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rrmoderator
Let's not go overboard with "attack mode" rhetoric.

The point is public education.

People are free to believe whatever they want.

Yes, they are Rick. However, I am not criticizing McKay and the JC's [i:cd86414204]beliefs[/i:cd86414204] as much as I am their [i:cd86414204]behavior[/i:cd86414204], as in, their unethical recruitment and fund-raising methods. I propose that when a young recruit joins this group, it is not with fully informed consent. He or she does not see the big picture of what they're getting themselves into. So I am not interested so much in going after their [i:cd86414204]beliefs[/i:cd86414204] as I am McKay's [i:cd86414204]behavior.[/i:cd86414204] They start working on new recruits when they are yet minors, and they are very unethical as well in use of deception, lying, etc., to the end of their kidney-donation pursuits and other fund-raising endeavors. These methods are wrong, any way you look at it.

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matilda

(It is good to see that the heated rhetoric of the last week has subsided )

I agree.

In fact I think it would be good to let the JC's alone now as far as posting stuff on their forum, because Dave is using it all to solidify in his followers minds that he is being persecuted, causing them to rally around him. Although questions hardly rate as persecution.

The JC's are now blocking people from accessing their forum, and even deleting reasonable posts. Dave has now written an article claiming erroneously that this forum and Rick Ross encourages threats against him. His followers are believing it all.

Dave wants persecution. He says "bring it on". It is quite sad. It is similar to Saddham Hussain saying "operation desert storm" was to be the acpocalyptic "mother of all battles", in a vain hope that he would be responsible for kicking it off. In the same way, Dave hungers for something he can translate into persecution, something he can use to validate his flawed actions. The best and most hindering thing that can happen to his movement and him is that they and him are simply ignored.

I think it would be good for ex-members to continue communicating with each other, either via this forum, or privately, to work through any issues they feel they need to work through.

For me, I am going to take a break from Dave and his cronies. That is the beauty of being free. We can walk away and enjoy life. Dave can't.

He feels rejection everytime someone ignores his tracts, or rejects what he says. Dave is also a prisoner of his own delusions. He cannot speak with his own family or their children because of the knots he has tied himself into. For us, as ex members, we are free to walk away, spend time with our families, see the goodness that exists in the world, and man made systems. Dave is not free to do any of this. To pinch a Bible phrase [i:06b00b4c4f]"But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great [is] that darkness!"[/i:06b00b4c4f]

To Dave, and cult leaders like him, the whole world is full of darkness, and it all stems back to their judgemental attitude.

All this, is of course, my opinion.

There is truth in what you say, Apostate, but ignoring the antics of DM will not curb his progessive extremism. Matilda, all of your points are eerily familiar and I will comment on them in a seperate post.
DM can no longer say that there is not one ex member who has spoken out against him. With the exception of Zeus, the moderator and Anita, this board can speak from personal experience. Concern and empathy for present members, has been expressed here. Potential members looking up the Jesus Christians on search engines, will navigate here, and find infromation that will balance that from the JC website.
It would be useful to post a list of the JC publications here.

Dave’s McKay’s swan song! I paste it below with my thoughts in bold letters interspersed throughout the article.

Persecution and the Cross
We've said a fair bit in the past about persecution, and about our need to be willing to endure it. Just as happened to Jesus, there were people who tried to say that we were paranoid, that we were imagining things. At times we were just speaking theoretically, i.e. accepting that if Jesus really knew what he was talking about and that if we were really following him, then we would ultimately face the same kind of persecution that he received (as he clearly promised). It was just childlike faith in what Jesus had promised (one of those promises that never appear in a churchy 'promise box'!)
Most of our "persecution" over the years has just been expressed as snubs, especially from the religious establishment. People just kind of distance themselves from us, but don't say much about why they are doing it. And they don't appear to say that much about us to one another either, everyone just kind of quietly agreeing not to mention us and hoping that we will go away.
Of course the murder attempt on Reinhard was pretty extreme, and definitely in line with the kind of stuff we had been saying would happen (and the kind of stuff that everyone laughed at as sheer imagination). But it was still possible that Jared Johnson and company were just a one-off family of violent crazies, who might have done the same thing to almost anyone who disagreed with them. "It's really awful what they did to Reinhard," people would say, but then they would imply that it was definitely not the sort of thing that society as a whole would condone.

