Carlton Pearson may have lost his bid for a shot at the mayor’s office in Tulsa, Okla., because of his belief in a controversial theology known as the “gospel of inclusion,” which states that everyone is saved–they just don’t know it.

Pearson is a conservative Republican and founder of the 4,500-member, multiracial Higher Dimensions Family Church in Tulsa. He claims he failed to win the primary in February due to his belief in “inclusion” theology, which also questions the existence of a literal hell.

“The Christian turnout is usually 15 percent,” Pearson, 48, said of local elections in Tulsa. “But some of them just didn’t vote at all because they weren’t sure that they should risk putting somebody like me in office.”

Protestant theology teaches that man is separated from God by sin and destined for hell, unless he believes in Jesus’ redemptive work. Pearson said he first started thinking about the inclusive doctrine after reading E.W. Kenyon’s writings more than 25 years ago. Pearson has been preaching the controversial view for three years.

“A careful study of what I have taught will reveal that it is entirely scriptural, logical and theologically sound,” Pearson told Charisma. The Tulsa Beacon reported that Pearson has been confronted over his teaching by televangelists John Hagee, Marilyn Hickey and his mentor, Oral Roberts. Roberts, Hagee and Hickey declined to comment about the matter.

However, Pearson claimed that fellow black preachers, including Dallas pastor T.D. Jakes, are familiar to some extent with inclusionism. “These are my friends,” Pearson said. “They discern my heart, even though they may not discern my head. They’re not bothered by this.”

Jakes, however, told Charisma that he repudiates Pearson’s views as heresy. “While I do consider Carlton Pearson to be a friend, I believe his theology is wrong, false, misleading and an incorrect interpretation of the Bible,” Jakes said in a statement. ” characterizes me as not being ‘bothered’ by this. I am both bothered and troubled by this teaching and with any implication that I support or in any way agree with it.”

Jakes added: “While I certainly agree that Christ died for everyone, I do not believe that we are automatically saved, but that we must be ‘born again’ by believing in and personally accepting Jesus Christ.”

But Pearson said he is not picking a fight. “I am open to counsel from those I feel accountable to in the body of Christ,” he said.
Eric Tiansay

Act One trains writers how to add a Christian perspective to the kind of work entertainment professionals want
Aspiring film and television writers in Hollywood are learning how to write scripts with a Christian view that will appeal to top decision-makers of the entertainment industry, thanks to a faith-based screenwriting program.

A faculty of writers, directors and producers who are Christians give aspiring writers a monthlong crash course on how to thrive professionally and spiritually in the competitive Hollywood environment. Started in 1999, their nondenominational
program–called Act One: Writing for Hollywood–has resulted in a growing community of alumni who work in entertainment and are adding a
Christian view to its products.

“We’re interested in people who want to be servants of God in Hollywood, who love film, not people who are coming here to take over, but people who are going to be part of [the industry], to love and write people into the kingdom,” said the program’s interim director, Marianne Savell.

Act One attracts about 30 students to Los Angeles each August. They keep an almost daily schedule of classes on dozens of topics such as “Structuring Your Screenplay ” and “Spiritual Perspectives on Screenwriting.” They even learn how to dress for meetings with producers.

The faculty includes feature-film writers and TV writers. Their purpose is not to preach to Hollywood but to teach Christians to write according to excellent, professional standards.

Lee Batchler, with his wife, Janet, co-wrote Batman Forever and the upcoming feature film Smoke and Mirrors starring Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Both Batchlers are teachers and mentors with Act One.

“What matters most to me as a teacher is motivating Christian writers to forget about chasing the Hollywood dream of success and instead concentrate on becoming really good at what they do,” Lee Batchler said. “I want to see faith-filled artists succeed in Hollywood, not because they’re Christians, but because they actually are among the best writers, period.

“The larger goal down the line,” he added, “is that within the next decade there would be a major renaissance of truly great Christian artistry in the secular media. A situation where Christian screenwriters get hired because they’re undeniably top-drawer at their craft, and that their Christian worldview then naturally filters out to the public through the fabric and spirit of their work.”

