Listen To George Plagiarize!

[mithrandir]

Yes, let's get back to plagarism.  I don't know what got into me...the name "Dan Notti" triggered a flashback.  As Shawn Colvin sang, "I was angry back then, and you know, I still am...I have lost too much sleep, and I'm gonna find it."

But before we leave the subject of the unrighteousness of these so called shepherds, let me just say that racism was by no means the only sin they were guilty of.  I don't get angry at 5 year old kids for not being able to practice medicine, though I would get very angry at a man who posed as a doctor and didn't know what on earth he was doing.  And these "leading bretheren" who called themselves shepherds were almost all useless posers - indeed, worse than useless!

Okay now, back to my normal easygoing self...

mithrandir

[BeckyW]

Some of this "counseling" against interracial marriage made it all the way out here to the east coast years ago when a (dating) couple from the local campus started visiting the assembly here.
Thankfully, the couple chose to reject that counsel, & stopped coming to assembly meetings.  They have been married for many years now.  The last time I talked to them, they were involved in inner-city ministry in the midwest, and raising their 4 kids.
BW

[vernecarty]

Do forgive that flame that burns. I generally try to steer clear of the topic as I have a short fuse on it when it comes to my brothers and sisters in Christ- I expect better.
Brent and Jack I appreciate your sensitivity on the matter.
Coming from the West Indies gives me a bit more cultural immunity from the ugliness of American bigoty but it nevertheless really gets my goat...now back to the topic at hand...!
Verne

[retread]

...
For instance, I remember him getting into a shouting match with me over George's opposition to interracial marriage (oddly enough, George and Betty only seemed to have a major problem if black saints wanted to marry saints who were not black.)
...

I can confirm that Tim G also had the same opinion.  Tim has stated that interracial marriage is acceptable if the races are "close" to each other, and that blacks are too different from other races so that marriage between them and other races is not acceptable.  I assume that he got his beliefs from Daddy Geftakys.  Imagine, Tim G being the judge of what is acceptable.

[Eulaha L. Long]

I also got a healthy dose of the Assembly racism...I remember a brother referring to me as a "nigger", and when I went to a leading brother about it, the leading brother told me that Christ was called worse names than that, and to stop being to sensitive.

I remember a time when Betty stayed in the training home I lived in, and how she told the head steward that Black people were lazy.  Little did she know that I could hear her (I was in another room).

I have plenty more stories where those came from...

[vernecarty]

We may indeed need another thread on this as it apparently is a little known (or at least little discussed facet of assembly life). The only time I ever disagreed with my dear friend and colleague Dr Steven Mbuvi (now with the Lord) was when he allowed himself to be persuaded to join the ranks of leaders associated with Geftakys. I remember warning him that those in leadership in that minisry thought his children were inferior to theirs (evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Think about it folks. Consider the racist and vicious statements made by these people Tim, David, Betty, Dan et al and their encouraging others to be of the same sinful disposition...
Verne

[Will Jones]

There are many interesting subjects brought up here that I will comment on.  My tone is intended to be jovial.  To tell you the truth, I bear no ill will for anyone who had anything to do with the Assembly and that includes GG.  I did not notice any racism in the Assembly I attended.  On the contrary, our Assembly was quite multi-racial.  

I realize that this BB is a means to exorcise one’s demons so I do not begrudge people communicating their anger.  However, what you are about to read is intended to be funny.  

Now regarding the tapes of George...  While I was doing my weekly stewardship, I was given permission to borrow the sermons that GG had preached when he came to town.  (Yes, I was a sucker for punishment.)  One of the many nails that convinced me it was time to put distance between myself and the Assembly was a sermon GG preached in the early 80s where he very clearly stated that the world would end very soon, before the end of the 80s.  Hal Lindsey type of stuff.  His preaching was very enthusiastic and animated; it didn't even sound like his normal boring self as he pushed home how we had to be faithful and labour before the end.  I told a few people about it and the tape disappeared the next time I went to pick out a tape.  I was also told that GG would never preach such a thing because nobody knows the time of the Lord's coming.  Ya, but GG was quite adamant that "I am convinced, brethren, that we only have a few years before the Lord returns.  I don't believe we will see the end of this decade."  This is pretty close to his exact words because I kept listening to that section of tape over and over again because I was shocked.  Well, we did see the end of the decade--almost three decades now!  When I started taking notes of my Assembly experience, I tried to find the tape to get his exact words but, as I said, it was gone and an empty space in the cassette holder was all that was left of it.  

While I think of it, it was either that tape or another where GG stated in a prophetic way that many people would abandon him and "the work" just before the end.  lol  Indeed, everyone did--with good reason.  (Look at how fallen leaders of the past have dealt with being exposed and how they still try to press on to milk their few remaining followers:  Jimmy Swaggart, Mike Warnke, etc.)    

Another nail in the coffin was listening to GG's seminar on giving hospitality.  The way he went on about how he acted when he was in other's homes was NOT the way he acted when he visited the brother's home I was living in at the time.  I remember him impatiently demanding an extra chicken breast sandwich ("Come on, come on" with dramatic hand gestures), how he hardly spoke at meals, how he seemed to ignore people and locked himself in his room most of the time, how terse he was when he spoke, his lack of joy, how he came to a meeting later than we normally did because he was impatiently waiting for one of his poems about a bookstore to be printed out, etc.  But the smile and enthusiasm turned on when he began his performance (pardon me, preaching).  

