Newspaper Article
Ex-follower accuses pastorBy Bill Alnor
Delaware County Daily Times June 30, 1986
CHESTER - Six years ago Chester attorney John T. Tolbert found God.
He was "saved" by "receiving Jesus Christ" through the ministry of Dr. Frederick Drummond, senior pastor of the Church of Our Saviour in Concordville, he said. And for nearly six years Tolbert zealously served the church and its pastor.
But today, Tolbert, who was a chief defender of the church, as well as Drummond's personal attorney, says Drummond has become a "master deceiver" and that the charismatic pastor's "corrupt theology" is leading the church and its people to ruin.
Tolbert, 36, a thoughtful but quietly intense bearded man and his wife, Beverly, 30, (who was the former church secretary), have joined the ranks of some 20 families or so to have left the church within the past eight months. It was during this period that the church, formerly known as the First Baptist Church of Concordville, was in the midst of a major push into the Philadelphia metropolitan area to recruit more members.
IN AN INTERVIEW on Saturday morning Drummond called John Tolbert a former Vietnam veteran who had become "mentally unstable." Drummond added that since Tolbert left he has become the leader of a number of former Church of Our Saviour members in an apparent desire to be clever.
Tolbert, in turn, scoffed at Drummond's explanation.
Recently the Tolberts, along with many of the defectors, spoke about their experiences inside the church. Without exception they spoke of almost total domination of their lives, resources, and sometimes their money, by Drummond.
They painted a picture of a bragging, acid and sometimes profane-tongued man who rains down denunciations on members from the pulpit. He claims to be "the anointed man of God" with unlimited authority over church members' lives.
They also painted a portrait of a man who keeps his congregation in fear and sometimes poverty while he lives in luxury and jets about the country.
SIMILAR TO a major split the church underwent in 1978, many of the recent defectors held key positions in the church. Among them are the church architect and wife, the brother of an assistant pastor, several small group leaders, and a relative by marriage to Drummond's brother.
In preparing this report, the Daily Times has studied a number of church documents and has monitored a number of audio tapes of Drummond interacting with his flock. An immediate impression from the tapes is how different - how stern - Drummond can be when he addresses his congregation as opposed to his television and radio image. On his "Triumphant" television program aired on Sunday nights on Channel 17, Drummond is a jovial, good natured preacher who frequently calls for unity among Christian churches. (Sunday, June 22 marked the last broadcast of his television show due to financial difficulties the church has been undergoing. It had been on the air for about two years.)
Before his congregation, Drummond is a boisterous, intense preacher whose voice rises to thunderous crescendos as he frequently claps his hands and pounds the pulpit for impact. Two dominating themes of his ministry are that almost all of Christianity (and almost all local churches) have been compromised and should be ignored, and that the local church - his church - is a institution ordained by God to have authority over the believer's life. The pastor of each local church is also the "undershepherd" between the people and God with the right to discipline members at will.
THE TOLBERTS say it took them years to realize they had been deceived by Drummond. Both say they had been "brainwashed" by Drummond, adding that the church keeps its members so busy that there was little time for Private reflection.
John said that because he became a Christian through Drummond's ministry, and that because Drummond criticized all other Christian leader, gradually he too adopted most of Drummond's beliefs. He said Drummond vigorously discouraged his penchant for independent study which included criticism from the pulpit.
He was the pastor," Tolbert said, "and he was quite skillful in twisting the scriptures to require an almost fanatical submission to him."
That, along with peer pressure and a sense of caring by other members, was also a major factor in keeping them in the church.
Tolbert said he was introduced to Drummond when he handled a case for the minister while employed by a Wilmington, Del. law firm in 1979. He said he was seeking God and Drummond was the "man who was revealing Jesus to me."
"Everything I had learned about Christianity I had learned from him. In hindsight, I realized that Fred takes advantage of the new convert's ignorance of the scriptures to build blind obedience to him"
BUT AFTER JOINING the church he quickly became concerned about Drummond's lifestyle. "He would brag from the pulpit and have an excessive interest in things of the world like expensive cars, yachts, lavish home, and antiques." And Tolbert said he was occasionally disturbed by the way he would criticize people from the pulpit and sometimes privately. "In one service he called one family "a bunch of bums" and told another middle aged man in front of his children "you don't know how to put your underwear on properly."
He also began to see him claim "un-limited authority, who to marry, who not to marry," Tolbert said, adding that numerous marriages within the church had been ordained by Drummond.