Writer-producer Dean Batali of That’70s Show, and a former writer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, teaches students how to write one-hour dramas. Batali came here 11 years ago because he believed Christian worldviews should be represented in Hollywood. He says the primary obstacle Christians face in the industry is their own lack of talent or training.

“In Hollywood it’s not about what you believe, but if you’re good enough,” Batali said. “That’s where Act One comes in.

“Can those of us who’ve done it train the next generation to be better? I well up with tears at the end of my Act One times because it’s such a privilege to share with the students. I long to have them walking side by side with me. [But] we have to get good enough if we’re going to compete.”

While working for a production company, screenwriter Barbara Nicolosi found that the scripts she got from Christians had improper formatting, no sense of storytelling and terrible dialogue. She wrote a magazine article about the problem, and the result was the formation of Act One.

Cheryl McKay, 29, attended Act One after graduating from film school. She now works at a TV network and writes feature scripts on the side. “I don’t think I would have had the guts to move here without Act One,” she said.

“Act One is not just about being a Christian in Hollywood, but a focus on excellence,” said Andrea Nasfell, 28, who came from Kentucky to attend the program. “They teach that if you want to communicate a Christian worldview, you have to do it extremely well.”

Classes are held at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood. The program also is scheduled for June in Chicago, and was held last June in New York.
Joel Kilpatrick in Hollywood

The affable ‘Jesus Rock’ founder told Charisma he needs heart rehabilitation and hand surgery
Contemporary Christian music founder Larry Norman was just a boy when he first considered using his musical gifts for evangelism. But he had quite a different view then of what was and what wasn’t evil, concerning music.

The 54-year-old pioneer of Christian rock is weak after undergoing quadruple-bypass surgery in November that attached one good artery to healthy heart tissue. The other arteries are attached to dead tissue, which resulted from a heart attack he suffered 10 years ago at a California hospital after medical staff had misdiagnosed him with indigestion.

Norman is too weak to play concerts or record, and he lives with his family close to a hospital in Salem, Ore. His poor health over the last decade has left him with dwindling health-insurance coverage and mounting medical bills.

Norman recently was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame on the same day as Elvis Presley, who was picked for his many gospel recordings.

“One reason I started doing Christian rock music was because I thought Elvis was trying to steal the church’s music,” Norman said during a telephone interview with Charisma from his Salem office of Solid Rock–his record company and ministry.

“I thought rock ‘n’ roll was bad–evil. I was trying to reclaim that style of music for the church. That was naïve on my part, but then I was only 9 years old at the time. I thought: Is no one going to stop this insanity? If rock is evil, let’s do something about it. ”

Norman had a change of spiritual heart in those early years about how to use rock music to win people to Jesus. In 1956 he started to perform publicly and write songs, at the tender age of 9.

After a successful but brief career in the Los Angeles band People!–with a Top 40 hit in 1968 titled “I Love You” (Capitol)–Norman spent 1968-69 as a missionary on Hollywood Boulevard, wandering the streets talking to hippies, prostitutes, homosexuals and the occasional movie star about Jesus.

By the early 1970s he had blown away the barriers the body of Christ had installed to “protect” people from the evils of rock music. His early work on his own albums–especially Upon This Rock (1969), Only Visiting This Planet (1972) and In Another Land (1976)–received mainstream critical recognition, including by former Beatle Paul McCartney, whom Norman had met in 1968. McCartney years later said in an interview that if “Larry Norman had not concentrated only on Christian music, he would have been a very big international artist.”

Today, because of his weak heart, Norman bides his days praying for life. He never sought fame, he told Charisma, but just wanted a platform from which to tell people about Jesus.

He no longer plays guitar because his left arm and hand are slightly paralyzed–the result of a blocked nerve also related to his heart ailments. He has to sleep sitting in a chair because if he lies down he can’t breathe.

“I am very up,” he said. “Most of the time I am resting comfortably. I have had to go to the hospital a few times with symptoms. But they let me out a few days later. I haven’t been back to the hospital in a few weeks now, and I am starting to feel stronger.”

Asked how he rates himself on communicating the gospel to non-Christians, Norman said: “I hope I created a new kind of music to provide a bridge between the secular mind and Christian truth. That was my goal. It was never my intention to be acceptable to Christians or to have my music performed by Christians.

