Conga Line: Creative Commons
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“Having a relationship with people of questionable character is like playing with a razor blade on your skin, and pretending to observe that it is harmful to your body.” ―
On Wednesday, I look forward to writing a post about some pushback to the The Gospel Coalition and their assorted dudebros on how they define the Gospel. I’ve been fussing about this for years. So happy to get some help from the really smart people out there!
Eleven years ago, I left my SBC church because I believed they mishandled an horrific pedophile situation. My husband and I then headed over to an Anglican church in the area. Shortly after I arrived, I saw a pedophile who had just gotten out of prison for molesting little kids, walking around the church, carrying a coffee pot. I wrote the pastor a note, warning him about this guy who had long and well known history of pedophilia. (His wife taught my kids!) He blew me off and said the parole officer said he was just fine.
Again, I wrote him, begging him to let the church know about this man. The answer was *no” which was shortly followed up with our being notified during a meeting that we couldn’t join the church until we reconciled with my former SBC church. That was NOT going to happen. It was one of the few times I have ever cried (or should I say bawled) in front of the pastor. He sat behind his desk like a cold fish, totally unrespondive. I got up and ran out of his office along with my husband. The up side if that I decided to start this blog that very day!
Recently, I learned that he had been let go by church leaders in the summer of 2019. Apparently, his painful demeanor finally annoyed the church members. I’ve been following his job search. It must have been unsuccessful since he recently told people he may start a new church in Raleigh. I am underwhelmed. You can read a bit about this by entering Don Cameron’s name into the search engine.
He is joining a growing list of pastors who are part of the elite fallen/troubled pastor conga line along with the estimable Andy Savage, Tullian Tchividjian, Chris Conlee, Pete Wilson, James MacDonald, etc. Conga on!
I’m sure you saw this coming…Wes Feltner is starting a new church.
For those of you who don’t remember, while he was a youth pastor, he went after a couple of young women in his church. He is being cautious about sharing this information so, thanks to Amy Smith, I found this on Facebook. Welcome To Faith Family Church…Uncommon Sense. (His title, not mine…)
Are you feeling overwhelmed? Feltner can help you.
Here is the first entry along with the sermon.
Is he fundraising during the Good Friday devotion?
The church (and his own ministry) are now official according to this entry.
But he needs your $$$$$
However, he wants you to know that there are two ministries that he is leading. One is his own ministry called Leading Well and the other is Faith Family Church. Make sure you know to donate to both.
Wes Feltner announces his series called Uncommon Sense.
Thoughts
I believe that there are a number of pastors who are disqualified who don’t really care what the Bible has to say about standards for pastors. In fact, many of them have lost the capacity to feel shame for their actions.
They also don’t care about what the law has to say about pastors who molest children.
They don’t care that some states have passed law to make it illegal for pastors to become involved with their church members (kind of like the laws for counselors.)
Sadly, they have taught their church members fractured Scripture so the folks will support them with money and adulation. Frankly, these men are really, really good at obfuscation.
Their church members exhibit cognitive dissonance which adds to the problem. They believe that they are smart and would know when someone was selling them snake oil. The problem is that they don’t understand their own Bible which warns them that really bad people could masquerade as goodly church leaders.
In Feltner’s Facebook, we see a comment by one Tom Hudson who is so deceived that he thinks Feltner is the best Bible teacher of our generation!!! I’ve got to hand it to Feltner. He found the right people to “lead.” Can you imagine?!!
In other words anything goes in churches these days so long as the leaders know how to attract the right kind of followers who would actually believe such things as well as poor Tim.
John Longaker is a case in point. His congregation loves him even though he spent time in jail for molesting Kelly Haines.
We last left Longaker leading his congregation while Kelly discussed her molestation on Dr Oz. Not only does Longacre have no shame, even claiming he went to jail to protect Kelly from having to testify…but his congregation believes him and loves having him as a pastor. Some of them actually believe that Longacre went to prison to protect Kelly! Egads!
If you are interested in watching this former jailbird preach a sermon, here is a link. Here is his email to me. See how repentant he sounds to you.
So, I’ve presented three men who are, in my opinion, not repentant and who are startng and hoping to star in their very own pulpit. Guess who’s coming to a pulpit near you…
I think we need to cue up Gloria Estefan Let’s conga, baby!
Cult.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/06/the-seven-signs-youre-in-a-cult/361400/
Eewwww!
