Some people believe Baptists to be men of integrity, honesty, purity and truthfulness?They live on another planet not on earth because the majority of Baptists are not even close to these ideals especially in North America check out what American Baptists of all persuasion are truly like, especially the biggest liar of all times Southern Baptist Jerry Falwell and Bill Clinton, never mind Al Gore or Billy Graham or Dr. Henry Lyons
Henry Lyons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reverend Henry J. Lyons (born 1942) is a former President of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc..
Early life
Henry was raised by his grandfather, a Deacon named Booker T. Lyons. His own father, who was only 16 when Henry was born, played a minimal role in his childhood. He attended Gibbs Junior College in St. Petersburg, Florida (1960–62) and studied at Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach (1962–64) and then entered the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.[1][2]
In 1970, he moved to Cincinnati and in 1972 he gained a more important position in St. Petersburg, Florida. He married Deborah Lyons in the 1970s. In 1977 he became Vice President of the Florida Baptist Convention, and was then its President from 1981 to 1994.[3] In 1994, Lyons became President of the National Baptist Convention USA Inc. Presidency of the National Baptist Convention
Always a charismatic speaker, the Lyons tenure featured much activity. He established a Unified Program, reduced the debt on the Baptist World Center, and dissolved the debt on the Sunday School Publishing Board. In addition, many commissions were added to the convention. He pledged to "raise a standard" and overcome the difficulties caused by his predecessor T. J. Jemison's support of Mike Tyson in his rape case.[4] However in many respects he would exacerbate, rather than diminish, the difficulties of the organization.
Personal and legal difficulties
In February 1998 he was charged with one count of racketeering and two counts of grand theft,[5] and in summer 1998 he was indicted by federal prosecutors for fraud, extortion, money laundering, conspiracy and tax evasion.[6][7][8][9][10] He initially protested his innocence and claimed there was a racial motivation for the charges,[9] but the proceedings of his trial and his eventual plea bargaining agreement dampened the enthusiasm of those who maintained his innocence.[11] In 1999 Lyons was sentenced to a total of five and a half years in jail for misappropriating more than $4 million from the NBC while he was its President,[12] a post from which he had already resigned.[8] [13] In November 2003, he was released on probation and returned to preaching in St Petersburg.[14] He currently is the pastor of the New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Tampa, FL.
In April 2007 Lyons was defeated in an attempt to be re-elected President of the Florida Baptist Convention.[15] Subsequently he and his supporters organized the General Baptist State Convention of Florida,[16] of which he is the President. In 2009, he was defeated in his bid to take presidency of the National Baptist Convention, USA.[17]
IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT DR HENRY LYONS IS THE HUGH HEIFNER OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
SEE Lyons saga leads to prison http://www.sptimes.com/News2/lyons/default.html
OF COURSE FOR ME THE BOTTOM LINE IS BAPTISTS ARE SONS OF HELL ESPECIALLY THE SOUTHERN BAPTISTS WITH IDIOTS LIKE THE GREAT ADULTERER BILL CLINTON OR DECEIVER BILLY GRAHAM
Graham didn't intend to endorse Clinton
Evangelist's praise for senator at crusade just that, son says
Rest easy, conservative Christians. That was no endorsement Billy Graham gave Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at his New York crusade last weekend.
Graham provoked more than 100 e-mails and calls of protest to the ministry with his praise for Clinton that some interpreted as an endorsement of her possible presidential run. When Bill and Hillary Clinton joined Graham on stage Saturday night, the elderly evangelist told the crowd of 80,000: "They're a great couple. I told an audience that I felt when he left the presidency he should be an evangelist because he has all the gifts and he could leave his wife to run the country."
Franklin Graham, who heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, responded to concerned e-mailers and letter-writers with a statement saying, "My father, of course, was joking."
"For a long time," Franklin Graham wrote, "my father has refrained from endorsing political candidates and he certainly did not intend for his comments to be an endorsement for Senator Hillary Clinton. While his political views, as well as mine, are quite different than the Clintons, they remain good friends."
Franklin Graham also wrote that while Bill Clinton has the charisma, personality and communication skills to preach, "... an evangelist has to have the call of God, which President Clinton obviously does not have, and my father understands that."
