Newspaper Article

Former Disciples Call God's 'Potentate' a Brutal Despot (Third of a series)
By Arthur Howe (Pulitzer Prize winning journalist)
The News Journal 1/22/79

CONCORDVILLE Pa. - The baby faced South African preacher demanded absolute conformity to his rigid rules of conduct. His disciples -- and there are hundreds -- submit to an exhausting work schedule, degradation and beatings.

But today, the power the Rev. Frederick A. Drummond once held over members of the First Baptist Church of Concordville has been challenged.

More than 100 former followers have left charging that the man who claimed to be a potentate of God has squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars in church funds, engaged in a sadistic pattern of beating church members -- and forced others into homosexual relations.

~~Drummond calls the allegations "a lot of nonsense," but will say no more. Instead, he has issued an eight-Point "proclamation" denouncing his accusers.~~

[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"]

Former church members say Drummond is a brutal disciplinarian who preached that "the child who comes forth from his mother's womb speaketh lies."

He often bragged to his congregation that he had beaten his prematurely born, three-day-old son with a pencil. When the child became a year old, Drummond announced from the pulpit that he had begun beating him nightly with a broken arrow, according to former members of his Springfield, Mo., congregation.

"He twists the Scriptures around and teaches child abuse;" said Josephine Moody, a former member of the Springfield congregation who worked in the church's nursery "Parents listen to him and believe it is God's instruction that they beat their children . . .

"I've seen their bruised bodies -- they're beat, really beaten. I've seen some children get 10 licks with a switch from Drummond. Some of the parents carried wooden spoons, paddles -- anything -- to beat their children. He also taught that parent should whip their children when they're sick or they will grow up to be whinny adults."

College-age converts are also regularly subjected to beating by Drummond or church deacons, former members say. Infractions include breaking curfew, visiting members of the opposite sex or leaving lights on after hours.

Usually they are hit with a four foot willow switch. Drummond, according to former aides, sometimes ordered his followers to remove their clothes before he struck them with a fiberglass rod.

"I've seen him reduce a grown man to blubbering after getting hit a dozen times," said the Rev. Ron Patterson, who has led a splinter group from the church to Oklahoma. "Once he (Drummond) hit a man 50 times for breaking one of his rules. I myself had to do the beatings for about two weeks. But I got sick (of it); I couldn't do it anymore."

The News-Journal series on Drummond was compiled from more than 60 interviews with state, federal and local authorities, businessmen, clergy and associates of the pastor across the United States.

Drummond's obsession with obedience extended to animals. Aids say he had owned a white German shepherd named "Fang," which he constantly whipped for failing to follow his instructions. Once he allegedly beat the dog unconscious with a baseball bat. Finally, apparently, exasperated with the dog's failures, he took it out in a field and shot it with a 44 magnum.

Drummond believes himself to be innately superior to his followers, former aides say. He often referred to members of his congregation as "white trash." Aides were tagged "scum."

Apparently, the epithets had some effect. Said one former deacon: "After you get called scum enough times, you begin to believe it"

But Drummond has a special hatred for blacks, whom he referred to as "dumb niggers" and "racks" for raccoons, aides say. There are a handful of blacks in his congregation, but Drummond has actively discouraged others from joining.

"He used to tell me often that the only thing blacks are good for is being servants;" recalled Mike Blackerby, a former member of Drummond's Missouri church.

In the lobby of First Baptist' school-dormitory on U.S.1 hangs a huge, multi-colored map of the world with the church's four missions in South Africa, Singapore, the Yukon and the Philippines highlighted. Vast portions of the globe with predominantly black populations are marked "closed."

Students at the college are often on the verge of physical collapse, former aides and students say. A typical day begins with classes from 7 a.m. until noon. Then there are four hours for chores around the campus or study. Afterwards, everyone is expected to work at a paying job in the community until midnight.

"Ninety percent of the students are physically exhausted," said Patterson. "Many people are surviving on three or four hours of sleep. Along with the beatings, it's part of Drummond's method of control -- total demoralization of the character."

Drummond sometimes boasted that his control over his congregation was so strong that he could order them to do anything.

"He said he could tell his men to go out and rob bank -- and they'd do it," said the Rev. Russell Williams, an Eastern Shore Baptist preacher who once befriended Drummond. "He said they follow him so closely that somehow they would justify it in their minds."

