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A Christian Observer editorial from sixty years ago – the Christian Observer, October 10, 1951 – Harry P. Converse, Managing Editor – William T. McElroy, Editor.

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The final report of the Senate Crime Investigating Committee [Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce - Chairman - Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver (D)] made public last month, the recent unhappy revelations at West Point [Eighty-three West Point cadets expelled for cheating], and figures issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding youthful crime, together with other less publicized facts indicate what J. Edgar Hoover defines as “a breakdown of the moral fiber of the country.” The whole nation is shocked– for the moment at least–over the proven alliances between the underworld and corrupt political powers, over what the traffic in drugs is doing to vast numbers of young people, and over the threat to the stability of our national life. What the nation will do about the present condition only the future will reveal. Our record in the past in such matters does not give reason for any great amount of optimism.

Many editorial writers express the belief that because the revelations indicate a general moral decline, court actions, the closing of obnoxious places, a superficial revamping of college athletics, and similar steps, will touch only the symptoms and have little or no effect on the real disease. One of our highly respected national leaders, John Foster Dulles, has expressed the thought in these words:

Something has gone wrong with our nation, or we should not be in our present plight or mood… What we lack is a righteous and dynamic faith. Without it, all else avails us little. the lack cannot be compensated for by politicians, however able; or by diplomats, however astute; or by scientists, however inventive; or by bombs, however powerful…. Our greatest need is to regain confidence in our spiritual heritage…. There is no use having more and louder ‘Voices of America’ unless we have something to say that is more persuasive than anything yet said.

Speaking particularly of the West Point revelations, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, one of the nations most clear-spoken newspapers, in a widely reprinted editorial urges that “the time is here for moral regeneration.” It says further that “what happened at West Point reflects a present distorted attitude toward old-fashioned honesty and integrity,” and asks:

Where does the fault lie? In the home? Perhaps. In the schools? In part. In the churches? In part. But in the main the fault lies in that nebulous field of public morals and spirituality which was so highly cultivated by the founding fathers and which, of late has been so scantily tilled. Among too many of us the accepted premise is that anything is fair unless we are caught; that the world owes us a living; that an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay is almost unethical; that gyping the other fellow before he gyps you, is the only policy that pays off.

Another outstanding daily newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor, calls for a raising of “fundamental moral standards” and the quickening of the consciences of of all the people as well as those of our political and other leaders. The editorial says in part:

This newspaper is convinced that the most vital task before the American people today is the raising of fundamental moral standards. In the last year or two the alarm has been sounded in a dozen ways–disclosures of crime syndicates, mink coats and deep freezers, basketball “fixes,” cheating at West Point, divorce scandals, widespread tax dodging, “black marketing,” “chiseling” on inflation controls, “graft” on public contracts…We are weary of being told that we must accept such things, that “everybody does it.” This also is subversive doctrine. It must be rejected….There is danger that this issue will be lost in partisanship….The demand for moral reform rises above all party lines. It must be pressed on all fronts.

Nearly all the comments, both in the daily newspapers and in the religious press, point to the fact that we are facilg a “moral battle” rather than a political one, and that “high principles” are primary, whatever we may do toward correcting the current evils. “It all comes down to the fact,” says the Western Recorder (Baptist), “that the highest value that can be fixed in the young person’s life is high character–a will and determination to be right in thought and deed. We need men and women who have learned to thing and tell and act the truth and the whole truth, even at the expense of personal loss.”

Similar in viewpoint is the editorial in Presbyterian Life on the disclosures. “The integrity of our military leaders,” says the editorial, “is a matter of life and death to the nation. So also is the integrity of private citizens like you and me….America’s number one need is for a spiritual revival that will bring about a moral regeneration. We, who by our silence in the face of terrible revelation of corruption in public life have aided in promoting it, cannot escape our own personal responsibility for it.”

In a public address at Des Moines, Iowa, Ex-president Herbert Hoover, sometimes described as our nation’s “elder statesman,” said that what we are facing is really “mostly beyond the law,” and he challenged the nation to turn to the New Testament, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Ten Commandments for guidance. “Our greatest danger,” he said, “is not from invasion by foreign armies. Our dangers are that we may commit suicide from within by complaisance  with evil; or by public tolerance of scandalous behavior; or by cynical acceptance of dishonor.”

More alarming that the revelations of crime and dishonor, says Dr. L. Nelson Bell in the Southern Presbyterian Journal, is the “reaction throughout America.” The guilt, he says, seems to lie, not in what is done, but in “getting caught.” “To solve our personal and our national problems,” he continues, “we must recognize the source of those problems and that source is sin in the human heart. The primary message of the Church is redemption through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Saviour said: ‘Ye must be born again,’ and such a birth is a supernatural transaction, a work of the Holy Spirit, operating in the heart of repentant sinners who turn to Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, as their only hope of cleansing and salvation.”

A like note is sounded by a prominent New York pastor in a recent sermon. As quoted in the New York Times, Dr. Ralph B. Nesbitt, of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church says:

The contemporary scene is not without encouragement and not beyond repair. The very fact that so many people are concerned is a hopeful sign. This is the first condition of amelioration. The ultimate answer is not in ourselves, but what man must have is a personal relation to God, the realization that “Thou, God seest me.” My life is open like a book before Him and it is to Him that I must at last render an account of my life. It is that supremely that produces high morality.

A word spoken more that two hundred years ago by the famous statesman Edmund Burke, is as pertinent to our present situation as if it were written today: “True religion is the foundation of society, the basis on which all true government rests, and from which power derives its authority, laws their efficiency, and both their sanction. If it is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable or lasting.”

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[Editor's Note: Much of this article " is as pertinent to our present situation as if it were written today." The Christian Observer expresses our gratitude to a reader in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, for sending a copy of the October 10, 1951 issue of the Christian Observer.]

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The Role of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) Stated Clerk and Administrative Committee in the Establishment of the Presbyterian Investors Fund (PIF) and Cornerstone Ministries Investments (CMI)

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Part Three

by Bob Wildrick

In part three as in part two, documents found on the Internet, bankruptcy court documents, CMI documents, and information given to the author by other CMI investors will be presented showing that the principals and other employees of PIF/CMI to this day  retain their connections with the PCA. The Bankruptcy Court Documents (BCD) cited in this article can be read and downloaded from the bmcgroup.com website by searching  case number 08-20355. [1] The author recommends that BCD 437 [2] and BCD 530 [3] be examined before continuing to read this article.

On December 24, 2008, the United States Trustee for the CMI bankruptcy appointed an examiner. This should have happened in July 2008, when requested by the bankruptcy trustee, but the debtor (CMI, Ottinger) as well as the Creditors Committee opposed the appointment of an examiner. Had an examiner been appointed in July 2008, there might have been more evidence of corruption found in the investigation. The examiner, Pat Huddleston, was given until March 15, 2009 to complete the examination and report his findings to the bankruptcy court. The report is contained in BCD 530. [4]

The author first scanned BCD 530 on March 18, 2009. BCD 530 details the double-dealing, self-dealing, and fraud of John Ottinger and John Wehmiller. The following day the author and his wife carefully studied BCD 530 in order that the complexity and the deviousness of what had happened at CMI could be better understood. Later that morning, the author telephoned Mr. Jamie Sickert, CMI Vice-President and Director, and asked if he had read BCD 530.  The author remembers clearly Mr. Sickert’s answer; “I read it, turned off my computer, sat down and cried.” The author asked Mr. Sickert if he or the rest of the board knew about the corrupt goings on at CMI, and Mr. Sickert replied with an emphatic “NO!”. Mr. Sickert and the board of directors were negligent in their duties which included fiscal and spending matters.

The eHow.com website “Money” section describes the role of a corporate board of directors:

A for-profit corporate board of directors must be cognizant of certain issues. Initially, the for-profit board has to keep a watchful eye on the chief executive officer (“CEO”) of the corporation. The board must assist the CEO and offer assistance to the CEO whenever necessary to achieve the board’s goals. Also, the board must determine whether to relieve the CEO from his or her duties or whether to continue with the CEO when his or her term expires. Furthermore, for publicly-held corporations, the for-profit board must have responsibility for fiscal matters and all spending issues. [5]

On June 23, 2009 on the Internet and June 24, 2009 in the paper edition of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, there was an article titled, “Cornerstone Ministries Betrayed Them by Straying from Mission, Investors Say.” [6] The following day, June 25, 2009, PCA TE the Rev. Cecil Brooks died.

Prior to Mr. Brook’s death, the author was preparing a complaint to file with the PCA’s Metro Atlanta Presbytery (MAP), asking for discipline of the Rev. Cecil Brooks and the Rev. John Ottinger. The complaint was then changed to reflect only Mr. Ottinger. Seven CMI creditors including the author filed the complaint with MAP in July 2009 citing  Scripture, applicable sections of the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XXX, Section III, questions and answers from the Westminster Larger Catechism, and applicable sections from the PCA Book of Church Order.  As evidence, the author cited various sections of BCD 530.

MAP met October 9, 2009, and appointed a commission to investigate the complaint. The author received at least one email from the commission chair wanting to know if the author had more information over and above what had previously been sent.  The author suggested that the commission contact the individuals listed on BCD 530-1, which was a list of all the principals, directors, and others that had been associated with CMI.  The author additionally made himself available to meet with the commission.  On May 8, 2010, the author received a letter from the MAP Stated Clerk saying; “this commission finds insufficient grounds for Metro Atlanta Presbytery to discipline TE Ottinger for the sins of which he is accused by the complainants.”

On May 21, 2010, the author sent a letter to the MAP Stated Clerk asking for a full report of the commission.  Sometime after June 10, 2010, the author received a letter from the MAP moderator stating that MAP had received my request for a written copy of the commission report, and writing:

“For context, our presbytery received the commission’s report on May 4; it was delivered orally, and was done so in executive session.  As such, we did not distribute written copies to any of the attending elders. It is also our practice to keep confidential the details of matters we discuss in executive session. We must therefore decline your request.”

The author additionally filed a complaint against John Wehmiller with his church, First Baptist Church of Gainesville, Georgia, which was never answered.

