Caner Now Attacking Muslims, Calling them "Towel Heads" and "Wife Beaters" and "Living in Caves" - Tells Them to "GET SAVED AND SHAVED"

Just days after Ergun and Emir Caner were in the recording studio of apologist John Ankerberg recording a program on Muslim beliefs, Ergun Caner has decided the best way to love his Muslim brothers to Jesus, is to tweet hateful, racist remarks to his Muslim detractors.

Below are tweets in Ergun Caner's Twitter feed last night (Sunday 1/20/13), where apparently he is responding to Tweets from Muslims and bloggers.  You see, the whole issue of Caner's "decade of deceit" has resurfaced, after John Ankerberg published a ridiculous statement here to defend his recent decision to invite The Caner brothers on his TV show.

The Caners claim to have love in their hearts for Muslims - in fact Ergun says he does what he does, that he entered the Christian ministry to reach out to his fellow Muslim brothers - yet his own Twitter feed displays hate and pushes ugly stereotypes of Muslims. Hardly a way to express love. 

But this is nothing new for Caner. As I have chronicled on this blog, he has a history of saying derogatory statements about women and minorities. He once said took a swipe at Mexicans saying he would adopt one if he needed his lawn cut or work on his roof. He has made multiple derogatory statements about women, and blacks; yet he still is a popular speaker to youth groups, and in fact just finished speaking at the "Strength to Stand" student conference in Pigeon Forge, TN.

Face it: Caner is the evangelical version of Lance Armstrong. He gained his notoriety based on a lie about his past, he perpetuated the lie for years and years, and finally when exposed he chose to belittle and bully people on the Internet who have tried to call him to account for his lies. The biggest difference between Caner and Armstrong is that Caner's peers have decided to embrace him and hail him as a hero, rather than defending their own profession by acknowledging the fraud from within their own ranks. Now Ankerberg is joining in and allowing it all to resurface again.

I just wonder if Ankerberg will issue a statement now defending Caner's stereotypes of Muslims as cave-dwellers, wife-beaters, bus-bombers, and towel-head stalkers?  Or is that the idea of how Ankerberg and the Caners are reaching out to Muslims now? Apparently Caner's defenders love these racist remarks, judging from the "Retweets" and "Favorites" marked on the Tweets below.

Perhaps that will be the subtitle to the Caner/Ankerberg TV that will air soon on Islam: "GET SAVED AND SHAVED".

 

James Duncan Interview on Fighting for the Faith Radio Program

Readers - below is an hour-long interview of Dr. James Duncan, conducted on 1/14/13 by Chris Rosebrough of the Fighting for the Faith radio program. In the interview Dr. Duncan describes what he learned during the discovery process of his lawsuit against Perry Noble and NewSpring Church, which was settled before it went to trial.

It is a real eye-opener as to how mega churches with rock star preachers operate. Really, there is no one so hated by these pastors and their followers than the person who dares to publicly and consistently criticize their beloved pastor. Not even child molesters within their own ranks get anywhere close to the treatment of a criticizing blogger and his spouse.

I've got a couple of posts coming that will try to boil down all of this information into lessons we can all learn from Dr. Duncan's experience.

Since my last post on this matter January 3rd, Dr. Duncan has posted some more blog articles, so visit his site to get the latest.

Detroit Church Holds "Brokeback" Ordination Service for Deacons, as Pastor Mounts Two Deacons in Front of Congregation

Once again, I have to say, "Now I've seen everything", when it comes to pastoral nonsense in the church.

We now have the first "Brokeback Mountain" deacon ordination service, where pastor Wayne Jackson lays two deacons on the floor at the front of the church, covers them both with a thin sheet, and then proceeds to mount them both and place his crotch area on their buttocks while he shakes and jiggles. If you think I'm exaggerating, slide to the 14:10 mark of the video below.

Good thing the pastor was wearing a large, loose robe. And how long before he ordains women deacons in this fashion?

All the while, the choir sings over and over and over again "I give myself away, I give myself away, so you can use me." Appropriate chant, as the two men indeed gave away their manhood and dignity, while the pastor was using them.

Not surprisingly, the congregation found this sordid act all very spiritual and moving as they swayed with hands raised high and singing the chant "I give myself away"...if only they all could be mounted by the pastor.

And this blogger spent 1000+ words analyzing the Bible to see if there was something wrong with this Brokeback Mountain ritual, and concludes:

"...Bishop Jackson was in error. The fact is that there is no history of this type of event among Christians."

Gee, you think? I thought maybe sometime in the past 2000 years there were pastors laying flat on top of grown men and gyrating. I'm glad the blogger cleared that up for us that the good bishop was "in error". I don't need to consult the bible to know better than to let a grown man lay on top of me - pastor or no pastor.

