Posted by Melvin Jones on December 6th, 2008
Sometimes you almost have to feel some bit of compassion for folks whose lives are in the process of self-destructing. But then it becomes difficult to do that when you see the damage those folks have done to the people they are supposed to be shepherding.
You remember the Paulks, right? They were once the biggest thing in Atlanta. They ran a place called Chapel Hill Harvester Church. Then…well…due to some somewhat unfavorable press they ended up calling themselves the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit.
They went in not just for the Charismatic/Pentecostal teachings, they were a part of the Five Fold ministries, with prophets, apostles, and the whole thing. Along the way, as early as the 1960’s one of the Paulk boys got in trouble for a couple of sexual “incidents.” This is back when they were in their thirties. They ended up moving to Arizona to let things simmer down before continuing their “ministry.” When they came back, and the church really got to going, they got in trouble when it was discovered they were participating in wife-swapping. From that point on, the church was wrapped up in more secrecy that the Politburo in the old Soviet Union.
They have been truly amazing to watch. For a while, my brother-in-law and his wife attended the place when it was called Chapel Hill Harvester. In fact, they got married there. I even met one of the Paulk brothers. My opinion? One of the most arrogant and presumptuous set of men I have met in my entire life.
But that’s beside the point. As I said earlier in the article, the Paulk brothers got in a little trouble here and there. There was the incident where Earl, bless his twisted little heart, got sued and was accused of convincing a female member to…uh…consort with him because it was her duty to keep the mand of Gawd happy. Here’s the article we ran on that a while back.
He is also suspected of pedophilia, accused of lying to law enforcement, and is apparently the uncle of his son, or the father of his nephew. That is, if you want it more explicitly, he cheated on his wife with the wife of his brother. This came out when he was being closely questioned by law enforcement and made the mistake of lying to them. And his nephew, Donnie Earl Paulk, was fortunate enough to find out with the rest of us, that his uncle is really his father.
Now let’s look at the result of the doctrines he was promoting, the effects of those doctrines, and the long term effects of those doctrines.
As you can see in the picture above, the escapades of the dynamic duo (Don and Earl Paulk) has finally caught up with them. According to the various news organizations, the congregants finally began to see through the Archbishop garbage and began to see past the veneer, as I call it, of authority these two bozos hid behind for so many years. And once that happened, the more astute congregants started bailing. And of course when your sheeple scoot, you can’t expect your loot to stay at the same level. The result? They can’t pay for the building.
Well, what do you suppose ever became of that nephew/son? Donnie Paulk, the son/nephew of Don Paulk, has departed orthodox Christianity and has joined the ranks of Universalists. In fact, according to a quote from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, they’re selling it because they really don’t need such a large church anymore since their mission has changed. He says:
The smaller church’s mission has changed, so it doesn’t need so much property, D.E. Paulk said in the sale announcement.
“As the message and expression of our ministry has transitioned to become more open and radically inclusive of all people, we realize the ministry can be facilitated in a smaller and more urban location,” he said.
Paulk, who describes himself as a “radically inclusive minister,” also is the founder of the Pro-Love Organization, whose mission is to unite people of different faiths, cultures and backgrounds.
Take a look here to see what the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, aka Chapel Hill Harvester, aka Harvester, has finally sunk to.
I rail against the pimps not because I’m just a whiner or because I’m jealous, but because the more you look at these men and women, the more damage you can see they do to the people who get involved in church (as opposed to maturing as Christians). The son, raised in the church, has wandered down the dead end path of universalism. Earl’s daughter-in-law is a pastor in the church. They actively promote acceptance of homosexuality, the unity of Judaism and Islam with Christianity (their brand of it anyway) and a view of Christianity that is so fuzzy and jacked up that it is virtually unrecognizable as Christianity. But why not? For years they were taught that the very words of the supposed apostles and the self-defined words of wisdom and knowledge were the very words of God.
While being trained in solid doctrine doesn’t guarantee the son staying on the straight and narrow (Franky Schaeffer comes to mind almost immediately), training them in bad doctrine, and giving them the idea they are somehow special or privileged, is a virtual guarantee that somewhere along the line the poor kid is going to get his head screwed on backwards. And so we have Donnie Earl Paulk, the senior pastor of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, preaching an ersatz gospel that denies the power of the Holy Spirit and profanes the name of Jesus Christ.
Pator Paula White’s husband, Bishop Randy White, is having a hard time holding the Church Without Walls together enough to continue to pay for the building with walls they meet in every Sunday. Their satellite campus in Lakeland Florida is probably going to go on the auction block – soon. Since she left to be a life coach and is apparently planning on taking a assistant pastor job in Texas, Bishop White hasn’t been able to draw the crowds they need to pay for the building, the clothes, the cars, or the plastic surgery.
This bozo and bozette stood on the stage for years preaching about the power of God to act in our lives; about God’s ability to guide us in solving our problems. Then they stand up and say they can’t get along because their problems are too big?!?! Which one of those positions is a lie? And how much do you think this decision on their part confused the heck out of people trying to do what they thought was following God?
And we won’t even talk about poor old Thomas Weeks and his congregation. After his wife dumped him (although she still loves him and forgives him for putting a whoopin’ on her), his attendance has apparently fallen off as well. In fact, it seems it has fallen off so much that he owes more than $511,000 in back rent to the building’s owners. He was escorted out of the building on Nov. 14 while a church service was in progress. That must have been a sight. And more importantly, it must have really had an impact on the congregation – that which was left, anyway. I wonder if he’s going to be able to continue with “Find Weeks a Wife” reality show.
At least Charisma Magazine has recognized these disasters for what they are. But my trouble is that Charisma Magazine has yet to recognize that until a solid doctrinal foundation is set, until the Bible and only the Bible is the standard to evaluate “ministries” this stuff will continue to happen. It will just be a lot more obvious because of the internet, the 24-hour news cycle and mean-spirited bloggers like me and Independent Conservative.
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