Newspaper Article
First Baptist leader speaksBy Roger Tait And Gail O. Guterl
Published by Daily Local News on 02/14/79
The First Baptist Church of Concordville and its leader, the Rev. Frederick A. Drummond, have been accused in recent weeks of misappropriating thousands of dollars of church funds, promoting homosexuality and child abuse and even contributing to the death of a young church member and the disappearance of her teenage friend.
This week, the 32-year-old Drummond broke his silence in an hour-long telephone conversation with the Daily Local News to discuss the charges and the beliefs of his church, which, despite a recent split, still commands a small but dedicated following.
Recently four ministers and about 103 of the church's 400 members left the church, alleging Drummond had led the church into substantial financial mismanagement and immorality.
Many had sold their homes in Springfield, Mo. to follow Drummond to Pennsylvania in 1978.
December split
Since the exodus, the dissidents and their families have scattered throughout the country, as far as Oklahoma. Some have started a new congregation in Glen Mills, although most have joined existing
Baptist churches.
The split came in December, when four ministers approached Drummond with two serious allegations.
"We weren't trying to cause trouble or a split in the church," said James Mohler, former youth minister and high school Bible teacher in the church-run Christian Heritage Academy.
Mohler said the four asked Drummond about a rumor that he had recently made homosexual advances toward two students at Pennsylvania Baptist Bible School, a preparatory college for missionaries. The two students were never identified.
[Update January 9th, 2010
At last, after 30 years Drummond takes responsibility for his actions. In his own words and I quote:
"Beginning in 1978, after a terrible church split that was mostly my fault"]
Both the Christian Heritage Academy and the Pennsylvania Baptist Bible School are located in a large, stone building on the church's 75-acre tract at Rt. 1 and Thornton road, Concord Township.
Formerly the site of the Dante Orphanage, run by the Sons of Italy, and of the Delaware County Community College, the property also contains a small, plain, under heated chapel and Drummond's yellow-clapboard home, which members said is still undergoing renovation.
Ex-members charge work on Drummond's beautifully' furnished home came before work on the church and school.
Church needs
"There were needs around the church that should have been priority," said Mohler, who now works in his father's church in Shawnee, Kan.
"We needed offices and classrooms and the (chapel) basement was supposed to be converted to those facilities. But it was never done.
"The priority seemed to be the pastor's home. People were always working on that."
A greenhouse and stockade fence have been added to the pastor's house since Drummond arrived in Pennsylvania, although Concord Township has no record of building permits for either
The township does have an application, dated April 1977, from the church to add a $9,000 portico to the chapel. It was never built, said township building inspector Herbert Cooper.
"The house doesn't look like much from the outside," said a former woman member, "but it's really beautiful on the inside.
The house isn't t the only church asset put at Drummond's disposal. There is a white
Lincoln Continental, a yacht, well furnished with church money and labor, and a red, white and blue Piper Cherokee airplane valued at between $20,000 and $25,000.
Drummond's well-tailored three-piece suits, his wife's fur coat and even the miniature Oriental garden in his backyard were also all paid for by the church, if a former church member from Chester County is right.
"He didn't draw a salary," said the man. "He had everything paid for by the church, his clothing house, everything. And yet we didn't receive any financial statements."
However, a Chester County college student said Drummond told parishioners from the pulpit he signed his paycheck over to the church.
Drummond called charges he was living well at church expense "preposterous." "The other day, I got an offer for my car (the Lincoln) for $3,500 and it's the only one I've got"
Church plane
Drummond also denied owning the plane, although the church's emblem decorates one side of the 10-year-old four seater, and the church is still renting hangar space, said Mike Pinto of the New Garden Flying Field, where the plane was kept from midsummer to mid-December.
During a church service Sunday morning, Drummond and his pilot said the pastor had only been up in the plane twice, and Pinto said it was flown "very rarely."
One of the four ministers who left First Baptist, the Rev. Ron Patterson, said he and others gave a great deal of money to Drummond, both in the Concordville church and at the Galilean Baptist Church of Springfield, Mo., which the pastor left in 1976.
"He's a very persuasive man, 'said Patterson "I know one family gave him $10,000 at the time we moved."
Patterson said he couldn't remember how much he contributed.
"A lot of people were living like paupers, while he was living like a king. I know he sold a few things to get money for the move, but not much."
Although the church covenant requires a scriptural 10 percent tithe plus tree will offerings, "We never tell anyone what to give, and we never approach any individual." Drummond said.
Church members are advised to "ask God what he wants you to give. If he says give nothing, then give nothing;' said the pastor.
Denies tithing
Other than an annual missions service in October, "I never ever preach on giving," said Drummond.
He would say the church needs $10,000 to fix up the basement, for instance, and then people would give all they could," said a former Concordville member.
"But eventually we realized these things were never done, or done minimally."
Although Drummond, his close associate Rev. Carl Durham and a third minister, are the church's trustees, according to Drummond, "I don't have any control over the finances... I don't even know where the money, goes."
In spite of that, he asked Rev. Durham, then financial manager, about the basement funds. Durham assured him the funds designated by church members for the basement weren't going anywhere else, although an expensive rewiring job was eating up the funds they had.
