OK, there's Matthew 12:30, and also Luke 11:23. I do not have the time or energy to go into some long exegesis here. It is sufficient to say that taken and interpreted out of context, these passages can be twisted to help justify just about anything that you choose to do in the name of "God". Jesus was talking to his disciples and basically saying that we're all working to build the same Kingdom. TFI is not the Kingdom of God, so it does not follow that anybody that anybody that speaks out about Ole and his abusive nature is working against [i:463411219c]Jesus and His Kingdom.[/i:463411219c] We are exhorting a brother in love. We beg him to recieve it. Ole's position is something like, "I speak the truth and don't hold anything back because I live by faith and say anything that pops into my head and comes out of my mouth. If people are offended or hurt that I made fun of their pitiful little self-esteem, that's not my problem." Therefore, he is absolved in his conscience of having to own up to treating people like crap. He does not have to feel guilty. "That's your problem", he'll say. Not very Christlike.

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NathanA
Also, I flat out don't believe you when you call Ole a liar. I'd trust his word over yours.

What evidence do you have that I have ever said anything in this context that is not true? There is not a single thing that I have written on any discussion board or that my wife wrote in her book that anybody from Trinity has been able to dispute, other than disagreeing with our judgment that the abuse there rises to the level that Trinity deserves to be called a cult. I acknowledge that whether Trinity is a cult or just an abusive church is a judgment call, but, as to the facts, not even Trinity has been able to contradict anything we have said.

Ole, on the other hand, has had his veracity challenged in several areas. I will point you again to the sidebar of the Observer article, which was done by an investigative reporter, Glenna Whitley, who is a highly respected journalist in Dallas and who spent weeks researching her story (see below). The point is that, at the very least, Ole has generated a bit of a credibility gap. I just don't see how you could say you trust his word over ours.

The Man and the Myth

Ole Anthony has built a mythology of his life dating back to childhood.
Here's what is true: Anthony was born in Minnesota on October 3, 1938, and moved with his family to Wickenburg, Arizona, at age 10. The desert town called itself the "dude ranch capital of the world." His mother, a nurse's aide, ran a small nursing home until her death in 1997. His parents divorced, and his father died in 1972.

Anthony, however, has made many claims that the Dallas Observer found to be false or exaggerated after interviewing numerous people who grew up with him and examining public records as well as documents provided by Anthony himself.

Claim: Anthony says he was Wickenburg's most notorious juvenile delinquent. At age 16, he says, he grew his hair and beard long, used heroin with a girlfriend and stole cars.

Reality: His classmates and younger sister say that Anthony did not have long hair and a beard in high school. Outwardly, at least, he was an ordinary teen. An article that appeared on August 12, 1955, in the Wickenburg Sun lists Anthony, then 16, as a Safeway employee. His senior picture in the 1956 Wickenburg High School annual shows a neatly groomed Anthony wearing a National Honor Society pin on his lapel. He was co-editor of the yearbook and belonged to the radio club.

Claim: Anthony told The New Yorker in 2004 that he was arrested for setting fire to a 40-foot wooden cross in a desert amphitheater on Easter morning in 1955 and was given the choice of prison or the military. Anthony picked the Air Force, enlisting in March 1956, two months before he would have graduated from high school.

Reality: He did enlist in the Air Force, but the fiery cross had nothing to do with it. In 1995, Anthony told The Charlotte Observer that when he was "about 14," he and another boy burned the cross as a prank but were never arrested.

Claim: In the Air Force during the Cold War, Anthony was chosen for a top-secret unit that looked for evidence of nuclear weapons tests. While witnessing a nuclear bomb test in the South Pacific, he was blown into the water. Then, after receiving "two presidential citations," Anthony left the military but continued clandestine work. From 1956 to 1968, "Anthony skulked behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains, installing arrays of seismic, atmospheric, and oceanographic sensors," The New Yorker said.

