Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Thomas Fudge's "Christianity without the Cross" has been the subject of much discussion on AFF down through the years. Some my be interested to learn that Fudge has written a new book about the UPC.

Heretics and Politics: Theology, Power, and Perception in the Last Days of CBC

Blurb:
The United Pentecostal Church-sponsored Conquerors Bible College was founded in Portland, Oregon in 1953. It closed abruptly in 1983. The denomination attributed the failure of the college to financial causes. Heretics and Politics argues that the financial crisis at CBC was rooted in theological controversy, church politics, conflicting models of education, and sustained suspicions of heresy. In seeking to delineate the several factors which destroyed CBC, historian Thomas A. Fudge has looked closely at the context, critically assessed a wide range of surviving documents, and taken into account the diversity of oral history. The narrative is neither an institutional history nor a biographical account. Instead, it explores the challenge of formal education within the UPC and evaluates the politics of change within that denomination in the Pacific Northwest. Both issues are assessed through the prism of CBC. The story of the last days of CBC illuminates important developments in the Pacific Northwest. The story is told against the broader canvas of events transpiring within American religious history. Heretics and Politics is the first book to deal with any aspect of the history of CBC. Its probing narrative chronicles both institutional upheaval and personal tragedy.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Finally Fudge came out with a new book!!! YES!! Now we all have something new to fight about!!!!! :happydance

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

I pulled this off of another thread.

Thomas Fudge was a member of the United Pentecostal Church from 1964 to 1984. He worked in churches in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia in Canada, and in Oregon, Washington and Idaho in the United States.

His early studies were taken at Conquerors Bible College in Portland, Oregon.

He lists among his mentors and significant spiritual and theological influences, former United Pentecostal Church ministers C.H. Yadon and Don Fisher, as well as his father James G. Fudge who is presently an ordained minister in the United Pentecostal Church.

Subsequent to 1984 he has worked for the American Baptist Church, the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Evangelical Covenant Church, the United Methodist Church and the Anglican Church in New Zealand. He has several years of ministerial experience and previously served as pastor of the Church of our Redeemer in Oregon.

I liked how Fudge described the difference between one steppers and 3 steppers in his first book.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Fudge reminds me of a scientist who writes out his hypothesis, then sets out trying to find the proof by throwing out everything that disagrees with it...

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Aegsm76, have you read the book?

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

I think Dr. Fudge has a point of view. It differs from the position of the UPCI. It looks like he wants to get the word out that there is a difference of opinion on certain doctrines/teachings/views.

Looking at the footnotes on Christianity Without The Cross it is hard to believe that he didn't document properly where he got his information.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Yes, for CWOC, but not the latest.
As someone who also had a very good inside track to what happened at CBC, I stand by my opinion of his latest "tempest in a teapot" book.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Well I would like to hear you thoughts on the matter. Care to share?

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

How can you say that when you have no clue what he wrote in the CBC book?

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Well I received my copy of the book today. I probably won't finish it for a couple of weeks.

I start moving this weekend and hopeful I will be done by the end of next week.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

I am not sure a tiny UPC Bible College closing is worthy of a book but now that it is written I will be interested in reading it.

I would have preferred a book that covered all of the UPCI Bible Colleges with a look at their histories and fates.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Yeah, I kinda thought the same thing, but I ordered the book anyhow!!

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

It would appear that because Fudge attended CBC and was there when it closed is one reason. It isn't a history of the college and no other UPC college was closed due to the same circumstances. Jackson College is mentioned but that is because Fisher was there before taking his position at Conquerors. He shows how what transpired at CBC relates to other religious institutions who cracked down on "heretics". (Thus the reason for heretics being in the book title.)

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Have a Brother of mine that went to CBC. I thought the only people that went there were just looking for a spouse! Didn't realize that doctrine entered into the picture.

I guess my problem with that college is it's extreme dispensational views that trickled down into their students. These views distorted their real life perspectives.

My Brother and his wife refused to have children based upon their teaching they received that the world was ending tomorrow and woe be to those that give suck in those days. That was 30 years ago and now they are lonely and old.

