Monthly Archives: March 2010
Did Enoch Perry, COGIC’s top lawyer, reveal coverup strategy?
Calls for pastors to keep media attention away from sexual abuse cases in the church
Enoch Perry
III is a man on a mission. A dubious one no doubt, but a mission nonetheless. He’s lethal against people who accuse COGIC leaders of sexual abuse because he used to be a judge so he is keen to how the “system” works. Currently, the seemingly unbridled sycophant is pulling the Church of God in Christ into legal, moral and ethical quicksand. But the top brass in COGIC apparently like him and his advice. So our job is to document the proceedings as a witness to such reckless folly.
Perry has been COGIC’s chief behind-the-scenes architect of sexual abuse “policy” in the last few years. He’s navigated church leadership though numerous legal waters with ubiquitous ease, donning different faces depending on which court room he happened to find himself in. In November 2009, when Bishop Charles Blake dropped a bombshell announcement that his denomination spent on a yearly average $800,000 to settle sexual abuse claims against the church, he actually thanked Perry for his cacophony of supporting distortions.
But Perry does have one major fear. He fears the media connecting the dots to the sordid events perpetrated by sexual predators in COGIC (44 and counting) and like the current Catholic church debacle, putting all the dirty business on NBC nightly news, FOX, ABC and other outlets. To that end, he tells COGIC pastors to keep attention away from sexual abuse cases.
“Media coverage of any sexual oriented event and the church will have a negative slant. The pessimistic coverage will have a direct impact on the overall public perception of the church involved, its corporate body and its membership. Additionally, this negativity will directly affect new membership and outside donations.”
Perry is still miffed at the excellent reporting the Dallas Observer did on Sherman Allen which led to a reopening of the case and a potential PR nightmare for COGIC. In his deposition, he called blogs who reported the story “gossip rags”. The problem was the reporting on real facts threatened the flow of donor money the church was getting from corporations. And who cares about victims when money is at stake?
If anyone ever doubted that COGIC leadership has an intentional strategy of diversion on clergy sexual abuse cases, perhaps this is the smoking gun. And all of it can be attributed to the devious counsel of Enoch Perry. His heartless crusade to paint victims of clergy abuse out of the picture or as “problems” for the church is evident in this presentation given to the church’s “General Assembly” last November. You can read or download the 16 page presentation here.
The above statement is so dizzying that we have to break it down so that you see its elements. Notice that Perry pitches media coverage, not the crimes committed by clergy, as the church’s “vulnerability”.
Perry: “Media coverage of any sexual oriented event will have a negative slant.”
The negativity doesn’t come because the media invents it, it comes because a grown man sexually violated a young woman or a young man. Perry’s perspective helps the criminals look like victims of media bias rather than the lowlife criminals they really are.
Perry: “The pessimistic coverage will have direct impact on public perception…”
Why label coverage as “pessimistic” (meaning seeing the worst in a situation) when it is the actions of sexually deviant leaders who are causing the “pessimism”? And just what does Perry expect the secular media to say or think about a church who claims to be the “greatest church in the world” with preachers raping boys and girls? Is there something positive in this we are missing? This is just another way of saying that COGIC’s “name, image and assets” must be protected at all cost, including at the expense of victims.
Perry: “This negativity will directly affect new membership and outside donations.”
There’s the money quote. The BIG reason why COGIC must keep clergy sex abuse cases quiet. Translation: Keep up the lies and charade in order to fool people into thinking that all is well. If we let the media find out we have sexual predators in positions of authority people wont join and money wont come into the church’s bank account. After all what’s more important than keeping the money flowing and deceiving people on the outside of the church? Perry should be arrested for encouraging such blatant deception when people’s lives are in the balance.
The numbers game
Pastor Harvey Burnett took a look at the numbers and came to some conclusions that are almost unbelievable. Stay with me on this.