John Ottinger was allowed to remain in charge of CMI until Sept. 25, 2009.  Beginning with that date, Glass Ratner Advisory & Capital Group LLC (GRACG) took over management of CMI. One of GRACG’s first appointments was Jason Collins of Reid Davis TSAI LLP, for the purpose of litigating and settling the claims against CMI.  Mr. Collins’ biography was on the Internet and included the following entry on the list of cases he is handling:

Recently hired as special counsel to the Plan Administrator of Cornerstone Ministries Investment Inc, to pursue claims arising out of a $140 million Ponzi scheme. [emphasis added]

The words ‘Ponzi scheme’ were later changed to ‘financial fraud’. [7]

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission defines a Ponzi Scheme as “…an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk. In many Ponzi schemes, the fraudsters focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage investors and to use for personal expenses, instead of engaging in any legitimate investment activity.” [8]

On July 31, 2009, Mr. and Mrs. John Ottinger bought a house at 500 Fawn Hill Place, Sanford, Florida for $937,500.00 cash. The 2011 taxes on the Florida house are $9,469.00. [9] Prior to buying the Florida property, on May 12, 2008, three months following the CMI bankruptcy, John T. Ottinger transferred ownership via a revocable trust to Julie J. Ottinger of their residence at 6020 Providence Lane, Cumming, Georgia. [10] The 2011 taxes paid on the Ottinger’s Georgia residence were $7,219.46, for a total of $16,868.46 in property taxes paid by the Ottingers in 2011. Many of the 3500 CMI creditors that lost the majority of their CMI investments in the February 2008 bankruptcy experience continual financial difficulties due to their CMI investment losses and live on far less income than what the Ottinger’s paid in property taxes in 2011.

In a previous article, the author said that more information was forthcoming on a man named John Lowery.  The author telephoned Jayme Sickert at home one night in the mid-2000’s, and during the course of our conversation Sickert said that he needed to go to bed because of an early flight the following morning. Sickert said that he was going to Dallas, Texas, for the CMI annual meeting, and that CMI had plans to make a large investment with a developer and a doctor who owned a fitness center in Dallas. The developer was John Lowery and the corporation was named Wellstone. Wellstone from 2006 to 2008 was a major sponsor of what in 2006 and 2007 was called the Wellstone Dallas White Rock Marathon. [11] [12] [13]

On 1 December 2008, Wellstone’s Craig Ranch development, an undeveloped tract of forty-two acres in the middle of a 2200 acre development in McKinney, Texas, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to force fellow bankruptee CMI to release its mortgage on the Wellstone property to which CMI had loaned $3 million. Wellstone had the Craig Ranch property under contract for sale to a rehabilitation hospital, but CMI’s refusal to release its mortgage on the property prevented its sale. The primary lender to Wellstone thus was attempting to foreclose on the property to satisfy its $5.2 million loan to Wellstone. [14]

The writer has been investigating the CMI debacle since early 2009 and believes this scandal isn’t much different than the Roman Catholic priest pedophile scandal. The reader may wonder at this point: “What is the difference between abuse of young boys by priests and the abuse of elderly senior citizens by PCA ministers?” Some might say the difference is that the pedophile scandals involved physical harm being done to the victims. Included among the 3500 defrauded CMI investors was a gentleman named Don Lebate. Don, as co-chair of the Creditors Committee, overextended himself investigating the bankruptcy, then in April 2009 suffered a massive heart attack and died. Another lawyer who had been investigating CMI told of one man that told him that he was contemplating suicide because of his losses. The author suggests that the reader examine letters that were sent to the bankruptcy judge that are filed on the BMC group web site detailing their losses and plight to get an understanding of the widespread despair and hardship suffered by so many as a result of the CMI Ponzi scheme. Two prime examples are BCD 590 [15] and BCD 667. [16]

The author additionally has contacted several of the fathers of the PCA denomination to garner support into investigating the CMI scandal.  One of the gate keepers said that the doctor would not become involved at that point in time. Another correspondent who was sent extensive documentation of the CMI scandal did not bother to respond at all. It seems that no one cares about this massive stain upon the church of Jesus Christ except the author’s pastor, a TE in another denomination, and the Christian Observer; said publication began reporting on serious financial and fiduciary irregularities with CMI’s predecessor organizations seventeen years ago in 1994.

Philip Doddridge (1702-1751) was a Church of England pastor and hymn writer. Seven of Doddridge’s hymns are in the Trinity Hymnal. Doddridge’s biography contains the biblical solution for church members who seek bankruptcy:

April 2nd, 1741

After this follows a number of cases presented to the Church for suitable admonition and discipline. One entry we will quote, as deserving the attention of the Churches of Christ at the present day:—

It is the unanimous judgment of this Church, that the frequent acts of bankruptcy which have happened in Dissenting congregations, as well as elsewhere, have brought so great a dishonour on religion, and occasioned so much mischief and reproach, that we think ourselves obliged in duty to enter our public protest and caution on this head; and we do hereby declare, that if any persons in stated communion with us shall become a bankrupt, or, as it is commonly expressed, fail in the world, he must expect to be cut off from our body, unless he do within two months give to the Church, by the elders, either in word or writing, such an account of his affairs as shall convince us that his fall was owing not to his own sin and folly, but to the afflicting hand of God upon him; in which case, far from adding affliction to the afflicted, we hope that as God shall enable us we shall be ready to vindicate, comfort, and assist him, as his friends and brethren in Christ.

Signed, in the name and presence of the Church, this 1st day of May, 1741, by the pastor and deacons. [17]

Brothers and fathers of the Presbyterian Church in America, you have a responsibility to clean up the sin that remains from the 1994 General Assembly. There are 3500-plus CMI investors whose lives have been seriously altered by the corruption of PCA Teaching Elders. The Legal Audit will remain an albatross around your necks until it is uncovered, exposed, and repentance be made by those responsible for twenty-plus years of corruption and coverup, both active and passive.

The question in the title of this series of articles appears to have been clearly answered.  The Stated Clerk and Administrative Committee for 1993-1994 may very well be responsible for the existence and bankruptcy of PIF/CMI.  If so, those men may also need to be held responsible for their actions and placed under appropriate discipline.

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There is still unfinished business in the Presbyterian Church in America.

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Our Guest Editor Bob Wildrick is one of 3500 CMI investors still waiting to receive settlement proceeds from the February 2008 Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Cornerstone Ministries Investments, Inc., a.k.a. the “$140 million Ponzi scheme.”

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The Role of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) Stated Clerk and Administrative Committee in the Establishment of the Presbyterian Investors Fund (PIF) and Cornerstone Ministries Investments (CMI)

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Part Two

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by Bob Wildrick

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In Part One of this article, published August 15, 2011 in the Christian Observer, it was shown from Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) minutes of five General Assembly (GA) meetings the disregard for the members of the GA by the Stated Clerk and the Administrative Committee, who refused to provide the members of the 1993 and 1994 GA’s with the results of the Legal Audit ordered by the 1992 GA. As a result, the members of the 1994 GA were not provided with the information necessary to make reasoned and proper decisions in regard to the Investors Fund for Building & Development (IFBD) and its principals, the Rev. Cecil Brooks and the Rev. John Ottinger.  Consequently Brooks and Ottinger were allowed to escape discipline and start the Presbyterian Investors Fund (PIF) and Cornerstone Ministries Investments, Inc. (CMI), while still maintaining connectivity to the PCA by retaining their credentials as Teaching Elders.

In Parts Two and Three, from Internet-accessible documents, from bankruptcy court documents, from CMI documents, and from information given to the author by other investors, it will be shown that the principals and other employees of PIF/CMI to this day  retain their connections with the PCA.  The Bankruptcy Court Documents (BCD) referred to in the article are available at the BMC Group web site (bmcgroup.com). From the BMC Group web site, find case number 08-20355.  It is recommended that you first read BCD’s 437  [1] and 530. [2]

Cecil Brooks as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and John Ottinger as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) founded PIF as a nonprofit 501(c)3 company to sell state registered bonds to fund the construction of churches and church related facilities. Later on, Brooks and Ottinger founded CMI as a for-profit company which allowed more latitude in their endeavors.  Brooks and Ottinger were making loans to retirement homes, low-income housing, and eventually to a high-end retirement development in Texas with developer John Lowery and fitness guru Ken Cooper.

Brooks and Ottinger never severed their connections to the PCA. The Mission to North America (MNA) magazine, ‘Multiply’, winter issue for 1999/2000 [3] lists its contents on the first page, the last “article” being titled “PCA Investors Fund”.  The PCA had theoretically dissolved the Investors Fund in 1994.  The “article” is an advertisement for Fixed Rate Certificates of Participation.  The author often wonder how many people bought these certificates thinking they were investing in a PCA sponsored investment.

An examination of prospectus filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which can be found on the SEC’s EDGAR Internet site, provide some interesting reading. A prospectus for Series B stock and bonds, [4] shows nothing out of the ordinary.  In several of the submissions filed in later years the following statement is made: “We began operations in 1986 as Presbyterian Investors Fund”. [5] Again, the connectivity to the PCA is communicated.  CMI did not begin operations in 1986 as PIF.  IFBD began operations in 1986, [6] as a PCA agency.

PIF/CMI was required to file form 10-KSB year-end reports with the SEC. In the report filed for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2001, the following statement is made:

Securities registered under Section 12 (b) of the Exchange Act:

Common stock, without par value Chicago Stock Exchange (approved for listing) [7]

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This was another falsehood that caused quite a stir in several state securities divisions. CMI entered into consent orders to cease and desist selling investments in several states because the company was never approved for listing on the Chicago Stock Exchange.  Some of the states that Brooks and Ottinger had to sign orders for were; Colorado, [8] Texas, [9] Minnesota, [10] Ohio, [11] New Jersey, [12] Michigan, [13] North Carolina, [14] and if the author’s memory is accurate, Indiana, Maine and Tennessee, for whom original cease and desist orders were not found during research for the article.  In two of the states listed, Colorado and North Carolina, the company had to offer to refund the investors’ money, and as well were barred from selling CMI stock and bonds.

