In Sterling, a Powerful and Polarizing Pastor
Article Tools
Share This +
A Loudoun Minister Inspires Loyalty From Followers, Anger From Ex-Members With Torn Lives and Moral Pain
Originally published at 12:00 a.m., November 16, 2008
Updated at 12:18 p.m., November 16, 2008
Rob Foster was 16 when his family unraveled.
He had told his parents that he wanted to leave Calvary Temple, the Pentecostal church in Sterling the family had attended for decades. But church leaders were blunt with his parents: Throw your son out of the house, or you will be excommunicated. And so that December two years ago, Gary and Marsha Foster told Rob that he had to leave. They would not see him or talk to him.
"I was devastated," he said.
For more than three decades, hundreds of families have been coming to Calvary Temple, a sprawling, beige stucco complex that sits unobtrusively behind the suburban strip malls and subdivisions of Leesburg Pike. As conservative Christianity flourished in Loudoun County and across the country in the 1980s, Calvary thrived.
Under the leadership of longtime pastor Star R. Scott, Calvary opened a school, television and radio ministries, and satellite churches around the globe. The local congregation at one point numbered 2,000.
Scott's followers see him as an inspiring interpreter of God's word. Members pack the church most nights, united in their desire to live as the Bible intended and reject what they view as society's moral ambivalence.
"Church isn't for everyone who wants to just show up," Scott said in an interview. "It's not a community club. We're not looking to build moral, successful children. We're looking to build Christians."
But for hundreds of members who have left the church during the past decade, Calvary is a place of spiritual warfare, where ministers urged them to divorce spouses and shun children who resisted the teachings. Scott is twisting the Bible's message, they say, and members who challenged the theology were accused of hating God.
They had joined eagerly, drawn to Scott's energy as a new religious broadcaster and his commitment to living by the literal word of the Bible. He defined the church. But just as he built Calvary, they say, Scott transformed it, taking it from a vibrant, open church to a rigidly insular community over which he has almost total control.
In 2002, three weeks after the death of his wife, Scott, who was then 55, stood before the congregation and announced that the Bible instructed him as a high priest to take a virgin bride from the faithful. A week later, he did -- a pretty 20-year-old who a couple of years earlier had been a star basketball player on the church high school team.
Scott said he has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of church funds on a fleet of race cars and until last year devoted many weekends touring the circuit for his "racing ministry." The church Web site shows Scott and his wife, Greer, 26, posing in racing suits, helmets in hand, beside a red dragster.
Scott is Calvary's "apostle" and presiding elder, and in 1996, he named himself the sole trustee, putting him in charge of virtually all of the church's operations, its theology and finances.
Photo Gallery
Faces of Calvary
Star Scott II and his wife, Linda Scott, peering over, with their children, Star Scott III, 5, Elyssa Scott, 10, and Skylar-Autumn Scott, 16-months, at their home in Gainesville, Va. (Nikki Kahn)
Michelle Freeman and her son Channing, 18, are former members of Calvary Temple. Michelle is one of the most outspoken ex-members of Calvary. When Channing left the church she threatened to toss him out of the house, and fights about Calvary ended her marriage. (Jahi Chikwendiu)
In his sermons, Scott teaches that his church is scripturally superior to others and views keeping people in the fold as a matter of their salvation. "Anything that's other than a member in harmony has to be identified and expelled," Scott preached in May 2007.
Don't be afraid of "social services" if you throw rebellious children out of the house, he told the congregation in an earlier sermon, because "you obeyed God." In an interview, he cited scriptures: "Deuteronomy says if your kid doesn't follow your God, kill 'em. That's what we do, but not physically. To us, you're dead if you're not serving our God," he said.
Scott describes those who decide to leave the church as "depraved," and Calvary's practice is to cut them off. When parents have left the church, some young children have been urged to stay; a few have been taken in by pastors. Scott's family has been divided, too: Scott is estranged from his 36-year-old son, Star Scott Jr.
"Jesus said, 'I didn't come to bring peace, I came to bring a sword,' " the elder Scott said about the divided families.
Most current members declined to talk to The Washington Post, although Scott and three other leaders spoke at length.
Kim Heglund, Scott's daughter and the wife of a Calvary pastor, said members feel strongly loyal to Calvary because they believe they are living out the Bible: "This is Christianity, people being a family." Bitter feelings and divided families are the exception and caused by people who "pretended to be Christians." Calvary leaders are careful never to explicitly tell people what to do, she said. "We just say: 'This is what the Bible says. You make a decision.' "
Former members contend that much about their lives, from how they spent their money to how they raised their children, was dictated by Scott and other church leaders.
