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Tag: Honorary Doctorates

The Real Purpose of an Evangelical Bible College Education

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religious indoctrination

Scores of Evangelical Bible colleges and institutes dot the American landscape. Some are accredited, and many are not; some have thousands of students, and others have a handful. While Evangelical Bible colleges are Fundamentalist in theology and practice, how much so varies greatly. (Please see Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists?) My partner and I attended an unaccredited Bible college in the 1970s. Academic quality varied from class to class, and teacher to teacher. Some classes were intellectually challenging, others were little more than over-glorified Sunday school classes.

What is the purpose of Evangelical Bible colleges? Most students come from Evangelical churches, so the goal is to reinforce the beliefs students were taught in their home churches. Colleges continue the indoctrination and conditioning that students experienced before college. The goal is reinforcement, not education. In fact, many students graduate from Bible colleges without ever learning doctrines and teachings contrary to those held by their home churches and colleges. For example, I was never taught anything about Calvinism, eschatological views other than dispensational premillennalism, Arminianism, or beliefs other than those held by Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches. The objective, then, is for students to believe and do the right things.

Sadly, Evangelical Bible colleges turn out woefully uneducated or under-educated students. Worse, these students think they know more than liberal preachers who have masters and PhD. degrees. They have been taught over and over that the Holy Spirit lives inside of them as their teacher and guide and that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God. What more does a preacher need? Here’s what I know: an Evangelical preacher with a two-year Bible institute or a three-year Bible college education is no match against a seminary-trained preacher.

Evangelical colleges often promote ignorance. By not teaching students all sides of an issue, they continue to indoctrinate and condition them. Students with different beliefs are marginalized or kicked out. Doctrinal purity is essential. Instead of teaching students how to think, they are taught what to think. I attended Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. Senior men were ordained by nearby Emmanuel Baptist Church. Ordination prospects were required to affirm certain doctrinal beliefs. If a student was unable to do so out of differences of belief, they were not ordained. Remember, the grand objective is to reinforce beliefs.

This system turns out grievously ignorant preachers. Education is the cure for this ignorance, but non-Evangelical colleges are routinely criticized and demonized, so preachers rarely attend such schools. I am not suggesting that there’s no value in a Bible college education, but I am saying, for a preacher, it is not enough. Preachers need multiple years of training in Hebrew and Greek, along with exposure to as wide a spectrum of theology as possible.

Many Evangelical churches believe calling is all that matters. Lots of Evangelical churches are pastored by men without any formal training. No need, the thinking goes. All a God-called, Holy Spirit-filled man needs is a Bible. This leads to sorely ignorant preachers and church members.

Let me be clear, some Evangelical preachers value education. Some of them have legitimate, accredited degrees. However, just because a preacher says he has a master’s or doctorate doesn’t mean he has a quality, comprehensive education. Diploma mills are common. Many Evangelical preachers sporting doctorates actually have degrees “earned” from mills or mail-order schools. There’s no comparison between a doctorate from Harvard Divinity School and Pensacola Christian College. (Please see IFB Doctorates: Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Everyone’s a Doctor.)

Did you attend an Evangelical Bible college? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

IFB Doctorates: Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Everyone’s a Doctor

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ifb preachers importance

Originally published in 2015. Edited, corrected, and expanded.

I know a lot of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preachers who love being called “Doctor.” They expect church members to call them Doctor and their undoctored colleagues to bow in reverence to them. In the IFB church movement, to have a doctorate means you have arrived, that your metaphorical dick is bigger than that of your fellow pastors. Having a doctorate gives one an air of importance and respectability. Go to any of the big IFB conferences, and you’ll find the scheduled speakers list littered with the names of men who have doctorates. But, here’s the thing: the overwhelming majority of preachers sporting a doctorate didn’t earn the moniker. Most likely, one of their preacher buddies, who just so happens to run an unaccredited Bible college, gave them their doctorate. Or, they did minimal coursework at one of many IFB diploma mills. Either way, their doctorate is nothing more than the plume of a peacock. Look, look, look at me, I am special, I am important, I am a Doctor.

Even at the IFB college, university, and seminary level, many of the professors have doctorates that were granted to them by the institution at which they are teaching or some other unaccredited college. I spent twenty-five years in the ministry, and I came in contact with a lot of Doctors. In every case but one, the doctorates were either honorary or “earned” through minimal work done at diploma mills. The only person I knew who had an earned doctorate was Tom Malone — the founder and chancellor of Midwestern Baptist College. Dr. Malone had a Ph.D. in education from Wayne State University.