I wondered where Feltner is from, since he pastored a church in Evansville, IN and tried to get the position of lead pastor at a church in Clarksville, TN. (I am very familiar with First Baptist, Clarksville – an old high school friend of mine use to attend there, so I have visited that church a few times.). So, I googled Feltener ……. found out he grew up in the tiny community of Big Rock, Tn – just southwest of Ft. Campbell, KY, and that he attended Murry State University, in Western KY near the TN state line.
He was growing up in Big Rock at the same time we were having team (team as in hubby’s Special Forces team and families) actually in Big Rock. Feltner attended MSU at the same time as two of my younger cousins and one cousin’s then wife-to-be.
Keep your eyes and ears peeled, folks. These creepy heretics seem to be crawling around right in under our noses!
These articles continue. In this one a pastor is accused of doing this because it is all about his self-promotion by the local police department. His lawyer has just come down with the virus and is in the hospital. One of his congregation is dead from the virus. One thing I know for sure from the scriptures is that God is not shy about taking credit for pestilence and plagues. He also is quite clear that judgment starts in His own house: His Church. This plague is directed at shameless self-promotion. Jesus did not die so that a few could leverage that to make themselves the center of worship, while abusing sheep like the very Devil himself: https://www.foxnews.com/us/louisiana-pastor-flouted-coronavirus-orders-faces-arrest-warrant
I have always like the music of Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine….. now, when I hear her music, I think of the Conga line of “them”…
PS.. but it does put a smile on my face..
Thanks, Dee, for your good work. In the old days, we assumed there was a short Conga line because silence was the rule, and there were so few people and so few public platforms to share the bad news of the gospel. It truly is bad news. I saw the other day that J. Piper was at it again, praising the Comps for their “protecting” the vulnerable from abuse. He looks a lot older than he did when I last saw him on the small screen, but no less devoted to the gospel of bad news.
There are lots of people going after him for this statement. I agree. He looks old. He also sounds very old.
”
That’s what you get when you read at TWW! I like this term. A Conga line of *them.*”
No.
I know for sure from these comment threads that YOU are not shy about giving God credit for pestilence and plagues.
If COVID-19 was brewed up in God’s Heavenly Bioweapons Lab specifically to torpedo the Megachurch scene, it’s not much different in scale from using a B61 thermonuke on max yield to fumigate your house.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4URRp39XOo
LISA: “But he had a verse! He was acting in faith!”
JESUS: “No, he was acting like a circus clown. And now he understands the verse that says not to test me.”
— Coffee with Jesus (online clipart strip by Radio Free Babylon)
SMIIILING and showing off their Mark of the Wes on forehead and right hand.
It’s like playing whack-a-mole with these guys. You would think with the internet that people would be more discerning, but they (we) aren’t. The adulterous pastor from my church in the late 80s, after several years of not working as a pastor, was finally able to get a church out of state, in a small town, with his own radio program. He died a few years ago, and all of the adulation in the local paper was quite nauseating. He left a lot of damaged people in his wake.
P.s. If you haven’t read Todd Whilhelm this morning, it is an exposé of how these people protect each other.
In Longacre’s e-mail to Dee, his mentioning of two women, one abused as a child, one raped gave me the chills. I couldn’t read the rest of it. He’s preening, if that’s the right word. He’s trying to tell Dee that he’s still in control.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we can stop people from following them. Based on my time going to an evangelical church there’s the congregation who are for the most part pretty nice and then there’s the leadership, who aren’t. The church I was at was really smug, all other faiths were wacky (Buddhism), out to get you (Islam – all, not just the ones on nightly news), or Christians who were just plain wrong (Baptists, Anglicans “Jesus was not an Anglican!” was a personal favorite of mine.
They are racist – they had pastor of Asian descent they nicknamed “Asian Joe”.
My wife is Asian – comes from a family with a Muslim and Buddhist background – and yet, in spite of getting brassed at this, shows no sign of ditching the church – in her words, she takes the good and weeds out the bad. She’s a smart, educated woman – like many Christians, a good person of deep faith who is perfectly capable of critical thinking – she can run circles around me (literally and figuratively).
Yet there is an almost pathological obsession about attending church – even not so great ones. She genuinely does not understand how I could quit going.
So far with Covid keeping the church at home, the desire seems to be waning – she’s not tuning in to the sermons so much but she’ll go back when they open up.
