Addressing Tony Miano's Claims

But what I have a more serious problem with are the young earthers that want us to deny what we know from science and as a result they want us to ignore scientists when they tell us things like Take a vaccine for the pandemic.

The science supported not getting the vaccine over six minutes later. We heard her say this. Now you don't want to even talk so, you know.

It's because you've brought up a topic that I was not prepared for. If I had known that this was going to be the topic I would have brought facts and figures with me. But I did not know that this topic would come up and so I did not bring any facts and figures with me and I'm Not prepared to defend that position, but you brought these topics up.

I didn't. Well, okay, you're you're right I did.

Apologetics Live and the Week's News Roundup

And we are live apologetics live here to answer your most challenging questions you have about God and the Bible. I am your host Andrew Rappaport the executive director of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community of which this podcast is a proud Member.

And just so you know, we are here every week Thursday nights. Well, not every week. I shouldn't say that because we're not gonna be here for the next two, but most weeks. We are here at apologetics live .com.

You can go there to join the discussion any time that we are live. We're Detroit try to do Thursday nights 8 o 'clock to 10 o 'clock Eastern Time p .m. And You can join and ask us any question.

In fact.

I tell folks that I can answer any question you have about God and the Bible and If you think that sounds a little bit well prideful or arrogant just remember when I say, I don't know. That's a perfectly good answer.

I never said I'd give an answer. That would be satisfactory to you. I just said I can answer every question and I don't know as often the answer I give. So We have a guest backstage. We're gonna be as we said, we're going to be addressing a sermon from Tony Miano now.

A lot of people have asked for an update on the you know The church there in Iowa. Yeah, I'm drawing a blank but my my guest will remind me.

But.

But we've we did a series in the past about this church where I was not really sure That it was a cult but by listening to many people I got thoroughly convinced and and Kevin said grace fellowship I was gonna say grace fellowship, but I wasn't sure if his grace fellowship church or just grace fellowship, but They're in Iowa.

We we talked about This in the past. We actually did I think like nine or ten episodes on this and a lot of people asked if we would give an update for four years now and We really didn't feel like doing an update.

We had this sermon. Oh I'll have to ask Kevin for for two or three years. We have talked about it and We we decided we would do it now we'll explain a little bit why let me first get to some other issues that we have.

Let me I'll bring Kevin in so he can say hello. Kevin Yance. How are you, sir? I am here. Well, thank you appreciate.

Yeah, can you hear me? All right.

Yeah, I wonder if there's a delay, but we'll see if there is. It's gonna be interesting.

So.

First thing I got to do is correct something from last week last week. We had the Roman Catholic and and I kept referring to the Council of Nicaea in 324 Having been the council that addressed the Canon and I was incorrect.

I was wrong about that I was thinking of the wrong Council and so I was making an argument that was well false. So I just wanted to correct that for the record a couple things that we usually do in the news section before we get into the main subject and Like Kevin jump in as well if he wants any of these things, but just quickly I want to hit some of these where there's a another new school shooting at a Christian school.

Wouldn't you know? We we have It seems that a Clint conflicting reports the Sheriff or you know or captain whoever was doing the reporting early on with the school shooting questions were asked whether the person was a transgender and he made the comment to say that's not an issue that we want to discuss right now and That shouldn't that's not something we want to get into, you know.

So it made it sound as if he was trying to cover up like all of the other times that you had a shooter In a Christian school and it turned it was a transgender person doing it because Of Christians and so I did put out a post asking when will the media and law enforcement call this a hate crime?

Because they're clearly targeting Christian schools. You know, it was interesting when they when a Muslim shot up a homosexual bar. They were quick to say it was a hate crime done by Christians and then they found out it was a Muslim.

Hmm in this case. What we have is some maybe questionable Information it's gonna be hard to know. We're getting reports now that it wasn't a transgender early on we did get reports that it was a Transgender now we're getting reports that it was not.

It makes it hard to know who to believe because well who's gonna believe the media anymore. You know, so I don't know if that's the case yet. It is interesting that this girl I I think had a plan to end her life.