Christian Bible College is a good example of an IFB diploma mill:

costs christian bible college
Course Costs Christian Bible College
course requirements for christian bible college
Course Requirements for Christian Bible College

Andersonville Theological Seminary is another good example of a diploma mill.

I know several IFB preachers who advertise that they have a doctorate in counseling. Andersonville offers a doctorate in counseling, complete with licensure from the National Christian Counselors Association. (NCCA) Here’s what Andersonville has to say about their counseling doctorate and NCCA licensure:

counseling doctorate andersonville
Counseling Doctorate Andersonville Theological Seminary

This has all the makings of a Holiday Inn commercial: I’m not a licensed, qualified counselor but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

I suspect that most IFB church members don’t have a clue about how their pastor got his doctorate. They naïvely assume their pastor is just like their medical doctor or a professor at the local college. They likely think their pastor went through the rigors of a Ph.D. program and is eminently qualified to teach them the Bible. Little do they know that their pastor’s doctorate is nothing more than a high-five from a friend who operates a college, or a piece of paper given to him after paying a fee and doing minimal course work.

On one level, who cares, right? But, many of these “Doctors” are counseling people with serious mental health problems. A troubled church member goes to their pastor thinking he is qualified to help them. After all, he has a doctorate in counseling, right? He is just as qualified as the psychologist at the local mental health clinic, right? Unbeknownst to the church member, their pastor’s doctorate is little more than words scrawled on used toilet paper.

As Paul Harvey used to say: now you know the rest of the story.

Doctorate-sporting IFB preachers are like Diotrephes in III John: they love to have the preeminence. Go to an IFB church or conference and watch how Dr. Bob or Dr. Jack or Dr. Paul are fawned over and treated like gods. I wonder when these Doctors last preached on James 2:

My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?

(Please see The Evangelical Cult of Personality.)

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Questions: Is a Doctorate of Theology of Any Value in the Secular Marketplace?

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questions

Jim asked:

Is a doctorate of theology of any value in the secular marketplace?

There are three types of religious institutions in the United States:

  • Institutions accredited by national accrediting agencies that accredit secular and religious institutions alike
  • Institutions accredited by religious accrediting agencies
  • Unaccredited institutions

If you have a Th.D (doctor of theology) from a nationally accredited institution, your degree may have value in the secular workplace. The same goes for a Ph.D. from a religious institutions. If your credits can transfer to a state institution, your degree will likely have credibility in the workplace.

If you have a Th.D (doctor of theology) from a school accredited by a religious accrediting agency, it is less likely your degree will have value in the secular workplace. It is unlikely that your credits will transfer to a state institution. Some of these accrediting agencies are little more than storefronts or PO boxes. Others are more rigorous, so your mileage may vary.

If you have a Th.D (doctor of theology) from an unaccredited college, your degree will likely be worthless in the secular workplace. Your credits cannot be transferred to a state institution.

Some employers won’t care whether your degree is from an accredited institution. Your education is just a line on your resume. Where accreditation becomes a problem is when you seek employment that requires licensure. For example, you may have a teaching degree from Pensacola Christian College, but the degree is worthless when it comes to being licensed to teach in a public school. Unaccredited Christian college degrees only have value among like-minded people and religious institutions. This is a hard lesson for people with such degrees to learn. They wrongly think employers will treat them as they do prospective employees with degrees from state institutions. Four to six years of college, only to learn their degree is worthless outside of the church, unaccredited colleges, Christian schools, and parachurch organizations.

Sometimes, employers won’t care whether your degree is from an accredited institution. Ignorant of what these schools teach, employers wrongly think all degrees are the same. Other times, having a religious degree hurts your employment prospects. The prospective employer might view you as a Bible thumper or wonder what you studied for four years. You spent four years studying the Bible? How will that apply to you doing this job? I had one resume “expert” tell me that I should remove from my resume all of my church experience, saying employers may view this negatively. I looked at her and said, “That will leave a twenty-five-year hole in my resume! Should I just say I was in prison for twenty-five years?”

Many people, encouraged by their parents, churches, and pastors, enroll at Christian colleges when they are young. They trust that these adults have their best interests at heart — and they do, from a religious perspective. However, you have no idea where your life will take you over the next forty years of your work career. You might decide to leave the ministry and enter the secular workforce. You will quickly learn that your theology or religious education degree has little value in the real world.

