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By: Dr. Johnson C. Philip People who would like to destroy any movement know that the best method to bring to ruin even the best kingdom is to plant false ideas, gossip, and bitterness. This is the reason why all governments caution their people against listening to and spreading gossip during times of war. Ideas have consequences, and too much spread of false ideas can destroy any community. Thus a small number of men, basically infiltrators and opportunists, and not having any loyalty to the Brethren Movement, used a liberal dose of mercenary tactics and yellow journalism to attack the people of God. It was essential for them to destroy the assemblies so that their rule might be established firmly. It was a classic case of divide and plunder. And they used very well-tried political and mercenary tactics to attain this goal, which we begin discussing in this third research paper. Suffice to say that in the second century of its existence in India, the assemblies are NOT dead. They are alive, lively, and growing rapidly. But it is the mercenary tactics of certain individual who have their own trumpets (pulpit, periodicals) who have spread the false idea that the Assemblies in India are dead. The more they are resisted, the better it would be for our younger generation. Their Tactics: All warfare have their rules, and even warring enemies follow these protocols, but mercenary or guerilla warfare always depends upon deception. They have only one guiding rule "defeat your enemy using any deceptive means whatsoever". So when these men came into the assemblies to exploit the spiritual, ecclesiastical, and material wealth of the assemblies, they had only one goal. Milk the assemblies even if everything here (men, institutions, doctrines) has to be destroyed. These tactics involved starting of one-man projects, one-man periodicals, attacks from the pulpit, introduction and promotion of compromise, introduction and promotion of false doctrine, and a widespread creation of bitterness among believers, and specially among the younger generation. The overall effect was spiritual starvation among the assemblies and rise of rebellion among the young people. While the assemblies suffered this molestation at their hands, these individuals kept growing financially. We discuss each of these points in greater detail below: One-man Projects: One of their first tactics therefore was to start one-man projects. Assemblies have always emphasized collaborative activities and thus the brethren loyal to the assemblies have always seen to it that projects and ministries that span more than one assembly be controlled by a plurality of leadership. Further, this leadership of these ministries is always drawn from a large number of assemblies so that there is accountability, transparency, and wisdom received from the counsel of a large number of brethren from diverse backgrounds and assemblies. These one-man projects, however, were controlled by individuals, who would choose a couple of friends and family members who would be willing to act as rubber stamps. Often the names of these so-called "trustees" were limited to the paper on which these were printed, and there was absolutely no way they could control or influence the flow of funds. There was no question of transparency to them, let alone accountability. Over the last four decades they have milked gullible believers of hundreds of millions of rupees -- and only they know how these funds were used. Further, once people are addicted to getting money-without-labour, he sees to it that his monopoly is not destroyed. Thus they inflate statistics, over-report their achievements, and present trivial things as though this is a wonder of wonders. And as soon as they notice that others have started asking questions they attack them bitterly. As soon as they see similar work of others gaining in popularity they attack those ministries. These things have been very common in the last four decades, and it has become pronounced in the last one decade because many people with one-man-projects have also become adept at running freely circulated one-man bulletins. A look at the brethren scene would convince anyone that one-man ministries, that refused accountability and transparency, have created bitterness, encouraged pilfering or misuse of resources, used innocent people as pawns, and have destroyed a large number of innocent believers in their lust for power and money. Numerous is the number of believers who left the assemblies due to their carnal manipulations. One-man Periodicals: The assemblies in India and abroad have been at the forefront of publishing literature for edification. Thus there has always been an abundance of periodicals here. However, in keeping with the plurality of leadership concept, those loyal to the assemblies always see to it that any publication they begin does not become a one-man monopoly or mouthpiece. There is always some form of accountability so that even the founder of the publication is not able to write at will. And such publications have served the assemblies well as long as the assemblies have existed. However, the arrival of opportunists in the assemblies also brought one-man periodicals. Of course many of them had an Editorial Board, but this was simply a sham. It was made up either of pawns, or of name-seekers, or of men of such questionable integrity that the editor could attack the assemblies with impunity and these men in the editorial board would not dare open their mouths, lest their family history be laid bare in the very same publications -- for these publishers were not loyal to anyone including the men on their board. Since the primary purpose of these one-man periodicals was self-promotion, most of them got into the task with vengeance. They promoted their paper-projects as "the" ministries of the assemblies, while they ruthlessly attacked every individual and ministry they viewed as a threat to their expansionist aims. Since most readers blindly believe anything circulated in print, these publications had a great time destroying the life, ministry, and testimony of many great men of God. |