Whopper of the Century: Billy Graham
The reverend elaborates on his admiration of the Jewish people.
"I have never talked publicly or privately about the Jewish people, including conversations with President Nixon, except in the most positive terms."
—Rev. Billy Graham, in a May 1994 statement denying H.R. Haldeman's claim in his published diaries that Graham carried on about "satanic Jews" in Nixon's presence. Quoted by David Firestone in the March 17 New York Times.
"I go and I keep friends with [Abe] Rosenthal at the New York Times and people of that sort, you know. And all—I mean, not all the Jews, but a lot of the Jews are great friends of mine, they swarm around me and are friendly to me because they know that I'm friendly with Israel. But they don't know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country. And I have no power, no way to handle them, but I would stand up if under proper circumstances."
—Rev. Billy Graham, in a transcript of an Oval Office conversation with Richard Nixon from 1972 recently made public by the National Archives. Quoted in Firestone's March 17 story and elsewhere. (Click here to read Graham's apology, and here to read Slate's David Greenberg on Graham's remarks.)
Billy Graham Hypocrisy And Satanic Jews
Barbara Webb, Administrative Services. Billy Graham Evangelistic Organization wrote to Walter Kambulow in response to the reporting of Billy Graham's Hypocrisy And Satanic Jews on May 23, 2003 stated:
Subject: Mr. Graham
Dear Friend:
Mr. Graham apologized in regard to the Nixon tapes which were recently broadcast. Although Mr. Graham had no memory of what he had said, he felt it was appropriate at this time to give an apology. He does not actually feel about Jewish people in the way the words were said. Mr. Graham has made many friends over the years among the Jewish leaders and rabbis and has a great respect for them. Please pray for Mr. Graham and our Association--that we will be truly faithful and obedient to our Lord. May God bless you.
Sincerely,
A response was sent by me to Barbara Webb on May 23,2003 which stated:
Dear Barbara,
Thank you for your reply concerning Billy Graham's memory lapse!
I have an important question to which I would like to have an answer does Dr. Billy Graham at 84
years of age still take a 100 percent salary as a employee and chairman of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Organization and work less than 25 percent of time?
The sad part about Billy Graham's refusal to accept real responsibility is his use of the phrase "Although I have no memory of the occasion, I deeply regret comments I apparently made in an Oval Office conversation with President Nixon ... some 30 years ago." You will appreciate Bill Clinton the former President of United States and a great liar also used a similar phrase to avoid answering questions asked of him during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and would state " I don't recall." But God has a perfect memory and he recalls all things and so do others.
Graham's two faced hypocrisy also came out in a 1989 when a Graham memo to Nixon was made public. It took the form of a secret letter from Graham, dated April 15, 1969, drafted after Graham met in Bangkok with missionaries from Vietnam. These men of God said that if the peace talks in Paris were to fail, Nixon should step up the war and bomb the dikes. Such an act, Graham wrote excitedly, "could overnight destroy the economy of North Vietnam".
Graham lent his imprimatur to this recommendation. Thus the preacher was advocating a policy to the US Commander in Chief that on Nixon's own estimate would have killed a million people.
This disclosure of Graham as an aspirant war criminal did not excite any commotion when it became public in 1989, twenty years after it was written.
Billy Graham has raised up two sons Ned and Franklin who are as deceitful as their father. Ned Graham, the son of Billy Graham, Southern Baptist minister, president East Gates International, a group that distributes Bibles in China told Christianity Today in an interview that he had abused alcohol and spent an "inappropriate amount of time" with two women on his staff.
Grace Community Church, Southern Baptist Convention, in Auburn, Washington--which counted Ned Graham, his wife, and their two sons as members established the fact that Ned Graham was an adulterer, alcoholic, wife abuser, and drug user and revoked Graham's ministerial credentials. It directed Graham to stop using the title reverend.
Yet in a style reminiscent of Jimmy Swaggart, who refused to be defrocked by the Assembly of God denomination, Ned Graham left that congregation for another church.
