Apologists for Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian underscore church’s ethical bankruptcy

Not surprisingly, Anglican Watch gets a lot of emails. These emails run the gamut, from tips about abusive conduct to people with needs we cannot address to folks trying to threaten us into taking down adverse information. In fact, there are so many we cannot hope to answer them all. But there is one category of email sure to garner a negative response, and those are apologists saying in essence, “But my church isn’t REALLY bad. In fact, we even hold the door for little old ladies.”

And so it is with folks from Tenth Presbyterian Philadelphia, including Robert Durham, who recently sent us an email repeatedly urging us to “calm down.”

Um, no. 

Here is Durham’s email, redacted only to remove his phone number and email:

Durham’s email follows comments via Meta, in which Durham reminded us that they are not the only sinners and that people can repent.

Durham’s claims are, of course, accurate.

But then he quickly slides past the real issues to mention Tenth Presbyterian’s $3.8 million annual budget and the fiscal challenges the church faces thanks to its ongoing misconduct. 

Just for good measure, Durham goes on to tell us that we’re needed, and then he bewails atheists and other seeming miscreants running about, including in the UK.

In other words, his is a utilitarian message in which he urges us to use the ends to justify the means. After all, Tenth is disciplining people, he adds.

Does the phrase “too little, too late,” come to mind? 

Indeed, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Abuse at Tenth has been going on for decades with zero accountability, and this is a church so broken it won’t even take the rudimentary step of running background checks on its employees.

Meanwhile, Tenth is still engaging in spiritual abuse by trying not to do everything decently and in order and with transparency, but rather behind closed doors. Thus, corrupt George McFarland and the rest of the spiritually bankrupt Session continue to portray themselves as the arbiters of truth and spiritual wisdom when they are nothing but modern-day Scribes and Pharisees–and they have the alarmingly empty sanctuary on Sundays to prove it.

As for the whole repentance and discipline Durham mentions, the elephant in the room remains, and she’s getting bigger by the day: the church’s blithe refusal to address its criminal conduct, including perjury, in claiming Phil Snyder threatened the church. Those lies cost Phil his marriage and more than $100,000 in cash, and the church needs to own up to its criminal conduct — which extends to the personal involvement of George McFarland. Additionally, the church needs to repent, make restitution, and turn from its ways.

Will that happen? We hope so. 

But so far, what folks at Tenth have shown they really want is a return to the good old days when corruption was king, Liam Goligher was a demi-god, and folks like Enrique Leal could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. And the church covered the whole stinking crock of goo with a nice coat of Jesus-babble: “Exalting His Name, Proclaiming His Word.”

Folks, committing criminal acts in the form of perjury is not of Jesus. It does not exalt his name. It does not proclaim his word. Rather, if we take the Bible literally, it exalts the Father of Lies, Satan.

As we told Durham, when Tenth Presbyterian repents of its criminal conduct, we’ll “calm down.” 

Until then, it’s game on, and we’re only sorry we can’t send Jesus by to overturn a few tables and chase people with whips. That said, we’ll settle for urging readers not to be part of the church’s corruption and to withhold all funding and support until Tenth Presbyterian renounces its criminal conduct and makes reparation to Phil Snyder.

Our response to Durham is below.