Travis Seitler

When Travis says “cult,” what does he mean?

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)

Sovereign Grace Ministries - Church or Cult? [Quotes Week]

I want to kick off “quotes week” on a serious note, but the Monkey song was just too darned funny. Anyway, here’s my original Monday post:

“…how is it that CJ Mahaney can make 5 references to his pride and arrogance in his blog, [and] that’s somehow celebrated as humility… [but Larry Tomczak] is confronted with observations of pride and arrogance, prayerfully considers these observations, repents of his sin, writes a letter to this effect that is distributed to the entire ministry, steps down from leadership, and submits to months of disciplinary consequences… [only to be considered] ‘disqualified’ to lead a church?

“I’m sorry. But this woman’s posts—more than any others (b/c she was obviously involved in this process)—has convinced me that Sovereign Grace is a cult.”

(comment by “SGM Casualty” on SGM Survivors)

This website is blowing the lid off of the corruption and poor leadership that’s been allowed to fester in Sovereign Grace Ministries, due to years of fear, control, and cultic tactics. It’s heartbreaking to hear some of the stories from former members; moreso to hear the ensuing silence from SGM leadership.

There’s nasty stuff in there, folks, but C.J. et al seem to want to just circle the wagons. Honestly? I think that’s worse than anything that’s being said over on the blog (and new message board).

“Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.“ — Ephesians 5:11 (ESV)

UPDATE: On Friday, March 14th, Eric Simmons spoke to the singles at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD. You can download the MP3 of his talk, but what I find most interesting is this particular quote (beginning at the 13:49 mark):

I’m also concerned because at this point in time, we are at the pinnacle of the Information Age. You can in an instant find tons of information on any subject you want on Google. Do you realize that Google allows you to be one step away from a lot of heresies?

There are a lot of heretics out there with a lot of false teachings that have blogs. And it’s phenomenal to me in our age now, that what is represented on the Internet is now seen as fact, and authority, and truth! And the reality? Most of these guys who are writing blogs are 24-year-old guys living in their moms’ basement, sitting there in their underwear! That’s what they’re doing! They’ve got a robe on, and they’re just typing away. And they’re typing away their false teaching, which is honestly a bunch of garbage.

It’s out there! It’s just one click away.

I would humbly submit that this is nothing more than fear-based propaganda. (I would also like to point out that C.J. Mahaney, Josh Harris and Eric Simmons are all bloggers–Eric doubly so, as he also writes for the New Attitude blog.)

UPDATE #2: I seem to have driven the “Orthodoxy Underground” further underground, as can be attested by Google’s cached versions of these Blogger profiles. (Thanks to Elaine Hooton for pointing out that the blog was apparently taken down.) I don’t know much of anything about the blog (it was private; you had to be pre-approved by their admins just to read it), but apparently (according to Google) Thabiti Anyabwile, Justin Buzzard and Ricky Alcantar were all members of the blog. So why’d they delete the whole thing, just a few days after this matter came up?

UPDATE #3: Bugger. The Google Cache link doesn’t work anymore. Well, it just listed the Blogger profiles for Eric, Thabiti, Justin and Ricky (and showed them as linked to the Orthodoxy Underground site). Thanks to Dan for catching this one!

UPDATE #4: What do I mean by “cult”? Find out here.

Why I Left Chesapeake Community Church in Joppa, MD

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.