In 2002, another PCA Teaching Elder and CMI Director, Jayme Sickert, came on board as National Sales Director, and eventually became VP for Investor Relations.  As an investment broker/financial advisor, Sickert additionally had been the author’s broker and financial advisor as well as a trusted friend since the early 1990’s. His advice and direction up until this time had been very good concerning Kemper and Lord Abbett mutual funds investments.  In 2001, Sickert asked to move the author’s wife’s Individual Retirement Account (IRA)  into CMI stock because the stock was paying a nine percent return. The author questioned Sickert about this change, especially since the author knew there had been problems with IFBD.  The author and his wife were assured that all the problems that were found had been corrected.  So over the years, the author’s wife’s IRA grew, and the author eventually invested part of his IRA in CMI.  A large mistake was made in trusting Mr. Sickert’s advice and buying CMI stock and bonds.

Cecil Brooks appeared to continually desire to impress investors and potential investors about just how great was CMI.  The author often received letters and glossy advertising material including brochures and DVD’s.  One of the glossy brochures touted: “Expand Your Investment Earning to 9% while EXPANDING GOD”S KINGDOM!” [15] Further down on the left hand side of the brochure, it states that PIF/CMI has financed more than 170 churches and worked with hundreds of others across America over a “17-year” history of ……Excuse me, if PIF/CMI had only been in business since 1994 and this glossy brochure advised that the offer can only be made by Prospectus dated 2001, how could PIF/CMI have had a seventeen year history?   In a November 2005 letter to investors and friends, Mr. Brooks said he missed writing his monthly newsletters. In this letter he states, “Our overall vision stays the same”. [16] Wasn’t the vision originally to fund churches and church related projects?  Brooks lists a group of places that CMI investments were being made in order to serve senior citizens, one being The Northshore @ St Petersburg, Florida. This is the same Northshore that is written about in Bankruptcy Court Document 530 as one of the Certus Management homes that was renovated. [17] Near the bottom of the first page of Brooks’ letter is the statement: “We have two major developments in this type of new seniors market that we are financing.”  The author’s opinion is that the loans to John Lowery and the Lowery Company were not faith-based. More on John Lowery later.

The author and his wife had direct personal experience with Northshore.  Mr. Sickert told the author and his wife to consider Northshore as a residence for the author’s wife’s mother.  She was in her nineties, living in her own home in St. Petersburg, Florida, but was totally devoid of human contact other than an occasional taxi driver and visits from her grandson and family who were working in Miami.  The author and his wife first visited Northshore and later took the author’s wife’s mother there to see it. She refused to consider living at Northshore, stating in no uncertain terms that she was not going to live in that place.  Had she agreed to move to Northshore, within a few months a new residence would have had to be found for her because, with very little notice, Northshore residents were told to move due to the fact that Northshore was to be converted into condominiums.  Certus never completed the renovation, and today Northshore is owned by a Presbyterian Church (PCUSA)-affiliated retirement community and has been renovated.

Another employee, John Wehmiller, came on board at CMI sometime in the 2000’s.  Wehmiller, a series seven registered representative and a Baptist deacon, was given the job of creating CMI’s own broker-dealer corporation called Wellstone Securities. Mr. Wehmiller found out that securities laws prevented CMI from distributing their own securities through an affiliated broker dealer, so another non-profit company was injected into the mix, the African-American Church Growth Foundation Inc., to own and manage Wellstone Securities.  Again, alphabet soup-named companies were being used in a similar manner as to when Brooks and Ottinger were involved with IFBD.

In November 2006, Brooks wrote another of his folksy newsletters giving his farewell message and handing the leadership of the company over to Wehmiller. [18] This was a combined letter which included Brooks’ farewell, and beginning on page two, Wehmiller’s statement saying: “I hope to move us towards an increased emphasis of financing churches.”  Further down Wehmiller writes, “Cornerstone has experienced tremendous success in lending for the acquisition of Independent Senior Retirement Communities.”  The particulars of the Northshore loan were not addressed. Wehmiller lasted one year at the helm of CMI, with Ottinger, who had retired in 2006, then returning as CEO.

The author’s mother-in-law died in November 2006, and the author’s wife, being an only child, inherited the entire estate. After the estate settlement, there was a significant amount of money to invest.  In May 2007, the author called Mr. Sickert and asked him to find an investment in lieu of putting the inherited funds in a bank.  The author’s wife wanted to put the money under the mattress. To this day the author’s wife still wishes that the money had gone into the mattress, and the author agrees with her.

Mr. Sickert returned the author’s call and said that the best place for the inherited funds was in CMI. The author disagreed because of the lack of sufficient investment diversification.  At a meeting with Sickert at the CMI offices in Cumming, Georgia, on June 1, 2007, Sickert insisted that CMI was the only appropriate place to invest. The author and his wife  reluctantly gave in, and regret the decision to this day.  The author is in total agreement with Mr. Pat Huddleston who wrote the article for the Christian Observer published August 3, 2011, titled “Protecting What God Has Given You From Those Who Use His Name.” [19] What remaining assets the author and his wife  have today are in the care of a family investment firm not associated with the PCA. The author recommends that every reader of this article also read Mr. Huddleston’s article. The author now believes that as stated in BCD 530 page 37, [20] CMI was severely cash strapped commencing in the summer of 2007,  and that the author’s and his wife’s funds that were invested on June 1, 2007, were used to pay maturing bonds and the interest that other investors were receiving each month to supplement their Social Security and other income, in other words, a Ponzi scheme.

In December  2007, two CMI-investor friends of the author’s, who each had a CMI bond that was maturing on January 1, 2008, were sent letters informing them that they could roll their bonds over at nine percent for another five years.  The investors wrote separate letters requesting a check for the principal and interest to be sent to their respective Merrill Lynch accounts.  In January 2008, they each received a letter from their Wellstone broker thanking them for their business and friendship along with a form needed to renew their bond.  Wellstone Securities was shut down on December. 31, 2007.

On Jan. 31, 2008, Jack Ottinger sent a letter to the two investors  thanking them for their investments and stating “we value our relationship with you and want to take a moment to update you on your investment with us.”  Skipping ahead to the first two lines of the third paragraph, “It has been our practice and habit to pay interest or principal on the first day it is payable and to avoid delays. Unfortunately the market is not cooperating with us at this time and we are not currently able to make payment of principal and interest to investors.”  Ten days later, Ottinger filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

After the author received Ottinger’s letter dated February 20, 2008, [21] he called Mr. Sickert and inquired about what was going on. Ottinger’s letter basically said that: “CMI will have an opportunity to seek to redress the imbalance that has occurred in its operations.”  The last paragraph is an interesting one when read in hindsight: “…our primary interest at this time is you, our investors.  Again, we are pledged to serve you as best we can as the law allows.  We will keep you informed of our progress in doing so. Thank you for your patience.” Mr. Sickert stated that it appears that CMI investors would get ninety six cents to one dollar and six cents back on each dollar invested.

On March 18, 2008, the 341 meeting was held in Gainesville, Georgia. [22] The 341 meeting is in compliance with bankruptcy law and is named after the applicable section of bankruptcy law.  This meeting is where the creditors (investors) get to question the principals of a company that has filed bankruptcy and to hear what they have to say.  The author did not go to this meeting but received a copy of the transcript from the Office of the United States Trustee, James Morawetz.

Q., Jack when you add up the assets, revalued assets, liabilities, what will we have left?

A. I can’t give you the exact dollar amount off the top of my head but at this point I think all of us agree that it’s more than the principal amount of bonds invested.

Q. Repeat that.

A. It’s more than the principal amount of the bonds that we owe….

Later on another investor asked Ottinger:

Q.  …of the assets you said which exceed the total loans how much of that asset pool do you think is actually realizable by many of the people obligated or will it perhaps bankrupt their own business?

A. “I think we’ve answered that question.  We are trying to finalize values but at this point our loan values on a conservative what I call a slash and burn approach …loan values exceed the principal of the bonds, okay, today, this minute.

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On July 15, 2008  the Periodic Update to Unsecured Creditors was published. [23] This letter was from the creditors committee that was appointed by the bankruptcy judge. The first line of the next to last paragraph says, “Finally the committee is in the final stages of preparing a plan of liquidation (the “Plan”) for CMI and its bankruptcy estate.”

Sometime in the middle of December, 2008, the author received a call from another investor, who asked: “…have you read the latest bankruptcy court document, BCD 437, Disclosure Statement Describing Plan of Liquidation?” [24] The caller suggested the author read BCD 437, as there were things in it the author wouldn’t like, especially after being previously advised of a supposed ninety six cents to one dollar and six cents per dollar invested bankruptcy settlement rate.  The caller was correct. CMI investors had already been told that CMI stock was worth nothing, but on page  thirteen under the Bondholder Unsecured Claims, recovery of nine percent to thirty-six percent was stated on an estimated  $142,879,770.00.  Where had all the money gone? Didn’t Jack Ottinger state on March 18, 2008, that loan values exceeded the principal amount of the bonds?  On page twenty-two of this same document, it is stated that “of the $183,611,517 in scheduled real property assets, $116,477,319 (or sixty-three percent of the total listed real property assets) consists of interests in second priority mortgages.”

What kind of businessmen were the CMI executives?  Did they understand anything about second mortgage loans, particularly that the first mortgage holder always is paid first?  What were they thinking when investing retirement funds in such risky ventures?  Where was the board of directors in all of this?  Didn’t they understand that they had a moral, legal, and fiduciary obligation to the investors to see that the principals knew what they were doing?

The web site of Christ Presbyterian Church in Sharpsburg, Georgia, includes a biography of the Rev. Jayme Sickert, [25] who was called as the church’s full time pastor in December 2010.  Part of one statement is interesting; “He…then went into the area of church finance.”  A more accurate statement would be that the pastor went into the area of assisting investors in losing $148 million in the Cornerstone Ministries Investments, Inc. bankruptcy.

And there is still unfinished business in the Presbyterian Church in America.

Part Three of this article will be published at a later date.

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The Role of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) Stated Clerk and Administrative Committee in the Establishment of the Presbyterian Investors Fund (PIF) and Cornerstone Ministries Investments (CMI)

Part One

by Bob Wildrick

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Not one person associated with the PCA as a member or an investor in CMI, Inc., has written an article that I have read on it’s demise, therefore I believe someone with experience with both organizations should write about this mess.  I am deeply disturbed that PIF/CMI was founded upon the remnants of a PCA endeavor, Investors Fund for Building and Development (IFBD), that was faulty and I am disheartened that teaching and ruling elders in the PCA refused to exercise their responsibilities in 1994 to put the peace and purity of the church ahead of loyalty to other teaching elders.