Let me conclude this post by talking about pastors who claim they have doctorates. While some Evangelical pastors have earned doctorates, many of them have honorary degrees or degrees “earned” from diploma mills or unaccredited institutions. In the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, almost all doctorates are honorary or from bogus institutions.

Please see IFB Doctorates: Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Everyone’s a Doctor for further information.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Twenty-One Things You Might Not Know About Evangelical Churches and Pastors

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did you know

Most Americans are quite ignorant about Evangelical churches and their pastors (I use the word “pastor” as a general term that encompasses pastors, elders, missionaries, evangelists, et al.). Here are twenty-one things you might not know:

  1.  Churches, by default, are tax-exempt. Churches do not have to apply for 501(c)(3) status in order to be exempt.
  2. In many states, churches are exempt from paying sales and real estate taxes.
  3. Anyone can start a church. (See How to Start an Independent Baptist Church.) A church is a church if it says it is.
  4. In many states, churches can operate Christian schools, daycares, teen group homes, and boarding schools without ANY government licensure or oversight.
  5. In many states, Christian schools are exempt from all laws governing schools. (See How to Start a Non-Charted Christian School in Ohio and The Anatomy of an Unaccredited Christian School.)
  6. In many states, churches can start colleges and grant degrees without ANY government licensure or oversight.
  7. Anyone can be a pastor. There are no educational or licensure requirements for becoming a pastor. A man is a pastor because he says he is.
  8. In many states, pastors can counsel people without having any training. In most states, pastors are not required to be licensed to counsel people. (Please see Beware of Christian Counselors, Questions: Should People Trust Christian Counselors with Degrees from Secular Schools?, Outrage Over Christian Counselor Post, Biblical Counseling, A Danger to Hurting Church Members,  and Why I Thought I was “Qualified” to Counsel Others.)
  9. Pastors are permitted to opt-out of paying social security tax. This means pastors don’t pay social security tax on their income and housing allowance.
  10. Pastors receive a housing allowance that is income tax-free.
  11. Pastors, in most instances, are treated as employees for income tax purposes and self-employed for social security purposes.
  12. Pastors can drive church-owned vehicles, thereby reducing their taxable income by thousands of dollars a year.
  13. The more expenditures churches pay on behalf of their pastors, the less income tax pastors have to pay.
  14. For many pastors, their effective tax rate is quite low. Many pastors pay NO income tax, especially if they have a number of children.
  15. Pastors can incorporate their ministries, shielding themselves from liability and lawsuits.
  16. Churches can also incorporate, shielding themselves from liability and lawsuits.
  17. Donations of money, personal goods, and property to churches are considered charitable, tax-deductible donations.
  18. Churches are exempt from filing non-profit tax returns.
  19. Churches are not required to do background checks on people who work with children and teenagers.
  20. There is no national database for pastors accused or found guilty of sexual abuse or other criminal behaviors.
  21. Many of the pastors who call themselves “Dr.” have honorary doctorates or doctorates from diploma mills. (See IFB Doctorates: Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Everyone’s a Doctor)

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

I’m Now Ordained Through The Church of the Latter-Day Dude

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the church of the latter-day dude

snark and humor ahead!

I believe in having all my bases covered, so I’ve added The Church of the Latter-Day Dude to my collection of ordination certificates. In 1983, I was ordained through Emmanuel Baptist Church in Buckeye Lake, Ohio.

baptist ordination1983
Bruce Gerencser Ordination, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Buckeye Lake, Ohio April 2, 1983

In 2011, I was ordained through the Universal Life Church.

universal life ordination
Bruce Gerencser, Universal Life Ordination, March 15, 2011

And just last week I was ordained by The Church of the Latter-Day Dude.

dudeism
Bruce Gerencser, Church of the Latter-Day Dude Ordination, November 28, 2015

Bruce Gerencser, Ohio License to Marry, May 2,1983
Bruce Gerencser, Ohio License to Marry, May 2,1983

ohio license to marry 2
Bruce Gerencser, Ohio License to Marry, March 22, 2011

A local Christian zealot by the name of Daniel Gray has taken issue with the fact that I can still marry people. In a July 2013 letter to the Defiance Crescent-News, Gray wrote:

Bruce Gerencser should use facts in his letters. His latest rant is so full of errors as to make his point completely obtuse. Here are a few examples…

…The fact that Gerencser can marry anyone is laughable. He received his claimed ministerial credentials by professing a faith in a deity and swearing to follow that religions teachings. So unless he does so, then his authority to marry anyone under the same is null and void. Anyone he marries could actually find that they are not and never have been married. And last, the only way to change our Constitution is by a constitutional amendment…

…History and facts yet again destroy the views of Gerencser. He should be used to that by now.