"What started out as a Christian organization has turned into a cult where people are controlled," said Jonathan Ernst, a Calvary pastor until he was blacklisted by Scott in 1994.
Scott's teachings have become well known in Loudoun's conservative religious community, where several ministers expressed criticism and said they have taken into their congregations hundreds of former Calvary members, some of whom are traumatized by their broken families and torn over the meaning of the Bible.
After Rob Foster left the family's tidy home in Sterling, his parents pored over the Bible. Foster said they posed their own questions: Doesn't Deuteronomy 21 say parents, not the pastor, determine whether a child is rebellious? Doesn't Luke 15 tell of a father celebrating the return of his prodigal younger son?
Rob had moved in with a family that had left Calvary but was homesick and would show up at his parents' door on Sundays to talk. After a few months, they took him back.
Soon, the church removed Gary Foster as the choir pianist. And last year, the couple were ejected from the church. Their two older children, still members of Calvary, stopped speaking to them and Rob.
"They think we are in rebellion to what God wants," said Rob, 19, who is studying to be a mechanic.
Of the Fosters, Scott said: "You're choosing to believe differently, and you want to just drop in and bring another philosophy? You can't do this."
Consolidating Authority
At 61, Scott still has the air of the West Coast college football player he once was. He dresses informally, smiles easily and delivers his judgments not by banging the lectern but by using a tone of New Age calm.
In his sermons, he tells of his exploits as a young man, the lure of sports, girls and parties. Born in Monterey, Calif., he was raised in a home where religion wasn't practiced. He was born again at 20.
He gave up sports for pastoring and came east to be a youth minister at a church then known as the Herndon Assemblies of God. He quickly became head pastor, changed the name to Calvary Temple and moved the church to its Sterling location on 31 acres. In 1986, Scott, then in his late 30s, led Calvary to leave the Assemblies of God denomination and become independent.
Now, Scott's church practices its own theology, a blend of evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Services are demonstrative, with contemporary music and people speaking in tongues. Members try to organize their lives around a literal interpretation of the Bible, which at Calvary involves uniformity and deference to leadership.
During the 1980s and '90s, Calvary, under the name Star Evangelistic Enterprises, opened churches in Africa and several U.S. cities, including Richmond and Laurel.
Calvary "was like a mecca. It drew people to church from all up and down the East Coast, from well-to-do from Middleburg to people who could barely afford diapers from West Virginia," said Ernst, the former pastor, who works as an arborist in Richmond.
At one point more than a decade ago, Scott closed down the media ministries, along with most of the spinoff churches, to focus on 40 branch churches in East Africa.
"We used to be the biggest thing around, and I'd like to say all my motives were great, but they weren't," he said. Now, "we're better than we've ever been."
Over the past decade, former members say, Scott has increasingly emphasized the wickedness of people and the mercilessness of God. In the 1980s, members voted on who should be pastor and decisions about budgets and real estate. But control of the church has narrowed. Scott has chosen four assistant pastors as well as deacons and elders, with whom he consults on church matters, he said.
"I'm the one who is in authority, and I'll have to answer to God for that," he said.
Former members and church leaders say power essentially rests with Scott.
"If there was anyone in a pastoral position who didn't agree with Star, he was eliminated and often disparaged from the pulpit," Ernst said. Scott "would say, 'God is leading us in this direction, and you are holding us back.' "
Financial Concerns
When Bobby and Katie Timms were in elementary school at Calvary, they said, they were told not to come to class because their parents had fallen behind on tithing -- a mandatory 10 percent of a family's income. Their father had lost his job, but the church would accept that as an excuse only if the family were willing to turn over all its financial information.
All of the former members interviewed told of fundraising campaigns in which they were required to tithe 15 or 20 percent of their earnings for special projects, including one five years ago to expand and remodel the sanctuary. But many of the projects never materialized, they said.
"At the time, I didn't connect the dots. All I knew was, he has all these cars and where is the building?" said Bobby Timms, 19, who attends Northern Virginia Community College. He blames Calvary for his parents' breakup, saying church leaders urged his father to divorce his mother after she left the church.
L. Steve Gardner, associate pastor at Calvary, said the sanctuary project hasn't begun because more funding is needed. "Is money being spent on things other than the building? No," he said. "They are misrepresenting because they are bitter."