At the 13^th General Assembly (GA) of the PCA in 1985 a recommendation was made:

“that the Committee on Mission to North America be authorized …to form and implement a revolving building fund to operate as a trust for the purpose to receive monies and make loans for the primary purpose of church building construction.” [1]

At the 14^th GA of the PCA in 1986,  the assembly adopted the basic policy guidelines for revolving building loans.  Furthermore:

“the trustees of the Investors Fund for Building and Development were directed to complete the policy manual and submit it to the 15^th GA” [2]

That assembly also approved the articles of incorporation and  bylaws for IFB&D, as well as the proposed FY87 budget and the Basic Guidelines for Revolving Building Loans. [3] At that same GA there was a report and minutes of the organizational meeting of IFBD attached to the minutes. [4]

Skip ahead to the 20^th GA of the PCA in 1992.  The minutes note:

“that the 20^th General Assembly requires all committees and agencies to participate in the Legal Audit Questionnaire.” [5]

Why a legal audit?  What was going on at Century Place (the denominational office building)?  Notice that it was the General Assembly that ordered the Legal Audit.

The minutes of the 21^st GA of the PCA 1993 state:

“That the AC [Administrative Committee] be directed to assemble the recommendations in and responses to the Legal Audit by the various committees, boards, and agencies and to present such reports through the appropriate committees, boards and agencies to the 22^nd GA, and that the parts of the Legal Audit referred to each committee, board and agency be made to the Committee of Commissioners reviewing its work at the 22^nd General Assembly and that the entire legal audit and responses be made available to the Committee of Commissioners on AC at the 22^nd General Assembly.”[6]

See the difference?  The results of the Legal Audit should have been given to the GA.  The GA ordered it; the GA should have seen it.  However, only a relatively few members of the Assembly ever saw the Legal Audit, and those that did had to sign a confidentiality agreement, pledging not to reveal the contents of the Audit.  As a result, the majority of the 1994 GA never saw what was in the Legal Audit.

I will now attempt to present what happened at the 22^nd GA of the PCA in 1994.  Here is what we read in that Assembly’s minutes:

Legal Audit

The working definition a Legal Audit of the Committee of Commissioners on Administration is as follows:

1.07 The End Product—The Legal Status Report and Chart

The legal status report should be designed to (1) give the status of the legal affairs of a business; (2) make recommendations for future action, and (3) assist management in evaluating the present legal risks in the business. [7]

The minutes go on to say that a report of certain matters can be prepared for public distribution but things that could be used in a lawsuit should be kept confidential.  OK I’ll agree with that.  Further on in the minutes it states:

“At present the legal audit is protected by attorney-client privilege and its contents may not be used against the PCA in a court of law.  The very reason for having the legal audit conducted in the first place was to determine whether there are areas of civil vulnerability that should be corrected before being discovered by someone wishing to file suit against us.” [8]

Further on under “d” of the grounds it states:

“The legal audit report is copyrighted by the Christian law firm of Gammon and Grange…” [9]

However, when a law firm undertakes a job for a client, any material that is copyrighted is to be thus protected for the benefit of the client, not the law firm…

So what are the facts that have been kept from us for twenty-three years? You won’t find anything in the minutes of the 22^nd GA other than a hint.  Under the Committee of Commissioners on Investors Fund the statement is made:

“We are not allowed to discuss the details of the Legal Audit.”

Skip down a few lines and it states:

“We found nothing in the IFBD portion of the Legal Audit, in the response of legal counsel, in the response of IFBD staff, or in the IFBD trustees to cause concern of anything amiss.  In Summary, from the information given and received, we found no substance to rumors that have circulated that there is impropriety in the IFBD” [10]

Further on in the minutes it states:

“Therefore the Trustees recommend with the endorsement of the Committee on Mission to North America and the Administrative Committee the following:.. it is recommended that the relationship of IFBD to the General Assembly be reordered in such a way as to make IFBD a separate, non-integrated supporting organization.” [11]

In simple English IFBD was dissolved by the 1994 GA.

Was there impropriety at IFBD?  Within the PCA there was a group of teaching elders called Concerned Presbyterians.  This group of men were concerned about the drift within the PCA away from historic Biblical and Presbyterian standards and polity.  A report was presented at Concerned Presbyterian Day in 1994 by attorney Walter Porr who had found twenty corporations registered to suites 130 and 150 in the PCA building at 1852 Century Place, Atlanta, Georgia, many with the names of the principals and employees of IFBD as CEO, CFO, Secretary or Registered Agent.  Mr. Porr made the statement that “the suites must be awfully large suites or very diminutive people.” Recently Mr. Porr wrote the following to me:

“I am deeply chagrined, but not sadly surprised, that the Church declined to impose any discipline.  My experiences at the GA made it clear that the moral fiber and courage for such action was woefully lacking.”

After Gammon and Grange had completed the Legal Audit, Cecil Brooks, the CEO of IFBD took a copy of the IFBD portion of the audit to Charlotte, North Carolina in May 1993 and gave it to a banker by the name of Chuck Ledford for his perusal.  Mr. Ledford states:

“I was asked by some individuals to review some information regarding the PCA Investor Fund and make comments on the legal/financial structure.  He has since then, and as per letter enclosed dated May 19, 1993, requested that I send this information, specifically a legal audit on the Investors Fund back to him.  I am doing this memo in accordance with his request.  When he was in Charlotte I did state to him that I would not copy nor reproduce any material given to me and I certainly will not do so.  The purpose of this memo is to record my own private thoughts and comments regarding the information contained within said document.  I will as of this day send all original documents, without any copies or reproductions made whatsoever, back to Mr. Brooks.”

Mr. Ledford’s memo was four pages long, but the second paragraph on the fourth page is exceptionally revealing:

“They (Gammon and Grange) made another extremely important notation in the document.  Tim Mersereau is the auditor of the Investors Fund.  He said to the audit committee, according to this document, on March 5, 1991 a discussion draft calling to their attention five reportable conditions that in his judgement could adversely affect the organization’s ability to financially and legally function.  Gammon and Grange stated that it was appropriate that this letter go to the audit committee which could have required a written response from management addressing each of these concerns and how to resolve them.  They stated that apparently no written response was requested or provided but it was brought up in the field audit and Jack Ottinger addressed them.  Such issues, briefly are:

1. the loss of a $200,000.00 savings certificate which Ottinger stated was later found

2. deposits in excess of FDIC limits

3. RTC interest computation error

4. improper rate of adjustments during the calendar year

5. personnel files lacking documentation authorizing pay raises.

They made no comment on whether Mr. Ottinger’s responses to these five things were satisfactory but went on to the next and final recommendation.

Mr. Ledford’s next paragraph was on Gammon and Grange’s recommendation to the Stated Clerks office requiring management of IFBD to submit reports in a timely manner and to respond to noted deficiencies.  He now ends with this final paragraph:

“I have briefly summarized this limited legal audit by this memo.  No copies or reproductions of the document have been made and as of today I am sending the original all of the Investors Fund financial statements for 1991 and 1990, along with a letter from Jackson McDaniel back to Mr. Cecil Brooks.  It is my financial observation that even with a cursory review of the information contained within this memo, that it is absolutely imperative that this issue be addressed in an immediate manner.  Even as I cannot give these documents out because they are copyrighted and I did give my word to Mr. Brooks that this would not be done, I feel I cannot be silent on this information contained within and must and will pursue the appropriate actions to report this information to the proper functions.”

So, did the Stated Clerk and Administrative Committee of the PCA in 1993-1994 help form PIF/CMI by what appears to be a cover up and whitewash of impropriety within IFBD?  Should Mr. Ottinger have been disciplined for the five reportable conditions that were documented by Mr. Mersereau? Why didn’t the IFBD audit committee report to civil authorities the offences of Mr. Ottinger that Mr. Mersereau found in 1991?

It is my understanding that the only discipline that Mr. Brooks and Mr. Ottinger received was a severe tongue lashing by the Stated Clerk along with the requisite tears and boohooing by Mr. Brooks, who then according to men who were at the 1994 GA, walked about with his proverbial tail between his legs.  It appears to this writer that the members of the 1994 GA were kept in the dark by the Stated Clerk about what had gone on at IFBD and therefore made a bad decision by dissolving IFBD and allowing Brooks and Ottinger to move their corruption to other companies which they formed, namely Presbyterian Investors Fund and Cornerstone Ministries Investments Inc.

Isn’t it time that the Legal Audit is revealed, or doesn’t the need for sunshine exist on Brown Road, Lawrenceville, Georgia ( the present PCA denominational offices)?   Mr. Porr said:

“there was a lack of moral fiber.”

Where are the Teaching Elders with courage or moral fiber that are willing to clean up the perceived cover up?  Where are the Concerned Presbyterians?  Are they a figment of ones imagination?  Where are the men that had their negative votes recorded at the 1985, 1986, 1993 and 1994 GA’s?  I don’t see any gold becoming dim; rather, I see the gold leaf peeling.

As Bob Williams said in his March 14, 2011 article in the Christian Observer, there is “unfinished business in the PCA.”

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Endnotes

1. Minutes of 13th GA 1985 page 114.
2. Minutes of 14^th GA 1986 page 171
3. Minutes of 14^th GA 1986 pages 172 & 173
4. Minutes of 14^th GA  1986 pages 261-273
5. Minutes of 20^th GA  1992 page 135
6. Minutes of 21^st GA  1993 page 181
7. Minutes of 22^nd GA  1994 page 256
8. Minutes of 22^nd GA  1994 page 269
9. Minutes of 22^nd GA  1994 page 270
10. Minutes of 22^nd GA  1994 page 189
11. Minutes of 22^nd GA  1994 page 191

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Our Guest Editor Bob Wildrick is one of 3500 CMI investors still waiting to receive settlement proceeds from the February 2008 Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Cornerstone Ministries Investments, Inc., a.k.a. the “$140 million Ponzi scheme.”