Because it seems that after the shooting she had a friend who released her manifesto maybe it is because the last shooter had a manifesto on her and It never got replaced to the public.

So.

That may be it. I did not get a chance to read that manifesto. So. Could not address that. What else in the news? I'd like actually Kevin anything you want to address with that or no.

Let's make sure I'm working first. Andrew, can you hear me? All right. Yep here you fine. Okay good. I don't really have anything I could say about it. I've read a few things watched a few things. But I don't I mean other than a horrible tragedy and I think one of the things that I saw was highlighted was a number of issues with the drugs that kids take and why so many of these Suicides are happening, which is a deeper issue.

Probably that's the one thing.

They never want to look at and yet that's the one thing it seems to always be in common that they have these Mood altering drugs to keep them calm in school, you know, you know, the other one I want to address.

Some may not even know this story. This is an 18 19 year old story, but there was a woman who made an accusation At a dog. She was a stripper. She went to a party hosted I guess by the Duke lacrosse team.

She was on drugs at the time. Had left the party early, I guess there were complaints or people insulting her about her her dancing or whatever and So she made the claim That she had been gang-raped by the Duke lacrosse team.

The only person Three people got named in in a lawsuit. The only person she was able to identify Was a person that was not at the party. He was he had a solid alibi he was in another state. Charges were dropped.

Now almost 20 years later. She's finally come out and admitted that she lied about the whole thing. Why bring this up Andrew. Good question. Glad you asked. This was the story that got the media from being.

Like.

Objective somewhat to just Trying to convict people in the court of public opinions. This is the beginning of the me too movement. This is the beginning of all the things that we now see. So rampant in the media where they'll completely lie and all that.

Just to get a new story out. So that's why this one is so important because it is something that was the beginning of a lot of this stuff. It is something where the it was a changing point in the media and so.

I.

Think it's important to recognize that those who were on the right that that said this this was.

You know.

Something that was not true. It was the woman was making it up. And if the folks who may be too young or don't know the story They did do a rape kit on her that night. They did discover that she Had had sex with five men.

None of which are any of the Duflo lacrosse players.

So.

That's why they ended up throwing the case out. So one last thing that everyone is asking me. My thoughts on this and I think a lot of people are asking because of my background having worked for the federal government in the past.

You know the the I there's a lot of questions and about these drone sightings in New Jersey. It's like this phenomenon. Let me go through this very briefly. Give you my opinions what it could be. There's talk of is it our own government testing.

Testing things that is possible. I Mean, that's what area 51 was all about but they usually try to do that. Yes under the cover of night but usually they try to do that in places where no one's gonna see them and if they they try to do it sparsely so that.

It's not every night. Um, so that would lead me to believe it's probably not that you wouldn't usually do that in an heavily populated area because you don't want to be seen. They would do it somewhere in the desert.

Now. Maybe they're doing some testing of something that would go over water. So therefore it needs to go that way. But that's not the direction people are seeing. They're seeing them come across the center of the state not going out to the water.

It could be foreign actors. It's hard not to believe that when we had a Chinese air balloon just Going across the country and no one wanted to do anything and it was admitted that yes. It was a Chinese air balloon, but they don't want it to come down on on people.

So I don't think it's that. With the number of them that are up there. I think the government would have done something by now.

So.

What could it be? Well, let's give the more serious one. We did have someone a mayor in New Jersey that said that there is a some stolen or missing uranium and That these are he in his opinion Drones from the government's that are looking for a uranium signal in fear of a You know small bomb that could be Set off.

Could that be the case? Well, it's plausible to an extent but I find it hard to believe that there's missing uranium. That's not the sort of thing that goes just missing. So what do I think it is? Very simple.

Here's what I think it is.

It is a.

Distraction.

No.

Different than when they were talking about all the UFO stuff when they didn't want you knowing all the stuff that was going on in the government. I think this is just a distraction and the more people are paying attention to it the more they're not paying attention to all the things that are going on right now like the like 1 ,500 pardons.

More than.

1 ,500 pardons is more. I think than any president has done in their entire.