Scott's decision to leave the Assemblies of God removed a level of financial oversight, and he eliminated boards and public votes, former members said. Calvary's constitution calls for finances to be administered "by the presiding elder and/or recognized Apostle." Scott holds both positions, according to court documents. The constitution also says that if the church closes, all property will be controlled by the apostle.
The church owns $8.5 million in property, according to land records, including the church site, worth about $5.7 million, and six houses in Loudoun where church employees live, including Scott's 3,400-square-foot home with a pool, worth about $550,000.
Calvary pastors owned at least two of the homes and sold them to the church at a loss, according to land records. Former assistant pastor Richard Miller sold his home to the church in 2000 for $32,000, less than he and his wife had paid for it 11 years earlier.
Miller, who still is a member of the church and lives in the home, did not return calls requesting comment. Scott said the pastors willingly turned over their property to the church in an attempt to "take a poverty vow."
'Automotive Outreach'
With the free hand given to him by congregants, Scott launched a ministry in the early 1990s that dovetailed with a favorite hobby: expensive cars.
He bought Corvettes, Ferraris, dragsters, souped-up motorcycles and trucks, many of which are on view on the ministry Web site. The site describes the racing ministry, named Finish the Race, as "an automotive outreach."
Scott said the goal was to evangelize to crowds at racing events, and "we had thousands of people born again."
County building department records show what many former members describe: a 2,400-square-foot garage on church property where he stored the vehicles. Until last year, when he quit going on the road, Scott carted the vehicles to shows and races across the country in a huge trailer attached to a motor home with granite floors and plasma TVs, said Star Scott Jr., who added that he traveled for years with his father to car events. The son said that his father would be on the road for weeks and that Calvary would pick up the tab, which sometimes included snowmobiling, casino gambling or attending concerts.
He said his father lives off church-paid credit cards, and 2005 card statements he provided to The Post, addressed to Calvary Temple and sent to Pastor Scott's house, show personal spending of $10,000 to $13,000 a month. Items include $2,377 to a company that makes wheels for Harley Davidson motorcycles, $1,450 to a sports memorabilia firm and $544 to a winter sports rental center in Lake Tahoe.
"I don't dispute" the expenses, Scott said, adding that he has no set salary and that his possessions belong to the church. "Some may like it, some may not. I don't tell them what to do with their salary."
Church leaders said that they are selling some of the race cars and that the money will go to support the churches in Africa.
Under federal law, churches can choose any system of governance and are exempt from filing financial information to the government. Federal tax code, however, forbids an individual "such as the creator or the creator's family" from benefiting excessively -- through "unreasonable compensation," for example -- from a tax-exempt organization.
Church finances are not required to be public, but Calvary's lack of transparency is unusual, said experts with the Assemblies of God, whose tenets Scott says he still shares. In Assemblies of God churches, congregations typically vote to select a pastor and are often listed on the title to the property.
"It's not the norm within the Assemblies of God for the pastor to be able to determine everything," said Ron Hall, chairman of church ministries at Valley Forge Christian College and a longtime Assemblies minister. "This is a prime example of someone who wants ultimate control. I would think there would be serious flags."
Broken Families
About 400 members remain and are at the church most days for services or activities including fellowship breakfasts and student basketball games, former members said. Families are expected to send their children to Calvary's school, which has classes from kindergarten through high school.
Rob Foster, the Timmses and others who attended the school say punishments ranged from spankings with a thick wooden paddle to spending the day outside digging, filling and redigging holes.
Charm Kern, a nursing student and mother, says she was traumatized by Calvary teachers telling her in her early adolescence that she was too overweight to be on the cheerleading squad. As punishment for being a "glutton," said Kern, who is 20, she was tied by a rope to faster children and pulled during runs. She and her brother, who was also overweight, would be required to run while other children ate lunch, she said. By ninth grade, she was rebelling against her teachers, and pastors tried to place her and her brother with another family. Her parents pulled the family out of Calvary.
Scott said that Kern's parents initially were supportive of the efforts to help her lose weight and that such measures "are discipline, not punitive."
The school originally was open to any children but was closed to nonmembers in the 1980s as the church became more insular. That growing isolation drove some members to leave. Others left after Scott stood on the sanctuary stage in the fall of 2002, 19 days after the death of his wife after a long battle with cancer, and, according to a transcript, announced that he would take a new wife from the congregation.
Saying the Old Testament calls for a widowed high priest to take a virgin bride, Scott, then 55, said that the next week he would be marrying Greer Parker, whose father is close to Scott. Former members said many congregants were stunned.