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[Editor's Note: This article originally appeared  on reformation21.org, the online magazine of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.]

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by Bob Williams, Managing Editor, Christian Observer

February 10, 2011 marked the third anniversary of the Cornerstone Ministries Investments (CMI) Chapter 11 Bankruptcy filing in the United States Bankruptcy Court – Northern District of Georgia – Gainesville Division. 3500 investors with US$142 Million in assets were affected, along with CMI stockholders who lost all of their holdings. From July-September 2010, settlements totaling US$7,625,000 were proposed to the bankruptcy court and later accepted, representing an average settlement rate of US$0.054 per dollar and a loss of US$134,375,000 by the 3500 investors.[1]

Included among the 3500 investors were the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP), with pre-settlement investment assets of US$127,151.97, plus 19,230.97 shares of CMI stock; several PCA and other denominations’ churches including Linden Presbyterian Church (PCA), of Linden, Alabama, with pre-settlement assets of US$599,295.88, and Mason Memorial Church of God in Christ of Norfolk, Virginia, with pre-settlement assets of US$1,015,781.10; plus thousands of other investors including PCA Teaching Elders (TE’s), widows of PCA TE’s, retirees whose retirement savings were in CMI investment accounts, and PCA church members.[2]

Bankruptcy plan administrators Glass Ratner Capital and Advisory Group, LLC, selected the law firm of Reid Davis LLP (RDLLP) to handle the claims associated with the collapse of CMI, which RDLLP later characterized as a “[US]$140 million Ponzi scheme.”[3] The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission defines a Ponzi Scheme as “…an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk. In many Ponzi schemes, the fraudsters focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage investors and to use for personal expenses, instead of engaging in any legitimate investment activity.”[4]

At the time of the 2008 bankruptcy filing, the two major CMI executive officers were the now late Rev. Cecil A. Brooks, and the Rev. John T. Ottinger, Jr., both PCA TE’s.

Of the US$7,625,000 settlement assets, the Estate of Cecil A. Brooks, the Covenant Family Trust UAD, and Jane C. Brooks, contributed US$1,350,000, based upon viable claims and causes of action asserted by the Settling Plaintiffs’ Representative “…for, inter alia [among other things], breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, negligent misrepresentation and fraudulent conveyances…,” and RE: Private Actions Trust, “…for fraudulent conveyances, violations of state and federal securities laws, and fraudulent and/or negligent misrepresentations to the CMI bondholders that assigned their claims to the Private Actions Trust.”[5]

John T. Ottinger, Jr., Julie Ottinger, Jack R. Wehmiller, and Jayme S. Sickert contributed US$4,330,000 to the settlement based upon viable claims and causes of action asserted by the Settling Plaintiffs’ Representative for “…breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, securities fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and fraudulent transfer….” The Ottingers contributed US$1,350,000 of their own assets to the settlement, with the remainder paid from a liability insurance policy held by CMI between 29 August 2007 – 29 August 2008.[6]

Perhaps the saddest aspect of this financial, fiduciary, and ethical debacle, is the fact that in the early 1990’s, the PCA General Assembly, as the supreme church court of the PCA, had the facts and the means at their disposal to bring to light the interest-conflicted and fiduciarily-irresponsible mess that was the eight not-for-profit and twelve for-profit corporations that listed 1852 Century Place, Atlanta, Georgia, as their mailing address, sharing the address with the early 1990’s PCA headquarters. The most significant of the corporations after the PCA, Inc., was the Investors Fund for the Building and Development of the PCA, Inc., whose CEO was the now-late PCA TE the Rev. Cecil A. Brooks and whose CFO and Secretary was PCA TE the Rev. John T. Ottinger, Jr.

The 1991 19^th PCA General Assembly, concerned about these matters, commissioned a legal audit of the PCA and its associated agencies, the results of which have been withheld from all but the Committees of Commissioners for the various Permanent Committees and Agencies.

Additionally, a group of like-minded PCA members had formed an independent organization called Concerned Presbyterians (CP), that was interested in the seeing results of the legal audit, in US$2.8 million in designated funds for the PCA home missions agency Mission to North America (MNA) that had been redistributed to other than designated purposes, and in other issues leading CP to believe that the PCA was turning away from its roots.

The cover of the May 20, 1994 Christian Observer[7] showed a picture of an open-air African church service with the headline: “In Uganda the Presbyterians organized a church three days after coming to town. In America the Presbyterians have spent three years waiting to see their legal audit.” The latter sentence referred to the article inside titled “Gilchrist Hides PCA Audit,”[8]

The article began by stating: “A major confrontation may be brewing in America’s second largest Presbyterian denomination over a decision not to release a “legal audit” of the corporate structure of the Presbyterian Church in America.”, then went on to describe efforts being made by CP and various PCA presbyteries to have the audit results released to the 1994 22nd PCA General Assembly, and the efforts being made by then-PCA Stated Clerk Paul Gilchrist and other PCA Administrative Committee (AC) members to keep the audit results from being released, purportedly to prevent the audit from being made available to parties wanting to sue the PCA, and concerns that release of the audit would make the audit admissible in court cases and would violate the copyright of the law firm that performed the audit. Gilchrist though, insisted that “there is no coverup or desire to keep secrets from the grassroots of the PCA.”

The recently deceased and then-chairman of CP, the Rev. Charles Wilson, commented: “What have they done that makes them so afraid of lawsuits? If ‘there is no coverup or desire to keep secrets from the grassroots of the PCA,’ why are they being so secretive? They won‘t tell anyone anything, they won’t answer questions. Why won‘t they answer basic questions and give basic information?”

The article went on to describe a written legal opinion by California attorney Walter Porr, who had been retained by CP, stating that all PCA pastors and ruling elders attending the annual General Assembly are legally entitled to obtain copies of the legal audit. Porr cited relevant sections of the PCA Book of Church Order(BCO), Rules of Assembly Operations, and Bylaws to justify his opinion.

The article continued: “The report also noted that there are almost two dozen for-profit and not-for-profit corporations which list “1852 Century Place (The PCA Office Building) as the registered Office of these Corporations” and the search lists “PCA employees as some of the directors and officers of these corporations….One key question is the relationship between the various for-profit and not-for-profit corporations doing business out of the PCA denominational building, many of which list top PCA denominational leaders as their corporate officers. Although the PCA was organized in 1973 and incorporated in 1974, most of these corporations are of much more recent date. With a few exceptions they were incorporated from 1989 to 1991.”[9]

Attorney Porr continued: “If you’re painting a worst case scenario you could have criminal fraud either in the context of criminal corporate violations or criminal tax or financial violations….Some corporate crimes or just simply tax fraud crimes could be tied up in this. People do go to jail in the extreme cases; you could have embezzlement, someone could be cooking the books.”

Porr questioned why so many of the corporations listed their registered legal address in a few suites of the PCA denominational building at Century Place[10], and why the not-for-profit corporations housed there had almost identical corporate officers as the for-profit corporations located in PCA headquarters.

Porr commented: “You have the PCA itself, a nonprofit corporation, with almost twenty or so corporations involving multiple interlocking directors doing business out of the PCA building in apparently unrelated fields….My first concern is breach of fiduciary duty by those PCA officials who are involved in these corporations; my second concern is insider-type trading or a nepotism problem with the various companies feeding each other business and all of them potentially feeding off the PCA treasury….I do not see in the minutes and in the reports of the General Assembly, nor have the teaching and ruling elders of  Concerned Presbyterians been able to bring to my attention, minutes or records of the General Assembly where the existence and relationship of these businesses has been discussed, noted, acknowledged, or approved. The impression one is left with is the people in power simply seized the opportunity to make these decisions, absent same action by the General Assembly and I’m aware of none.”

Porr went on to point out inconsistencies between the situation at 1852 Century Place and the PCA’s official conflict-of-interest policies and concluded: “It kind of goes back to the old adage, if it looks like a duck, if it flies like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Why in the world does a man need to have some eighteen to twenty corporations? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at this and say this doesn’t look right.”

Shortly after the May 20, 1994 Christian Observer article was published, on May 16, 1994, Christian Observer Publisher the [now late] Rev. Edwin P. Elliott and the article’s author received a letter from an attorney representing PCA TE’s the Rev. Cecil A. Brooks and the Rev. John T. Ottinger, Jr., breathing out civil court versions of threatenings and slaughter, and demanding a complete retraction of the article on pain of being sued for libel and defamation of character. The attorney, Brooks, and Ottinger, were subsequently advised of the I Corinthians 6 prohibitions against Christians suing each other, the appropriate church courts to which such disagreements should be taken, and that the attorney that wrote the letter seemingly had not been aware of relevant case law between the 1965 Georgia statute cited in the demand letter and mid-year 1994. Whether or not the advice was considered, no Christian Observer retraction was published and no lawsuit was filed.

The PCA 22^nd GA met 6-10 June 1994 in Atlanta, Georgia, where stated clerk Paul Gilchrist’s decision was announced not to release the PCA audit to all PCA commissioners and to those that officially requested copies of the audit prior to the GA meeting. The GA went on to “[declare] that the characterization by the Christian Observer of the Stated Clerk’s actions in this matter as “hiding” the audit is erroneous; and That the Twenty-Second General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America respectfully requests the editors of the Christian Observer to publish this declaration at its earliest convenience.”[11]

The official PCA 22^nd GA request was honored in the July 1, 1994 Christian Observer article “Presbyterian Church in America Assembly Meets in Atlanta”[12] with this statement: “The court also expressed its full confidence in Stated Clerk, Paul Gilchrist, who had come under fire from the independent media including the Observer, in the weeks immediately prior to the assembly.”

The PCA then unofficially began a campaign which led to Christian Observer publisher and PCA TE the Rev. Edwin P. Elliott, Jr., departing the PCA, and another campaign to urge PCA subscribers to the Christian Observer to cancel or otherwise not renew their subscriptions.[13]

The August 5, 1994 Christian Observer included a guest article by PCA TE the Rev. Kennedy Smartt titled “The Truth About Cecil Brooks and the Investor’s Fund,”[14] which dismissed the report of attorney Walter Porr as a set of “worst case scenarios” by a “California lawyer not a member of the PCA,” and then went on to portray the Rev. Cecil Brooks and his fellow corporation managers as misunderstood, altruistic people with completely unselfish motives. (According to CMI bankruptcy documents filed in March 2008, the Rev. Kennedy Smartt and his wife owned a total of 1585 shares of CMI stock, and had investments of US$327,760 in CMI bonds.)