“He (Judge Enoch Perry) reported that in over 100 years, there have been 20-25 processed cases of sexual misconduct. He stated statistically the numbers are significantly small; however, there should not be one case among us. Judge perry reported there has not been one successful lawsuit against the church; cases have either been settled or dismissed. He further stated that Bishop Blake supports the church’s zero tolerance policy against sexual misconduct.” ~ [2009 COGIC General Assembly Minutes Pg. 2 Para. 2 parenthesis added]
Later, Presiding Bishop Charles Blake remarks included the following:
“Presiding Bishop Blake thanked Judge Perry for his remarks regarding the church’s policy in relationship to sexual misconduct. he pointed out that, on average, the church spends about $800,000 to settle legal matters many of which have to do with accusations of sexual misconduct. (Who made the comment? and that one singe lawsuit has the potential to bankrupt the church.)” ~ [2009 COGIC General Assembly Minutes Pg. 3 Para. 2 as it is in the minutes]
Now it seems to be somewhat of a disconnect. How can a settled lawsuit be unsuccessful when $800,000 on average is paid toward the settlement and legal matters regarding it? According to Perry’s numbers, this would mean that about $16,000,000 to $20,000,000 dollars (almost $200,000 per year over 100 years) have been paid out to adjudicate matters of this kind and this is only from the national church perspective. I believe these numbers don’t even begin to tell the real story however, because the fact is that it has been documented that over the last 20 years there have been over 35 visible cases of clergy sexual misconduct and abuse among COGIC clergy. Some of these cases were highly publicized and ended in incarceration.
If we condense even Perry’s numbers (which are more than likely understated) into the 20 to 25 year period of time in which we can document publicized cases of abuse and misconduct, that would mean that the church has paid an average of approximately $1,000,000 per year toward the adjudication of sexual misconduct cases. Remember this is $1,000,000 per year of national report and auxillary fund dollars collected and paid to defend and or settle sexual abuse, misuse, harassment, and other sexual misconduct cases.
If you find this at all disturbing, its because it really is. The “presentation” given by Perry to the denominational leaders encouraged duplicity, equivocation, and unethical if not downright illegal activity among so called holiness leaders. Maybe they are already used to operating this way, that’s why no one has called for his resignation. Per the presentation, victims of clergy sexual abuse can expect to receive no mercy, no compassion and no help from Church of God in Christ leaders which is just another reason why they really should drop the “God in Christ” from their name. Perhaps a more suitable name would be Church of Name, Image and Assets (CONIA).
Other stories on Enoch Perry:
Under oath, COGIC legal counsel Enoch Perry makes stunning admissions
Surveying COGIC’s “justice system”
Sex in the Church: Does the Black Church Need Sex Education? Part 1
By Shofarsound
“Why Dodge the Sex Question?” Is Sexual Immorality Destroying the African American Community?
In November 1929 Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Sr. (pictured) published a series of sermons on sexual perversion. Powell claimed sexual perversion was steadily increasing in large American cities, particularly among women and ministers. During this time many Black men and women left their spouses for members of the same sex. Powell stated that homosexuality was one of the powers that debased a race of people. It also caused a rejection of familial responsibility that held the black community together and therefore, made it a viable political entity. He further went on to state that there was an increase in the number of black ministers who placed their own desires for personal gratification, prestige, and wealth over the interest of their congregation. Having a sense of entitlement was at the root of homosexuality[source].
Rev. Powell instituted sex education classes in his church taught by medical doctors. To his critics Powell replied, “why dodge the sex question?” He stated that ignorance was the reason so many diseases spread. Didn’t Hosea 4:6 say, “…my people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge?”
