's words is not true.
Using words like "persecution" to describe the actions of Christians who are warning others by pointing out error does not fix the error.

GC theology hurts the Gospel and the cause of Christ.

That said, I have no personal issues with any GC people. I truly believe that they sincerely believe they are being persecuted and are speaking from the heart. I believe their lack of theological training and knowledge of church history explains their deception.

[EverAStudent]

LOL If there was any truth at all in the statement "unsigned or anonymous writings are invalid and need not be addressed" then many of the precious passages of the Bible would have to be considered invalid and not be addressed (e.g. Hebrews, many of the Psalms, etc.).  I am not ready to ignore the abundance of data compiled on GC doctrinal errors and malpractices simply because the injured are unwilling to endure more public taunting. 

[Huldah]

I am not ready to ignore the abundance of data compiled on GC doctrinal errors and malpractices simply because the injured are unwilling to endure more public taunting. 

Thank you so much for saying this, EAS. 

When apologies and statements of reconciliation are used as an opportunity to "honor," "defend the reputations of," and "increase appreciation for" the men who did the damage, while simultaneously publicizing additional alleged offenses by the victim, it's no wonder that some of us hesitate to reveal our names in a public forum or to seek dubious reconciliations.

Regardless of when or how widely the doctrine of membership-for-life was (or is) taught, there's a simple solution, assuming GC now recognizes it as a false teaching. Issue a statement that says, "We renounce this teaching and recognize it for the falsehood that it is. We acknowledge that it has harmed brothers and sisters in Christ and distorted the gospel of Christ. For this, we sincerely ask forgiveness of those whom we injured or misled." Problem solved, in three sentences.

[Linda]

Regardless of when or how widely the doctrine of membership-for-life was (or is) taught, there's a simple solution, assuming GC now recognizes it as a false teaching. Issue a statement that says, "We renounce this teaching and recognize it for the falsehood that it is. We acknowledge that it has harmed brothers and sisters in Christ and distorted the gospel of Christ. For this, we sincerely ask forgiveness of those whom we injured or misled." Problem solved, in three sentences.

Exactly! The only thing I would possibly add to this excellent point is an emphasis on replacing the falsehood with truth. In the past, they have tried to get around bad teaching by taking the messages down.

As some of you may recall, last year we were contacted via snail mail by two pastors at the request of John Hopler who had read some of my comments here. We were contacted because I post by name and had had referred to messages where people were told to surrender their will not only to God, but to Great Commission, Hopler, Knox, etc.

http://forum.gcmwarning.com/general-discussion/what-gc-teaches-and-believes/msg8923/#msg8923

and also were told to give the controls of their life to their elders, who the speaker said were the men God works through (I believe there was a reformation over this idea)

The solution was not to publicly correct this teaching, but rather to contact us and let us know that they were making the teaching unavailable online. Of course, removing bad teaching is a good thing, but not when it is not followed by public retraction and correction.

No one has to contact me. I am not sitting under this teaching. It is not a matter of personal offense. I am here to let others know that there are some very unorthodox views of Christianity being taught to young people by this group.

This bad teaching has done harm to many people I know. And, for the record, I never heard the name Jim McCotter till I did a Google search of the words "Great Commission and cults" in 2005 after a pastor told the congregation that we were his (the pastor's) bride. So, all that talk about bringing things up from decades ago doesn't fly with me.

[2xA Ron]

I agree that the bad teaching needs to go and be replaced with good teaching, or it's as if nothing has changed.

