Robert Jeffress Invokes Threat of “Civil War Like Fracture” in Defense of Trump

Donald Trump just tweeted the following quote from Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress:

This is of course is an outrageous statement from Jeffress and a sign of panic and desperation from Trump. It is one more sign that Trump is unfit for office that he would incite such divisive rhetoric to try to keep himself in power.

For Jeffress to equate the impeachment of Trump to slavery as a reason for a “Civil War like fracture” is absurd. While we are in the minority, there are many evangelicals who want to see respect for the rule of law.

You can see the interview below:

Gospel for Asia: Does This Look Evangelical?

In his recent video defense of Believers’ Church in India, Gospel for Asia CEO and Believers’ Church Metropolitan K.P. Yohannan told Francis Chan that his church was “hard core evangelical.” Below watch Yohannan lead what looks like a kind of mass.

A relative of Yohannan’s sent this video to me and said it was a mass of the BC. I can’t understand what is happening so I can’t say for sure what this is. I will say that it doesn’t look like any evangelical church service I have ever attended.

As I have said several times when commenting about BC, I don’t care what they do. The reason I point this out is because it seems to be a matter of great importance to GFA to portray the organization — here and in Asia — as evangelical. Donors who care about this designation and about what this means should know that it may mean something very different there than here. I also think that GFA should simply represent their field partner accurately.

Trump Releases Ukraine Conversation; Impeachment Open Forum (UPDATED)

UPDATE: 9/26 – The DNI complaint has been declassified and is available to the public. You can (and should) read it here.

UPDATE: 9/27 – Now the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community’s letter about the DNI complaint has been released to the public. You can read it here.  Readers should remember that the IG is a Trump appointee. He believes there is reason to believe laws may have been broken by the conduct described by the whistleblower and that the matter is of urgent concern.

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Yesterday was dominated by news of Nancy Pelosi directing House committees to explore articles of impeachment and then today President Trump released a summary of his conversation with Ukrainian president Zelenskyy.

You can read the summary of that conversation here.

My purpose with this post is to give regular readers a place to comment and contribute links to reactions from evangelical leaders on these topics. I haven’t seen anything specific from any of the usual suspects but I imagine they will come out soon with defenses of Trump. There are serious problems in the conversation with Zelenskyy and I hope some evangelical leaders will think of the country first.

UPDATE: Hunter Biden did nothing wrong according to Ukrainian prosecutor at the heart of the Trump controversy.

Gospel for Asia and Compliance with ECFA’s Standards: The 2015 Letter, Part 5

In CEO and founder K.P. Yohannan’s recent “exclusive personal response” to the fraud lawsuit settlement involving Gospel for Asia, Yohannan traces GFA’s problems to a “confidential letter from a financial standards association we were part of, and of which we were a charter member.” That letter was from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability and outlined 17 potential violations of ECFA financial standards. In October 2015, ECFA evicted GFA from membership. To help donors understand the nature of the concerns ECFA had about GFA, I am posting one of the concerns each day. You can read all of the posts by clicking this link.

Read the entire ECFA letter on GFA’s compliance issues here.

From that letter, here is the fifth compliance issue:

5. Lack of discretion and control over funds granted to foreign entities. During our review on June 3, ECFA staff raised questions regarding GFA’s oversight and control of funds sent to foreign field partners. GFA’s staff indicated that the foreign field partners are completely independent organizations and therefore GFA did not exercise any direct control over field partners. GFA staff also indicated that they did not have a foreign grant process in place to oversee the use of funds.

Given legal requirements on tax-exempt entities to have appropriate discretion and control over the use of funds sent to foreign entities, ECFA staff indicated that GFA’s lack of a grant process appears to violate ECFA Standard 4’s requirement to follow applicable laws.

Subsequent to these conversations, on August 21, GFA staff indicated a new foreign grant process was developed with the assistance of its new audit firm and will be in effect as of September 1, 2015.

Our review of the board minutes did not indicate the GFA board had approved, or even been notified, of GFA’s minimal oversight of funds provided to field partners.

For reasons I cannot explain, GFA has publicly claimed no control over what happens with donations in Asia. K.P. Yohannon has repeatedly claimed that he is not on any boards in Asia. As recently as last month, he told Francis Chan, he has no more control over Believers’ Church than the other Bishops.