Just my 2 cents on CBC.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

If I may ask, are they still dispensationalists?

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

I'll wait on Tim Landry's book about JCM! :heeheehee

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Tim was long gone by the time JCM had its exodus of teachers and the Keith Clark ultra con era began a few years before the end. Tim could give a good account of the beginning of JCM though.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

That "tiny little" bible college produced more foreign missionaries than any in the organization. Other NW "sons" had the familiar names of Moyer, Judd and Scism.

Aegsm76, I'd like to know your connection to the situation. The situation in the NW- especially in Portland- was TOXIC in the 70's and 80's. I attended and graduated from CBC with a dual Ministry/Christian Education major in 1980, class president and ministerial student assoc pres for the last two years. Oregon remains a mine field to this day for anyone with an other-than dispensational viewpoint and an other-than holiness (as dictated by the by-laws) or hell conviction. You're free to disagree, but I've got the T shirt.

Is it on Amazon?

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Years ago, the Northwest District consisted of the states of Washington, Idaho and Oregon. The NW District purchased property in North Portland and created Conqueror's Bible College. After ID, OR and WA became their own districts, the school's board consisted of the DS of each district and a couple of other members of their respective districts and the president and administrator of the school. The board met to strategize learning content and process, finances and curriculum. Eventually the personality of each district began to manifest itself. Oregon got Californicated ("Don't Californicate Oregon!" Ruby Rutzen), Idaho was considered loose and very nearly heretical regarding her eschatalogy and PCI-leaning views on Acts 2:38, and Washington was in an "every man for himself" mode. At one time the largest church in the NW was Gene Ziemke's (a CBC alum) World of Pentecost. He got knocked down a few pegs by his "elders" over his position on standards. In the early 1980's I recall vividly a conversation my former pastor relayed to Mike Tuttle and me in talking about the looseness of Ziemke's position, mentioned a conversation he had at a General Conference with another preacher how to "Get them back" (to holiness), where the other preacher said, "Bro. ____, you never get them back".
Besides the holiness angle there was the angle of eschatalogy. CBC may have taught orthodox dispensationalism (now THAT's an oxymoron!), but some of their alumni were not nearly as rigid. The year the FMB refused to re-appoint Wayne Nigh to Germany was over his eschatalogy. Mike Tuttle commented to me (he met the FMB for an appointment to Holland, I believe, at the same time) of something Br Judd had said that no one had ever been interviewed by the FMB as long as Bro Nigh had been. What this tells me is that the eschatalogy issue was HQ driven and carried on by the likes of Winifred Toole, David Johnson, B.A. King, Phil and Paul Dugas, etc, in Portland.
Given the fact in the late 70s that military veterans were returning from Germany (from under Alvin Cobb and Wayne Nigh's tutelage) to CBC meant that these saints were arriving at CBC with a completely different world view than their dispensational brethren. Some were more outspoken than others. It represented a real threat to the "doctrine" of the "church" in the view of the more hard-line pastors, particulary in the Portland area.
The relaxed holiness attitude of the Idaho contigent only added more fuel to the fire.

I was not raised UPC. I was very energetic, but also naive. I preached hard and with conviction. You only need to ask my classmates. I was not hard enough on the doctrine (I leaned PCI) and my "end-time" doctrine was suspect. My DS, when siding with my pastor and calling me a liar told me I was "a nice guy". He didn't have the courtesy or courage to tell me that it was political, and for many years I took it personally.
I'm past that now.
I'm looking forward to reading Fudge's book.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Thanks for the background. I know of Gene Ziemke as he is from my area and a relative of a relative. Many that I know went to school there and some stayed in the area.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Yes. Just under $30.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Fudge contacted the majority of the student body and staff that were there near the end.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

If the book is about the "drama" involved with the closure, then I don't need to read it to comment. There was a lot of drama at CBC, but not so much with the closure. That part was fairly straight forward.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

I think when you make personal accusation against the author as you did, you should read the book first.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