I guess my point is that we are neither helping them do this nor displaying the love of Christ to them when we distort their words in order to take offense at them.  We are not, in so doing, helping our reputations either.  If we take every biased-but-impersonal statement as a direct personal attack and ridicule every step they make in the right direction as a ploy to win our silence, then we make ourselves look like exactly the sort of unreasonable angry people some of them may wish to say we are.  They will say to themselves and others, "They twist our words to take offense only because they're evil people who need something to gripe about."  They will say, "They ridicule our best efforts because they hate us: if they really wanted the church to reform they would encourage us in what we've done so far."  We don't have the power to stop anyone from saying such untrue things about us, but we do have the power to conduct ourselves in such a way that anyone will be able to see how ridiculous such lies are.  We have the power to do simple things to this end: like reading the full text of an article before we deride it for leaving out something that it actually contains, or acknowledging where they've done something right without losing sight of the fact that they've got a long way to go.  When we choose not to exercise that power, we give free ammunition to anyone who wants to shut down our message by attacking the messengers.  That doesn't strike me as the best thing to do.

[Linda]

You have made a lot of assumptions and jumped to a lot of conclusions.  I have read the full text and many more documents. I post here to warn people, parents in particular, about what GC teaches and believes. They have been hearing all this for nearly 40 years. They are still doing the stuff they apologized for. People are being harmed spiritually. Families are being divided. I am not particularly "offended" that Hopler discredits people who post here. I am not "under" the leadership of the man. He is allowed his opinion.

My point is simply that it would be helpful if he just came out defended his theology (not necessarily here, but at conferences and on his web page) rather than be dismissive of sincere challenges. Attacking the messenger does not help.

[Huldah]

...ridicule every step they make in the right direction as a ploy to win our silence...

Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe I'm still too biased after all these years to form a reliable judgment. I freely grant that possibility. However, that is exactly how those steps come across to me. I have never read an apology from the leadership that didn't include a veiled attack on the the person or people being apologized to. I have never seen or heard the leadership refer to their actions as sin or to their doctrines as error. I have never seen a refutation or recantation of the members-for-life teaching or the submission-to-elders (in personal matters) teaching. Yes, it does objectively seem to me that "reconciliation" really just means silencing the critics, and I say this because it's all I've ever observed.

Believe it or not, I'm eager to be proven wrong. I'm genuinely weary of the same-old same-old from John Hopler (whom I regard as a true brother in Christ) et al. If anyone here can provide a link to an unadulterated apology, an admission of sin that isn't written off as "immaturity" or "zeal," or a public correction of bad doctrine, then I promise to read or listen to it carefully. If I'm wrong, I'll come back here and say so.

2xA Ron, please don't regard this as a personal attack or a desire to quarrel with you. I honor the fact that you're trying to do right by both sides. I just happen to see their actions differently than you do.

[2xA Ron]

2xA Ron, please don't regard this as a personal attack or a desire to quarrel with you. I honor the fact that you're trying to do right by both sides. I just happen to see their actions differently than you do.

I don't regard the sharing of one's perception of things, or even of me (which isn't the case here), as an attack.  I don't want to argue either.  I'm grateful that you shared your view of things as your view of things, which may be right or wrong.  I will try to do the same, with the same caveat: I don't know everything, and I may be wrong.

I don't see the page in the OP as a personal attack against myself or other "anonymous posters" because it offers, via the link to the "appeal for reconciliation," explanations which I feel are more accurate.  Sure, it says that people post because they are holding the church's past from decades ago against it, they hate the gospel, or they have some relationship problem their taking public rather than trying to resolve privately.  If the list stopped there (as the list did at one time), I would take offense, but it goes on to offer two additional alternatives: that they had a relationship problem that--despite their best efforts--they were unable to resolve privately and so they went public as a last resort, or they view the church has holding false doctrine and rightly feel it is their moral duty to expose it.  Since I view these two explanations as the ones that best fit me, and since the text does not say I must be described by all of them, I view the negative explanations as not applying to and not intended for me.  Thus, I don't view it as a personal attack.  It's like if someone said, "all aspiring authors are either idiots or geniuses," I would--unless they gave me reason to believe otherwise--assume they would fit me into the latter category (since I don't consider myself to be an idiot, and assume they wouldn't either) and take it as a complement.

