Dangerous Church Doctrines, Mike Reid, Part 2

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Dangerous Doctrines – Is Tony Miano in a Cult? – Part 3 with Ken Cook

00:13

This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

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We are live, Apologetics Live. Glad that you are here with us for another edition of the

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Apologetics Live show. Now, we're not live, really. Well, we're live doing this, but you're not able to join today again.

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We're sorry. The reason is because we have another special guest coming on, and we are going to be trying to...

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Well, we're unfortunately having to continue to deal with some dangerous doctrines. And so before we get to that, we do want to give some announcements and things like that.

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Apologetics Live, by the way, is a ministry of Striving for Eternity. You can hear the podcast version of this at the

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Christian Podcast Community. Just go to any app and subscribe to Apologetics Live. Now, before we continue, let's have a quick word from our friend,

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Ray. Ray Comfort here. I want to encourage you to attend

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Andrew Rappaport and Justin Peter's upcoming conference on evangelism.

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Both these men don't just talk about it, they do it. And that's why I'm honored to call them both friends. So don't miss the upcoming conference,

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Andrew Rappaport and Justin Peter's. God bless you guys. This is

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Andrew Rappaport with Striving for Eternity ministry. Are you cooped up at home? Are you just desiring to use your time wisely?

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Well, Justin Peters and I got together and realized that our calendars were cleared because of COVID -19.

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So we decided we would get together and do our Snatch Them from the

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Flames seminar, home edition. That's right. A free seminar, May 30th, from 10 a .m.

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to 6 p .m. Eastern Time. We're going to give you a free seminar that you can take at home.

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We're going to cover the topics of the sufficiency of Scripture, interpreting Scripture, discerning false teachers, identifying false teachers, and then a

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Q &A. Get all the details at strivingforeternity .org. And there you can go to the online events to register before May 30th.

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And we'll see you there online in your home. And we do hope that you will join us for that.

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That is going to be May 30th. Just go to strivingforeternity .org, get all the details there. There's a link right at the top, so you don't have to worry about missing that.

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But there is a live events link, and from there you can watch Snatch Them from the

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Flames. Let me bring in Mr. Silvestro. He is going to again do the show.

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Now, you guys, I'm just going to warn you guys, I have no control. When Anthony is on, he just, you know, he should be a pastor.

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He just runs that mouth. I'll tell you, you guys know that the last week was long. We're going to see whether this week is as long.

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Now, just to start, Anthony, Ethan is asking what happened to my face. I'm doing something your wife doesn't allow you to do.

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Sorry, I had to throw that in because you gave that to me once. I admit it.

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I think she let me grow it here since I'm missing it here, but, you know. This is funny because I see that you responded, obviously, because it says

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Andrew is trying to look cool. That must have been you responding. It is. I don't know why it's locked.

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Somehow, I have the Striving Fraternity account. We both logged in with it, so that's why. I'm just going to call a bunch of people.

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Now, no one knows which one of us is responding. What's really nice is that you misspelled your own name.

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I like that. I think you brought me in quicker than I expected.

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I want to get right to this because I know this is probably going to go long. There's a lot of information here. Before I hand you over for a monologue and then before we bring in the guest,

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I do have to give you a correction. Last week, you said something, and I got a correction that was given.

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You mentioned last week in last week's episode that Mike Reed uses people like little

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A once again on camera. Every time, yes. Last week, you mentioned that Mike Reed uses men like Phil Johnson and others to give him credibility.

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Well, I got a correction. Let me give you exactly what Phil Johnson wrote so that it's crystal clear whether Phil Johnson is endorsing

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Mike Reed. This is from Phil Johnson. Whoever made the claim that, quote,

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Phil Johnson has no problems with the close pastoring techniques, unquote, is being dishonest.

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I have a major, that was in all caps, I have a major problem with Mike Reed's view on eldership and counseling.

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I have personally told him that. Specifically, I think the idea, the ideas referred to here as, quote, close pastoring techniques, unquote, are abusive, inappropriate, unnecessary, invasive, and fraught with evil temptations.

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That is particularly true of his one on one counseling sessions where he asks intimate questions of other men's wives replete with quick kisses.

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If he is claiming he has my, and then he throws these big words that I don't understand, impetutor, on any of those things, he clearly knows better.

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If it's true that he is using my name to ward off criticism of these cultish practices, he is being deliberately dishonest.

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If anyone has an email or any proof in writing where he has invoked my name as a supporter of any of these things, please send it to me and I will confront him again, unquote.

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So, I don't think Phil Johnson is agreeing with those things.

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So, I will hand this now over to you for your monologue, and then I'll be back before we introduce our guest to explain how we met.

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I had actually met him, but how the three of us met together. Yeah, it's an interesting story, isn't it? Well, thanks for the correction,

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Andrew, on that. So, good evening for everyone who is joining us live or will be seeing this afterwards as part of the podcast or listening as part of the podcast.

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Last week, just as a recap, we had

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Kevin Yontan, who is a longtime member of GFC.

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In fact, he and his wife were one of the planting families of that church. So, they were before even

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Pastor Mike Reed came there and became the pastor of that church early on in the church's life.

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And so, Kevin also spent several years being a deacon at this church and watched all this stuff happen before he decided, for the

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Lord to open his eyes, however you want to put it, but that he recognized the problems.

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And he, according to Kevin, went to the elders, tried to talk and try to work through what he perceived to be major issues, and then ended up leaving the church.

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And he, as well as many, many others, have done this. And so, last week was the culmination of a lot of research that has been done over the last, really, couple of months.

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And it encompassed, you know, 50 to 60 hours at last guesstimate on just research alone, not me putting any notes together or anything like that.

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That was all above and beyond. But those were, make no mistake about it, those were people that I interviewed myself.

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So, in Kevin's second blog, these are people that I personally talked to and got their eyewitness firsthand accounts from.

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And so, what happened last week is I had been asking Mike Reed. So, we've had some friendly dialogue.

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I have no issues with the dialogue that I have had with Mike Reed over the last month. Now, it's been about five weeks in trying to get him onto the show, both last week as well as this week.

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Obviously, he is not our special guest tonight. I hope he is our special guest in the future on the show.

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But I have reached out. We've had conversations. And so far, he and his elders have declined to be on.

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And so, instead, we did interview Kevin Yont last week, earlier than I was anticipating. And we're going to have

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Kevin and his wife on together in a future show. And we're going to have some other people that have been intimately involved in the situation on the show in the future.

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This is the part I really want to speak on for the next two minutes or so. And then we are going to bring our special guest on tonight.

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There are two issues that we are looking at. And I want to make sure that we all, as listeners, keep this really, really clear.

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Because my job is to be as fair and unbiased as possible throughout this entire process. There is, on one side of things, there is the doctrines.

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So whether we call these unwise, unbiblical, dangerous, weird, call it whatever you want.

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But this is the doctrinal side of things. And these are the things that we have really made the focus on to talk about and to discuss.

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Are these correct practices within any type of church? Now, on the other side of things, and they're closely related, is that as a result of the doctrinal stances, that turns into practices.

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And so what are the practices that come out of those doctrines? That's disputed, right?

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And so in all fairness, the only people I have talked to that have been willing to talk to me,

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I should say, and willing to bring the stories forward are the actual eyewitnesses that I've talked to.

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And so Kevin and his wife and 10 other people on top of that who were either members of the church or had left the church after being there for a period of time.

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And then there's even a few other people on top of that that I've talked to that are close to the situation there in Iowa.

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So there's been a number of people that we've had these discussions with to find out what the practices are.

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I have made it very, very well known that Mike is welcome on the show at any time to come on and have a stab at answering not only the doctrinal positions that he holds to, that at this point in time, we have

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Mike's own words that are on the Beaverton YouTube page, his own words in the context of the rain.

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We have those teachings. And if he abides by those teachings still, then he should come on and say that.

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If he doesn't abide by them, then he should come on and give a correction and say, I don't actually follow those teachings anymore.

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Fine. Amen. If that's the case. He also has an ability to come on to the show and to answer the challenges regarding the practices as a result of those doctrines.

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I did offer, just so everybody knows here, I have offered so far have not been allowed or not been approved.

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I have offered to take the phone number of every single person that is a member of Mike Reed's church, as well as the other two elders.

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I already have Mike's phone number and I will interview, I will take the time to interview every single one of them.

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If that's what it takes to hear this, that what he, what they would call their side of it so far that has not been made possible.

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They don't want that to happen, but the offer has been made because I'm trying to be as transparent as possible throughout this entire process.

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And so we cover the dangerous doctrines last week. I purposely avoided the name of, of what

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I was calling the well -known evangelist. It's, this is a guy, this is a man who I've learned from and respected over the years greatly.

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And I avoided his name because the show was not about him. The show was about what would be perceived as the dangerous doctrines of Mike Reed.

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And, and these were all established before Tony ever, and I'm given the name, right?

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That before Tony, the famous evangelist, right, ever moved out to Iowa in 2016.

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And so the problem is, is that there's a connection that now that's made because if, if Tony never moved out to the church from leaving

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John MacArthur's church, which would be, you know, the dream of I think a lot of people. But from moving there and going to this little church in Iowa, nobody would have known about Iowa.

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Nobody would have known about Grace Fellowship Church here. But they were made known and the church and its doctrine and its practices were made public as a result of, of Tony going out there.

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And, and this is the reality as we're getting ready to bring Chuck on right now is our special guest.

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Quiet. So we, Chuck is our special guest tonight.

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I'm sure you knew this. Yeah. We'll have to give a last name later, but who the

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Chuck and the Tony are that we're talking about. But let me just say this and explain how, how the three of us met.

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Okay. Now I've, I've met Chuck. Chuck O 'Neill is, we could bring him in now since we've already mentioned him by name.

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Chuck, good evening. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. And my thing that I'm going to be doing, and then

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I'm going to hand this over to Anthony like I did last time. It's, it's his show this time, which means it's probably going to go long, but I'm warning you guys, you know, he, he, he just,

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I've, I've been open air preaching with him. He doesn't know how to get it off a box. He doesn't know how to stop preaching.

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It's just, you know, so Humble Clay says, if Mike Reed hasn't reached out to you after last week's show, even

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Phil Johnson has, then the silence is deafening that, that actually he has reached out.

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Mike has reached out. They're just unwilling to come on the show. They're unwilling for me to go and, and interview anybody within their church.

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On one hand, they say, well, you've not done your research within our church. And I say, but I'm willing to do that research and I will call every single one of them.

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And they say, well, no. So that's where we're at right now. Yeah. So let me give the backstory to how the three of us met.

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The famous evangelist that Anthony is referring to is a man named Tony Miano. Someone who

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I, I used to be close with as well. Chuck, not as close as you were with him. But we had a falling out and he had said some things that were not true and spreading things that were not true.

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And I was trying to bring reconciliation, something that those of you in the audience who know me, you know, that that's something

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I teach. It's something I practice. These two men here have seen it firsthand and they could give their account if they want to.

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But I was not getting return phone calls or emails or anything. And so I've always said to people, you do all that's possible, humanly possible to bring reconciliation if you can.

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And there's a point where you just have to give up. I decided, I reached out to Anthony and said, let's, you know, would you want to go to Shepard's conference?

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I had one purpose in going to Shepard's conference. You think it's for the books? No, that was a nice. Or to see your hero,

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John MacArthur. I mean, I got to hear some great preaching, but that wasn't why I went. I went for one purpose.

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And Anthony knew this. I was looking for Tony Miano so that I can talk to him face to face. I did finally see him the third day.

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I went to sit before a session. I said, hey, can we talk after this session? And he said, sure.

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And then at the end of the session, he walked over and he had said, you know, I'd like Chuck. He's my accountability pastor to be with us.

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I said, fine. You know, I'd like Anthony. He's, you know, part of our ministry to be with us as well. If that's

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OK, fine. We all went off. We all missed hearing Paul Washer. And we sat down and had a discussion.

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Now, during the discussion, Tony was making some accusations. Anthony was pretty quiet, which is hard to believe.

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But he was absolutely quiet for the whole time, pretty much. And at one point,

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Anthony made the statement that Tony was judging my motives. And I was telling him what my motives were.

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And he was claiming he knew my motives better than I did. And Chuck, at that point, had agreed and said, you know,

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Tony, he's right. And at that point, Tony changed his argument. And he started to make an argument because there is a woman who wrote songs.

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She wrote a song. She was trying to write us these little picturettes of different people, a pastor, a homemaker, either as a missionary or a martyr, but three different types of people who don't care if anyone knows

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Christ's name. I don't know what happened to Chuck there. You may have to text and see what happened.

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But they wanted to have this song that was about three different people.

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I'll put you in the backstage so you could talk to him until he comes back in. So the idea that we had was, you know, that this artist had was to basically have a pastor who said that the idea of the song.

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OK, there he is. OK. I'm back. He didn't like us saying anything positive about him, so he dropped off.

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I didn't hear it. OK, let's get it straight.

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He needed to go brush his hair. He had to take care of his hair. He realized on camera it didn't look right.

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So what ended up happening was that there was this artist who wrote a song.

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She decided to write the picture of the pastor who doesn't care if anyone doesn't know his name, just wants

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Christ's name to be known. And that artist named that person Andrew and did it after me.

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So she had me in mind when she wrote that part. Now, Tony, with everything you heard last week,

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Tony was saying that that was sinful and that he actually said that I had to buy all of the

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CDs that were available and pay for a remix of this without that song because someone writing a song about me was somehow sinful.

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Now, just keep that in mind as he was at that time planning to go to Iowa to a church where people are going to kiss his wife on the lips.

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Allegedly. Allegedly. Now, here's the thing. I knew nothing about any of this until the following year.

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This is one of the things that I gained a lot more respect for Chuck. Now, Chuck and I had met previously at the

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NorCal events that we used to do, and we do some open air. I met him there. So I had met him but didn't know him.

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The next year, one of the first things when I saw Chuck is he walked up to me and apologized.

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And he said, I need to ask your forgiveness. We sat in that meeting last year, and all the things that Tony was saying.

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And meanwhile, Tony is going to a church now where he's having people meet with his wife privately.

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And I just could not believe. It was unfathomable for me to believe that that could be happening.

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Tony and I did a whole bunch of work with the Church of Wells in identifying cults. There's no way he doesn't understand what a cult is.

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It would blow my mind. And so Chuck had written an article. I read it.

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I said, I just don't believe it. And what convinced me that there was truth to it was actually

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Tony's article. Now, this article is now taken down. It's been edited out.

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But Tony had put an article out talking about his experience going to this church the first time.

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And he said that he had to encourage his wife to meet alone with Mike. And I was like,

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Tony would never do that. But there it is in his own words saying that he encouraged her.

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And she was uncomfortable with that. And then later, he ends up talking about how she wasn't saved until she spoke to Mike.

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And now she's saved, that she was a false convert until now. That was the thing that convinced me.

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It wasn't what Chuck said. No offense, Chuck. But it was actually what Tony said.

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Now, the fact that some of these articles have been taken down and changed, I think is very telling.

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It's very disappointing. And to be fair, right, as we're going to welcome Chuck on here, as we've said this like five times now.

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But to be fair, Mike has a reason for that, right?

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The reason why they're taken down. And I hope that he comes on and shares what his reasoning is.

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Of course, you know, this is what my retort is. If you, as he has now as a public ministry because Tony Miano is there, if you put something out publicly and then you just remove it, and you don't put anything up to say that, hey,

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I repent, I was wrong, something, right, to correct it, I think that's a problem. I don't think you should have this stuff up that you know that people are going to say, hey, wait a minute, and then you just pull it without any explanation, right?

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Because there are literally dozens of people that I have spoken to personally that will say to the end of time that they remember reading those blogs with those words in them, but right now they are nowhere to be found because they've all been deleted.

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Let me just state for the record before I hand it off to you guys. To date,

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Tony has never reconciled with me. I've made multiple attempts. I've seen him at G3 and I've tried to talk to him there.

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He has made no attempt to reconcile with me ever. And so to this day, we would be unreconciled because he has yet to admit to what he's done wrong.

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And so that's a problem. I think it's a problem for us, especially as you've mentioned that, and again,

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I'm not, basically, folks, so you know, what I know of this situation is one blog article from Chuck, some blog articles from Tony, and some things that I heard

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Tony and his pastor or Mike talk about on some Ask the Pastor podcast, and basically last week's show.

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So that's my knowledge. Yeah, you really don't have much. And I remember when you and I, we were at a speaking engagement somewhere, and I remember we were sitting at the hotel in the evening, and all of a sudden we're like, what is this from Chuck O 'Neill?

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Like, because that was my only time ever meeting Chuck, my first time meeting him, right? So I was floored by this, right?

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Because the only memory I had was of Chuck, Tony, you and I sitting in that room together at Grace Community Church, attempting reconciliation between you and Tony.

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And I did remember how Chuck was very loving during that entire time.

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He was loving towards you, loving towards Tony, loving towards the newbie in the group.

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And so, you know, I was very impressed by the way that that was all handled. Chuck was very patient in how he listened as time went on.

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And I was also very impressed with his humility when literally the next time he saw me was the following year at Shepherd's Conference and apologized for what transpired and what didn't transpire and everything.

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But, you know, having said all that, we've had Chuck sitting here for a while. We have a lot to say tonight.

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You guys, but I just want to say that I'm glad to have gotten to know Chuck O 'Neill.

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Make sure that you give the church that you're at and where people can find you.

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Actually, if one of you guys put it in the private chat, I'll put it up while Chuck's talking. But I just, you know, this is the thing.

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I mean, one of the things, Anthony, that has come out that people were saying is the fact that I guess people at Mike's church were saying that, you know, that you have to practice

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Matthew 18 and you have to go through that. Well, they have a man who's,

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I guess, in good standing in their church who doesn't follow reconciliation. And so that's something that I think we'll see if they take it serious.

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But, Chuck, I'm glad that you can come on. I've really appreciated the relationship with you. Anthony, I'll hand it over to you.

26:14

Thank you. So, Chuck, welcome on tonight. So this is, I think in the number of times we've talked in our lives, we're still on two hands, right?

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Somewhere in two hands. But I have enjoyed getting to know you more as time has gone on.

26:34

So, Lou, let's start at the beginning, right? What's your brief testimony, Chuck? Can I comment on the first time

26:44

I met you before we get into that? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I just wanted to say that that was a tense meeting to start with, especially, and I was blessed by how humble

26:58

Andrew sat beneath concerns and criticisms of his character that were really no light issue, the way they were delivered.

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And then, unfortunately, in the midst of that, and I think you'll recall, in the midst of that meeting, Tony got very upset and actually just went completely silent and wouldn't talk anymore at all.

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And I didn't understand it at the time. And the meeting went okay.

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Like Andrew said, it really wasn't reconciliation, but it went okay. And we kind of shook hands at the end.

27:38

And that was that. But it was later, just really a few months later, that I realized what had gone on in Tony's mind there midstream.

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As we were loving on Andrew and bringing some concerns to him, Tony realized,

27:56

I believe, that he was compromised, that he was now supporting much more serious issues with Mike Reed and his meeting alone systematically with the women and at least one teenage girl of the church on a weekly basis for what he calls shepherding.

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That is far more serious than what he was bringing to Andrew.

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And so he fell silent there. And so as I thought through that, worked through that, and then saw you the following year at the

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Shepherd Conference once again, yes, I was compelled to come and say, you know, things

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I think got a little misconstrued, and there's more to the story here. Yeah, and I appreciated that because it helped fill in some holes for us in what all had happened.

28:53

Yeah, so what's your brief testimony, Chuck? You're a Marine, right? Yes, yes.

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Marine for life because I made the mistake of, you know, one of the guys I teach with,

29:06

Mike Riddle, who's also a Marine, when I said you were a Marine, oh, boy, did I get corrected fast. No, you're always a

29:12

Marine. Well, I was an atheist as a young man, raised in a

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United Methodist church, and saw through that as being hypocritical. They didn't represent the true

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God or the true gospel. The pastor wore two pins on his lapels.

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On one side it was a pro -homosexual pin. On the other it was a pro -abortion pin. And so at 13 years of age, after going through the confirmation class for the

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United Methodist Church, I went to the pastor, and I just said, why? Why would

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I be confirmed? Why would I become a member of the church? And he said, well, it would be a good thing to do.

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It would be pleasing to your parents. It would be, you know, it's good for society. Religion is good for society.

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And none of those answers satisfied my heart or mind. And so at that point

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I rejected it all, declared myself an atheist, wrote my own atheist manifesto, gave it to my parents, stopped going to church, and began to live consistently with my atheistic or professed atheistic beliefs.

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I am a reformed presuppositionalist at this point, so my professed atheistic beliefs. And I can reflect back.

30:29

There were certain near -death experiences where I most definitely was not a true atheist, as there are no true atheists.

30:38

But that said, at 17 I joined the United States Marine Corps, and it was there in boot camp.

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They gave me a Gideon New Testament, and for the first time, all my normal sinful distractions were removed, and I was blessed to have nothing to read other than combat manuals or the

30:54

Gideon New Testament. And so in the brief amount of time you have on a daily basis to do something like read,

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I read the New Testament. And it was some point during boot camp at MCRD San Diego that the

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Lord granted me repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. I was radically changed midstream in the middle of boot camp, and I just remember the joy of having the weight of my sin removed, the blackness of soul that I knew removed from me.

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And I wanted to serve Christ with all my heart, mind, and soul, and I thought that, oh, no,

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I've got the six -year contract for the Marine Corps. What am I going to do? Now I'm torn. And so I initially wanted out of the

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Marine Corps, took no action to that end, but soon realized that the Lord had placed me exactly where he wanted me.

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And then step by step, God's leading, continued to read the Word of God, was deployed overseas.

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No one was teaching the Word of God. No one was holding a Bible study. I was woefully unqualified.

32:08

But if no one else is going to teach the Bible and gather Christians together, then hear my

32:13

Lord send me, began to teach the Bible on ship on the way to Somalia, and then got saved.

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We started basically in a closet. Then the chaplain gave us a larger room, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger.

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The chaplain eventually, seeing what he saw, he was, of all things, a United Methodist Navy chaplain, an unsaved man, didn't believe the gospel, but he believed in religious success.

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So that's what he saw in his eyes. So after months of this, he said, I was a corporal at the time, Corporal O 'Neill, would you like to preach on a

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Sunday? And I said, no way. I'm so unqualified. But then the

32:56

Lord convicted me that this man's not preaching the gospel. You may be unqualified to be a pastor, but at least you know the gospel of Jesus Christ.

33:06

And so I told the chaplain I would indeed preach. And I studied and studied, and I preached this message in a closet on the ship at least 10 times, full.

33:18

And the chaplain said, 30 minutes, I want a 30 -minute message. And so it was 30 minutes exactly.

33:25

The fateful day came, and the chaplain comes up to me right before the service started, and he says, 15 minutes.

33:32

And I said, sir, I can't do that. He said, no, the fleet admiral has come in, and he likes a short sermon, 15 minutes.

33:40

And the truth was I couldn't do it. Now I can edit a little bit on the fly, but I preached a 30 -minute sermon to the second, and it was no problem.

33:52

But that was my first sermon on the forward deck of the USS New Orleans with the fleet admiral there.

33:57

My colonel there, Colonel Outlaw, sitting there in front of me. So that's my introduction.

34:04

My first open -air message was actually when we got to Somalia. We hit the beach, got out of the helicopters.

34:11

My lieutenant was afraid his Marines were going to die. He said, Corporal O 'Neill, preach us the gospel. And that same

34:16

Gideon New Testament the Lord had used to save my soul is the Gideon New Testament I used to preach the gospel in the open air just outside of Mogadishu.

