You have to do Better Than This

I got an interesting email about The Last Reformation and Torben Sondergaard. I’ll post some of the text.

I’ll make this short.

The problem with being deceived is that you don’t know it.

I’ll urge you to look behind the curtains. Don’t look at the person where he stands. Look at the trails and the footprints and what’s in his wake.

It’s not the happy followers right now, you need to talk with or look at. People in destructive cults or at the mercy of narcissists and sociopaths are initially happy.

If you plan on engaging anymore with these people, look long and hard for former members. It’s those who were there three, four or fifty years ago. Most, if not all, are gone.

You’ll find many broken and disappointed lives – to the point of leaving faith – in the wake of Torben Sondergaard’s ministry.

There’s a reason you do not have peace about joining them.
That is the truth and it’s there for you to find if you want.

Call it a cult or not.

Here is my response:

What is your background with TLR? What examples do you have?

Here is some of the second email I received:

If you want, you won’t lack examples in a number where there’s no denying something isn’t quite right. Simply find three or four former followers. It’s that simple. And your responsibility.

My response:

Respectfully, if you expect me to pay serious attention to unsubstantiated claims made by a person I know nothing about, you’re asking way too much. If you can’t do better than this, you shouldn’t bother people about TLR. For all I know, you’re an angry woman Torben dumped in high school.

I’m not responding to this one:

I won’t – as I said before – address mr. Sondergaard or the group itself any further. You seemed like a thoughtful and nice guy, when I read your blog.

Respectfully (followed by an actual respectful comment), I would personally give pause if a stranger took the time to write me, encouraging me to look a litte harder, but I both understand we are not all the same, and I’ve encountered this particular sort of hostility before. It’s fine.

Safe journey down this path.

If this email is correct, I am “hostile.” That’s an accusation. It’s intended to make me feel bad. The “safe journey” part is tacked on as an enhancement: “I am a better Christian than you, because you were mean, and I still said something nice.” It’s sanctimony.

Invalid accusations are often made to put people on the defensive. It’s a good way to move the discussion off-topic when you can’t or won’t back up your claims.

I guess this is why Satan became “the devil.” The word “devil” means “accuser.” He knew how powerful accusation was. He uses accusation to get us to take our eyes off the ball. The person who emailed me can’t or won’t tell me anything useful. Having seen a number of unbalanced people go after TLR already, I pointed out that without evidence, an accuser lacks credibility and looks dodgy. That’s exactly what a reasonable person would say. It’s not evidence of significant hostility. Instead of responding with corroboration, as you or I would, my correspondent has merely accused me.

It’s a little annoying to get strange emails like this, but characterizing what I said as “hostility” is way over the top. It’s a deliberate overreaction intended to make me feel bad and focus on defending myself or apologizing for a nonexistent transgression. It’s a diversion. When you’re trying to convince someone of something, it’s not good to adopt tactics known to be used by enemies of truth. It makes me wonder what force is motivating this person.

Jesus was extremely rude. Read the gospels and see. Using a jilted girlfriend as a tool to express what I meant in no way compares to calling people dogs or sons of Satan, as Jesus did. It doesn’t compare to beating strangers with a whip, as Jesus did. What I said was perfectly fine. It was just blunt.

There was a time when I participated, to my lasting disgrace, in petty Internet flaming, and what I’m seeing in these emails reminds me of a tactic I often saw in those days: drop a research project on a person instead of providing your own facts and analysis. Someone might pop up and say something like, “Donald Trump is a Martian who eats human flesh, and he ran a major heroin ring out of a trailer in Cambodia!” Then you’re expected to spend your weekend Googling in order to prove it’s not true. It’s a powerful tactic of asymmetrical debate. Say something wild, and then put the burden of proving or refuting it on the other party. You don’t have to do any work at all, but the other person does, so in the end, you are likely to lose simply because you keep chasing the ball while the other person merely spins yarns.