To fight Robert Tilton's charges that he lied about his background, Anthony obtained an affidavit in 1991 from a former commanding officer stating that from 1956 to 1968, Anthony was a "surveillance operative and analyst" for the Air Force and later was a contract employee. He had top-secret clearance and was "trained and qualified in foreign and domestic small arms." The affidavit also notes that he "studied and translated in several foreign languages" and acquired "advanced training in surveillance techniques."

Reality: Anthony's DD-214, a discharge record that the Observer obtained with his permission, confirms that Anthony served in the Air Force from March 13, 1956, until December 10, 1959, as a "special weapons maintenance technician." But the only training he received beyond basic was a 10-month school in electronics. Anthony admits he speaks no foreign languages. He received the Good Conduct Medal and two "outstanding unit" awards and was discharged as an airman second class.

When the Observer contacted Captain William D. Ballard, who supposedly wrote the affidavit provided in the Tilton case, he offered a different version of events. He confirmed that Anthony was chosen for a top-secret unit of the USAF that installed seismic monitoring systems to detect nuclear weapons tests around the world. But while Anthony spent almost a year in South Korea and four months in Alaska, his group did not go behind the "Iron and Bamboo Curtains." There's no evidence from his record that Anthony witnessed atomic tests in the South Pacific. "We were not that kind of field operation," Ballard says.

Ballard didn't return several other phone calls from the Observer when I sought to confirm whether he'd written the affidavit in the first place.

Claim: Anthony's résumés, campaign literature and Trinity press releases say that he received his "formal education" at the University of Arizona, SMU and Harvard.

Reality: The sum total: an uncompleted semester at UA, a seminar at SMU and a short continuing-education business management course at Harvard.

Claim: The New Yorker quoted Anthony as saying, "I own nothing, I have nothing, and I make $55 a week...I'm 66 years old, and I have no privacy and no retirement plan."

Reality: Records provided by Anthony show that since 1985, he has received an annuity of $600 a month, plus lump sum payments paid on November 1 every five years, for a total of approximately $214,000 to date. The last lump sum payment was $25,000 in 2005.

Yeah, I admitt that I cannot disprove every claim and reality made in that article, but there are a few things that make me doubt it.

1)the money Ole had at Meril Lynch was being taken care of by another Trinity member, it seems that Ole was not trying to hide it. Considering that the article says that Ole provided those records to them also strongly suggests that he was not deliberately hiding something.

2)Ole has studied Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, so that could full well be what he was refering to when he wrote in the Tilton case that he had "translated and studied foreign languages." I suspect that when he was questioned about it later that he was not thinking of this when he said he didn't know any other languages.

3)To the best of my memory, Ole said he grew his hair out long and had a beard later on in life. I don't remember him saying it was during his adolescent years. That is only what I remembering him saying. I question the accuracy of the article's claim of Ole's claim. Ole may have not remembered correctly either.

4)Ole claiming he recieved his formal education at the U of Arizona, SMU and Harvard. He did. He may not have completed a degree, and as far as the article states he did not claim to- so how was he lying? To portray it like his claim did not match reality seems to be the real deception.

I believe that Ole may have mistakenly described some details in his life wrong. Human memory is not perfect. I do not believe he has deliberately been deceptive in his portrayal of himself. Guess what? I don't remember everything perfectly myself all the time. I don't see a serious credibility gap as the article tries to prove. I don't see Ole as a deceptive individual or in denial of his mistakes.

I am thankful that you at least said that there could be some debate as to whether they are a cult or an abusive church. I doubt Rick Ross will categorize them as a cult unless something changes at Trinity. If anything they would be an abusive church. That doesn't bother me so much because Jesus said things that were "abusive" too. Like, "Let the dead bury the dead," to a guy whose Father died. I haven't even heard Ole say anything as hard as that to anyone.