34:26

That's my testimony. So one step after another, here I am 20 years, 21 years,

34:34

I think, a veteran pastor at Beaverton Grace Bible Church, a suburb of Portland, Oregon. Yeah, wow.

34:40

Yeah, when Andrew tells me to get up on the box, and I've got 15 minutes, I take an hour, hour and a half as well before he can come up and follow me.

34:49

So I can't hear

34:54

Andrew. He just picked up his – he said, I got to go. Can you get off the box now? But listen, is anybody – yeah.

35:04

Is anyone in your house using the internet or anything you could do? The stream is a little bit breaking up. If that continues, you may want to turn off the video.

35:12

You could just hit stop cam at the bottom if you need to do that. But if there's no one watching movies or something like that, streaming something else, you may –

35:22

Okay. I could turn my phone just off. Maybe that would – I don't know if that would affect it or if your phone is a hotspot and you get better internet that way.

35:34

We want to make sure we can hear whatever you're going to say clearly. Was that pretty jumbled?

35:41

No, no. We could hear you pretty well, but it was just starting at some points. Okay. So if it continues, what

35:49

I'll do is I'll put someone in the private chat to say, hey, turn off your camera. Yeah, and we'll just listen to you on a black screen.

35:56

Yeah. Because your phone might scare people anyway. Exactly. Less preferred.

36:04

Yeah. So how did the transition happen from Marines to your church?

36:10

Which you've been there for a while, right? Beaverton Grace Bible Church. Yes, yes.

36:17

So when it came time to get out of the Marine Corps, I expected to go to Moody Bible Institute, primarily because that's the only

36:24

Christian school I knew of. And it was free. And Marines aren't well paid. We weren't wealthy.

36:30

We had two children. And so I was planning to go to Moody. But I got out of the

36:35

Marine Corps and went back to Iowa, where my wife is from. And that's part of the story, actually. My wife is from Keokuk, Iowa, which is about an hour from Davenport, Iowa, where Mike Reed and Grace Fellowship Church is, and where Tony now is.

36:50

So I went back to Iowa, did a year of college there, just getting some of the first -year requirements out of the way, applied at Moody, went to visit

37:00

Moody. And the Lord just made it so very clear I was not supposed to go to Moody Bible Institute.

37:07

The Lord just said no. And I stubbornly said yes. And we went back again. Just providence led in so many ways against it.

37:15

And so then I just cried out to the Lord, you know, here am I, send me. Where would you have me,

37:20

Lord? And we came out to Portland, Oregon, to visit Multnomah Bible College at the time.

37:27

Now it's a university. I don't recommend it. They have since departed from the faith in many ways.

37:34

But came out here to go to school there and to pastor in the Portland area. Portland is known as the most atheist city in America.

37:44

That's really its boast. And so it's a tremendous place to preach and minister the gospel of Jesus Christ. So as to how

37:53

I became a pastor or the pastor of this church, a friend of mine was the interim pastor here, and he was going to be gone over Christmas.

38:02

And so he invited me to come preach in his stead. I came just after Christmas, and I thought it was a

38:11

New Year's sermon. I thought they'd already preached a Christmas sermon. This is going to be a New Year's sermon. A New Year's sermon is more of a revival sermon, not a sweet baby in a manger, but more of a revival sermon.

38:21

So I preached this really strong New Year's revival sermon, and they're expecting Jesus in the manger there, you know, little sweet baby

38:28

Jesus, the incarnation of God. But they were gracious and kind, and they took us to lunch, invited us back again.

38:38

I had noticed they had no Wednesday night Bible study, and I said, I'd love to teach. You know, obviously you've heard me preach.

38:45

Your interim pastor knows me well. They said, please come and teach. I began to teach six months later.

38:51

Folks were encouraging me. My friend wasn't going to apply for the pastor at full time. Folks encouraged me to apply.

38:57

I applied and have been here for over 20 years now preaching the word.

39:03

You really don't look like you're that old to have preached at this level for 20 years. It's amazing. Well, if you shave off all your gray.

39:14

Maybe I ought to try that, shave the rest of my hair off. So, you know, one of the things

39:21

I really admire about you as a church is you don't just speak about evangelism.

39:28

I mean, look, it's hard enough to find a church in America that will preach about evangelism, that you have to do, and they'll teach it from the pulpit.

39:38

Not only do you do that, but I mean, you have a very evangelistic church. I mean, it's really amazing. How did you build that culture within the church?

39:47

Well, it started at the beginning, actually. When I was interviewing for the pastor, several meetings were held and all sorts of questions were asked to this pastoral candidate.

39:58

But one of them was, what is your plan for the local church? To which I answered, clearly,

40:04

I have no plan for the local church. It's Jesus' church. It's his plan.

40:10

And the plan is this, in a nutshell, Matthew 28, 18. All authority has been given unto me in heaven and earth.

40:16

Go, therefore, make disciples, baptize them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

40:21

Teach them to observe all things that I've commanded. Lo, I'll be with you, even to the end of the age.

40:27

I said, that's Christ's plan for the church. And so that's what we will engage in if the Lord is pleased to call me as pastor here.

40:34

And so we did that from the beginning. From day one, we went door to door with the gospel, leading teams out, training men one on one.

40:43

Sometimes I'd take two or three with me, but we'd only approach the door with two men. But just knock on the door. Hello.

40:49

My name's Chuck. This is my friend. We're here to talk to you about Jesus Christ.

40:56

Or one of my favorite questions, if you were to die today, would you go to heaven? People like to talk about themselves.

41:02

So, yeah, I would go to heaven, and here's why. And so it's a great starting point.

41:08

And that's where we started with the gospel. And then we began to go to the Jehovah's Witnesses Conference.

41:15

It's hard to share the gospel with Jehovah's Witnesses. It's hard to find folks in the community and identify them as Jehovah's Witnesses.

41:22

You know, obviously, they go out two by two or three. But they have these regional conferences.

41:29

They gather thousands here in Portland. And so we would go there and speak with them and try to get the measure.

41:36

Of course, they won't receive the measure. So the need to open air was obvious, and so began to preach there at those conferences and to preach downtown.

41:47

And Portland and the city square. And then in God's timing and leading, later on, as Tony and I become friends, and really what is pretty commonly seen as a gospel abortion ministry now in abortion clinics was then just brand new.

42:09

It was just starting. Tony was at the ground level on that, and he came to Portland, and we stepped out to the

42:17

Lovejoy Surgery Center. And we've been there ever since. I think it's seven, eight years now.

42:23

Most Saturdays down there ministering at the Lovejoy Surgery Center, the most murderous abortion in Portland, probably in the

42:32

Pacific Northwest. But we also go to the local Planned Parenthoods and such.

42:38

And so we preach the parades. We witness and end out tracks and talk to folks and carry the gospel forth.

42:45

But just the steady pastoral example and gathering men and dear sisters as well, not to preach but to, of course, witness and talk with folks.

42:56

The whole body is blessed to be involved. One simple way right here at the local church is to have a car wash.

43:03

We've done it for years where we have an absolutely free car wash, no donations accepted. And people just can't believe you're not going to take a donation.

43:12

They pull in, you wash their car. And even though we've got signs that say no donations accepted, they insist on giving donations, but we won't take them.

43:20

And that's our step into the gospel. And we would invite them out of the car, and we have chips for them and treats and soda and whatnot, all free.

43:31

We want to share the gospel with them. But the free car wash is an illustration of the grace of God, that through repentance and faith, no work on our part, but Christ's finished work on the cross, our sins are washed away through the blood of the

43:45

Lamb. And so various ways, getting the body of Christ involved, entry -level ways like the car wash right here on the church property where you can wash tires and listen to those who are evangelizing.

44:00

You can handle the hose and listen and watch evangelism take place.

44:06

And before you know it, people realize, hey, I can speak to that. I can talk to lost sinners about their precious souls, and they step up and they get involved.

44:16

Wow, that's a great idea. I might be stealing that one and bringing it to my office. It gets the whole body involved.

44:26

Which is the trick, right? I mean, that's a hard thing to do to get people comfortable. I mean,

44:31

Andrew and I have made a career, so to speak, so far in ministry, coming into churches to help the pastor in how to teach people to be motivated in evangelism, to believe what

44:43

God's Word says, that this is your duty to go out and do this. Well, you hit on a key there, to help the pastor.

44:52

Paul, writing to Timothy, said, do the work of the evangelist. And when the apostle Paul said to Timothy, do the work of the evangelist, he doesn't mean, oh, by the way, in the middle of your sermon, now and again, make sure you mention the gospel.

45:04

No, to do the work of the evangelist like Paul did it, follow me as I follow Christ, emulate Paul and the other apostles, going, therefore, finding lost people and bringing the gospel to them.

45:14

When the pastor and the elders are leading out, and they can say like Paul before them, follow me as I follow

45:20

Christ, there's just a natural training there. And where the sheep of the Lord's fold are led, they will follow and they'll get equipped.

45:28

And then they'll not be just sharing the gospel at those ministry times, but having been equipped, they'll be sharing the gospel all throughout their lives.

45:37

Yeah, that's absolutely wonderful. I think we might, I mean, obviously we have a different purpose for the show today.

45:42

And so we might have to have you back on to learn more about this, because I think this would be a wonderful topic to really walk through one day for the pastors who listen to this show, as well as the lay folk who watch this show.

45:57

So, okay. The reason why you're on, right, as everybody now knows, is this.

46:06

You were the person who I think was the initial questioner of the courting of one of your closest friends in Tony Miano, right?

46:17

And I think courting is probably a wonderful word for it, because that would be the perception that a lot of people have.

46:26

And certainly that is exactly what you thought, right? That he was being courted by Pastor Mike Reed of Grace Fellowship Church in Davenport, Iowa.

46:35

I mean, Mike is at a good, solid church. He has pastors who love him, care for him, has a body of believers around him that care for him, love him, support him.

46:46

And it seems like that would be a dream situation for anybody to be in.

46:53

Not just any church. And not just any church, right? You're talking about Tony before Mike came, right?

47:01

What's that? You're talking about Tony, where Tony was before Mike came. Where Tony was, right, yeah. Tony was probably at the finest church on the planet, to my estimation, with the finest preaching on the planet.

47:14

I mean, he was at Grace Community Church under Pastor John MacArthur, and directly under the elder that shepherded

47:22

Tony directly was Phil Johnson. And so, yes, Tony was in a wonderful place.

47:29

He and his family and his ministry, a place to be rooted, a place to grow, a place to have his faith watered with the

47:37

Word of God, a wonderful place. And so, hard to believe that Tony would exchange that environment and that shepherding and those shepherds for Grace Fellowship Church in Iowa and Mike Reed.

47:57

Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you, I'm convinced that if anything would happen to my pastor, that my wife would sell everything before I knew what was going on and she'd be moving us out to their preaching.

48:10

She'd be wise. Yeah, she loves MacArthur. She wants to go to seminary.

48:15

She's like, you got to go to masters. So, yeah, no, I think it would be a wonderful thing to be under that pastorate.

48:23

Of course, I love my own pastor and we love our church, so I would not leave our church for that reason.

48:30

So, okay. So, Andrew, I want you to put up a blog post for me because this blog post is a really important one to understand.

48:44

And I hope that Andrew is there and not... Yeah, there he is. So, Andrew, can you put up the blog post?

48:51

The one with the picture or not? The one with the picture. Thank you. Yep. So, I'm going to read this for those who can't see this, but Andrew is going to be putting it up here for us.

49:03

And, yeah, this is it here. So, here's a blog post written by Tony Miano sometime before his move to Iowa.

49:11

Based on the screenshot, I don't know what year this was, but obviously, you guys are smiling.

49:18

You're in an embrace. And so, I think that means good things. And so, this is what's written by Tony.

49:28

Chuck O 'Neill of Beaverton Grace Bible Church is one of my best friends.

49:34

We are a lot alike, but I like him anyways. And he's got a smiley face emoji there.

49:42

Pastor Chuck is an exceptional preacher, both in the pulpit and on the streets.

49:48

So, before I read the last half of this, obviously, Chuck, you guys had a great friendship.

49:55

And from what I can gather, a lot of mutual respect. I mean, this picture, all the times you've invited him to your church for conferences, you were the person of all the people he could have chosen at Grace Community Church.

50:10

You were the one he chose to come into that meeting for reconciliation between he and Andrew. Yeah, I mean, can you speak a little bit to that friendship?

50:19

How'd you guys meet and things like that? Absolutely. Let me say,

50:26

I love Tony Miano. Not loved, love Tony Miano. Love him dearly.

50:34

He was one of my best friends and certainly one of my closest ministry partners.

50:39

And what a joy it was to minister the gospel of Jesus Christ here in my own city and Southern California and Philadelphia and many other cities.

50:51

Seattle with my dear brother heralding forth the glories of Christ for the redemption of sinners.

50:59

What a joy, what a blessing. No one has filled my pulpit more in my stead than Tony.

51:06

No one has been called uncle by my children other than Tony.

51:14

Tony at one point started a blog for a stuffed animal that his daughter gave him.

51:23

And one of my daughter's stuffed animals, because the stuffed animals were friends. This man was and is dear to me.

51:35

What has transpired is shocking. What has happened is heartbreaking.

51:45

And it is my great hope and my continual prayer that my dear friend will yet return to his former theological and moral senses.

51:58

And that he will one day again call me friend and brother and cease to call me

52:04

Judas and the other things he's referred to me as. So that is my hope and my joy because I love him dearly.

52:13

There are some people who think I'm just some guy. They may read a blog I wrote about this issue or the three blogs

52:19

I wrote about this issue. And they think I'm some guy on the internet reviling Tony Miano and Mike Reed.

52:25

Nothing could be further from the truth. I am Tony's friend and I'm fighting for him, not against him.

52:35

Because I love him and I love his wife and I love his family. And more than that, of course, because I love

52:41

Christ and the church at large. But I am his dear friend. And I brought one of Tony's books, his last book,

52:49

Should She Preach? And you'll see there, I don't know if you can see that.

52:55

Oh yeah, Forward by Pastor Chuck O 'Neill. Tony put there, above his name, he put my name.

53:04

And that I wrote the Forward. And that book is available on Amazon right now.

53:09

The Forward is up there on Amazon. Anyone can go read it. And in that Forward, I talk about... It may not be up there by tomorrow now.

53:17

Well, it was up there. But I talk about my love for Tony and our friendship and our unity in Christ and in sound doctrine.

53:28

And where I met Tony, in that Forward, I speak at length to where I met him.

53:34

I met him years ago at the Shepherd's Conference. I've been going to the Shepherd's Conference for 20 years. When I met

53:40

Tony, he was a sheriff's deputy. That's all. A sheriff's deputy that loved

53:45

Jesus, sitting in the back of Grace Community Church at the Shepherd's Conference. We met every year. We talked every year.

53:51

We shook hands. We got to know each other. Then Tony became a chaplain in the sheriff's department.

53:56

And I thought, oh, praise God, the Lord's raising him up as a minister of the gospel. And the years keep unfolding.

54:03

Then Tony retires from the sheriff's department. And he's now on staff with Ray Comfort.

54:09

And I see him at the Shepherd's Conference. I go visit him there at Living Waters. And praise

54:15

God, the Lord's continued to raise up my friend and brother who I met at Shepherd's Conference.

54:21

And our friendship just grew over the years until he was coming to Portland regularly. And in my pulpit and part of our evangelism conferences on an annual basis.

54:33

This is what I find fascinating. Because in the same blog post that talks about the love that he—

54:41

I can sense the love he has for you in that blog post. But here's the second part of his blog post.

54:49

And this is the part that really shocked me when I first saw this in light of everything that's gone on.

54:56

So the second part of his blog post, for those who can't read it on the screen. He, meaning you, Pastor Chuck O 'Neill, is a diligent student of the

55:04

Word of God. Has an amazing recall of scripture. And is utterly fearless when it comes to confronting anything or anyone who would try to rob

55:16

Christ of his glory or harm the Bride of Christ. Or mislead the lost with false teaching.

55:26

Those are strong words on that blog post. And this is exactly why we are having you on today.

55:33

Because this is a huge compliment that Tony gave you in the blog. And obviously, the reason why you're here tonight.

55:43

The reason why you wrote those blogs four plus years ago is because you saw false teaching.

55:54

And so what I would like you to do is— This may sound like a hard question to ask.

56:04

But in terms of— I mean there's a lot of Christians that go about everyday life. And they just—they read—praise

56:11

God. They read their Bibles everyday. And they apply them to their lives. But sometimes there's a disconnect in taking that word.

56:19

And being able to say, that doesn't sound right over there. I mean we see this at the abortion mill where Christians are confused over Catholicism.

56:29

We see this with Abby Johnson in her movie. A Catholic who has no clue what the gospel is. And Christians have rallied around her.

56:35

Without talking about any type of separation. Between what we believe and the false gospel that they believe.

56:43

So, I mean, how did the Lord open this avenue up for you?

56:49

In really being able to discern the false teaching that Tony talks about here in his blog. So, if I understand your question correctly.

57:07

How did I begin to discover Mike Reed's false teaching? I would say false teaching in general.

57:14

Like what happened that allowed you to really start to see those things? There was a point in my life that things were opened.

57:23

And you just see it all clearly, right? Right. What you just said there is actually one of my prevailing convictions from the moment that I was saved.

57:34

Everything was fuzzy and gray. And it suddenly came into focus and was clear.

57:40

Everything made sense. Suddenly, there was truth. There's a

57:46

God of truth. There's a word of truth. There is truth in this universe.

57:51

And without God, there is no truth. There's only speculation. There's only feeling.

57:57

There's only emotion. There's only opinion. Individual or consensus. And so, suddenly there was truth.

58:04

And by the grace of God, I grabbed onto that truth and studied that truth.

58:11

And that truth burns in my heart and mind. And when I look at issues,

58:16

I tend to see black and white. I see truth and air. I'm not looking for the middle ground.

58:23

I'm not looking for the gray. I'm not looking for nuance. I'm looking for the say of the

58:28

Lord and how does it apply. And that's just how the Lord has wired me.

58:35

And so, that's how I go about life and ministry. Yeah, that's really cool. I mean, for me, I got saved in a weak church.

58:42

And it took a few years. And what ended up happening is I started reading my

58:48

Bible really intently. I was exposed to Votie Bauckham and John MacArthur. And so,

58:54

I'm reading my Bible. It matches up with what Votie and John are saying. And then I'm listening to our pastor of their old mega church.

59:02

One of these ain't like the other, and it's him. And that is what really opened my eyes and just has, you know,

59:11

God's done amazing wonders through some of those men and the teaching early on and just has opened my eyes to all this stuff.

59:19

So, let me speak to that. Like you, early on,

59:24

I'm reading the Word. I'm grabbing a hold of this truth, and certain truths come more quickly, the centrality of the gospel became very clear.

59:35

But then I'm listening to K -Wave in Southern California. I mean, I'm a Marine. I'm in Southern California for six years.

59:41

I'm listening to K -Wave Radio. Can I say that? Yeah, absolutely. And I'm listening to a lot of different preachers like Chuck Smith and Raul Reese and various individuals, even

59:59

Chuck Swindoll. And then there was this other guy, John MacArthur, on K -Wave.

01:00:07

And as time went on, I began just through the Spirit of God to discern this wasn't really biblical or wasn't as biblical.

01:00:18

This wasn't meaty. It wasn't feeding my soul. That was questionable.

01:00:25

But over and over again, consistently, I found that Pastor MacArthur's ministry, his preaching, was just giving you the meat of the

01:00:33

Word, just setting it up on the table there prepared for you, diced up a little bit, no extra preservatives or spices, giving you the

01:00:42

Word of God consistently. And as time went on, I gravitated away from certain preachers and ministries and gravitated toward that solid ministry of the

01:00:53

Word. And so from conception, spiritually speaking there, the Lord used the radio ministry of Pastor John MacArthur to begin to build in that discernment.

01:01:05

Yeah, amen to that. So many people that he has affected for the greater good.

01:01:11

It's amazing. So as we get into some of our harder questions tonight, what are your goals?

01:01:18

I mean, look, Tony, as you said, love is not a past tense thing for Tony. What is your goal for being on tonight for both

01:01:27

Tony, number one, and then number two, the elders of Grace Fellowship Church in Davenport, Iowa?

01:01:42

Right, right. And so some years ago, we had a phone call with Mike, Tony, and Bobby McCurry.

01:01:53

And at the outset of that phone call, I gave my goals for that phone call. So I'll just restate those. I'm addressing these issues as Tony's friend and brother.

01:02:02

I'm addressing these issues as a member of Tony's Cross Encounters Advisory Board. Now, I'm a defunct member.

01:02:09

I've been ousted. But the whole advisory board has been ousted. Mike Reed is now the advisor over Tony's ministry.

01:02:17

I'm addressing these issues as a pastor for the protection of the sheep of the Lord's Fold here in Beaverton, in Davenport, Iowa, and at large.

01:02:27

And I really truly mean that. And so that's why I'm on here on a personal level, on a pastoral level.

01:02:36

And then beyond that, the specific goals, my hope truly, without pulling any punches or any ambiguity, my hope is that Grace Fellowship Church will be dissolved, that it will no longer exist, because I don't believe it is a church.

01:03:00

I believe it is a cult. I believe it is dangerous. I believe the men at the helm are wolves in sheep's clothing, and the evidence to that end abounds.

01:03:10

It's not a question. It's not a he said, she said, or he said, he said situation. The evidence abounds.

01:03:16

And so the dissolution of the so -called church in Davenport, Iowa, is the goal.

01:03:24

That Mike Reed, Nick Rowland, and Tyler Bolkema will step down and very likely need to repent and actually truly confess

01:03:34

Christ as Lord and be saved and go sit in a back pew someplace of a true church, that the members of the church, the attenders of the church will be unbeguiled, that their eyes will be open to what they're caught up in.

01:03:49

It is not biblical Christianity. And the men that are over them are not biblical pastors. They're abusers of the sheep of the

01:03:56

Lord's fold. They twist the word of God. I have termed their ministry, and I believe the term is correct.

01:04:05

I know for some it will be inflammatory. I don't mean it to be inflammatory. I mean it to be clear. It is a predatory perversion of pastoral ministry and the

01:04:14

Christian church. Let me say that again. Mike Reed's ministry and the

01:04:21

Grace Fellowship Church in Davenport, Iowa, is a predatory perversion of pastoral ministry and the

01:04:30

Christian church. It must come to an end. And so my goal is that God will open the eyes of those caught up beneath this, set them free, that they will flee to true churches and find healing there, find hope there, find joy there, and truly glorify

01:04:50

Christ there, advancing the kingdom of Christ in the earth and not the kingdom of Mike in the earth.

01:04:57

As far as Tony, now he would be part of that as far as the congregation, but my goal is that my dear brother would be set free from this, that he would return to his former sound morality and theology.

01:05:10

I mean my brother, my friend, once had an email tagline.

01:05:15

Every single email he sent out had this at the bottom. It said that this email is subject to the purview and reading of my wife so as to avoid any undue expectation of privacy and impropriety to be above reproach.

01:05:33

Every single email. And so this man, this dear brother who once had this biblical high standard of purity where he wouldn't even let an email be perceived as a private communication with a woman now condones and supports his pastor, which

01:05:52

I don't even want to call him that, he's not a pastor, condones this wolf in sheep's clothing, meeting systematically alone with the women of the church on a weekly basis to give them counsel on their marriage, to give them counsel on their sex life, to give them explicit sexual stories from his own life, to help encourage them to speak about their sex life.