This is why lying is so powerful. My sister is one of the world’s great liars, and one of the reasons she has done so much of it is that it takes very little effort and inconveniences other people tremendously. It takes work to find out the truth and articulate it. Telling a lie is quick and effortless. I don’t know if the person who emailed me is lying, but like a liar, he or she is trying to make me do a lot of work to prove something, while refusing to shoulder the same burden. I’m not doing that. I’m not going to dig up former TRL members to talk to. I’m not Dog the Bounty Hunter! No one would do that. I wouldn’t even know where to look.

I have seen videos from people who broke away from other preachers I like, and they’re not exactly convincing. I have not seen any good ones yet. They say things like, “Pete Cabrera healed a guy, but the healing wasn’t permanent.” Really weak. My guess is that if I talked to disgruntled TLR people, they would be equally unconvincing.

In case someone shows up and sees this blog post and has no idea what’s happening, TLR is a Christian movement. They baptize people, and they do street healing. They are full-blown charismatics. Their leader, Torben Sondergaard, is a former baker from Denmark. He says he was driven out of Denmark after TLR received very unfavorable coverage in a TV documentary. I have been to three TLR events. I let them re-baptize me, and I went out and did street healing with them on one occasion. I am not going to join TLR, but fundamentally, I like what they do, and I agree with them for the most part. Healing and miracles are very real.

I know a couple of people who express misgivings about TLR or believe it’s a cult run by a criminal. These are people who don’t actually know anything about TLR, so I discard their opinions. That doesn’t mean I’m not wary. I have checked TLR out on the web, and I’ve found a number of people criticizing them. I looked for real, substantiated criticism, but I could not find it. What I did find was bizarre innuendo from people who seemed to be mentally unstable. If people were full-blown demoniacs suffering from delusions and Satanic hatred, this would be the type of thing you would expect them to publish.

Here’s a good example:

The worst thing I’ve heard about TLR (from a known source which does not seem uninformed or delusional) came from Tom Loud’s office. Loud is a preacher and pastor who also does street healing. According to someone on his staff, he believes TLR teaches that people have to be water-baptized and speak in tongues in order to be saved, and he disagrees. This is the only credible criticism I’ve heard about them, and you can see how mild it is. Even if it’s true, it just shows that two preachers disagree about two points of doctrine. Welcome to Christianity. This is not big news.

Here’s something I always say: the feebleness of your enemies’ criticism is the best proof you’re on the right track. Consider our two relatively recent presidential impeachments. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath on video, which is a disbarment offense and, under the right circumstances, a felony. It’s a very big deal. Donald Trump, on the other hand, was impeached for saying something in an official phone call which could, sort of, be characterized as an effort to help his upcoming campaign OR could be a totally innocent effort to get an important matter investigated, which would be a completely normal and ethical request for a president. Then there was George Bush. The press characterized him as a liar, and many leftists called for his impeachment, because he said something about uranium ore in Iraq, which later turned out to be completely true.

When people shoot spitballs at you, it’s usually because they don’t have bullets. Leftists didn’t hide their smoking guns when it came to Bush and Trump. They hit them with everything they had, and it wasn’t much. Generally, the same thing is true of Torben Sondergaard and TLR. I have been looking into them for over a year, and I still can’t find any disturbing information. But I have seen some strange claims from very odd individuals.

Thinking atheists might be less deranged than typical anti-charismatic Christian fanatics, I looked at a site called Rationalwiki. It appears to be some kind of atheist reference site, so one would think that if there were any real dirt on TLR, they would have it. Sure enough, it has a long list of “proofs” that TLR is a cult. For example, TLR teaches that people should pray in tongues. TLR members went to a hospital a number of times and prayed for the sick to be healed, and this annoyed the administrators, who made them leave. TLR teaches that demons cause disease and mental illness. TLR teaches that adults should be baptized. In summary, TLR is a charismatic Christian movement! If you think every charismatic is a cult nut, then Rationalwiki has succeeded in proving its case against TLR.

