Newspaper Article

Ex-member suing Drummond church
By Bill Alnor
Delaware County Daily Times September 10, 1986

MEDIA COURTHOUSE -- The Church of Our Saviour in Concordville was sued yesterday by a former member seeking to recover more than $27,000 in loans he claims were made under duress and in the false belief the money would be used to send missionaries around the world.

In a 15-page document laced with allegations that the church and its pastor, Rev. Frederick A. Drummond, used public humiliation, insults and beatings of Bible school students to gain cult-like control over the congregation, Charles P. Fawthorp of Fog Lair Village, Upper Providence, said Drummond and two co-defendants induced him to secure a second mortgage on his house and loan the money to Durawood, a remodeling company in which Drummond was a principal.

Fawthorp borrowed $18,000 from The Money Store, loaned $27,319 to Durawood and eventually lost his house after quitting his painting business to work as a salesman for Drummond's company, the suit claims.

Also named in the law suit are church members Richard Price and David J. Durham (brother-in-law of Drummond's wife, Lorraine) and Dezina Industries Inc., a Delaware Corporation formerly known as Durawood of Delaware Inc.

Fawthorp seeks real damages of $27,319 plus interest and court costs from each of five defendants. The suit also asks for punitive damages from Drummond and the church.

According to the suit filed by Media attorney Eugene Bonner, Drummond was the "principal," "co-owner" and "chairman of the board" of the Durawood Company which failed.

Drummond and the defendants did not return phone calls to discuss the suit.

But in a letter signed by Price and Durham dated March 8, 1986 and attached as an exhibit in the lawsuit, the men acknowledged their indebtedness to Fawthorp and wrote that when their financial picture improved, they would pay the debt.

Fawthorp, who was involved with the church from late 1982 until October 1985, was also told that the "profits of Durawood would be used to send missionaries of the Church of Our Saviour throughout the world," the suit alleges.

Fawthorp discovered that "the profits of Durawood were ... not used to send missionaries around the world but were used to enrich Drummond," the suit states, adding that the defendants pressured him to mortgage his home and loan the proceeds to Durawood at the a time when they, knew Durawood was in a "dangerous financial condition."

Since leaving the church with his wife, Sue, and their children, Fawthorp has re-established his painting business in the Media area.

In previous articles, the Daily Times reported that Drummond would boast from the pulpit he was "chairman of the board" of Durawood. In a recent interview Drummond told a reporter he had nothing to do with Durawood. But the Times discovered that Drummond identified himself on a credit application as "owner of Durawood."

The church is a defendant because it "intentionally and maliciously deceives its new members into believing that it is God's will that they submit their lives in service to the church and its leader, Drummond," the suit states, adding that the church knowingly recruits "new" Christians who have little or no knowledge of Christian doctrine."

The church enforced conformity by "humiliation of members in public, personal insults, private pressure to conform by ministers and a demand for absolute, conformity to the rigid rules of its leader Drummond, infractions of which resulted in beatings to its students and humiliation of its members," the suit contends.