01:06:18

He talks to them about frequency of sex and satisfaction in sex and he gives them ideas on how to increase their satisfaction.

01:06:28

This is so far outside of anything acceptable. It's appalling. It's egregious.

01:06:35

It's terrifying that he's gotten away with this for this long. It must come to an end.

01:06:40

And so let me say at the outset for the brothers and sisters, the genuine sheep of the

01:06:47

Lord's fold that are caught up beneath Mike right now, hear me, brothers and sisters, that is not ministry.

01:06:53

That is perversion. It's Mike Reed manifesting his perverse heart and abusing the pastorate.

01:07:04

Flee from it. Flee from it. Don't sit beneath it anymore. So obviously,

01:07:11

Chuck, you made a lot of really strong claims in there. Very strong claims.

01:07:18

And obviously, I have to hold you to those now, right? And so as we go through the show, we're going to go through what you would call evidence that is first -person type evidence that you're going to go through here.

01:07:34

And so I'm going to hold you to that now because these are strong allegations. So as we get started into this, this is something that I want to read here that comes from your blog post.

01:07:47

And so keep in mind that this blog, your first one was written in August of 2016,

01:07:54

August 19, 2016. And this is, I believe, before Tony made his final move because he moved sometime,

01:08:02

I think, a couple of months after this. And so in the first paragraph, you wrote this.

01:08:09

All that follows is written as a friend, a brother, a cross -encounters advisory board member, and a pastor.

01:08:14

It is written out of love for Christ, his gospel, his church, and our brother Tony Miano. My church and family have prayerfully and financially supported

01:08:22

Tony for over four years. Beaverton Grace Bible Church has welcomed Tony to stand behind the pulpit many times.

01:08:28

This would have been Tony's fourth year as our keynote speaker at the Biblical Church Evangelism Conference. I've been blessed to spend hundreds of hours proclaiming

01:08:36

Christ with Tony on the streets of Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Burbank, Hollywood, and Philadelphia.

01:08:41

I've served on Tony's advisory board for several years, and this is my final act in that capacity.

01:08:47

I am greatly pained by the necessity of writing this article, but Tony's excellent and often given counsel regarding friendship evangelism has application outside of evangelism.

01:08:58

I must love my friend more than I love our friendship. Sounds like very loving words,

01:09:05

I would say, as anybody reading this, and the first thing that I thought when this came across Facebook, and I read it for the first time years ago.

01:09:15

And so following that, you said, Tony addresses his recent loss of friends who decided to disassociate with him over hearsay and secondary theological issues when he didn't measure up to their sinful expectations.

01:09:30

So in order to give our listeners a proper context as to what happened, I want to establish a bit of a timeline for people, something we did not do last week.

01:09:39

So I want to make sure that we do this this week very well. So Tony wrote a blog article in December 2016 after his move to Iowa was completed.

01:09:51

So let me ask this question. When did Tony first, or when are you aware of Tony first coming into contact with Pastor Mike Reed?

01:10:00

I believe it was at the Shepherds Conference in 2015. And as Kevin Jant shared both in his blog and in the interview last week, that Kevin Jant was part of that team that came for the express purpose of recruiting

01:10:21

Tony and getting him to Iowa. It was not a casual thing. It was not something that just happened.

01:10:27

It was deliberate, it was planned, and they carried it out. And I was there with Tony as a close friend and brother at the conference when he met them that first time.

01:10:40

So you're saying that he actually met Mike Reed for the first time. Was there any type of contact between Tony and Mike before that?

01:10:49

Was Mike a supporting church? I believe a few months ahead of Shepherds Conference.

01:10:55

They had contacted him from Iowa via email. Maybe a phone call even had preceded it.

01:11:02

And they were interested in supporting him. And so those first few times they met at the

01:11:07

Shepherds Conference, they were talking to him about supporting him. And I was privy to some of that.

01:11:15

Okay, so you had a little more inside knowledge on some of that stuff going on. Yes, Kevin and I were both there at the beginning on opposite sides, so to speak.

01:11:26

And now he's joined the other team. Yes, praise God. Kind of like we'd be in World War I or World War II.

01:11:33

Praise God. And that's actually what gives me much hope, and I want other folks to realize that as well.

01:11:40

Kevin was steeped in this. Kevin was on board 100%. Kevin was fully, and I don't say this to judge him, but to be clear, beguiled by Mike.

01:11:51

He was a defender of Mike's practices and doctrines, regardless of how dangerous they are.

01:11:57

But God in his grace opened Mike's eyes, opened Jen John's eyes as well, and set them free from that.

01:12:04

And now they're completely on the other side trying to rescue others out from that as well and prevent anyone else from getting caught up and trapped in it.

01:12:14

And so he was there on that side helping recruit Tony. I was on the other side. I also want to say that in meeting

01:12:22

Mike at the Shepherds Conference 2015 for the first time, that's when he first taught me his doctrine of holy kissing by shaking my hand, pulling me in, and kissing me without warning or permission.

01:12:38

And I was shocked, but ultimately I've heard there are those who practice that.

01:12:45

And so I pressed on. But Mike kisses men and women without warning and without permission.

01:12:55

And it ought not be. It ought not be. Mike knows that this is not a common doctrine or position, especially the kissing of women.

01:13:07

You don't go around kissing other men's wives or daughters for that matter. Yeah, and so we're going to get into that in a moment.

01:13:14

I don't care, Andrew. Don't put it on the record. If anyone tries to kiss my wife or me, they'll wake up from the ground unconscious from being choked out.

01:13:24

I'm just saying. Don't try it, Chuck. Another threat.

01:13:29

He's really timely with those. He doesn't last too long. I know what it is, actually. With COVID -19, all the jiu -jitsu gyms are closed.

01:13:40

And so Andrew hasn't gotten to choke anyone for some time, which I'm also a jiu -jitsu practitioner,

01:13:46

Andrew. We'll have to get together on that. On that mat, on that issue sometime. Yeah, that'd be fun.

01:13:54

We'll do a fundraiser out of that or something. Yes. So, okay. So Mike started supporting

01:14:01

Tony a few months before Shepard's Conference, comes out of Shepard's Conference, which you believe, whether at the time or sometime shortly thereafter, that it was for a recruiting trip and you were privy to some of that information.

01:14:14

When is it that Tony went out and visited? Because from what

01:14:19

I could gather, it was November 2015. Was that the first time he went out to go visit

01:14:25

Pastor Mike Reed? Or were there earlier times that you're aware of? How did all this come about?

01:14:31

So Shepard's Conference is in March. I believe, yes, it was that following November that they invited him with Maria, his wife, to come for the first time to visit

01:14:45

Grace Fellowship Church in Iowa. And while he was there, he stayed with Mike in his home.

01:14:54

And you've already referenced it, or no, it was Andrew who referenced it. But when he came back, he wrote this blog article.

01:15:02

And in that blog article, he outlined his experience there in brief and just that it seemed to be a deeper level of holiness that he had never seen.

01:15:14

And yet Maria felt that perhaps it was legalism.

01:15:20

In that blog article, he went on to say that because of the experience there, that Maria had a crisis of faith and he wasn't certain she was saved anymore.

01:15:34

And everyone who knew Tony who read that article, including Phil Johnson, myself, and others, were alarmed by this.

01:15:42

One, it was kind of a tell -all in a very personal way about his wife, and the appropriateness of that was questionable.

01:15:53

But two, Maria was a lifelong Christian at the time. Maria was a member of Grace Community Church under John MacArthur at the time.

01:16:02

Maria had been married to Tony Miano, a minister of the gospel, for many, many years at that time.

01:16:09

So for her to suddenly, after visiting this church in Iowa, to have this crisis of faith and be announced as very likely unsaved, was very problematic, very troubling to many.

01:16:22

Yeah. I mean, and his blog actually said this. Because, okay, most of these blogs have been removed.

01:16:29

And this one, I think, may have been removed as well, but there's screenshots of this one. It says,

01:16:57

So this is what you had written, but based off of that blog, that he had written that has disappeared now.

01:17:06

But I know that that's where concerns jumped up. So again, with a timeline, it's

01:17:12

March 2015 that Shepherds Conference happens. The same Shepherds Conference that us four actually met is the same

01:17:19

Shepherds Conference that Mike Reed and several people from his church were also at and doing some recruiting of Tony.

01:17:27

In the meantime, Mike is supporting, or GFC is supporting Tony in some way financially.

01:17:34

And Tony now comes out there in 2015. So November 2015 is a full year before Tony actually makes the move, which means that there were alarm bells that were going off by you, by Phil Johnson.

01:17:48

What other people had some alarm bells going off? Were there any others at that point?

01:17:55

There were other men that were concerned about that blog and the effect that Mike's church and Mike himself had on Tony and his wife.

01:18:07

But our concern wasn't fully developed because our understanding, our knowledge of what took place there was far from complete.

01:18:17

I asked Tony very specific questions about what took place in Iowa. And I remember having a discussion with my wife about the situation, and she too was very concerned.

01:18:28

I remember Tony has stayed in my home many times and my wife loves him. I love him, my kids love him.

01:18:34

So we were alarmed by what we were hearing. And we discussed it and we said, Tony has traveled the world.

01:18:41

He's traveled back and forth over the United States. He's been to many, many churches and he is seeing all that's out there under the sun in the realm of evangelical

01:18:50

Christianity. And so what happened in Iowa? What is this deeper level of holiness that has gotten a grip on him?

01:18:58

So I asked him, I thought, surely Tony's not falling for some Midwestern King James only skirt only, him only, piano only kind of deal.

01:19:15

And no, it's not that. And so I kept asking him and he really couldn't articulate what it was.

01:19:22

And now in retrospect, years later, of course, I really believe he didn't want to articulate what it was because if he had told me what was going on at that church,

01:19:31

I would have been appalled and all the more alarmed at the outset. But Mike's hooks were already getting into Tony.

01:19:38

The beguiling had already begun and Tony had already moved past wondering whether this was a deeper level of holiness or legalism and determined it's a deeper level of holiness and I want it.

01:19:51

And I wanna warn folks beyond this particular issue, that that is a danger. It's a danger.

01:19:57

And there've been many movements in the history of Christ Church of deeper holiness or deeper

01:20:03

Christian life or deeper spirituality or some like explanation, but it never pans out that way.

01:20:14

It's not a deeper holiness. It's not a richer Christian life. It's always enslavement.

01:20:19

It's always legalism. And sometimes it ends up being really a very dangerous circumstance, a very controlling circumstance where you give up more and more of your life and your freedom and you come further and further, a very powerful individual in his teaching.

01:20:41

And that's exactly what's going on there in Iowa. Hey, Anthony, I'm butting in just to correct one thing that you had mentioned.

01:20:47

You mentioned there were some people upset with this at the time of Shepherd's Conference. You included Phil Johnson in that.

01:20:53

So Phil had called me today about this stuff, just so we're clear. Phil did not know anything about Mike Reed at the time.

01:21:03

No, I didn't say Shepherd's Conference. This would have been after Tony's visit in November of 2015.

01:21:11

Okay, even after that though, what Phil told me was that Tony came to him and said, hey, he wanted to go to this church.

01:21:17

Can he go? It was just a blanket. Phil said he knew nothing about the church, didn't know

01:21:24

Mike Reed at all at that time. He just was like, well, we don't restrict people from being able to leave the church.

01:21:31

It wasn't until after he was out at the church that he learned about some things about Mike Reed.

01:21:37

And so I think that he may not have been in that category early on, that's all. Yeah, but I think what

01:21:43

Chuck was saying was in regards to the blog post, right? Not about Mike Reed in person.

01:21:49

Again, we're all frail human beings. And so as best as I can reflect, Phil was one of those who had immediately contacted

01:21:57

Tony and said, hey, this blog post is not appropriate. Yeah, the blog post that you wrote is what got him.

01:22:04

If I misheard, then I'm sorry. Not Chuck's blog post, the one that Tony wrote earlier regarding the first visit to Iowa where Maria was struggling with her assurance and they were deciding whether this was deep level of holiness.

01:22:19

And that's okay if we don't, I'm trying to figure out what this timeline is in general, right?

01:22:24

So we're not trying to really, yeah. So thank you for the correction,

01:22:30

Andrew. We're just trying to draw some of this stuff back out because it's really easy, right?

01:22:35

To just, hey, what's the timeline? And yet it's really difficult to have to go back years and all these things back together.

01:22:43

So, okay. So the best of your recollection then is when did you just start to do some research into Pastor Mike Reed?

01:22:54

Like when, like what started it off? Was it this blog post that did it or was there more that happened?

01:23:00

Because again, this is almost a two year period from that first Shepherds Conference to the time he moves. There's a lot that goes on in two years there.

01:23:08

Right, definitely. And so let me elaborate further. I addressed earlier the idea that some people have that I'm just some guy attacking

01:23:16

Tony on the internet. Nothing can be further from the truth. I was one of Tony's closest friends and I still love the man dearly and I'm fighting for him, not against him.

01:23:28

But second to that, another misconception out there that's been put forth by some is I'm just some guy attacking

01:23:34

Mike Reed. Mike Reed was a friend also, not like Tony by any means but in Mike Reed's attempts to reach

01:23:45

Tony and recruit Tony, I happened, you know I'm close to Tony there at the

01:23:50

Shepherds Conference. And so I met Mike Reed as well. And like I said, Mike planted his kiss on me and I got to know

01:23:59

Mike and I got to know Nick Roland and I got to know Kevin Yont there at the Shepherds Conference.

01:24:06

And in their desire to get close to Tony they also got close to me.

01:24:11

So much so that at our annual evangelism conference the following year,

01:24:17

Mike Reed sent out a large contingency from Iowa. So this is from Iowa to Oregon.

01:24:24

They sent, I don't know, 10 people, 12 people 2 ,000 miles to attend an evangelism conference in Portland, Oregon.

01:24:32

And what was the date of that Chuck? When did that happen? I'm not sure on the date. I'm asking some really doozies, right?

01:24:39

Yeah, yeah. That was either, well, so we met at the

01:24:44

Shepherds Conference in March. That might've been that immediate evangelism conference that next summer in like September of 2015.

01:24:53

If it wasn't, it probably was actually it was probably that September, 2015. But they came out, they rented a house and they invited, they're very loving.

01:25:04

They invited anyone who was coming from out of state to come and stay with them which

01:25:12

I thought was very kind at the time. And so some folks coming from out of state did stay with them.

01:25:19

They came into the church and there were some things that I noted but as Christians, we try to be gracious.

01:25:26

We're not all the same. People have different convictions and different proclivities.

01:25:32

But now again, in retrospect, I see clearly they didn't just attend the evangelism conference. They came to our evangelism conference and they were evangelizing my church, people in my church.

01:25:42

They were sharing the gospel with attenders and members of my church. They were sharing the gospel with attenders of the evangelism conference.

01:25:52

They were so aggressive in their evangelistic zeal. They were sharing the gospel with my adult son. Hi, this is

01:26:00

Pastor Chuck's son and they're engaging him with the gospel.

01:26:06

And someone might say, well, that sounds wonderful. Well, no, in retrospect, that's what they do.

01:26:12

They attempt to strip Christians of their salvation and bring them beneath Mike's definition of Christianity and salvation.

01:26:22

And then Mike gets them saved again. And that's a pattern of Mike's ministry.

01:26:28

And he has a series of questions that he asks people and pretty much anyone, any

01:26:33

Christian pretty much under Mike's scrutiny and under his questions will come out the other side of it, having a crisis of faith as Maria had when

01:26:41

Tony and she visited Iowa. So they came to our church. They were part of the conference. Some odd things happened, but not so much so that we were shocked and appalled.

01:26:53

You just note it and you tuck it away. The following Shepherds Conference, they're there again. We're there, we're ministering the gospel at UCLA on the campus there.

01:27:02

I noted some strange things there, but again, not wanting to be judgmental, just kind of tucked it away.

01:27:09

But one of the strange things I noted there was one of Mike's favorite evangelism questions is this, do you masturbate?

01:27:18

That's one of Mike's evangelism questions. So you heard him say that, right? Yes. Several times, okay.

01:27:24

So he asks college students this question. Way too intrusive, entirely unnecessary.

01:27:32

We can address the sin nature. We can address specific sexual immorality, of course, but we don't need to go around asking people these explicit pointed questions.

01:27:45

Really inappropriate, but tucked it away. And it's in the context of a busy day.

01:27:51

I'm preaching, I'm evangelizing, I'm handing out tracts to thousands of people. And so it doesn't catch in your mind in the way that it should until it all starts to come together.

01:28:06

So let me just make sure we have this clear. March 2015 is the first time you met

01:28:14

Mike and Tony met Mike in person. Then we fast forward to later that summer, early fall, you have an evangelism conference to which many people from his church come out to attend the evangelism conference.

01:28:30

Yes. Then Tony goes and visits Mike a couple months later. Yes. Because that's

01:28:35

November 2015. And then we come back around now to the next Shepherds Conference, which would be

01:28:41

March -ish 2016. Right. March 2016, to which you are referencing now.

01:28:48

Were there any other visits that Tony had with Mike in that time? Or is it just that one?

01:28:54

Yes. No, I believe two more times he flew alone to Iowa.

01:29:00

And one of those times was very pivotal. Mike had a heart attack and triple bypass surgery while Tony was there.

01:29:08

And Tony stepped into a lot of ministry and that really helped yoke him, unfortunately, to Mike and the ministry there.

01:29:17

It was shortly thereafter that he made the decision to move there.

01:29:23

And when he made that decision, I was the first one he called. Being a close friend and ministry partner, he wanted, before he announced it public or told anyone else, he called me.

01:29:34

I was with my wife shopping, actually, and stepped away and took the phone call. And I actually said, well, that's wonderful.

01:29:43

Because, again, these things have been noted but kind of shelled. And Mike comes off as a solid

01:29:50

Reformed pastor. He's good at what he does. I said earlier, he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. I fully believe that.

01:29:56

No apology for it. But the issue with wolves in sheep's clothing is they, in order to be effective, have to have good sheep's clothing.

01:30:03

Mike has exceptional sheep's clothing. His church website is Exceptional Sheep's Clothing.

01:30:08

When you meet him, he can talk the talk. He can walk the walk. You begin to see these aberrant things over time.

01:30:18

But he is a smooth operator. And so I said, well, that's wonderful,

01:30:25

Tony. But I did say this. I said, let me, since you're talking about a whole other level of commitment and involvement with Mike, as your friend, as your brother, and as a member of your advisory board, let me do some due diligence.

01:30:40

And let me get on Sermon Audio, listen to his sermons, get on his website. Just before you fully commit, let me do this out of love for you and your family and your ministry.

01:30:52

So that's when I really began to look into Mike Reed, not with some nefarious goal, but just wanting to be responsible as a brother and as an advisory board member.

01:31:05

So what period of time was that in?

01:31:11

So it was after Shepherd's Conference 2016. When did he finally tell you that he was planning on moving to Iowa?

01:31:22

Yeah. You know, my wife is great with details and dates. Yeah, with some research,

01:31:31

I'm sure I could figure it out. Or maybe find my old phone and look at the records on it. Yeah, there's a short time period.

01:31:38

Because I think it was in August 2016, according to the phone call that occurred, which we're going to get into a little bit later, all recorded.

01:31:49

Anybody can listen to this. But it's between you, Bobby McCreery, Tony Miano, and Mike Reed.

01:31:57

And I believe that that happened in August 2016, which is where Tony, I mean, at the end of the phone call, anybody can listen to this.

01:32:08

Like, I am going. Essentially, there's nothing you can do about it. Right. So somewhere between Shepherd's Conference in March 2016 and August is where he told you this.

01:32:18

Almost certainly late April or May. OK. And so at that point, were you the first person he told?

01:32:25

Or were there others that he had told, too? According to him, I was the first person that he told. And you decided to then start researching.

01:32:33

Because, I mean, look, somebody comes to you as an advisor. Like, when Andrew has ideas, I'm a board member.

01:32:39

When he has ideas, he comes to me. And usually, I'm the first one he talks to on the board.

01:32:44

Right. And I say, yeah, you know what? We should talk about some more. Maybe we'll get the other guys. Andrew, that's bad.

01:32:51

Like, don't do that. Right? So we have that type of relationship. And so I would assume that that's, it sounds like that's what you and Tony had, right?

01:32:58

He comes to you first. To say, Chuck, you know, I'm going to do this. And you, in your loving kindness, who he appointed as an advisor.

01:33:07

Why? Because, I have to go back to this, Pastor Chuck O 'Neill, in Tony's own words, is a diligent student of the word of God.

01:33:15

Has an amazing recall of scripture. And is utterly fearless when it comes to confronting anything or anyone who would try to rob

01:33:21

Christ of his glory. Or harm the bride of Christ. Or mislead the lost with false teaching. Right?

01:33:26

And so that blog post summarizes part of who he thinks you are.

01:33:32

As somebody who knows how to do this. And so you took it upon yourself at that point, as his good friend.

01:33:39

A man whom you've loved. Who's been in your home. Who's your kid's called uncle. Right? I mean, the list goes on.

01:33:44

And you start to do research. Correct. So what did you first discover?

01:33:50

I mean, tell us about how your research went. Because, obviously, the first we all hear about it is we read a blog that you write.

01:34:00

Which I think also came out August 2016. Your first one. Before he moved.

01:34:05

So, yeah. What happened? How did you find this out? So just sermon audio.

01:34:12

YouTube. Just looking at his teachings. He had a series of Ask the Pastor teachings.

01:34:18

That have all been deleted at this point. But the Ask the Pastors, I believe, were both on YouTube in video form and on sermon audio in audio form.

01:34:27

They're all gone now. And his regular sermon audio sermons.

01:34:32

As well as a bunch of their kind of outbreaks and odd things.

01:34:39

And that needs some explanation. And so what I found out right away is that Mike does some things that none of the rest of us do.

01:34:47

He doesn't just put his sermons in sermon audio. He puts up.

01:34:52

And now most of these have been taken down as well. They've been deleted. He puts up these after -sermon discussions that he has over the sermon with the congregation.

01:35:02

Where they give a mic to the congregation. And different congregants come up.

01:35:07

Men and women. And they ask questions or make points. See what they got out of the sermon. And so you hear more teaching as they apply what was preached.

01:35:17

In those after -sermon deals. But then there's also confessions of sin.

01:35:24

Mike records congregants confessing their sins. Sometimes of a sexual nature.

01:35:31

And he put those up on sermon audio as well. I remember in particular there was this testimony of a man.

01:35:38

His name I don't remember. I wouldn't tell if I did. But one of the congregants had gone overseas.

01:35:43

I believe it was China on business. And went to a massage parlor that wasn't just a massage parlor for a massage.

01:35:51

And then got to thinking about what he was doing as a married man. And that he needed to flee from this.

01:35:57

And he did before anything wicked happened. He fled from it.

01:36:02

But then he came back and confessed his sin to Mike. And Mike had him stand before the church and tell his sin in all its detail.

01:36:07

Even going to the point of talking about how he thought about laying there without any clothes on. Using explicit terms and the women putting their hands on his body.

01:36:16

And I thought, wow, way too much information. I cannot imagine having a congregant stand before the church and confess that.

01:36:24

Before his wife. Before other women and children. That's just not going to be healthy for the body of Christ.

01:36:31

And not appropriate in any way. And then to put it up on sermon audio. I thought, my goodness.

01:36:37

What are we doing here? And so those kind of things stood out. Along with many unusual doctrines.

01:36:47

Aberrant doctrines. And appalling and predatory doctrines.