Almost sixty years ago the late Harlem US congressman Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Jr. wrote an article entitled, “Sex in the Church.” Appearing in the November 1951 issue of Ebony Magazine, the article first spoke about the need for sex education in the African-American Church. Revered Powell told a story about an unidentified pastor’s grief over the death of his handsome and talented personal male assistant. Powell described the funeral of that of a scene out of Arabian nights with a lavish spread of flowers and a very expensive coffin. But what Powell found most disturbing was the preacher’s quavering voice, tear soaked eyes and shaking body. The pastor even attempted to leap into the casket! He went on to write that the minister’s broken sobs were those of someone who had just lost his lover. As it turned out, the two had been involved in an unnatural relationship for a number of years and the entire congregation knew about it. Today this “man of God” is one of the most powerful and respected Negro pastors in all America. The preacher Powell was referring to was Detroit Prophet Jones (James Francis Jones) and his longtime companion James Walton. Jones was said to be very flamboyant and exhibited feminine tendencies. And he himself admitted that he lived differently from other men!
Powell Jr. was absolutely right when he said there was a need for sex education with all the homosexuality that was taking place in the Black Church. However, Powell Jr. was no saint either. He committed adultery on his first wife [source]!
Adam Clayton Powell Senior and Junior had timeless messages that are still relevant today. If we fast forward to the twenty first century we see the rampant homosexuality that is taking place in the gospel music industry. We hear more and more about sexual abuse cases, mega-superstar preachers committing adultery, down-low brothers and all other sorts of sexual perversion. What happened to holiness and sanctification?
Our church leadership has failed in the area of promoting sexual purity and standing on the principles of God’s Word when it comes to this subject. For the most part, they have been muted from speaking out against immorality across the pulpit. There are pastors who will look away at the immoral lifestyle of their talented singers, preachers, and prophets. As long as they draw a crowd and bring in money, they will choose to believe that God is endorsing their sinful people. They love prophets that ”prophet lie” and prophesy blessings, instead of the truth. Isaiah 56:10-11 says, “His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea they are greedy dogs which can never have enough and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.” They won’t bark out against the sexual immorality that is taking place in the four walls of the church and it brings a reproach on the Church of Jesus Christ because of the hypocrisy.
When God gave Moses the Torah, it just wasn’t just a book of arbitrary laws. It was a book of instructions for the nation to live by and to be separated unto YHWH. It taught the people to be “sanctified in their own sexuality” and to not take on the sexual practices of pagan Gentile nations. Leviticus 18:3 says, “After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances.” The entire chapter of Leviticus 18 was dedicated in instructing Israel to abstain from unlawful sexual relations and to follow the Torah. In short, it educated the nation of Israel on “sanctified sexuality.” This made the nation of Israel very different from any other nation at the time because the Gentile nations had no sexual boundaries.
Here in the United States a whopping 78% of Americans identify with being a Christian. But it seems that a lot of Americans are not practicing what they profess they are. Are we really practicing Christianity or are we practicing Satanism? As Christians we follow what is said in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, “What God wants is that you be holy, that you keep away from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to manage his sexual impulses in a holy and honorable manner, without giving in to lustful desires, like the pagans who don’t know God.” Are Christians that don’t abstain from sexual immorality really Satanist by de facto? The first commandment of Satanism is indulgence instead of abstinence and this promotes self indulgence of the flesh.
The United States boasts the highest percentage of professional evangelicals in the industrialized world. According to polls, 46 percent of Americans consider themselves to be born-again with the highest percentage in the African-American community at 59 percent[source]. However, America has the highest percentage of single parent homes, the highest abortion rate, the highest sexually transmitted diseases rate, and the highest teenage birth rate. Isn’t it funny that one in three Americans or 90 million people claim to be born-again[ source]?
Sex education is most needed in the Church! We just can’t depend on the federal government or school system to teach sex education to our children. Its taught from worldly point of view, and not from the standpoint of the Word of God. Even adults within the Church need to be taught the disciplines of sanctified sexuality in the context according to the Word of God.