This is where fundamentalism is ultimately going: the pastor is the man of God, he is appointed by God into his position, and thus lay people just have to trust God that what the man of God is doing and saying is right and proper; even if the man of God is simulating masturbation in front of teens, mounting his deacons at their ordination, asking for church members' checking account numbers, or telling them that God might be prone to killing non-tithers.

At this point, anything goes. And as the sane people leave fundamentalism, a greater concentration of loonies will be left, and the pastoral behavior will be more and more off the charts as time goes by.

Bishop climbs onto of men during ceremony part 1 by expozethismess

H/T: Julie Anne Smith at Spiritual Sounding Board blog.

Jack Schaap Blames Decreased Giving at Church for His Molestation of 16-Year Old Church Member

Jack Schaap has told the U.S. District Court in Hammond, Indiana, that decreased donations to the church and his working too many hours led to his having sex multiple times, in multiple states, with a 16-year old church member that he was counseling.

Yep, financial difficulty and being overworked are to blame for his sex crimes against a young girl in his church. If that is true,  90% of Americans will be molesting teenagers this year.

Schaap's lame excuse might give pastors another reason to preach the 10% tithe, telling church members they must fork over 10% of their income because if they don't, it might put too much stress on the head man-o-God, and he might accidentally have sex with a teenager. Save a teenager, tithe to your church. I'm only half joking; I've heard some incredibly asinine, nonsensical reasons to tithe given by mega church pastors already. And don't forget, Perry Noble has already blamed the spread of homosexuality on non-tithers, so why not blame sexually abused teenagers on non-tithers also?

I hope the judge sees through this nonsense, and I hope the judge ignores the 140 letters of support from First Baptist Hammond church members, including Schaap's wife, and gives Schaap the maximum sentence on January 15th. He will likely be sentenced to 10 years, probably more.

The truth is Schaap's molestation crimes had nothing to do with finances of the church or a busy work schedule. Pastors all over the country are over-worked and churches everywhere are under financial strain, and they aren't regularly finding comfort by having sex with teens in the youth choir.

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“I believe First Baptist Church gradually evolved into a cult that was in complete idolatry of my father [Jack Hyles] and, after his death, complete idolatry of Jack Schaap." Linda Murphrey, Sister-in-law of Jack Schaap.

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Everybody but the die-hard FBC Hammond members understand that Jack Schaap is just another in a long line of perverse sexual offender pastors and lay people at FBC Hammond going all the way back to the 1950s, starting with Schaap's late father-in-law, Jack Hyles. Ministers at FBC Hammond, as at most fundamentalist, independent Baptist churches, are authoritarian rulers who have absolute power and whose judgements and actions are not to be questioned. If you want to read about the history of FBC Hammond and a chronology of the sex crimes and cover-ups at that church, read "Let Us Prey: Big Trouble at First Baptist Church". A "Godfather"-type movie - in three parts - could be made about the shenanigans at that one church.

Schaap was and is a sick man who as time went on began preaching graphic, sexual sermons at FBC Hammond. Only a man who has a twisted mind, and who answers to no authority, would be able to deliver the sermon Schaap did in 2010 that best demonstrates his sickness.  At a youth conference, in the middle of his sermon he simulated masturbation for over a minute with a long stick held close to his crotch while he stroked the stick and made painful, orgasmic sounds as he talked to God. Watch it here, and you'll see what I mean. It is simply unbelievable that a man could behave this way - in front of a audience of teenagers especially - and not be escorted off the property or arrested for his X-rated performance.

What can we learn from this? Simple. Churches that have a history of sexual abuse by pastors, especially those that have a history of denying the abuse, covering up the abuse, and then repeatedly lying about the abuse, they will produce more sexual abusers eventually. Churches that can't come clean to their members and to their communities about the past actions of their sexually abusive pastors - and the actions of those who covered it up - are breeding grounds for more misbehaving pastors.

I'll wrap this up by sharing with you another quote from Linda Murphrey, daughter of Jack Hyles and sister-in-law of Jack Schaap:

“Don’t get me wrong—I certainly believe Jack Schaap is guilty of a crime and deserves punishment. But I wondered: If my dad [Jack Hyles] had been taken off his self-constructed throne long ago and people had known the full truth about who he was, perhaps Jack Schaap would never have been given the liberties, the complete lack of accountability, and the power that eventually led to his own demise. Instead, he was allowed and encouraged to perpetuate what my father began..."

How true. Are you in a church that has yet to be completely truthful about the past of a sexually-abusive pastor, or his successor who helped cover it up?