01:36:55

And practices. And so we're going to get into a number of those. But let me address the first allegation here.

01:37:01

So that there is confession of sin publicly. Now I know that there is a wide variety of views on how confession of sin should be done.

01:37:11

There are some churches that the pastor tells you to do it. There are some churches. One that I fill in on Sundays for a dear friend of mine in the area here in Cleveland.

01:37:22

Several times a year at least. And he has a confession of sin. But that public confession of sin is.

01:37:29

He gives some type of 30 -second talk about sin and its grievous nature to God.

01:37:37

And he then people bow their heads. And they confess privately to God themselves.

01:37:43

And 30 seconds of silence is up. And then he continues on the service. A very tasteful way of doing it.

01:37:51

Now there are. Now Mike would say. He's told me this. That there is nothing sinful.

01:38:01

About people confessing their sin out loud. Now I would ask you this

01:38:07

Chuck. Now look. This is me who is not a pastor. I'm an apologist. I like to think that I have some wisdom in terms of the counsel of God.

01:38:17

I don't think it's wise. I don't think it's wise to. Whether it's sinful or not we can discuss that.

01:38:25

But I mean first and foremost. It's just not wise to speak of sin. Especially of sexual nature.

01:38:32

Because you've heard these things. You've heard them on Sermon Audio yourself. It's the only way I could know about them.

01:38:39

And men like Kevin Jaunt have confirmed that yes. That happened. How could I know about it except that he had loaded it on Sermon Audio for the world to hear.

01:38:47

Yeah and I had several people confirm that to me too. That public confession of sin had made it to Sermon Audio in places. But even if it didn't go to Sermon Audio.

01:38:54

The fact that these are being confessed to the church. Right. I would see that to be quite dangerous.

01:39:01

I mean let's say a female. A pretty female gets up there and talks about any type of sexual sin.

01:39:08

What's the first thing that teenage boys in the church are going to be thinking? Exactly.

01:39:13

Right. I mean like this is. What's the first thing a lot of adult men are going to be thinking? Right. Pictures just automatically come into mind.

01:39:21

So I can see how this could be really problematic. So as a pastor

01:39:27

Chuck, how do you view this public confession of sin? I view it as totally inappropriate.

01:39:36

I view it as harmful to the body of Christ as a whole. Harmful to the individual families.

01:39:43

Potentially harmful to the children. I believe as you were talking about kind of theoretically of a young lady getting up and confessing some kind of sexual sin.

01:39:56

That could make her a target. But we don't have to speak theoretically. Mike did have a teenage girl stand before the congregation and confess masturbation at night in her room in front of the congregation.

01:40:09

Had her confess using porn and masturbation.

01:40:15

And again the incredible audacity of doing that.

01:40:24

I'm going to use the word a lot in our conversation. But there's something perverse in not recognizing how inappropriate that is.

01:40:37

Something is perverse in you as a pastor. Every pastor's right mind would be appalled.

01:40:45

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop. Stop. If that was just happening. If he didn't know it was going to happen. If he didn't encourage it to happen.

01:40:52

Any pastor's right mind would be standing and say no, stop. That's not appropriate. That's too much information. These children don't need to hear that.

01:40:58

These men don't need to hear that. Maybe some accountability. Lady partners. But we don't need to be taking this before the church.

01:41:06

And then for Mike to put that up on sermon audio just takes it to a whole other level.

01:41:14

And he did it with her name. So she stood before the congregation with a mic in hand, confessed this with her name, and they put it up on sermon audio.

01:41:23

Now I have read a testimony from this person who says that she was not coerced to do this or anything.

01:41:33

But you already answered the question I was going to ask, which is, let's say that she was not coerced.

01:41:40

She did this of her own free will. She wanted to do this. I mean, should a pastor say no, don't do that?

01:41:46

Or if she's in the middle of doing it already, stop. So you already answered that question, which

01:41:52

I think is the wise thing to do, certainly. Right. Right.

01:41:57

Let's walk through this in our mind just a little bit. So if a teenage girl stood before the men, women, boys, and girls of the church and confessed to reading romance novels, watching porn, and masturbating in her bedroom at night, would that not hit the radar of the leadership of the church?

01:42:18

Whoa, something happened here that we don't want to happen again. It would, unless things are going on in this church and ministry that are of a perverse nature regularly.

01:42:29

So this should have hit the radar. Whoa, that shouldn't have happened. It didn't hit the radar. And I believe, because it's

01:42:35

Mike's pattern of ministry, that it was planned. They planned for it to happen. They put the mic in her hand, and they all said, this is

01:42:41

God glorifying. This is good. Yes and amen. And then they put it up on sermon audio. Now Mike now says it was an accident.

01:42:48

I didn't mean to put it on sermon audio. Again, if he didn't plan for this testimony to happen in front of the church, it should have hit the radar in such a way that you would never accidentally put it up on the

01:43:00

World Wide Web with her name for the entire world to hear. That didn't happen.

01:43:07

And then in the defense that Mike had her right, which I'm not going to contend with her. I'm not going to be part of Mike's abuse of this young lady.

01:43:14

I'm not going to contend with her directly. But he had her defend it as a God glorifying act, and that she's happy to have her name out there and put this on the

01:43:24

World Wide Web. And so he had her put her name again on their church website and what he calls his response to slander and say how edifying this was, how

01:43:37

God glorifying it was. I'm thankful for anyone repenting of sin.

01:43:42

I'm thankful for anyone turning to Christ and following Him more fully and letting the blood of the

01:43:48

Lamb wash over their sin and the Word of God sanctify and renew their minds and set them free. That is praiseworthy and does glorify

01:43:55

God. But these kinds of sins should not be shared publicly and should not be shared on the

01:44:04

World Wide Web for the world to hear and to think about. And you're right. You should never have a woman.

01:44:10

And if this was good for this young lady, take it to the next step. Then it's good for the married women as well. If they have some sexual sin, they should stand before the church and tell about their sexual sin.

01:44:19

It's good if there happen to be some older women, some grandmothers who have sexual sin. It'd be good to have grandma stand up in front of the church and confess her sexual sin.

01:44:29

That is absolute madness. But that's the kind of madness that Mike's predatory perversion of pastoral ministry produces.

01:44:37

And let's be clear. I mean, I started the show saying this, like there's doctrines and then there's the practices that come from those doctrines.

01:44:45

Yes. And so even if we give Mike the benefit of the doubt, right, because my goal is to have been unbiased, to be unbiased this whole time.

01:44:53

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt in all of this, right? So all the things that you mentioned, let's give him the benefit of the doubt in everything. We can still go back to the original practice, the original doctrine of, or whatever you call it, having people give a public confession of sin.

01:45:09

That itself just is not wise to do because things like this can happen among many other types of situations.

01:45:18

And so that's what I hope listeners are gathering on this, is that there's one hand, there's the practice, which is a problem, but then the outflow of that, which is really a problem.

01:45:28

Right, right. And again, I didn't listen to every confession on Mike's sermon audio page.

01:45:35

I didn't listen to all of the after -sermon conversations. These are things that were low -lying fruit, so to speak.

01:45:44

And so in only listening to part of what was on there, there were two instances, at least, where inappropriate sexual sins were confessed in inappropriate detail before the church in a way that would be harmful to the body of Christ as a whole and to the individuals and their families.

01:46:01

And again, it's unheard of. No pastor does this sort of thing because it's not healthy.

01:46:07

It's not appropriate. Yeah. So going back to Tony and his move, when he came to you as his probable top advisor, but certainly very close friend, did he say,

01:46:19

Chuck, what do you think about me moving? Or did he say, Chuck, I'm moving? It was

01:46:25

I'm moving. Yeah, it wasn't what do you think at that point. Yeah.

01:46:33

Which paints a little bit different of a picture here in terms of what was going on throughout this.

01:46:39

Because again, you're an advisor. He's got an entire advisory board that's supposed to be advising him.

01:46:45

And when you make a major move as a guy in ministry who has an advisory board, that's what they're for, is to make those decisions for you.

01:46:55

And so I know last week we touched on this, is that Kevin and I did anyway, about Mike Reed and his church, one of four ways to leave a church.

01:47:07

Biblically, it's either death, being sent, mutual agreement or excommunication. Were you aware of those ideas at the time?

01:47:18

Because, you know, I've talked to Mike about this, and I'm just not seeing where Tony left

01:47:24

MacArthur's church, where any one of these fit correctly.

01:47:30

I mean, even in Phil Johnson's own words, as what he told

01:47:36

Andrew personally within the last couple of days, is that this was, he wasn't even, it's not like Tony was sent.

01:47:47

There wasn't necessarily this mutual agreement. I mean, it was kind of like, well, if that's what you want to do, which would then beg the question, why would

01:47:55

Mike Reed accept him into their church when it wasn't one of the biblical reasons that they established for people leaving their own church?

01:48:07

I would love for Mike Reed to come on and answer that and a whole lot more. Yeah, I think it'd be fair for people to hear that.

01:48:14

Because Tony wasn't dead, and he wasn't being sent.

01:48:20

I mean, Phil Johnson didn't lord it over him like Mike does. Phil Johnson did allow him to go, and it certainly wasn't excommunication.

01:48:33

So maybe number three is what Mike would say is mutual agreement, simply that he talked to Phil and Phil said, okay.

01:48:40

So maybe that's what he would say. But that same interview you're talking about where Mike gives those four reasons, biblically justified reasons to leave a church.

01:48:51

I would like to point out that Mike likens himself and all pastors to plantation owners, slave plantation owners, slave masters, and the congregants to the slaves on the plantation.

01:49:07

And so that's the Remnant Radio podcast, and it's titled

01:49:12

Church Membership and Church Discipline with Mike Reed. Again, the Remnant Radio podcast, Church Membership and Church Discipline with Mike Reed, where he gives those four biblical reasons for leaving a church.

01:49:24

But he does so in the context of liking himself to a slave master and congregants as slaves.

01:49:31

Let me say again to those at Grace Fellowship Church, run.

01:49:36

Take your wife by the hand and run. Mike is not a slave master, and you're not his slave.

01:49:45

There's a biblical word called doulos that is slave. We're Christ's slaves, but under shepherds are under shepherds saying, follow me as I follow

01:49:56

Christ. They're not slave masters on a plantation. Again, Mike, I've never heard that kind of an illustration from a pastor, but that's kind of par for the course for Mike Reed.

01:50:09

And to be fair, people can listen to that themselves, right?

01:50:16

Oh, yes. That's in that, and maybe we can get that link and put it up later because that is still an available, not sermon, but a

01:50:25

Q &A to be able to listen to. Anybody can listen to that. Okay, so Chuck, you were setting off the warning bells.

01:50:32

What other people were setting off warning bells? Other friends of his, other advisors?

01:50:40

Yes, lifelong, close, personal friends were looking into this and warning

01:50:47

Tony as well. Other ministry partners and friends were speaking to Tony and having pointed conversations with him about these concerns as they came up.

01:51:02

And there's just a whole gamut of things, and I think we'll touch on them a bit later. They need to be touched on and considered, but there's just, it's not one thing, a few things, and it's not a few differences that we can just lavish some grace on.

01:51:19

There's a whole pile of errant doctrine, false doctrine, wild doctrine, and just really nightmarish doctrine.

01:51:33

So let's start with the phone call, right? So again, this happened around August 2016 before Tony's move.

01:51:42

This was a phone call that is you, Mike Reed, Bobby McCreery, and Tony Miano.

01:51:47

And so this phone call was literally you against everybody is what it turned out to be, right?

01:51:54

It was supposed to be Bobby being an impartial party from what I understand. And then obviously

01:52:02

Tony really wanted you to be convinced why he should move, and Mike was there to listen in as well.

01:52:09

But so the private conversations you and Mike had,

01:52:15

I'm sorry, that you and Tony had led to a phone call with you and the other three.

01:52:22

And so all parties agreed to record this phone call and establish what

01:52:29

Mike really teaches and practices. And this phone call in its entirety is on your

01:52:34

YouTube page. Anybody can listen to it. That's right. One of the things that you have been accused of is you have taken bits and pieces of a bunch of phone calls and sermons and jammed them together.

01:52:47

And I wasn't confused. I mean, just maybe other people have been, I don't know, but I was not confused.

01:52:52

When I listened to the short ones unpasted, I listened to what it said, and then

01:52:58

I also went back, and I did this multiple times, listened to every one of these recordings to hear them all in the correct context.

01:53:08

I feel like they were in the correct context. I think it's a little bit more in your face when you read them, kind of listen to it all together rather than being spaced out.

01:53:20

But in having said that, I listened to this phone call multiple times through and through.

01:53:26

In the first minute of the call, it was made clear that Tony, Bobby, and you are all recording. Obviously, everyone wanted a recording of what was said.

01:53:34

In the second minute of the call, you made very clear that your pastoral reason for being on the call was to love and provide solid counsel to Tony Miano as his friend and as a member of his advisory board.

01:53:45

And for the protection of the church, you pastor in Oregon, for the protection of the church in Davenport, Iowa, and for the protection of the church at large.

01:53:54

Which is exactly the reason why I am doing these shows is for the church at large.

01:54:00

Yes. Mike's dangerous doctrines and practices were established and confirmed point for point as you asked him a series of questions.

01:54:08

Among other things, Mike confirmed that he systematically meets alone with the women of the church for private counsel.

01:54:14

That he believes that he cannot fall in adultery because his boast is Christ and much more.

01:54:21

So what are some of the highlights or important things that came out during this phone call? And what was the most shocking point of that phone call for you?

01:54:29

And again, listeners, all of you can go and listen to this. If you need the links, private message me, message the show, whatever you need to do.

01:54:38

And I'll send you the links. You can listen to it yourself. Or you can just go to Beaverton's YouTube page and you can listen for yourself.

01:54:44

It's there. Okay, so back to my question. What are some of the highlights or important things that came out during this phone call?

01:54:52

Right. Again, we'll get to some of the lesser issues, I think, a little bit later that are in the phone call and that have been in many conversations and were and still are up on his sermon audio page.

01:55:08

Let me provide a little more background in that I spent at least two months writing

01:55:16

Tony, Mike, the entire advisory board, calling

01:55:24

Tony, calling Mike, calling Bobby, talking with them together, talking with them individually, point for point on all of these issues.

01:55:33

And so that went on for two months until it finally led up to this phone call, because in my view, there had been mitigation.

01:55:41

There'd been nuance. There'd been cover up. Well known. I didn't say that. I didn't mean that.

01:55:46

And so I wanted as a culmination. I wanted a culmination of all the conversations, and I wanted to be able to establish it as a final record.

01:55:57

Mike, this is what you teach. This is what you practice. Let's bring it to the light of day and let's record it.

01:56:04

So there's no more ambiguity and no more opportunity for misunderstanding. And that's why

01:56:11

I was recording. And they also wanted it recorded for that purpose.

01:56:16

And so we were all on board with that. And I made clear my intention was was beyond just recording.

01:56:23

So I personally would have a knowledge of what was said, but for the protection of Christ Church at large, for the protection of the church in Davenport, my own church.

01:56:34

So what came out that was shocking? The most shocking thing, of course, in all of this is

01:56:40

Mike's predatory perversion of pastoral ministry and that he meets systematically alone.

01:56:45

This is his design. Mike, we're not talking about Mike meeting with a woman or a few women who need counsel for a particular issue.

01:56:54

It's Mike's shepherding design to meet with each woman and young woman, single, married, teenage, alone for individual private shepherding on a regular weekly basis.

01:57:09

That is unheard of. I know of no other pastor who has even considered doing such a thing or would consider doing such a thing.

01:57:20

And then on top of that, of course, what is discussed in those meetings, it's not just chapter and verse.

01:57:26

It's not just Mike giving a private exposition of a text. It's Mike digging into their marriages, digging into their lives, digging into their finances, digging into their life choices.

01:57:37

Again, in a totally inappropriate and controlling level. And then one step further, it's

01:57:43

Mike digging into their sex life, digging into their marital bed, digging into their sexual satisfaction, the frequency.

01:57:50

It's a common known fact and a statement made to many, or by many, to me, from those who have attended and been members of Mike's church, that Mike knows how many times a week every couple is having marital relations.

01:58:10

And he knows much more than that. He knows what kind of marital relations. We're talking position technique.

01:58:16

There's nothing, nothing off the table with Mike Reed. That is perverse.

01:58:22

It's disgusting. It's sickening. It should never happen. And the men and women that have been subject to it need to stand up and flee.

01:58:34

So these are, and some of these are people you've talked to, right? That they've given you accounts of these actually happening within the counseling sessions.

01:58:41

Because of course, people are going to say, well, who's Chuck O 'Neill? He wasn't at the church, right? Right. Okay. So is there anything else in this phone call?

01:58:51

Because I think there was something, this idea of meeting with women alone, you press this issue a little bit, right?

01:59:01

Yes. We need to go into that. Yeah. So why did you press the issue for the audience?

01:59:07

What concerns you? Well, what concerns me is the safety of the women, the impropriety.

01:59:15

I mean, 99%, it's a rough estimate, of moral failures amongst pastors.

01:59:22

Infidelity starts in counseling sessions. Now, there's a reason pastors don't meet alone with women as a rule.

01:59:28

And 100%, you have a 100 % cure to falling sexually with congregants if you're never alone with a woman.

01:59:41

That's an easy standard to keep. If you're never alone with a female congregant, you're never going to be tempted.

01:59:47

You're not going to create that relationship of the heart and not going to act upon it in the flesh.

01:59:52

Once you begin to meet alone, you've taken off that safeguard. You've disregarded the scriptures that tell you to flee from sexual immorality, to make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the desires therein.

02:00:08

And that's where so many men have failed. And so my systematic, flagrant disregard of that basic standard, not meeting alone with women, sounds an alarm.

02:00:21

But on top of that, what became clear to me, again, from listening to Mike's own sermons, that's how

02:00:27

I found out about this, he said it repeatedly in his sermons and sermon audio, that Mike has a history of adultery, a three -and -a -half -year history of multiple adulterous affairs.

02:00:38

And so when we have a pastor with a history, and he defends that by saying it was pre -salvation, but it doesn't make any difference at all.

02:00:46

When you have a pastor with a history of multiple adulterous affairs, who meets alone with the women of the church as a systematic design for his shepherding, and talks to them about things of a sexual nature, that is completely out of bounds.

02:01:06

And what it proves is that there is a lack of repentance, which is a large portion of what really upset them in the phone call, is that I dealt with 2

02:01:17

Corinthians 7 .11 and God's definition of repentance. And it's clear and powerful and undeniable.

02:01:28

And when applied to this practice, it just becomes real clear in a hurry that repentance does not exist.

02:01:39

2 Corinthians 7 .9 says, Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance.

02:01:48

For you were made sorry in a godly manner, so that you might suffer loss from us in nothing.

02:01:56

For godly sorrow produces repentance, leading to salvation, not to be regretted. But the sorrow of the world produces death.

02:02:03

For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner. What diligence it produced in you!

02:02:09

What clearing of yourselves, we can stop right there, what diligence. If a man's been involved in adultery, he's going to be diligent to be far, far away from anything that would lead to or open the door to adultery.

02:02:24

What clearing of yourselves, you're going to be completely clear of anything that would be inappropriate sexually.

02:02:30

You would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever design your ministry to systematically meet alone with all the women of the church.

02:02:38

On top of that, you would never counsel them about their sex lives and give them sex tips and tell them sexual stories from your own relationship with your wife.

02:02:51

And so, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation. You hate that sin, you hate it, and so you don't want to be anywhere near it.

02:02:59

What fear, you fear it, you fear the weakness of your own flesh. You fear the blasphemy of God's holy name that falling into that sin would cause again.

02:03:06

You fear involving anyone else in that sin. You fear it, you don't take a pompous disposition where you say,

02:03:14

I cannot fall, where I cannot commit adultery, and that's my exposition.

02:03:21

And that's kind of what I want to land on for a few minutes here, because here's the big thing.

02:03:32

I will take somebody who says that, somebody who gives a testimony, somebody who says that I am redeemed by the blood of Christ, and they can give the gospel,

02:03:43

I'm going to take them at their word first. And so, I'm going to take Mike Reed at his word that he is a

02:03:51

Christian. I'm going to take him at his word, I'm going to take him at his word that he is redeemed now and he was not redeemed during that past.

02:03:58

Because we all have pasts, whatever they may be. And so, assuming those things that Mike is to say,

02:04:07

I have no reason to doubt it from his own words. I'm not adding my opinion into this.

02:04:14

I'm just saying this. But I think you hit on some really important concepts here, because if he is repentant over those adulterous affairs years ago, he is washed in the blood of Christ.

02:04:31

They're gone as far as Jesus from the West. He's forgiven completely from them.

02:04:38

And so, those are not helpful for us to constantly bring about, except for the fact that when you put yourself in a position that seems to contradict what you are quoting from Scripture right there.

02:04:51

And that's where I think your big concern is. Is that, sure, Mike, you say that this is pre -conversion.

02:04:58

You say that you have repented over this and that would be a wonderful, wonderful thing to repent over that.

02:05:05

Amen. Right? Amen. Praise God. Hallelujah for that. But why would you put yourself into a position that your flesh is already prone to, however you want to state it?

02:05:21

Why would you put yourself in that position? And so, yeah, and I guess that really is the point of this, right?

02:05:26

We're supposed to be fearing these types of things that we could fall back into. But Mike's position, as you stated there at the end, is that he doesn't believe, according to his own words, that he can fall back into this particular type of sin.

02:05:42

That's right. Yeah, he has a doctrine, I would say, of moral infallibility.

02:05:48

Not that he cannot sin in any way, shape, or form, but that he cannot fall into grievous sins, the kind of 1

02:05:54

Corinthians 6, 9 -11, or 9 and 10 sins. And he uses that text, 1

02:06:02

Corinthians 6, 9 and 10, to defend that doctrine. Now, he has backed off of that doctrine since he's come under scrutiny for this.

02:06:11

He nuances it a bit. But he said quite boldly and repeatedly, both in emails directly to me and verbally, and he says it in that phone call, that he cannot fall in adultery.

02:06:25

And he says, my boast is not in me. My boast is in Christ, that because of Christ, he cannot fall in adultery.

02:06:34

And so he is justified in meeting alone with the women. It's completely safe because he is unable to fall into adultery.

02:06:40

When I brought up King David, a man after God's own heart, falling in adultery with Bathsheba, and then subsequently murdering

02:06:49

Uriah to cover it up, he said David wasn't saved.

02:06:55

In fact, he took me to issue for having the audacity to say that David was saved, and he fell in adultery and murdered

02:07:03

Uriah. And so he was consistent in that position.

02:07:09

And that's quite alarming. He goes against 2 ,000 years of church understanding as far as David's salvation, and as far as a doctrine of moral infallibility.

02:07:20

The church has rejected all such doctrines, whatever form they might come in. And I would even say

02:07:26

Jewish understanding and interpretation of Scripture in David's life would say

02:07:33

David was a believer who, in his repentance, said, take not thy Holy Spirit from me.

02:07:39

Didn't say, Lord, grant me salvation and fill me with your Holy Spirit, but take it not. Don't take it away.

02:07:45

And restore unto me the joy of your salvation. Not, Lord, grant me salvation for the first time.

02:07:51

And so Mike was alarmingly theologically consistent, and that's a false doctrine, an alarming false doctrine, to justify his alarming and dangerous practice.

02:08:02

Yeah, I've got to be honest. That was the first time I have ever heard that King David wasn't saved.

02:08:09

Me too. I've never read the Bible and thought that on my own. I've never heard that. So I was surprised by that, certainly.