I think some churches are very good at programming their youth so that they will go even when they no longer hold to all the tenets. I know some Roman Catholics who feel the same way and have an uncle who’s a Seventh Day Adventist – so it’s not just evangelical churches.
I was raised a Christian – and while it’s taken some time, I have shed a lot of it – the church part was the easiest part to pitch.
Wes Feltner teaching a series on “Uncommon Sense”…you really CAN’T make this up.
Really now. Is that why all those 90-year-olds in nursing homes are perishing? Shamelessly self-promoting great-grandparents?
Meanwhile you are failing to notice that the force stopping that one shameless self-promoter is the police force, human beings enforcing those pesky ol’ mere laws of men.
(Yes, I know I’m going to h e double toothpicks for not accepting your prophecy. No need to remind. I’ll show myself to the hot gates.)
I’ve often wondered myself what to do about all of that collateral damage done to those who don’t deserve it when the Almighty gets pissed off.
Yeah, me too, looks like we’re both gonna’ get cast into the lake of fire along with the beast and the false prophet (at the great white throne judgement).
Tony Spell got arrested today for misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon. He tried to back a school bus over a lone protester. The neighbor across the street has video cameras (note plural) and caught him in the act.
https://www.wafb.com/2020/04/20/arrest-warrant-issued-defiant-louisiana-pastor/
The protester is my spirit animal.
Just remember we have to tell Netizens to NOT eat laundry detergent because it said to on the Internet…
Like I said above, it’s a level of collateral damage on a par with using a B61 thermonuke on max yield to fumigate your house.
Already anticipated you, Muff.
From my time in-country:
“We are but the Creature. HE IS THE CRE-A-TOR!!!!!”
Really? So far I haven’t seen Tony Spell actually struck down by God Almighty. In fact, he appears to have the private number for TMZ! And being arrested-pffth! He bonded out on $5,000 bail, which means he had to cough up $500. He will no doubt make that up by passing the collection plate tonight.
I’m not seeing the judgment of God quite yet and I don’t have quite the hubris to say I am seeing it, not when so many scam artists of the religious type are active right now.
Somewhat off topic, but Pulpit and Pen is no more.
https://pulpitandpen.org/2020/04/21/important-changes-no-more-pulpit-pen/
Not quite…?
“…Because of this, I’ve resigned as editor-in-chief of Pulpit & Pen and handed it off to our long-time contributor, Dustin Germain. He’s a good egg (even though he needs a haircut) and he’s producing most of our content these days.
…Additionally, P&P is now rebranded as PNP News. As a part of that, we have a new Facebook page that we need you to ‘like’ and follow in order to circumnavigate Facebook’s filters. We may have to eventually change the URL and migrate ten years of articles somewhere else, but we’re going to watch and see what happens.”
https://pulpitandpen.org/2020/04/21/important-changes-no-more-pulpit-pen/
As Al Mohler would say “Where else are they going to go?!” Fallen pastors don’t know how to do anything but play church. Without a suitable accountability structure to keep bad-boys preachers out of the loop, they can just pitch a new tent and do it again. As I’ve said before, actors would have no stage if they didn’t have an audience willing to buy tickets to their show. That sort of pulpit and pew deserve each other. In the meantime, the Kingdom of God moves on without them.
JD Hall has retired from blogging? Again?
Not hardly. If you (care to) click the link that I needlessly posted two more times, you’ll see a million ways to follow all of his doings. He’s a one-man takeover MACHINE, I tells ya! Those ol’ media outlets in a sparsely populated Western state should be quaking in their cowboy boots.
I would prefer a chain gang.
Dee as you approach the “gospel” discussion of the TGC types and the variations of the word, could you please include the declaration ”Gospel Above All,” motto that has been used by the SBCfor the last two years? Too many versions . Jesus above all!,
I don’t think Jesus has much part in their conception of the gospel, but good catch…
New Calvinists, as a tribe, talk a lot about “God”, with only occasional reference to Jesus, and hardly a word about the Holy Spirit. In their sermons, they quote reformed icons (Piper, etc.) more than Christ. Gospel = Calvinism to the new reformers. There is little about New Calvinism that is truly “Christ-centered.”
He stepped away from his blog to take on the liberal press in Montana through his new venture … the “Montana Daily Gazette.” He’ll probably be running for Governor next.
“In Feltner’s Facebook, we see a comment by one Tom Hudson who is so deceived that he thinks Feltner is the best Bible teacher of our generation!!!”