Most of the staff and board members of East Gates International resigned amid controversies. East Gates, in Sumner, Wash., withdrew its membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability after Ned replaced the board members with his sister Ruth Graham McIntyre, brother-in-law Stephan Tchividjian, and business leader Peter Lowe. Graham's sister Gigi Tchividjian has joined the office staff and Ned Graham continues as East Gates president. The ECFA the self-policing organization Billy Graham helped start requires that a majority of board members not be related by blood or marriage, which is no longer the case for East Gates. Nepotism is alive and well in Evangelical ministries?
A December East Gates fund-raising letter included a note from his father saying that "Ruth and I are proud of and grateful to God for our son Ned." East Gates has distributed 2 million Bibles to Christians in China, Billy Graham said, encouraging Christians to "back this unique and effective ministry."
It is interesting to see the most famous "evangelist" (some say) not being able to educate his children, especially Ned. At the same time, having a bunch of so-called Christians following the leadership of such wreckless person. Franklin Graham wears jeans, boots, denim shirt, and leather jacket. He was a teen rebel who drank, smoked, fought, and led police on high-speed chases. He was kicked out of LeTourneau College. He used to be a rebel and a 'bum' got religion and become more sophisticated and formed "the Samaritan's Purse' so that he can fly around the country and charge things to his non-profit corporation. As a result his ministry, Samaritan's Purse, had a run-in with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. The ECFA suspended Samaritan's Purse while it looked into Franklin's (Graham) compensation and use of the company plane.
Although Billy Graham encourages religious leaders to be open about their salaries and publish their finances none of the Grahams reveal their total compensation nor release their personal income tax as President Bush does and former President Clinton has done. It's the law of the land that all non profit chairman of corporations must reveal their total salary and that Billy, Ned and Franklin do not to their donors speak volumes of their hypocrisy?
Yes, Jesus told us to beware of hypocrites like Dr. Billy Graham.
Barbara Webb nor Billy Graham Evangelistic Organization did not reply about Billy Graham's salary nor other matters stated.
SOUTHERN BAPTIST BILLY GRAHAM A FALSE PROPHET
If one claims that Mr. Graham has been even remotely faithful to the written Word of God then that person is either woefully ignorant or a willful liar. The facts speak for themselves. Southern Baptist Evangelist Billy Graham has many faults and errors including bad theology and bad company.
1) No Rebuke In His Ministry
Proverbs 14:2 says, "He who walks in his uprightness fears the Lord, but he who is perverse [i.e., ungodly] in his ways despises Him."
In Just As I Am, Graham writes of President Bill Clinton,
The previous day, President Clinton called and asked me to stop by the White House. We ended up spending much of the afternoon together, talking not only about the past and current events, but also about the Bible and what it says about God's plan for our lives. It was a warm fellowship with a man who has not always won the approval of his fellow Christians but who has in his heart a desire to serve God and do His will. (p. 656, entire paragraph quoted).
No one who promotes the killing of unborn children, as Clinton did during his presidency (even partially born children), desires "to serve God and do His will" (Proverbs 17:11; 21:10)! Graham is a liar (on behalf of himself, and others, 1 John 2:4) .
Even though Apostle Paul told Timothy in chapter 4:1-5 that the work of an evangelist was to rebuke, Billy Graham rebukes nobody including his friend and pal sexually immoral adulterous Bill Clinton:
4:1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 4:2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4:4 and they will turn their ears away from the
truth, and be turned aside to fables. 4:5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 1 Timothy
Dr. Billy Graham in his new book indicated that adulterous President Clinton made a big impression on him during the Oklahoma City bombing tragedy. He said: "Seldom have I seen anyone express so movingly and sincerely a genuine sense of compassion and sympathy to those who were hurting. I felt that he, not I, was the real pastor that day."
Mr. Evangelical Graham went off the deep end and stated:
President Bill Clinton would make a great evangelist, Billy Graham told U.S. News & World Report in a interview. Graham said he was impressed with Clinton's charisma and 'with some of the things he believes. ... From a biblical point of view, we should be headed in the direction of goodness and righteousness, away from crime and immorality,' Graham said, 'and towards one's neighbors who are in need. I'm encouraged by the emphasis President Clinton (a Southern Baptist) and Hillary are putting on that.'
