Pretense: The Church as Student Organization

Welcome to De-Commissioned, a place for former members of the Great Commission movement (aka GCM, GCC, GCAC, GCI, the Blitz) to discuss problems they've experienced in the association's practices and theology.

You may read and post, but some features are restricted to registered members. Please consider registering to gain full access! Registration is free and only takes a few moments to complete.

[DrSam]

The groupies keep on coming and the irrational insanity on this forum goes up another notch. This place looks more and more like a circus with freak acts and an asylum with the inmates on the loose! George Carlin would have loved this forum!

ANobody,

This place feels like it is full of junior high kids. It reminds me of when my son tells me that online games get trashed when junior high kids show up and act like idiots. That's his words. George Carlin shows us the stupidity of wars as being an attempt by men to prove who has the biggest member. This place is no different but transfers that need to the displays of theolgical egoes.

ANObody, say all you want to about whatever scripturally poor (in your opinion) were the actions of getting into the rat-infested infrastructure of a secular university in order to win students to Christ. Rahab is probably laughing at us right now. You construct straw men and reduce the opposite argument basically to only a singular passage. How foolish of you. You know little or nothing about scripture. Neither do I. Be careful of pomposity. It kicks you in the butt when you are not looking.  AnoBody... you know nothing and speak air.[/b]

Let’s see now.  ANobody was holding a civil and serious conversation on how to interpret the Bible, and Dr.Sam breaks into the middle with this response?

This place feels like it is full of junior high kids. It reminds me of when my son tells me that online games get trashed when junior high kids show up and act like idiots. That's his words. George Carlin shows us the stupidity of wars as being an attempt by men to prove who has the biggest member. This place is no different but transfers that need to the displays of theolgical egoes.

ANObody, say all you want to about whatever scripturally poor (in your opinion) were the actions of getting into the rat-infested infrastructure of a secular university in order to win students to Christ. Rahab is probably laughing at us right now. You construct straw men and reduce the opposite argument basically to only a singular passage. How foolish of you. You know little or nothing about scripture. Neither do I. Be careful of pomposity. It kicks you in the butt when you are not looking.  AnoBody... you know nothing and speak air.

Let’s analyze Dr. Sam's post for edification value, shall we?

“This place feels like it is full of junior high kids.”

• Purpose of comment = pointless insult.
• Possible impact on readers = amusement.  
• Edification value of the comment = 0.

This place is no different [than men trying to prove who has the biggest member] but transfers that need to the displays of theolgical egoes.

• Purpose of comment = pointless insult.
• Possible impact on readers = discourage serious discussion of the Bible.
• Edification value of the comment = 0.

ANObody, say all you want to about whatever scripturally poor (in your opinion) were the actions of getting into the rat-infested infrastructure of a secular university in order to win students to Christ.

• Purpose of comment = ??
• Possible impact on readers = confusion-chaos.
• Edification value of the comment = 0.

Rahab is probably laughing at us right now.

• Purpose of comment = ? ridicule ?
• Possible impact on readers = discourage serious discussion of the Bible.
• Edification value of the comment = 0.

You construct straw men and reduce the opposite argument basically to only a singular passage. How foolish of you.

• Purpose of comment = personal insult
• Possible impact on readers = discourage serious discussion of the Bible.
• Edification value of the comment = 0.

You know little or nothing about scripture.

• Purpose of comment = flagrant lie posing as personal insult
• Possible impact on readers = discourage serious discussion of the Bible, invoke anger.
• Edification value of the comment = 0.

AnoBody... you know nothing and speak air.

• Purpose of comment = extremely flagrant lie posing as personal insult
• Possible impact on readers = discourage serious discussion of the Bible, invoke anger.
• Edification value of the comment = 0.

Overall purpose of Dr. Sam’s post [Reply #78 on: August 29, 2009 at 08:10:12 pm] = launch extreme personal attack on character of poster named ANobody.

• Degree of interaction with Thread Subject = 0.
• Degree of interaction with Bible = 0.
• Overall edification value of post = 0.