[b:23a65e086e]It is true society as a whole does not condone the beating of Reinhard. To say so is to mislead your followers[/b:23a65e086e]

Then we felt that God was leading us, in connection with the murder attempt (and the fact that the Long Beach Police Department had strangely 'lost' the file on it) to conduct some kind of a trial of our own in Long Beach... a trial that would do more than protest against the injustice, but that would also illustrate something about the cross of Christ.
For a group that had never said much of anything about the cross (because we were more interested in Jesus the Teacher), this in itself was a bit out of character. But the more we talked about it, the more it seemed that the cross was becoming real to us. It was a shocking symbol of torture and injustice at the same time that it has become an icon of infinite mercy and, as we were quickly discovering, God's symbolic promise of ultimate justice. Something was changing in our whole understanding of the cross.
We were starting to gain an appreciation for the radical implications of those final few chapters of each of the gospels. They held out hope of a world that will one day be truly just, and the message seemed so far removed from the do-nothing selfishness of the churchy interpretation of the cross.
Almost from the start we sensed that this was going to become the nail the entire world needed to hang us on. We discussed it and counted the cost, then all agreed together to go for it. If taking a hard stand against sin but a radically soft stand toward the sinner was going to be the excuse everyone needed to come out from behind the trees and start shooting, then let the shooting begin.

[b:23a65e086e]Dave the world does not want to “hang you” on any nail. The fact that society as a whole does not condone your desire to bring back public floggings to the judicial system hardly equates with persecution. Western society is just naturally repulsed by such primitive means of dealing with crime. That is why jails were invented in the first place[/b:23a65e086e]

And so it has!
Faux News set the pace with as many distortions as it could cram into eight minutes, and then climaxed with a tear-jerker about this poor family who had now been charged with assault on top of all the other horrible things they had suffered at the hands of the Jesus Christians.
Our rational minds could see how someone might, at the worst, say, "How weird! Imagine whipping yourselves for something someone else did!" But the Faux report was not prepared to stop there, and neither has anyone else who has heard about it.
You only have to scan the flurry of activity that has been taking place at the Rick Ross forum since Nov. 7, to see that the trial in Long Beach has become the turning point in our history, the excuse that everyone needed to come together and express their hatred.

[b:23a65e086e] Phrases like “turning point in our history” are concerning because it speaks of an entrenched mindset that sees genuine concern for the welfare of people within your group as false. The extreme teachings and actions you now display have motivated some to criticize you. Criticism does not equal hatred for you, or your group Dave. It is sad that you equate criticism with hatred. Did your father criticise you a lot as you were growing up? Did this cause you feel as though he hated you? You can get help to overcome these feeling of low self esteem[/b:23a65e086e]

Here is a typical posting:
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[i:23a65e086e]I realize that as a believer I am supposed to pray for those who do evil and all, but quite honestly: in the flesh, when it comes to Dave McKay (and I know I've never met the man so tell me if I am out in left field here) I say "screw him"; I think of him the same way I'd think of somebody who rapes kids. I have no mercy nor compassion in my heart for people who do that sort of thing. Same with McKay, except in my mind he's worse, more perverse than a guy who rapes kids. Sorry if the content of this message is too graphic for you; I'm just trying to put a fine point on what I am driving at here. Because like I said he rapes minds and kills souls. And so I really don't feel sorry for the man. He ought to be locked up forever. He's like another type of serial rapist, he's just found a legal way to take what he wants by force and f**k people's minds in the process. [/i:23a65e086e]

[b:23a65e086e] This is not a typical posting, nor is it representative of all ex members.[/b:23a65e086e]

