Lance quotes Debbie: > a false rumour has the power to destroy a person.
Considering the truthfulness of this statement, I would like to clarify some things because it has come to my attention that John is engaging others on this forum in gossip about me. John tells me that he will not courtesy copy me on any of these communications about me. His grapevine involves at least four other TruthTalk members. I cannot force him not to gossip, nor can I force anyone to turn away their ear from hearing gossip and falsehoods, but when I know of it occurring, I can shine a light upon it and urge you all to turn away from listening to gossip about others. John and I have had some private exchanges wherein he has clarified a number of things concerning his attitude toward me. 1. He believes that I am a false prophet. 2. He believes that I am a fraud and that I am addicted to fraud. 3. He believes that I am addicted to arrogance. 4. He believes that I am addicted to deceit. 5. He believes that I am addicted to the false witness of the beliefs of others. 6. He believes that I am a backstabber, and that I have backstabbed him. 7. He believes that I am allowing a lie to rule the day. 8. He believes that a good amount of my life is a lie. 9. He believes that I claimed to "be a Ph.D." and that I tried to make others believe that I had a Ph.D. 10. He claims that there are four other TruthTalk members who believe that I pretended to have a Ph.D. 11. He believes that I claimed to be an apostle. 12. He believes that it was his persistent questioning that exposed these falsehoods of a Ph.D. degree and apostolic function that I was supposedly trying to convince everyone else to be true about me. 13. He believes that I have set myself up as a judge. 14. He believes that I speak ONLY from personal bias. 15. He believes that there is scarcely a single post addressed to him from me that does not have something personal and insulting. 16. He believes that I have made false claims about successes as a street preacher. 17. He believes Dean has elevated the moderator position to that of judge and jury. 18. He believes Dean is a coward. 19. He believes Dean hides behind the testimony of confused and weak women. 20. He believes that Dean is no different than southern hicks who hung blacks, burned churches, and killed those who opposed their ignorance. 21. He believes that Dean lacks integrity. 22. He believes that Dean and Judy are lying about him asking for her Pastor's name in order to get his opinion on her teachings. 23 He tells me that SEVERAL on TruthTalk have told him that I am a scary fellow. 24. He believes that he was expelled for a lie. 25. He believes that my questions about his leadership role and my interest in talking with those in leadership with him constituted a threat. 26. He believes that I had the notion of vengeful activity toward him. 27. He believes that I wanted to expose him to his pastor, but what I was going to expose is not stated. 28. He believes that I wanted to speak evil about him. 29. He has no reason to believe anything I say. 30. He believes that I am profoundly ignorant. 31. He believes that there was nothing ad hominem in his treatment of me. 32. He believes that he knows the real reason he was expelled and it is not the reason that I think it was. 33. He makes it clear to me that I am not his friend. 34. He believes that I am a cultist without a cult. 35. He believes that my evil is profound. Very clearly, communication between us has completely broken down. These recent disclosures have caused a total lack of trust on my part toward John. It disturbs me that others on TruthTalk are engaging in gossip with him. I consider gossip a sin, and I urge anyone who is engaging in it and allowing their minds to be soured by this man to reconsider what they are doing. John has said that several of you think I am a scary person because I asked John which of the Foursquare pastors in his community he was working with. I want to clarify some facts about this right now. When John said his leadership role was pastor, and he gave me his city, I looked up on the Foursquare directory the church there. Instead of John Smithson listed there, it was another man. John had said in the past that his church was large, so I assumed that perhaps he was an associate pastor or assistant pastor. This led to me writing and asking John about it. This post follows: =============================== ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 3:16 PM Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] The door to understanding John wrote: >>> ... I speak as one who is leadership. David wrote: >> What is your leadership position >> in your local church? John wrote: > Pastor. I am one no matter where I > attend. Does it sound arrogant for me > to tell you that I am the pastor of Sanger, > California? No, not necessarily, but the way you have answered this is a little perplexing. I see that Joe Villalobos is the pastor of record for Sanger Foursquare Church, 831 O St., Sanger, California. Do you consider Joe to be your pastor? Would you mind if I called him and talked to him about your leadership role in the church? Or is your fellow pastor someone else? Roger Whitlow, Carlos Avila, Keith Jizmejian, or Willard Wolverton? Who is in leadership with you in your gift of pastor? David Miller. =============================== The next post indicated my consideration of calling the pastor. The phone number was listed there right next to his pastor's name, so the temptation to call was pretty strong. I could have had some answers right away, but I did not call because I was not sure how John would feel about me interjecting myself into his personal life. Seeing how things played out, that was a wise decision, not to call. =============================== ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2006 10:40 AM Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] The door to understanding JD wrote: > It's just surprising to realize that David took > time out of his busy day at the Univerisity and > software sales to research as much as posible > his old buddy, John Smithson. LOL. John, I did not research "as much