Promises Pt. 04

"I am not saying that we should be compared with Jesus, Martin Luther maybe, but not Jesus. But we felt that we had to publicize what we see as the corruption and false teachings of today's Pentecostal church, and it would appear that not a lot has changed. We chose to use a secular forum, for the simple reason that we would have gotten absolutely nowhere by going to Pastor Mayotte. At best he would have offered to pay back the monies contributed in return for my client signing a confidentiality agreement, and an undertaking never to darken his door ever again."

"Criticize the teachings and you will be taken aside and politely told not to come back, or you will be ignored, and the hope is that you will give up and go away. Whatever the method, the truth is that the church is not prepared to entertain that it could be, notice I haven't said 'is', wrong." Henderson looked at Johansson, "Have I covered everything? I wouldn't want to miss anything out."

"No you may stand down."

The court officer sent to Jones' hotel returned and whispered in Johansson's ear. Johansson cleared his throat and addressed the bench. "Your honour, it appears as if Pastor Jones has decamped, flown the coop. He has left the hotel without checking out and no-one at the hotel saw him leave. I am afraid that I'll have to request an adjournment while we attempt to track him down."

"I don't like the uncertainty of that so I am going to issue a bench warrant for his arrest, and have the police put out an APB. Just in case he has already left the state, I'll issue this for all exit points from the country. I will reconvene this court tomorrow morning and if he has not been located I will call for final submissions from counsel. Court is adjourned!"

Chapter 9:

The final analysis

Trial Day 7

"During the course of this trial we have not questioned the word of God."

All the major players were in attendance except Pastor Jones. "Your Honour." Johansson began. "We have been unable to locate Pastor Jones but we do have a strong lead. It would appear that he had a guest who stayed the night with him, an employee of an Escort Agency. This person had arranged for the two of them to be picked up from the loading dock of the hotel and taken to the Keswick Rail Terminal, where he boarded the Overland to Melbourne. The ticket was issued under a false identity, and that same identification was used to purchase an airline ticket to Brisbane, with a connection to the United States. That flight hasn't left yet so we are hopeful of apprehending him as he checks in. In the meantime the police want to interview him in connection with the murder of Cynthia Mayotte." There was a gasp from the gallery and Frank and Michael looked at each other in amazement. Henderson looked across at Janine raising an eyebrow in question. She shrugged her answer.

"Mister Johansson, as I intimated yesterday, if you are unable to produce your witness we will hear final submissions. I will allow the opportunity, if he can be found, for you to call Pastor Jones, although I think that might not be in the best interests of your case. You may proceed Mister Henderson."

"Your Honour." Henderson began, "Before I begin my summation I would like to say that the events that have happened over the last couple of days have left my client and myself speechless. We have failed to predict that it would come to this, and we believe that neither the defendant, nor any of those around him, are in any way responsible for the planning and execution of the crime that has been committed. I confess to having an aggressively cynical attitude towards the defendant, only because he is symptomatic of the depravity of the Pentecostal church."

At the beginning of this trial I stated that the Shining Light Christian Church, and its Senior Pastor Matthew Mayotte, were guilty of secular deception, and that the burden of proving this deception was on the Plaintiff and myself. In order to prove this, we had also to prove that it was guilty of scriptural and spiritual deception. To do this we had to show that, with its teachings and worship practises, it had taken the Christian Bible and the teachings of both, Jesus of Nazareth and the Apostle Paul, and distorted them for its own venal agenda."

"During the course of this trial we have not questioned the word of God..."

Bang! "That's a lie!" Mayotte's hand slammed down on the table as he rose to his feet, the loud noise causing those around him to flinch. "You have done nothing but question the word of God!"

Bang! This time it was Judge Foley's gavel that echoed through the court room. Bang! Bang! "Order! Pastor Mayotte, you will sit down, now!" Mayotte glared at him, but sat. "Pastor Mayotte, the reason that we are here is to determine the legitimacy of the claim made by the plaintiff, and the persons who have to make that determination are the jury, a jury, which if you recall, is made up predominately of people who are sympathetic to your cause, and I would appreciate it if you will allow the counsel for the plaintiff to continue with his summation without any further outbursts of this nature. Mister Henderson, once again you may proceed."

"Thank you your Honour. As I was saying, we have not questioned the word of God, instead we have questioned the Christian Bible, man's recollection, recording, and interpretation of the word of God, and that is a different matter entirely."

"We have used the so-called 'inerrant Word of God' to prove that it simply cannot be the inerrant Word of God. We have proven that it is not as the inerrancy theorists would have us believe."

"For this book," he held up a Bible, "to be considered the inerrant word of God it would have to pass a simple test; the test is easy to prove, and that is that God actually wrote it. If God actually wrote it, this book would contain no errors, no contradictions, and would be wholly consistent throughout. God may have inspired it, but you only have to look at the many versions of the Bible to realize that it had to be produced with the involvement of man. God we know is infallible, man however, is very fallible indeed."