Wow! Pastor Wes needs to be teaching at Cedarville University!! (there is quite a conga line there!)
And their “God” is a Cosmic Monster who Holds The Biggest Whip.
When you think about it … New Calvinism is just one big mess! Arrogant elite leaders … multiple fallen celebrities … female believers in bondage … aberrant teachings … etc., etc. Yep, just one long conga line of misfits.
Yet, the big-boys sell the new reformation as the “one true gospel” and their treatment of women as “the beauty of complementarity.” Where else are they going to go? Anywhere, folks … exercise your freedom in Christ, get the heck out of there while you still have some spiritual sense left! Or go to Felner’s new church and enjoy the “best Bible teacher of our generation” … whew! … the problem with deception is you don’t you are being deceived because you are deceived.
Should read “the problem with deception is you don’t ‘know’ you are being deceived because you are deceived.
He is so proud. He has gotten away with it for so long. I am only 1 of his victims
Only on this side of Judgment Day … there will be a payday someday.
The Amish are holding drinking parties now instead of church? https://www.foxnews.com/us/coronavirus-ohio-arrest-amish-party-gathering-update
ChEKA is rebranded as OGPU which is rebranded as NKVD which is rebranded as KGB which is rebranded as FSB…
Mr. Jesperson,
Nope, not an alternative to church, any more than an after-prom party is an alternative to church.
Underage drinking is the clue here. Rumspringa age youth. They were also violating stay-at-home orders and social distancing.
Max, you’re the one with the Verse Locator.
Remember the one about “God shall send them strong delusion, that they shall believe a lie”?
And the one about “deceiving the very elect”?
Problem is, “someday” never comes.
(I believe Psalms and Lamentations are full of that “how the wicked propser – where is justice?” meme. The verse “Yea, Hath God Said?” also comes to mind.)
These guys’ corruption must be handled in some visible way – even if it’s only “exposing their nakedness before everyone” like that scene from Isaiah – or we’re just sitting quietly with hands folded mouthing pious platitudes.
And the Governor’s Mansion is only one step to The White House.
Every time something like this happens, I’m so confused by the cognitive dissonance in denial that their followers must have. These are usually evangelicals who would throw themselves on a fire to declare certain moral beliefs, but none of those absolutes ever apply to “he’s a good preacher!”
I have a friend who is horrified that people might wear jeans to work. Pastor’s a known embezzler and they keep him on because, of course, “he’s a good preacher”. I think that family might have bigger problems…
Meant to say to church, but work applies, too…
Yep, delusion is running rampant in the American church … by all estimates, there’s a high percentage of deceived elect.
Oh my.
Mr. Jesperson did quite a headliner switcheroo there!
He must think we’re a bit slow on the uptake.
if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
Our Associate Pastor’s wife often wears jeans to church, including to (shudder) present the Children’s message!
I’m trying to think of a service where I didn’t wear jeans… maybe last summer when we worshiped outdoors in the evening.
I suspect that these were Amish youth in rumspringa, rather than Amish adults who are having to work on the farm or otherwise work every day. In fact, I read about a businessman in Ohio who teamed up with Amish women to sew PPE for Cleveland Clinic.
https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/local-business-owner-teams-up-with-the-amish-to-sew-masks-and-gowns-for-hospitals/
Not even Sarah Connor can save his bacon.
Right? It’s such a silly thing to make an issue of, but I get the impression that church might venture into church discipline for “inappropriate” attire, but they have no problem trusting their church finances to an embezzler and not having any real accountability on that issue (they’re elder-run and hide their finances from members, of course).
So many evangelicals consider themselves so morally superior for these tiny, useless, or even harmful things but are in churches run by pastors who do awful things and they just ignore all of that.
It’s called Displacement Behavior.
With a side of Personal Benefit.
I don’t disagree that the shameless self promotion deserves a comeuppance, but you would think that the almighty God could figure out a way to target the ones who are actually doing the evil if he wanted to make a statement the world could understand. Most likely, they are the ones safe in their mansions with the best health care coverage the world offers, while the poor and defenseless are the ones suffering the worst of it.
And what about every other misfortune and disaster going on around the world every month of every year? Are we supposed to figure out a certain sin that each one should be assigned to?
Muff Potter,
(In other words, I agree with your sentiments)
I thought of you when I read that article in the news!
Looks like it’s possible.