“I had one goal,” he continued, “and that was to change the nature or expand the nature of Christian music so that non-Christians could see themselves in the music. The effect that I was hoping to cause actually happened. People would say, ‘When I heard your music, I realized I could become a Christian.'”

Friends have set up a trust fund to help Norman with his rising medical costs. He said he will need surgery later this year to repair his left hand so he can play his guitar.
Billy Bruce

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Donations can be sent to The Larry Norman Trust Fund, c/o Solid Rock, 3760 Market St. N.E., PMB #306, Salem, OR 97301; or call (503) 391-1175. Visit the Web site at .

God called a great-grandmother to leave her comfortable home in Seattle and become a mother to Filipino orphans
Lois Prater had reasons not to be a missionary and reasons not to say goodbye to family and friends and go overseas. This great-grandmother was busy enjoying her golden years, but she heard God’s call and answered.

In 1991, at age 76, and after having been a housewife much of her life, Prater sold her Seattle-area home, and her car, furniture, and other belongings to become the unlikely outstretched hand to orphans in the Philippines.

“I didn’t know anything about business, about building an orphanage,” she said. “All along, I’ve just trusted in God, and He’s answered my prayers.”

Now 89, she’s pricked by the memory of ignoring God’s call as a young girl to be a missionary and has become an unlikely lifeline to 98 orphans. On a 5,000 square-foot, white-stucco orphanage on 12-1/2 acres of land covered with banana and mango trees, Prater works to replace neglect in these young lives with hope and a loving home environment.

The orphanage–located just outside Orion, a town of about 9,000–is named King’s Garden. In August, the Assemblies of God agreed to take over the facility from Prater because of her health, but she plans to remain involved despite having undergone heart surgery in November.

She became a widow in January 1988, and six months later her childhood desire of becoming a missionary returned while she watched a Christian TV program about an outreach taking place in the Philippines. She didn’t know what to do.

“I said, ‘Lord, I’m too old to go now,'” Prater told Charisma.

On that program, missionary Nora Lamm was asking people to join her for an outreach to the Philippines. Prater signed up with 230 other volunteers and flew to the South Pacific country to work in three weeks of evangelistic tent meetings.

Soon after she returned to the United States, she went back to the Philippines with 11 other women. A third trip followed in 1990. This time, Prater went by herself and spoke at churches throughout the island for a year.

After one service, a shabbily dressed man came to her holding his 4-month-old daughter. He offered to sell her for 1,000 pesos, or about $40.

Prater pushed 300 pesos into his hand and later helped him find a job. But she couldn’t forget his face. It was then that she began thinking about building an orphanage.

She returned home with plans to build an orphanage in the Bataan Peninsula. She didn’t know how she would do it. “All I knew was that it was going to take money,” she said.

In spring 1991, she sold almost everything she had.

“I struggled, but I knew that what I was trying to do was something much more important than hanging onto [my] faded couch,” Prater said.

First she had to buy land for the orphanage. After several months of searching, Prater got on her knees and prayed in desperation: “God, if I’m going to do this, You’re going to have to do it.”

Two days later, a woman offered her the land near Orion. She wanted 450,000 pesos, or $17,500, for it. Prater couldn’t buy the land because she isn’t a Philippine citizen, and it was purchased through the Assemblies of God.

The first phase of the orphanage was built in February 1994, three years after she returned to the Philippines with the hopes of starting. It has eight bedrooms, a classroom, a large kitchen and a laundry. Today, the second phase has doubled the size of the orphanage, which now includes a school.

The Orion police call Prater “Mama,” and their chief, who is a Christian, asked her to lead a Bible study on Monday mornings. During the first two years of her orphanage, officers brought eight physically abused children to the orphanage, including one 7-month-old boy whose mother had put out cigarettes on his legs because he wouldn’t be quiet.

Prater’s suffered a broken leg, been hospitalized with pneumonia and tuberculosis, and has been ill with intestinal worms during her tenure in the Philippines. The hot weather, the spicy food and the distance from family add to her hardships.

It’s been 68 years since she first said she’d become a missionary. Said Prater: “My only regret is I didn’t start earlier, when I was young.”
Gail Wood

Maggie Gobran is an angel of mercy to thousands who live in the vast garbage dumps of the ancient city
It isn’t only the fields that are white for harvest for Maggie Gobran. So are the ghettos.