02:08:18

But there was one other thing that came out of this, right, when it was pushed to its logical conclusion.

02:08:25

The most shocking thing. So I had thought about this circumstance.

02:08:30

Now, mind you, Mike and I had had these very conversations privately, just he and I, before the phone call that was recorded.

02:08:36

And so I knew where he was going to go if he kept up, and sure enough, he went there. And so I thought of one step further, the logical extension of his doctrine and practice.

02:08:47

And I thought that when I asked this question, Mike would pull back.

02:08:52

I thought that would be a step too far, that he would see where his doctrine and practice leads, and that he would not go there.

02:08:59

He would not extend it to this level, but would rather than reconsider his own thinking, his own doctrine, his own practice.

02:09:06

And here's the next logical step. If a serial adulterer, a man with multiple adulterous affairs in his life, can repent, confess

02:09:14

Christ as Lord, be saved, and become a pastor in a very short period of time, or any time at all, and then meet alone with women systematically for private shepherding meetings, in which

02:09:27

Mike does all these things, then it makes sense that a child molester can repent, confess

02:09:35

Christ as Lord, and meet alone with children for private shepherding.

02:09:41

If one is safe and morally sound, then the other should be safe and morally sound.

02:09:47

Now don't misunderstand me. Neither are safe, and neither are morally sound. The idea of either one of those is completely inappropriate and should never be embraced.

02:09:59

But I posed the question twice in that phone call.

02:10:05

And I have the minute markers, both at the 728 minute mark and the 1244 minute mark.

02:10:11

I posed those questions. And I have the actual question. I said this, Mike, if a man has repented of being a child molester, and yet he today is having a shepherding ministry alone with children, is that reflecting repentance?

02:10:27

And Mike Reid answered, my answer is yes. A pastor could be with children, yes, to answer your question.

02:10:36

Now I was shocked. And the conversation moved on. But then I thought,

02:10:42

I'm going to give him another chance. I'm going to ask again. Surely he's not going to double down on this.

02:10:49

Surely he's going to have thought about this and be ready to say, no, I wouldn't go that far. I asked him again at the 12 minute and 44 second minute mark question.

02:11:02

You cannot condone a man with pedophilia in his background, having a shepherding ministry where he meets alone with children, but you just did.

02:11:13

And so it's more of a statement than a question the second time. But Mike answered it like a question again. He said, if he's a pastor, he has a congregation, and it's an elder -led church, and he has men in his life that know him, and the fathers of those children request and desire that they meet together, then yes, quote, unquote.

02:11:35

That's Mike Reid's answer to a man with pedophilia in his background, having a shepherding ministry where he meets alone with children, if he's a pastor.

02:11:45

First mistake, a pedophile is never a pastor. A pedophile will never be above reproach.

02:11:53

He can never be a pastor. Praise God, they can be saved. They can be washed with the blood of the lamb. They can be forgiven.

02:11:58

Their sin's removed as far as the east is from the west. They can have the same certain hope of heaven that we have, and we are no better than them.

02:12:05

It's the grace of God that we did not engage in that sin, but they are not qualified.

02:12:10

The nature of that sin is such that they are not and will not and cannot be qualified for the pastorate.

02:12:17

If he's a pastor, first mistake. He has a congregation, second mistake.

02:12:24

And it's an elder -led church. Third, the elders, genuine biblical elders wouldn't allow this to happen.

02:12:30

And he has men in his life that know him and the fathers of those children request and desire. That's completely immaterial.

02:12:36

If there are fathers so foolish as to request and desire that a pedophile pastor meet alone with their children, then the children need to be removed.

02:12:43

I mean, goodness. Then yes, Mike says. That's all good to go and wonderful.

02:12:50

And Mike uses that same defense, by the way, for himself. He's a pastor with multiple adulterous affairs in his background, and he met or meets with a teenage girl, and he defends it by saying, the father condones it.

02:13:06

The father's on board with it. Well, again, when the pastor teaches the father that this is moral and safe and that Mike cannot fall in sexual immorality, then, of course, the beguiled father says, hey, that's great.

02:13:20

Go ahead and shepherd my daughter in private meetings. But it's totally inappropriate. It puts the daughter at risk.

02:13:27

It puts Mike at risk. It puts the name of Christ at risk and should never, ever happen.

02:13:32

Again, if you're under Mike Reed's predatory ministry, flee.

02:13:39

Flee. Don't go back. Don't go back there, friends. Don't go back. Yeah, I mean, that was a pretty heavy part of the phone call when

02:13:49

I had listened to it the multiple times. Now, in moving away from it, in this same phone call is one place.

02:14:02

I hate to keep bringing up his name because he's not part of this, but in that Phil Johnson's name was mentioned that in some way he had given.

02:14:15

This is according to Mike in a phone call. This is not Phil Johnson. Phil Johnson has written a statement already that was read earlier that he has never condoned this type of practice.

02:14:26

He finds it to be unwise, among many other things. But his name was used at least in this phone call.

02:14:31

I don't know if it was ever used anywhere else. I've heard claims from people that it has been, but he was using this phone call as a way to validate what his practices were.

02:14:45

If nothing else, to say it wasn't sinful and it was okay to do. Yes. Mike likes to drop names for his own purposes.

02:14:58

In the middle of this phone call, Mike says, Bobby, you may not be aware, but before I started this practice,

02:15:08

I called Grace Community Church, and I talked with Phil Johnson. I told him what

02:15:14

I was going to do, and he said it was fine. I didn't buy it for a minute.

02:15:21

If anyone has listened or will listen to the phone call, they'll find that I said this, or they know that I said this.

02:15:29

Now, Mike, did you tell Phil Johnson about your history of marital affairs?

02:15:35

No. Did you tell him that you were going to systematically meet alone with the women and teens, girls of the church, for these private shepherding ministries, alone?

02:15:49

No. Then, Mike, why did you bring up Phil Johnson's name as if he condoned this ministry?

02:15:58

That's deceptive. Mike just pressed on as if it didn't happen. I would hope that names aren't getting dropped anymore.

02:16:11

I know this is something we asked Kevin about last week, showing up at G3 Conference and things like that.

02:16:19

Let's move on from that because I don't want to keep pressing on Phil here. He's got enough to worry about in life rather than having to answer more to this.

02:16:29

He was gracious enough to already give one response and one phone call. How would you describe

02:16:37

Tony and Bobby's interaction and final words on that phone call?

02:16:43

Again, anybody can listen to. If you think about that phone call from my perspective,

02:16:55

I love Tony. He and I were close friends.

02:17:02

I, on some level, loved Mike, and he and I were friends. I really genuinely loved

02:17:08

Bobby, and he and I were close friends, not like Tony and I. Bobby has been to my home.

02:17:14

At that time, I had one grandchild, and Bobby had held my grandchild and played with her.

02:17:20

Bobby's played catch with my kids. Bobby's been part of our life and family and preached to my pulpit.

02:17:31

That phone call was heartbreaking. I had Tony and Bobby siding with insanity.

02:17:42

I'm shocked to this day, and every time I go back, which is not often, but occasionally I go back to listen to that again so it's somewhat fresh in my mind should

02:17:52

I need to recall it, I'm always surprised at what

02:17:58

I hear, and that Mike Reed was saying the craziest of things.

02:18:04

I'm running out of adjectives. We still got a while to go, Chuck. Theologically and morally speaking, we're talking crazy sauce.

02:18:15

I mean, it's nutters. It's totally out of bounds, unheard of, sickening, dangerous, doesn't begin to describe, dangerous.

02:18:27

And Bobby and Tony ignored it all. Tony helped defend it.

02:18:33

Bobby tried to play Swiss, ignored it all. Bobby, I think the biggest issue he took up on the phone call was between the words aberrant and abhorrent, and he was upset that I'd used abhorrent versus aberrant, and which one meant what.

02:18:49

Bobby, did you just hear Mike Reed say that pedophiles can become pastors and meet alone with children?

02:18:57

Did you not hear that? Bobby, did you just hear him say that he is a serial adulterer who's repented and now meets alone with women, systematically, for private shepherding?

02:19:09

Is this not alarming? Did you not hear him say, was David even saved? Did you not hear him say that he cannot fall in adultery to justify meeting alone with women?

02:19:18

Bobby, Tony, what's wrong with you? I wanted to reach through the phone and wake him up.

02:19:25

So that's just heartbreaking. Heartbreaking that they would ignore such grievous false doctrine and sickening practices and doctrines that endanger women and children.

02:19:42

And then finally, in the phone call, as if they're exasperated with me, this

02:19:49

Chuck, he is just unreasonable. He won't hear reason. He won't embrace pedophiles as pastors who meet alone with children.

02:19:59

He won't embrace serial adulterers as pastors who meet alone with all the women of the church who believe they can't fall in adultery because their boast is

02:20:07

Christ, and was David even saved? So we just can't do anything with this Chuck guy. You know what we're going to do? The only reasonable thing, we're going to hang up on him.

02:20:14

We're going to yell at him and hang up on him. And that's what they did. It ended with yelling, and finally they all hung up on me.

02:20:23

I'm left alone on the recording saying, hello? Is anyone there?

02:20:29

Did you guys all hang up? And that's how it ends. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty shocking.

02:20:38

You know, Bobby is a friend of mine. He's the one who pushed me towards speaking with Mike at G3 and to research for myself, which

02:20:48

I did. And what I find fascinating is that Bobby told me personally, and I know he's told others, that Mike Reed, weird doctrines.

02:21:01

He wouldn't bring his own family there. Understatement of the century.

02:21:08

Well, yeah, but even that didn't seem to come across in the phone call. And I know he's good friends with Tony.

02:21:18

I get it. And so I try to make some sense out of these things. But okay, so let's press on with this.

02:21:31

You took, as I said earlier, you took several clippings from full -length sermons, full -length audios, that people can listen to the entirety of it.

02:21:42

And you took clippings and put them together. What have certain people gone around,

02:21:50

I mean Mike, Tony, Bobby, others, what have they accused you of and how would you like to answer those charges?

02:21:58

Because I've heard them, right? I've heard them that you are a slanderer, you are a liar, you have manipulated content, you have edited things and put them together in a way to make it look like he's saying things that he didn't actually say or ripping out of context.

02:22:19

And that is a serious charge that I do want you to answer here for our listeners today.

02:22:25

It's a fair thing to ask, I would think. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

02:22:30

I would say, what's my response? Well, first I want to read their actual quote -unquote response to slander.

02:22:40

This is on the Grace Fellowship Church website. It says this, Chuck has taken content from our sermons, cut them up mid -sentence and pieced together videos and statements that are not in accordance with what we believe or teach, along with many complete and total lies.

02:22:56

The godly men who have practiced Proverbs 18, 13, and 17 by seeking out our testimony, excuse me, and the truth of the matters falsely portrayed have been able to see through Chuck's slander and gossip.

02:23:08

Please see our initial responses that have been previously sent to anyone willing to inquire as to the accuracy of Chuck's claims.

02:23:16

So the idea is that I cut up and piece together, mid -sentence they say, mid -sentence,

02:23:23

Mike's teachings in order to deliberately, diabolically make Mike say and teach things he didn't say and teach.

02:23:31

Now, one, I would have to be a master Jedi editor and I am not. Two, anyone who listens to the edited for brevity versions of Mike's teachings can clearly hear that they were not cut up mid -sentence and piecemeal together to make

02:23:47

Mike say things he didn't say. There's enough there that you get the complete idea, the complete sentence, the complete paragraph, the complete thought to know that this is indeed what

02:23:57

Mike said and taught. Secondly, the full -length versions have always been available.

02:24:03

I have made them available. They're right there for anyone to compare the edited for brevity versions with the full -length versions of Mike's teachings.

02:24:14

And there's no difference in the content as far as the content I'm pointing out.

02:24:20

It's just you have a lot of fluff in between and it takes a lot more time to get these doctrines out of that larger haystack.

02:24:29

And so the proof is in the actual material and it's there for anyone to find.

02:24:37

And as you yourself have said, you've listened to the edited for brevity versions, you've listened to the full versions. There's no disparity between the two.

02:24:44

And anyone who would bother to do the basic research required to address the issue or make a right, come to a right understanding and judgment on the issue can easily see that.

02:24:56

And so they've called me a slander, a gossip, elsewhere a servant of the devil,

02:25:04

Judas, based upon this supposed diabolical editing. And frankly, it's a complete, total lie and anyone can see that with the tiniest bit of work.

02:25:16

One step further, they have tried to remove the evidence. They have deleted a great number of teachings.

02:25:23

And so it's convenient to say, we didn't teach that, we didn't say that, and to delete the evidence to try to hide it.

02:25:32

Now, everything I have addressed, I downloaded before they deleted it.

02:25:38

And so I've made available the full uncut version and the edited for brevity versions, regardless of their deletions.

02:25:44

But they have deleted in order to cover up. If I truly had diabolically edited and made

02:25:51

Mike say things he didn't say, then the best possible defense on their part would be to leave their good, sound, unedited teachings up to show how good and sound they are.

02:26:04

But in their attempt to cover up their deplorable, abominable teachings, they've deleted much of those things.

02:26:15

Yeah, and I'll tell you in my research through some of these deletions, some of it's hard to find.

02:26:22

But we can use the Wayback Machine. And so if we have what the original site was or many of the keywords, we can actually pull those up.

02:26:30

And so we're able to pull up. Obviously, there's already a screenshot of the Ask the

02:26:35

Pastor talks, videos, whatever you want to call them, that were pulled down, and there's empty links now.

02:26:43

But that's clearly seen. I've also done research through Wayback Machine and found other sermons that you have referenced in the past are no longer found, but you can find them on the

02:26:58

Wayback Machine. You can't click it and go to it anymore, but the link is there for it. So it shows what's clearly been deleted.

02:27:05

I mean, that's all been there. And obviously, I would think that if people want to say...

02:27:12

I've got it. Here's a printout. Let me see if I can see that. Yeah, we can see it.

02:27:18

And actually, we can actually put that up on the screen. I can send that to Andrew if he doesn't have it already, and he can screen share and put that up.

02:27:28

But that's the Ask the Pastor ones that are all removed. Yeah, they deleted eight teaching videos where Mike sits down with Tony Miano, and Mike and Tony teach these doctrines.

02:27:40

They taught together the Holy Kissing. They taught together and defended the idea of pedophiles becoming pastors and having no limitations ministry meeting with children.

02:27:52

Tony helped Mike teach and helped defend these incredibly dangerous doctrines.

02:28:03

Yeah, no, absolutely. And again, I can't stress enough. I mean, this is an easy one to see what the truth is, right?

02:28:12

Because anybody can go to your YouTube page. People can listen to all of these.

02:28:20

How do I comment on here? I'm not familiar with this format. Is there something you want me to type in or I can type it in for you if you wish?

02:28:29

Well, if you want, you could just respond to the comments as people bring them up. You feel free to respond to them.

02:28:35

I wanted to put the actual link to all those audios on there, but I'm just not able to.

02:28:42

Anthony will give that to us later and we'll put it into the show now. It'll be on the video later and it'll be on the podcast as well.

02:28:52

Okay, very good. Yeah. So if I can find it here real quick while we're talking,

02:29:00

I'll pull it up as well. Here it is.

02:29:07

Yeah. I got it on my phone. Yeah. It should be coming.

02:29:13

I should be able to find it too and be able to do this. Okay. So changing gears just a little bit or maybe getting into a little bit more depth.

02:29:25

We're at this point now. Thank you, Mason. Mason put it up? Yeah. Okay.

02:29:32

So we're at this point. You discovered a number of dangerous doctrines. I think there's one other story though that would be helpful,

02:29:38

I think, for some viewers or listeners to understand is you also had somebody who's a family member that visited the church.

02:29:49

Thank you. How did this come about? Because this was before you moved, right?

02:29:55

Yes, yes. So my brother -in -law lives in Iowa. As I said earlier, my wife is from Iowa.

02:30:00

That's where I met her in high school and married her before I joined the Marine Corps. He lives an hour from Davenport.

02:30:07

My brother -in -law is a godly, godly sweet Christian man. He often goes to the Shepherd's Conference with me.

02:30:14

We met, Mike Reed, at the Shepherd's Conference with Tony together. And my brother -in -law was looking for a church at one point, and I recommended he go visit

02:30:24

Mike's church. So he and his family went there. They drove an hour, attended three or four times, and then they left.

02:30:32

And he never really said anything to me about it. We're close, but we don't talk all the time. And he didn't say that much.

02:30:37

And like I've tried to give the idea throughout this, Mike is smooth.

02:30:43

He is beguiling. He comes off as a solid, reformed Christian man and pastor, but aberrant things do come up, strange things, and appalling things.

02:30:57

And so if you're watching, you pay attention, you're discerning, you catch those. In those three or four visits, my brother -in -law quickly became aware that this was nowhere he wanted his family.

02:31:10

And here are a couple of things that came up in those visits. One, they noticed that Mike not only has people confess him, but he calls people out mid -sermon.

02:31:21

He points out their sin. He'll say, you know, this person is this. You know, they're a drunkard. It was at one point, well, he calls them out publicly in their sins in a way, again, that no pastor anywhere does.

02:31:35

They caught that. They thought that was odd. And then like in the after church lunch, which they have a lunch after church every

02:31:43

Sunday, they're all having a meal together. And then Mike's pointing out this person, she's involved in this sin.

02:31:50

And so Mike's just free. Remember, he meets alone with all these congregants, and he digs into their lives.

02:31:56

He knows all their sin. And then he's free to share it, even with people who are just visiting the church.

02:32:02

They'll just throw it out there. Mid -sermon, mid -afternoon lunch. And so they thought, that's not good.

02:32:09

That's not healthy. And then Mike began to press my sister -in -law. And at the time, they were trying to adopt two children.

02:32:15

They have successfully adopted them now. But the two children were just coming into their home. They were young, and they were squirrely.

02:32:22

And Mike's church is a family -integrated church, so the children are on her lap. And she's just trying to wrangle these kids in and survive the service.

02:32:32

And Mike pressed her at that lunch for a testimony about his sermon. He wanted to hear from my sister -in -law what she benefited from from his sermon.

02:32:42

And she said, I'm so sorry, Pastor Mike. I had these children.

02:32:48

I just was trying to keep them quiet so people could hear the sermon. I'm afraid I didn't really hear what

02:32:54

I would have liked to have heard. And I'm just going to have to pass. That wasn't good enough for Mike. Mike kept pressing her and pressing her until finally she had to say, look,

02:33:04

I'm sorry. I can't. I'm telling you the truth. And that was very disturbing for her and my brother -in -law as well.

02:33:13

And then a third thing. We've talked about this pattern of stripping people of their salvation only to get them saved again under Mike.

02:33:20

Well, my adult nephew is a godly young man. I love him. He'd be a fine catch for any young lady.

02:33:29

We'll get to that later. But a godly young man. Loves Jesus, loves the gospel, hard worker, good kid all around.

02:33:38

Anyway, Mike takes his questions to my adult nephew with my brother -in -law, sister -in -law, all the family.

02:33:47

But Mike's going to keyhole my nephew or buttonhole him and get him unsaved so he can get him saved again.

02:33:59

My brother -in -law actually stepped in on that and said, no, no, that's not appropriate. You need to ease up.

02:34:07

I'll shepherd my son. Thank you very much. And I'm confident that he's soundly saved.

02:34:13

And so it was things like that that ultimately led to them saying, yeah, we're not going back there.

02:34:18

But wait, there's more. Mike wasn't done with them. So Mike, a few weeks after their absence,

02:34:28

Mike sends a family. And I say he sends the family. This family calls.

02:34:33

They say, we want to come visit you. There was sickness in my brother -in -law's home. They said, it's really not a good time.

02:34:40

They said, we'll be there at 6. They came anyway. I mean, they really did say, it's not a good time.

02:34:46

This isn't going to work for us. They came anyway. And they came to stay. They stayed overnight.

02:34:52

Now, my brother -in -law and family are super gracious and hospitable. They put up with it.

02:34:57

They had them overnight. So my question is, when I drive through Iowa, are they still giving free hotel rooms?

02:35:04

I can hook you up, brother. Oh, thank you. Yes. So they stay overnight.

02:35:10

But in the fellowship and conversation that came out, the mother of that family, long -term members of Mike's church, talked about their one -on -one time with Pastor.

02:35:27

Now, they talked about it in a very glowing and positive way, but my brother -in -law, being a discerning man, instantly thought, what?

02:35:34

You're what? You're one -on -one time with Pastor. And he asked a question about that, and he got the answer that he was afraid he was going to get.

02:35:46

Yeah, one -on -one time with the pastor. Pastor Mike meets with all the ladies of the church and even, I think, the teenage daughter of that family.

02:35:56

And so my brother -in -law thought, well, I'm definitely not going back. That's disturbing and inappropriate and dangerous.

02:36:05

And little did he know anything about the sexual counsel and all of that that was going on in those one -on -one meetings.

02:36:11

But wait, there's more. Weeks later, my brother -in -law gets a call from one of the men of the church, and he says, your son, that same nephew

02:36:20

Mike was trying to get saved or unsaved to get saved, your son needs to marry my daughter.

02:36:28

And my brother -in -law said, who are you? Who are you again?

02:36:34

We don't know you people. What are you talking about? Your daughter needs to marry my son or vice versa.

02:36:41

That's not going to happen. And he went on to explain that at that time my nephew was courting a young lady, seeking another godly young woman's hand in marriage, and that's just not going to happen.

02:36:52

And this guy went so far as to say, look, you know, just because your son thinks that's

02:36:58

God's will for his life, if it doesn't mean it's God's will for his life, we need to make this happen. And the congregant, one of Mike's congregants, one of Mike's slaves, under the slave master, went on to essentially say, look,

02:37:12

Mike said this is the will of God, and we need to get this done, pressing it to the point that my brother -in -law just thought, this is absurd.

02:37:20

We're not getting this done. It's not the will of God. We're not having any part of this. And that was that.

02:37:28

But wait, it goes further. Things unfold. I begin to research.

02:37:34

I contact my brother -in -law. He tells me the things that he experienced firsthand, including the one -on -one with the pastor time and so forth, which led to me asking

02:37:45

Mike about that and the full revelation of what takes place there. Tony says,

02:37:52

I'm going anyway. Tony goes. I write the article. Tony goes. I write the second article.

02:37:59

Tony, with full knowledge of my stand against Mike's perversion of the pastoral ministry and all of these doctrines and practices,

02:38:08

Tony still sought to pull my brother -in -law and his family into Mike's cult, which is a whole other level of sad treachery.

02:38:20

Heartbreaking to my wife, to me, that Tony would go to that level. But once men and women come under Mike's influence, they're willing to do things that are just appalling.

02:38:32

I praise God that my family was spared being yoked beneath Mike, spared marrying into the church, which

02:38:43

I have no doubt was part of Mike's design. So, okay, I got to ask this question.

02:38:49

I know it seems to be a little bit out of order, but what reasons did Tony give you for wanting to go out to Mike's church and become members there?

02:39:02

Was there reasons for it, or he just told you, I move in that city, you can't stop me? Good question.

02:39:10

Initially, the idea was Tony was going to plant a church in the town my family is from, an

02:39:20

Iowa town there, a small town an hour away from Davenport, Iowa, and that my brother -in -law and family were going to be the nexus.

02:39:28

They were going to be the first family in that area. And so originally that was

02:39:33

Tony's idea, that he was going to go be under Mike in Davenport and then they were going to plant a church with my family being part of that.