BUT EVERY TIME he wanted to question Drummond, he w severely criticized to the point he thought he could be wrong, Tolbert said. "I was always being rebuked by Drummond as being 'rebellious'" he said. Eventually the peer pressure and criticism forced him to keep his concerns to himself. "You begin to submit to him and the peer pressure over a period of time."
Tolbert said the structure of the church is such that no one would dare criticize Drummond publicly or even personally. "He's incredibly intelligent and incredibly articulate. One on one he's so quick," he said.
Tolbert's exodus from the church really began in 1983 when he began to become alarmed by an "incredible abuse of church personnel" through a firm known as Durawood, a defunct kitchen-remodeling company, he said. Although Drummond was not listed is an officer of the company, he controlled a major portion of it and would repeatedly brag from the pulpit that he was the "chairmen of the board of a nationwide company."
NUMEROUS CHURCH member were recruited into working for Durawood and were dispatched to distant parts of the country to set up offices. The appeal, Tolbert said, was the asserted purpose of Durawood to send church missionaries throughout the world to tell people about Jesus Christ. Instead, Drummond, as well as the officer of the firm, began spending large sums of money on personal items. For Drummond, Durawood paid for a Rolls Royce and Jaguar, while two other received respectively, a Mercedes Benz and a Rolls Royce, Tolbert said.
Within months, the business was going sour and creditors began filing law suites against the Durawood firm (At the same time, Drummond began proclaiming that Durawood and the church were separate and that he had nothing to do with it, numerous former member said.) Tolbert would not reveal details about any of the law suite or any legal actions against Drummond or the church since he was employed as the attorney for the various interests.
But he did say that he was shocked when he learned that certain church members were induced to take out second mortgages on their homes, and then had to take huge losses up to $30,000 because of the problems associated with Durawood. But Drummond, along with certain officer of the firm, refused to give up their expensive automobiles, Tolbert said.
LATE LAST YEAR one of his best friends left the church. He had lost a lot of money due to the Durawood fiasco, Tolbert said. A short time later Tolbert visited him and was immediately impressed with how calm his friend was and how he was able to be an even better Christian outside the church. He "had grown greatly," said Tolbert.
At the same time, Talbert began reconsidering Drummond's theological position. Further disillusionment occurred when Drummond made a number of 'prophesies" (God-given visions of future events) that never materialized.
0nce Drummond said God told him that He wanted to increase the church membership to 600. It didn't happen. Another time, Drummond said God told him He wanted to increase church membership to 2,400. It didn't happen. Finally, Drummond said God wanted to give the church St Charles Seminar, the huge Catholic complex on City Line Avenue. That hasn't happened.
TOLBERT SAID he finally left the church on Dec. 10, 1985, after Drummond called two church members "bums" from the pulpit in front of the whole congregation, and "cursed the decision" of Tolbert earlier in the week to leave a prayer meeting at the church early and continue it at home when he noticed that a sudden, snowstorm was causing the state police to turn traffic away from Route 1, adjoining the church campus in Concordville.
After Tolbert left the church he began attending another local church. He said he was glad to find that there really were committed Christians outside Drummond's church.
But leaving the church alone had taken its toll. When he made the decision to leave he felt certain he would loss his wife, Beverly, who was still a committed die-hard member of the church.
Beverly, who smiled as she spoke, said he almost did. An assistant pastor told her twice that her husband had fallen "under control of satan." Later Drummond told her that John was "headed in a very bad direction" she said.
BUT INSTEAD of finding out that her husband was becoming evil, John actually became more loving to her, she said. What's more, he continued reading his Bible and was helping lead people to Christ.
Then one right she overheard a conversation John was having with another man. In effect John had theologically "proven" that Drummond had quoted many scriptures out of context. That's all she needed to hear, she said, adding that it was like "the veil was lifted" from her mind.
Beverly said since leaving the church she has been freed from bondage. "Specifically, I've grown to really understand the freedom which Jesus purchased for me with His blood," she said with a smile. "One of the most important realizations I've learned is that God is so much bigger than Concordville, Pa."
BOTH OF THEM say it has taken months to truly understand what they were involved in at Church of Our Saviour.
"If we had paid more attention to the qualifications of a pastor as laid down in the Bible in I Timothy 3 and Titus 1:6-8 would have been out a lot sooner," John said. "The Bible itself declares Fred A. Drummond to be lacking in the mandatory qualifications of a pastor. The word truly is a lamp unto our feet and a light
unto our path. We just didn't turn it on until recently.
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