I publicly responded to Gray’s false accusations with a letter of my own. My letter was short and to the point:

For the third time Gray suggests that I am not legally able to marry people and that anyone married by me is in danger of having their marriage invalidated. Gray seems to not understand the legal requirements for being licensed to marry people in Ohio. I meet all the statutory requirements and I am duly licensed to marry people in Ohio. Anyone can verify this by doing a ministerial license search on the Ohio Secretary of state’s website.

Ohio has no statutory requirement as far as what type of ordination is acceptable when applying for a state license to marry people. Knowing that my Baptist ordination might not “technically” fulfill the letter of the law, I decided to seek ordination through the Universal Life Church. Before I submitted my ordination and license application to the state, I called the Secretary of State’s office to find out if I really could use ANY ordination when applying for a license to marry. They assured me that Ohio makes no judgment concerning the suitability of a licensee’s ordination. In other words, I could, if I wanted to, use my The Church of Latter-Day Dude ordination to get a license.  Awesome, right?

Bruce, are you making a mockery of religion? Duh, of course I am.

Did you know that I also have a doctorate in Biblical studies?  Yep, I “earned” my doctorate through God’s University.  Here’s proof:

doctorate
Bruce Gerencser, Doctorate of Biblical Studies, 2015

My degree is personally signed by Dr. Jack Hyles and Dr. Tom Malone. Surely, this is proof that my doctorate is the real deal (Even if they had to come back from the dead to sign it). If you’ve not read, IFB Doctorates: Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Everyone’s a Doctor, please do so.

Not only am I a thrice-ordained, state licensed marrying Sam with a doctorate from God’s University, I’m also Santa Claus. That’s right, I’m Santa Claus. How dare you doubt me, oh skeptic! Here’s proof that I am the one, true Santa Claus:

merry christmas

Take THAT, skeptics!

Notes

You can make your own fake stuff at PhotoFunia. Are you interested in becoming and ordained priest with The Church of the Latter-Day Dude? Click here for further information.

 

 

Bruce, What Do You Think of Russell Earl Kelly and His Position on Tithing?

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tithing

Several weeks back, I asked readers to submit questions they would like me to answer. If you would like to ask a question, please leave your question here.

Byroniac asked:

Bruce, have you ever heard of Russell Earl Kelly and his book, “Should the Church teach tithing?”. And if so, do you plan to blog about it? I promoted it as much as I could, and got ZERO attention for it, probably because I was not important enough to be noticed or because wherever I go I seem to become the proverbial black sheep. Considering that I have lost every single popularity contest I have ever been in, both inside and outside the church, I suppose this is not surprising. Anyways, even as a freethinker now, I still agree with the majority of what this guy teaches about tithing, to the best of my memory.

For readers who are unfamiliar with Russell Earl Kelly:

Russell Earl Kelly is an American Christian theologian, apologist, author, speaker and blogger. He writes nonfictional theological books. Russell is best known for evangelizing and debating why tithing 10% to one’s church is not a Christian obligation…

Russell graduated Cum Laude from Sprayberry High in 1962. From June 1962 until June 1966 he was in the U. S. A. F., received 22 semester hours in Chinese Mandarin at Yale University and was soon promoted to the Transcription Department while serving in Taiwan. Russell graduated Cum Laude from Southern Missionary College in Tennessee in 1976, now called Southern University Of Seventh Day Adventist, and served two churches in Georgia, four in North Dakota and one in South Carolina.

Although legally blind since 1989, Russell subsequently completed a Th. M.. and a Ph. D. at independent Baptist-oriented Covington Theological Seminary in Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia in August 2000. His dissertation was on the subject of tithing. From that dissertation came his first book, Should the Church Teach Tithing? A Theologian’s Conclusions about a Taboo Doctrine. His second book is Exposing Seventh-day Adventism, published in 2005. His third book, From Gethsemane to Ascension, An Ultimate Harmony of the Gospel, Easter and Resurrection Plays, February 2008, is in conversational style…

You can check out Kelly’s horrible looking Front Page/Windows 95 era looking website here. According to Sitemeter, the site averages about 500 page views a day. You can read his blog here.