02:39:47

And everything changed, obviously, in part because of what I found out and my brother -in -law's own discernment and the stand that he took and just leaving there and determining that they were going to be part of it.

02:40:02

But it also fell apart. Once Tony got there, he discovered he wasn't going to be a staff evangelist.

02:40:08

He discovered that he was just going to be a member of the church who does evangelism. No salary, no position, no eldership, no church planting.

02:40:20

And he quickly got on board with that. But there was much more disgust and intended.

02:40:29

And so from my perspective, it did seem that there was a carrot held out that was not received.

02:40:37

And Tony got beneath that regardless. Yeah, wow. So, okay, we've had so much to discuss already.

02:40:49

I feel like we've only gotten through a part of the notes. Oh, it's true. There's much to the story.

02:40:56

Yeah. So, Chuck, if you decide at any point that you want to stop and maybe do a second show, we can do that or we can just keep on going and do whatever.

02:41:07

Well, it might be good just for viewers. Not to stop just yet,

02:41:14

I think. Yeah, so let's press on a little. But to press on a little further. We're long,

02:41:20

Chuck, don't worry. We go over time. I got tons of energy, so I'm good.

02:41:25

You're good? I'm good, yeah. Okay, well, I'm good. We may determine at some point doing a second podcast might be good.

02:41:34

But the sun's still up here, brother. Yeah. I'm a wet toast.

02:41:42

I'm good. So I can go to bed late and get up early and have no problems.

02:41:48

I can't do the one hour of sleep, like Andrew does. I got a few more. Okay, so let's…

02:41:54

Look, you sold your business. It's not like you have anything to wake up to. Oh, I still have work to do.

02:42:02

Ouch. I still have work to do. If I'm going to ask for your wife, it is a lot of work. It is a full -time job being your board member and keeping your job.

02:42:11

We know that. I say that jokingly and lovingly, of course.

02:42:20

Okay, so dangerous doctrines, right? This is what you're really on for and what you're really concerned about in terms of your love for Tony who is there, your love for the people who are there, who are still at the church, as well as the people who have left the church already, who a lot are still reeling from the effects of being at the church.

02:42:46

Yes. And so you wrote about a number of these in your first two blogs. And so I'd like to go through each one of these and just have you kind of give your pastoral viewpoint on each of them.

02:43:01

And so we've talked about this a little bit already, but the issue of, well, of meeting with women alone, right?

02:43:09

So the unheard of and morally dangerous systematic defiance of biblical safeguards for male and female interaction.

02:43:19

We've referenced 1 Corinthians 6 .18, Romans 13 .14 via meeting alone with married women, single women, teenage girls for shepherding through regularly scheduled private pastoral instruction meetings.

02:43:32

Now, whether he forces everybody to do it or strongly encourages everybody to do it or let's even give him the complete benefit of the doubt here and say that he doesn't make it mandatory, but women still do this anyway, meet alone.

02:43:50

What would you say about that practice, just baseline in general? It should never be done.

02:43:58

It should never be done. Yeah, I've got a great quote in the blog from J .C.

02:44:07

Ryle, if I can find it here. And he just makes it so, so succinct and clear, and he's applying all the pertinent scriptures.

02:44:17

But, I mean, Mike runs over every fence that God would set up.

02:44:23

He destroys all the safeguards and all you're left with once you've done that is the strength of your own will.

02:44:34

And we're not supposed to be left with that. What do you tell young unmarried men?

02:44:40

Hey, go out, be alone on those dates. It's going to be fine. It's going to be great. No, we all know what's going to happen if you're going out regularly and alone with no accountability on those dates.

02:44:51

What does a wife want to hear from her husband in any job occupation?

02:44:58

That he meets regularly alone with women and gives them close personal counsel about the most intimate aspects of their life, including their sex life.

02:45:10

There is no possible justification for it. If the women begged

02:45:15

Mike to meet and he's essentially meeting with them against his will, there would still be no justification in any way, shape or form.

02:45:25

And he's entirely culpable as the pastor for his activities. Yeah, I mean, and certainly,

02:45:32

I mean, one of the things I posed, I think I did this last week.

02:45:37

But I mean, if we took reform circles, the reform circle small, of which

02:45:43

Mike would be claiming to be a part of, we'd all be claiming to be a part of in the same way. I could probably grab any thousand random thousand of them.

02:45:53

And I would be shocked if even five out of a thousand would say that this practice is to meet with women, whether it's systematically or even a few times, that this is unwise at best.

02:46:10

And it should not be practiced. I haven't done that poll. Maybe we should do that poll.

02:46:15

I think it'd be an interesting poll, certainly. Okay, so number two.

02:46:21

The unheard of and dangerous doctrinal offense of willful defiance of biblical safeguards for male and female interaction.

02:46:29

And so 100 % of pastors who commit adultery after meeting with congregants alone were not saved.

02:46:35

1 Corinthians 6, 9 to 10 assures me I can't fall. My boast is

02:46:41

Christ. I think we covered that one already, that this is an unheard of dangerous.

02:46:49

Actually, I didn't mention, not only did he say David wasn't saved, not only did he say he himself cannot fall in adultery because of that moral infallibility doctrine.

02:47:01

But you're right. He said that 100 % of pastors who do fall into adultery after meeting alone with women in counseling sessions, they're not saved.

02:47:12

That's why they fell. They're not saved. Yeah, dangerous, right, as a doctrine.

02:47:21

Okay, number three. Unheard of moral madness displayed in an alarming consistency of position and doctrine whereby

02:47:29

Mike Reed claims repentant child molesters can be pastors and meet with children alone. So we discussed this a little bit earlier in that it was taken to its logical conclusion and says, well, if a pedophile walks in, is saved now, and can become a pastor, sure, he could meet with children alone.

02:47:51

Right? I mean, that was the basis of that conversation. Correct. Here's what I find interesting, though. And so let me get your pastoral comment on this.

02:47:58

I mean, so on one hand, clearly in the phone call, he says that that it's impossible for him to fall, even though he doesn't claim sinless perfectionism.

02:48:09

Right. But you said that he can't fall into one of the egregious sins. Right. However, later in that, it's either in the phone call.

02:48:22

I might I am not sure which one might be the phone call or it's in the ask the pastor with Tony Miano that he says that actually,

02:48:30

I'm sure it's in the ask the pastor. It might be the phone call to he goes on to say that it's it's possible that we find that that pedophile.

02:48:39

I've got the quote. Okay, so why don't you. Yes, this is in the ask a pastor that Tony Miano helped him teach and defend this abominable doctrine and practice.

02:48:53

And that's available there. If you Google Mike Reed, dangerous practices, dangerous doctrine practices,

02:49:01

YouTube, it'll pop up. Mike Reed. I think I put it up in the in the notes there.

02:49:08

But anyway, it's there for anyone to hear. Remind you, he's he's talking about pedophiles becoming pastors.

02:49:17

Oh, by the way, here's another thing. I'm sorry. I'll get to that. They open that teaching.

02:49:22

They open their ask a pastor as if this idea just just popped into Tony's head.

02:49:32

And he's just asking this question off the cuff. And Mike Reed is totally unprepared, has no idea what

02:49:37

Tony's going to ask. And here I'll just give my best shot at it. It's a complete deception.

02:49:44

I've already addressed this in private at length multiple times in writing, in private phone calls.

02:49:52

We had that recorded phone call. I've already written about it. There's a blog out.

02:49:58

And then they do an ask a pastor to teach and defend pedophiles becoming pastors and meeting alone with children.

02:50:04

And they act like in their opening monologue, hey, here's a question. And and go to some link to say that, you know,

02:50:12

Mike just answers these off the cuff. Totally unrelated to anything going on in the real world.

02:50:19

That is the kind of deception that Mike continually engages in. So that's the context of that.

02:50:25

Ask a pastor. But in that, he says, my answer is no. We don't keep anyone out of ministry.

02:50:31

We don't have the right to keep anybody out of ministry. If they're a new creation, they're a new creation.

02:50:39

So the question was, would adultery or pedophilia keep someone out of ministry? My answer is no.

02:50:44

We don't keep anyone out of ministry. We don't have the right to keep anyone out of ministry. If they're a new creation, they're a new creation.

02:50:51

But specific to what you were asking about. In the midst of that conversation, when they're talking about child molesters, becoming pastors, immediate love with children, and how they can't say no to that because they're a new creation, they also say this.

02:51:08

We have had, this is a quote, Mike Reed. We have had a number of people who have been members, members of his church, who have now shown themselves to be bad soil.

02:51:20

So could that pedophile be one of them and do damage?

02:51:26

Sure. Unquote. So they are giving a no limitations ministry to pedophiles to meet alone with children as pastors, theoretically, but saying that that's all good, moral, fine, and biblical because they're new creations.

02:51:43

And then they reflect on the fact that we don't always know who is actually a new creation. I can't know that someone is truly born again.

02:51:51

I can't know that the oldest past and the old all things have been made new. I can't know that.

02:51:57

And he's even reflecting on a practical level that as a local church, they have had a number of people who have been members, not just casual attenders, but members who have shown themselves to be bad soil.

02:52:07

So could that pedophile be one of them and do damage? Sure. Do damage.

02:52:14

It sickens me for him to make light of the danger that this filthy doctrine would put children in.

02:52:26

Do damage. We know as a rule that pedophiles commit and recommit and commit and recommit, having victim after victim after victim after victim until finally they're caught, if they're ever caught.

02:52:40

It's a tragedy. They prey upon children. And Mike flippantly says, do damage.

02:52:49

Could they do damage? Sure. Yeah. And I think it goes even beyond that because that was the, he was on one hand using the pedophile example as a way to justify why he with his past, again, that he is forgiven for if he's a new creation in Christ, but that he was using that as justification for why he should be able to meet with women.

02:53:15

Oh, you're right. After Mike says all that, Mike says all that about the pedophile, then he flips right back around to himself and says, there are some people who would say that I, with adultery in my background, am not qualified to be a pastor, that I should never meet alone with children.

02:53:32

But of course that's nonsense. And I've just proven it by everything I just said about pedophiles. Yeah. That's Mike Reed.

02:53:39

That's Mike Reed's logic. Yeah. Except the part about... It's insane. Yeah. Except the part that there's an acknowledgment, it's possible that person wasn't actually saved and could do damage, which is exactly what everybody would be saying about a pastor who says that he can meet alone with women and never fall back into the sin.

02:53:59

Because 2 Corinthians 7 defines repentance and that's not repentance, which is by the way why

02:54:05

I said there's no repentant pedophile who can become a pastor and meet alone with children.

02:54:12

The fact that he would meet alone with children means what? He's not repentant. Yeah. That's right.

02:54:21

And this goes even for people who have drunkenness issues, right? You don't even exercise a

02:54:26

Christian liberty to go have a beer because you know that that could put you back into...

02:54:32

You're prone to that. Right. Yeah. No. I get it completely here.

02:54:39

Okay. So here's number four. Unheard of regular calling of church attenders out from the pulpit by name while they're sitting in the pew during the church service and pointing out their unsaved condition and or some level of their sin issues.

02:54:54

And then it is subsequently placed in sermon audio for the world to hear. So yeah. These have made it onto sermon audio. We talked earlier that this is,

02:55:01

I think, unwise to begin with for people to publicly confess sin. I'll tell you what.

02:55:07

I grew up Catholic, which is a whole whacked out false religion cult. But I distinctly remember going to confessionals and thought it was weird.

02:55:17

And I didn't understand why, but thought it was weird speaking through a screen, talking to a priest who knew who you were, even though there's a pretend wall in between.

02:55:27

The weirdest of things and how freeing it was to have my eyes open, realize that I could be forgiven by God by talking directly to God and not to a wall and a priest.

02:55:40

And while the Roman Catholic Church is a cult, a satanic cult, and may

02:55:48

God rescue our Roman Catholic friends out of it and bring them beneath the blood of Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, the glory of God alone.

02:55:57

But I will say, I will say that their practice is much healthier. They have you confessing your sin to a priest alone.

02:56:07

Now, he's absolving your sin, so there's heresies there. But as far as on the level of privacy, and even they go to great lengths.

02:56:15

The priest is not at liberty, even legally, or jurisprudence. We've given them protection.

02:56:23

They're not at liberty to share what is confessed there because of the damage that it would do.

02:56:30

And it does do damage. You cannot share these kind of things. It belittles people.

02:56:36

It puts them beneath you. And that's how Mike uses the information he gathers from his private meetings as he digs into people's lives.

02:56:44

He uses it to control them and keep them down and beneath him and dependent upon him spiritually.

02:56:50

He is their spiritual guru, not their under -shepherd. Yeah. So, we talked about this.

02:56:59

As a pastor, pastoral viewpoint, how do you view this unheard of regular public congregation confession of sin?

02:57:08

Something we were just talking about here, but then also for some of it to actually end up on the

02:57:15

Internet for anybody to hear. And it's kind of you to say end up. That's very impartial of you.

02:57:21

I'm trying to be impartial. I know. And I'm not going to belittle you for that or bemoan it, but I'm going to point out that it doesn't just end up there.

02:57:29

It's Mike's practice. It's deliberate. It's purposeful. He's trying to show people how spiritual and how holy, what

02:57:34

Tony first recognized in that blog. They're a whole other level of holiness. And look how humble they are to confess their sin in church and before the world.

02:57:45

And Mike's showing the world how you should be doing church, how pastors as the slave plantation masters should be directing the slaves and compelling them to confess their sins and holding them accountable for their sins regularly and pointing them out casually at lunch and from the pulpit mid -sermon and putting them up for the world to know about by name.

02:58:09

Yeah. There's a comment up right now. I just want to address it. And the comment is this right here.

02:58:17

It sounds like it's not perfectionism. We talked about this, but perhaps that he couldn't do certain sins. At least that's what he said before, not sure of his current view.

02:58:26

And so I actually did say this earlier, KT, in that I have invited

02:58:32

Mike on. I wanted him to be my first guest last week. It was not intended to be

02:58:40

Kevin. It was intended to be Mike. I wanted him on then. I actually wanted him this week to be on.

02:58:46

And guess what? I want him on next week. And so there is a standing offer for me to have him on and be as unbiased as I have been with both you,

02:58:57

Chuck, and Kevin and just allow him to speak and answer questions that I have to give because that is something that is a concern, right?

02:59:07

Some of these audios are from several years ago. And so could he have repented and changed his position?

02:59:16

Well, there is zero indication of that both publicly and there is zero indication of that from the people who have left the church in very recent times.

02:59:28

So that's how I would answer that question is that all the knowledge that we have right now, those are the current positions.

02:59:36

And as I've spoken with him and his two elders, I have given them the ability to come on to the show.

02:59:43

I also have said, give me the phone numbers of every single church member and the other two elders, and I will talk to everybody and compile data, and I'm happy to share what

02:59:57

I find. To this point, I've obviously been turned down in those generous offers of mine.

03:00:06

Okay, so going forward here, a favorite topic of a lot of people is this issue of holy kissing.

03:00:23

Now, I must say this, that I have zero accounts at this point of Mike actually kissing women.

03:00:34

Now, there's the one account by the evangelist we talked about last week where it was said by he and his wife that Mike went to kiss her on the lips, she turned, hit her cheek instead.

03:00:46

Now, okay, so we'll take that and we'll put that on the shelf here. And then

03:00:53

I have no other accounts of him actually doing this. But that's not even the question at hand right now.

03:01:01

The question at hand for you as a pastor in a pastoral view is he laid out clearly in the last 20 minutes of his holy kissing sermon.

03:01:10

I shouldn't call it that, but I mean, it's kind of what's gotten dubbed by everybody. The last 20 minutes of this sermon on Romans 16 turned out to be about holy kissing.

03:01:21

And Mike has told me personally that he had a high view of women within his sermon and that in that high view of women, it naturally went into then the holy kissing aspect of that part of the passage in Romans 16.

03:01:40

And he expounded on that. And the way that he would describe it is this is a, again, the way he described it to me is this would be a, that we should greet other

03:01:52

Christians more warmly than we would greet other people. Now look,

03:01:58

I have no problem with that statement. That statement, yes, people who are in Christ have been given the right to become children of God.

03:02:08

So we are brothers and sisters. We should greet each other more warmly than we are in the unbelieving world who we're going to go give the gospel to continuously in gentlest respect.

03:02:19

But I mean, there's a difference in those two realms. I'm also a first generation

03:02:25

Italian. So my dad is literally off the boat as a teenager.

03:02:31

My entire family is off the boat and myself, my brothers, my cousins, we are all first gens.

03:02:39

And so it's not, I mean, it's complete regular practice for warm type relationships, right?

03:02:47

So as you greet one another, very common that cheeks will pass and you blow air kisses, right?

03:02:55

Very common will we, you know, cheeks will touch, male, male, female, male, whatever, you know, as a greeting, because this is a

03:03:04

European, especially Italian close -knit family thing to do. There's no point

03:03:10

I recall planting kisses on anybody, right? This is just kind of a, it's a warm greeting type of deal.

03:03:16

And so I lay all this out, Pastor Chuck, because I mean, while again,

03:03:23

I have no evidence that Mike has actually planted a kiss on a female's lips.

03:03:30

There's no doubt that the teaching seemed to go beyond the idea of just warmly greeting a

03:03:39

Christian. At least that's in my perspective. Now from a pastoral viewpoint, how do you view and how do you think a lot of pastors would view that part of the sermon?

03:03:53

Let me first say that when

03:03:58

Mike kissed me without warning or welcome, it was a kiss on my face that left spit that I wiped off.

03:04:12

Not sweat from like a warm, sunny day. No, no.

03:04:18

Lips on the face. Not a symbolic cheek -to -cheek or head -beside -head kind of thing.

03:04:27

And Mike did kiss that woman. I have every reason to believe her and her husband, and they never went back.

03:04:34

That was their second visit. And in Mike's holy teaching or holy kissing sermon, or rather, no, his holy kissing

03:04:45

Ask a Pastor with Tony Miano, where they taught it and defended it, Mike talked about the first time he kissed

03:04:52

Tony in that Ask a Pastor and how he kissed Tony without warning or welcome and how shocked Tony was.

03:04:58

And let me just say it's entirely inappropriate and just arrogant to go around kissing people knowing you're going to put them on their heels and shock them because men don't go around kissing men.

03:05:13

And men certainly don't go around kissing other men's wives. And so it's totally inappropriate. It's not born out of love.

03:05:20

It's not born out of submission to Christ. It is deliberate exercise of his authority.

03:05:28

I'm going to obey Scripture in a way that makes you totally uncomfortable, puts you in a state of temporary shock at least, if not permanent shock.

03:05:41

The woman who fled from Mike Stewart never went back. And then

03:05:47

I'm going to point to the Bible and say, look, it's right there in the Bible, right there. Look, look, look.

03:05:53

But that's not what's right there in the Bible. What you described from your background and your culture as a first -generation

03:05:59

Italian is what's right there in the Bible. And that is a cultural setting.

03:06:08

What Mike is doing is planting his lips on men and women without warning, without welcome, and shocking them and enjoying his biblicity, that he is more biblical.

03:06:22

He's Bible -juking them. He's Jesus -juking them with a kiss. And it's unholy.

03:06:29

It's unloving. So Mike talks about in that Ask a Pastor with Tony how he first kissed

03:06:34

Tony, and it was shocking, the same kind of way he did it to me. He also goes on to talk about, I haven't kissed

03:06:40

Maria yet. I haven't kissed your wife yet. When I do, he says, I'll probably do it because she's uncomfortable.

03:06:46

I'll probably first do it maybe on her forehead, but kind of work it in.

03:06:52

And they discuss that. And I don't know whether he's kissed her yet or not, but they talk about it in that Ask a

03:06:59

Pastor teaching. But here's what

03:07:04

Mike said in his sermon. Quote, All I know is I'm vulnerable.

03:07:10

I'm me, and I love you, and I want to embrace you, and I might even want to give you a kiss.

03:07:17

Have you ever heard such quackery anywhere from any pulpit, from any pastor?

03:07:27

That is insanity. All I know is to stand in a pulpit.

03:07:33

I mean, it makes me cringe that I'm a pastor, that a pastor said this and did this in a pulpit.

03:07:40

All I know is I'm vulnerable. I'm me, and I love you, and I want to embrace you, and I might even want to give you a kiss.

03:07:52

It's disgusting. That should have been his last day. The church either should have dissolved that day, or they should have thrown him out and found a real pastor who doesn't say insane things like that.

03:08:08

I'm vulnerable. I'm me. I love you, and I want to embrace you, and I might even want to give you a kiss.

03:08:15

Embrace. It's my understanding from many testimonies that they don't just have a casual hug, but they got full body hugs.

03:08:25

And Mike defends how good and right and holy that is and how for someone to say that that's not appropriate for his body to be pressed against another woman's body, it's not his wife, that's legalism.

03:08:40

That's the devil. That's our sinful culture influencing you to say that my body ought not be pressed against another woman's body and that I ought not kiss her as well.

03:08:50

He goes on in his sermon. Really, that's who Christ is? That I can't hug my sister and not be aroused?

03:08:59

That I can't hug my sister and that she not be confused? That I can't give my sister a kiss on the cheek, even on the lips?

03:09:10

But that gets a little much for our society. Again, it should have been his last day.

03:09:18

This sermon is up on Sermon Audio right now. And on your YouTube page.

03:09:23

And on my YouTube page. But it's on Mike Reed's own Sermon Audio. Let me read it again.

03:09:32

Really, that's who Christ is? That I can't hug my sister and not be aroused? That I can't hug my sister and that she not be confused?

03:09:40

That I can't give my sister a kiss on the cheek, even on the lips? But that gets a little much for my society.

03:09:46

Now, I have never said that Mike kisses women on the lips. I don't know that he doesn't because he taught that it was moral and fine.

03:09:57

And he has never retracted it. And I know that he did kiss one woman half on the lips.

03:10:05

But regardless of what he actually does, the teaching alone justifies his dismissal.

03:10:14

If that's all he ever did, the man is unsound, he's unsafe, put him out of the pulpit, put him out of the pastorate.

03:10:21

If he won't repent, put him out of the church and his lips with him. There's no question whether the man said on the lips.

03:10:30

There's no question whether he taught his congregation to kiss on the lips. Whether or not they actually do it is another issue.

03:10:36

He taught it. And it's still being taught because it's still on Sermon Audio right now. And that's kind of my point.

03:10:44

There's stuff that's taught. And even if he doesn't believe that anymore, it's never been retracted.

03:10:50

Now, I'm not saying that he doesn't believe it. I'm just saying if somebody would claim that, well, it's never been retracted.

03:10:55

It's still there. So regardless of how that's played out in the church, it's a problem right from the get -go.

03:11:03

Okay. Well, sorry. There's more, brother. Go ahead. He goes on.

03:11:11

He says, My contention is, and I'm no pastor if I can't meet with Tammy alone and the rest of the women in the church too.

03:11:19

So in the same sermon, he goes from the embracing and kissing, even on the lips, to justify meeting alone with the women.

03:11:27

I'm no pastor if I can't meet with Tammy alone. Meaning he's not really saved.

03:11:32

He's not really qualified to be a pastor if he can't meet alone because if he is saved and he is a real pastor, then he can't fall in adultery.

03:11:39

Therefore, he can meet alone. So if he can't do those things, then he's no pastor. He goes on.

03:11:45

Excuse me. Look, we aren't going to have an affair. It ain't going to happen.

03:11:50

And I don't boast in me because I'm a man who's done it. I boast in Christ.