It's a fact that Christianity Today founded by Billy Graham did not report immediately on one of its own pastors Ollin Collins Senior Pastor of Harvest Baptist Church in Fort Worth, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's board chairman. A man who resigned amid sexual misconducts allegations when he was accused of having sexual relationships with two women who sought counseling.
But it did report about the adultery of a black man and a National Baptist but not about the adultery of a white man and Southern Baptist. An adultery that was more hideous and gross because Collins raped unsuspecting trusting women, while Lyons adulterous relationships were consensual. It has been said that Lyons will go down in the history books as "Hugh Hefner of the New Testament."
Now concerning the fallen hero, the church had suspended Pastor Collins with pay pending an investigation. He resigned from his board position one day after a story in the Fort Worth Star- Telegram reported the women's allegations and their intent to sue. Southwestern is the world's largest evangelical seminary, with 3,000 students on eight campuses.
But of course neither the Seminary nor the Church did anything for the real female victims but they did help and console the aggressor? Just like Billy Graham stated about Bill Clinton "I forgive him . . . because I know the frailty of human nature, and especially a strong, vigorous young man like he is. "He has such a tremendous personality that I think the ladies just go wild over him." In other words it was the fault of the victims not the victimizer?
They are all hypocrites and thieves their lack of accountability by their CEO's proves it. They are nothing but crooks and con artists and their smooth words do not change this fact! Otherwise hypocritical Baptist leader who preach integrity to others would not hide their salaries but be honest and state the "total compensation" of their five top employees, including Billy and Franklin Graham!
2) Doesn't Rule His Own Household?
3:2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach;
3:3 not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous;
3:4 one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence. 1 Timothy
Billy Graham has raised up two sons Ned and Franklin who are as deceitful as their father. Ned Graham, the son of Billy Graham, Southern Baptist minister, president East Gates International, a group that distributes Bibles in China told Christianity Today in an interview that he had abused alcohol and spent an "inappropriate amount of time" with two women on his staff.
Grace Community Church, Southern Baptist Convention, in Auburn, Washington--which counted Ned Graham, his wife, and their two sons as members established the fact that Ned Graham was an adulterer, alcoholic, wife abuser, and drug user and revoked Graham's ministerial credentials. It directed Graham to stop using the title reverend.
Yet in a style reminiscent of Jimmy Swaggart, who refused to be defrocked by the Assembly of God denomination, Ned Graham left that congregation for another church.
Most of the staff and board members of East Gates International resigned amid controversies. East Gates, in Sumner, Wash., withdrew its membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability after Ned replaced the board members with his sister Ruth Graham McIntyre, brother-in-law Stephan Tchividjian, and business leader Peter Lowe.
Graham's sister Gigi Tchividjian has joined the office staff and Ned Graham continues as East Gates president. The ECFA the self-policing organization Billy Graham helped start requires that a majority of board members not be related by blood or marriage, which is no longer the case for East Gates.
A December East Gates fund-raising letter included a note from his father saying that "Ruth and I are proud of and grateful to God for our son Ned." East Gates has distributed 2 million Bibles to Christians in China, Billy Graham said, encouraging Christians to "back this unique and effective ministry."
It is interesting to see the most famous "evangelist" (some say) not being able to educate his children, especially Ned. At the same time, having a bunch of so-called Christians following the leadership of such wreckless person.
Franklin Graham wears jeans, boots, denim shirt, and leather jacket. He was a teen rebel who drank, smoked, fought, and led police on high-speed chases. He was kicked out of LeTourneau College. He used to be a rebel and a 'bum' got religion and become more sophisticated and took over "the Samaritan's Purse' so that he can fly around the country and charge things to his non- profit corporation. As a result his ministry, Samaritan's Purse, had a run-in with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. The ECFA suspended Samaritan's Purse while it looked into Franklin's (Graham) compensation and use of the company plane.
3) Bad Theology and Company
Did you know that over 60% of Billy Graham's support in the crusades or missions as he now calls them come from Roman Catholics who have given us many pedophile priests and nuns raped by priests.
Every since he received an honorary doctorate from Catholic priests at Belmont Abbey College in 1967 he has embraced the Pope and Catholics. He called it, "a time when Protestants and Catholics could meet together and greet each other as brothers, whereas 10 years ago they could not". He joked around, "I'm not sure but what this could start me being called "Father Graham".