Drummond said all expenses presently have to go through church financial administrator David Durham, who is not a minister.
Drummond and the dissidents do agree on one point. All who attended the missionary preparatory school said they received an excellent education.
' There was a very high level of instruction at the school;' Mohler said It was well above average."
The son of another former church member in Chester County, who attended the school, said he found the education very good.
The school offered a variety of courses such as Bibliology ecclesiology, theology general Bible classes, music and basic history," he said. "It was a very good school. But I left because I didn't agree with some of the things Dr. Drummond was doing."
Confronted with the mismanagement and homosexuality issues, Drummond's response to the accusations "was admittance but nothing of a repentant attitude;" said Mohler.
"We talked it over and Drummed said he would resign from the church if we would do so also."
The four ministers agreed.
"He left the church grounds for several days and then came back, right after we resigned. It was a real rip-off." Mohler said.
Drummond s recollection is different. To begin with. said the pastor, the four weren't members of the staff, but students in their final year at Pennsylvania Baptist Bible School. They were undergoing the required final year of practical training.
"They blew it," said Drummond.
Drummond called homosexuality an "abomination to God."
"I'm totally opposed to it, as well as any type of immorality-what the Bible calls fornication, adultery and incest."
Drummond said that although Had will forgive homosexuality, it still does harm to the person.
Although the four men didn't confront Drummond with allegations of child and wife abuse, many congregation members were concerned about it.
Everyone, even Drummond, agreed the pastor was a strong advocate of what he called "physical discipline" for children; but there is wide disagreement on just what degree of punishment the pastor was talking about.
Drummond told the Local News, he felt there were a wide variety of circumstances when hitting a child might or might not be appropriate,
"It's a very touchy subject," he said. "It depends on the family. You should never be cruel to the child.
"I don't recommend that you do it if a child doesn't know why he's being disciplined. That's a terrible thing.
"Any physical punishment had better be done when the child is old enough to understand it." Drummond said.
"But Patterson said he has seen Drummond mete out physical punishment to children and teenagers.
"I have seen him slap people around," Patterson said. "I saw him beat a young boy once. Another time he hit a teenager with a rubber hose for some infraction."
Mohler said he remembers Drummond talking about hitting his infant son with a pencil to discipline him.
"He always said 'spare the rod and spoil the child.' but that's not child abuse.
"If someone didn't understand discipline they might misinterpret what he was saying. I don't think he advocated cruelty to children."
Other church members said Drummond preached wife-beating from the pulpit.
"He encouraged wife-beating in a subtle way by saying in his sermons that the men 'should straighten out their wives,''' said a former woman member.
Church's beginnings
Drummonds a native of South Africa, has preached that he was converted to the Baptist faith after attending a church service at age 18. His first pastorate was in California before moving to Springfield, where he attended Baptist Bible College, Patterson's, alma mater, and founded Galilean Baptist Church. He never graduated from Baptist Bible College, according to two officials there
.
One of those officials, director Carl Boonstra, said students of the college were forbidden to attend the Galilean Baptist Church.
"The church was off-limits to students," Rev. Boonstra said. "It was because of his doctrine and his philosophy. Baptists believe in the autonomy and independency of each person. We don't have a bishop or hierarchy that rules over us. The minister doesn't t have control over the individual home.
"But Drummond has set himself up as father of each family."
Although Ran Patterson said the church left Missouri owing at least $350,000 Drummond does not say anything about that when he spoke of why they left at a June 1976 zoning hearing in Concord township, about founding the church on the orphanage property.
'More exclusive'
"We felt that we were just treading over ground that had already been walked on and we wanted to go to a place, where we would be more exclusive," Drummond said.
He said Springfield, a city of 120,000, had four or five colleges and three schools like John's College, his church-related preparatory school for missionaries in Springfield.
The church has some outstanding debts in Pennsylvania and Delaware also.
First Baptist Church owes $2,000 to Berger's Plumbing and Heating in Chester.
Mrs. Henry Berger said yesterday the group is trying to pay.
They said the last time we called them that they were liquidating certain assets and promised payment by Feb, 14," she said. "We have dealt with them in the past and they have paid. This is the first time they paid a bill."
The group also owes about $3,700 to the Kynlyn apartments near Bellefonte, Del., after 12 families left last year without paying some rent.
"Our business administrator says all our bills are current;" said Drummond, who said he'd check the Berger debt with David Durham.
But he urged church members to pay their debts.
"If church members had debts, I would suggest that they pay then," Drummond said of the Kynlyn apartments debt.
Church members actively recruit members. The church had about 120 college student members in December from West Chester State College, West Chester, Widner College, Chester, Brandywine College, Wilmington, Del. and the University of Delaware, Newark, Del., Patterson said.
Prospective members are invited to attend services or hear about them by word-of-mouth.
Calvin Smith, a 24-year-old college student, attends the church, but has not decided to join yet. He said he first heard about it when he was picked up by Patterson as Smith was hitchhiking on Rt. 1.
"He picked m up and we got to talking," Smith said. "We went to lunch and then he showed me around the campus. He gave me the general sales pitch
'Sales pitch'
Smith said he called it a "sales pitch" because "it was just like selling a used car."