As the youngest daughter of an affluent Egyptian family in Cairo’s Coptic community, Gobran was deeply changed the first time she saw her city’s burgeoning slums. Her answer has been Stephen’s Children, a ministry she founded 12 years ago to help the estimated 500,000 families who survive by living in the ancient city’s five sprawling garbage dumps.

Quiet and unassuming, Gobran has been hailed as “St. Maggie” by some and “the Mother Teresa of Cairo” by others. Her ministry’s letterhead lists her simply as “Mama Maggie.” That’s how she’s known to the people she helps.

Gobran provides hope to thousands of poverty-stricken parents and children who live in squalid shacks amid Cairo’s refuse. More than 5 million people live in the dumps. Her ministry also is at work in more than 40 other slum areas where people live in equally desperate conditions.

Many of the families comprise “seven to 12 people living in one-room shanty houses with shared bathrooms and kitchen,” Gobran told Charisma. “Many of them live on less than $1 per day.” Scott Singletary, the ministry’s director of development, called the poverty these families live in “overwhelming.”

“You wonder how they live in these conditions and survive. It’s a mass of humanity mixed with animals in which there’s scarcely a distinction in the living conditions. The smells are overwhelming,” he said.

Businessman J.C. Huizenga, chair-man of Gobran’s board, said that during one visit to the ministry he saw “barefooted [children treading] through water and garbage and babies chewing on batteries.”

Families live in the dumps or in the slums because they can’t afford to live elsewhere. Many emigrated from rural areas in hope of finding work in Cairo. With training, they hope to better themselves and eventually earn a good living.

To help them achieve that, Stephen’s Children provides an array of services that includes food and clothing distribution, vocational training, medical treatment and getaways to Christian camps.

U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan saw the ministry firsthand after doing a lot of official traveling.

“[Along with] a friend, we got frustrated with meeting with heads of state, and we wanted to see how the real people live,” Hoekstra said. His visit to Stephen’s Children was the highlight of his trip and “better than meeting with dignitaries and kings,” he said.

He added that he was “inspired” after seeing Gobran at work, emphasizing that she is making a big difference in the lives of those she ministers to.

Said Gobran: “In a non-Christian part of the world, in the midst of the darkness and despair we light a candle of light and hope. [We’re] concentrating on children, as they are the most needy, the most vulnerable. They are the future.”

Gobran said their motivation is the overwhelming need surrounding them. “Our hope is that these deprived families and children will come to know Jesus and have a hope and a place in eternity,” she said.

Overall, the ministry is making a huge impact, according to Singletary: “Cairo is the hub of the Arab commercial world, and here’s a ministry right in the middle of that.”
Jeremy Reynalds

Wayne Pederson stepped down under pressure from conservatives when he said the group should depoliticize
After only six weeks in office, the new chief of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), a political force during elections and policy-making, stepped down over a controversy that potentially could have divided the organization.

At its 59th annual convention in Nashville, Tenn., in February, the NRB’s board of directors voted to accept the resignation of President Wayne Pederson.

The former chair-man of NRB, Pederson offered to leave after his remarks to The Minneapolis Star-Tribune in January that the organization should be less political riled some of the nation’s most prominent commentators, including Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and conservative preacher Jerry Falwell. Dobson and Falwell threatened to leave if the organization changed direction.

NRB Chairman Glenn Plummer told The (Nashville) Tennessean that some felt Pederson’s comments had “illegitimized their ministries.” Plummer added that the dispute had been “a painful time, but one in which healing can come.”

In a statement, Pederson said he was sad and disappointed to leave but “would be sadder still if a rift resulted from this situation.” He encouraged NRB to “unite around the common cause that brings us together.” At press time, NRB had not appointed an interim president.

A 34-year Christian radio veteran with Northwestern Radio, Pederson, 54, had been appointed president and chief operating officer last year to succeed longtime head E. Brandt Gustavson, who died of pancreatic cancer.

But Pederson caused a stir when he told the Star-Tribune he was concerned that people viewed the NRB as part of the “political right.”