Dr. Sam, where are the comments that encourage the study of the Bible?  Where are the words that cause us to understand the Bible better?  Where are the words that cause us to love Christ more?  Where are the words that spur us all on to deeds of love and kindness?  Where?

ANobody, do not let Dr. Sam stop you from studying the Bible or posting.  Heck, he did not even value all those quotes from Bible scholars, so what chance does anyone else have of calling him back to the Bible?

You have called attention to the errors GC* made in misreading the Bible and the resulting errors this caused in their behavior.  For that you will suffer, but you will suffer for the cause of Christ.  That is a privelege.  Keep preachin it bro.

[ANobody]

Due to the unabated mocking and insults by two posters, I have decided to lock this thread.  There is no longer any possibility to conduct helpful discussions.  It makes me very sad to have to do this just because of the heckling and mocking coming from those who are actually registered members on this forum.

More heartbreaking is that my attempts to engage us in legitimate Bible study were shouted down by the same mockers and insulters.  I would ask where they learned Christ in such a manner, but then we all know that already, don’t we?  Those who taught them to act in this manner will draw a stricter judgment, as will all who set themselves up as teachers and leaders.  For that reason we should all teach only in humility and with fear and trembling before the Lord.  

Every idle word will be judged.

I will remind us all of where this started by repeating the first post on this thread.  

In another thread, which is giving advice to a mother whose son is suffering academically so that he may dedicate more time to serving in GC, it was noted that GC has a long history of deception.  In the past, in some university towns, the entire GC church pretended to be a student organization so as to gain access to the university resources (buildings, meeting rooms, utilities, etc.).  This is not to say that some of the church members were not students, but the ENTIRE church would deceptively pretend it was a student organization so that the church could literally have services on campus.  

One such example was Trinity Bible Fellowship (the name of the GCI church) in West Lafayette during the 1970's-1980's.  The entire church (which only ever had 2 to 6 active Purude students at any given time) claimed to be the student organization called Harvest House Foundation.  The senior elder of Trinity named both the church and the student organization, even before there were any students attending.  His stated strategy was to recruit some students so that he could locate the church in the Student Union for Sunday services.  The senior elder was the defacto ruling head of both Trinity and Harvest House.

Once students were recruited into Trinity, they were made the student officers of Harvest House, reporting to the senior elder, and became the instruments by which the church was able to begin meeting on compus for Sunday services, Bible studies, etc.  But at no time did the church (Trinity Bible Fellowship) ever think the student organization (Harvest House Foundation) was independent.  Virtually all the members of Trinity thought they were also members of Harvest House.  Sound too outrageous to be true?

Attached are the actual photocopies of the student organization brochure used on the Purdue campus.  Notice that the "student officers" are not listed as contacts, but rather the two Trinity church elders are: E. Ray Moore and Ken Wooten.  They were not even students!  Further notice that the entire church (Trinity) is pictured in the group photograph, and only one student is shown in the small group photograph.  This was really a brochure for the church, NOT for the student organization, regardless of what the brochure states.  

GCI is a denomination with a colorful history of documentable deception.  Very sad.


And what we learned from all our discussions is posted below.

Taking this all back to the original point of the post: now we know, thanks to Sam's explanatory posts (having once been a national leader of GCx), GCx deliberately chose to deceive the university officials thinking the Bible gave them authority to lie based on their understanding (misunderstanding) of the story of Rahab.  GCx felt that since Rahab lied to save the lives of the Jews then they assumed that lying for the purpose of facilitating evangelism must also be acceptable today.

Improper exegesis of the narratives of the Old Testament, and the inexperience of GCx leadership to realize their error in exegesis, is one of the early problems with GCx.  It seems unlikely that this error has been fixed in the past 30 years based on testimony from others that the same practices of deception by GCx continue to the present.

May the Lord keep us growing in Him and may He help us to identify, reject, and expose unsound doctrine for the sake of His kingdom and the gospel.