The PCA in 1994 officially divested itself of the Investors Fund for the Building and Development of the PCA, Inc., and the now nominally-independent corporation later became Cornerstone Ministries Inc. (CMI). Though the PCA had made a legal, corporate break from what later became CMI, as late as the publication date for the Winter 1999/2000 issue of Multiply,[15] the PCA Mission to North America’s magazine, a Presbyterian Investors Fund (PIF) [interim corporation name] ad was published that had no differentiation from the other Multiply articles, with a background graphic of a modern church building overlaid with “God’s Money for God’s Kingdom,” offering certificates of deposit in the PIF’s Mortgage Loan Fund and Church Development Fund with interest rates up to eight percent for three years and nine percent for five years respectively for the two funds. Interesting to note is that on the first page of Multiply, the corporation was identified as the PCA Investors Fund.[16]

Eight years later, CMI declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy, leaving 618 stockholders with 908,982 shares with nothing, and leaving 3500 bond investors with US$142 million in investments to eventually receive possibly the lower of the 9 to 36 cents on the dollar as stated in the Creditors Committee Plan of Liquidation.[17]

In mid-2010, several CMI investors that had suffered significant losses from the CMI bankruptcy appealed to the PCA Metro Atlanta Presbytery (MAP) to institute church discipline against PCA TE the Rev. John T. Ottinger, Jr., for unrepentant violations of the Eighth Commandment, and for violations of two vows in the PCA Book of Church Order (BCO) section 21-5-6 where the TE promises “to be zealous and faithful in maintaining the truths of the Gospel and the purity and peace and unity of the Church”, and Section 21-5-7 where the TE promises to be “faithful and diligent in the exercise of all your duties as a Christian and a minister of the Gospel, whether personal or relational, private or public; and to endeavor by the grace of God to adorn the profession of the Gospel in your manner of life, and to walk with exemplary piety before the flock of which God shall make you overseer.” The appeal included references to relevant scriptural texts, relevant references from the Westminster Larger Catechism, CMI bankruptcy documents, and articles about the CMI bankruptcy in the secular media. The Metro Atlanta Presbytery chose not to pursue church discipline against TE Ottinger.

Prior to TE Ottinger’s late-2010 settlement with the bankruptcy court, several questionable real estate transactions were entered into by TE and Mrs. Ottinger following the filing by TE Ottinger for bankruptcy protection.

Additionally, PCA TE the Rev. Jayme S. Sickert, the former CMI executive VP Investor Relations, who along with the Ottingers and Jack R. Wehmiller were cited in the bankruptcy settlement for “…breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, securities fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and fraudulent transfer….”, and Sickert was cited in a 24 July 2010 letter opposing the proposed bankruptcy settlement with the Ottingers, Wehmiller, and Sickert that read: “Mr. Sickert misrepresented Cornerstone Ministries to me and Never [sic] changed a word he said during my association with Cornerstone, even up until the day of bankruptcy.” The letter later asked that the bankruptcy judge “consider Mr. Sickert’s lies when making His Decision [sic].”[18]

Since June 2010, former CMI executive the Rev. Jayme S. Sickert has been preaching weekly at the MAP’s Christ Presbyterian Church of Sharpsburg, Georgia.[19]

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2011 marks twenty years since the 1991 19^th PCA General Assembly commissioned a legal audit of the labyrinth of not-for-profit and for-profit corporations headquartered in the same Atlanta, Georgia, building as the PCA denominational headquarters, and the audit results remain to this day a secret to all but the few PCA insiders allowed by the PCA Administrative Committee to see the audit report. 2011 additionally marks seventeen years since then PCA TE’s and now late the Rev. Charles Wilson and fellow members of Concerned Presbyterians, and now late the Rev. Edwin Elliott and his publication the Christian Observer, openly and courageously questioned the unscriptural, un-confessional, and unethical goings-on at PCA headquarters, and both men, CP, and the Christian Observer were publically and officially rebuked and shown official contempt by majority vote of the 1994 22^nd PCA General Assembly.[20]

Following the 1994 22^nd PCA General Assembly, the PCA’s “company men”, TE’s and RE’s who valued their PCA Inc. “franchises” and remaining in good stead with PCA headquarters over “maintaining the truths of the Gospel and the purity and peace and unity of the Church, whatever persecution or opposition may arise unto you on that account?” (PCA BCO 21-5-6), continually vilified those who had dared to question the PCA Inc. party line, and worked hard to drive the Rev. Edwin Elliott out of the PCA and to destroy the Christian Observer.

Meanwhile, questions at the 1994 PCA 22^nd General Assembly about “Century Place-Gate” and its labyrinth of corporations, and US$2.8 million of mis-designated Mission to North America (MNA) funds, morphed over fourteen years into the CMI bankruptcy termed a “[US]$140 million Ponzi scheme” by the law firm that handled the bankruptcy claims of 3500 account holders that lost an average ninety-five percent of their CMI investments.[21] Yet still, the PCA Administrative Committee, the PCA Metro Atlanta Presbytery, and the many PCA Inc. “company men” and their fellow CMI enablers continue to refuse to acknowledge the more than two decades of corruption allowed to flourish in their denominational midst that resulted in 3500 persons, families, churches, and other entities who invested in the lie that was CMI to lose the vast majority of their CMI investments.

Is the PCA as a denomination culpable in the loss of 3500 investors of their retirement and other invested funds? Maybe. The evidence was available in the Legal Audit that there was mismanagement of funds occurring in 1991. The Stated Clerk and the Administrative Committee in 1994, by refusing to reveal the results of the Legal Audit, did not allow the General Assembly the option to properly discipline Brooks and Ottinger. They were allowed to continue with their credentials intact, eventually bilking 3500 investors who unknowingly thought these two men were making fiduciarily-responsible investments of their assets, but were in actuality running a US$142 million Ponzi scheme.

It is far past time for the individuals and the courts of the PCA to repent of their words, actions, and inactions which allowed the corruption which ultimately led to the CMI bankruptcy, to carry out their biblical and confessional responsibilities to make amends for their enablement and neglect in this matter, to hold those responsible for this decades-long malfeasance by calling them to account via true biblical and confessional discipline by the PCA courts, and when necessary to expel any guilty and unrepentant tares from the PCA until such time as true repentance is evident.

We would hope that the 39th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America will begin to address this issue by removing from office all persons associated with the 1994 Stated Clerk’s office and Administrative Committee who are culpable in the Century Place-Gate Scandal and in the coverup of the Legal Audit commissioned by the 1991 19^th PCA General Assembly. Additionally, we would hope that the 39th General Assembly would compel the revelation of the Legal Audit so that any questionable activities found can be corrected, repented of, and apologized for by the PCA.  It is too late for those scammed by Brooks, Ottinger, and Sickert, but at the very least, these actions will move the PCA much closer to having addressed the situation biblically, confessionally, and properly according to the PCA BCO.

The peeling gold leaf described in retired PCA TE the Rev. Dr. Carl W. Bogue’s January, February, and March 1994 The Presbyterian Advocate article “How is the Gold Leaf Peeled Off”[22] has long since completely disappeared, leaving a tarnished and corroded mess of what once was the Godly vision of The National Presbyterian Church.[23]

This article is dedicated to PCA Teaching Elder the Rev. Charles Wilson, d. January 29, 2011. Charles grieved for both friends and those that did not consider him a friend, as well as churches that lost money in the CMI scandal, especially Linden PCA which was his first pastorate out of Reformed Theological Seminary of Jackson, Mississippi. We thank Charles for his wise and consistent counsel. Well done good and faithful servant.

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Bob Williams, Managing Editor of the Christian Observer, holds the Bachelor of Music degree from West Virginia University, the Master of Arts in Religion (MAR) degree from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, and is a Probationer and Licentiate in the Hanover Presbytery, Reformed Presbyterian Church.

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Guest Editor’s Message by Dr. Dominic Aquila

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The Presbyterian Church in America [PCA]’s non-hierarchical structure could be placed at risk if the [Book of Church Order] BCO 14-1, 2 amendments are passed.

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There may be an unintended consequence of using the word “requirement” in proposed BCO 14-1, and “fulfilled their annual responsibilities” in the proposed BCO 14-2 (3) touching on local churches: These proposed changes create an internal conflict within the PCA’s constitution and can potentially place the PCA in jeopardy of being considered civilly connected. The PCA’s present position as a non-hierarchal connectional church could be challenged in civil courts if these amendments are adopted.

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The proposed changes to BCO 14-1 include the following: “…the responsibility to support the work of the denomination shall include a requirement that churches, teaching elders, and Presbyteries contribute to denominational support services by paying an annual Registration Fee….” (emphasis added).

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And the proposed changes to BCO 14-2 (3) include the following: “(3) ruling elder commissioners whose churches, before the convening of the General Assembly, have fulfilled their annual responsibilities with respect to the Registration Fees for churches….” (emphasis added).

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Where is the unintended consequence? It is in the use of the word “requirement” which mandates that local churches will be required to pay an annual fee in order for their elders to be considered voting members at General Assembly meetings. This “requirement” could be construed and interpreted by secular courts as a type of civil connection.
Why is this important? The PCA has argued in civil courts that each of its graded courts (Session, Presbytery and General Assembly) is a separate civil entity and not connected legally to each other. The PCA’s connectionalism is defined as “non-hierarchical Presbyterianism” that flows from “mutual love and confidence” (BCO 25-11) and not from any civil or legal connection. As a result the PCA has been able to argue successfully in secular courts that it is a non-hierarchical Presbyterian church. 1

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When local PCA churches have been sued in civil courts, it has been common to name as defendants in these suits the local church (where the alleged offense occurred), its Presbytery and the General Assembly under the assumption that there is a civil connection between these church courts. In naming all three church courts in civil suits, there is the assumption that the PCA functions under a “hierarchical Presbyterian” structure. Thus far, the PCA has argued and demonstrated successfully from its constitution that it is not a hierarchal Presbyterian church, that its church courts are not civilly connected, and that it operates as a non-hierarchical Presbyterian church.