03:11:56

And that's where his boast in Christ, his doctrine of moral infallibility comes out in his holy kissing sermon, justifying kissing the women, embracing the women, meeting alone with the women, and saying it's fine to kiss them on the lips, but that's a little much for our society.

03:12:12

Now, think about that. If you're meeting alone with the women, you've taught that it's fine to kiss them on the lips.

03:12:17

It's fine to embrace them. If ever there was grooming being done, it's right there, and it was done in the light of day, it was done in the pulpit, and that sermon's still up right now.

03:12:27

But he's not done. He goes on to say, he yells it, it's in all caps here in my notes, exclamation point, he says, we don't meet naked.

03:12:38

So it's fine to full body embrace, to kiss, even on the lips, and meet systematically alone with the women of the church, and give them sexual counsel, explicit sexual counsel, as long as you don't meet naked?

03:12:53

Is that the qualification? I thought it said, flee from sexual immorality. I thought it said, make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the desires therein.

03:13:03

I thought it said, pastors are to be above reproach. We don't meet naked.

03:13:09

Again, what pastor have you ever heard have to say we don't meet naked? This is insanity.

03:13:16

He goes on, quote, look, I can kiss you and have it be holy. Not only does the man not have a fear of God, or a fear of men of God, who should have stood up and walked out, or stood up and taken

03:13:33

Mike out back to teach him a lesson, the man has no fear of his wife.

03:13:39

No fear of God, no fear of men of God, and no fear of his wife. Any godly wife with a backbone would have walked up to that pulpit and given

03:13:48

Mike what for? My goodness. Mine would have. Mine would have. That would have been my last day as a pastor simply because my wife, after she gave me the public beat down.

03:14:00

He goes on, quote, the devil lies to us and says there's something wrong with that.

03:14:06

There's something wrong with these full body embraces, this kissing even on the lips, and meeting alone for systematic private meetings.

03:14:14

The devil. It's the devil who lies to us. It's not 2 ,000 years of church history, propriety, counsel, and the clear word of God.

03:14:22

It's the devil who's lying to us. Do you see what Mike does to the minds of his congregants? Do you see how he beguiles them?

03:14:27

Their God -given conscience, their biblically informed conscience is crying out against this, and Mike says the devil lies to us.

03:14:37

See, once you tell and teach and convince the congregation that their God -given conscience, that their biblically informed conscience is the devil lying to them, now anything can happen.

03:14:48

You open up the floodgates for every kind of moral atrocity. This is exactly what the

03:14:55

Bhagwan Rajneeshi did and every other cult leader who wanted to abuse women sexually.

03:15:03

I'm not saying Mike is doing the act. I'm saying he is grooming them in the same way.

03:15:10

Yeah, because I will say that of all the people I talked to, there has not been one that's made a claim he's actually touched them.

03:15:19

No claims whatsoever. I want to be very, very clear to everybody on here that that claim has not been made by us on the show, by you,

03:15:29

Chuck, by Kevin last week. None of that. This is literally the doctrines that are being put out there.

03:15:36

Let me ask you this, Chuck. As a pastor, now for me as a dentist, we had a practice in my office to not meet with women alone as well.

03:15:48

If we had to interview a female, my wife or staff member was always there.

03:15:56

In the office, we had open architecture, but there would not be a situation where there would be two people in a closed room, closed door at any point.

03:16:05

If I got an emergency phone call, which happened on the weekends and it was a female, actually even for males we did this, if I had to go in the office and meet them,

03:16:17

I would always have either my wife coming with me or somebody, one of my staff members meeting me up there.

03:16:25

If it just so happened, which has happened, that I got to the office and the patient got to the office and either my wife was driving separate or a staff member was coming and they were late,

03:16:34

I would not go into the building. We would stay outside until that other person came so we could walk in.

03:16:43

Not that you don't trust people, but that there is a level of professionalism and being above reproach, being above any possible accusations.

03:17:00

Andrew was asking a question about open architecture. Open architecture meaning that we don't have, in my old office, we don't have closed rooms with closed doors.

03:17:09

Open architecture would mean that there is only half walls kind of between operatories so there's some privacy, but your voices are going to travel, people can see as they walk by, there's no hiding anything in this office.

03:17:25

In fact, when I tried choking Andrew to death with an impression a few years ago and Justin Peters was in the next room getting his teeth whitened and laughing hysterically while doing this, it was all open that people could see these things.

03:17:41

That wasn't funny. Well, maybe for the rest of us, it was.

03:17:49

Okay, so here's my question, Chuck. Yeah. As a pastor, let's say a female is—

03:17:59

By the way, for the record, he wasn't choking me like in a jiu -jitsu move. He was choking me by sticking so much mold in my mouth that it went back to the back of my throat.

03:18:08

I got the picture. Yeah, I purposely filled that tray like twice as much as I was supposed to.

03:18:14

Oh, man. Lots of fluoride. But I've never heard Andrew quiet for that long of a period of time before or since that.

03:18:25

You guys have been going, what, like three and a half hours? Oh, that's it? I've spoken, just saying.

03:18:32

Your witness here, just saying. You're doing good, Andrew. You're doing good. Yeah, you're very patient, Andrew. I appreciate it.

03:18:38

So, okay, meeting with one alum, let's say you have a female congregant Sure.

03:18:44

who, say, comes to you and your wife together and says,

03:18:49

Pastor Chuck, I'm having a real situation at home, whatever it is, right, whatever the situation.

03:18:58

I don't feel comfortable speaking about what's going on in front of other people.

03:19:04

So, I mean, we're talking the most extreme of circumstances. Sure. Okay. How would you handle a situation like that?

03:19:12

Like, this is somebody who is requesting a meeting alone who seems to actually have a really valid reason for it.

03:19:18

How would you handle this? Without thinking twice, I would say no. No, absolutely not.

03:19:28

No, there is no justification for meeting alone. If someone can share it with me, they certainly share it with me and my wife or another godly woman.

03:19:40

They don't, they don't need to meet with me alone. Yeah. And so, and so what would you do then?

03:19:46

Like, so say, like, I would, Right. I would graciously, you know, address that with her.

03:19:54

And so, you know, I, I understand what you're saying and that you're uncomfortable with that. But I would think you'd be more comfortable talking about, you know, not knowing what your, the issue is, but probably more comfortable talking with my wife about it than me as a man.

03:20:08

If for some reason you are more comfortable talking about with me, regardless, for propriety's sake, for safety's sake, for the glory of God, to protect the name of Christ, we can't meet alone.

03:20:21

So I'd be happy to meet with you and my wife. I'd be happy to meet with you and another elder's wife. Or is there another godly lady in the church that you'd be more comfortable with?

03:20:31

You know, to give some options. But no, there's no need or justification to meet alone.

03:20:36

I don't need to meet alone to shepherd the ladies of the church. I don't need to meet alone to counsel them at particular points of, of counseling need.

03:20:46

Yeah. Yeah. And, and which is exactly what my pastor would say, which is what many pastors who

03:20:51

I've talked to would say and have said. So, yeah, I, I obviously would agree completely with, with that sentiment there.

03:21:00

Can I turn it around? Yeah. And ask you and ask all the listening audience and to ask anyone at Grace Fellowship Church to ask

03:21:09

Mike Reed and the other unqualified elders there. And I don't say that to be sharp -tongued or to be rude, but that is reality, my friends.

03:21:22

How could Mike Reed or anyone? Anybody. Yeah. Anybody set up a church, design a pastoral ministry to give more opportunity to a sexual predator than Mike Reed's design and practice already does and get away with it.

03:21:43

I mean, you could go a few steps further, but how could you design a pastoral ministry to facilitate sexual immorality and or pedophiles abuse of children any more than Mike Reed's design, which is why

03:22:03

I've termed his pastoral ministry to be a predatory perversion of pastoral ministry, because it's the perfect design for a predator, whether it be a misogynist or pedophile.

03:22:19

If you say adulterers can repent, become pastors, and systematically meet alone with women, that's the perfect design for misogynists.

03:22:31

I mean, they should be lining up. What, what, what better design could they ask for?

03:22:37

If you say that pedophiles can repent, confess Christ as Lord, become pastors, and meet alone with children, and you have,

03:22:44

Mike Reed, that's exactly what you've said, taught, and defended multiple times, then you have set up the perfect environment for pedophiles to come prey on children.

03:22:55

And if your doctrine, Mike Reed, if your doctrine is advanced in the earth as you are advancing it right now, teaching pastors and churches this filth in Africa, as the esteemed and wise

03:23:09

American learned pastor who's come to instruct them, you're opening up Christ's church for every kind of sexual scandal.

03:23:18

You're putting women and children at great risk. You, Mike Reed, are a clear and present danger to the body of Christ, to women and children.

03:23:32

Step down now. And if you're under his ministry, flee and don't go back.

03:23:39

Yeah. From my understanding, I mean, isn't Africa already rampant with sexual perversions within the church anyway?

03:23:48

Yes. Conrad and Bayway and others have said this and are trying to combat this. Yes. Tony Miano and I sat together at the

03:23:56

Strange Fire Conference when Conrad and Bayway preached and opened up that horrible reality before, you know, our

03:24:04

American Christian minds, our sanctified minds, that sexual morality is running rampant, not just in the church in Africa, but in the pastorate in Africa.

03:24:17

They have doctrines whereby they teach the congregants, if you come have sex with the pastor, you'll be healed of AIDS.

03:24:24

And the Holy Spirit is doing this great new work. It's not really sex. It's a spiritual cleansing.

03:24:33

Yeah. These are the things that are common in Africa. And Mike Reed's doctrines, that's just gas on the fire.

03:24:42

That's just justification for the perversion that's already in the pastorate in Africa.

03:24:49

It's got to stop. It's got to come to an end. Here's a picture of Mike Reed.

03:24:57

He spent months this last year, months with this ministry in Africa, training these pastors and many others, his doctrines.

03:25:09

Two years ago, specifically, he was tasked with training, training the pastors how to shepherd women and children.

03:25:18

That was his specific topic. Wow. Derek Hansen just mentioned in the comments,

03:25:27

I imagine that's how Joseph Smith did it. That's what this has been a lesson to me in. I've always wondered, how did

03:25:32

Joseph Smith get away with what he did? How did he have so many wives? And they weren't just nice single young ladies that he kept picking up and adding to the harem.

03:25:41

He would take other men's wives. And yet he's the great prophet. He's the leader of the church.

03:25:47

And he's a pervert. Stealing men's wives. How did

03:25:53

Joseph Smith get away with it? Because men turned a blind eye. They spiritualized it all. And they said, oh,

03:25:59

Joe, he's sound. He's holy. He's good. This is good stuff.

03:26:05

It wasn't. Not in Illinois. Not in Utah. And not in Davenport, Iowa.

03:26:14

Or in Africa, where Mike's exporting it. Yeah, I'm into that, certainly.

03:26:22

Okay, so. Low tech. Low tech is where I excel, my friend.

03:26:31

Responding to the comments. Maybe you should have a chat word behind you, like RC. Start writing this stuff out.

03:26:37

Okay, so we're going to make a little bit of a shift now, because there is a charge that you've made, based on some of Mike Reed's teaching out there.

03:26:48

Now, they've disputed some of this with me privately. I wouldn't say much more out, out loud, because they need to come on if, if they're going to, if they're going to have, if they're going to deny what has been taught and put publicly, right?

03:27:06

That they've got to come on and say that. But it comes to this extreme personal pacifism.

03:27:14

So, so tell me about this pacifism. Tell the listeners about this pacifism that, that you have seen in the teachings.

03:27:24

I want to get there. I do. Can I say one more thing in the previous topic? Go ahead.

03:27:29

Yeah, I've got one more quote that. That's got to be read. And the pacifism is a concern.

03:27:36

It is. It's in the aberrant section of doctrines, unusual and potentially dangerous, but not, not to this level at all of the sexual stuff.

03:27:46

One more quote that must be read. Mike Reed. In the after sermon comments where they interact with the congregants.

03:27:58

And then put that up in sermon audio. He said this regarding the, the holy kissing sermon quote, we are so sinful in this culture that we have been convinced by the devil that we can't do these things again, embrace kiss.

03:28:12

Other men's wives meet alone with him because we might arouse something in ourselves.

03:28:17

Really? That's who Christ is that I can't hug my sister and be aroused that I can't hug my sister.

03:28:22

And she not be confused that I can't give my sister a kiss on the cheek, even on the lips.

03:28:28

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that we've been going a while. That is from the sermon.

03:28:35

I'm getting a little interview punchy here. But he says we're so sinful in this culture that we've been convinced by the devil that we can't do those things.

03:28:47

So he, he blames the culture, the sinful culture and the devil for convincing us that we can't kiss women.

03:28:56

Women can't kiss men. And I want to remind the listeners that last week, Kevin told, told the sad story of one of the women in the congregation taking

03:29:09

Mike's teaching, you know, his good, holy, sound, biblical teaching on holy kissing and acting on it.

03:29:14

And so she's kissing the men of the church and she kissed one particular man. And that, guess what?

03:29:21

Aroused something in him and he became inflamed with lust and ultimately ended up confessing it to Mike and coming before the church.

03:29:31

And it was quite the deal. It did exactly what God designed it to do, which is why you kiss your wife or your husband.

03:29:39

You don't go around kissing everybody's wives and husbands. But it wasn't the sinful culture and the devil that was convicting some of the congregants that they ought not do this.

03:29:52

It's their God given conscience. It's their biblically instructed conscience.

03:29:58

But once you convince people that their God given biblically instructed conscience is the devil.

03:30:04

Wow. You have, you have done horrific damage to them and open them up for every kind of deception.

03:30:12

So I wanted to close that up. Sorry, brother. It's okay. Pacifism. Pacifism.

03:30:19

I am not a pacifist. I'm a Marine. I'm not a pacifist.

03:30:27

And so it doesn't sit well with me at all. That said,

03:30:32

I have friends that are pacifists. I know there are many Christians historic and presently that are pacifists and I love them.

03:30:41

The first time I met Mike, after he kissed me, it wasn't long before he, knowing that I was a

03:30:47

Marine began to address pacifism. He was taking me to task right away with it. Well, guess what? I was happy to debate the issue biblically.

03:30:54

It wasn't an issue to divide over. Christians can disagree on pacifism.

03:31:00

I will disagree adamantly because when you take it to the level, Mike does, it becomes dangerous.

03:31:08

So pacifism. Mike teaches that. And I have the quotes.

03:31:16

I do want to find them. I want to get his actual words on this topic.

03:31:22

So while you're doing that, Andrew, I don't know if you had any comments to make. I saw. Oh, here it is.

03:31:28

Go ahead. Yeah. I don't know if Andrew's backstage. Maybe he's not. Maybe he doesn't have any comments. I thought he,

03:31:33

I thought I can make him at the end. Okay. Fair enough. Okay. So on a pacifism, um,

03:31:40

Mike says, uh, he, he says, why own a gun?

03:31:50

You have premeditated murder. Um, that that's an extreme pacifist position to say, owning a gun for the purpose of defending your family from an intruder in the night is premeditated murder.

03:32:04

But that's, that's what he taught. Uh, he says, when you start talking about quote, quote, when you start talking about guns for self -defense, you have no biblical backing.

03:32:13

What does a Christian need a gun for? What are you going to do with a gun? Christian, Christian, what do you need a gun for?

03:32:20

For some it's idolatry. I think it is. Christian, what do you need a gun for?

03:32:26

You put yourself in a position to murder someone. I'm not going to own a gun. Premeditatedly knowing that I might murder someone, uh, that is wholly unbiblical.

03:32:41

There is no biblical defense of that. Uh, thou shall not murder means thou shall not murder the unjust taking of a human life.

03:32:50

The correct interpretation is not thou shall not kill, but thou shall not murder. How do you know that?

03:32:56

Because Chuck said, right, right. No, no, no, because 2000 years of church history has said, because a good translation saying good translators say, and I'll say that God is the best translator.

03:33:09

Is he not the first rule of interpretation? Let scripture interpret scripture. Um, and what do you find?

03:33:15

You find God gives us his understanding. God gives us his commentary on his law.

03:33:21

Thou shall not murder Exodus 2013. You shall not murder Exodus 22. I believe it is.

03:33:27

God says if a man breaks into your house at night and you kill him, um, his blood is on his own head.

03:33:33

You're without guilt. And so the word of God is clear that if a man breaks into your home at night, he has forfeited his life.

03:33:43

Potentially. If in the defense of your family, you take his life, you are, have no guilt, no guilt.

03:33:49

His blood is on his head. That's God's interpretation of our, excuse me, God's commentary.

03:33:57

On thou shall not murder, which also gives us the right translation, not being thou shall not kill, but thou shall not murder.

03:34:05

And so it's easily refuted. Biblically, there's much more that can be said. I've preached a whole sermon on the topic, um, because it's not just Mike Reed that holds this position, but it's, it's a dangerous position.

03:34:14

It puts, uh, women and children at risk, um, because they're not going to have a man prepared to defend them in a, in a dangerous and wicked world.

03:34:23

It puts men and women and children at risk because there's not always a man around to defend them. uh, you're going to leave a woman at home with her children with no ability to defend them from a man who would break in and rape and ravage and do horrible things and kill her.

03:34:43

Um, no, I don't support pacifism at all, but Mike goes on. Here's another quote. He says, here's what

03:34:50

I would have people to do. Now, the scenario they're talking about, the scenario they gave is if a junkie breaks into your home and he's going to kill you and your family to get money,

03:34:58

TV, whatever. Here's what I would have you to do. Uh, not to defend myself or my family, not to attempt to be offensive in my actions.

03:35:07

I will lock my doors. I will call the police. I will jump in front of the bullet that's headed toward my children, but I cannot play

03:35:12

God and decide a man walking in that door. Door's life is less valuable than the life of my child.

03:35:20

When I start defending myself and wanting to take life or name life because they deserve it.

03:35:27

I'm now putting myself in the place of God. Clearly we are looking for an excuse to be physical, to hold on to what we think is ours, to protect what we think is ours.

03:35:37

And I see no room for that in scripture. Why do you own a gun? What do you intend to do with that?

03:35:43

You have premeditated murder. So Mike Reed makes every

03:35:48

Christian gun owner who would defend his family, a premeditated murder in his teaching.

03:35:55

That's extreme pacifism. It's unhealthy and it's unsafe. Would I divide with a man over that?

03:36:01

I dislike it greatly, but I would not divide over that if he was truly a reformed man. And I did not divide with Mike over that in any way, shape or form.

03:36:11

We had friendly conversations over it. And I have email evidence.

03:36:16

I have even Twitter evidence where there was a comment on Twitter between Mike and I and he favored it.

03:36:25

I said on Twitter that godly men, biblical Christians can disagree on this topic and still labor together in the gospel.

03:36:34

And I was addressing that toward Mike Reed at that time before I knew about all this other stuff.

03:36:41

And he favored it. So yeah, that's Mike's extreme pacifism, but wait, there's more.

03:36:48

He also says that Christians cannot be soldiers, sailors, airmen, police officers, because in that context, they would be murdering and even carrying the gun as a soldier, police officers, premeditated murder.

03:37:00

He has said that he has taught that now he has deleted it and hidden it because he's come under scrutiny and he recognizes that that's going to limit his opportunities to rope other people into his cult.

03:37:15

But that teaching can be heard on the dangerous,

03:37:21

Mike Reed's dangerous doctrines and practices on YouTube. And he's not retracted it.

03:37:27

He's not repudiated it. Yeah, it stands. So, you know, my thoughts,

03:37:36

Chuck is we're at three hours and 40 minutes. Whoa. Yeah. It's shocking how fast that goes, right?

03:37:44

Wish you look, I can go all night, but, um, the let's say that let's, let's use the next, um, 10 to 20 minutes in, in finishing up here.

03:37:57

We can always have you back on and, uh, and go through some more stuff. What, what are things that you want to be able to say, um, as we start winding down into this show right now?

03:38:10

Hmm. Well, I wrote out one thing that just kind of brings it all together a little bit.

03:38:22

let me, let me start. I'll read that and then I'll go from there. If you don't mind. Absolutely. Yeah. Here's a quick rundown of Mike's teachings.

03:38:31

Mike Reed stacks unusual teaching upon aberrant teaching upon extreme teaching upon appalling teaching upon unconscionable teaching upon predatory teaching.

03:38:43

He stacked a pile of filth on top of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Follow Jesus.

03:38:51

Don't vote because all politics is vanity. Don't own a gun to defend and don't actually defend your family with a gun because that would be premeditated murder.

03:39:02

Don't be a police officer. Don't serve in the military. Don't celebrate Easter. Don't celebrate Christmas.

03:39:07

Don't celebrate other holidays. Don't give to or support medical research because we're all dying and trying to cure any kind of disease is misguided effort.

03:39:16

That's a quote. Don't chew tobacco or smoke or we'll do church discipline.

03:39:22

Don't know birth control from marriage to menopause. Pastors are like slave plantation owners and congregants of the slaves the pastor rules over beneath Christ.

03:39:35

The pastors are accountable to Christ, not to the slaves. Again, this is

03:39:42

Mike Reed, not me. I want to kiss your wife. Your wife should be kissing other men's wives.

03:39:51

If you think that's wrong, it's our sinful culture and the devil making you think so.

03:39:57

Meeting alone with your wife is essential to me shepherding your wife and your daughter.

03:40:04

Teaching your wife how to have an active and fulfilling sex life with explicit stories and counsel is good and necessary shepherding.

03:40:14

Every pastor should engage in this. I'm traveling to Africa regularly to teach them this shepherding ministry of women.

03:40:22

Having multiple adulterous affairs in my past has no bearing on my teachings and practices.

03:40:29

No bearing at all. How dare you bring it up? Pre -salvation sin shouldn't limit anyone, not even pedophiles.

03:40:38

Haven't I proven that in my Ask a Pastor teachings? Child molesters can become pastors and meet alone with children for shepherding, just like adulterers can become pastors and meet alone with children.

03:40:52

To shepherd them. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

03:40:59

Where does the insanity end? It ends when godly men stand up and say no more.

03:41:10

It ends when the men and women enabling Tony Miano and Mike Reed repent.

03:41:18

It ends when those who are still recommending this filthy ministry and promoting it repent and begin to warn people.

03:41:29

It ends when we stop mitigating, nuancing, and covering up with lies that are easily shown to be lies.

03:41:38

He edited my teachings. It's all there. It's all available.

03:41:46

It's all very clear. It ends when we quit making allowances for friends to do and to teach and to practice and to export to Africa that which we would never allow a stranger to.

03:42:01

If we heard of some guy somewhere teaching this, doing this, exporting this to Africa, we would all easily just stand up and do the right thing.

03:42:10

But when we know them, when we have labored alongside them on the street ministering the gospel, when we have partnered with them in ministries in the past, when we've been in their home or they've been in our home, it's all too hard to take the stand that we must take.

03:42:30

But hear me, men. Stand up. Stand up.

03:42:35

The day of our accountability is coming quickly, and we will be held accountable for the evil that we knew of and would not deal with.

03:42:49

This must end. The cover -up must end. The enabling must end.

03:42:54

Mike Reed cannot continue to be allowed to walk around the G3 conference like he's some kind of spiritual rock star.

03:43:04

Right now on the G3 website, Mike Reed is being quoted alongside of Steve Lawson.

03:43:13

There are three quotes circulating on the G3 website right now. Dr. Steve Lawson, one of the finest preachers on the planet.

03:43:21

Then Mike Reed, one of the most corrupt, deceptive, and dangerous preachers on the planet.

03:43:29

And then a young and upcoming man, Kofi. It is sickening.

03:43:36

It's got to stop. Brothers, stand up.

