The front page story in our local paper Sunday opened with a bang as reporter Gary Craig retold the story of a staff member at the Christian residential ministry, Freedom Village USA, who shot out a television set with a .12-gauge shotgun because the kids were watching a banned show. We’ve driven by this place many times because it is right next to my aunt and uncle’s farm on the shores of Seneca Lake. They were freaked out by this place when it sprang up in middle of farm country thirty years ago. Fueled by PTL (Praise the Lord) donations until the Jim Baker scandal broke, the complex dwarfed Dundee’s tiny parish church and the Mennonite worship house. The flamboyant, evangelical founder, Pastor Fletcher Brothers, commuted by helicopter rattling their community and fueling wild speculation.
He had built up a Gates congregation in the 70’s with strident anti-abortion and anti-pornography stands before running it into bankruptcy by misusing church funds. Now in the middle of a bitter divorce (his fourth) and another bankruptcy at Freedom Village, his own staff is ratting him out over his misuse of the organization’s money. Meanwhile Pastor Fletcher Brothers is still raising money from donors through his weekly show on Rochester’s Christian station. Meanwhile the deacon at Freedom Village USA has quit and started a blog entitled “The Stench Of Spiritual Abuse.”
1 Comment
I thought it was pretty bad journalism that the story never told you who they were talking about until you turned to the inside page.
It never fails to amaze me that these shysters can always find people to give them money.