Perry Noble and NewSpring Church Settle Lawsuit Over Church's Harrassment of Blogger and His Family

"Ignore the jackass.  In Greek, 'jackass' is translated 'blogger'....bloggers that go online, that will take shots at you, that copy parts of your sermon...who has time for that? The jackass. You [the jackass] have no friends! The reason you have no friends is you're a jackass! That is your problem, either that or you're demon possessed or oppressed. Because when a move of God is working and people are getting saved and lives are changed, who would criticize that, God or Satan?" Perry Noble at 2009 "Unleashed" pastor's conference.

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It was about three years ago that I first introduced Perry Noble and NewSpring Church on this blog. If you go back and read that WD post here, posted way back in December 2009, you'll see it was concerning a blogger named Dr. James Duncan, who dared to criticize Perry Noble's teachings and methods on his blog "Pajama Pages".

What did Duncan get for his criticism? In 2009 Noble's employees and volunteers smeared Duncan's reputation by starting a phony Twitter account with gross and profane sexual posts attributed to Dr. Duncan, a fake resignation letter to his employer, and perhaps worst of all, sabatoge of Dr. Duncan's adoption efforts in 2009. You can read all about these here.

Thankfully, Dr. Duncan fought back. It is not an easy process to fight a powerful church and pastor for the harm they have done to your reputation, but Dr. Duncan fought back by filing a lawsuit against Noble and NewSpring. Since December 2009, Dr. Duncan's blog has been silent as he has fought the difficult legal battle.

I am happy to announce that Dr. Duncan did prevail in his lawsuit, as NewSpring and Noble settled with Dr. Duncan after months and months of depositions and legal discovery. Very likely all that came out of the discovery process would have been much too embarrassing to Noble and NewSpring in a public trial, so they decided to settle. But thankfully, it doesn't stop there, as Dr. Duncan has decided to begin blogging again to tell his readers what he learned from the months of depositions that led to NewSpring settling the lawsuit.

I am going to follow and write about Dr. Duncan's posts about the inside story of what was going on at NewSpring, and why these people at NewSpring did what they did to a very fine, Christian man. Dr. Duncan is a committed Christian, has a wonderful family, and is highly educated . He has a master's and Ph.D. from Regent University, and is a professor and department chair in communications at Anderson University, yet he was vilified and persecuted by Noble's sycophants because he dared to criticize the most prominent and powerful pastor in his community.

But there is much to be learned from this saga, and I will delve into it over the next few weeks as we learn more details from Dr. Duncan. This sort of thing, the demonization and persecution of church critics is a natural outflow from modern evangelicalism and fundamentalism which teaches pastors are special "God-appointed agents", modern-day prophets sent by God to teach Christians how to live. This is what is taught in the seminaries, and it is what is preached from the pulpits. Thus, when a church critic arises, they aren't just criticizing a man or an institution, they are attacking God himself.

Read the Perry Noble quote again at the top of this post - this is the view of many fundamentalists today. It is all black and white. Challenge or criticize a pastor, you're doing the work of Satan. You're probably demon possessed. You're a jackass with no friends, a blogger in your mom's basement eating Cheetos.

So WD readers, stay tuned for more analysis on this topic. And NewSpring members and employees and volunteers, please begin following Dr. Duncan's blog so that you can learn in more detail what your church did to a fine man in your community - and what your tithes and offerings had to pay for to defend the lawsuit and to repair the damage that your church did to Dr. Duncan and his family.

Meanwhile, if you want to do some research on the Duncan/Noble saga, here are some links that will help you:

"Holy Rage at the Spring" - Dr. Duncan's detailed account of what NewSpring did to him and his family - it is grotesque and disturbing, so be prepared.

"Shut Up, They Explained" - Dr. Duncan's 2009 defense of his blog

"Perry Noble Says You're a Jackass" - Apprising Ministry December 2009 summary

Duncan Interview by Chris Rosebrough - Chris Rosebrough interviewed Dr. Duncan in December 2009 on his Fighting for the Faith radio show.

Happy 2013 from the Watchdog!!

Hello Readers! I want to wish you all a very Happy New Year!  I hope that 2013 is a year of health and prosperity for all of you!

The FBC Jax Watchdog blog continues in 2013, its 7th year, because I still care. Yes, I do still care about harm done by authoritarian pastors and teaching of self-serving, nonsensical doctrines. Because I care, I will continue to blog.

I will start off 2013 tomorrow, January 2nd, by beginning to discuss a lawsuit settled in 2012 involving Perry Noble and NewSpring church over Noble's sycophants who went after a blogger and his family to intimidate the blogger for his criticism of Noble and NewSpring. This saga gives a glimpse into what the modern-day mega church pastors and their employees are really all about.

Again, Happy New Year to all, and look for a post tomorrow!