"He kept saying it's to keep him from falling into sin, to keep the ministry going," Star Scott Jr. said of his father's explanation to his children.
Others said they began questioning Calvary's theology.
Michelle Freeman, 48, left in December after church leaders and other members urged her to reject her son and her husband, who was not a member. Her son, Channing, had left Calvary as a high school sophomore, setting off heated debates between his parents, leading to their separation.
Channing, 18, wrote an essay this year at his public school describing terrifying dreams about God and Satan he had while in the church. Calvary, he wrote, has "stolen so much of my life. For eleven years I've been devoid of a real life. I don't know what it's like to live."
Now, Michelle Freeman is among more than two dozen former members who gather for support. At a Loudoun Starbucks recently, Freeman cried as those around her talked about their wounded families.
"I've been praying for your boy," one woman told another.
"I was marked while I was in there," said another, using the Calvary term for a member who leaders say should be shunned.
After 12 years at Calvary, Freeman is livid.
"I paid good money for my children to be brainwashed and for my marriage to be ruined," said Freeman, a U.S. Postal Service secretary.
When asked about the divided families, Scott answered, "That happens." They accepted Calvary's theology until it affected them, he said. "They were ready to see it apply to others' lives for years and served many times in the orchestration of it."
Now, "I'm at perfect peace with them being gone," he said. "We're happy with what we believe, so why aren't they happy?"
Staff writer David S. Fallis and news researchers Meg Smith and Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.
Tagged: Calvary Temple, religion, Sterling
Deal of the Day
Take 10% Off Baby Ballerina!
Take a 10% discount off the 10 week Winter Session at Baby Ballerina. The session runs from January 5th - ...
• View all deals from Baby Ballerina | All deals
Latest Deal
• Get 50% Off Laser Hair Removal at Radiance! posted: 1/6/09
|
Search Deals and Business Directory |
Your Thoughts...
Will you make a New Year's resolution this year?
Comments:
Note: LoudounExtra.com does not necessarily agree with comments posted below — responsibility lies with the relevant reader alone. Peruse our reader agreement and privacy policy
I pray that Calvary's congregation will start reading their Bibles and come to the realization that they are part of a cult of personality. Mr. Scott (I won't call him "pastor") is a false teacher who thrives on attention. Anyone who exerts the kind of control he does over his flock is dangerous and the elder board should remove him. I can't believe this is happening right around the corner from where I live.
Posted by dingus3 (anonymous) on November 16, 2008 at 5:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Calvary "was like a mecca. It drew people to church from all up and down the East Coast, from well-to-do from Middleburg to people who could barely afford diapers from West Virginia," said Ernst, the former pastor, who works as an arborist in Richmond.
Are diapers from West Virginia priced differently? I am not sure from this whether it is meant that diapers from West Virginia are priced higher or that the person was so poor that they cannot afford the cheaper diapers from West Virginia.
Posted by buyeragent1 (anonymous) on November 16, 2008 at 5:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Sick, disgusting, shocking and very sad for all the victims in this misuse of power. It sounds like there could be grounds here for a criminal investigation of fraud.
Posted by momof2 (anonymous) on November 16, 2008 at 9:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Great investigative journalism by Michelle Boorstein; Keep up the good work! I am completely disgusted by Mr. Scott's actions, and hope that his victims will fully recover one day. What a sad situation, and what a greedy hypocrite!
Posted by Koolio96 (anonymous) on November 16, 2008 at 10:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Unfortunately, I have known several families, including my family members, who have been beguiled by this man who calls himself a Christian. He has given Jesus a black eye. And he has smeared Jesus' name simply by his own words and lifestyle. He is a shame and I am disgusted by him.
Posted by libbyk (anonymous) on November 17, 2008 at 11:11 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Jim Jones comes to mind when talking about Star Scott. As a member for 12 years I heard many talks suggesting we all move on the land together away from those who did not follow the teachings of the church. I have heard that the ushers or should I say bouncers are now armed during the church services for their protection.
I am thrilled to see this story being brought out in the open before anymore lives are destroyed and before the kool-aid is served.
I suggest the IRS and the police further investigate these accusations.
Posted by shelly.l.shultz (anonymous) on November 17, 2008 at 5:56 p.m. (Suggest removal)
What is wrong with those parents?
There is nothing Christian about this so called
church.
Posted by jmy999 (anonymous) on November 17, 2008 at 8:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)
That is just disgusting! The flames of hell will not be able to get hot enough for that person. I guess the best part is that so many people seems to have gotten wise and left. Unforunately it was at a great personal cost for some.