People on that forum (including Rick Ross himself) did NOT question the hatred of this man. Instead, they fueled it and joined together, more or less under his leadership to declare war on myself and the Jesus Christians. Here is another posting:
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[i:23a65e086e]Now that I have seen that video of the trial I have decided to go into full-on "attack mode" and really work, dedicate substantial time and energy, in exposing and breaking up this group. I have made this one of my missions in life and do not plan on letting McKay get or stay comfortable. I am dedicated and have taken this on as my cause; that is, organized anti-McKay activity. Precision-guided bombing, so to speak. What I am trying to do might cause some pain in McKay's children's lives, and I am not insensitive to that, but the whole goal here is in preventing equal and greater pain and disruption in the lives of others. [/i:23a65e086e]

The numbers continued to grow as more and more people flowed to the forum to express their outrage.

[b:23a65e086e] Expressing outrage is not wrong. After all it is outrageous that your group whipped a person in Africa for a sin. It is outrageous that group members are now whipping each other. Expressing outrage also does not equal hatred for you or your group[/b:23a65e086e]

Here is another posting:
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[i:23a65e086e]Somebody has got to stand up and do something before more people get hurt, or worse, before people start dying. This man (McKay) is dangerous and very sick and is more destructive than a rapist or a murderer. He rapes people's minds and kills their spirits. So I agree: we've got to take him and his group out before people start dying. By "take him out" I mean put an end to the JCs, disband them, and get McKay the psychiatric care he needs. Campaign to get this chicken-hawk put away. [/i:23a65e086e]

[b:23a65e086e] Dave Mckay has quoted ONE person and made it appear to be representative of the whole forum, and Rick Ross himself. This is dishonest behavior Dave and is what brings criticism your way. If you were to be more honest in such matters you would find the criticism decrease. [/b:23a65e086e]

Okay, so Jared and his family were not the only crazies in the world. Maybe Rick Ross had managed to gather a small group of other crazies who were harmlessly venting their rage through his forum. But then the attack began to spread "closer to home" as Tony Barry, Sydney, put it. They started to write letters to anyone with any contact with myself or the Jesus Christians, calling on them to view the video. Like I said, the trial (or at least the video of it) has become the focal point for all of this irrational hatred. They called on people to stop us, the same way that Craig Hendry attacked the work we were doing with refugees at Woomera some six years ago. (Craig, of course, was also there amongst the leaders.)

[b:23a65e086e] The video of the trial you held is public domain. How is telling people to watch the video of your trial attacking you? People can form their own decisions by seeing for themselves what you have said and done.[/b:23a65e086e]

We found other living organ donors suddenly coming out of the closet and saying, "I knew it all along. They are forced to donate their kidneys by that horrible man. He must be stopped."

[b:23a65e086e] The video of your trial is public domain. If people are now coming out with criticisms because of hearing about or viewing the video it is because your action has brought consequences. If you want people to think well of you modify your behavior in accord with how a civil society operates. Whipping people IS barbaric [/b:23a65e086e]

Even on the Quaker forum, people started saying, "This kind of activity must not be allowed to continue." One Quaker said of the trial and the whippings that all she could feel was "total revulsion" at what was being described... and that was after listening to half an hour of explanations about how we saw it as an expression of love and not of hate, and a plea from us not to condemn what they might not understand.

[b:23a65e086e] That person was entitled to their opinion, even after listening to your justifications. They decided that what you did was uncivil[/b:23a65e086e]

But was anybody listening?

[b:23a65e086e] Disagreement does not mean people are not listening Dave. It means they have listened to what you have to say and found your reasoning untenable[/b:23a65e086e]

What I am saying here is that Jesus did a lot of things that outraged people.

[b:23a65e086e] There are no examples of him whipping people for crimes[/b:23a65e086e]

They couldn't stand the thought of him and his disciples not having to slave away at jobs that they didn't like. They were jealous of his miraculous power. They feared his confidence and boldness in the face of their threats. All of it angered people. But it culminated in his willingness to lay his own life down as a sacrifice for others. It was just his WILLINGNESS to suffer for love that made people want to MAKE him suffer.