Well, it is pretty obvious that you already have your mind made up and that you are going to think what you want to think, regardless of what I say. The fact is that this debate could go on endlessly, and that feels pretty tedious to me. If you want to research this further you can get my wife's book and read it.[...]

When Wendy and I first started this process, our goal was to simply tell our story in the most genuine and honest way that we could. I think we have done that. Some people believe us and some do not, which is entirely predictable. There are always going to be die-hards who will not give up a belief system, even when there is lots of evidence to contradict it. We will only be setting ourselves up for frustration if we think it is our job to convince everyone that what we are saying is true. We know ourselves that it is, so we will just have to leave it up to God to grant "ears to hear" to other people. We have told our story, and that is all we can do.

I do not think I can convince you of anything, Nathan. You are certainly free to examine the evidence and draw your own conclusions. I wish you the best in your continued efforts to live out the call of our Lord in the way that seems right to you.

Did you even look at the points I made Doug? Am I just inventing explanations so I can believe what I want, or is there maybe something legitimate about what I am saying? You can make anything sound remotely plausible to believe what you want. Yet are these points I've made not highly plausible?

If you're going to appear on the Rick Ross site arguing that Trinity is an abusive cult, you'd better offer substance in what you say here and not just expect everyone to read your wife's book. Reread all your posts Doug, much of the time you've depended on the fact that you were there for so long to be credible. You have not argued any theology, or been able to demonstrate that Ole has really had psychological control over the group. If good information is too dense for you to provide here, why should we believe that you're not just out to sell books? Why don't you quote some portions of the book? Maybe with the moderator's permission?

It is OK to quote portions of the book.

But let's not go over the top and make this a book promotion thread.

You have raised some interesting points NathanA.

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NathanA
Did you even look at the points I made Doug? Am I just inventing explanations so I can believe what I want, or is there maybe something legitimate about what I am saying? You can make anything sound remotely plausible to believe what you want. Yet are these points I've made not highly plausible?

If you're going to appear on the Rick Ross site arguing that Trinity is an abusive cult, you'd better offer substance in what you say here and not just expect everyone to read your wife's book. Reread all your posts Doug, much of the time you've depended on the fact that you were there for so long to be credible. You have not argued any theology, or been able to demonstrate that Ole has really had psychological control over the group. If good information is too dense for you to provide here, why should we believe that you're not just out to sell books? Why don't you quote some portions of the book? Maybe with the moderator's permission?

I did look at the points you made Nathan, and I did, in fact, get the feeling that you were just inventing explanations so that you could believe what you wanted. I thought you were just being gamey, and not really interested in the truth. However, since Rick says he has no problem with me quoting from the book, I offer the following exerpt from Wendy's book:

Nevertheless, Ole maintained that he had a normal childhood. In William Lobdell’s interview with Ole, “Onward Christian Soldier,” published in The Los Angeles Times on December 8, 2002, the reporter wrote that, according to Ole, “something snapped” when he turned sixteen and he became his hometown’s “most notorious juvenile delinquent.” One Easter morning he went out to an amphitheater where an Easter sunrise service was to take place and torched a wooden cross. Ole was arrested and given the options of going to jail or enlisting in the military.
Military records validate that Ole was, in fact, in the Air Force, and his listed date of service began on March 13, 1956. While the anecdote regarding his burning of the cross makes an interesting story, this could not have been the precipitating factor to his entry into the military, because the date he entered the service was two weeks prior to the date of Easter. In the year 1956, Easter Sunday was on April 1.
Ole often recalled the story of torching the cross as the causative event for his entry into the military; however, former members also recall another anecdote, which may have been closer to the truth. When Ole was seventeen years of age, he stole drugs from the hospital where his mother worked as a nurse. His mother was horrified when he was accused of this crime and the local law enforcement agreed to not charge him if he would join the military. Whatever the precipitating incident, it is verifiable from military records that Ole was in the Air Force from March 13, 1956 to March 12, 1962—and on active duty from March 13, 1956, to December 10, 1959. Military records indicate that Ole was discharged as an Airman Second Class.
During his time in the Air Force, Ole reported that he was with the Defense Intelligence Agency and traveled all around the world as a surveillance operative monitoring the atomic weapons activities of other countries. In the article entitled, “The Terror of the Televangelists,” published by D Magazine in its April 1992 issue, Casey Miller wrote:
Oddly enough, Anthony came upon the religious life after being a spy and a Republican organizer. For eleven years, he worked for the Air Force and the Defense Intelligence Agency, traveling the world undercover to investigate groups trying to develop nuclear weapons. He also witnessed sixteen atomic explosions at various United States government test sites.