"The only evidence put forward by Pastor Mayotte and his ilk to validate their assertion that God is responsible for the truth of the Bible, is found in Paul's second letter to Timothy, verse 16. But again we have an example of instant coffee theology, because here we have a passage that is never quoted in its entirety. The church states that the Bible is the truth because 'All Scripture is God breathed.' But if you were to study this passage in context you will get a different meaning." Henderson picked up a Bible and opened it to a marked page. "'But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from who you learned it, and how from infancy they have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.' What this passage tells us is that Scripture is a useful tool for preparing a man of God for his role, as well as a tool by which he can find the truth of God, a guide to the truth, not necessarily the truth in itself."

"One point that is conveniently overlooked by the church is that this refers to Scriptures extant at the time that this letter was written. These Scriptures did not include those yet to be written, such as the Gospels. If you want to include the Gospels, then you have to include all Scripture written after that time, and this includes the Koran. But the church will not have this. Adherence to this passage of Scripture has become selective."

"In the Word is the truth, but the word is not the truth." This statement would have, at the beginning of the trial, brought gasps from those in the public gallery, now they remained silent.

"In the Bible you will find the truth, but not everything in the Bible is the truth. In accepting the literal truth we are in danger of missing the spiritual truth. By insistence on accepting the literal truth, because it can be proven to be wrong, diminishes the faith that can be placed on the rest of the Bible, and that includes the spiritual truth."

"We have never questioned the importance of the Bible in the lives of Christians, we have, however, questioned the interpretation and use, or should I say the mis-interpretation and mis-use, of the Bible by the church, this church."

"There are things in the Bible that have been found to have been man's understanding of the truth at the time, but, as his knowledge has grown, he has realized that what he thought to be true in the past cannot now, be held to be true, just as at some time in the future man will be able to prove that what we hold to be true today, is not the truth, and there is nothing wrong with recognizing that to be the case."

"Man's quest for knowledge did not cease at a point two thousand years ago."

"Just as man's knowledge base is a dynamic process, his relationship with God is a similarly dynamic process. There is no cut-off point in that relationship, a point where God and man announce; 'that's it, our relationship progresses no further than this point', so it is ridiculous to apply the two thousand year old rules of man to today's world. Those rules are contained in the physical relationship between God and man, the rules that we should apply to today's world are the spiritual rules given to us by Jesus and that is an ongoing, dynamic, experience."

"The truth that is contained in the Bible is the core of Christian ideology, and that is centred on the Two Commandments of Jesus. If we love God with all our heart, soul and spirit and love our neighbours, in the universal context, as ourselves, we will live as God wants us to live. These Commandments are a distillation of the Old Testament Ten Commandments. That love, just as God's love for us, should be unconditional, for as soon as we apply our conditions, our rules, to that love, we are no longer living as God would want us to live."

"In Paul's letter to the Romans he re-enforces that point and takes it one step further, he relates the Second Commandment to the Ten Commandments which it supersedes, and to our physical relationship with our universal neighbours when he says that if we show unconditional love we will do nothing to harm our neighbours. One of the Ten that he mentions was 'You shall not steal', and to promise financial reward in return for a tithe, claiming it to be a God promise, knowing that it is not a God promise, is stealing, pure and simple."

"The Pentecostal church, of which this church is one, rejects any reality but its own. The Pentecostal church rejects any truth but its own."

"If you truly seek the truth of the Bible you will have to go outside the teachings of the Pentecostal church. The Pentecostal church does not have a monopoly on God. The Pentecostal church does not have a monopoly on understanding God. The Pentecostal church does not have a monopoly on the understanding and interpretation of the Bible. The Pentecostal church does not have a monopoly on correct worship practices. But they will not discuss this with any non-Pentecostal Christian."

"Paul tells us that if we bind ourselves to the rules of man, Jesus came for nothing. Jesus came, not as the prophesied military Messiah to free the people from their physical bondage, but the spiritual Messiah, come to free them from their spiritual bondage. The Pentecostal church, by applying its rules negate Jesus as the spiritual Messiah, he came for nothing. They do not obey the Bible in the spirit, they demand obedience, not to the literal Bible as a whole, but to selected passages of the Bible that support their agenda, their quest for power and wealth. For them to make money, they have to take money. They do not produce any goods that they can sell, apart from their CD's and DVD's, no, the service that they provide is nothing more than a little 'c' christian themed entertainment to make their followers feel good for a short time. And for which they have to pay dearly, not only in money, but in faith. These people give their faith to this church for what? Certainly not the financial reward that has been promised, not once, but many times.

"Contrary to their claims, the Pentecostal church is not living in obedience to the whole Bible because they only teach, only live by, those passages in the Bible that support their ideology. They ignore contrary Scripture, they do not recognize the existence of contrary Scripture, and by not acknowledging the existence of such Scripture they hope that it will cease to exist. But it is there! Just because they refuse to recognize it doesn't mean that it isn't there! Just what are they afraid of? If you or I were to suggest to a Pentecostal Christian that a relationship with God can be any other than their relationship with God, we would be told that we are wrong. End of story."

"The major Christian religions have their liturgies, their worship practices, and that is fine. What is not fine, is when they tell us that their way is the only true way, because it is based on literal obedience to Scripture when that is not the case, when that can be proven to be not the case. In doing that they are teaching a lie, they are living a lie."