03:43:43

If you know of brothers enabling, hold them accountable. If you know and believe this evil is the evil that it is, don't speak about it privately in back rooms.

03:43:54

Get on the phone and make the necessary phone calls to protect that ministry that is sending

03:43:59

Mike to Africa, to protect those churches in Africa, to protect those children under Mike Reed's ministry right now in Davenport, Iowa, to protect other families that see

03:44:11

Mike as a Reformed Christian pastor, a rare thing on the earth, ministering the gospel boldly on the streets and want to come beneath that.

03:44:20

And boy, they'll accept some baggage. There's a few additions, some baggage they really didn't want. It really wasn't what they were hoping for.

03:44:27

But you know what? To get this good teaching and this Reformed theology that we all love and that ministry of the gospel, they'll buckle down and swallow some stuff that they know they shouldn't.

03:44:38

But doctrine by doctrine, incrementally, it corrupts them. It beguiles them.

03:44:46

It perverts their minds as they're taught that their God -given conscience, that their biblically informed conscience is really the devil.

03:44:59

Tony's endorsement page at Cross Encounters is an endorsement page of shame.

03:45:05

I love those men and the one woman on there. I have warned them all. I have pled with them all.

03:45:12

I've written them all. I've spoken to most of them face to face. And yet their endorsement stands.

03:45:20

It is an endorsement page of shame. And I say that with love. Men that are normally incredibly discerning allow

03:45:28

Tony to continue to use their endorsements as his Teflon shield against the truth as he helps

03:45:34

Mike advance this perversion in the earth. It's got to come to an end.

03:45:42

Men, stand up. That's my heart.

03:45:54

So, you know, one of the things that we pointed out last week and pointed out this week is that make no mistake about it.

03:46:04

What's written on, you can read on Cross Encounters right now in terms of supporting

03:46:11

Tony. This was also written in a blog post that if you support

03:46:19

Tony, you are supporting Mike. Yep, there you go. Thank you.

03:46:24

Yeah, so I'll just read it from here on out. If, when you support my evangelistic efforts, you are supporting the ongoing evangelistic work of Grace Fellowship Church, you are partnering with our church to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the

03:46:39

Quad Cities and beyond. And so literally, if you are giving money for Tony, you are supporting not just Tony, but you're supporting everything that goes on at GFC with Mike and his other two elders.

03:46:58

And so that's just to make people aware of it, not anything else.

03:47:03

It's just, this is the reality. You're donating to all of that. So let me ask you this,

03:47:12

Chuck. People in the church, you know, so in your estimation, you hope that this church would just, that the pastors, elders would repent and step down, go into solid teaching somewhere else and learn, grow in Christ, right?

03:47:34

In the graces of God. You hope in that dissolution that the people that are still at the church now would go to a good church also in the area where 60 plus people have already fled to in the area.

03:47:52

I've spoken to that pastor. He's a sweet hearted man. And he's one of a couple of pastors that took in a large influx.

03:48:00

Yeah. I understand. That was Kim Doppler. Those that are still in GFC, go get beneath Pastor Kim Doppler.

03:48:11

Who's a male. True under shepherd. He's a male. Yes. He's a man. Yeah. So that.

03:48:18

Okay. So let me ask you this, Tony, a guy who was one of your best friends, a guy who you still love dearly, obviously for him, if everything, what you're saying is correct and that you want this church to dissolve, well, where does that leave

03:48:36

Tony and his family that he has to support, right? He doesn't work.

03:48:41

Right. It doesn't work. He is, he is living off of the support of, of his donors to be able to live off of and to be able to do evangelism with.

03:48:50

So is there, is there a soft landing spot for Tony? So two things.

03:48:57

One, it's tragic. It's tragic. And I don't want Tony or his family to suffer financially, but he cannot continue to be supported by men and women who don't know what they're supporting.

03:49:11

And it's not just the monies that go to Tony also go to Tony's church and to Mike Reed. Tony has become a disciple of Mike, a proponent of Mike's doctrine.

03:49:20

He's helped teach Mike's doctrine. He's defended Mike's doctrine. He's helped Mike prepare his lessons to take them to Africa.

03:49:28

And so he is fully on board. He's not just drinking the Kool -Aid, he's mixing it and passing it out.

03:49:34

And so that's the tragic reality. We cannot in good conscience support that financially or otherwise.

03:49:40

And so no doubt there will be financial hardship if the body of Christ does the right thing and ceases to support that.

03:49:47

And so what should Tony do? He should get a job. That's what Tony should do. He should work to provide for his family like the rest of the men out there.

03:49:55

He should repent of what he has yoked himself and his family to. He should get his family out of there.

03:50:00

He should get a secular job. He should get into a true local church like John MacArthur's church.

03:50:08

Grace, can we— We brought that up earlier. Yes. John MacArthur's church somewhere along the way. Yes. And sit humbly beneath the

03:50:18

Word of God and pray that God would raise him back up one day to preach the gospel again if it's

03:50:24

His will. But he can't continue in this. He has willfully yoked himself into a cult, and he's propagating cultic doctrines.

03:50:35

It pains me to say it, but it's true. And so he needs, as an act of repentance, to not only get out of there, but to get out of ministry and to get a job to provide for his family that is not ministry.

03:50:49

Now, out of compassion and love, I would say to Tony that there are many who will help you get out of there.

03:50:57

There are many who will not let you starve. There are many that will help bridge the gap between getting out of there and ceasing to take money for a ministry you're no longer qualified for and getting into a secular job to provide for your family, because we love you,

03:51:14

Tony. There are many that would step up and sacrifice to help you get out of there in hopes that one day you would be fit to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ again, unyoked from this filth.

03:51:32

And I know other pastors as well who have said the exact same thing and actually have open -armed welcomed that if he would leave, that they would bring him in and give him the care that he needs.

03:51:46

So I think at this point, we're going to bring

03:51:51

Andrew back on because I think Andrew has a couple of last questions for you. Sure.

03:51:57

Just as a way to wrapping up, I mean, I'm listening to this, Chuck. I'm hearing with last week, this week,

03:52:05

Kevin was saying how he's accused of lying about the events.

03:52:12

You're accused of lying about the events. Just applying

03:52:17

Oxman's razor, which is easier to believe, that three men that are pastors in a church that work together are lying or many individual people who don't talk to each other who are not connected are lying about that?

03:52:35

I mean, which is just simple logic, which is easier to believe? Let's go one step further.

03:52:43

Kevin was once a deacon. Kevin helped Mike make his Ask a

03:52:48

Pastor videos and teachings. Kevin was on social media arguing against this crazy guy,

03:52:55

Chuck O 'Neill, defending Mike Reed's soundness as a pastor and his doctrine. But by the grace of God, Kevin's eyes were opened.

03:53:05

And now Kevin is exposing this from the inside out, which gives me great hope that my dear beloved friend,

03:53:12

Tony, will yet have his eyes open and no one can repent bigger or bolder than Tony Miano.

03:53:18

If God is pleased to rescue him, Tony will rip this cult apart with his bare hands and his lion voice.

03:53:26

By lion, L -I -O -N, not lying. And so I have confidence that many will be rescued out of there.

03:53:36

And I pray, I pray as I've prayed now for years, that my dear friend will soon, maybe this night, be set free and help bring this thing to an end.

03:53:49

But right. What would compel me? Just that. What would compel me? I've been hated and despised, declared a

03:53:55

Judas, a servant of the devil, a slander and a gossip by very influential men under Tony's influence.

03:54:02

Tony wields a great deal of influence. And Tony has written letters to men.

03:54:08

If I'm speaking at a conference, those men receive letters from Tony telling them not to speak with me because he's a liar and a gossip and on and on.

03:54:17

Bobby McCreary is the biggest enabler of Tony and Mike Reed, defends him incessantly.

03:54:25

Bobby tells people the same things, edited sermons, edited sermons. He's accused me of lying and slandering.

03:54:32

These men are my friends. I love the gospel they preach. This has brought incredible division to the

03:54:40

Reformed evangelistic community. Incredible division. What could possibly compel me?

03:54:48

Mike Reed likes to tell the story in his response to slander that Chuck O 'Neill became upset or angry about his pacifism.

03:54:58

And so he lost his mind. And that's why he's doing this. Listen, I despise pacifism because it's dangerous.

03:55:06

And it sets people up to be victimized in the most horrible ways. And it's not biblical. But the record is clear and I can easily show it that have nothing to do with Mike's pacifism, but everything to do with Mike's perversion of the pastoral ministry, the predatory perversion that puts women and children at risk and his exporting of that perversion to churches in Africa.

03:55:33

That's why things like this must end. We can't have the G3 conference quoting

03:55:41

Steve Lawson, Mike Reed, and Kofi on equal footing.

03:55:46

And that is up on the website right now. It's got to end, brothers. It's got to end.

03:55:53

It's a madness. This enabling, this willful blindness. You know, listening to you, it sounds like,

03:56:03

I mean, Mike Reed almost sounds like the

03:56:10

Democrats when they were criticizing Mike Pence for daring to not being alone with a woman.

03:56:17

Good point. You know, the fact that he could walk up to you or Tony, you know, but to walk up to someone that's a complete stranger and kiss them on the lips says that it must be a common practice.

03:56:33

Mind you, he kissed me on the cheek. Okay. He would have been unfortunately damaged if he had kissed me on the lips.

03:56:45

Yeah. You would see how much of a pacifist he is. You know what?

03:56:51

I'll tell you, if you're going to teach all the men of the church that they should let you kiss their wives, you should first teach them to be pacifists.

03:56:57

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess he wouldn't like my comments about choking him. You know, but here's the thing, the concern, listen to you, my years of counseling, you know, this, what you're describing sounds like grooming.

03:57:16

It sounds like the grooming that a sexual predator would do. Now, I'm not calling him a sexual predator.

03:57:22

I'm just saying the behavior he has matches that. And so let me, this is one last question

03:57:29

I have for you and I'll make another comment. But Chuck, you were, and Anthony sent this to me, so I have this,

03:57:36

I'll put this up. But from my understanding, you were on Tony's advisory board.

03:57:43

You're the first one mentioned there. Yes. Anthony had sent me. These are the list of people who are on his advisory board.

03:57:53

At one time. At one time. Yeah. At the time you were on his advisory board, did you advise him not to go to this church?

03:58:05

Yes. Okay. That makes me wonder what the advisory board was really about.

03:58:12

It wasn't, it doesn't seem like it's for accountability if, were there other members of that board that also advised him against this?

03:58:20

Steve Cooley, in the strongest of terms, and has, has pled with him ever since he has gone to leave.

03:58:29

And Tony's response to Steve Cooley, who's a lifelong friend of Tony's and a pastor, is the same response to me, to cut him off.

03:58:42

Are any of these men still on his advisory board that you know of? He doesn't have an advisory board anymore.

03:58:48

He has Mike Reed. He has a slave master. He's beneath the master of the plantation.

03:58:57

That to me seems to indicate that he really didn't have accountability. I mean, accountability, look,

03:59:03

I have a board of directors. When they agree on something and disagree with me,

03:59:09

I submit to them because that's what they're there for. In fact, and, you know,

03:59:14

Anthony knows this, there's, there's two things to get onto the board of directors at Striving for Eternity.

03:59:20

One, you have to have a heart for the ministry, but two, you have to show that you have a willingness to correct me.

03:59:27

It doesn't mean you have to have corrected me. It just means you have to display a willingness that you're not afraid to challenge me if I'm doing wrong.

03:59:36

That's a requirement to get on our board. Here he, it seems he had a board that wasn't acting as an accountability board because when it, it seems like when they said something he didn't like, he, he backed away.

03:59:49

Now, you know, you made some, some very strong statements and we were not going to have time to get into this, but this may be a way of saying maybe for our next show, you referred to this church as a cult.

04:00:02

I did. Okay. A personality cult. Yeah. Now I have,

04:00:08

I have five definitions you can get in my book. What do they believe on what a cult is?

04:00:15

And, and I'm going to, I want to list these five and then maybe, maybe this is a conversation we either have here or privately, because I'd like to see if you're saying it's a cult.

04:00:26

I want to see if it actually fits the definition. One, you have to have an authoritarianism.

04:00:32

In other words, you have someone or some organization that they alone can interpret scripture.

04:00:38

They set themselves up as, as basically above scripture because they're the only authority that can interpret scripture.

04:00:46

Second scripture twisting to maintain that authoritarianism. They almost always have scripture twisting.

04:00:52

They start changing the meanings of words. They display a lack of integrity in language.

04:00:58

Check, check. All right. Well, I'm going to, I'm my challenge to you and we can't do it in this show.

04:01:04

Maybe another is I want, I want that evidence. Third exclusivism where they'll say that if you, you can't have the truth outside of that organization or group.

04:01:15

Now, when you have the authoritarianism that only they can interpret, that ends up happening, that they have the exclusive truth, which then leads to isolationism where they cut everyone off from fellowship and communicating, being with others outside that may teach them the truth.

04:01:35

So you have an isolationism. And then fifth would be harm.

04:01:41

Now this harm could be physical harm, emotional harm, or spiritual harm. When you have a cult they're controlling and that control, you have people that leave the cult and they feel like, oh, you know, we got,

04:01:53

I got, I'm missing something. Because they, they end up going back into it because the cults typically are getting someone in so much that they feel they're, they, they can't leave it because of the control factor.

04:02:06

So those five things, whether you and I talk privately at some point, or you come back on,

04:02:12

I would like to see the evidence for those five points for your claim.

04:02:18

And I know we don't have time for that here, but I mean, that would be the challenge that I would have for you.

04:02:24

Because it's a strong statement. I don't call a group a cult lightly. I have called groups cults, but I don't do it lightly and I can defend it.

04:02:34

Either do I. I call it a cult with conviction and clarity and ample, ample evidence.

04:02:45

And I urge those in Mike Reed's cult to flee. That's what it is.

04:02:50

I don't say it as an insult. I don't throw it out as an insult, but an accurate description of a very dangerous man in a very dangerous professed church with incredibly dangerous doctrine and practices.

04:03:06

Yeah. So I guess with, with that, Anthony, I don't know anything else that you have.

04:03:16

I know I can announce that the first week of June, June 4th, we will have a debate between a

04:03:23

Lutheran and a Baptist on Lutheran baptism. It will be

04:03:29

Ken Cook again, but with a different person that he's going to be debating this time, a professor.

04:03:34

So hopefully that will, that will go better than the previous one he had on, on baptism.

04:03:42

But we'll have that the June 4th, next week. I'm not sure. Maybe, you know,

04:03:47

I guess you've been making an appeal for Mike Reed to come on.

04:03:53

And I think that would be good for him to, to support, you know, his arguments against these things or, or to say, this is what

04:04:02

I teach. Defend what he teaches. But I think these accusations from these two men and others, if you're going to have them from, from your, the people you've spoken to,

04:04:14

I think there is a need for him to, to say what he believes.

04:04:21

And I'll, I'll certainly reach back out to him and ask him to be on again.

04:04:28

You know, I'll ask again and see if he is willing to come on next week.

04:04:34

So, or, or even the week after, because I mean, I was, Kevin asked us,

04:04:39

I was Ken Cook has to say is you don't drown babies. And then all of a sudden debate, we move on.

04:04:48

We got the rest of the show open. Well, close the show this way.

04:04:53

A friend of ours, Aaron sent me a text, Anthony. It says, wow, I didn't realize the episode on Mike Reed would be so long.

04:05:01

And my response was, it's Anthony. Look who's writing it. Yep. So, so Chuck, I guess before I give you a closing statement, thank you so much for being on tonight.

04:05:17

I know this is, you know, it takes a lot of your time and look, I know how much time

04:05:22

I've spent so far between the research and then organizing information.

04:05:29

And I can't even tell you how many hours it's been. I am certain that you have spent more in, in what you have done in, in, in time stamping and cutting and pasting and doing all the things you could to warn the church of, of these doctrines.

04:05:52

And so, you know, I, I give you a ton of credit. Now, obviously this goes back to what

04:05:58

Tony said about you when he, you know, you guys were embracing and he wrote that blog that he really respected your ability to seek out false teaching and that you were diligent as a preacher, the word diligent to seek out false teaching and to, and to, and to preach against it.

04:06:18

So, so, you know, thank you for being on, thank you for doing all this stuff and, and warning the bride of Christ here.

04:06:26

And, and, and we pray that, that God's will be done in this and, and, and these things get fixed.

04:06:33

Right. I mean that, that they get taken care of and people get, get healing. So, so on that,

04:06:38

I'm actually gonna let you have the last words here and whatever plea, whatever you want to say here before Andrew closes.

04:06:45

Sure, sure. Well, thank you, Anthony and Andrew, both of you. I appreciate your, your heart for Christ, for his church universal, for the individual churches involved, for the individual men and women like Kevin and Jen Jaunt, who suffered horribly.

04:07:05

And they're still recovering from this, like so many others that you have talked to and you've counseled and I've counseled.

04:07:11

And you're encouraging to seek more counseling because this leaves a mark on, on people's minds and hearts and souls and, and praise

04:07:20

God. Christ is sufficient. His resources are sufficient. And I would encourage those that are in this cult and those that have escaped it, that Christ is sufficient.

04:07:30

The spirit of God is sufficient. The word of God is sufficient. You were not in a church. You were in a cult.

04:07:35

Don't let that teaching and the abuse you suffered there color the glory of Christ and his gospel and the power of the spirit of God and the sanctifying work, the renewing of the mind of the word of God and the beauty of Christ's bride, the church, and the wonderful blessing that a genuine pastoral ministry is by God's design and is practically in a church.

04:08:05

A genuine congregation and church. And so may God heal your hearts. May God bless you, encourage you, strengthen you, heal you.

04:08:13

May you continue to seek the Lord's resources and find them all sufficient. They are, they are dear friends, dear brothers, dear sisters.

04:08:22

Flee to Christ. He is all sufficient. I thank you, Andrew. I thank you,

04:08:28

Anthony. You've put in a ton of research. You're trying to give me a run for my money on that. You've been thorough.

04:08:36

You've been systematic. You've been gracious and loving to all involved.

04:08:42

And I know your heart, both your hearts are for Christ and for his church and to see the body of Christ prosper and to be protected from these kinds of things.

04:08:54

And I pray that this will be instructive beyond this particular circumstance, but be instructive to many other circumstances.

04:09:02

And I want to briefly close by addressing the response to slander in general and say that in my last blog article that I put out in February, which

04:09:13

I put out nearly four years later after the initial two blog articles, haven't written a blog on it for nearly four years, but put that out because Kevin Jaunt came out and I saw

04:09:22

Mike and others like Tony treating Kevin and Jen in the same way they've treated me, maligning their character, accusing them of slander and gossip in order to protect the cult and their cultic doctrines.

04:09:35

And I thought, I'm not going to stand by and let that happen. I'm going to speak out again. I'm going to stand up for these dear saints that have suffered so that others will not suffer and so that they won't suffer alone.

04:09:48

And so it's time for the cover up to end. It must come to an end. It's time for men to stand up.

04:09:55

That response to slander is slander. It's slander of me. Their response to Kevin and Jen is slander of Kevin and Jen.

04:10:05

They're denials or assaults on our character. They're shooting the messenger. But the message is clear.

04:10:12

Every single man and woman who pushes the play button on Mike's teachings, whether it's the edited for brevity or the entire teaching, they become instant witnesses, firsthand witnesses.

04:10:25

It's not a he said, she said kind of situation. The facts are the facts.

04:10:32

And what Mike and what Tony helped Mike teach and defend collaborates and supports all of the personal testimonies and accounts that have been given.

04:10:44

They fit seamlessly together. The facts are the facts and the facts are clear.

04:10:51

Beyond the response to slander, being slander of myself, which it most certainly is, it's also much more of a confession than a defense.

04:11:00

The response to slander defends meeting alone with the women. It doesn't say we don't do it.

04:11:05

It says we do and we stand by it. The defense, the response to slander defends men repenting, coming to Christ, no matter what their background, becoming pastors, and then engaging themselves in ministries exactly how

04:11:22

Mike engages himself with the women of the church. It's a confession. It's not a defense.

04:11:29

I could cover many more points on that. But I want to close with this. Tullian had his enablers.

04:11:37

They defended him. They protected his good name. They defended his doctrine.

04:11:44

And they did so in the face of the obvious truth. They did so even after it was proven that he had committed adultery, even after it was proven he committed adultery multiple times.

04:11:54

They did it again and again and again. They enabled, they enabled, they enabled. They allowed him to harm woman after woman, family after family.

04:12:02

That's what adultery does. They allowed him to harm the body of Christ and the testimony of Christ and the gospel of Christ, bring shame and repute on the name of my king and yours.

04:12:17

That's what enablers do. Todd Bentley had enablers and still does.

04:12:27

The man kicks old women in the stomach. He punches people in Jesus' name to heal them.

04:12:34

He's a sexual predator. The truth is out. And he has had his enablers.

04:12:41

And he still has his enablers that allow him to continue to do these atrocities.

04:12:48

Enabling wicked men in their wicked deeds with their wicked doctrines harms the body of Christ, harms real men, real women, and real children.

04:13:02

It harms the ministry of the gospel. It's an insult to our king.

04:13:11

Our allegiance is to our king. Not these perverted, professed servants of the king who merely pull down more sheep's clothing over their wolfish fangs, deeds, and doctrines to press on to their next victim.

04:13:27

Don't be an enabler. Stand up, men.

04:13:34

Stand up. Take biblical action. Deal with the wolf and sheep's clothing in our midst.

04:13:42

Wolves and sheep's clothing. And deal with their enablers. And do it in the light of day.

04:13:50

And do it by name. Bobby, it's time for you to repent. You don't get a pass anymore,

04:13:56

Bobby McCreery. And, yes, I've talked to your elders. I've talked to Josh Bice.

04:14:02

He knows all this and more. And I trust that his eyes will yet be opened and he will take appropriate action.

04:14:11

The enabling must stop. I give one last plea to those on Tony's endorsement page of shame.

04:14:20

I love you, brothers. I have so much respect for so much discernment you exercise in so many areas in defense of the body of Christ and in ministering the gospel and the other truths of God's word.

04:14:36

But this enabling must stop. Endorsements must stop. Stand, brothers.

04:14:46

Call for repentance. All right, well, let me close with some comments that we see here.

04:14:53

Humble Clay is saying the truth can handle any question, and it's true. If you have the truth, 2

04:14:58

Corinthians 13, 8, you can do nothing against the truth, but by the truth, you're not going to twist it.

04:15:05

So if they actually have the truth, they should come on. Ronnie is saying, how does has anyone heard if Reed is going to come on the show?

04:15:15

I'd be very interested in, I guess, in hearing what he has to say, how he defends these things.

04:15:22

I would be, too. I would really like to hear that myself as well. You know,

04:15:29

Derek says they have an open invitation, no clear answer about them coming. And then

04:15:35

Ronnie said, sounds a bit cowardice to me, Derek. Honestly, if he believes that he is doing no wrong, then he should be willing to defend himself and his practices.

04:15:50

And then Derek said, if Mike Reed is a true shepherd, he would deal with this.

04:15:56

So the challenge is there for Mike to come on to address these things. My understanding,

04:16:03

Anthony, correct me if I'm wrong, you've given him questions that you'd asked. So he knows up front and could be prepared.

04:16:10

He has them already. So there's no reason not to. So just as a closing comment,

04:16:19

I saw some things that came earlier. People were mentioning my facial hair. For the record, I have more facial hair than both of these men combined have on their entire head.

04:16:29

For the record. Probably true. Until next week, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.