[b:23a65e086e] This is nonsense[/b:23a65e086e]

As Jesus said, "For what good deed do you seek to kill me?"
As the quotes above would indicate, the plot to demonise me (and make no mistake, the campaign target will pass on to the next in line the moment I have been "taken out") is centering on some kind of unspeakable abomination committed against the people who have joined the Jesus Christians in the past and later left.

[b:23a65e086e] All criticism from ex-members has been spoken clearly. [/b:23a65e086e]

Throughout our entire history, we have prided ourselves on the fact that people who have left our community have never come out publicly and exposed any scandal that took place while they were with us. One embittered member left us twenty years ago, promising to go public as soon as he could find something to nail us on. He's still trying.
Eight years ago, the whole community split down the middle, after twelve of 25 members tried unsuccessfully to vote me out as the leader. In the end, two of them were voted out, and their followers went with them.
They have continued to meet together ever since, and have scoured the world looking for other disgruntled members. But they have never come up with anything to charge us with. We have even asked them several times over the years exactly why it was that they left, and the answers that have come back have differed every time, usually something along the lines of "You know why."
But now, with the release of the Faux News video about the whipping trial, they believe they have their cause celebre, the ultimate case against the Jesus Christians. After all, whips hurt, and it was a Jesus Christian who was wielding it. How easy it would be to make people believe that they had been whipped while members of the Jesus Christians.
But, of course, it was Jesus Christians themselves who were (perhaps stupidly) volunteering to be the recipients of the punishment, and two of the four volunteers were the evil leaders of the group.... the monster himself, and his wife. That is so casually brushed aside, as just some sick publicity stunt. The point is (to those who have become consumed with righteous indignation) that people's minds are being raped, their souls are being killed. A monster is on the loose. Revulsion is everywhere.

[b:23a65e086e] You neglect to mention the public flogging of a volunteer in Kenya for no other reason than simply punishment and future deterance[/b:23a65e086e]

When I point out that I suffered more pain at the hands of my track coach in high school, or that there are hundreds of people belonging to kinky sex clubs who do worse, people get outraged that I would even suggest that these people fall into the same category as serial rapists and mass murderers.
We hardly understand OURSELVES just what the trial was aiming to achieve (although we've written a fair bit about it on the "cross" link on our home page), but we're starting to feel kind of good that this is apparently going to be the issue that galvanises and unites our enemies, whether they be raving fundamentalists, atheists, left-wing theologians, mental patients, prosperity gospellers, university lecturers, or so-called experts on cults. This wonderful cross-section of humanity is coming together in unity against a handful of people who dared to experiment with what it really means to take up our cross and follow the example of Christ.
Wonderful. Bring them on! And take note how they still mutter that we are just imagining that we are being persecuted!

[b:23a65e086e] Dave, it IS your imagination. Disagreement with you does not equal persecution. This article contains quite a few fabrications. Such things do not help your cause[/b:23a65e086e]

Dave, I have decided that any and all communications between you and I should be both visible and public. This private conversation we've been having via private messaging and email actually works to subvert the board. I will not play your flattery games and you are not my friend. We have little in common. You will not win me over; to you I am a Saul you seek to convert to a Paul and it ain't gonna work. I would still nonetheless desire to meet with the US Team in a place and at a time of their choosing. No games. No ulterior motives. No BS. No tricks. Just a friendly meeting for food, fellowship, and discussion. Seriously. If anybody desires to set something up along those lines, you know where to reach me. If you want to email me a day and time that's one thing, but I will not engage in any more private messaging with you. You have my email address and know you can find me via the private messanger here. That is all. Goodbye and the ball is now in your court.

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In fact I think it would be good to let the JC's alone now as far as posting stuff on their forum, because Dave is using it all to solidify in his followers minds that he is being persecuted, causing them to rally around him. Although questions hardly rate as persecution.

I agree. I wouldn't be surprised if this supposed "persecution" leads to him coming up with some new and more outrageous publicity stunt to shock the world and try to pin the blame on the ex-members.