I have some idea what a cult looks like. I belonged to a couple of churches that truly were cult-like. Trinity Church in Miami teaches the poor that if they give financial offerings to the church instead of paying their electric bills, God will give them prosperity. The church deducts tithes from its employees’ paychecks and requires them to work for nothing as volunteers. They held secret meetings about me when I left. That’s a cult. New Dawn Ministries in Miami told people not to talk to anyone who had left. The pastor had a screaming fit in the parking lot and demanded that a friend of mine tell him things about me. He waved his hands in my friend’s face, as though trying to pick a fight. My friend got so mad he told the pastor to back off or get a beating. That’s a cult. Telling people to get baptized, or that they should speak in tongues, is not cult behavior. It’s normal Christian doctrine, taught in many, many churches.

For all I know, the person who emailed me has a blockbuster revelation about TLR, but I don’t know what it is, so that’s the end of that. Maybe this is a fine, loving person who has very important news that needs to be shared. How can we know if we can’t see it?

I Googled the name the person used, and I found something on the web from 2018. A person with the same name was defending a positive prophecy a truly disturbed preacher made about TLR. If my correspondent is the same person, something must have happened during 2019 to cause a change of heart.

But I don’t know what that was.

As for me “not having peace” about joining TLR, that’s completely inaccurate. I never wanted to join any movement after leaving New Dawn. I never felt disturbed about joining TLR. I just felt God didn’t want me to do it, and I also thought TLR was about to become a denomination, which is not something I want to be involved with very deeply. I never felt that God was telling me TLR was evil or seriously misguided. It’s just that I don’t join churches, denominations, or groups. I don’t have to have a bad feeling about a particular organization in order to want to avoid joining. I won’t join even if I feel good about them.

I have recommended TLR’s events, but I don’t advise anyone to join (or not join) TLR. I think TLR is imperfect. On the other hand, I can say some very good things about TLR.

1. They never pressure you.

2. They never squeeze you for money.

3. They do not teach the money gospel or use their power to get wealth.

4. They are very good at baptizing people with the Holy Spirit.

5. They promote true inner change via the Holy Spirit.

6. They truly do cast out demons, which are very real, just as Jesus, who is God, did.

7. They are very nice people, unlike the people who ran Trinity Church and New Dawn Ministries.

8. They are doing something important which no one else seems to be willing to do.

How perfect do people have to be, before you consider them worthy of knowing you? You’re supposed to rely on the Holy Spirit, not men, for instruction. You should try to find other people who are sound, but if you’re hoping for a perfect teacher, you are looking in the wrong world.

If you want to, check TLR out. Watch some videos. If it interests you, pray about it, and then do what God tells you. If you don’t think God wants you to fool with TLR, don’t. I’m not a recruiter. I can’t recruit for a group I won’t join.

When people come to you with serious complaints about ministries, and by “serious,” I mean complaints that have some basis in fact, you should look into them, but it’s also important to be seasoned so you can identify the strange tactics characteristically employed by people who are not worthy of your attention. If their accusations are vague, ask them to firm them up. If they don’t provide facts, ask for them. If they claim to be in a position to know things, ask for the relevant facts about their backgrounds.

I can back up every single thing I’ve said about Trinity Church and New Dawn Ministries. I spell things out. I name names. If I can do it, I can also require other people to do it.

A really good ministry will attract all sorts of nutty rumors and accusations. Look at Jesus. Two days ago, I saw a rabbi on Youtube telling the world Mary was a prostitute and calling Jesus a bastard. He said some really nasty things. Respected teachers say Jesus was a magician, and some say he’s in hell, boiling in feces. It’s to be expected. If no one is mad at you, you are definitely on the wrong track. An attack brings a response, and our lives are supposed to be attacks on Satan. It shouldn’t bother you when really weak accusations come out concerning a ministry. It’s a very good sign. A bad ministry will face strong accusations, not just slanders and innuendoes. Jim Bakker was convicted of fraud. Torben Sondergaard is accused of speaking in tongues and casting out demons. There is a difference.

Maybe some day I’ll find out that TLR has a bunch of dirty secrets. It hasn’t happened yet. If it does, I’ll come here and let you know.