You know.

Administration he does that in a single day. He's pardoned. I think it's up to about 8 ,000 people. He's doing a lot of things to make it a nuts not to be a smooth transition of power. But people aren't noticing it because they're so focused on drones.

Oh I think that's a lot of What it is. Could I be wrong? Sure but I I just think that's what it is. It's a media playing folks and and I think it's some people that are that we're doing it and As a distraction and then more people jumped in and it's just a copycat.

So.

So, let's look before we get into our topic I'll put this up. Jess had a comment that you have grown a serious beard. Thank you. I still have it. It'll be gone probably shortly, but. So Kevin for folks who may not have joined who have not been in involved in the past How about you introduce yourself a bit and let us know what what you've been up to.

Yeah, thanks Andrew that's. You know, we did I think you said nine shows. I didn't go back and count them, but we did a lot of shows on a former church that I've been was a part of. First of all My name is Kevin Yont.

I lived in Davenport, Iowa. Grew up in the Quad Cities for the most part. Moved away to Albuquerque.

Explains folks what the Quad Cities are because if you're not odd cities is.

It's on the Mississippi River halfway between Des Moines, Iowa and Chicago, Illinois. There's two two cities in Iowa and Actually three cities in Illinois, but they call it the Quad Cities. Anyway, so Davenport, Iowa, Bettendorf, Iowa, Rock Island, Illinois and Moline, Illinois.

So I Grew up there through high school moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico when I was 18 and went to school in Albuquerque the University of New Mexico. Lived there met my wife. We got married in 1991 and moved back to Davenport.

Spent 28 years in Davenport and That's where we became involved with Grace Fellowship Church, which is the topic of our discussions. So Jen and I my wife we became part of the church in 2008 ish 2009 ish.

We're part of it for Nine years. We left in February of 2018 and then we Spent a year there.

And.

Ended up moving back to New Mexico. So I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Now we moved back here. My wife's family is from here. We kind of moved back here to Help, you know with her aging mother and that kind of a thing.

So here we are. We were we really didn't say anything about Grace Fellowship until a Good year and a half almost two years after we left. We came to realize that it was a spiritually abusive church. That the pastors and elders are are of an authoritarian nature quite authoritarian and.

And.

So I started writing a few blog articles about a book called churches that abused by Ronald and M and Roth. Didn't didn't say anything about GFC in that process, but just wrote a series on that book. It was a helpful book for me at the time.

It still is a helpful book. In this Interim we're trying to we're still communicating with them a little bit. We had been excommunicated from the church about three or four days after we left. But Mike kept reaching out to me even later on and wanting to try to figure out how to reconcile.

You know, we I would ask some questions about what that meant and he wouldn't really answer me.

And.

So basically we never we never did they were Insistent that we would come back to the church. We weren't going to put ourselves back in that situation. Grace Fellowship, and it is called Grace Fellowship Church.

But I I just call it GFC or Grace Fellowship. I don't really like to attach church to them. And so we we began to. I began to educate myself on what this meant because I really didn't know what we had been through.

I didn't really understand it when we first came out and I was ill Prepared to actually deal with them in a way that I think would be Helpful for us and for them. Didn't want to put myself back in that situation.

And so the way we left was we left we wrote a letter said we were leaving. Wrote some letters back and forth. They excommunicated us. We moved on went to went to a couple different churches before we settled on one in in Bettendorf.

I Wanted to grow in my understanding so I applied for seminary and was accepted to the Reformed Baptist Seminary and Have been going to school. I've Graduated with a degree program and I'm pursuing another program and then basically we began to write.

I began to write more articles naming them. Because I thought it was important to talk about what was really happening at the church and You know seek to expose the abuses now if this was just me if it was just my family I probably wouldn't have ever said anything.

But.

Everybody that leaves the church That that is a member is always Almost without exception and I would say there might be one possibly two exceptions. Now the one exception I'm thinking of was later Excommunicated but they released him and then they said he was talking bad about them.

So they came back and excommunicated them, but pretty much a hundred percent of the people are Excommunicated if they leave. So I wrote an article we called he left the church.