His day is coming....it won't be pretty either!
Posted by bulldawz1 (anonymous) on November 18, 2008 at 2:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)
There is no difference between extremist Islam and extremist Christianity. One is just as evil as the other.
Posted by GenuineRisk (anonymous) on November 18, 2008 at 2:32 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I grew up in this cult, as well as being forced to go to school there. In 1987 my brothers and I finally refused to go back, no matter what the consequences. Nothing could be worse than the torment we endured at Calvery. I know almost all of the people mentioned in this article and I CAN CONFIRM THAT THE CONTENT OF THIS ARTICLE IS TRUE AND ACCURATE. Unfortunatly, it was FAR worse than even this article can describe. It has been 21 years since I left and I still have not gotten over the years I spent there nor have my peers that I am still in contact with. We often refer to ourselves as "survivors" of Calvary Temple. My heart goes out to those who have had to endure the same. -Jeff Feaster
Posted by jfeaster (anonymous) on November 18, 2008 at 6:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Yes, because you constantly hear about extremist Christians staging car accidents and then blowing up a bomb that kills all the onlookers.
Yes, this guy is a human piece of excrement, but comparing him with religious zealots who kill pedestrians to send a message is not quite legit.
Posted by Hoqenishy (anonymous) on November 19, 2008 at 1:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The devisive message spewed by this cult leader sounds like scientology and extream islam - my way or HELL FOR YOUR SOUL, and give me your money!!
We are responsible for our thoughts and actions. GOD IS WITHIN YOU!!
Peace
Posted by mikejeck (anonymous) on November 19, 2008 at 3:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
WELL I HAD A FEALING THIS DAY WAS COMING. MY FAMILY ATTENDED CT WAY BACK IN THE DAY FOR MANY YEARS. I ATTENDED THE SCHOOL FROM THE THIRD GRADE TO THE MIDDLE OF MY JUNIOR YEAR. THE ONLY GOOD THING I TOOK FROM ALL THAT TIME SPENT THERE WERE SOME GREAT FRIENDSHIPS. MY PARENTS FELL BEHIND ON TUITION AND I WAS EXPELLED. BUT THEY OVERLOOKED THE FACT THAY MY DAD WAS A BIG REASON WHY THEY HAVE THERE $8.5 MILLION IS ASSETS BECAUSE HE ALONG WITH MANY OTHER MEMBERS WORKED HARD TO BUILD THOSE BUILDINGS. BUT THEY STILL KICKED US OUT. THEY LABLED MY FRIENDS ANS MYSELF AS “TROUBLE MAKERS” AND MAYBE WE WERE MAYBE WE WERE JUST BEING KIDS. ON A FEW OCCASIONS WE NOTICED SOME OF THE TEACHERS FROM THE SCHOOL FOLLOWING US A NIGHT IN PRIVATE VEHICLES TRYING TO CATCH US DOING SOMETHING WRONG. EVEN BACK IN THE EIGHTIES WHEN I WAS THERE HE WOULD HAVE PAID EMPLOYEES OF THE SCHOOL OUT THERE ACTING LIKE POLICE OFFICERS FOLLOWING US AFTER SCHOOL OR CHURCH AND OFF THE PROPERY. BUT THE ONE THING I WILL NEVER FORGIVE THEM FOR IS STAR SCOTT ALLOWED A MEMBER, WHO STOLE MONEY FROM MY PARENTS AND ANOTHER FAMILY, TO STAY IN HIS “FLOCK”. APPLE DOESN’T FALL FAR FROM THE TREE I SAY. HE WAS ALWAYS VERY CONTROLLING BUT BACK THEN HE WASN’T AS BAD AS HE SEEMS TODAY, REALLY LOOKS LIKE IT IS GETTING WORSE. BUT I THINK HE WILL GET WHAT HE DESERVES, MAYBE NOT HERE ON EARTH BUT DEFINATLEY WHEN HE STANDS BEFORE GOD ON HIS FINAL JUDGEMENT DAY.
Posted by rickmills1 (anonymous) on November 20, 2008 at 10:51 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I to attended Calvary Temple Christian School. Nine years to be exact. I am not surprised at any of the comments made. There were so many wrong things done to good people.
I can remember to this day the beatings with a wooden paddle and the teasing and the harshness of words used to make you feel less of a person. My parents were good people and only wanted to offer their children the best. They devoted many years of hard work and finances to Calvary and walked away with nothing but hurt and pain.