as possible" or I would have made phone calls and found out a whole lot more. Then I would have REALLY dazzled somebody. As it is, when you mentioned Sanger, it only took me a few minutes to look up the pastor of record for Sanger Foursquare Church. I'm just not sure if that is your actual church. I was not real comfortable calling him without talking to you first. I was not sure how you would feel about that. Do you attend this church, or another one in the Fresno area? You were the one who brought up your speaking from a leadership position, hence my curiosity. David Miller. =============================== Now some of you, according to John, see something sinister in my consideration of calling the pastor of the church I had understood was John's home church where he was in leadership as a pastor. Later I have learned that John no longer attends this church. Now he attends a Baptist church. At the time, however, I only remember John representing himself as a Pentecostal attending a Foursquare church. Now he represents himself as being in leadership as a pastor. Was John being humble in the past and not advertising his leadership role? I didn't know, but I was curious. You can read whatever you want into it, but I was simply interested in talking with fellow leaders so I could understand the leadership perspective from which John says he was speaking to me. I see it no different than if John were staring at my pastor's name and phone number and called him to learn about the leadership role I am in here in my community. Right now, I am still very unclear of John's leadership role. He still claims to be a leader, but a leader of what? His own house? That's fine, but if that is what he means by speaking from leadership, I would like to know that. Such is a little different than a man who is leading from the position of being a pastor over a large congregation. I encourage any of you who think there was something scary or evil in my motivations to please read these emails again and consider that such was never a part of my perspective. It is very difficult for me to see how any of you would perceive anything inappropriate with my posts. Now concerning John's suspension, I want to point out a few things. 1. Dean is the moderator and he is the sole person with the authority to remove people from the list, if he deems such necessary. We do not make joint decisions about this. Obviously, if I were to see something inappropriate on Dean's part, I would step in to correct it. I think Dean would welcome such too. However, as long as he is acting in accordance to righteousness and holiness, I keep my hands off of the matter. In regards to John's suspension, this was completely Dean's decision. 2. From my understanding of this matter, John was suspended for ad hominem style posts that he would not apologize for. For example, he sent the following post about me: =============================== ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: Friday, February 17, 2006 5:25 PM Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] The door to understanding Picture the format of a typical political cartoon. See David Miller towering over a rather humble looking John Smithson. David's eyes are narrow and his rather bushy eyebrows have a devilish slant to them. A smile is on his face, one which some would confuse with a snear. His hands are behind his back --- clutching a large butcher knife dripping with the fresh blood of a previous opponent as he speaks these words: "If you are open to my questions, then please tell us the name of your church and the pastors with whom you are in leadership there. You said you were a pastor in Sanger. Is that pastor of Sanger Foursquare Church or some other fellowship? If I am misunderstanding something that you were trying to communicate, then please clarify. Thanks." Get the picture? jd =============================== Such hardly contributes to our discussion. He falsely characterizes me as a murderer, acting out of deception and hatred toward him. Such deters from profitable discussion. John denies that this post is ad hominem. Dean mentioned a hypocrisy in John asking Judy about her Pastor and BSF yet going ballistic over me doing something similar with him. Now John is representing to others that he was suspended for posts done before his previous suspension, posts that two witnesses (Dean and Judy) claim he did but which he claims he did not do. He thinks such is unjust because those posts have not been produced. The problem with his reasoning here is that these posts of the past are not why he was suspended. They only point out a hypocrisy, urging him to reconsider and apologize for behavior like that illustrated in the post that I just quoted above. If he wants a post that warrants suspension, it is this one above that illustrates the kind of post that detracts from useful discussion concerning issues rather than other TruthTalk members. I have been very patient with John and am more than willing to engage him in discussion of this issue or other issues. He refuses to include me in his dialogue with others where he talks about me. I think that is wrong. He is a pastoral counselor and should know better than this. I'm sorry for the long post, but I wanted to clarify this matter and urge others not to engage in behind-my-back style gossip. John has made it clear that I am not his friend, and the way he views me is such that if I believed his testimony about me, I would not consider myself to be in Christ. If John wants back on this list, all he has to do is write Dean and humble himself and agree to the order that Dean is enforcing for the list. If he does not want to participate on this list, he can go elsewhere. There are lots of discussion lists. If he wants to gossip and turn people against me and Dean, that is an evil work, and nobody, whether Christian or non-Christian, should engage in that. David Miller. ---------- "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org If you do not want to receive posts from this list, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and you will be unsubscribed. 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