Newspaper Article

Pa. Pastor a Profit of God
By Arthur Howe (Pulitzer Prize winning journalist)
The News Journal 1/20/79

CONCORDVILLE, Pa. -- He promised refuge and practiced faith healing. From his frail white pulpit he railed for hours on the evils of society and sexual temptation.

His followers -- and there are hundreds unselfishly opened their hearts and their wallets.

Through the power of his spell-binding sermons, one-time used car salesman Frederick A Drummond has transformed his small, cult-like First Baptist Church of Concordville into a thriving multi-million dollar empire.

He has surrounded himself with riches: a plane, a yacht, antiques and objects of art.

But today Drummond's world is crumbling. Many in his congregation now suspect that the man who claimed to be a prophet of God has squandered hundreds of thousands in church funds, engaged in a pattern of beating church members, while forcing others into homosexual relations.

Drummond calls the allegations' a lot of nonsense," but he declined to discuss them further. Instead, he issued an eight-paint "proclamation" denouncing his accusers.

Drummond's carefully honed image began to crack minutes before his regular Wednesday night sermon was to begin on Dec. 20. Four of his deacons confronted him with allegations of financial impropriety, whippings and sodomizing his young, college-age converts -- while justifying his actions by invoking the Scriptures.

The ministers say Drummond admitted to the charges and promised to resign immediately.

But at the next Sunday service, Drummond faced his congregation to denounce his accusers and have them expelled. About 100 left and Drummond regained his theocratic grip on the church.

From the pulpit, Drummond talks of a Judgment Day, when armed men will storm the church, and congregation members will be called upon to sacrifice their lives.

"He often talks about the persecution [of the church] getting so bad that people would walk in the back door with guns and we'd have to stand up and be shot to defend our faith," said the Rev. Ronald Patterson, who had been an aide of Drummond for five years.

"He says we'll see who will stand up for God and who won't."

The News-Journal series was compiled from more than 60 interviews with state and federal authorities, businessmen, clergy and associates of Drummond across the United States. Many of those interviewed pleaded anonymity, fearing retaliation from Drummond or his remaining faithful. Others refused to discuss the church, claiming it would be "unscriptural" to do so.

Nevertheless, a portrait emerges of a man possessed by the power of his fundamental sermons and a scriptural concept that places himself above and beyond the power of the Lord.

"He's trying to take the place of God," said the Rev. Jack Hollenback, a one-time classmate and associate of Drummond, "He twists the Bible around to no one's good but his own.

Beneath the facade of brotherly love, former church members say they lived in an atmosphere of fear and trepidation. Drummond regularly warns that anyone who strays from the church or discredits it will suffer death at the hands of God.

After four deacons left the church, Drummond asked his disciples to pray for their deaths, former church members say.

The ministers, ordained by the First Baptist's congregation have since begun a separate Baptist church in Media, Delaware County. One of the ministers led several dozen followers last week to Oklahoma to join an existing Baptist congregation.

It is not the first time the baby-faced, pudgy preacher has encountered conflict. Across the nation, he has left a murky trail of debt (totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars), and charges of immorality and manipulation of the lives of his followers.

Yet each time trouble arose, Drummond tightened his psychological grip on his parishioners. He harangued against the forces he felt were out to destroy the church he had built "the foundation of the world."

And each time, he would persuade members of his congregation to quit their jobs, sell their homes and follow him elsewhere.

Drummond, 32, was been in Durban, South Africa, the son of wealthy Prussian emigrants. His father was a successful businessman; his mother ran a school of etiquette.

While a young man in South Africa, he sold and leased cars in his father's business and for a time became a preacher to the local Indian Hindus and Zulu natives. In 1969, he came to the United States to enroll in the San Francisco Theological Seminary, pursuing a master's degree in languages. Dr. Arno Weniger, president of the college, remembers him well.

"He was a flake, a bag of wind -- not very conscientious in his studies," Weniger said. "He was one of those fellows who flash in the night like a shooting star and then are gone."

Two months after he arrived, Drummond left school.

By all accounts, Drummond never bothered to become an American citizen. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has no record of him ever registering as an alien or applying for citizenship, according to district director Raymond Morris.

After leaving school, Drummond took an array of odd jobs-chauffeur, office aide for the South African consul general -before becoming pastor in 1968 of the Seaview Baptist Church in Pacifica, Calif. For a while, Drummond dazzled his tiny congregation with his grandiose plans of expansion, the building of a school, the purchasing of buses to bring in new converts - from the San Francisco Bay area.

But seven months later, in 1969, he was approached by several ministers in the congregation who were concerned by his domineering posture and extravagant spending of church funds. The church was soon bankrupt.

"The congregation fell apart," recalls the Rev. Ernie Cruz, who later became pastor of the church. "Some people are still really angry and mad at him [Drummond]."

Drummond left immediately with several church members.

He told the rest of the congregation that he was going to "study the Bible."

In 1972, he moved to Springfield, Mo., the so-called "jeweled buckle of the Bible Belt", to enroll in the Baptist Bible College there. Classmates recall that he was argumentative and began asserting that he "knew more" than the teachers."

One semester later he again left college. Drummond tells his congregation that he has earned a doctor of divinity degree from Sacramento (Calif.) Baptist College and the Baptist Christian University of America. He lists himself in the telephone book as a "Ph.D".

A spokesman at the Sacramento Baptist College said Drummond was awarded a degree for "his mission work" and a small fee. But he never attended the school. The Baptist Christian University of Shreveport, La., awards degrees by mail, a spokesman said.

Drummond has also told his flock that he attended the Dallas Bible College, the Dallas Theological Seminary and Simpson College, San Francisco, Calif. Only the Dallas Bible College has a record of him being a student for a year.

After leaving the Baptist Bible College, Drummond and a small coterie of followers began the Galilean Baptist Church in an abandoned warehouse on the west side of Springfield. Drummond's charisma and down-home sermons delivered in his clipped, British accent easily attracted a wide assortment of area college students and down-and-outers.

Soon, local bank financing and credit was obtained and the congregation was able to build a modern church, a two-story college and grade school - and completely renovate Drummond's newly purchased home.

But the young preacher's unorthodox style and fiercely devoted following alarmed local residents and clergy. Among other things, Drummond had convinced many college students that their schools were "immoral" and they should give their lives to his church.

Finally in 1974, the Baptist Bible Fellowship, a national consortium of Baptist preachers based in Springfield, declared the Galilean Baptist Church "off limits" to students, according to former Fellowship president Dr. W.E. Dowell. It was the first time in the organization's 27-year history that a Baptist denomination had been blacklisted.

"He completely masterminded his following." said Dowell, the current president of Baptist Bible College. "He was basically preaching Baptist doctrines but he set himself up as a little pope telling them that 'God speaks to me and I speak to you. I have the authority."'

Dowell said he received complaints that Drummond had convinced his youthful followers to denounce their parents and relinquish their possessions to his church.

"He's a very, very dangerous person," Dowell said. "He reminds me of this fellow Jim Jones."

Meanwhile, Drummond's ambitious construction program began to severely strain the young church's finances. Soon the Galilean Baptist Church could not even meet the monthly interest payments on its debt. Finally, the Springfield church fell into bankruptcy, leaving about 100 local creditors holding unpaid bills totaling $312,000, according to court records.

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