Billy Graham praises the pope, a man who allows himself to be called God. When Billy Graham was on the Phil Donahue show on 10-11-79, he said that pope John Paul II was someone that he could quote with "some real authority." He also said that the world was looking for a spiritual leader and that the pope didn't pull any punches. [Lord have mercy, Jesus]
Billy Graham even had a Catholic priest SUPERVISE the 6,600 counselors for the Denver crusade. Information on the hundreds of Catholics who came forward were sent to a Catholic organization in Denver. (Wilson Ewin, Evangelism: The Trojan Horse of the 1990s).
The Catholic archdiocese in Portland, Oregon, set a goal to supply 6,000 of the 10,000 counselors needed for the Graham crusade. All Catholics responding to the altar call were channeled to the Catholic religion.
Graham Deceived by Communists--Gary Bauer says: "Billy Graham went to the Soviet Union during the Cold War and said there was no persecution. He was going to the fake church, the state- controlled church."
In 1966: Graham said, "I find myself closer to Catholics than the radical Protestants. I think the Roman Catholic Church today is going through a second Reformation" (Philadelphia Evening Bulletin 24 may, 1966. )
In 1980 Billy Graham stated: "Since his election, Pope John Paul II has emerged as the greatest religious leader of the modern world, and one of the greatest moral and spiritual leaders of this century … The Pope came [to America] as a statesman and a pastor, but I believe he also sees himself coming as an evangelist. … The Pope sought to speak to the spiritual hunger of our age in the same way Christians throughout the centuries have spoken to the spiritual yearnings of every age-by pointing people to Christ" (Saturday Evening Post, Jan.-Feb. 1980). [In this same article Graham was quoted as saying, "Recently I learned the word 'Pontiff' comes from the Latin words which originally meant 'bridge builder.' … Pope John Paul II [is] indeed a bridge builder, and that is something our divided world desperately needs." Historically, "pontiff" does not mean bridge- builder, but refers to the papal title of Pontifex Maximus, which was handed down to the early popes from the high priests of ancient heathen religion inthe Roman Empire; "Pontiff" in Italian and Latin means "bridge," and clearly points to the Pope's blasphemous claim that he himself is that bridge between man and God.] (Billy Graham, The Saturday Evening Post, Jan.-Feb. 1980).
4) Bad Doctrine
BILLY GRAHAM TELLS ROBERT SCHULLER HE BELIEVES PEOPLE CAN BE SAVED APART FROM JESUS CHRIST!
"Graham Believes Men Can Be Saved Apart From Name Of Christ", by Robert E. Kofahl, Ph.D., television interview of Billy Graham by Robert Schuller, on May 31, 1997. The following segment is an exact transcript of an excerpt close to the end of the broadcast. Reported by The Christian News, October 20, 1997, page 15.
"SCHULLER: Tell me, what do you think is the future of Christianity?
GRAHAM: Well, Christianity and being a true believer -- you know, I think there's the Body of Christ. This comes from all the Christian groups around the world, outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the Body of Christ ... I think James answered that, the Apostle James in the first council in Jerusalem, when he said that God's purpose for this age is to call out a people for His name. And that's what God is doing today, He's calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ, because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think they are saved, and that they're going to be with us in heaven."
"SCHULLER: What, what I hear you saying, that it's possible for Jesus Christ to come into human hearts and soul and life, even if they've been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you're saying?
GRAHAM: Yes, it is, because I believe that. I've met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations, that they have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible, and never heard of Jesus, but they've believed in their hearts that there was a God, and they've tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived."
"SCHULLER: [R.S. trips over his tongue for a moment, his face beaming, then says] I'm so thrilled to hear you say this. There's a wideness in God's mercy.
GRAHAM: There is. There definitely is."
This is the end of the pertinent segment from the May 31, 1997, TV interview. Before we go on to the pertinent segment of the June 8, 1997, segment, let us pause to review some of the terrible events we have just heard Reverend Graham say. We will requote segments of Graham's statements, and then look to see what the Bible has to say.