And yeah, then they excommunicated him when he's no longer part of the church.

That is correct. They they released this man and his family from membership.

Did they when they excommunicated him? Did they start with talking to him one-on-one and then going with others or was it just boom your excommunicated?

Yeah, they they came back and said, you know, we've got all this evidence that said you've been divisive in your speech since you've left. We had released you on good, you know in good standing. But then you started saying things about us and you started trying to encourage other people to leave and tell other stories about us.

And so then they ended up writing him an excommunication.

All right. He wasn't a member anymore. He what?

At the yeah, I mean he was a member when he left and they released him released.

This was and then the only reason I'm bringing this up. It just is Great. Matthew 18 is kind of clear the the the steps it would be done within the church but the reason this becomes important is if he has left that church and yet Mike Reed feels he could speak into this person to.

You know to.

Discipline him and Excommunicate him from a church. He already left. I find it interesting because part of Mike's argument is that none of us have that right to speak into his church. Yeah. So he had the right to speak into someone else's.

It just it's interesting.

Yeah, well, you know, I mean they kind of write their own rules a lot of times. They'll base them on how they would look at a scripture verse so they try to Justify it I'm sure somehow scripturally. But you know, I think if you'd let a guy go I mean, do you have the right then to go back and excommunicate him later on?

I don't even think they have the right to excommunicate somebody if they if they say We have a disagreement here. We don't like how you do church and we're going to leave and we want to be released from membership.

That's never good enough that always ends in excommunication and.

So.

So I thought it was important to write about that to say I think they're abusing this. This doctrine that's that is a biblical doctrine. You know excommunication, you know is the final step of Matthew 18 as you kind of pointed out.

Which is tell it to the church if they don't repent treat him as a heathen and a tax collector. And so, you know, what does that mean exactly? Well, I think it means they're. There's someone that you would then be willing to still continue to discuss and have Conversations with and try to you know minister to the gospel.

You're you're assuming then that they're unbelievers. So, but they don't they shun you it's it's much like you know, perhaps Mormonism would shun somebody or You know the the Amish would shun people. So, you know most people when you leave and you've been excommunicated you are.

You know persona non grata you're you're. They want nothing to do with you. They will barely talk to you if they'll talk to you at all. You know in in the case in point in dealing with with Tony as I saw him at the Starbucks that we both used to go to after we had left after we had exhausted our conversations and Tony was sitting there and I walked in to get my coffee and he wouldn't look at me and I walked up to him and said Tony I've been coming to this Starbucks a lot longer than you have and I don't care if you come in here or not.

But don't act like you've never seen me before and he sure sort of sheepishly Looked up at me and he stuck his hand out to shake my hand and grunted at me and I walked out the door. So, you know, that's how you're treated.

And so I thought it was important to start talking about these things and then I did a series. Three articles one on people's testimonies, you know one on you know. Looking forward to what what can we do about the future and stuff like that?

Continue to highlight them through the years. For folks that don't know where what's the blog site for the blog site is called.

Uncommon faith dot org and I've been writing on that blog since 2012 I guess so, you know 12 plus years and Interestingly enough. I was at GFC at the time and asked Mike permission to start a blog and you know, he I think he liked it at the time because I'd run my articles past him and he'd always approve them and and You know now he's probably not a big fan, but you know the blog.

You know, it's never really it's not a big deal, right? It's just me sort of putting down stuff that I think about. It's become more of a sounding board to highlight abuses at GFC when I hear of more stuff going on there.

If I if I think it's important enough to write about it I'll write about it like like the man that committed suicide at GFC I thought it was important to write about that and give him Give his family and friends some sort of a Better understanding of his life than what they talked about at his funeral.

It was a really disturbing and disgusting Way to give a funeral so I wanted to tell people listen man, this guy was loved. I mean, I we ran into him after we had been excommunicated at a grocery store and he talked to me and he had his daughter and he he he.

He was friendly and then he told them that we were there and he got a beat down for it. I'm sure he felt helpless. I don't know the full nature of his suicide. I don't want to try to you know, make speculations or anything like that.

