In light of recent concerns (via e-mail) about my calling Chesapeake Community Church a cult, and given Abraham Piper’s recent post regarding author’s intent, here is my working definition for “cult”:

“A cult is a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea or thing and employing unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control (e.g. isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of [consequences of] leaving it, etc) designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community.”

(HT: Wikipedia)

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Nicole and I have left Chesapeake Community Church, and some of our friends have asked why. Considering the circumstances surrounding our leaving (and the confusion some friends have expressed regarding it) I’ve decided to address the matter here.

You see, I’ve been in discussions with the pastors (regarding tithing) since our pre-membership interview with Jason Reyes (soon to be the new senior pastor of Covenant of Grace Church in Akron, OH). Sadly, they didn’t bother to even try to answer my questions until they found out that I had posted my thoughts on the tithe here at my blog. Even then, I was met with a general unwillingness to discuss my questions and concerns; rather, the conversation was continually focused on challenging my lack of trust in and respect for them. They couldn’t understand how my trust was largely dependent on their actions and approaches to my questions. You see, I did trust them when I joined Chesapeake in November of 2005. It was only after months of evading and ignoring my questions that I began to get exasperated with them. In the meantime, other things appeared on the radar that only added to my unease and distrust:

• The pastors paid themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2006 (according to their own financial statement), while giving roughly $18,000 as “benevolence.” When asked about this, their response was that the issued Statement was not an accurate reflection of their financial activity.
• The pastors refused to support from the general fund–or even to collect a “special offering” for–a family in the congregation with known serious financial needs. Meanwhile, they collected a special offering to cover moving expenses for two pastors.
• Jim Cannon (the senior pastor) personally told me in front of Jason Reyes and a Care Group leader that his preference was for my membership status to be reevaluated should I choose not to tithe to him. Later, to illustrate his rationale for this, he drew parallels with a wife not trusting her husband to handle their money. But when I pointed out that I wouldn’t/shouldn’t/couldn’t Biblically divorce my wife over such a matter, his response was that a church membership wasn’t like a marriage.
• Jim also told me that in his study of the tithe, he had considered no extra-biblical writings on the subject of tithing penned before the Protestant Reformation. Thus, all early “Church Fathers” epistles, the Didache, Josephus’ writings, and any other works which could have shed first-hand light on how the early church viewed tithing… were ignored.
• Jim’s response was to call me a “freeloader” and claim that I had “integrity issues” when I told the pastors that not giving to Chesapeake was a matter of conscience: they had collected over $850,000 last year with, as I said before, only $18,000 (2.5%) going to those in need. (I took the money I would have given them, and instead gave it to organizations like Compassion International and Blood:Water Mission.)

And in the midst of all this, the pastors tried to shut down an evangelistic effort from a Godly man in the congregation—to spend time with some other Christian men in a pub, where they could interact with people on “neutral territory” and begin to develop relationships with them. The pastors also forbade this man to pass out copies of a Mark Driscoll book to his Christian friends until Jim had approved it, and they almost banned the men in our Care Group from going on a camping trip they were organizing. Why? Because they wouldn’t get back in time for the Sunday morning service.

From what I’ve seen, Sovereign Grace Church in Joppa, MD (their new name, as of September 12th) isn’t a local church. It really bears far more resemblance to a cult:

• The leaders are domineering and in some areas tyrannical;
• they have tried in numerous ways to psychologically manipulate the congregation;
• they demand trust rather than desiring to show themselves worthy of it;
• they are frightened of “their” people being exposed to “non-approved” books and ideas.

So that’s why I left. I tried to reason with them for nearly two years, but it has proven fruitless. The pastors are content to continue as they have, and it’s just become too heavy a burden. It’s kind of depressing, because I love the people I know at Chesapeake, but with the mindset that many people seem to have (that “we must attend the same church or else we can’t be friends”) it seems it’ll be extremely difficult to maintain our relationships.

So where is the Seitler family headed? I don’t know, but I’m definitely scarred from (and scared of) this overbearing leadership, and so we’re probably looking more toward a house church than toward any other “model.” In the meantime, we’ve actually enjoyed greater fellowship with other believers in the past few weeks than we had when we were in “the club”–and it was mostly due to opportunities that wouldn’t have been available to us if we were attending Sunday morning meetings and Wednesday night meetings and…

UPDATE #2: The post I linked “moving expenses” to (on a blog written by Jason Reyes’ wife Laurie) has been removed since my post appeared here this morning. Just to show you there really *was* a post there (and to let you still read it), here’s a screenshot of Laurie’s Delete Post from within Google Reader. It was the only place with a copy still available.

And here’s larger versions of the six pictures from that post (including the last one, which Jason’s actually in): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

I guess this is just another example of their tendency to cover things up instead of dealing with them.

UPDATE #2: Laurie now has a video on YouTube showing the house.

UPDATE #3: What do I mean by “cult”? Find out here.

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Geppi announced that… Gemstone Publishing will be… relocating to York, PA effective the first week of October 2007.

[snip]

“York has an exciting dynamic to it. It’s definitely a city and a region on the move, and we’re excited to be a part of that. This is a terrific entry into a rich marketplace, both in terms of the history to be found and the collectors with a vibrant interest in it. I am personally very pleased to be able to create this opportunity,” Geppi said.

Yup, that’s right: moving from Timonium, MD to York, PA in just a couple of weeks: “The new facility, located at 3679 Concord Road, York, Pennsylvania 17402, is expected to be fully up and running by the first week of October 2007.” Gemstone is now under the “Geppi Entertainment” banner, along with Diamond Intl. Galleries, Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, Hake’s Americana & Collectibles and Morphy Auctions.

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There’s something the folks at Chesapeake Community Church were asked not to talk about until July 15th, but anyone who downloads this MP3 of the Sunday meeting and goes to the 1:35 mark will hear it for themselves.

Personally, I think all the secrecy about stuff like this is silly and more than a little melodramatic. Reminds me of something someone recently said about Vice President Cheney….

Why all the spectacle? Why do things like this have to be kept hush-hush until we can make some big “event” out of it? It just feels so disingenuous and showy.

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We had a really nice Mother’s Day weekend this year! On Saturday, we bundled up the kids and a picnic lunch and moseyed on over to Spring Lake Park. We’d only ever been to the “lake” side of it before, so the open grass and the quiet creek were wonderful. (More photos at Flickr.)

On Sunday we decided to pass on message #2 of Chesapeake’s building fund series and instead visit a nearby congregation. (See, we’re really bad about driving 30 miles to attend Sunday services and not having a clue who the believers are within a 2-mile radius of our apartment.) Timonium UMC got the short straw, so we went over there and checked things out.

Wow.

It’s one thing for a church to think it’s okay for women to serve in pastoral roles… but I saw a number of appointed leaders in there yesterday morning, and not a single one was a man. (The men were either in deacon roles or just not there.) If that wasn’t enough of a shocker for me, they had the kids come up for a kiddie sermonette on Acts 16 where they were told that Lydia had her husband and kids baptized and pastored a church in her home. Needless to say, Katie got some of Papa Bear’s personal commentary on that passage at lunchtime. Maybe I’ll post my thoughts on it later, but suffice it to say, I think there was no small part of eisegesis in what was told to the kids.

The really nice part about visiting that church, though, is that we were back home by 11am (where we usually get back after 1pm). We couldn’t get over how much longer the day felt because of that, so we went driving around later, looking at houses for sale.

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