Planned Parenthood is not a viable options either to teach sex education to the church. They teach kids that masturbation is safe and healthy and that using condoms is way to practice safe-sex. What they fail to tell you is that a person can contract a sexually transmitted disease (STD) through skin on skin contact and not just the exchange of fluids. The group also teaches that if a person can’t practice abstinence, than s/he can use lower risk activities such as: manual stimulation, mutual masturbation (phone-sex, cybersex, etc.), erotic massage, kissing, body rubbing, or oral sex[source]. Abortion is a tool for birth control, and to eliminate unwanted pregnancy. Planned Parenthood definitely does not promote the biblical-based teaching that God created sex for the enjoyment and confinement of marriage between a husband and wife.
Has sexual immorality devastated the Black Community?
Does the Black Church need sex education?
Has the Black Church been impacted by sexual immorality?
Part Two of, “Does the Black Church Need Sex Education” will examine these questions.
Celibacy or purity for the single Christian?
In just a generation, we’ve witnessed a stunning devolution of perspective on sexuality in the church. While some can only discern a faint whisper of the fallout, everyone with working spiritual ears can hear a scream. We’ve been forced to look at something that few wanted to acknowledge, but out of the ashes of sexual immorality, a phoenix cry for purity has arisen.
Let’s get the bad news out of the way. Practical, balanced teaching on sexual purity and living it out with integrity has an anemic history in the contemporary church. In contrast, a nonstop, toxic mix of eroticism coupled with the flesh’s rebellious nature has commandeered the attention of youth and singles with little to no intervention. This includes subtle undercurrent of sensuality in the church. The yearning is deep and passionate, however deep and passionate yearning simply isn’t enough to resolve the need.
A needful caveat is that sexual purity isn’t synonymous with celibacy. I was having a conversation with a friend about celibacy among Christian singles. My friend seemed to think that abstaining from sex as a Christian was a badge of honor. While celibacy is indeed a laudable accomplishment, celibacy isn’t necessarily Godly. Anyone can be celibate with the right amount of will power. Atheists, buddhists monks, muslims and Catholic priests can all live a celibate life, but is just being celibate mean one is in right relationship with God? Certainly not. God requires something more. Something which involves much more than physical abstention from sexual activity. He requires purity of heart, mind and body.
Do you recall Jesus saying “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God?” (Matt 5:8) John reminded believers that “He that has this hope purifieth himself, even as he (Christ) is pure. (1 John 3:3)
Clearly, purity, not celibacy is God’s standard and his requirement as followers of Christ.
Over the last fourteen years that I’ve ministered sexual wholeness to mostly young adults, I’ve become familiar with that cry to be pure. Its anxious —oftimes anguished– its urgent and its deeply personal. And it wasn’t just confined to young, single Christians. Against the urgency, I’ve counseled a radically peaceful path to reaching one’s goal and God’s standard. If the goal is indeed sexual purity which pleases Christ, then the progressive path out of sexual impurity should be marked by:
1. Rediscovering the foundations and fundamentals of our faith and what they are intended to accomplish in your life. Embracing the whys and hows help to stabilize your life and prepare it for sustained progression.
2. Rebuilding the breaches in your life using spiritual and relational processes. Seeking to rebuild relational wholeness apart from healthy relationships with others is counterproductive. And be sure these relationships will require time, effort and commitment.
3. Recreating your desires through strategy. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Its one thing to know God’s standard, its quite another to consistently apply it. You must have more than just a desire to live sexually pure, desire must conjugate into a holy pragmatism.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned and continue to teach is an old one: prevention is much better than a cure. If God says don’t touch and don’t participate, let that be a cornerstone principle of your life going forward.
Its from this point, we must allow our personal and corporate perspective on sexual purity to be formed.
When we understand that celibacy isn’t an end unto itself, just a component of a pure life, we can get rid of much of the sexual frustration and tension in the lives of many Christians who are unmarried.
Question for discussion: do you believe God “calls” people to celibacy? What biblical support is there for such a calling? If one is “called to celibacy”, what is the purpose?
Planned Parenthood hates black people **updated**
But they love the millions of dollars they get from murdering black children. This is too important not to support. Please visit the website TooManyAborted and get educated. Better yet, speak out and stop being complicit as our children, our future are being sold as trash can fodder.
