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Apologia Report 19:22 (1,205)
July 16, 2014
Subject: Liberty University, Rev. Moon, and Benny Hinn
In this issue:
GOTHARD, BILL - his resignation amidst charges of sexual impropriety
LIBERTY UNIVERSITY - a long-standing history of ill-advised partnerships
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM - considering the opposition to arguments for the special treatment of religious conscience
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GOTHARD, BILL
"Bill Gothard Resigns Amid Sexual Harassment Investigation" -- reports that "Popular seminar speaker Bill Gothard resigned as president of his Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) after his board began investigating sexual harassment accusations from more than 30 women. IBLP said the 79-year-old, who drew 2.5 million people to his family-focused basic seminars but never married, explained that he 'wanted to follow Matthew 5:23-24 and listen to those who have "aught against" him.'" Christianity Today, May '14, <www.ow.ly/z3Psb>
In addition to this, a related news item in the April 2014 issue of Church & State (p19) reports accusations of child abuse. <www.ow.ly/z6CiO>
For years, Midwest Christian Outreach has been the leading Christian watchdog group pressing IBLP for accountability. Expert commentary on all things Gothard here: <www.ow.ly/z9ThJ >
Former Gothard followers maintain a credible and substantial blog here: <www.recoveringgrace.org >
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LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
"Benny Hinn dalliance brings Liberty University’s cultist history back into the picture" by James Duncan -- begins: "Until World Vision announced and quickly reversed its policy on same-gender marriage, most of its donors probably thought they were giving money to help feed and evangelize poor children and families all around the world. While World Vision lost donors because of its betrayal of orthodox Christian doctrine, the furor created by the decision focused attention on what World Vision actually did - and didn’t do - with its donors’ money." Consider the parallel to this: "Liberty University, America’s largest Christian college, had engaged in a partnership with Benny Hinn that would permit students to watch 10 hours of video, take an easy quiz, and qualify for ordination through Hinn’s World Healing Fellowship. The news spread quickly through blogs and Twitter, and Liberty, realizing they had an unfolding public relations disaster on its hands, released a statement that asserted that they and Hinn were not in partnership. ...
"It’s not just the Benny Hinn affiliation that will damage Liberty, it’s the discovery that Liberty has made something of a habit of consorting with cultists and charlatans over the last few decades. ...
"Liberty University’s name and brand was stamped all over the Hinn announcement, and the video starts with Hinn showing off a Liberty diploma that students would earn for watching 10 hours of video and answering a few quiz questions. Ron Godwin, Liberty’s provost and senior vice president of academic affairs, was watching Hinn brandish the certification, so we can be sure that it is authentic.
"The diploma contains the following language:
"By the authority of Liberty University and upon the recommendation of the Institute of Biblical Studies, the faculty hereby awards ___ the diploma of Bible Survey. Given at Liberty University at Lynchburg in the State of Virginia March 21, 2014, with all the scriptural rights and responsibilities pertaining thereto.
"The diploma is signed by Jerry Falwell, Jr, the president of Liberty University, and Ed Hindson, the dean of Liberty’s School of Religion and its Institute of Biblical Studies. Somebody at Liberty University thought that they were about to enter into a partnership with Benny Hinn, and produced a framed diploma specifically for the Hinn video interview. ...
"What makes Liberty’s hand washing even more remarkable was the presence of Ron Godwin at the announcement, the person whose sole responsibility is to manage the academic integrity of the university. Not only did Godwin not contradict Hinn’s claims of partnership, his presence gave Hinn’s promotion an enormous boost. ...
"In the 1980s, Godwin was the executive vice president for Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, which disbanded late in the decade when it ran out of money. From there, Godwin accepted an invitation from Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church to help run the company that published the Washington Times, which had been purchased by Moon’s church. ...
"Godwin wasn’t alone in his association with cult-leader Moon or in his role in Liberty’s financial turnaround. For much of his dealings with Liberty and Moon, he has worked with the man sitting beside him in the video, Dan Reber. ...
An investigative report based on court records generated from a business conflict in the mid ’90s shows that about a third of DMC’s income came from the Rev. Moon’s cult. ...
"In the summer of 1993, Fallwell, Reber and Godwin set up a meeting in Lynchburg with one of Moon’s men, Dong Moon Joo, who was the publisher of the Washington Times. A few months later in January 1994, Falwell, Reber and Godwin secretly flew to Korea for a week to meet with the cult leader in person.
"Falwell and Moon made a public appearance on July 26, 1994, when they posed for photos at the inauguration of a Moonie organization called Youth Federation for World Peace. ...
"By early 1995, Reber and Godwin were flush with money funneled to them from Moon. ...
"On Jan. 28, 1995, during his nationally televised “Old Time Gospel Hour,” Falwell credited the directors of the foundation, Daniel A. Reber and Jimmy Thomas, with saving Liberty. ...
"When Benny Hinn sat down in front of his cameras, he wasn’t talking to two random employees from Liberty University. He was talking to the two men, besides Falwell and Moon themselves, who were most responsible for Liberty even existing today. ...
"Hinn’s website is still offering the deal, accepting payments, and showing the video."
Duncan adds that Liberty "has cultivated other public friendships over the years with nonChristian groups by extending invitations to the likes of Glenn Beck and Mitt Romney, both Mormons, to speak at their graduation ceremonies.
"If Liberty’s commitment to Christian orthodoxy was in question, Godwin’s emphatic denial that Liberty was still a Baptist school surely didn’t help." Back to the example of World Vision.
"In both cases, institutions were widely loved based on the perception that they were solidly evangelical in orientation and practice." Pajama Pages, Apr 9 '14, <www.ow.ly/z6E2O > For years countercult apologist Fred Miller urged Falwell to part company with Moon. He became convinced that Falwell routinely lied in order to dodge the issue. <www.ow.ly/z6CLC>
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RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
"Beyond Belief: The debate over religious tolerance" by Christopher Shea <christopher-shea.com >, who responds to the question: "Should religious believers be exempt from laws the rest of Americans must follow, if those laws conflict with the teachings of their faith?" University of Virginia legal scholar Micah Schwartzman argues: "The founders created a 'morally defective' amendment ... by singling out for protection religious expression, as opposed to general freedom of conscience. ...
"Adherents of Schwartzman’s line of thought present their views in both more and less aggressive variants. On the decidedly aggressive side is [philosopher and University of Chicago Law School law professor, Brian] Leiter. 'The arguments for the special treatment of religious conscience are either pitifully bad or explicitly religious in nature,' he says in an interview. In his book [1], he even flirts with the idea that religious views may be less worthy of protection than secular conscience, because (as he defines it) religious belief is immune to logic and evidence. ...
"Complicating things further is that the Supreme Court’s religious-freedom jurisprudence has been 'notoriously erratic,' as [University of San Diego law professor Steven D.] Smith puts it. Other scholars have compared it to an Alice in Wonderland-style journey into surrealism.
"The court has, at least twice, flirted with granting secular ethical reservations equal standing with religious views," an approach that Shea reviews in greater detail.
"Scholars who find it unjustifiable to make such distinctions disagree about whether both religious and nonreligious commitments should get exemptions, or neither should, or something in between." Shea analyzes this as well. "Other scholars have pushed back in other ways against the view that secular ethical concerns are no different from religious concerns." Examples follow. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jun 9 '14, <www.ow.ly/z3NCm>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Why Tolerate Religion? by Brian Leiter (Princeton Univ Prs, 2012, hardcover, 208 pages) <www.ow.ly/z9Uu3>
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