Dr. Graham: " I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the Body of Christ"
The Apostle Paul provides the most definitive refutation to this false statement by Dr. Graham. " For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?" [Romans 10:13-15]
When Paul says that "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved", he is correctly implying that a person cannot be saved apart from the name and Person of Jesus Christ. This is why the Christian Church has placed such an emphasis on sending missionaries to foreign lands where the Gospel has not been heard. The Apostle Paul then continues to elaborate on this terrible truth. "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?"
When Dr. Graham asserts that people can be saved even though they know not the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, he is repeating the lie -- the false doctrine of the New Age Religion -- and of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as of Liberal "Christians" like Dr. Schuller. This statement is quite a departure from traditional Southern Baptist teaching; but, it does fit in nicely with today's burgeoning Ecumenical theology, as they state that there are many roads to Heaven, and it does not really matter what you believe as long as you are "sincere".
5) Lack of true financial accountability
The Total Compensation of the Chairmen of the Board.‖
6) Lack of integrity
"They Don't Know How I Really Feel"
7) Summary
The following facts are undeniable and true:
1) Billy taking 100 % salary at 83 years of age and working less than 25 percent
2) Billy being a friend of Nixon and a bigot against the Jews
3) Billy writing a letter to Nixon to bomb the dykes of North Vietnam
4) Billy unsure that heaven is a right place for him
5) Billy's unconditional support of Clinton and his forgiveness of Clinton
6) Billy using a Ghost writer to write his books
7) Billy formed ECFA to protect his interests and cook the books
8) Billly supporting a son, Ned, who was a drunk, adulterer, immoral and had no integrity
JERRY FALWELL AND REV. MOON
JERRY FALWELL WAS AN OUTRIGHT LIAR WHO LOVED TO TWIST THE TRUTH. OF COURSE HE DIDN'T TELL HIS EVANGELICALS SUPPORTERS THAT HIS MONEY DIDN'T COME FROM GOD BUT REV MOON A CULT LEADER!
On Jan. 28, 1995, a beaming Rev.
Jerry Falwell told his Old Time Gospel Hour congregation news that seemed
heaven sent. The televangelist hailed two Virginia businessmen as financial
saviors of debt-ridden Liberty University, the fundamentalist Christian school
that Falwell had made the crown jewel of his Religious Right empire.
"They had to borrow money, hock
their houses, hock everything," enthused Falwell. "Thank God for
friends like Dan Reber and Jimmy Thomas." Falwell's congregation rose as
one to applaud. The star of the moment was Daniel Reber, who was standing
behind Falwell. Thomas was not present.
Reber and Thomas earned Falwell's
public gratitude by excusing the Lynchburg, Va., school of about one-half of
its $73 million debt. In the late 1980s, that flood of red ink had forced
Falwell to abandon his Moral Majority political organization and nearly drowned
Liberty University in bankruptcy.
At about that same time, in January
1995, Reber and Thomas were completing their purchase of about one-half of
Liberty University's debt, much of it for a fraction of the face value. The big
losers included 2,500 bondholders who invested in the Texas-based Church &
Institutional Facilities Development Corp., which had owned $12 million of the
school's debt. Reber and Thomas scooped up the bonds at a bankruptcy fire sale
for about 20 percent of their value, or $2.5 million.
Many bondholders were "mom and
pops cashing in their IRA money because their local minister and Falwell's
letters said they'd be doing God's work," recalled Doug Hudman, a lawyer
in the case. "The true victims are the mom-and-pop believers who think
their money was going to a good cause. All it was doing was going to fund Mr.
Falwell's continued indebtedness. It's kind of sickening."
But Falwell told reporters that it
was just a question of luck. "When the bankruptcy trustee called in all
the notes and put them up for sale, anyone could have bought them,"
Falwell said. "That was fortunate for us." [RT&WN, Feb. 6, 1995]
After months of complicated legal
maneuvering, Dan Reber also seems to have been fortunate enough to win out in
the DMC power struggle. He now runs the direct-mail factory in Forest, Va.,
under the name, "Mail America."
But behind the good fortune that
blessed the Rev. Falwell and his friends appears to have been a timely
contribution of $3.5 million from the Rev. Moon's Women's Federation for World
Peace. ~
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