The letter that apostate posted above shows DM trying to make it appear as if a whole mob of people are after him. All he is doing is quoting one individual who was never even a member and he knows that. It is just another example of DM trying to use sensationalism to control things.

I wonder if Rick Ross has visited their forum to see all the nasty things written about him there.

I would like to remain available here for anyone who has questions or concerns about the group. I hope that the other ex-members will too.

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Gladitzover

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In fact I think it would be good to let the JC's alone now as far as posting stuff on their forum, because Dave is using it all to solidify in his followers minds that he is being persecuted, causing them to rally around him. Although questions hardly rate as persecution.

I agree. I wouldn't be surprised if this supposed "persecution" leads to him coming up with some new and more outrageous publicity stunt to shock the world and try to pin the blame on the ex-members.

The letter that apostate posted above shows DM trying to make it appear as if a whole mob of people are after him. All he is doing is quoting one individual who was never even a member and he knows that. It is just another example of DM trying to use sensationalism to control things.

I wonder if Rick Ross has visited their forum to see all the nasty things written about him there.

I would like to remain available here for anyone who has questions or concerns about the group. I hope that the other ex-members will too.

Hey, I'm just a very concerned citizen who is doing everything he can to educate the public. I met with them one time as a group and for less then an hour (this was in the spring of '02, around the time the John Ronson article was published), and came away from that experience so alarmed and disturbed that I've followed their activities even since, as I recognized real potential for danger. I have always made that clear on this board. When did I ever try and represent everybody? For me this is a matter of conscience and as such I will continue to track them, etc. [b:ae642cff39]Why do your people work with minors, Dave? That is wrong. [/b:ae642cff39] Now Dave apparently is becoming more and more demented and is clearly going off the deep end, increasing his attention seeking behavior. [b:ae642cff39]Well, if it's attention you want, it's attention you'll get, Dave! [/b:ae642cff39]I can't be inactive if I know this is going on. Like if I knew there was a pedophile on the loose and I knew where he was. Same thing pretty much in my mind. I know I don't remember what Fran or Sue looks like. At least they probably do not remember what I look like, and I live in the States, where I can be closer to where they are and all. Gives me a certain advantage.

On the one hand, you are setting up meetings with the JC's and on the other, you are addressing DM in an aggressive fashion. Are you responding to some of those private messages you mentioned or what is the story?
Were you involved with this group ?

Zeuszor, it seems a bit random to go after the JCs bigtime when your only experience of them is to have met them briefly. Why them and not some other group?

Not that all cults being exposed isn't good, but get your own life how you would like it first and foremost, rather than spending a lot of time on a group you've never really had much involvement with.

There will be ex-members I'm sure at some point who will be willing and able to expose the JCs in a big way.

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muppet
On the one hand, you are setting up meetings with the JC's and on the other, you are addressing DM in an aggressive fashion. Are you responding to some of those private messages you mentioned or what is the story?
Were you involved with this group ?

The description of my one very brief visit with the JCs is clearly outlined on these boards. I am not [i:cf623fa407]against[/i:cf623fa407] the JCs per se, but I am very troubled with their unethical behavior in terms of recruiting methods and fund-raising. I'd like to meet with them to discuss these issues in person and in a spirit of some kind of fellowship. I am not anti-JCs, but I do have a problem with their leadership. Why not try and meet, guys? What are they going to do, eat [i:cf623fa407]me[/i:cf623fa407] for dinner? Yes, I am addressing some of those PMs between McKay and myself and letting him know that we are not friends and I do not care about how much he supposedly admires me.

As far as why do I target them? Well, I think people are going to start dying if somebody doesn't do something to expose and thwart them. McKay is a very very sick man. What difference does it make if I am an ex-member or not? I will not sit by and let this group mentally kidnap another teenager if I can help it. It is a matter of conscience to me. An a greater level, I too am a believer and hate to see these young people led so far astray. I consider it of form of missionary work. So my reasons are personal as well as spiritual.