"The only proof put forward by those who believe the Bible to be the inerrant word of God, is that the Bible tells them that it is so, that 'all Scripture is God breathed', as Paul tells Timothy. But, as we have proven, it also tells us that it is not so, as when Jeremiah tells us that the laws as written by the scribes are man's laws and not God's, and as Paul tells us on a number of occasions, Jesus took from us the need for obedience to those physical laws, these laws are now vested in the authorities, which Paul tells us were put in place by God, making them no longer applicable, as scriptural and spiritual law, to us. This church claims that all Biblical Laws are applicable to us when Paul tells us the opposite."

"In the same way that the inerrancy proponents claim that, if science disagrees with Scripture, then science is automatically wrong, they also claim that there are no errors because they, having been told to believe that no errors exist, will find no errors."

"To put your faith in the physical, literal Bible is a nonsense. It is scriptural laziness, and it also means that you will miss out on the spiritual meaning, the spiritual impact, the real truth of the Bible."

"We have proven that it does contain errors, it does contradict itself, and, in particular the synoptic Gospels, far from being a harmonious record, are agenda driven and inconsistent in their recording of the events of the Jesus narrative."

"One of the stated core teachings of this church, and others like it, is that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Now if this teaching is wrong, as we have proven, how can we be sure that the other teachings, based on their interpretation of this book, are not also wrong? Simply put we cannot."

"My client has for some time felt that the teachings of the Shining Light Christian Church, in some way lacked credibility, somehow lacked veracity, and in some ways were misleading. His disquiet at this led him to research the teachings of the Shining Light Christian Church and its parent church in America. During this research he was appalled at the way that this Pentecostal church had, for many, many years misled its followers with its core doctrine of 'Prosperity through Praise', it's so called 'Prosperity Doctrine', in particular its, as I have come to call it, 'instant coffee theology' by which the church selects Scripture passages and sometimes single words, that fit its doctrine and, because these passages or words appeared in the Bible they claimed that they are 'Biblical'," Henderson held up both hands and used the first two fingers of each to indicate parenthesis, "and therefore 'true', irrespective of whether they used them in right context or not."

"He was further appalled by the way that these 'pillars of the church', these 'awesome men of God' have abused their position in a continual quest for more money and more power. For instance, the leader of this church in the US, Pastor Calvin Coolidge Jones, not his real name by the way, who is a man of immense personal wealth, demanded, before he would even consent to come here to support Pastor Mayotte, Business Class air fares in both directions, to be put up in five star accommodation, all meals to be provided and all expenses to be met by the church, and it appears as if this is a common practice with these 'awesome men of God', and you try to convince me that these people aren't in it for the money. He wouldn't even come here to support his colleague without having his demands met by the church! I would even suggest that if he had stuck around until Sunday, the church would have held him up as a 'tower of strength' who came here to support Pastor Mayotte, and then taken up a 'love offering' for him, which would have been more than enough to cover the costs of his trip, but it would have gone into his pockets."

"Think about it, Pastor Mayotte used his churches funds to finance this trip, money given to the church in good faith by its members, and if he'd been around to collect his 'love offering' on Sunday its members would have been slugged again, they would have paid twice for this trip! And you want us to believe that you're not ripping them off." Henderson's voice was just loud enough to carry to the public gallery. It had the desired impact on those present in the gallery.

"On closer study of the church and its attitude to the Bible, my client also began questioning whether the Bible is the inerrant 'Word of God' that the church has claimed it to be many, many times. We played CD's of the teachings of the Shining Light Christian Church where this claim was strongly emphasized, along with the inference that this teaching should not be questioned."

"By looking closely at the Bible, in particular the Books of Genesis and Exodus, we were able to demonstrate conclusively that this claim could in no way be supported by the scriptural evidence, let alone by the scientific evidence, because that was not available when it was written, but is now available. Pastor Mayotte still maintains, as he would, given his church's position on this subject, that if science does not agree with the Bible account of the beginnings of this world, then science is therefore wrong, and that it is impossible to have faith in God and support science at the same time."

"But that is not true. While science will probably never be able to fully explain the origins of this planet and the universe, it can prove, conclusively, that it did not happen as the Creationists would have us believe. Charles Darwin did not deny the Creation, but he saw it as the beginning of the evolution of man, not the beginning of the existence of man. But you only have to look around you at the wonders of nature, the wonders of what God has done, to have faith in Him."

"The only evidence offered by Pastor Mayotte in support of his belief that the Bible record of Creation is the truth, is that the Bible is the word of God and therefore the truth."

"But not even the Bible itself agrees with it! It contradicts itself on many occasions, it is inconsistent and, at times, totally without any contextually accurate validity. Even the church itself has conceded that its interpretation of the Bible account of Earth's relationship with the rest of the Universe was wrong. He also claims that written Biblical records going back a few thousand years, are more accurate than science gained by the use by mankind of some of the more important gifts from God, the power of reason, the want for more and better knowledge, and a sense of wonder."