This claim was thrown into doubt during the fraud lawsuit due to discovery of an email from Chief Operating Officer David Carroll to K.P. Yohannan. In it, Carroll said to Yohannan:

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

The Believers’ Church constitution makes it clear that Yohannan is the final and supreme authority in temporal and spiritual matters. Perhaps GFA didn’t want to own up to the level of control Yohannan possesses.

In any case, the claim that Believers Church and GFA-India (now known as Ayana Charitable Trust) had no input from Yohannan seems implausible. At this time, both charities in India are barred from accepting foreign funds since their registration as charities was revoked in 2017.  GFA-USA is sending funds to NGOs which act as shell organizations for the purpose of funneling money to Believers’ Church.

Donors should know that funds given to GFA don’t go directly to GFA in India.  Some funds go to other nations in Asia but most goes to entities in India that have no operational presence in the country. They exist to receive funds and give them to Believers’ Church or some other BC controlled entity. I have asked various authorities if this is allowed but have not received an answer as yet.

Next post: 6. GFA solicits funds for narrower purposes than the eventual expenditure of the funds.

 

Gospel for Asia and Compliance with ECFA’s Standards: The 2015 Letter, Part 4

In CEO and founder K.P. Yohannan’s recent “exclusive personal response” to the fraud lawsuit settlement involving Gospel for Asia, Yohannan traces GFA’s problems to a “confidential letter from a financial standards association we were part of, and of which we were a charter member.” That letter was from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability and outlined 17 potential violations of ECFA financial standards. In October 2015, ECFA evicted GFA from membership. To help donors understand the nature of the concerns ECFA had about GFA, I am posting one of the concerns each day. You can read all of the posts by clicking this link.

Read the entire ECFA letter on GFA’s compliance issues here.

From that letter, here is the fourth compliance issue:

4. The level of urgency communicated in GFA donor appeals contrasted with reserves held by foreign field partners and delays in sending funds to the field. In light of the significant cash balances held by field partners and the delay in sending funds to the field, ECFA staff raised concerns about the appropriateness of communicating urgency in many donor appeals. This includes appeals indicating “When we share with you about the urgency to reach the untold, lost millions—and the opportunities to win them to Jesus—it is not done to produce feelings of guilt or manipulate.” One appeal we reviewed indicated “One blanket, like the one Hetaksh received, will literally make the difference between life and death for them and especially for their small children and elderly relatives.”

The delay between when a donor gives a gift and when the funds are actually made available for designated purposes on the field is inconsistent with the level of urgency in many appeals and the timeliness of using donor-restricted funds as required by ECFA Standards 7.1 and 7.2. On August 12, GFA staff indicated that despite the delay in making foreign contributions available to carry out programmatic work, at least some designated funds were disbursed on a timely basis through the use of field-generated income.

Our review of the board minutes did not indicate the GFA board had approved, or even been notified, of GFA’s practice of soliciting funds based on urgency with a corresponding delay in disbursing funds to the field.

GFA Recycles Urgency

Even after being called out for this in 2015, GFA used this same urgent appeal in 2017. In a 2017 Patheos article, an anonymous GFA staff person recycled this appeal as follows:

To Hetaksh’s surprise, God answered his prayer for financial breakthrough in a very practical way—and just before winter started, too: He and his family received a thick, warm blanket!

This blanket came as a gift through Pastor Mrithun’s church during a blanket distribution to the poor—a distribution sponsored by our dear Gospel for Asia friends around the world. The blanket was big enough to keep the whole family warm at night, night after night, throughout the entire cold season.

This visible sign of God’s love and care greatly encouraged Hetaksh. No doubt the Lord will continue to care for this precious family and make them a powerful witness to others.

Urged to Give

Every winter, our partners in Asia feel the urgency of those around them, and we do, too. They pray for means and opportunity to distribute thousands of blankets and articles of winter clothing among those who lack adequate shelter and clothing to survive the freezing cold temperatures. They know that one blanket, like the one Hetaksh received, can make the difference between life and death for a family, especially for small children and the elderly.

It’s crazy to realize what a blanket can do. They are so small, but they work. For those who don’t have extra blankets for every family member, like we may, one blanket can mean a whole lot.

This recycled story (who knows if it is true) of Hetaksh  is presented as if it is current and represents an urgent need. In fact, GFA has had millions sitting in accounts and could have provided thousands of blankets. Instead, some of that money eventually went to other projects and some went to complete the Wills Point headquarters.

It is hard to believe that GFA was called out for this very appeal in 2015 and then reused it in 2017. So few people know about the ECFA report that apparently the GFA marketers believe it won’t matter.