“We missed our main calling with that,” Pederson said. “But what’s probably more disturbing to me is that evangelicals are identified politically more than theologically. We get associated with the far Christian right and marginalized. To me the important thing is to keep the focus on what’s important to us spiritually.”

Pederson’s comments didn’t sit well with some who immediately called for his resignation.

“I think this is a tragic thing for the NRB,” American Family Association President and founder Don Wildmon said. “Mr. Pederson has criticized those he calls the members of the religious about anybody who has worked hard to make the NRB what it is.”

Plummer, the first African American chairman-CEO of NRB, told The Washington Post: “There are land mines in our association, and Wayne basically tripped a wire on one of those land mines.”

In late January, the NRB executive committee voted 5-4 against firing Pederson, with Plummer breaking the tie. But NRB officials said the sentiment against Pederson had so escalated that he eventually offered his resignation, even though he kept on fighting for the job.

The day before the start of the convention, the committee voted 7-1 to accept the resignation and end what Plummer indicated were weeks of acrimony. The broader NRB board split 47-36 against Pederson.

“There were individuals–I won’t name names–who in my opinion were shameful in the methods they used [in pushing for Pederson’s removal],” Plummer told the Post. “We are a Christian, biblical organization, and the Bible is very clear: If you feel that a fellow Christian has offended you, you go to that person first.”

Nevertheless, Pederson’s removal was applauded. “We’re pleased at the outcome,” Focus on the Family spokesman Tom Minnery told The Washington Times. “We believe NRB will be stronger in the future.”

Family Research Council President Ken Connor also backed the firing in an e-mail notice. Christians and politics are “a match made in heaven,” he said. “As people of faith, we shouldn’t be duped into believing it’s necessary to separate our convictions from civic life.”

However, Phil Cooke, a Burbank, TV and film producer and director, was disappointed, noting that Pederson’s controversial remarks “were right on target.”

“[NRB’s] doing a great job in the political arena, but there is so much more to be done in the media world if we’re going to reach this generation with the gospel,” he said.

He also agreed with Pederson’s perception that NRB is viewed as a far-right organization. “If we’re perceived as a right-wing organization who’s only interested in politics, a significant part of that audience will just turn us off and never listen,” said Cooke, an NRB board member for about three years.

NRB is an association representing more than 1,300 Christian radio and TV stations, program producers, multimedia developers and related organizations worldwide.
Eric Tiansay

Hanfere Aligaz arrived nearly penniless in the U.S. but now heads a thriving church in the nation’s capital
A Christian who fled communist Ethiopia in 1981 and arrived in the United States with his family of five and only $140 between them now pastors the largest U.S. congregation for Ethiopians, a flock of almost 2,000 of his former countrymen.

Hanfere Aligaz founded the Evangelical Ethiopian Church of Washington, D.C., with 15 people one year after he and his wife and their four children defected from their communist-run homeland. Today his congregation is an estimated 99 percent Ethiopian.

The church also ministers to Ethiopians from surrounding areas in Virginia and Maryland. More than 125 weekly home Bible study groups provide a sense of community for church members. Evangelistic teams preach the gospel on the streets and have touched the lives of alcoholics, drug addicts and the homeless with their message.

Yet, Aligaz’s sphere of ministry as a relative newcomer to foreign shores doesn’t altogether surprise him. He said it was in obedience to a call from God to start a church specifically in Washington that he first sought a way for himself and his family to defect from the communist Ethiopia of 21 years ago.

When Aligaz became a Christian in 1977 he was an active member of a charismatic church in Ethiopia. He said that he “didn’t know anything about being a pastor or an evangelist,” but he sensed God wanted him to establish a church in the U.S. capital.

Aligaz made a bargain with God: “I told the Lord if I could leave [Ethiopia] without a guarantor–someone who would have to pay $25,000 to ensure my return–I would go.”

Within a month, the airline company he worked for sent him to the United States for 15 days of flight training. Aligaz took his family with him, and they arrived in Washington with scarcely a trace of the material goods they left behind. “We left everything behind–my job as a pilot, my wife’s bakery business, our house, our bank account,” Aligaz told Charisma.

Aligaz had no contacts in the area, but he visited church after church, talking with pastors and telling them of his vision to plant an Ethiopian church in the city. After several months of no offers of support, Aligaz attended a Bible study with 12 lawyers.