One of the things that made it so easy for me to leave the Assembly behind was I never bought into GG and some of the main Assembly beliefs (you need permission of the leading brothers to determine God's will, etc.).  When I heard things like GG having supposed visions while he was in Africa and how God told him he was not allowed to write poetry anymore and then suddenly allowed him to write poetry again through a variety of experiences just made me shake my head.  Also, GG speaking against other churches was a real turn off.  His apparent “righteous anger” was more a form of entertainment than anything else and I was not the only one to think so.  When GG came to Ottawa for a question and answer meeting, one of the sisters had written down anonymous anti-Assembly doctrine questions just to see him get upset (which he did).  I was not the only person who did not idolize GG.  One person confided in me that he was not the least impressed with GG due to how he acted in person and another person stated that he did not worship G like other people did.  Nobody is perfect, but GG was clearly NOT the person he tried to sell himself as.  And what made me laugh was people often said that he was such a great preacher of God’s Word.  On the contrary, to borrow another’s words, he was a mighty cure for insomnia!  The only thing that kept others and me from visiting the Land of Nod was GG’s many flurries of page-flipping fests of out-of-context Scripture quotations.  “Are you with me friends?”  God help us, yes!  But secretly we wished we were somewhere else and that he would just wrap up what he was incoherently communicating.  “You like stories, friends, don’t you?”  Yes, tell us one of the stories you have told a hundred times before like how you thought bread dipped in grease was a real treat because your family was so poor, how you loved to go to meetings when you were younger, or how you used to be such a muscular guy--at least we will understand what you are saying.  And some people would try to excuse how boring the tape ministries were by saying GG was a better speaker when he was younger or that he said deep things that were not always comprehensible.  Right!  And the stock question at the end of the meetings:  “How did the Lord speak to you?”  Thank goodness the question was not “Can you summarize in a few easy sentence what GG was trying to say?”  Remember how the titles or his three points did not always match with what he ended up saying? lol  

OK,  now I have a serious question.  Now that GG has been dethroned, how do devoted Assembly saints justify their beliefs and what do they say when they try to justify a course of action?  Who do people call to get advice?  In the past it was always “Brother George (or another respect saint) says…” or “Brother George teaches…”  Now that tape ministry is no more and many of the well-respected leaders have been affected by GG's departure, what fills this gap of tape ministry and giving supposed godly counsel?

[tkarey]

Dear Will,

Getting off the subject again... is the Mike Warnke you refer to the same one who wrote The Satan Seller back in the 70's?? Our youth group once listened to a tape of his conversion and I later read that book. Not sure that was a good idea for an immature, insecure teenager. I remember being impressed by his "buddies" in the army who wouldn't stop telling him how Jesus loved him no matter how much he beat them up. I was very influenced by his testimony/book -- as well as Keith Green -- during high school. I always wondered what happened to him.

Karey

[M2]

There are many interesting subjects brought up here that I will comment on.  My tone is intended to be jovial.  To tell you the truth, I bear no ill will for anyone who had anything to do with the Assembly and that includes GG.  I did not notice any racism in the Assembly I attended.  On the contrary, our Assembly was quite multi-racial.  

Multi-racial - yes. But no 'black-by-race' members.

Now regarding the tapes of George...  While I was doing my weekly stewardship, I was given permission to borrow the sermons that GG had preached when he came to town.  (Yes, I was a sucker for punishment.)...
...was listening to GG's seminar on giving hospitality.  The way he went on about how he acted when he was in other's homes was NOT the way he acted when he visited the brother's home I was living in at the time.  I remember him impatiently demanding an extra chicken breast sandwich ("Come on, come on" with dramatic hand gestures), how he hardly spoke at meals, how he seemed to ignore people and locked himself in his room most of the time, how terse he was when he spoke, his lack of joy, how he came to a meeting later than we normally did because he was impatiently waiting for one of his poems about a bookstore to be printed out, etc.  But the smile and enthusiasm turned on when he began his performance (pardon me, preaching)....

The privileges that a few had.
I guess you got to 'see' GG in ways we never did because he was not allowed to stay in the home of non-workers. We only saw him when the performance began.

...
OK,  now I have a serious question.  Now that GG has been dethroned, how do devoted Assembly saints justify their beliefs and what do they say when they try to justify a course of action?  Who do people call to get advice?  In the past it was always “Brother George (or another respect saint) says…” or “Brother George teaches…”  Now that tape ministry is no more and many of the well-respected leaders have been affected by GG's departure, what fills this gap of tape ministry and giving supposed godly counsel?

Are you indicating that the Assembly was GG and those he trained?

The Ottawa assembly claims that they have repented and have the Word and the Spirit to guide them.

Lord bless,
Marcia

[outdeep]

Dear Will,

Getting off the subject again... is the Mike Warnke you refer to the same one who wrote The Satan Seller back in the 70's?? Our youth group once listened to a tape of his conversion and I later read that book. Not sure that was a good idea for an immature, insecure teenager. I remember being impressed by his "buddies" in the army who wouldn't stop telling him how Jesus loved him no matter how much he beat them up. I was very influenced by his testimony/book -- as well as Keith Green -- during high school. I always wondered what happened to him.

Karey

I hate to be the barer of bad news, but Mike Warnke fell out of favor with the Christian community when a news expose revealed that his testamony was fabricated.  Here is a link to the story:

http://www.cornerstonemag.com/features/iss098/warnke_index.htm

-Dave

[tkarey]

Thanks for that update, Dave, it grieves me to hear it.  

Lord Bless,
Karey