Kelly is a 70-year-old New Covenant Independent Baptist who loves to put PhD after his name and talk about tithing. One would think that Kelly has a degree from a respected university, but he doesn’t. He earned his PhD at Covington Theological Seminary, an unaccredited Independent Baptist institution in Ft Oglethorpe, Georgia. Want a doctorate? It will cost you $2,395. Work required? 40 credit hours and a 25,000 to 50,000 word thesis. You can check out Covington’s catalog here.

I have made my view of unaccredited IFB doctorates quite clear in the post IFB Doctorates: Here a Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Everyone’s a Doctor. That said, education aside, Byroniac’s question is about Kelly’s view on tithing. While I have not read Kelly’s book, I do think his view on tithing is generally correct. Kelly states:

New Covenant giving is: freewill, sacrificial, generous, joyful, regular and motivated by love for God, fellow Christians and lost souls. Do not burden or curse God’s poor who struggle to feed and shelter their family. Although there is no set percentage for Christians to give, all should give sacrificially or lower your standards of living in order to further the reach of the Gospel.

Kelly, like many Independent Baptists, is a dispensationalist. There is no possible way for one to be a dispensationalist and still believe tithing is for today. There’s nothing in the New Testament that remotely teaches that Christians should give 10% of their gross income to the church (the storehouse). Preachers who believe in tithing must use Old Testament proof texts to prop up their beliefs. IFB preachers pretty much ignore the commands of the Old Testament except for the verses on tithing, women wearing men’s clothing, and sodomy. Many preachers added to the tithe requirement demands for special offerings and Faith Promise missionary offerings. It is not uncommon to see poor IFB church members giving 10-20% of their income to the church, believing that if they did so God would open the windows of heaven and pour them out a blessing. Like their faith healing counterparts, IFB preachers promise wonderful blessings from God if people will just open their wallet and give an above 10% offering to God.

While I think that Earl Kelly, based on what I have read on his blog and website, is full of himself, I do think he is essentially correct when it comes to tithing and what the New Testament teaches about giving. His teachings haven’t caught on because, for many churches, abandoning the tithe would bankrupt them and force their preacher to get a real job. Preachers have a vested interest in maintaining good cash flow and the tithe is the best way to do so.

When Polly and I were first married, we were tithers. We also gave a lot of money to missions and every time the church took a special offering we gave liberally. I would preach sermons on tithing, rebuking those who were stealing from God. I would preach from Malachi 3:8-10 sermons about those who robbed God:

Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

As my theology began to evolve and I was influenced by New Covenant theology and Calvinism, I came to see that tithing was an Old Testament command no longer in force. This change in belief was helpful because it allowed me to put an end to me receiving a pittance of a salary and then making it even more of a pittance by giving a tithe and offering. It made no sense for me to tithe when the church was not even paying me a living wage. Now, in the end, we often gave more than 10% of our income to the church or to parachurch ministries. Instead of seeing the church as the bank through which all funds must go, we gave some money to the church and then helped ministries and individuals as God led us to do so. Buying a homeless man a meal was just as important as giving the church $20.

Generally, I think most churches have way too much money and are poor stewards of what they do have. I had a banker in Somerset, Ohio tell me one time that I would be shocked if he told me how much money many of the local churches had on deposit. He told me this because he thought the church I pastored was different, knowing that we rarely had a $100 checking account balance.

I was of the opinion that money was meant to be spent. Yes, take care of the church building, fund ministries, and pay the preacher. Anything above that should be spent on ministering to others. The last church I pastored was sitting on a pile of money and the first thing I did was help them spend it. They had so much money in the bank that they hadn’t balanced the checkbook in years. I balanced the account for them and found that they had $5,000 more than they thought they did. In the seven months I was there, I had the church spend money on remodeling the building. Quite frankly, it was a dump. Of course, the church was fine with spending the money. Doing the actual construction work? A handful of men did all the work. Most of the members were quite happy to let others do the work. They were too busy bitching about the remodel to help, complaining about everything from wall and carpet colors to lighting. I lasted seven months and was so glad “God” led me elsewhere.

Do you have a tithing or giving story to share? I’d love to hear it. Please share your story in the comment section.

Note

You can download Kelly’s book here.

Paul Cohen thinks Kelly is a false prophet.