My own perspective from talking with Hopler myself is that shutting us up isn't his goal.  He disavowed that as his goal with me and never gave me any reason to question that it was so.  He never asked me to stop posting.  He never objected to any of my posts.  He never even got mad at any of them or took offense even though, I have to say that, in retrospect, I some of the things I posted were unfair to him.  Because of this bias from my experiences, my first reaction when people say his only motive is to silence critics is disbelief, because applying that motive to him does not match my experiences at all.

I admit, the church should be more open about its past/present sins and focus more on repenting of them then offering excuses for why they occurred.  Still, I don't see the excuses as negating the confessions.  I told my supervisor that I was late to work today because I went to bed with earplugs in and couldn't hear my alarm in the morning.  The fact that I was using earplugs or that they played a vital role in my tardiness does not change the fact that I was not at work when I should have been, nor does it mean that I couldn't have done something (like not wearing earplugs) that would have avoided the entirely-foreseeable situation all together.  My own view is that just because I offer an excuse, doesn't mean that I don't think I was wrong.  I view the explanations the GCx offers as similar (though I could be wrong), as though saying "we committed serious errors because of our immaturity" still says "we committed serious errors" and doesn't make them less responsible for them.  It does explain how the errors came to be committed, but I don't view it as saying they couldn't or shouldn't have been avoided in the first place.

...And hopefully some of that made sense, as I'm kind of tired right now and my brain has stopped thinking in a straight line...hmm

[Linda]

2xA Ron,

The big point I'm trying to communicate in this thread is that Great Commission appears to be handling comments on this forum (because I am aware of no other "Internet criticisms" than this site) by being dismissive of the fairly serious charges of teaching false doctrine and choosing to go after the posters with comments that attempt to discredit them. It is much easier than being prepared to give an answer that defends their teaching.

They say:

-these charges are old, and have been dealt with
-the people posting are slandering them and they are being persecuted
-the people posting are unfriendly to the Gospel
-the people posting are not even brave enough to give their real names
-they treat charges of false teaching as Matthew 18 offenses (which they are not)

In essence, they avoid discussing the actual substance of what people are saying, by offering comments that imply the people speaking either don't know the problem was long ago, or are "unhonorable" people handling things wrong.

I can tell you this about the 1991 Error Statement. People didn't know about it. I've talked with people who go way back. Spoke this week with a current attender of a GC church who goes back to the days of the Error Statement who had never heard of Project Care. I had never heard mention of the error statement until pastors started saying odd things and we Googled to get information about Great Commission. It is not solid theology for a local pastor to call the local church his bride and the church that we are renting for the big gathering "another man's bride". (And that pastor, Mark Darling, sits on the national board, so isn't just some local pastor, but a big shot pastor.)

And does anyone know when the term "Project Care" started being thrown around. 5 years ago? Certainly our pastors had never heard of Project Care in 2005.

Not only did people not know about the Statement of Error and Project Care, when we learned of it and asked a pastor who sits on the national board, Brent Knox, about it, he gave a confused look and said it was more of a statement of "clarification" than error! He said he would look for a copy and get us one. He never got back to us. After he failed to provide us with one, we learned of Larry Pile, contacted him, and he sent us a copy via his book Marching to Zion.

"Ironically, the last paragraph of the statement reads:
If anyone has questions or concerns about this statement, or about any of the issues addressed in it, please contact a pastor at your local Great Commission church or write to (and gives Dave Bovenmyer's address)"

BK acted bewildered when we mentioned the statement and acted as if it was a vague, unimportant document.

After the statement became available on the gcx site, GCC put it up on their web page. I assumed the strategy was better church people read it on their site rather than here.

About the apology. A sincere apology is not just words. It is words followed by actions. You can't sincerely apologize for something and keep doing it.
Rick Whitney said about the apology (these are notes from a talk on his web page):

I recognize that some of you are here today because of the strength of this excellent paper.  It showed a certain humility and a willingness to admit our mistakes. 
   