"The men were dressed in nice suits and they were all so polite that I got the impression they were like car salesmen."
Smith said he has not joined the church, but intends to continue attending.
"I like the people - most of the congregation is under 30 years old. But I'm not too impressed with Drummond.
"There seems to be a very strong conformity among the members. When he completes a Bible passage (at a church service) and says' look up, all the heads come up immediately.
Drummonds also tends, to put down other denominations."
Most of the former church members and those who have attended services at the church say Drummond', speaking is animated, highly emotional and very persuasive.
Smith was one of the few people who did not think his sermons were "spectacular."
"I studied far the seminary for a time and I'm not really impressed with his speaking. He uses a lot of homiletical devices.' Asking the congregation to look up after a passage is read is one homiletical device.
Smith said Drummond uses "proof-texting " also - quoting Biblical passages to suit a purpose or make a point.
"I often don't agree with his in interpretation," Smith said.
Many of the church's members, mostly young people aren't as reserved in their judgement as Smith.
One who wasn't was a 20-year-old woman named Kimberly Hughes.
According to family and friends, Hughes first encountered a group from First Baptist this summer at a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting at West Chester State College, a few blocks from her home.
A friend said she had always been a religious person.
Begins attending
Within several weeks, Hughes started attending First Baptist. She also started making substantial offerings to the church, said her mother, Joan Roscoe, including $1,000 in savings from her job at McDonald's and a $500 cashier' check. Meanwhile, said her mother something even more frightening was happening to Kimberly.
Since she was eight months old, she bad been treated for severe epilepsy. She hadn't had a major seizure in years, said her parents. But in November, in the company of other members of the First Baptist, she had two major seizures in the living room of her parents' home.
Hughes, apparently tired of the regimen of pills and the inability to drive a car because of her condition, had decided to forsake medical science and seek a cure with Thomas Marsteller, a non-degreed homeopathic physician in Sellersville.
According to her mother and Lockwood, he gave Kimberly worm pills, frequent enemas and a white pill called "absinoth" (which upon analysis, turned out to be mostly sugar) for her epilepsy.
Although Marsteller denied taking Hughes off the medication prescribed by her neurologist, Lockwood said Hughes bragged two weeks ago that her medication had already been cut in half and she could soon go off it completely.
A week later, Kimberly Hughes was found dead in bed at the Boothwyn home of two First Baptist members. Preliminary reports indicated she died of suffocation during an epileptic seizure, although toxicology results are still pending.
The role of First Baptist in the death may never be cleared up. Although other members of the congregation went with Hughes to Marsteller's office for treatment, and the Rev. Erik Ahlquist, an Aston man who belonged to the congregation and housed Kimberly for several months, reportedly persuaded her to try homeopathic treatment, both Drummond and Carl Durham, who knew of her condition, said they encouraged her to take her medication. Police said two vials of pills were found with the body.
Another neighbor of the Ahlquists, 14year old Dolores Lyons, was reported missing three days after Hughes's death. Although she had also attended several services at First Baptist, she was ' definitely not a member,' said Drummond "1 didn't t even know who she was. Mr. Ahlquist had to tell me she'd been here.
Although she was a friend of Ahlquist's daughter and Hughes, "she never once went to see Mr. Ahlquist," Drummond said
However Lyons' mother told police Ahlquist had given her daughter a Bible.
Church's belief
Speaking about the church's religious belief Drummond said they're the "same as in every independent Baptist church in the country." Based on rigid interpretation of the King James version of the Bible, the church rejects speaking in tongues and other personal religious experience as s basis of faith.
Church members must pledge to follow a covenant, promising among other things,' to forsake the paths of sin, sin… to endeavor to win souls to Christ," to abstain from liquor and tobacco, and "to avoid all tattling, gossiping, backbiting, and excessive behavior."
This last clause isn't biblically based, but it's not unusual to see it in covenants for independent Baptist churches, said a spokesman for the American Baptist Church U.S.A. in Valley Forge, which isn't affiliated with First Baptist of Concordville or any other independent Baptist congregation.
"It's something that particular group feels strongly enough about to put into the covenant," said the spokesman. It's important to Drummond.
'Treachery'
"Our, prime problem was disloyalty, unfaithfulness, and treachery -- those involved departed," he said, discussing the exodus.
Re said he's been charged "by a lot of people with hatred in their hearts - you haven't heard us say one horrible thing against the people who left, although I could say a lot of horrible things after five years.
If the people in the church had been deceived for six years, "Then that doesn't say, much for their mentality," said Drummond.
The dissidents accusations, however, aren't made lightly.
"I really hate, to talk about the whole thing," said James Mohler. 'It makes me feel sick. I went there because Drummond preached truth, the Bible and he is against sin and immorality. The problem comes when a man deviates from that.
Page 1: Click to view a scanned jpg copy of the original newspaper article.
Page 2: Click to view a scanned jpg copy of the original newspaper article.
Page 3: Click to view a scanned jpg copy of the original newspaper article.
This article is copyrighted © 2009 - Copyright held by cited Newspaper