In later years, when he became founder and president of the Trinity Foundation, Ole alleged that his important assignment in the Air Force provided experience for him in undercover work, which he later used in his surveillance of televangelists. Verification of this information was not attainable; however, according to one ex-military person, it would have been highly improbable for someone in the Air Force with only the rank of Airman Second Class and a high school diploma to be assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency. This agency, moreover, was not established until October 1, 1961, which further casts doubts on Ole’s claim. Interestingly, it was not until after the Trinity Foundation conducted investigations of the televangelists that newspaper articles appeared in which Ole alleged that he served in the Defense Intelligence Agency. His 1968 campaign brochure, when he ran for state representative, bore no mention of being in the DIA, although it did state that he served in the Air Force.
Ole’s tale of his life after the Air Force was equally as impressive as his alleged military experience—and even more remarkable for a man raised in a middle-class family who only had one semester of college. On the matter of his education, there appeared to be a number of inconsistencies with statements he made at different times on the same subject. For example, in his campaign brochure of 1968 he claimed to have had a formal education from the University of Arizona and postgraduate work in business and science as well. In an article, “Trinity Foundation Leader Inspires Others, (1/14/89) published in the Dallas Morning News, reporter Jeffrey Weiss indicated that Ole received his “undergraduate training in geophysics”; however, in another newspaper article, “The Undercover Thorn in Robert Tilton’s Side,” in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram written three years later (1/26/92), reporter Jim Jones writes that Ole was a pre-med student at Arizona State University.” Yet, at other times, Ole admitted that he had never graduated from college.
In an attempt to determine his educational background, multiple calls to universities in Arizona and Colorado were made. According to Arizona State University and several other colleges, there was no record of Ole’s enrollment or attendance at these schools. The University of Arizona had records of his attendance there in the fall of 1960. Although he enrolled in the spring semester, university records indicated that he withdrew on February 28, 1961.
Following his discharge from the Air Force, Ole said that he went to work for Teledyne, Incorporated and accumulated a “three-and-one-half-million-dollar Wall Street fortune” that he later lost when his company, Ocean Resources, Incorporated, filed for bankruptcy in 1971 (Fort Worth Weekly, “Pounding the Pious,” May 8–15, 1997 by Stacy Schnellenbach-Bogel). Ole alleged that he lost this oceanography firm, which specialized in offshore oil exploration when the Santa Barbara oil spill resulted in the secretary of the interior temporarily banning offshore drilling in 1971. Although Ole claimed to have amassed over a three-million-dollar fortune, court records indicated that from 1968 until 1971 numerous lawsuits were filed against him by creditors resulting in financial judgments levied against him.
Much of Ole’s well-crafted account of his background was mingled with hyperbole, if not fabrication. There was always enough of the truth that the other details were not questioned. For example, he often talked about the period of his life when he was involved in politics. Ole claimed to have been a Texas Coordinator for the Goldwater-for-President Campaign in 1964. In an interview with Ole, a writer for D Magazine said in April 1992, “After retiring from the spy business in the mid-1960s, he (Ole)…was a Texas coordinator for Goldwater for President ’64.”
Ole also indicated that in 1966 he was the late Senator John Tower’s regional campaign manager, according to the article by Delia M. Rios, “Ole Anthony’s Religious Community Lives by an Ancient Code,” published in the Dallas Morning News on December 22, 1991.
In my research of hundreds of newspaper articles, books, and Internet searches from that time period in the 1960s regarding those two campaigns, I was unable to find one reference to Ole in either one of these two campaigns. I did uncover a copy of Ole’s campaign brochure when he ran in the 1968 race for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives. Interestingly, this publicity material, which was printed in 1968, made no mention of Ole’s role as a Goldwater Texas coordinator in 1964 or as regional campaign manager for Tower in 1966. This alleged part of his political career did not surface in any newspaper or magazine article until the late 1980s and 1990s. It seems curious that a political candidate would not mention those significant accomplishments, which supposedly occurred only two to four years prior to his candidacy, among his credentials in his campaign brochure. What was listed in his pamphlet is that he served as precinct chairman, president of the Garland Republican Men’s Club, and as a member of the Dallas Grand Ole Party (GOP) Executive committee. While those positions are somewhat impressive, it would seem that serving as a Texas coordinator in the Goldwater presidential campaign and as regional manager in Tower’s senate race would be much more prestigious and, thus, worth mentioning in one’s campaign brochure.
Another discrepancy between Ole’s account of his background and the actual historical fact is the claim, which he made in both public conversations and in several newspaper interviews published from the 1990s to the present, that he had been one of the Dallas delegates to the National Republican Convention in 1968. One of several articles in which Ole reported that he had been a delegate to the convention was in an interview Brad Bailey published in the Dallas Observer on July 18, 1991. In Bailey’s article, “The Guru of East Dallas,” he wrote that in that same year (1968), he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention and ran as an at-large candidate for the Texas State Legislature, losing by only a few thousand votes, he (Ole) says.” However, another article, “Chance Encounter Has Chain Reaction,” published in the Dallas Morning News during that time (August 17, 1968) described an interaction that Ole had with the Reverend Ralph Abernathy at the Republican National Convention. Abernathy had been seated next to Ole and apparently had used Ole’s name when he told television reporters that he wanted to address the national convention and was planning to do so with the aid of Ole Anthony. In the newspaper article, the reporter wrote:

Just how did Anthony, who wasn’t even a delegate to the convention, end up on network television sitting next to the chairman of the Southern Leadership Conference? Anthony gave this account: As a state representative candidate for Place 3 in Dallas County, Anthony was given the title of honorary sergeant-at-arms at the convention. “I was just sitting there in my seat, and noticed a big rash of movement coming in. They (50 members of the Poor People’s March) came up to the aisle to me, and suddenly there was Abernathy sitting next to me. We were both in our assigned seats.”


It appears that although Ole claimed through numerous newspaper articles that he had been a delegate to the 1968 Republican Convention, the actual truth was that he had been given the title of honorary sergeant-at-arms because he was a state representative candidate. Of all the claims that Ole made concerning his “political career,” the only verifiable claim was that he was a candidate in the 1968 race for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives, but was not elected.
If these dubious statements had been made before Ole had founded the Trinity Foundation and made a career out of exposing the hypocrisies of the televangelists, one might be able to dismiss the inconsistencies concerning his own background as being of little importance; however, for an individual who preached that men of God should adhere to rigid honesty and be highly accountable, it is troubling that there are so many discrepancies regarding his background and his life.
By Ole’s own account, he enlisted in the Air Force at age seventeen, spent eleven years carrying out surveillance missions for the Defense Intelligence Agency by monitoring Chinese and Soviet nuclear weapons programs; observed the explosion of the hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific; witnessed dozens of nuclear tests; became the Texas Coordinator for the Goldwater-for-President campaign; was regional campaign manager for John Tower; ran for state legislature; accrued a Wall Street fortune of three and one-half million dollars while working at Teledyne; and founded his own oceanography company—all before the age of thirty-three! Amazing accomplishments for a young man with only a high school education and one semester of college.