But if in your eyes, this is the paper that best describes our history, it would be overly self-deprecating.  God was with us in the beginning and God is with us today.  He led us then and He wants to lead us now.

God has greatly blessed us, men. 

“To have no loyalty is to have no dignity and in the end, no manhood.”  - Peter Taylor Forsyth

If we don’t understand this in our heart, then in our heart’s we will eventually feel like a spectator.  And then inevitably, a critic. 
   
- the Cause  photo.    Is there not a cause?  Could it have been an honor to be accused of being a cult, those many years ago?  Did we have something then, that may have been lost over the years?

Huldah, your post is spot on. Thanks.


 

[2xA Ron]

The big point I'm trying to communicate in this thread is that Great Commission appears to be handling comments on this forum (because I am aware of no other "Internet criticisms" than this site) by being dismissive of the fairly serious charges of teaching false doctrine and choosing to go after the posters with comments that attempt to discredit them. It is much easier than being prepared to give an answer that defends their teaching.

It seems highly improbable that we are the only ones to have ever criticized the GCx online.  A cursory Google search of the words "Great Commission Churches Cult" led me very quickly to four separate sites not associated with either the GCx or this forum--two of these sites were forums, all of them said negative things about the church.  Of course, this doesn't count much more small-time posters like myself (I started blogging about my church long before I found this site).  So, if we aren't the only ones out there making critical comments about the GCx online, how can we say that every negative thing the GCx leadership says about online critics is aimed directly at us?

I find it doubly hard to believe that these are attacks aimed at us, considering their context.  The article in the OP addresses criticism over a broad timeframe, starting in the 1970s (which would predate this forum).  Three sources of criticism are mentioned: "secular newspapers," "secular blogs and websites," and finally "anonymous posts on blogs" or "on the internet."  Of these, only the third can be seen as possibly applying to this forum (it's not really secular, at least not as I understand it, and it certainly is neither a newspaper nor a blog).

They say:

-these charges are old, and have been dealt with
-the people posting are slandering them and they are being persecuted
-the people posting are unfriendly to the Gospel
-the people posting are not even brave enough to give their real names
-they treat charges of false teaching as Matthew 18 offenses (which they are not)

In essence, they avoid discussing the actual substance of what people are saying, by offering comments that imply the people speaking either don't know the problem was long ago, or are "unhonorable" people handling things wrong.

Of these complaints, only the last one appears to have any connection to "anonymous posts on blogs" in the article.  The first three are explicitly linked to secular newspapers and sites, and to criticisms that predated this forum.  The fourth does not appear anywhere in the article, nor is it implied (where did you find it?  ).  The fifth complaint appears alongside a link to another article (one which appears much more directly aimed at this forum) which lists four different reasons why people may post:
1) They are talking about old issues that have already been addressed
2) They have a relationship conflict which they either did not address in a Matthew 18 way, or attempted to resolve in that way but were unable to do so
3) They oppose the gospel
4) They legitimately believe the GCC embraces false doctrine.

The article goes on to say that those in the fourth category are taking the right approach, even though the writer disagrees with them and wishes they would talk with him first to make sure the false doctrines they're denouncing are actual teachings of the GCC.  The way it's written, the writer seems to be saying anonymous posters fall into one of the four above categories, but not into all of them.  From everything you've said, and from the comments of other regulars here, I'd say the majority of the poster's would fit under the fourth category there--and that's the category that Hopler says he can understand and implies is on the right track, even if he disagrees with them.  So...he commends people who post with the same motivation as you and others on this forum...therefore he must be making a personal attack on you and on this forum, trying to discredit and dismiss us all?  Sorry, but I just don't see the logic there.

I am familiar with your story.  You have repeated elements of it a few times on this thread alone.  I can see from it that the Statement of Error needs to be better known and followed (but, of course, I knew that from my own experiences).  Forgive me if I fail to see how it proves that the GCx leadership today is out to demean and discredit this forum.