One of them promised him a meeting room near the World Bank. Another pledged to purchase 2,000 Ethiopian Bibles for the congregation. An immigration lawyer and an IRS lawyer also offered assistance. Said Aligaz: “Within just 20 minutes, I had everything we needed to set up the church.”

Thirteen years later, the congregation had outgrown the meeting room and the subsequent sanctuary of a Presbyterian church. When a local synagogue came on the market, church members asked God to reduce the price from $2.5 million to $1.5 million. Two years later the price was lowered.

Aligaz stepped out in faith. Drawing from the $50,000 in their building fund that had taken nine years to amass, he made a $40,000 deposit on the property. He knew his congregation would lose it all if they couldn’t come up with the rest of the money in four months.

What happened next was a miracle, Aligaz believes. When he challenged his congregation to give sacrificially, he said God told him: “If you want them to give, you have to give the best.”

The only thing Aligaz owned was a car. He obeyed by offering his car, and the congregation responded, emptying bank accounts, selling jewelry and other belongings.

“They gave and gave and gave,” he said. “Even the children and teens gave. One 16-year-old gave $500 he was saving for a car.” With more than $250,000 in hand, they were able to secure a loan.

“In less than a month we had all the money, and the owners had to vacate so quickly that they left us everything–chairs, tables, utensils, classroom supplies,” Aligaz said.

Three years after moving in, the church had swelled from 450 members to its current membership of 2,000.

In addition to regular, congregational prayer and fasting, all-night prayer meetings are held at the church every Friday and Saturday.

Aligaz believes God has plans for the church to reach “many souls in America.” He said the 1,000-seat sanctuary already seems too small, with more than 85,000 Ethiopians living in greater-metropolitan Washington. The congregation is again reaching out in faith, he said, hoping to acquire a facility that will seat 7,000.
Sandra Chambers in Washington

The pastor, who admitted to ‘moral failure’ in December, continues to seek counseling
Pastor and writer Roberts Liardon recently preached for the first time since he stepped away from the pastorate three months ago after admitting to a “moral failure.” The founder of Embassy Christian Center in Irvine, Calif., gave a 30-minute message at his church on March 10 and spoke on keeping the faith. In December, Liardon, 36, confessed to a short-term homosexual relationship with the church’s youth pastor, John Carrette.

“Those around me asked me to come today,” said the charismatic pastor, who was dressed in a conservative gray suit. He received a standing ovation from about 650 people in attendance.

Liardon told Charisma that his counselors–particularly El Paso, Texas, pastor Charles Nieman–had encouraged him to preach sooner than later. “Charles Nieman wanted me to come back sooner, but I was not comfortable with that,” Liardon said.

While Nieman supported Liardon’s return to the pulpit, it was Embassy’s staff that invited him to speak, said Ray Valcarcel, an Embassy member and one of Liardon’s in-house counselors.

Liardon told the Embassy congregation that his appearance was “just for one Sunday.” He had announced in December that he would stay away from the pulpit for at least three months. He has made announcements and taken an offering during some services since his December admission, but this was his first sermon.

“I am still working with my counseling,” he told the audience.

“[We have] gone through some great dramatics in the last few months,” he said, not specifying what they were. “Our church has gone through a it is OK. God is in charge. He does not come to destroy. He comes to lift you.”

Moving forward in faith, he said, includes “conquest, and turning things around.” He then told the congregation: “We are doing well. We are going to continue to win the lost.”

Liardon told of talking with a waiter who, upon learning Liardon was a pastor, confided in him, “You don’t know what I have done.” The story drew laughter from the congregation when Liardon added: “I can really say that now, too. Thank God for forgiveness.”

After the service Liardon told Charisma: “It felt real good. I could feel the love of the people.”

Of the last two and 1/2 months of rehabilitation, he said he has learned a lot about God’s love and forgiveness and how to “just let the Word work in me.”

Media coverage of the scandal has been difficult for him, he added: “We just have not had to deal with [the media] before.” He admitted the hardest thing for him personally has been “taking personal responsibility and understanding how [my actions] affected so many people.”

He added: “I appreciate the Cross a whole lot more.”