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To add the word “requirement” in the BCO, which is a part of the PCA constitution, “requiring” local churches to pay an annual fee to the GA would produce an internal conflict within the constitution (e.g., between BCO 14-1, 2 and BCO 25-8, 9, 10 and 11). And further, it could create confusion in the church and civil courts as to whether the PCA is hierarchical or non-hierarchical.

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By enshrining “shall include a requirement” in the PCA constitution, mandating that local churches must pay an annual registration fee, the voluntary nature of the PCA’s connectionalism, based on “mutual love and confidence,” could be called into question in civil suits. To “require” a payment from local churches that are civilly distinct can be considered a form of force and coercion, which is civil in nature, a concept that does not presently exist in the BCO.
1 See, e.g., Susanne MacDonald vs. Grace Church, Seattle, Northwest Presbytery and the PCA, a Corporation, US District Court For the Western District of Washington at Seattle, and Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The District Court ruled that the Presbytery and General Assembly are not the employers of local PCA church pastors of local PCA church staff. The ruling was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

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In his paper on “The Presbyterian Church in America: Non-hierarchal Presbyterianism,” Dr. L. Roy Taylor, Stated Clerk of the PCA, has clearly written and defined the distinction between hierarchical and non-hierarchical Presbyterian connectionalism. Here are some of the points that he makes that demonstrate the unique character of the PCA’s non-hierarchical connectionalism.

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There is a significant difference between the PCA’s Presbyterian polity and the polity of hierarchal denominations. Even within Presbyterian denominations, there are two perspectives, an hierarchal, top-down view and a non-hierarchal, bottom-up view.

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Over the years the larger Presbyterian denomination (Presbyterian Church, USA – PCUSA) underwent a metamorphosis from a democratic type of Presbyterianism into an hierarchal Presbyterianism, which emphasizes the higher courts directing the affairs of the lower courts. The PCUSA Book of Church Order deals much more extensively with detailed procedures covering a wide variety of situations and is much longer that the PCA’s BCO. In recent civil cases involving disputes over who owns the local church property, the PCUSA argues that it is an hierarchal denomination, with the Presbytery being tantamount to a bishop.

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By contrast, the PCA is a non-hierarchal, grass-roots type of Presbyterianism. One of the major reasons for the formation of the PCA was to revert to a democratic Presbyterianism. The PCA BCO is written more as a set of principles, emphasizing the use of discretion and wisdom by the lower courts. The Preface of the BCO lists the Preliminary Principles, which are an integral part of the constitution, i.e., the lenses through which the rest of the BCO is to be viewed. It was not envisioned that the PCA BCO would have detailed instructions on virtually every situation. When faced with situations and circumstances that are not dealt with in detail in the PCA BCO, Sessions and presbyteries should exercise their own wisdom and discretion within the parameters of biblical principles and the Constitution of the PCA.

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The voluntary nature of the PCA is explicitly stated in BCO 25-9 and 25-10 regarding church property and in BCO 25-11 regarding the process for withdrawing from the denomination.

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In civil cases, the PCA has successfully argued that it is a non-hierarchal denomination. Recent civil court rulings have found that the PCA, as a non-hierarchal denomination, does not employ local church pastors and staff members, and as such, cannot be held liable for their actions as employees.

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The PCA is non-hierarchal in that:

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1) the local church (Sessions), Presbyteries, and the General Assembly (the church courts) are distinct and separate civil entities, and

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2) the authority/power of the Church is only moral and spiritual, ministerial and declarative.

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This is evidenced by the following provisions of the BCO:

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1) “the power of the Church is exclusively spiritual,” BCO 3-4,

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2) church courts “have no jurisdiction in political or civil affairs,” BCO 11-1,

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3) church courts “have no power to inflict temporal pains and penalties, but their authority is in all respects moral or spiritual,” BCO 11-1,

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4) the jurisdiction of church courts is “only ministerial and declarative,” BCO 11-2, and

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5) the jurisdiction of the church courts is “limited by the express provisions of the Constitution,” BCO 11-4.

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Two entire chapters of the BCO (Chapters 3 and 11) are devoted to this explanation. Yet the PCA is spiritually united (not civilly connected) and Presbyterian churches are inter-dependent, not independent. This connectionalism is expressed in our confessional theology, our system of government and discipline, and our cooperative ministry. PCA founding fathers Cannada and Williamson so state in their book:

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The thing that is special about the PCA is that there is a clear and vital spiritual connection between the Congregations, the Presbyteries, and the General Assembly. Accordingly, it is entirely proper to designate the polity of the PCA as being “connectional” as long as it is made clear that the connection is a spiritual connection between the Congregations, the Presbyteries and the General Assembly and there is no connection of any kind between the civil entities formed by them. The members of the Congregations, the Presbyteries and the General Assembly make up the membership of the respective civil entities formed by them and are, therefore, in complete control of those civil entities. Accordingly, since there is a vital spiritual connection between the Congregations, the Presbyteries, and the General Assembly in the PCA and each has complete control of the civil entity formed by it, the PCA does not consist of a group of independent local churches that are free to teach and promote whatever they see fit (The Historic Polity of the PCA. pp. 34-35).

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Church members, teaching elders, ruling elders, and deacons take vows to voluntarily place themselves under the spiritual authority of the Church. Officers pledge to exercise the duties of their office in accord with the Constitution of the PCA. These vows have a moral responsibility (though not a legal obligation) to abide by the decision, judgment, or order of the church court. However, they may file a complaint or appeal the action to a higher court. Once the matter has been finally handled by the higher court, there is, because of the vows taken, a moral responsibility (though not a legal obligation) to abide by the final disposition of the matter as long as they are members of the PCA.

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If one cannot do so, he may leave the PCA without coercion. If a person does not accept this moral responsibility, he may face charges in accord with BCO 31-2 and if found guilty, ecclesiastical censures in accord with BCO 36. If a church does not accept this moral responsibility to abide by a final decision/action of a Presbytery, then Presbytery’s response is to either “dissolve” [the ecclesiastical relationship between] the church and the PCA or “dismiss” [transfer] the church [to another denomination] with the church’s consent (see BCO 13-9(f) ). Filing a complaint in civil court to enforce this moral responsibility is not within the authority and power given to a Presbytery by the PCA’s BCO.

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Thus, the PCA is Presbyterian (governed by elders elected by the people whom they represent), yet democratic type of Presbyterianism. It is connectional, but non-hierarchal, in that the power of the church is not civil or coercive, but moral and spiritual, ministerial and declarative. It is constitutional, not authoritarian, that is, all of her members, offices, and church courts are to operate within the framework of the Constitution of the Church and may not resort to any authority that is contrary to the PCA Constitution.

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The word “requirement,” though only one word in a larger document, will not only create an internal conflict within the BCO, it could also potentially be interpreted by civil courts as an indicator of a civil connection between PCA courts and hold higher courts accountable for the actions of lower courts. This potential for civil courts to interpret the PCA as hierarchical and civilly connected is too high a price to pay to adopt the BCO 14 amendments. Unintended consequences can come back to bite with a vengeance. These amendments should be defeated and in so doing not jeopardize the PCA’s present non-hierarchical connectional status.

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Dr. Dominic Aquila is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary in Colorado Springs, Colorado

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[Dear Readers - The May 2010 Christian Observer Editor's Message is presented by the Rev. Dr. Charles Wilson, Editor of the ARPTalk Blog and the Rev. Dr. Dean Turbeville, Pastor of the All Saints Presbyterian Church (Associate Reformed Presbyterian (ARP)) in Charlotte, North Carolina. Both of these Teaching Elders continue to fight the good and Godly fight for the future of Erskine College and Theological Seminary, which has seen a great battle arise between secularism and biblical faithfulness since the March 2010 called meeting of the ARP General Synod, the synod decisions reestablishing authority over Erskine and its Board of Trustees, and the subsequent usurpation by the secular courts of the authority of the ARP church courts. The following message from Dr. Turbeville to Dr. Wilson was published in ARPTalk 29, Article 5, on 29 April 2010. - Bob Williams, Managing Editor]

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[ARPTalk] Editor : Dr. Dean Turbeville, a former Erskine Board member, is well known in the ARP Church. He is the Pastor of the All Saints Presbyterian Church (ARP), Charlotte, NC  –  Charles W. Wilson

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Dear Chuck,

As men like to say in the South, you and I have “knocked heads” at times over tactical issues in our common concern to see our denomination and her agencies reformed according to God’s Word. However, I don’t write to you today to criticize you, but to thank you. Your reportage, while occasionally spiked with colorful language and humor, has been indispensable in keeping the men of our Synod informed regarding the mischief that has been done in our name at Erskine College and Seminary.

And you and I both know these are not trivial matters. In an age soaked in media-hyped scandal – scandals involving athletes, TV personalities, and politicians – we now have a real Scandal of the first order. While we might all but expect unbelievers to fall into wicked behavior, we now have a case involving ordained officers of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

As far as the civil court goes, it is true that the lower court judge’s legally inexplicable decision will certainly delay the reform of our college. Still, whether by legal appeal or by sheer persistence through a much slower process, it would seem that our Synod yet has the ability to recover these institutions for the Kingdom. However, I am not most concerned about the issues surrounding the civil-court decision now, or even the ongoing issues on the campuses of the schools.

Of much more concern to any faithful ARP minister or elder must be what happens in the courts of the Lord’s Church. And what word can we use for what has happened but “scandal?” For over thirty years, faithful men in our Synod labored entirely within our form of government to see changes at Erskine. Questions were raised, prayers were uttered, memorials were passed, and admonishments were made. While much of it proved ineffective, it was honorable and constitutional action. Yet, within a week of losing their effective control of the college, liberals in the ARP Church trampled upon the scriptures by suing their own denomination in civil court! Again, we might have expected as much from unbelievers. But that officers of the church would even consider doing such a thing is almost unthinkable to me. Each of these elders (and a minister at the seminary) took these or similar vows, among others:

Do you accept the government, discipline, and worship of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church?

Do you promise to submit in the spirit of love to the authority of the session and to the higher courts of the church?