Spelman College professor Beverly Guy-Sheftall, a liberal shill in charge of “educating” young black women was about as nauseating as one can be when she told the Huffington Post “Many black people don’t know who Margaret Sanger is and could care less.” [source] Funny, the same woman would break her neck denouncing the Klan.
But is she describing you? Don’t know and don’t care? Even though Sanger was a witch, filled with demonic hate for black people and founded this organization to help exterminate us like Hitler did the Jews, you still don’t know or care?
In one sense, she’s right and its the main reason more unborn black children are burned to death with saline solution and dismembered like dead animals than any other ethnicity. Stray dogs get better treatment than an unborn African American baby in America. Corpses in graveyards are given more respect and protection than living children in the womb.
Guy-Sheftall’s comment is a tragic sign of what has happened to black people in America. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children. Hosea 4:6
Churches are silent either because they have been convinced by white liberals that abortion is nothing more than a political football issue churches shouldn’t be concerned about. But the shedding of innocent blood is an abomination. And so is silence about it.
The HuffPo article said Black women accounted for the majority of abortions in Georgia in 2006, even though blacks make up just a third of state population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nationally, black women were more than three times as likely to get an abortion in 2006 compared with white women, according to the CDC.
I’m very glad the awareness campaign was launched here in Atlanta. Trust me the KKK has nothing on Klanned Parenthood when it comes to the wanton murder of black children.
Dr. Laverne Tolbert, an African American former board member of the organization’s New York office told of her “initiation” to abortion by white colleagues in her book
Part of our responsibility as board members was to become familiar with abortion procedures. We read documents detailing how abortions were performed, and for me, that’s when the viability debate ended. I learned of two kinds of abortions—saline and dilation and evacuation, also called D&E. I would later learn about a third type, late-term or partial-birth abortion.
In saline abortions, babies inhale a salt solution that is introduced into the womb. The mother experiences premature labor and delivers a dead, burned baby. In instances where the baby is born still breathing, he or she is placed into a plastic bag, which is then sealed, and the baby is suffocated.
The dilation-and-evacuation abortion literally tears the baby apart limb by limb. The instrument used, insanely called a “straw,” is actually a powerful suction device. It is inserted into the mother’s uterus, where it searches for an arm or leg of the baby. Once it latches on, it tears that limb from the baby’s body. Each limb is subsequently torn apart and suctioned, or “evacuated.” Since the head is too large to pass through the nozzle of the “straw,” the doctor has to insert an instrument that looks much like a clamp. It grasps the baby’s head and crushes it into smaller pieces, which are then evacuated. A nurse puts all the pieces of the baby onto a nearby table, reassembling the body to make certain that all parts have been successfully removed from the uterus.”
No child deserves such a vicious and evil death by abortion. Don’t let your heart be so cold that you stay silent and unresponsive while innocent blood is shed with our government’s approval.
Additional Reading:
Episcopals elect second sexually immoral bishop
The apostate Episcopal Church in America has elected (chosen) to sanction yet another sexually immoral “bishop” to prove just how far they are from being a church following Christ.
The Baltimore Sun reported:
The Episcopal Church has confirmed the election of an Annapolis priest as the first openly lesbian bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The Rev. Mary Douglas Glasspool, who has served in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland since 1992, said Wednesday that she was “overjoyed and overwhelmed” by news that a majority of bishops and diocesan committees had approved her election as assistant bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles.
“And grateful,” she added. “I’m grateful to so many people, and to God.”
Glasspool joins Vickie Gene Robinson as the second “openly homosexual” bishop in the church.
related articles:
Former Unity Fellowship member speaks about the “gay church”
The Unity Fellowship Church is one strange organization. Predominately African American, it was founded by Bishop Carl Bean a former gospel industry worker in the early eighties, but seems to have always had a cultic persona about itself. We’ve reported on the church here, here and here so you can familiarize yourself with them by reading those stories.