The scandal triggered an exodus from Liardon’s church and from his accredited school, Spirit Life Bible College. Some leaders who left complained that Liardon did not accept initial pastoral counsel from a leader who advised him to step away from the pulpit for one year. Others were upset that Liardon’s mother, Carol, insisted on running the ministry while her son was on his brief sabbatical.

Because Liardon’s ministry is independent, he is not required to follow rehabilitation policies that are mandatory for ministers who belong to denominations or ministerial fellowships. The Assemblies of God, for example, requires pastors who commit adultery to sit out of ministry for at least one year. If they have a repentant attitude, they may be allowed to return to the pulpit during the second year, depending on the specific counsel of district officials, said the church’s spokesperson, Juleen Turnage.

In a random survey, Charisma found no denomination or church network that allows fallen ministers to return to ministry after only three months.

Liardon will not preach every Sunday, he said, but he left open the possibility that he may preach again as his counseling progresses. He did not say when he would return full time to the pulpit.
Steven Lawson in Irvine, Calif.

A new facility in Tampa, Fla., also enables the evangelist to renew plans to expand his Bible training institute
On a recent Friday night in Daytona Beach, Fla., restaurants along coastal highway A1A were crowded. A visit to a Friday’s eatery by a local Christian reporter produced seats for four only in a smoking section near the bar. Each table was equipped with TV sets linked to cable TV.

A quick channel surf slipped by movies, news and sports, until it hit on a strange sight beaming out to diners: There on the screen was Rodney Howard-Browne, South African trumpeter of the Pentecostal doctrine and missionary to America–preaching at the new location of his church, The River At Tampa Bay.

As a waitress asked for food orders, she stared at the screen to see Howard-Browne hurling his arms toward a front-row crowd of congregants. “Fire!” he shouted, and about 10 people fell out of their chairs and hit the carpet, “slain” in the Holy Spirit.

The burly evangelist wandered to another front-row section–the layout of the church’s new location at a car outlet creates church in the round. “Be filled!” he shouted, and another seven or eight people dropped out of their chairs to the carpet.

The waitress was transfixed by what she saw–writing down food orders but not lifting an eye from view of the TV screen. “This,” she acknowledged, “can’t be American Movie Classics!”

She, of course, was right. What “this” was is what Howard-Browne referred to as “radical Christian television” during a recent interview at his new facility in Tampa, Fla. The broadcasts represent a major shift in his missions strategy to reach the United States with the Pentecostal message and the gospel.

“Why must people think that power is only displayed in Harry Potter,” he noted. “We’ve got the power of the Holy Ghost to share. Let them see what God will do–right on their television screens.”

After starting the church in December 1996, Howard-Browne continued to crisscross the United States holding weeknight services before flying back to Tampa to lead his own Sunday services. Now he says he’ll slow down his travel schedule to stay home and expand his church and to develop a world-reaching satellite broadcasting web for his sometimes wildly charismatic services.

He also said he wants to focus more on developing laborers for the gospel in The River Bible Institute–the Bible school of his Revival Ministries International lead organization.

“We used to have the church, the Bible school and RMI offices located in three separate locations in Tampa. Now we have them all under one roof,” Howard-Browne said. “We’ll be able to grow very fast now on this 83-acre site. For one–we’ll be able to build classroom facilities by renovating existing buildings on the land, and one day we hope to build dormitories here for our students, many who come from around the world.”

The institute just graduated its first Inuit–Adina Duffy from Coral Harbor in the Canadian Arctic. Soon the school will host its first aboriginal students from the outback in Australia. Branches of the school are located in Norway, Sweden and England. One Tampa graduate started The River At Istanbul church in Turkey, an Islamic state.

“It is one of the largest churches in the nation after just two years,” Howard-Browne said. “Adonica [Howard-Browne’s wife] and I preached a crusade there.”

Guest speakers at the school include a who’s who list of teachers–R.T. Kendall, Dick Mills, Mylon LeFevre, Reinhard Bonnke, Roy Hicks, Norville Hayes, Ralph Hauke of Norway, Tim Hall of Australia and others. The school has graduated some 700 students since starting in 1997, and students can earn bachelor’s degrees in theology by their third year. The school is fully accredited, said Christian Jahnsen, dean.