What is truly sad is the fact that Pastor Scott said "the bible told him to take a virgin wife to keep him from sin"! His wife had only been deceased for three weeks. That is just sick and disgusting.
I remember as a kid Pastor Scott had the cars, jewelry, fancy home, money even then. I truly think an investigation should be made.
Judgement day will be here soon and Pastor Scott will have to answer to God. His day will come very soon. God's wrath is the only thing I fear and if I were Pastor Scott I would be shaking and trembling with much fear!
Posted by bunnyboobear (anonymous) on November 20, 2008 at 1:01 p.m. (Suggest removal)
We must get control over the new amusement park planned near the lake. It will cause traffic near my home and the neighbors would not like it, so please stop the bulldozers and the installation of the rides and race tracks for the all cars. We should have better movie theatres with stadium seating instead.
Posted by lansinghobbie (anonymous) on November 20, 2008 at 11:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I too attended Calvery Temple in the early 80's. Star Scott was brainwashing and bilking his "flock" even back then. I just can't believe he's still getting away with it.
And by the way Star Scott, you DO tell your "flock" exactly what to do with thier salaries. But it just depends on what your extremely selfish extravagent lifestyle & beyond excessive living expenses are at that time. But I believe you call them "projects" And where exactly is your "poverty vow" in all this? Or is that optional? Or does it apply just to all the other Pastors who own homes?
It breaks my heart to hear of the damage YOU did Star Scott to my classmates and their families. And even Marsha my Gym teacher. To look back and think of all the families you shattered. Perticurly this time of year. For those of you who listened to him, do yourself a favor, on Thanksgiving Day look around at the empty seats at the dinning room table were your loved ones would have been sitting, you can either thank Pastor Star Scott for them being empty, or you could MAKE THE CALL! and share a meal with your ENTIRE family. Life is too short, so thank God for ALL your family members. God gave us OUR families for a reason, don't let Star Scott change that.
We are ALL going to have to answer to GOD for everything we do here on earth. Make sure you know Gods rules, NOT Star Scotts'.
So thank you, Star Scott, thank you for being the Poster Child of a moraly bankrupt Pastor. For the liberal media eats this stuff up. And I pray they're not thru with you just yet.
We are all in Gods flock, and God is our Shepard, but you Pastor Star Scott...you ARE the WOLF.
Posted by curlysue4242 (anonymous) on November 24, 2008 at 3:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I went to Calvary Temple for a year and a half in the late nineties. I think this article is long overdue and my heart breaks for the people that have been hurt by the church. I left the church very confused because the teachings along with the behavior of members did not reflect what I read in the bible. I was a brand new Christian excited about God and life. The more involved I got with the church the more I developed a deep fear of God and indescribable anxiety. I knew within my spirit that something was off and after leaving studied the bible like crazy to gain some kind of clarity. I would avoid places where I might run into a member because I wasn’t familiar enough with the bible to defend myself if cross examined. However, the more I studied the bible and began to understand the amazingly wonderful heart of God, the more I realized that Calvary Temple was far from it. Their behavior resembled the Pharisee’s that Jesus was in constant conflict with throughout his time on Earth. I really believe that God is going to bless everyone who spoke out in this article for their courage to bring these things into the light. I pray for the healing and restoration of those that have left and also for the freedom to see God’s truth for those that are still a part of the Calvary Temple.
Posted by ashleychoyce (anonymous) on December 1, 2008 at 8:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
As a Believer who loves the Lord, this whole thing is very sad. I was a member for years and truly enjoyed the teaching, fellowship, application, etc. I have nothing but love for
the Pastors and congregants of Calvary Temple. I cherish the memories of my time spent at this fellowship and I only wish I could return every so often for fellowship. After reading this article and seeing what Pastor Scott has said about those of us that have left I feel unable to do so. It's ashame I can't come back to a place that has meant so much to me over the years. I have confidence that Pastor Scott made those comments for a reason I just wish he had not made it in such a blanket mode referring to every person that has left as "Depraved". This makes me extremely sad as I have always considered him one of my fathers in the faith. If Pastor Scott ever happens to jump online and read this I would like him to know that not every person who has left Calvary has ill feelings toward him or his ministry. There are a few of us that Pray for you and wish you all of Fathers Best for you. Please don't let a few ugly comments jade you on all former members. You taught us well and we are using what we've learned to affect others for the kingdom.
Posted by Lou4me (anonymous) on December 11, 2008 at 10:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Dont have an account? Sign up!
Post a comment