To address your points more specifically:

[i:aea3ca619e]1)the money Ole had at Meril Lynch was being taken care of by another Trinity member, it seems that Ole was not trying to hide it. Considering that the article says that Ole provided those records to them also strongly suggests that he was not deliberately hiding something. [/i:aea3ca619e]

Ole [i:aea3ca619e]says[/i:aea3ca619e] the money was being taken care of by another member. I certainly did not know about that while I was there. Since I was an elder and on the board of directors, I should have been in the loop on that. That means he was hiding something. I confronted Ole a number of times while I was there about him needing to go through some sort of First Fruit process just like everyone else, but he refused to do so—also suggesting he was hiding something.

[i:aea3ca619e]2)Ole has studied Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, so that could full well be what he was refering to when he wrote in the Tilton case that he had "translated and studied foreign languages." I suspect that when he was questioned about it later that he was not thinking of this when he said he didn't know any other languages. [/i:aea3ca619e]

Ole has not studied Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic in any formal setting. He has read some commentaries that may refer back to Greek or Hebrew roots of words. I am amazed at your willingness to take him at his word so uncritically.

[i:aea3ca619e]3)To the best of my memory, Ole said he grew his hair out long and had a beard later on in life. I don't remember him saying it was during his adolescent years. That is only what I remembering him saying. I question the accuracy of the article's claim of Ole's claim. Ole may have not remembered correctly either. [/i:aea3ca619e]

Refer back to Glenna's piece. Ole's own sister, whom Glenna interviewed, contradicts his story.

[i:aea3ca619e]4)Ole claiming he recieved his formal education at the U of Arizona, SMU and Harvard. He did. He may not have completed a degree, and as far as the article states he did not claim to- so how was he lying? To portray it like his claim did not match reality seems to be the real deception.[/i:aea3ca619e]

Taking an adult extension course is not the same as receiving formal education from a place. If it is not obvious to you that he is exaggerating, then I do not know what to say to you.

[i:aea3ca619e]I believe that Ole may have mistakenly described some details in his life wrong. Human memory is not perfect. I do not believe he has deliberately been deceptive in his portrayal of himself. Guess what? I don't remember everything perfectly myself all the time. I don't see a serious credibility gap as the article tries to prove. I don't see Ole as a deceptive individual or in denial of his mistakes.[/i:aea3ca619e]

I don’t see how you could not see it, unless it is simply that you are unwilling to see.

[i:aea3ca619e]I am thankful that you at least said that there could be some debate as to whether they are a cult or an abusive church. I doubt Rick Ross will categorize them as a cult unless something changes at Trinity. If anything they would be an abusive church. That doesn't bother me so much because Jesus said things that were "abusive" too. Like, "Let the dead bury the dead," to a guy whose Father died. I haven't even heard Ole say anything as hard as that to anyone.[/i:aea3ca619e]

There is some debate, but I stand by my assertion that Trinity is a cult. And, do you really want to make the argument that it is okay for churches to be abusive because Jesus was abusive, too?

Thanks for making the effort to post this stuff Doug. I will have a careful look at it. Much appreciated.

There is a fair bit of information in that piece from Wendy's book. I'm sure you'd like it if I just believed it all without question. I do find the excerpt from the article in 1968 interesting. I confess that as a Canadian I don't know all the ins and outs of American politics. From what I understand of the term 'delegate,' it that means that Ole claimed he was an elected representative appearing at the Republican National Convention for Dallas. So the problem is in the fact that Ole was not such a representative. Claiming to be a delegate, Ole appears to be exaggerating to the point of a lie if he was only an honorary sergeant-at-arms. Correct?

If the source material your wife has used accurately includes all the necessary facts, I'd be disappointed to know Ole has lied in such a way. The question I have is this, how could Tilton's lawyers have missed such a lie?