NOTE: James Malm has copied information from below and added it to his blog, as if it was sent directly to him, where he has added his own commentary that is misinformed and wildly inaccurate. His accusations against Dennis are completely false. Dennis has had no contact or correspondence with the Scarborough's at anytime. Malm also is spreading misinformation about the Scarborough's and in effect lying about them. He has added his own interpretation as to the reasons for the lawsuit and for its dismissal, all totally inaccurate. Malm's wild accusation further discredits him in the eyes of the few he pretends to reach.
You have my permission to post this.
I know that many people, both in ACOGs and out, now look to your site for the information that LCG tries to keep under wraps. I would prefer to have the truth out there over speculation.
Thank you,
Elizabeth
As you and your readers know, we had a court date last Monday wherein the Living Church of God pled for a dismissal on Ecclesiastical Abstention grounds. We left the proceedings feeling rather confident that the judge would rule in our favor. The high-priced, fancy lawyers for LCG weren’t very impressive in their presentation to the judge (in fact they appeared to actually annoy the judge) and we felt our lawyer did a good job with his arguments. Our lawyer explained to the judge that we were in no way disputing the churches right to mark us for whatever reasons, real or completely made-up, but rather that we were suing them for slandering us on multiple occasions with statements that we can easily prove were false AND of a vindictive nature.
Ecclesiastical abstention basically gives the church permission to treat members as horribly as they want because the members join of their own free will and in so doing give permission to those in power do whatever they want to them. It stems from the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution and makes the claim that courts don’t have the “jurisdiction” to attempt to resolve disputes that are inherently religious in nature. It specifically states that the court should refrain from issues that are based on religious doctrine or church governance, or having to do with decisions handed down by the church leadership.
Our complaint was not “religious in nature”. We were slandered. No matter who you are, it’s against the law to say untrue,defamatory things about people. It’s even worse when those statements are lies spoken with the intent to harm someone’s reputation and good name. THAT is what our case was based on. Not doctrine.
Late Friday night our lawyer informed us that the judge granted LCG the dismissal. Needless to say, we were shocked. At this point our claim is completely dead unless we decide to appeal. We have 30 days to make that decision.
All we ever wanted was for them to admit that they made a wrong decision, based on wrong information, and to meet with us to make peace even if that meant we never walked through LCG’s doors again. We just wanted peace but they refused to talk to us time and time again. A month before we filed the lawsuit, we hired a lawyer to write LCG a letter. That letter expressed our fervent desire to meet to work on peaceful resolution and it stated that we didn’t want to file the lawsuit but said that if they didn’t reply to the letter, we would file the suit. The deadline to reply came and went with no response from LCG. They could have gotten out of this without spending a dime, but they chose to continue to ignore our plea for peace.
Patrick and I counted 44 emails and letters that we wrote LCG literally begging them for peace. While they refused to work on peace, they had no problem having Dexter Wakefield draft a “Release” letter they wanted us to sign which absolved them of any wrong doing “from the beginning of time”. Sadly, we were so desperate to have the marking removed at that time that we probably would have signed it if they would have agreed that signing it meant we could start counseling toward resolution, but they still refused, so we didn’t sign it. If you read the Release, you would be utterly shocked at its content. It was extremely inflammatory. Their behavior toward us has been nothing less than completely unbelievable.
The silver lining in all this is that after over 20 hours of depositions, we now know why Rod McNair and Rod Meredith decided to mark us, which is something we have struggled to understand for nearly 2 years now. Rod McNair testified, under oath, that we were marked for the following reasons: 1. we had a Greek-themed party in 2009 (after returning from a trip to Greece) that looked like a “toga party” 2. In 2011 I sang the Andrew’s Sisters 1945 hit “Rum & Coca-Cola” at Spokesman Club ladies night and McNair believes the song promotes prostitution (they asked me to sing that night and pre-approved the song but I still got in trouble for it) 3. In 2014 I invited two couples, close friends (or so I thought at the time but apparently I was wrong) to my home for a bbq to show them unconditional love because they had been suspended from church and were feeling discouraged. They had been suspended for reading the Book of Enoch and having private Bible studies which we were NEVER a part of but we loved them and wanted to support them because they were very discouraged and upset. We ALL expressed concern over the behavior of HQ’s ministry that night but these couples were Rod McNair’s friends so they got off unscathed while “speaking negatively of ministry” and “causing church division” was added to McNair’s file against me when he found out about our conversations. And then lastly, 4. They blamed Patrick for being the source of information posted on cogwriter.com about Mr. Apartian. Bob Thiel emailed LCG, called LCG and posted on his blog that we were NOT his source (we subsequently found out WHO the source actually was) but LCG continued to pin this accusation on Patrick because they literally had NOTHING else to justify marking him. One LCG minister even testified under oath that the information posted on cogwriter was TRUE and that Mr. Apartian had actually made those statements to a handful of people in his last year of life. So they marked Patrick for TRUE information that he didn’t give Thiel!
That’s it. They took all our friends, our church and our entire social life, our support system, and ruined our reputations because I didn’t handle their accusations of impropriety in 2009 and 2011 very well (as evidenced by my refusing to take the pictures off of my personal Facebook page at McNair’s request), the completely false accusation about cogwriter and one night of openly expressed opinions on brutish behavior we had observed first-hand by LCG ministry.
I’m sure you all think we are better off but that doesn’t negate the devastating pain and loss we suffered and the utter heartache we endured by being shunned by people that we truly loved and thought were our friends. I still can’t understand how people who were our friends for over a decade can just turn their backs on us because Rod Meredith and Rod McNair told them to.
And for that they have opted to spend tens of thousands of dollars defending themselves instead of just sitting down with us like grown-ups (let alone Christians) and working through our problems.
I’m sure the hours and hours of deposition transcripts would make salacious and eye-opening reading for many. At one point, Rod Meredith said that if it were up to him we would NEVER be allowed to attend ANY church of God again. It gave me goosebumps! And he thinks that’s a converted attitude?! Praise God that decision is not his. Meredith also said that “causing church division is worse than murder or child molestation”. Ironic since he’s formed two churches through division himself and we never caused or urged a single person to leave LCG. He used this as his defense as to why McNair called the pastor of our new church and attempted to get us kicked out of that church too. Apparently, it wasn’t enough for them to kick us out of LCG. They’d prefer that we not be able to attend ANY church EVER. So very Christian of them.
Anyway, we just wanted to let you and your readers know because we know that many of them have been supporting us in our effort to seek justice. I have gotten so many private messages from people that have suffered at the hands of these men. Each story I read made me feel even more strongly that we needed to press on. Not to exact revenge but rather, in the hope that if they got their hands smacked for abusing members, they might change their ways or at least think twice before ruining another person’s life. As it stands, they probably think God is on their side and feel empowered to continue to behave as unjust bullies.
I have total faith that in the end, they will be made accountable.