Do you promise in all things to promote the unity, peace, purity and prosperity of the church?

Of course, beyond the scandal that these solemn ordination vows were shattered is the even greater scandal that Holy Scripture was violated. I am struck by the Apostle’s aggrieved tone in his language in 1 Corinthians 6: When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?…So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. (emphasis added)

Yet, our own seminary professor had no shame in doing just this! As for his public defense of his actions, we note that the Apostle’s reference to “trivial cases” does not refer to those cases which the seminary professor deems trivial (thus allowing him to sue the saints for those reasons he deems important enough). No, Paul is clearly contrasting the comparatively trivial matters over which brothers sometimes argue with the weightiness of those matters which will be judged when the saints “judge the world,” verse 2, and “judge angels,” verse 3.

Our seminary professor should have known better than to try to carve out an exception for himself. Neither do elders have any right to do so. Chuck, back when I was in the PCUSA, I worked with several evangelical renewal groups within the liberal denomination to try to see change come. We were fighting grotesque distortions of the Gospel: same sex marriage, endorsement of partial birth abortion, open worship of the “goddess” Sophia, and a complete denial of substitutionary atonement in presbytery examinations. Yet in all those years of laboring for change, I cannot recall a single instance in which taking the denomination to civil court over any of these heresies was even discussed, much less done. Yet in our self-confessed “conservative, reformed” denomination, the “sue-the-church carousel” began spinning within a matter of days after the overwhelming decision of Synod to change the Erskine Board of Trustees, as the suit progressed with three different sets of plaintiffs. What an unwarranted effort this was to undo the will of God as expressed by his appointed church court! If a prophet were in our midst, perhaps he would say what another once did: Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate.(Jeremiah 2:12). Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet, and there is a heart-breaking aspect to this as well; namely, what a low and unspiritual view of the church is operative in these actions by supposed servants of God’s people! The Lord’s view of the church is that it is “the Bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Rev. 21:9). To view your own church as an adversary at law instead of the Bride of Christ whom you are sworn to protect and nurture is deeply ignorant at best, and in all cases blasphemous toward the Bride’s Groom (James 2:6-7). Moreover, it is also rebellion against the King of Kings, and as such constitutes ecclesiastical treason when done by one of His sworn servants. And that would include those ordained men who administer these institutions and who allow (encourage?) this counter-insurgency against the church to be led by people they are in a position to check.

Chuck, we must pray now for the repentance of these men, for as you correctly asserted in your last issue of ARPTalk, at root, this is an issue of idolatry. And we are all subject to the danger of idolatry, not just those who worship at the shrine of “old (liberal) Erskine” or “academic respectability.” I must guard against making my own ministry an idol, and you with your on-line publications. Yet, we would want others to warn us if we evidenced signs of distorted loyalties and personal pride. And so we as a Synod should do no less for these rebellious men. And if, after such loving confrontation, they still will not repent of their sins and lay down their arms, they must be removed from the church and its leadership (1 Corinthians 5:5,13). If we are willing to discipline local sinners in our congregations, we must be no less willing to discipline men who hold positions of authority in the church or those who have “Dr.” in front of their names.

Thank you again for not letting the church slide into forgetfulness regarding her mission in the world and the stewardship of her own agencies. May God refine our gold in this crucible of struggle and crisis!

These are my thoughts,

Dean Turbeville

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(Editor’s Note: This article, originally titled “The 2008 Election Campaign,” appeared on 11 August 2007 as the opening article for the Paleohuguenot Blog, which has experienced much neglect since the blog’s editor became the Managing Editor of the Christian Observer. The article references a 1999 article by John Lofton, whose first article for the Christian Observer is being published today, 1 April 2010, in the “Christian Commonwealth” section of the website.)

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The 2008, now 2010 and 2012 Election Campaigns

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With the 2010 and 2012  congressional, senatorial, and presidential election campaigns gathering steam, the inevitable arguments about what candidates those on the so-called Christian Right should support will soon be the subject of heated debate. Recent history shows that once the major party primaries are completed, any principled candidates will have long since been winnowed out of the field, and the usual majority of pragmatic insider politicians will be on the ballot. The Democratic candidates will be liberals and progressives masquerading as moderates, and the Republicans will be moderates-to-liberals masquerading as conservatives. One contemporary analogy characterizes the Democrats as locomotive engineers running the train of state at 100 MPH toward a steep cliff at the end of the tracks. The Republicans feign shock at the Democrat’s extremism and urge that they be elected, promising to drive the same train at only fifty-five MPH.

The January/February 1999 issue of The [John] Lofton Letter reminds us that this situation is not a new one, quoting 19th century theologian Robert L. Dabney:

“[The history of secular conservatism] has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the acceptable principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution, to be denounced and then adopted in its turn.”

“American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward to perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It tends to risk nothing serious for the sake of truth.”

Thus, the major parties offer the choice between the fast and slow trains to perdition, and the leadership voices of the Christian Right overwhelmingly urge support for the slow train as being the only viable option. Pragmatism, expediency, compromise with the world, and the perceived comfort of the moment are touted as the only proper Christian response, i.e. vote for the Republican candidate, and those within the Christian Right who urge that only principled candidates and parties be supported are pilloried and dismissed for drawing away support for the lesser evil and in effect giving the election to the 100 MPH’ers.

As reformed believers who espouse the absolute sovereignty of God and that “all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture” (WCF I.VI.), we are called away from the conformance to the world that has long dominated Christian political thought and action and in large part has led to our present perdition, and toward biblically principled thought and action in the political arena and for that matter all areas of our lives. I offer the following points not as an exhaustive exegesis of this subject, but as a few applications as food for thought:

* God has ordained government for specific purposes and we should support only candidates and governments that conform to God’s design for Government. (Romans 13:1-7 etc.)

* In the USA, our national, state, and local governments are those of a constitutional republic, i.e. their powers are limited to what is granted to them in their particular constitution, charter, or bylaws, and we should support only candidates and governments that stay within their prescribed limits of power. (8th and 10th Commandments, Luke 20:25 etc.)

* God ordains particular leaders for particular times for particular circumstances according to his sovereign, eternal providence, and does not need man-made assistance like compromise, pragmatism, relativism, syncretism, and lesser-of-two-evils-ism. (Daniel 2:21, 5:21 etc.)

* God calls us to keep his laws and commandments in matters of elections and politics as in everything else – no matter what the temporal cost. (Daniel 3:16-18, John 16:2-3 etc.)

I close this first essay with the inspired words of Paul, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure…That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world (Philippians 2:13, 15). May we be those willing and doing lights – in politics, elections, and all throughout our lives.

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Bob Williams is the Managing Editor of the Christian Observer and Presbyterians Week, holds the Master of Arts in Religion degree from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, and is a Licentiate and Probationer in the Hanover Presbytery.

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Edwin Elliott (l) and László Tökés (r) in August 1990

Two Godly Men for Our Season

“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.” – Martin Luther

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Christian Observer Publisher the Rev. Dr. Edwin Elliott, who died 11 October 2009, practiced and preached what he described as “Full Bible Theology,” in essence that the entire Bible is to be preached and applied to every aspect of one’s existence. One practical outward manifestation of Full Bible Theology is exegetically storming the cultural gates of hell of the moment being most promulgated and defended by the world system.

In late 1989 in the city of Timisoara, Romania, a friend of Edwin Elliott’s and like minded minister by the name of László Tökés pastored the Hungarian Reformed Church in that city, faithfully preaching the whole and relevent counsel of God in the midst of the brutal communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu and his secret police agency, the Securitate.

The whole and relevant counsel of God and all of its implications proved too much a threat to the Ceausescu regime and the quisling Bishop of Transylvania, László Papp, who ordered Tökés to cease preaching and officially closed the Timisoara Hungarian Reformed Church. The congregation kept attending church and Tökés kept on preaching. The Ceausescu regime upped the ante by having the Securitate murder some of the faithful church members, and Tökés’ salary was cut off and his ration card taken, leaving Tökés and his then-pregnant wife unable to buy food. The congregation kept attending church and Tökés kept on preaching.

Tökés was then ordered to vacate his home by 15 December 1989, and on that day Tökés’ congregants gathered in front of Tökés’ residence to prevent the police from evicting the pastor.

The escalation resulting from this initial act of defying the Ceausescu regime and the Securitate led to the 20 December 1989 overthrow of the communist Ceausescu government, and to Ceausescu’s and his wife’s subsequent trial and execution by firing squad for the genocide of 60,000 Romanians.

Several bloggers and other journalists have marked this 20th anniversary of freedom in Romania sparked by the courageousness and faithfulness of the Rev. László Tökés and his congregation. Links to some of these resources are provided at the end of this article, and I urge you to study these accounts of true Christian bravery and faithfulness in the face of brutal tyranny and almost certain death.

God has called for us to do no less – to wield the Shield of Faith and the Sword of the Spirit against the cultural gates of hell of this moment being promulgated and defended in our own perverse and crooked nation where souls are bought and sold for anything from a mess of pottage to hundreds of million of dollars in fiat money.

Let us too remember the brave and faithful Hungarian Reformed and other Hungarians who in 1956 unsuccessfully attempted to free themselves from Soviet tyranny, and suffered another thirty-three years of oppression before they too won their freedom.

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Revelation Truth Blog

If You Preach It, They Will Fall

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New Tang Dynasty Television

Romanians Reflect on the Overthrow of Communism 20 Years Ago

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Treehugger

Reuters Photo – László Tökés and Lech Walesa on 15 December 2009

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Voltaic Systems

Reuters Photo – László Tökés at 15 December 2009 News Conference

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* Links Added 1 January 2010

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Kingdom People Blog

How a Reformed Church Overthrew Communism in Romania

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Glasgow (Scotland) Evening Times

As Romania’s Dictator Fell, I Saw the Bullet Holes Everywhere

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Mystagogy Blog

December 1989 Massacre in Romania Remembered

The Spark of Timisoara: László Tokés

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European Parliament Website

László Tokés Profile

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Soli Deo Gloria!

Bob Williams, Managing Editor

Bob Williams holds the Master of Arts in Religion degree from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, and is a probationer and licentiate in the Hanover Presbytery.

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