“We haven’t really advertised the school,” Howard-Browne said. “It’s been low-key. We’ve averaged about 150 students per year. But with these new facilities, we now have the room to grow.”

Howard-Browne has mostly avoided television since he started the Tampa church, but he began airing some TV programs in October. Now broadcasts of services can be seen across the world in as many as 300 million homes via satellite networks Angel 2, La Familia, CTN, Daystar and Miracle Net in Asia.

“We have a stack of e-mails from all over the world from just five nights of broadcasts done,” Howard-Browne said during a January event at the church. “This week I have ministered to more people than at any other time of my ministry through this technology. We feel it is time to put the power of God on the night hours when the infomercials, psychics and psychic channels are most active and the people can’t sleep because of their problems.”
Billy Bruce in Tampa, Fla.

The decision by a religious AIDS awareness group, Balm in Gilead, drew fire from Darryl Foster, a minister to gays
Balm in Gilead–an organization that promotes AIDS awareness in African American churches–has come under fire for appointing an openly gay man as the director of its faith-based program.

The group appointed Maurice O’Brian Franklin as director of its Faith-Based National HIV/AIDS Technical Assistance Center in March. Franklin’s remark to the Washington Blade, the capital’s gay weekly, that his selection was a “statement” drew a rebuke from Darryl L. Foster, an Atlanta pastor and leader of a ministry to homosexuals.

Franklin told the Blade: “I feel like this organization has embraced me completely based on the professional skills and expertise I bring to the job. On the other hand, it also is making a statement that black gay people are part of the black community and have valuable skills the community can use.”

Foster said that although Balm in Gilead described its role as encouraging “healing through prayer, education and advocacy,” it was actually “poison for black churches.” He also said that Franklin’s appointment was “offensive” to traditional churches that had in the past supported the organization’s HIV/AIDS-prevention efforts
in the black community, where the group says AIDS has reached “a national health state of emergency.”

Among the 17 religious groups the organization lists on its Web site as endorsing its work are the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AME Zion); the Church of God in Christ (COGIC); the National Baptist Convention, USA (NBC-USA); and T.D. Jakes Ministries.

Foster said that Franklin’s appointment sent a message to churches that they should accept open homosexuals.

“[It] smacks of the new tolerance ethic espoused by the flesh-led thinkers of society,” he said. Although Balm in Gilead presented itself as a healer, it actually is “injecting poison into the church’s veins,” he added.

Before joining Balm in Gilead, Franklin was director of the Gay Men of African Descent’s Northeast Regional Capacity Building Assistance Program. Balm in Gilead founder and chief executive Pernessa C. Seele said Franklin “was not hired on the basis of his sexual preferences, but for the professional skills he brings to this organization.” The organization had a “diverse” staff, she said, all of whom had been appointed for their professional skills.

However, Foster said he suspects that the Christian groups endorsing Balm in Gilead never knew of Franklin’s appointment. He believes they should continue to support AIDS awareness efforts, “but they should demand that Balm in Gilead be accountable to them if they are to continue to receive their endorsement,” he told Charisma.

The criticism comes as Balm in Gilead prepared for its 13th annual Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS, March 3-9. During the week, participating churches host AIDS workshops, distribute AIDS-awareness information and devote sermons to the subject.

In a message posted on the organization’s Web site, Seele said that the annual focus of the program was to launch the largest AIDS awareness effort that targets the African American community, reaching an estimated 2.5 million church members.

Since Balm in Gilead was formed, the week has mobilized more than 10,000 churches to provide AIDS education to their congregations and
communities.

In January the New York City-based organization hosted the first African Diaspora HIV/AIDS Summit, attended by diverse religious leaders from the United States, the Caribbean and Africa, which saw the launch of a drive to help churches spread AIDS awareness in Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

A spokesman for Bishop T.D. Jakes said that his ministry had not had any contact with the organization since 1999. Bishop G.E. Patterson, presiding bishop of COGIC, said: “The Church of God in Christ does not knowingly support gay ministries or gay activities. I’ve never heard of Balm in Gilead.”

Representatives of AME Zion and the NBC-USA did not return phone calls.
Andy Butcher