Print the Legend

A Week in Review - (3/18/2007)

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. –from the film "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"

Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment. —James 3:1


It was a bad week for some in leadership at Mosaic but a great week for truth lovers. The truth about the Believing the Impossible campaign was finally revealed: the coffers are dry. First came allegations of abuse of power and doctrine, and now this. Implicit in the BTI campaign was the idea that the money would go toward the purchase of a building in the Los Angeles area. With the benefit of short memories and the exodus of many members from that era, Erwin McManus offers this spin in a profile in Tu Ciudad magazine: "By his fifth year at the Church on Brady, McManus had persuaded members to sell their building and expand into rented spaces throughout the city. They would become a roving, nomadic congregation made up, as McManus says, of the people, the community. ‘We did that because we didn’t want people to think the church was a building.’ " Oh, really? None of us got that memo. So if the money hasn’t gone toward a building, where did it go? According to a volunteer staff, the fund was spent in part to buy the facility at Mosaic Inland, which is outside of LA County. But some donors who have expressed great dissatisfaction with Mosaic have received complete refunds on their donations. What gives? No official word yet on why it took nearly ten years to complete this fundraising campaign and how the decision came about to send the money to Mosaic Inland.

I noted here last week that a kind of revisionist history first surfaced in 2004. A reader was unhappy that the revisionism was attributed to Erwin in his interview with the LA Times. But another reporter heard the same thing when she wrote her article on Mosaic and it sounded oddly familiar: "McManus was a key player in Mosaic’s development and attention-grabbing growth. He started an alternative service to the now-closed church on Brady, six years ago. Since then, it has grown from fewer than 100 members to nearly 2,000." Yvonne Martinez has done a great service by chronicling the history of the Church on Brady in her well-researched blog. Perhaps now that the light is shining brighter on this subject it will be much more difficult to spin legends out of whole cloth.

Ken Silva spoke to Mike Corley about the NRB convention. At the convention, Erwin insults the church that invited him to be their pastor. But he does this in a very spiritual, "relevant" way, of course. Those of us who came to Christ under the ministry of Brother Tom Wolf and learned the Bible from him are indebted to the Lord for his ministry. I never once look back and think, "gee, what an irrelevant time!" or, "wow, were we stuck in a 70’s groove!" We were fed and told to make disciples. Period. Christ and Christ alone... Oh well, at least Erwin got his cheap laughs.

Finally, we got treated to this post in the MOP site from a reader named Tim: "There is no place in the church for the anonymous throwing of accusations (Satan is the "accuser of the brethren)." After writing that there’s no room for accusations, he accuses MOP members of being bitter, defiled, spreading falsehoods, and ultimately, questions our Christianity. Well, Timothy, some of us who post here do so in clear conscience and left Mosaic in good terms. It is possible to express valid criticisms of Mosaic and be bitter free. You should be concerned that, to date, Mosaic has not been willing or able to offer a serious rebuttal to the claims of abuse of power, doctrine, and finances. Their attacks on character and phone calls to the police don’t constitute as serious responses. Perhaps it only reveals both a hint of bitterness on their side and a fierce protection of the legend that they are creating.