He was a he was a wonderful man and it was a shame. What has happened to him and in his family and I'm told his wife has left and moved out of state now which I praise the Lord for that, but That's a that's a that's an overview.

Andrew. You you know, it's a long story and we could spend a lot of time talking about it.

Well, we spent many many hours or This in fact what I want to do is I'm gonna I'm gonna so folks could know some of some of what you have Written on striving for eternity. I want to bring up the the article the main article for folks to be able to to find because the reason I want to do this is If folks want to get all the background, this is the one place to get it.

If you go to striving for eternity org and just do a search for dangerous Doctrines, you'll find a couple of articles that Kevin has written That's at striving for eternity. And this one is is the really the detailed one.

It's the dangerous doctrines of grace Fellowship Church. And what you'll see in this as I'm just going to scroll up is these are all the episodes that we covered. So you can watch either the video or listen to the audio and this episode we're doing right now will be on it.

And and so Anthony had started this. This is where it really we dealt with the issues of Mo where was it? Is it was it earlier than that? Yeah, I think it was all the way it It was in part six before we really started bringing up where I kind of came in and we compared What Tony and I and others did when talking about the Church of Wells.

Which Tony recognized as a cult and we compared it. And and Kevin you were very helpful with that to show the church He's currently in was fitting some of those same things that Tony previously had criticized and insert.

It's pretty shocking really. The comparisons all the things. I mean that was a three-hour video that he did with some other men. I don't remember who that was, but it doesn't matter at this point. Yeah, it was it was myself.

Kevin.

Ken cook and John speed. Oh, right. Yeah, we're on.

Okay, so here we have we did nine episodes here. And so and then this article will explain some of the the details. But I want to start with the way we started every one of these others and and I just want for the record.

You know, we invited Tony in here. You know, it's something where I I did not want to just Make claims. You're you're gonna hear I'm gonna play a video clip of Tony that I sent to him. You know because I want him to be here.

I would rather him or Mike Reed. They've always had the invitation here to join us. And so I would rather them come in and we have the discussion truthfully I'd rather we have the discussion behind the scenes having a fair discussion.

You know and we could do that in private, but unfortunately, that's not the way They have behaved. I actually did one of the those episodes. I went back and forth with the emails that Mike Reed was sending me and It was just kind of it was just kind of sad to see that behavior.

But these are the things that we had asked each week. 12 questions that that we had and since I didn't have memorized I figured I'd bring this up and you guys can read read this. It is kind of interesting.

You know that I did go and do a search for Tony Miyano just to see. Because as you and I were talking Kevin in prep for this I I was trying to find some some stuff that we had it from the past and I was trying to find something from Tony's own website and Striving fraternity was coming up on the first page unlike every search engine.

When you search for Tony Miyano, so I mean that is the the advantage of having a website that is gets a lot of traffic. And so as we read this. Here's here's what the questions that we asked. And this is the questions we asked every week for for those of GFC Mike Reed if they could answer.

Because these were the concerns that we had and this is exactly what Tony and I and Matt slick did with the Church of Wells. We came up with questions. We wanted them to answer just yes or no type of questions very Simple things that can be answered.

So so the questions to Mike were do you meet with women alone on a regular basis? I mean, that's a yes or no. Do you ask for details about spousal intimacy? That's yes or no. Have you ever said quote To trust the elders unquote is to quote to trust God unquote.

And number four have you ever said whatever the elders would counsel you. For your life is perfect. Number five. Have you ever said that GFC is the only true church in Quad Cities? That's a yes or no one and that's going to become very interesting Later in this episode.

So remember that question whether they claim to be the only true church. Tony's gonna have some words about that, but not what you might think. Number six, do you believe the elders have a Air quotes nearly Unlimited authority in the lives of their congregants.

Number seven. Have you or some? Have you said if someone owns a gun? Is in the military or police they have premeditated murder in their hearts. Do you share details about counseling this is number eight.

