Newspaper Article

Reverend fights
By Bill Alnor
Delaware County Daily Times July 20, 1986

BETHEL - The Rev. Frederick Drummond said a test of his character as a man and a minister of God is that he has withstood every investigation and every controversy during the past eight years and has chosen to stay put and not run away. "Doesn't that say something about my character?" Drummond asked in a telephone interview last week.
[ follow up article 2 years later - he's gone ]

Drummond, the pastor of the Church of Our Saviour in Concordville, said investigations included those by the FBI, "state police, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the District Attorney's Office. And each investigation cleared his name. [ follow up article, this one stuck ]

Yet, "lies and slanders" have continued to be spread about him by disgruntled former members of his church, Drummond said. In some cases, allegations have been "disproven," the South African born minister said.

For example, allegations that he sodomized a youthful follower aboard his yacht in the late 1970s were "lies" which had been "disproven," said Drummond, speaking emphatically. [ follow up article Drummond's own alleged admission ]

Nevertheless the alleged incident, while his church was known as the First Baptist Church of Concordville, led to a major church split in 1979.

[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"]

Drummond agreed to a lengthy telephone interview to rebut claims made by numerous former members of his church who have left in the past eight months. (Although interviews with the charismatic pastor have been extremely rare, Drummond, who speaks with a British-sounding accent, insisted that he has always been accessible to the press.)

He also added that he gave his Rolls Royce automobile - given to him as "gift" - away to the church last year. "How many people do you know who give away a $17,000 car?" He asked, adding that he awarded the title of the car to the church last year. [ follow up article This is not true, he did not give his car away, ]

He also said a test of his ministry is the effectiveness of a "great institution of God" -- his church.
[ Update, COS went bankrupt & closed down ]

"There's no other church in the area that's saving as many souls for Jesus Christ than the Church of Our Saviour," Drummond said, adding that more than 750 people in the past year have "received Jesus Christ" through his ministry. When reminded that on each Sunday morning's altar call at the Deliverance Evangelistic Church on North Broad Street, Philadelphia, more than 50 "receive Jesus Christ," Drummond responded that Deliverance is an "ethnic church."