I believe it initially was comprised of those states and Montana, Wyoming & British Columbia in Canada. It wasn't until 1965 that the three you mention comprised the NW District. The school was founded in 1953 and endorsed by the UPC the following year.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

According to Fudge, it produced more than 30 foreign missionaries and at one time 5 of the 6 global missions regional field supervisors were former students.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

I believe you are correct re: Montana, Wyoming & British Columbia.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

I rest my case.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

We met for an interview in late August of last year.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Is the straight forward part the disdain the Portland-area pastors held for Fisher (long before he arrived, I might add), or the Mt Hood Retreat "scandal"?

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

I have contended from day 1 that the reason for the tremendous Foreign Mission's influence was because of the grace/PCI orientation of the early founders of the school.

The spirit of the founders was less about doctrinal "purity" than about winning souls to Christ.

In response to Aegsm76's comment about drama: CBC had institutional drama initiated by hardliners with roots in California and their acolytes.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Interesting. Would you care to comment about that time? What was your impression?

I appreciate that Fudge is appearing to tell both sides. The references to other groups in comparison to what happened at CBC is also welcomed. It causes it to not be seen as solely a UPC issue.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

I didn't mean to offend you by saying "tiny" but in the context of college sizes all UPC Bible Colleges have always been and continue to be "tiny".

I am sure part of that is because they are dedicated strictly to training for ministry. If the UPC had a liberal arts University there is a good chance it would be quite a bit larger. I was really rooting for the Great Lakes University that The Apostolic Church in Pontiac Michigan tried to start. While not a UPC sanctioned school it was a Oneness based one.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Great Lakes is/was endorsed by the UPC. Are they closed? Just tried to find the website.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

Yes they are. They are still waiting for that drivel to be fulfilled and still in a church today that is death on anyone that does not believe in the dispensational message.

I read what you wrote about the three states and their differing views, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. Very interesting and very enlightening. Thank you.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

No problem. You're correct about the size of UPC colleges in general. Sometimes the nuance is hard to pick up and I didn't know if you were being snidely. :rant

Wasn't Great Lakes the one that Tom O'Daniel was involved with?

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

My observations of Tom Fudge were that he takes copious notes, is a good listener. He is a legitimate Church Historian. I've read blogs and notes here and there cynically sharpshooting at his degrees by "brethren" in the UPC.

It is easy to re-write history. Just control the information. Mao almost succeeded during his "Cultural Revolution". In the US the perception of American history - what actually happpened - is hidden amongst social issues within popular culture. I know no high school seniors that can tell me how our bill of Rights or government was formed, how it morphed from a confederation into states that were united and the social discord in both south and north prior to the great civil war. For the most part, our children have only learned what is being rehearsed by the popular culture, and it flies in the face of actual history. It's as if popular culture is re-writing history. Don't teach the truth and replace it with faux reality.
"The Aztecs and Mayans used picture-writing, but thousands of handwritten Mayan books were burned by fearful Spanish religious zealots, on four remain" Dr. Jan Barnes, Historical Atlas of Native Americans
To ignore history, re-branding it, or attempting destroy it will cause much greater harm than to know the truth. We have an obligation to the Way, the Truth and the Life to be tranparent with the truth so we don't repeat it

Let's face it. Sometimes history can rock your world.

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

What we need is a Kindle version of this book for $9.99 and then I am in!

Re: Heretics and Politics by Thomas A. Fudge
 

LOL, I don't think that will be happening anytime soon, CCI! Not even his initial book can be purchased for Kindle at that price.

Thanks, Sabby, for your insight.

I appreciate that Fudge is quite clear about oral history and the difficulties associated with it. It appears he attempted to obtain whatever he could on the history of CBC and some of the people involved, mainly Don Fisher. Besides many recorded interviews, he has shared many official documents as well as pictures. He kept a detailed journal during his time at CBC and quotes from that. He doesn't attempt to portray the UPC as any different from other groups that have rid themselves of those who have been seen as "weak in the faith."