Do you share details about counseling sessions with other members. Number nine? Do you ever imply that men and women should be able to kiss someone on the lips? That is not his or her own spouse. Number ten.

Have you ever shared details of your own sexual intimacy with? Any of the people in your counseling sessions with members of the opposite sex. Number eleven? Do you believe you are infallible against sexual immorality.

And number twelve? By name what specific pastors theologians and or teachers have condoned the practice of meeting with women Alone in counseling sessions now last one obviously is not something that is.

It is a yes or no, but With that I just figured we should start asking the same questions we asked the last several the last nine episodes and the reason being is you can see from these questions the Seriousness of the accusations even if this is the first time that you are hearing about this.

Some of the issues that we saw throughout with many people that came in Publicly and gave testimony, but also privately. Is that Mike Reed the pastor there would meet regularly with women alone? He would ask them about their their sexual intimacy with their husbands how often they they have Sex what positions things like this and if they're not comfortable, he would start sharing what he and his wife do.

It you know, they're they were known because they believed in kissing on the lips. That's weird. And this is what most people say about the church. There was that no Tony they go the church he goes to is weird but not necessarily sinful.

I Agreed with that. I mean I that was my position before Anthony did this investigation. And if you go back and listen Anthony called it a cult and I went whoa. Because Anthony didn't run it by me with everything he was doing he asked whether he and Kevin could do some discussion on this and It was like wait a minute.

Like as as Anthony started bringing in people I started realizing no they do have the control over people and they're asking things that no pastor should be asking of anyone now I want to say up front I I used to have a good relationship with Tony.

We were friends. I Valued that friendship one thing that if you talk to anyone who who knows Tony's. Every person that I know that knows Tony has has pretty much said to me the same thing. That Tony Miano was their best friend that that should make you wonder how could I mean dozens and dozens of people have said that to me and I felt it too and that is the type of person Tony Miano is.

He makes you feel like you are his best friend. Even though we have not spoken in years. I'm sure that's still his his personality. He's a very lovable person he is someone who Just really has a lot to him is as far as encouraging people.

And when when I first met Tony at the Shepherds conference in 2015 I Mean it was just as you said Andrew, I mean he was so kind to me and so engaging and You know a lot of times if you have conversations with people and you're in a crowd You'll see them looking away at other people at what's going on.

Tony would not do that. Yeah, he would look at you and he would give you his full attention. That's an Admirable quality and He brought me a book that he had written. I told him my dad was a police officer.

He brought me a book. He autographed it. He signed it. I mean you're spot-on and that's why Tony is is Is beloved by by so many?

Yeah, no Melissa's saying this it sounds like grooming. No, I I don't think so.

I.

Don't think that. I I understand why she would think that.

But.

Yeah, obviously, I don't know Tony's heart, but I don't think it was any I don't think. Look Tony had really strong convictions about.

The.

Barriers between men and women. So I would find it hard to believe that he would have grooming technique. Grooming is usually To gain favor, you know to hold control over people one of the things Tony's kind of it.

You know, I think he'll think of him as this bulldog is a as a leader and he and he has some of those qualities. But Tony has always been someone who has submitted unto others. When I met him he was at Living Waters.

He's he's submitted to the authority of Living Waters very much. To the point where he wouldn't talk publicly about some of his views. Specifically he is Calvinistic views. He wouldn't speak about that because that was not what Living Waters wanted and and even in private He would not do that because he he respected that authority.

When he went and started working after he left Living Waters, he worked for calm for a bit. It was the same thing. Then he started working with Jeff Rose and and now he's in this in this church.

So.

Where a lot of people think of Tony as a as a leader. He has those qualities, but Tony's not the guy that Is out in front. Tony's always the guy that is under somebody which and it's admirable. He's under somebody and then you're leading that way.

So yeah, if if and if you listen to that sermon that we're going to discuss you will see the Obvious love and admiration for Mike Reed and for his Eldership for his pastors. Now, that's a misplaced love.

You know, it's bordered on it is cultish and and he's he's so far over the top on that by what he says. It's it's crazy to me, but you're you're you're exactly right Andrew.