Others say Drummond's faithful would do even more if he asked -- even kill to protect their pastor.

One of the four ministers who defected from the church after Drummond refused to resign claims that loyal followers of Drummond tried to run him over in an automobile. "The guy who did it was with his wife and child: I couldn't believe it," he said. "He said I was destroying the people of God. Another said to me, 'If I had a knife I'd kill those four ministers.'"

To most of his congregation, Drummond's evangelical messages from the pulpit sound as pure as the one preached by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. But others say the pastor is becoming increasingly irrational, dwelling on matters of sexual relations and, on occasion, death.

Among his favorite biblical passages was the story of David, king of Israel, whose soldiers loved him so much that they would risk death to fetch him a drink of water from the well of Bethelehem. The well, according to the Scriptures, was deep within enemy territory, guarded by the Philistines.

"We have been told to back his leadership 100 percent, without question, until death," said former parishioner Charles Austin.

Drummond, aides say, is also fascinated by life in 16th century Europe and wishes he had been born a "warlord." One night, while listening to Beethoven, according to one aid, Drummond said, "If I was (a warlord) there would be a bloody night for everyone . . ."

From the pulpit he advises women on how to dress before bed and what kind of perfume to wear. He implored the men in the congregation to be "less brutal" in their loving.
In counseling sessions, he regularly requested couples to give him explicit details of then sex lives.

"Whenever anyone came to talk to him he immediately wanted to talk about sexual problems," said Mrs. Eibert Boeve, a member of the Springfield, Mo., congregation. "He dwelled on it. It was almost like he was crazy about sex."

But when speaking to the congregation, Drummond is frantically opposed to "immoral" sexual activity. Young parishioners are not allowed to sit together or visit members of the opposite sex. Drummond, former members say, arranges all marriages.

Publicly, Drummond also is opposed to homosexuality and warns parishioners to "look at no man after the flesh." But privately, he confirmed several times that he was bisexual, said Blackerby and other former associates.

Homosexual behavior is forbidden in Baptist theology, but Drummond justified his own actions as "my was of showing that I love everyone," they quoted him as saying.

In December, when two young men in the congregation complained to their deacons that Drummond had forced them into homosexual relations, the consensus was that Drummond must go. And when they confronted him, aides say he admitted the problem and promised to resign.

Then he turned to the Scriptures and reminded his accusers of the story of King David who was forgiven by his men after he committed adultery with Bathsheba. "The idea was that instead of condemning him (Drummond), we should try and hide his actions like David's men did;" said Patterson, "We would have had it had only happened once -- but it didn't."

Four days later, at a Sunday evening service, Drummond denied the charges and told his disciples that those who made them were out to destroy the church. Most agreed, and the four ministers were forced to leave. Another 130 members followed.

Almost everyone familiar with Drummond said there are striking similarities between him and the late Rev. Jim Jones. In fact, when newspaper accounts of the mass suicide-murder in Guyana began to paper, Drummond explicitly forbade his congregation read them. Aides say he called the stories "trash."

Like Jones, Drummond is obsessed with the security of the First Baptist Church. He often spoke of enclosing the complex behind high metal gates with electronic locks. And he warned that if local residents began "persecuting" his faith, he would lead his "flock" to a new and even better life "in the mountains of Canada."

Before he led his congregation on its fateful journey into the jungles of Guyana, Jones often spoke of settling m "the wilderness of Canada."

[Update January 9th, 2010
Again, at last, 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"]

Pastor Issues `Rebuttal' to Dissenters
The Rev. Frederick A. Drummond declined to be interviewed about the story in today's paper but instead issued "a rebuttal to these dissenters who have left First Baptist Church."
"1. We deny the charge as presented.
"2. We regret the extremely Unchristian attitude.
"3. We are appalled at their violation of the Scriptural principles laid out in handling any problems in the church.
"4. We consider First Baptist's problems her own and not public domain.
"5. We do not condone any form of Immorality in the church especially not in her leadership.
"6. We would like to make it knows that those who are throwing stones are not qualified ministers but merely candidates and novices who failed to finish their training period, unfortunately without success.
"7. Furthermore, all of the garbage that they are heaping at the First Baptist Church is proportionately indicative of their own failure and that they are making these so called problems their excuse for leaving.
"8. We hope that the Christian love that they have exercised toward the First Baptist Church and her leaders is not indicative of how they will handle problems that will arise in the future among their church members."